“Empty stomach plus wine,” she said. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right. You can go to bed. Party’s almost over, anyway. Most people left as soon as the lights came back on.”
“What about David? Is he still here?” she asked. “I should say hello to him.”
An hour ago, she would have hidden behind the wallpaper to avoid David Bell. Now she wasn’t just ready to face him, she was eager.
“He had to run,” her mother said. “You really look flushed, sweetheart. Why don’t you go to bed?”
“No, no, no, no, no,” she said. “I’ll come down.”
“Are you sure?” Her mother laughed a little. Lia might have been acting a little odd, not that she cared.
“I want to,” Lia said. August had been right—she did feel suddenly...heavenly. She blinked and smiled. “I’m fine. Very fine. Just had to get that out of my system.”
“All right. We’ll serve the coffee, though. That should get everyone else packing,” her mother said.
They left her suite together and walked down the stairs.
“You didn’t see where August went, did you?”
“August?”
“Um... Mr. Bowman?”
“He told us goodbye. Said he had to work tomorrow. Thanked us for a nice evening. Why do you ask?” Her mother wore a devilish little smirk on her lips. She probably thought Lia and August had sneaked out of the party and had sex.
Well, they had.
Sort of.
“No reason.” There was a reason, and the reason was that she wanted to jump on top of him and stay on top of him until dawn. Dawn of next year. Ohh...that must have been the other side effect August had warned her about in the note.
“Are you sure?” her mother asked. “He was paying you quite a bit of attention tonight. Couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
“We were just talking, that’s all. About the kylix Daddy gave me.”
“Did he have any insight on it?”
“A little. He said it’s from the Cult of Eros, not Aphrodite.”
“Eros was the son of Aphrodite, right?” her mother asked. Lia nodded. “Can you imagine having the goddess of love and passion for a mother? That would have to be awkward, wouldn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said. She would know.
Lia laughed. For no reason. None. At all. A laugh just burbled up out of her stomach like a cork from a champagne bottle. Pop and it was out.
“Lia?”
“Nothing,” she said. Then she giggled.
“Good to hear you laugh. Even if it is alcohol-induced.”
Well, she’d had that one sip from the Rose Kylix. She could blame the wine.
“Mum...” Lia said.
“What?”
She giggled again. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, darling,” her mother said, shaking her head. “But let’s go and get this party over with.”
They turned a corner to the main staircase, and she saw her father passing by at the bottom of the steps.
“Daddy!” Lia skipped down the stairs and launched herself into his arms. He caught her, just barely.
“Lia? You all right?” he asked, holding her tightly to him.
“I’m...wonderful,” she said, grinning. She kissed his handsome cheek, ruffled his salt-and-pepper hair and rested her head on his strong shoulder. He really was the most handsome papa in the kingdom.
“Did you enjoy your party? Too much, maybe?” he asked, laughing as he patted her back.
“I have to tell you something, Daddy.” She pulled back and took his face in her hands. “Something very, very important.”
She patted his cheeks, his dear cheeks, his dear old darling cheeks.
“And that is, love?” She could tell he was trying very hard not to laugh in her face. Apparently, he and her mother thought she was drunk. Well, fine. She was. Drunk on happiness and magic and Perseus and bird noises and August and...and...and...
“Daddy, I’m being serious,” she said. “You have to be serious with me.” She put her thumbs on the edges of his lips and forced his smile into a frown.
“Better,” she said.
“Mrph,” he replied, unable to open his lips now.
“It’s about my graduation present,” Lia said. She released his face and now held him by both shoulders. She raised two fingers to his eyes and then to her eyes to make sure she had his entire attention.
“The kylix? What about it?” he asked.
“The thing with my graduation present...”
“And that is?”
“Daddy... I love it.”
PART THREE
Briseis & Achilles
CHAPTER TEN
That night, Lia slept better than she had in years. She woke up the next morning still buzzing with a low-level sort of euphoria. By 8:00 a.m.—the day after her graduation party when she should have been sleeping off a hangover until noon—she was out on the lawns of Wingthorn playing with Gogo. They tramped through the woods. They launched a little boat onto the little river that bordered the property. Lia even sang a sea shanty to Gogo, who looked at her with his head cocked as if to say, “My human has lost her marbles.”
She spent the rest of the morning and afternoon in various happy pursuits. Part of her wanted to chalk it up to being out of university after three long hard years at the academic grindstone, but she knew it was August, all August, she had to thank for her newfound bliss. Unfortunately, all good moods came to an end eventually, and Lia’s did when she returned to the house by midafternoon. She’d stopped in the kitchen for lunch, but on her way out she ran into her father.
“Hello, sweet papa,” she said, and kissed his cheek.
“Hello, bizarre child,” he replied. “How are we feeling this morning? Mostly recovered?”
