Chapter 11

Eleven

THE ROSE ROOM

I was barefoot in the Rose Room, about to nip out to go to Lou’s to ask her to zip my dress.

I was also wondering why I’d fought against being moved.

During the tour, I noticed that this was the prettiest, most spacious, most decked out room of the lot in this wing. The only rivals it had were the Carnation and Robin Rooms.

It was the turrets that won the match. One had a chaise longue in it, a perfect spot for reading or napping or gazing over the estate. The other had a beautiful secretary, perfect for those times when you needed to “see to your correspondence.”

The seating area was bigger, as was the fireplace. It had an actual closet, a walk-in one that was enormous, thank you very much, and if the bathroom in Carnation was a dream, the one in Rose was sheer heaven.

And the ridiculously beautiful wallpaper didn’t suck.

I loved it there. I felt right there.

At home there.

It was weird, but even though my lunch with Lady Jane was curious (I decided to consider it that rather than creepy), I was still hell bent on making the best of the rest of this visit.

A mammoth task, but I was psyching myself up for it.

I was on my way to the door when there was a knock. Probably Lou needed a zip up too.

I opened it, and Ian was standing there.

“You’re decent,” he murmured, his eyes on my dress. “Pity.”

I opened the door further. “Stop it and get in here. I need a zip up.”

“At your service,” he said, coming in and closing the door behind him. I turned my back to him, and as he did me up, he remarked, “I’m used to this going the other direction.”

“I already know you’re a scoundrel, no need to beat the horse dead,” I said as he finished, and I turned around to face him.

“A scoundrel?” he teased.

I walked to a beautifully upholstered, rose velvet chair and sat. “A scoundrel. Are you here to tell me Portia and Daniel have returned?”

“Alas no,” he replied. “Allow me,” he then said, coming to stand in front of me and holding out his hand for the gold, stiletto sandal I’d picked up to put on.

Mutely, I handed it to him, feeling a frisson of sexuality in the gesture.

“Give it here,” he muttered, snapping his fingers toward my feet, his eyes aimed that way.

Marvelous.

He was going to give me an orgasm by being bossy and putting on my shoes.

I lifted my foot.

He cupped the heel in his big, warm hand.

Yes. Careening close to orgasm.

“I’m here because father informed me, we have guests for dinner,” he shared.

“Yes?”

He was a dab hand with the slender straps and buckle, because he managed it in a trice.

“Yes. The Dewhursts. Michael and Mary, and their daughter, Chelsea.”

“Okay,” I said after he bent to retrieve the second shoe and I offered him my other foot.

“They’re good friends of my father, at least Michael is.”

“All right.”

His gaze lifted to mine. “Several years ago, I saw Chelsea for a few months.”

And the murkiness clears.

“Ah.”

“And after we finished, Daniel saw her for a few months more. At this juncture in delivering my message, I feel it’s important to note it was Dad who extended the invitation to them.”

And the vision came into stark relief.

But I could not believe what I was hearing.

I tried to be diplomatic. “Your father’s kind of not a very cool guy.”

“He’s an asshole,” he muttered to my shoe.

He finished with it and let me go, which was a shame.

“I had lunch with your mum,” I told him.

He pushed his hands in his trouser pockets, which brought something else into stark relief: the utterly delectable dark-gray suit he was wearing, again with a vest and a beautiful shirt, this one snowy white, and no tie, collar open at his throat.

He gifted me with the attention of those beautiful blue eyes again. “I heard.”

“She told me about solar panels and windmills and kitchenettes.”

He appeared openly surprised at that, but replied, “I see.”

“And indicated your father was not at one with all your plans.”

He jutted out his strong, cleanshaven chin. “No. He wasn’t. He told me the house was fine as it is and shared we have plenty of money, so the fact we’d shave what would amount to at least ten thousand pounds a year off our heating and electrical bills installing the solar panels alone was unnecessary.”

I knew it was a bitch to heat this place.

“Short-sighted too,” I noted.

“Yes, I mentioned that and how the slowness of our great country in modernizing and thinking forward is rapidly shrinking our once vast empire. He didn’t take my point. He told me if I wanted the changes, I’d have to pay for them myself.”

Interesting.

“Did you?”

“Fuck no,” he replied. “It cost a fortune and it’s not for me, it’s for Duncroft. Duncroft should pay for it.”

I couldn’t argue.

