Chapter 13

Thirteen

THE TURQUOISE ROOM

At seven fifteen on the dot, as we were selecting our chairs (Ian again claimed me, this time as dinner partner, no matter how hard Mary was pushing Michael my way so Ian would be stuck with Chelsea), Lou showed in the Turquoise Room.

Michael lost his mind, fawning over her, which was revolting.

I didn’t have much interest in that (outside of saving Lou and making sure she sat on Ian’s other side), considering Lou had slapped some makeup on to try to hide it, and she looked beautiful, but I knew her, and I could tell she felt like hell.

For more than one reason I did not like this.

She suffered migraines the entire time I knew her. We’d all learned how to help her when that happened, mostly leaving her alone. But when Dad wasn’t around and I was, I’d change the cool compress over her eyes and guard against any sound or disturbance until she was past it.

They came too often, considering how much they pained her.

But days of back-to-back headaches was not how it normally worked.

Stress was probably triggering it, so I was going to be a lot pushier tomorrow about getting her to the train station so she could get out of this train wreck.

Michael dominated the conversation loudly through soup and salad.

It was the fish course when Chelsea had finished sharpening her claws and wanted to test them to see whose blood she could draw.

She started with Portia.

“We’re in a sisterhood, you and me,” she said across the table to my sister.

Oh, right. The table.

Important to note.

Head, Richard. Foot, Jane. Obviously.

Down one side were me at Richard’s left, Ian, Lou, then Chelsea.

Down the other side, Mary to Richard’s right, Michael, Portia, then Daniel.

I heard Ian sigh.

Then I heard Portia ask in all innocence, “We are?”

“Chelsea,” Daniel said low.

“Men,” Chelsea huffed then leaned forward to look at me. “I bet you know how well Ian knows me.”

“Do you read bad romance novels? Or is it maybe too much Real Housewives? I mean, I’m truly curious. What is it?” I asked in return.

Her face twisted.

Ian caught her expression and murmured, “What’s that about dishing it out?”

Chelsea tossed a poisonous look at Ian.

“What are they talking about?” Portia asked Daniel quietly.

“I’ll tell you later,” he replied in the same tone.

“I’m only saying, I’ve known Ian and Daniel very well for a long, long time,” Chelsea told her.

“Yes of course,” Mary rushed in to save the situation. “They’ve known each other since they were children.”

I glanced at Richard to see his reaction to the devilry that he’d designed.

He was using his knife to push sauce and halibut on his fork, not a care in the world.

Until…

“Chelsea, tell us how your design business is going,” Lady Jane requested.

Richard’s head snapped up and his gaze was sharp and unhappy on his wife.

“She’s having just a few growing pains,” Michael quickly answered for his daughter.

And there it was.

According to Richard, Chelsea was here to dish it out so we’d take it.

Surprisingly, Lady Jane had other ideas.

And it seemed the person most surprised about this was her husband.

“Oh?” Jane inquired. “Too bad.”

“She had hoped,” Mary put in, “with all the work you’ve been doing here at Duncroft—”

“Oh no,” Lady Jane cut her off before Mary could finish her pitch. She inspected Chelsea from hair to spilling décolletage in a guileless parody of the famous Sofia Loren, Jayne Mansfield photo. “I believe Chelsea’s talents don’t quite fit in Duncroft.”

I choked on my halibut.

Ian needlessly rubbed my back. However needless, it felt nice.

“Daphne?” Lady Jane called.

Behind my hand, as decorously as I could, I coughed my throat clear and answered, “Yes, Lady Jane?”

“Are you all right?”

“Perfect.”

She smiled munificently at me and noted, “I know you’re on holiday, but I rarely get to London—”

“As in never,” Michael snorted under his breath.

“Dewhurst,” Richard hissed.

“—and I would love to try some of your pastries,” Lady Jane finished as if the byplay didn’t happen.

“You’re in luck,” I told her. “Bonnie asked me to show her a few tricks while I’m here. We’re going to work together on Wednesday.”

“Excellent,” Lady Jane decreed.

Ian was smirking at his fish.

Chelsea looked to be sucking a lemon.