“Completely recovered. Gogo and I went out in the dinghy on the river.”
“Did he row?”
“He called coxswain again,” she said. “Lazy arse.”
“Did he enjoy the party last night?” her father asked.
“He spent most of it under my bed hiding.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
She sighed, shrugged. “It was fine. Alcohol helped.”
“I shouldn’t have thrown the big party.” He winced. “I know you hate them.”
“I didn’t hate it,” she said. A true statement.
“You spent half the party in your room.”
That was true. She couldn’t argue with that. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to disappoint you.”
Her father took her face in his hands.
“Are you alive?” he asked.
She grinned, rolled her eyes.
“Yes, obviously.”
“If you want to disappoint me, you’ll die before I do. Nothing else will work,” he said. “And then I’d never forgive you, and you’d be written right out of the will. I’ll leave everything to the Virgins just to spite you for dying on me.”
“Daddy, you have to stop calling Art and Charlie ‘the Virgins.’ They despise you enough as it is.”
“Ungrateful children, I swear. I’ll call those two anything I want. You know what they call me, don’t you?” he demanded.
“The Sexual Predator.”
“The Sexual Predator,” he said, carrying on as if he hadn’t heard her. “They don’t say, ‘Where’s Dad gone?’ or ‘What’s our father—who pays all our bills and puts a roof over our heads—want us to do now to show him our gratitude?’ It’s ‘Where’s the Sexual Predator? What’s ye olde Predator up to now?’ And all because once, just once, they caught me and your mother...in our own damn house.”
“They caught you in the kitchen. That we all use.”
“They were supposed to be out,” her father said.
“There are sixty rooms in the house and you picked the kitchen to...” She fluttered her hand. “There are things boys do not need to see their father doing to their mother. Can you blame them for thinking you’re a pervert?”
“God only knows what they call your mother,” he said.
“Stockholm Syndrome.”
Her father chuckled. “Well, it is clever.”
“You’re barmy,” she said.
“And you’re my favorite,” he said. “Don’t tell the boys. I want to be the one to tell them.”
He kissed her forehead and walked to the door. On the threshold, he paused and looked back at her.
“Oh, forgot to tell you. David Bell stopped by last night. He’s back in the country.”
“I heard,” Lia said, keeping her expression neutral.
“He left you a gift,” her father said. “It’s in your sitting room. And we’re all going to his opening Friday. Please don’t make other plans.”
Lia was too shocked to speak.
“That won’t be a problem, will it?” he asked.
“No,” she said, forcing herself to answer. “I don’t have plans Friday.”
“You’ll make the showing?”
“Sure,” she said. “Right.” She faked a smile. “Sounds lovely.”
She and Gogo went upstairs to her suite. As soon as she entered her sitting room, she saw David’s “gift.” A small box, the perfect size for a bracelet or necklace.
She knew that, whatever was in there, it wasn’t anything she would want.
With shaking hands, she tore off the red wrapping paper and lifted the lid of the box.
She found a small envelope inside. When she opened it, a lock of gingerbread-colored hair fell out into her hand.
Her hair.
On the notecard, in his sloping looping handwriting she remembered so well, he’d written her a little note. The stationery was elegant, embossed with his name and a stylized DB on it. It seemed someone was moving up in the world.
Dear Ophelia,
I’m back. Call me tomorrow. We should talk.
David
P.S. If you don’t call me, I will call you. So call me.
Lia stared at the note.
Call him tomorrow...that was today. What the hell would he want with her now? And what was he doing back, hanging around Wingthorn and her parents like nothing had happened?
Lia knew she had to call. She’d go mad wondering what he wanted from her if she didn’t. Her hands shook so hard she could barely tap the numbers on her phone. But she managed to do it. She heard the rings and held her breath.
“Hello, Ophelia,” David said when he answered. God, she hated caller ID.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“That’s not very friendly.”
“I’m not very friendly. What do you want?”
“You still haven’t told your parents,” David said. “Why is that?”
“They don’t need to know.” And Lia would die before she told them.
“So... I hear you’ve started a gardening and tennis club,” he said.
Lia froze. She had to force herself to speak.
“You want to join?” she asked. “The dues are out of your price range, I promise.”
“Doesn’t seem much point in joining when you don’t do any gardening. And when’s the last time you picked up a tennis racquet?”
Lia didn’t answer.
“I know what your little club is,” David continued. “And I’m going to tell your parents. I’m going to tell the police. And I’m going to tell the papers. Earl’s daughter starts her own escort agency? What a story.”
Lia said nothing. She tried and nothing came out.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “My show opens Friday. You give me a million pounds before the show, and I’ll forget what I know about this little erotic cottage industry you and your friends are running. If you don’t have it Friday, I’m calling the police and the papers, and you get to be as famous as Heidi Fleiss. That scandal was over twenty years ago, and people still know her name. You want the world to know your name?”