“Dad flatly refused,” he continued. “I went over his head to the trustees. They’re in the business of being forward-thinking, so they approved the expenditures. But along with the living expenses as Mum, Dad and Danny like to live, it was noted those new outlays might well dip into the principal. This meant they advised us other cuts needed to be made.”

“I’m sure that didn’t go over very well.”

“No, considering two of the expenditures the trustees pointed out would be easy to let go without most who lived in and served Duncroft suffering were Dad’s apartments in London and York.”

This was confusing, specifically York, considering that city was very close to Duncroft. An easy day drive if you had business there.

“Does he need to go to those places very often?”

“He did if he wanted to fuck the mistresses he kept in them.”

Oh boy.

“Ian,” I said softly.

“Obviously, I explained to Dad that Mum should not be asked to cut costs when such other costs could be more easily, and discreetly, cut,” he spoke over me. “So Dad told his special friends he’d be unable to provide for them in the manner in which they’d become accustomed. They took their esteemed services elsewhere.”

Listening to his words, something occurred to me.

“Do you keep an eye on your father?”

He nodded. “Though, I don’t have an army of men in Inverness capes and deerstalkers following them around,” he joked, and I laughed.

When I was done, he went on.

“But I do keep a finger on the pulse, as non-invasively as possible. Dad. To a lesser extent, Daniel. It’s unnecessary with Mum.” His gaze suddenly grew sharp on my own. “I think we both know how other people’s peccadillos can be annoying to put up with. If I know in advance some shit Danny pulled is going to bite me in the ass, I can deal with it.”

“Smart,” I said.

Sad, but smart.

“I left things with Chelsea as best they could be,” he shared. “We’d known each other since we were kids. She had high hopes. It didn’t work out. I can’t say Danny left things on the same footing.”

“Great,” I mumbled.

“Chelsea will be fine, at least to me, you, Lou. She might have a few digs to get in if Danny shows. And beware, if she scents she can draw blood from a weaker creature, she’ll go after Portia.”

I stood, which put me very close to him. “I’ll not be able to allow that to happen.”

“I’ll run interference,” he promised, sliding his eyes down my dress, which was blood red, form-fitting, fell to mid-calf, had a high neck, long, fitted sleeves, some shoulder pads, and some angular pleating that helped it fit perfectly to my curves and gave the material interest. It also had a cutout at the side waist that showed skin, front and back. “Poor girl,” he said, as if he was talking to the dress. And with his next, I’d find he was. “It’s simply that the two that came before you were so stellar that you’re ranking third on my favorites list.”

I burst out laughing and Ian smiled at me when I did it.

His smile was warm and open and beautiful, just because it was, but more because he was so obviously enjoying the fact he’d made me laugh.

It was a perfect moment, I felt it in an instant. An absolutely perfect moment in our otherwise decidedly imperfect lives.

It was the kind of moment you lived for. It was the kind of moment that was one of the last beautiful things you remembered before you died.

It was everything.

And then the door flew open.

Instinctively, Ian stepped in front of me, which was entirely unnecessary, and absurdly attractive.

“Well, isn’t this fucking cozy.”

I leaned to the side to see around Ian because that voice was Portia’s.

Her eyes were darting between the two of us and there was something very wrong in her expression.

She wasn’t upset, or mad.

She was enraged.

As one might be, when they were threatened with losing one hundred billion dollars if they didn’t shape up.

But my sister knew me.

She knew I’d never hang her out to dry.

I didn’t do it when she was fifteen and I caught her in my bathroom snorting coke.

I didn’t do it when I learned where she got the coke and how much danger she put herself in to get it.

I didn’t do it when Lou donned that Oscar de la Renta dress that was specifically made for her and found one of the straps had been snipped and poorly stitched together to hide it until it was put on, then it broke loose, making the dress unwearable. This, so that at the very last second, for an important event, Lou had to dig in her wardrobe to find something else to wear and redo her hair and makeup in order to wear it.

Needless to say, Portia had been the one to snip and stitch.

And further, I didn’t when I found her out after she went on a tear of eBaying Dad’s very expensive stuff when he got pissed at her and cut off her allowance.

The list went on.

In other words, I didn’t the many times she deserved it.

Including now, when she’d lured Lou and I away from our homes and lives and then left us with people who didn’t like us (save Ian, but when she left, she didn’t know we’d make friends with Ian (or with their history, did she?)).

