Chapter 12

Twelve

THE DIAMOND ROOM

Even though it was farther away from the formal dining room, I soon discovered when friends of the earl came to call, they weren’t relegated to the perfectly adequate (and quite comfy) Wine Room for the Cocktail Forty-Five Minutes, like family and lesser mortals, such as Lou and myself.

They were entertained in the Diamond Room.

This, Jack—tonight wearing a suit like Stevenson’s, but with a black tie, again with the shield on it, and standing sentry at the bottom of the stairs—told me after I descended them.

All I could think when I saw him looking like he was at attention, rather than smiling and friendly as he had been when he was in the kitchens with us last night, was Lady Jane’s all-important tradition.

I wasn’t one of those people who dismissed other’s beliefs because they were not my own. I might not agree, or even understand, but I wanted to listen, to be able to turn it over in my head, to have the words and facts and feelings so I could make a decision.

So honestly, all afternoon, Lady Jane’s words had been rumbling around in my head.

Was there still a place for pomp and circumstance in this world?

Was it necessary for a young man to stand alone in a massive foyer for the sole purpose of telling a couple of people which hallway to walk down?

It kept him employed.

But there were dozens of bedrooms that went unused every night in this house, when one hundred fifty million people worldwide were homeless.

Solar panels and windmills should have been raised a decade ago.

And as beautiful as this place was, as much as it stood as a testimony to a different time, and we should never lose hold of our past so we don’t repeat mistakes in our future, it could be a hospital. An orphanage. At the very least, broken up so multiple families lived in it, not one.

Lady Jane would probably be horrified at the thought.

But how had we, as a human race, come this far and not seen there should be far less of a divide between the ones who have too much and the ones who don’t have anything?

And yes, this included my own self, sitting on billions of dollars.

This was on my mind. Lady Jane’s lunch was on my mind. The fact Ian put me in the countess’s room without telling me it was the countess’s room, was on my mind. All of that was on my mind as I walked down the long hallway in my thousand-pound-sterling high heels and then entered the Diamond Room.

If it sparkled during the day, it glittered at night. Perfect low lighting mixed with candlelight made every facet shine to its brightest.

Score one for Lady Jane, because this room should never have a single thing changed about it.

And in blood red, I stood out like a stain.

Eight sets of eyes turned to me when I walked in, and I noted several things at once.

Daniel was there, appearing abashed.

Michael and Mary Dewhurst were good, solid, Yorkshire gentry.

And if all of Ian’s flirting was actually real, he had a type.

Chelsea Dewhurst made Jayne Mansfield look subdued.

She was pinup perfection in a skintight, strapless, bangled dress in the colors of Champagne and crystal, like she’d dressed for the room. It was held up at her burgeoning, ample chest by what could only be a miracle.

Her eyes shot down to my gold sandals and up to my golden hair, and it concerned me greatly when obvious jealousy crossed her features like a dark shadow before she hid it behind a sip of Champagne.

So, Ian was a cocky-as-all-hell flirt, but still, he didn’t know women inside and out.

He’d been wrong.

That woman wasn’t going to leave me alone tonight. No way.

Making this worse, Ian moved forward to claim me, and I wished he hadn’t.

I was not exactly angry at him, but he was spoiled for choice as to rooms he could have put me and Lou in. His choice was…if not wrong, then not right.

Furthermore, I wasn’t his to claim and I was perfectly capable of walking into a room alone.

“Daphne, allow me to introduce you,” he said, placing his hand on the small of my back so that I could feel the tips of a few of his fingers against my skin at the cutout and drawing me deeper into diamonds.

During the introductions, Stevenson hung back as I endured Michael and Mary’s superciliousness, this piled onto Richard’s, Jane’s distracted but this time far warmer brush of cheeks, Daniel’s customary overenthusiastic greeting, and finally, Chelsea’s catty glare.

It looked like it was turning out to be another fun night at Duncroft.

“Where’s Louella Fernsby?” Michael Dewhurst demanded, lifting up on his toes (he was rather short, also rather balding) to look over my head toward the door. “And your little pip, Daniel?”

“His little pip has a name,” I said. “She’s Portia. And she and Daniel just returned from London. She’s freshening up for dinner.”

Michael, clearly not accustomed to someone calling him on his shit, glowered at me.

I dismissed him and warmly thanked Stevenson, who was hovering while holding a tray of glasses of Champagne.

“As for Lou, I checked on her on the way down,” I went on after I took a sip. “She’s having some issues with headaches. She said she hopes she’ll be well enough to join us for dinner.”

Michael appeared crestfallen, which didn’t make Mary too happy.

Daniel sidled close and requested under his breath, “Can we talk?”

I looked up at him. “Now isn’t the time.”

“It really was a work thing,” he replied.

“Mm,” I hummed to the rim of my glass before I took another sip.

“You’re friends with your stepmother?” Chelsea inquired.

I nodded. “Good friends.”

“Would stand to reason,” she noted to everyone and no one. Then aimed at me, “She’s your age, isn’t she?”

“Chels,” Ian warned low.

“Am I lying?” she asked mock-innocently.

“Yes, though not exactly,” I answered her calmly. “She’s five years older.”

“Is that bizarre?” Chelsea inquired, then again to everyone and no one. “I mean, if it were me, I’d find it hard to handle.”