“A million pounds?” Lia repeated.
“That’s how much money I lost in work when you had your tantrum, little girl. You owe me.”
Lia put her hand over her mouth.
“You understand everything I’ve said?” he prompted.
“Yes,” Lia said, nodding though they were on the phone.
“What were you thinking?” he asked, then tut-tutted at her like a maiden aunt. “This is the new Victorian era, sweetheart. Nobody gets to have any fun anymore, didn’t you know that?”
She knew now.
“See you Friday,” he said. “Goodbye, Ophelia. Don’t go swimming in any rivers.”
He rang off.
Lia dropped the phone.
She sat on her love seat and held Gogo until her racing heart calmed. Pure hatred coursed through her veins. She imagined David on the floor in front of her and how she would put on steel-tipped boots and kick and kick and kick his face until no one could tell a face had been there. Then she’d start in on his testicles.
Lia let herself hate him for thirty whole seconds, let herself entertain the most gruesome violent scenarios that all ended the same way: with David in a coma.
After thirty seconds, she pushed the thoughts away. She wasn’t violent. She would never hurt anyone. And she needed to figure out what to do.
And fast.
All her life she’d prided herself on being intelligent and resourceful, no shrinking violet but an English rose, hardy and hale with thorns aplenty. Usually no matter the mess she got into, she could get herself out of it.
This time, though, she had no idea what to do.
Lia stood up to pace her sitting room. So David was back and out for blood.
She had some cash from her work but not a million, not even close. She took 10 percent from the ladies, and she was always lending her cut to them when they were skint. At most, she could scrape together fifty thousand if she had to. Her father had the money—last week he’d dropped a million on a Brueghel—but there was no chance she’d be asking him for the cash. He’d give it to her in a heartbeat, but not unless she told him why she needed it.
And that was never going to happen.
Maybe she had something she could sell? Her suite was full of antiques, but even if she sold every stick of furniture in the place, every knickknack, every painting, she wouldn’t get to one million and certainly not by Friday.
And then she’d have to explain to her parents why she’d suddenly sold everything she owned.
Also never going to happen.
Lia kicked her shoes across the floor as she cursed her arrogance and her stupidity. Why hadn’t she quit while she was ahead?
She ordered herself not to panic, though it was true her heart was racing so hard she thought it would run right out of her body.
“A million pounds,” she said aloud. “A million bloody pounds...”
On the love seat, Gogo raised his head off his paws and looked at her, ears cocked.
“And we were having such a good morning, weren’t we, boy?” she said with a sigh.
A good morning because of a miraculous last night.
August.
Name your price.
That’s what he’d said when trying to buy the Rose Kylix from her.
Name her price?
Lia found her phone still lying on the floor. Thank God August had called her three times. She sent him a message sure to get his attention.
I need to talk to you, please. I’m interested in selling you the kylix. —Lia
August Bowman replied immediately.
My house at nine Monday night? Bring the kylix, please.
He sen
t her his address.
Can’t we do it now? she wrote back, ready to have this over with. If he turned her down, she’d need to find a plan B immediately.
Can’t, he replied. My mother’s here. Help.
Is your mother as bizarre as my mother? she asked.
You have no idea, August wrote. See you tomorrow.
Lia started to set her phone aside when August sent her one more message.
An emoji of a singing bird.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lia was a wreck from Sunday afternoon until Monday evening. She stayed away from her parents as much as she could without raising their suspicions. She went on long walks with Gogo, invented excuses to run errands, holed up in her bedroom trying and failing to read even so much as a page or two of a novel.
Finally, Monday evening rolled around. Lia took a quick shower and put on her favorite summer frock and brown boots. Carefully she packed up the kylix, and by eight she was on her way to London in her little red Mini Metro, which purred like an asthmatic kitten.
August lived in Camden and Lia found the address easily, though parking took a little longer. A pretty three-story Georgian house, the last in the row on the corner of the street. A nice house but not at all ostentatious. She went to the front entrance and buzzed. August opened the door a crack.
“August?” Lia could see his eyes peeking around the edge of the door. “Hello?”
“Has it passed?”
“You mean the urge to shag you until bits break off?” she asked.
“That one.”
“Yes,” she said. “Was that a side effect of drinking from the cup?”
“No,” he said. “Just a side effect of meeting me.”
She glared at him, a glare to melt brick like candle wax.
“Yes, it’s definitely passed,” he said. He held open the door for her.
He let her into the front hallway, and the desire to do erotic violence to the man came back in almost full force. At the party, he’d worn a three-piece suit. Tonight, he wore artfully faded jeans, black T-shirt, black jacket. No shoes. Bare feet. Sexy arches.
Sexy arches?
She’d never found feet sexy before. What was this man doing to her?
“Did you bring the Rose Kylix?” he asked.
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