“Who’s Bonnie?” Portia asked Daniel.

“Our cook,” Daniel answered.

“She’s studied at River Cottage and the School of Artisan Food,” I told Daniel. “This after she sous-chefed for Topher Lambeth for three years, and he’s won four Michelin stars. You’re tasting her food right now and have eaten it countless times before. So you must know, she’s not a cook. She’s a chef.”

“Semantics,” Richard scoffed.

I turned to him. “I can assure you the cooks who nourish school children and the chefs who make a study of the art of food would disagree,” I returned. “Both are important, but only one studies deeply before laboring under often-times exacting taskmasters for years before they earn their first kitchen.” My gaze moved to Stevenson, who was wandering the outskirts of the table with a bottle of wine wrapped neatly in linen, his eagle eyes sharp for the glass that needed filling. “Those who manage your house know precisely what they’re doing.”

A flush crept up Stevenson’s neck at my compliment, but otherwise, he didn’t falter in his duties.

“Well, all I can say is, this is utterly delicious,” Portia declared.

“Agreed,” Michael grunted.

We all fell into silence, but when Sam and Jack, with Stevenson overseeing, started clearing our dishes for the next course, Chelsea exclaimed, “Right, girls! Let’s have some fun. Which morbid tales of the women of Duncroft did Ian and Daniel use to do their wooing?”

My back snapped straight.

Ian emitted a low growl.

“I know Ian’s favorite is Joan, and Daniel favors Rose,” Chelsea shared.

Joan.

And Rose.

Joan and Rose.

Who was Rose?

“So?” Chelsea pressed.

“My dear, we don’t speak of such things at Duncroft,” Richard proclaimed.

“Oh Richard, of course you do,” Chelsea rebutted. “I know firsthand.”

“Chelsea, love,” Mary said in soft warning.

But her warning came too late.

Ian was done.

“I’m uncertain you understand,” he stated in a cutting voice I was instantly happy he’d never used with me, I felt lacerated, and it wasn’t even aimed my way, “how much of a fool you’re making of yourself.”

“Listen, son—” Michael began heatedly.

Ian turned to him. “You’ll know when I’m speaking to you. Now, I’m not.”

In affront, Michael’s eyebrows hit what should have been his hairline.

Ian’s attention returned to Chelsea. “You’re no longer in my bed, nor are you in Daniel’s. If this was something you desired again, I can assure you, with your behavior tonight, you’ve blown any chance. I can’t begin to imagine why you’re acting as you are. It has no goal but to wound, which isn’t nice at all and says terrible things about you. I held affection for you, Chelsea. But right now, I think you’re acting like a bitter cow.”

Chelsea’s face went slack in shock.

“My God,” Mary breathed, aghast.

“You’ve been sitting right here, Mary,” Daniel noted, his hand covering Portia’s on the table protectively. “You can’t have missed how she’s been behaving.”

“Is this how Duncroft will be run when you take over?” Michael demanded to know.

“If you mean when I ask someone to join me in my home to drink my wine and eat my food and grace my table, and they act like a vicious shrew, am I going to call them on their fuckery?” Ian asked in return. Then he answered, “Yes.”

I sat back with my wine and said, “I’ve gotta say, you Alcotts sure know how to throw a dinner party.”

Lou choked down a hysterical giggle.

“You’re not helping,” Ian murmured to me.

But Daniel was smiling at me.

And Portia was watching me closely.

She turned her hand under Daniel’s and linked fingers.

The panel opened in the wall and Stevenson ushered Jack and Sam in.

We’d already had a lot to chew on.

But for now, we had to set that aside.

It was time for the main course.

* * *

Needless to say, when we left the dining room, Portia and Daniel, Lou, Ian and I didn’t follow the others to the Wine Room for a digestif.

I walked Lou up to her room and made sure she took her migraine tablet and drank a whole glass of water besides. I then pulled the bell, and when she arrived, asked Harriet to fill her water carafe so she could have some close at hand in order to stay hydrated.

I could tell it was getting worse, so I helped her get undressed and brushed her hair into a ponytail while she took off her makeup and did her skincare regime.