“I loved my dad. He loved Lou. I met Lou and fell in love with her too. He died too young, and we grew even closer as we nursed him until the end. They didn’t have a lot of time together, and perhaps our family isn’t normal, but tell me whose is, and I’ll uncover the rocks to prove it untrue. We are who we are, do what we do, and we have two choices. Live in glass houses and throw stones or live outside them and get stones thrown at us.”

Chelsea squinted her eyes at me irritably.

I took another sip of Champagne.

Ian settled his hand on the small of my back again, this time both proudly and possessively.

I squinted at him irritably.

His brows rose.

“I’m here, so sorry, what a rush,” Portia called out breathlessly, scampering in while smoothing down the skirt of her blush-colored cocktail dress, which looked to be made entirely of tulle and boning. It had a swirly skirt, and I was pretty sure the costume designers said it was too girlie for Baby to wear when Johnny asked her to dance, but it was a close runner-up, and now it had somehow found its way onto my little sister’s body.

“Oh, delicious,” Chelsea purred.

“Is she for real?” I asked Ian, not quite low enough I couldn’t be heard.

“Maybe I should ask you to behave yourself,” he suggested.

“I will if others will,” I returned, again, meaning to be heard.

He grinned rakishly.

Even if it was a great grin, I fought rolling my eyes.

“Oh, Stevenson, you’re a lifesaver,” Portia declared while accepting the last glass of Champagne on the tray.

“Let me introduce you, love,” Daniel waded in.

I stepped back to allow them room, and since Ian was still claiming me, he came with me.

He then dipped his mouth to my ear. “Have I done something to annoy you?”

I turned my head so he had no choice but to pull away to catch my eyes.

“I’d like an after-dinner rendezvous in the Conservatory.”

“This can be arranged, though I’m thinking what you’re thinking we’d do there is not as titillating as what I’m thinking of doing to you there.”

Such a damned flirt.

“It isn’t,” I confirmed.

“I’m also thinking you aren’t going to ask me to teach you backgammon.”

“Nope.”

He drew me farther away from the others.

Much farther.

“We don’t know each other well,” he said low when we were out of earshot. “So I’ll share something. I’m not a patient man, and I particularly don’t have a lot of it when a woman is pissed off at me and makes me wait to find out why.”

I tipped my head to the side, put my Champagne to my lips, didn’t release his gaze, and asked, “The Rose Room?”

“What of it?”

I dropped my Champagne hand so it was out of our way and got closer to him. “It’s your mother’s room.”

“No. Right now, it’s your room.”

“It’s the countess’s room.”

“No,” he repeated. “Right now, it’s your room.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know it’s the best room in the house. I know you’ve been sleeping, essentially, in a dead woman’s bed. Or not sleeping, as you’re having bad dreams in that dead woman’s bed. I know that I like you and this is my home and I want you to feel comfortable here, and you haven’t been made very comfortable for a variety of reasons. And I know I don’t give a shit about the traditions this house has carried for four hundred years. If I ever have a wife, when I’m earl, I’m not going to sleep in the Cherry Room while she’s all the fucking way across the house in the Rose Room, like every earl and countess have done since Thomas murdered Joan in their bed in the Cherry Room. Instead, her body will be in my bed in whatever room she likes. I don’t give a shit which room it is.”

Always, without fail, every single one of his answers was a good one.

It was annoying.

But…Joan.

How could I forget about Joan?

“Are you over your snit?” he demanded.

I quit thinking of Joan and the fact Virginia mentioned her in my dream last night and I focused on Ian.

“My snit?”

“Yes, your snit.”

I got even closer to him. “You installed me in the countess’s room, and, oh yeah, I forgot, you’re going to be the earl next month. Something else you failed to mention.”

He shifted even closer, so our bodies were touching, and I could swear I felt his nose brush mine.

“I’m sorry, darling, we’ve been so mired in your shit, I must have missed when you were asking about me and my life in an effort to get to know me.”

See!

So annoying!

Every single one of his comebacks were good too!

I clenched my teeth.

“No reply?” he mocked.

“You’re infuriating,” I ground out.

“Infuriating?”

“Yes.”

“How so?”

“Because you have rational answers and good comebacks and everybody knows, darling, that’s the absolute worst when you’re having words with somebody.”

He scowled down at me.

I glared up at him.

Then he hooked an arm around my waist, plastered me to his long, hard body, threw his head back, and laughed.

“That’s the worst too, don’t you know,” I groused. Then went on to grumble, “And we do talk about you.”

He righted his head, but only so he could duck it so his mouth was again at my ear.

“I’m sorry, Daphne, but it’s your own fault you’re remarkably amusing.”

I jumped and would have jumped out of Ian’s hold if his arm didn’t tighten when the voice came from our side.

And I was shocked as shit to see Lady Jane had gotten close.

She put her hand on Ian’s arm, gazing up at him with a benevolent expression that wasn’t overtly adoring, but it wasn’t blank either, and she said quietly, “I just love to hear you laugh, my dear.”

I looked at her, stunned.

Then I looked beyond her.

Everyone was staring at us.

The summation:

Richard: beside himself with fury.

Michael and Mary: shocked.

Daniel: confused.

Chelsea: venomous.

And last, Portia: again enraged.

Of all of those, the only one I didn’t understand was Portia’s.

I didn’t get a chance to wrap my head around it.

Richard announced tersely, “I believe it’s time to eat.”