She was not the one who should be angry.

It should be me.

And seeing her so damned pissed, I was.

“I’m here, herr kommandant,” she declared, clicking her heels and saluting. “As ordered.”

“I’ll just leave you to it,” Ian murmured, turned his head, caught my eyes and finished, “Good luck.”

Sadly, Portia didn’t let him get away unscathed.

As he shifted to squeeze past her when she didn’t get out of his way, she snapped, “Does she taste better than me?”

Ian stopped dead and looked down his nose at her.

“I don’t know yet, petal,” he said dangerously. “But I’m a betting man, and I’d let it ride the answer to that is yes.”

Portia looked like he’d slapped her.

A reaction of her own making.

Ian disappeared into the hall.

Portia turned on me.

“Not another word,” I warned.

“Or what? You’ll take away all my money?”

“Dad’s money.”

She jackknifed my way. “My money.”

Enough.

“Girl, you didn’t earn a dime of that, so keep those words out of your goddamned mouth,” I bit.

Her face colored and she bit back. “What are you doing with Ian?”

“What do you care?”

She looked flummoxed for a second, which I found strange, and then she said, “He’s my boyfriend’s brother.”

“And you dated him.”

“He told you?”

“If he didn’t, you just did with your ill-advised comment. Obviously, in the short time you were with him, you didn’t learn as easy prey not to toy with the apex predator.”

And again, she looked like she’d been slapped. “Easy? You did not just say that to me.”

“I did, Portia. Good God, what did you think would happen when you left me and Lou in this house? That the Alcotts would eat us alive? I didn’t spend the time you were away cowering in my room.”

“What I didn’t think was that in, oh, I don’t know…a day, my sister would be fucking my ex-boyfriend.”

“Was he your boyfriend?”

More color stained her cheeks.

What was going on here?

I narrowed my eyes on her as if that could help me figure it out.

“Well, we’re back, and Daniel’s nervous as hell,” she announced. “He’s worried he’s upset you and you’ll make me pay for it.”

“I don’t know whose idea it was for you two to skip this idyllic interlude in the middle of fucking nowhere, but whoever that was, I can confirm. Yes, they’ve upset me. But no, I won’t make them pay for it. However, there’s going to be some work to be done to repair the damage.”

“Always kissing Daphne’s ass,” she mumbled irately. “I’ve had a lifetime of it.”

Oh no she didn’t.

“Really? Like when I covered for you when you took off with your friends that night you were grounded? Then, when Dad found out we both lied, I got grounded too. Was that you kissing my ass?”

She glared at me.

“Or when I talked Dad into not losing his fucking mind when you had your friends over and you drank and then puked up the entirety of his fifty-thousand-pound bottle of Cognac?”

She started to look uncomfortable.

“And was it you kissing my ass when I spent all last week working with my staff to manage the patisserie while I was away so I could be here for you and Daniel?” I demanded.

“You’ve made your point,” she clipped.

“I hope so,” I retorted.

“And somehow, in…like…a day…you’ve managed to insinuate yourself into the queen’s quarters.”

That threw me.

“What?”

“The Rose Room is Lady Alcott’s room. It always has been.”

“Not always, as it isn’t now.”

She stared hard at me. “The heir is almost of age.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“It’s part of the covenants.”

“What is?”

“When the heir apparent reaches age thirty-eight, they inherit everything. If the current earl is still living, he can remain at Duncroft, but only with the permission of the new earl.”

Holy shit!

Really?

“Ian turns thirty-eight next month. It’s tradition, so Jane moved out of this room only a month ago,” she concluded.

No wonder Bonnie gasped when Ian announced I was moving into this room.

“I…that’s weird. Isn’t it weird?” I asked. “Charles waited seventy-four years to succeed.”

“Sorry, Daph,” she sneered. “I haven’t memorized the history of the Alcott earldom. But somewhere along the way, it happened, and it’s unalterable. Daniel told me many an earl tried to change it before his time was up, but it’s carved in stone.”

She threw both hands out before her and separated them, like a car model showing off a new car.

“Congratulations,” she finished. “Two days in, and as usual, you win.” She turned and said, “Now, I have to hurry and get dressed so I’m not late to cocktails.”

And with that, she was gone.

But I remained, standing in the countess’s room with my clothes in the countess’s closet.

And I was not the countess.