Once she was tucked in bed, and I’d had a word in the hall with Harriet about keeping an eye on Lou tonight as she dealt with her migraine, and she promised she’d look in again before she was off the clock at eleven, I went back downstairs to the Conservatory.

Ian was alone with a cigarette and a brooding expression.

“Can I have one of those?” I asked.

“Do you smoke?” he asked in return.

“No.”

“Then no.”

He was sitting in the middle of the couch.

I sat in a chair opposite him.

“Where are Portia and Daniel?” I queried.

“Who knows? Who cares?”

I cared, obviously. Since I asked.

Though, with his oppressive mood, I didn’t share that.

I gave it a few minutes, and in those few minutes, Ian set his burning cigarette in the clean ashtray, pushed out of the couch, went to the drinks cabinet, came back, and reaching across the low table between us, he handed me a snifter of Amaretto.

Thoughtful. Funny. Gorgeous. Protective.

Ugh.

I took a sip while he folded back into his sofa, reclaimed his cigarette and continued smoking pensively.

Then I noted carefully, “She’s very beautiful.”

“If that’s your effort at trying to make me feel better I fucked that bitch, I’m afraid, my darling, it’s not going to work.”

“Is that why you’re in such a mood?”

“I’m not telling you about Dorothy Clifton to get you in my bed. I’m telling you because you want to know.”

“I know that.”

“As I told her about Joan because she wanted to know.”

“Will you tell me about Joan?”

“You didn’t do very well with your research if you don’t know about Joan and Thomas, Daphne,” he chided.

“Well, I do. The Cuthbert affair. You just seem to know so much more than the internet.”

“My great aunt considered herself an Alcott historian. She listened avidly, researched single-mindedly, and these efforts bore fruit. There are about twelve of her handwritten diaries on the history of Duncroft and the Alcotts.”

“Have you read them?” I queried.

“Every last one.”

“Is that a prerequisite to becoming an earl?”

He stopped watching the smoke curl lazily from his cigarette and turned his attention to me.

With the brand of that attention (“brand” being the operative word, for I felt scorched), I braced.

“No. It was a young man’s desperate attempt to learn all the reasons why his father was an inveterate adulterer in an effort to circumvent that happening to myself should I fall in love with a woman and make her my wife.”

“You’re not your dad,” I said gently.

He inhaled and blew a cloud of smoke over his head.

It floated behind him, away from me, like he could even will smoke to go where he wished.

What he didn’t do was respond.

“Tell me about Joan,” I urged.

“Bored with Dorothy?”

“I sense that story is more about Virginia, and no. I’m not bored with it. But tonight, I want to hear about Joan. And Rose.”

“You only get one, love.”

“Then Joan,” I picked.

He launched right in.

“The beauty of the Season. The Exquisite. The Prized Jewel. She should have gone to a duke. Maybe even a prince. She stupidly fell in love with an earl.”

“I sense this story isn’t about her infidelity.”

He studied the burning tip of the cigarette, which was almost to the gold paper.

Then he leaned forward and snuffed it out.

After that, he got up and went to the drinks cabinet. “Fair warning, it’s scandalous.”

“I’m not easily scandalized.”

“Thomas liked to fuck and be fucked.”

Okay, maybe I was easily scandalized.

“He liked to fuck Joan and watch others fuck her too,” Ian carried on.

Definitely, I was easily scandalized.

“So he was bi?” I asked.

He came back with what appeared to be Cognac and resumed his seat.

“No, he was pan. Men. Women. Pain. Bondage. Giving and taking. He held orgies in this house. He had whores of all persuasions on his payroll. No maid was safe from his attentions. No footman safe from buggery. He was a sexual menace in a time while holding a class where that went entirely unchecked. He could do whatever, and whoever he wanted with impunity. Even if they didn’t want it.”

Awful.

Fiendish.

“And Joan was into this too?” I inquired.

Ian shook his head. “Not at all. She hated it. Enter poor Cuthbert.”

Poor Cuthbert.

“She fell in love,” I guessed.

Ian nodded, but said, “He was a favorite of Thomas’s. An actor. He lived in this house with them for years. The Owl Room. Reportedly, he was very handsome. Tall. Built. Dark.” He stared intently at me. “With eyes as blue as the sea.”

I felt my heart stutter in shock.

“Holy fuck,” I whispered.

“Well stated,” he agreed. “However, there came a time when Joan had had enough. She went to her father. She begged his mercy and him to intervene. A devout man, he was outraged. He went to the king.”

I sipped, watching him.

He sipped and kept talking.

“She was pregnant by this time, and Thomas suspected it wasn’t his. He fucked everything that moved, and as yet, had no progeny. My aunt is certain he was sterile. The idea that Joan would birth someone not of his line sent him into a rage. He too went to the king.”

“Oh boy.”

“Mm,” he hummed. “Though, Joan had a card up her sleeve that Thomas could never imagine. No one could. It was a secret closely held.”

“That being?”

“She was a direct descendent of Henry the Eighth. He had a number of children that were not from his wives. Some were secreted away. Some were carefully homed. Some given land and titles. Joan was Henry’s great-great granddaughter. A secret well-kept, issue well protected, even by King James. You see, if one was thrown under the bus, others could be too. No monarch wanted to see their seed wasted, especially when it laid no claim to the crown and was not a threat. So Thomas was ordered to love and cherish her and the babe in her womb.”

“Are you telling me that you’re—”

“Royal blood? A direct descendent of Henry the Eighth? Yes.”

I couldn’t believe this!

“Oh my God, Ian.”

“Perhaps that’s where it all began,” he said musingly to his Cognac.

It was a valid question. Henry was an asshole.

“Another reason Duncroft survived where other aristocratic houses dwindled or blinked out of existence,” he remarked. “Until the twentieth century, we had royal patronage.”

“This is huge,” I uttered my understatement. “Are you sworn to secrecy or something?”

“All anyone would have to do is read Aunt Louisa’s diaries.”

“But they’re in your library.”

“Copies are also in The British Library for anyone to check out. I suppose the ramblings of a dotty spinster aren’t interesting to some, no matter how meticulously researched and referenced they are. Another indication of how foolhardy it is to ignore intelligent women you deem superfluous simply because they were unwanted by a man. That said, it’s my understanding from her diaries, it was the other way around. She found men vain and tedious. Nevertheless, she had affairs and ‘men friends’ until she died at age eighty-three.”

I felt my lips curve. “I think I would have liked her.”

“I can guarantee she would have liked you.”

How sweet.

“So, with the king’s protection, how did things go so poorly for Joan and Cuthbert?” I asked.

“I suppose there’s only so much a vain, tedious and privileged man can take. Thomas came home one day and found Joan and Cuthbert enjoying each other in a session that was not ordered by him. He lost his mind, gutted Cuthbert and turned the bloody blade on Joan. Fortunately for the Alcott line, by that time, she’d given him a son and two daughters. All with dark hair and sea-blue eyes.”

“In other words, the real Alcott line died with Thomas.”

He threw back his Cognac then asked. “I don’t think that was much of a loss, do you?”

I studied him closely, noting, “This is a lot of history to be lugging around.”

“You know, the most amusing aspect of it is that Dad has never read those diaries. I’m not sure anyone has, but me. Louisa didn’t shout it from the rooftops. I think her uncovering of it, and how it’s there, right there and no one knows, was amusing as hell for her too. Dad has no idea in his veins runs the blood of a common actor and male prostitute who spent his adult life as a sexual plaything. He also has no idea he has royal blood. He has no idea this blood, the blood he’d deem important, didn’t come down the paternal side of his line, but the maternal. He has no idea, for all intents and purposes, he’s a Tudor, not an Alcott. He’s convinced of the nobility of his blood, not understanding his many-times great-grandfather was the one who proclaimed the divine right of kings.”

“So, you haven’t told him,” I drawled.

That coaxed a small smile out of him. “No, I haven’t shared this with Dad.”

“What happened to Thomas after he disobeyed the king?”

“She’d birthed a son by then. What do you think?”

“Nothing,” I mumbled.

“Nothing,” he confirmed.

I changed the subject. “Any fun plans for your birthday?”

“Mother has a party every year. My sense, this year, Chelsea’s being uninvited.”

I started laughing.

He was a gentleman, so he waited until I wrung all the enjoyment out of that before he asked, “How’d your talk go with Portia?”

“Not great.”

“I think one of our meetings in the Conservatory needs to include some history. You two couldn’t be less alike, and you’ve shown quite the efficiency with dealing with inanity and idiocy. And yet you haven’t marched to your car, roared away in a spray of gravel and called your solicitor to lock down her inheritance.”

“You have a flair for the dramatic, Lord Alcott,” I teased.

“You have patience and loyalty that seems unearned, Miss Ryan,” he parried.

I shrugged. “I try to do what Dad would do. He had a lot of patience with Portia. And it’s his money.” I took another sip to gather the courage, and then I asked, “Did you look into Portia too?”

“You know I have.”

“Is she working?”

“Working?”

“Employed.”

“No. She quit her job last month to be Daniel’s full-time girlfriend.”

I looked beyond him to the moonlight shining through the vast expanse of windows.

“Why?” he asked quietly.

I looked back to him. “I was wondering how she could be here this week. She’s held down a job for eight, nine months. It’s required for her to draw from her fund.”

“Well, shit.”

I tipped my snifter to him. “Now it’s well-said to you, my friend.” I sighed. “I was giving her thirty thousand pounds a month. When she hit her year anniversary at work, I was going to increase it to fifty. Now, it’ll return to two. And that won’t be at my decree. That’s Dad’s.”

“Is there any hope she’s set aside any of those two hundred and forty thousand pounds to get her through a long, cold winter?”

“None whatsoever. The shoes she was wearing tonight cost twenty-five hundred pounds, and they were new. Everything she’s worn that I’ve seen in this house is new. Is Daniel in a position to buy her a diamond bracelet?”

“Not that I know.”

“So there’s another fifteen K, at least.”

Ian just watched me.

I just sighed again.

“This is a lot for your father to saddle you with,” he remarked, a low rumble of annoyance in his deep voice.

“Honey, I’ve been saddled, though I don’t like that word, with Portia since she was born. Her mother took off with a huge settlement and we’ve never seen her again. At least, not anywhere near Portia. On yachts with her most recent sugar daddy. Drinking in Corfu. Frolicking in Capri. Walking out of the Ritz. I can’t imagine. My mom hates my dad and isn’t afraid to say it, but she loves me. She also took in Portia and gave her love. But my mom isn’t her mom. I think if they’re pains in our asses, we can convince ourselves we’re happy they’re in Capri and not in our lives. But I doubt that’s the real way of it.”

“Unquestionably.”

I threw back the last of my Amaretto.

Then, feeling slightly woozy, which probably had to do with bad sleep and lots of wine at dinner, I said, “I want to go check on Lou and get some rest. I need to tackle Portia tomorrow, and to do that, I need to have all my pistons firing.”

He set his Cognac on the table and stood, coming around to offer a hand to help me up.

This time, I didn’t hesitate in taking it.

“First stop, my room for your sleeping pill,” he stated.

“Ian, your thoughtfulness is lovely, but those weren’t prescribed for me.”

“I have a pill cutter. We’ll halve it. Take half. If you need more, take the other half.”

“All right,” I agreed.

We held hands all the way up the stairs and down the hall to his room.

I hadn’t poked around too much on this, his wing. Just stuck my head in a few rooms, worried that I’d run into someone’s private quarters.

But I’d noted they were all like my current one. Much bigger. Sitting rooms. Huge closets. Massive bathrooms. Not rooms as such, but suites.

That was the family wing, created so they each had their own personal space to escape to, and a lot of it, or at least, somewhere in modern times, it had been fashioned into it.

Ian’s suite of rooms was handsome, masculine, and looked like a tornado went through it.

The double doors that framed his massive bed in the bedroom area—a tall bed made taller because, for God’s sake, it was on a dais, of all things—showed that space was tidy. As such. At least the bed was made.

The rest was an absolute mess.

“This is a disaster,” I said, taking in the papers, folders, portfolios, two laptops, graphs, printouts, an overflowing, if attractive attaché. This mess was on his toffee-colored button-backed leather couch. The end tables. The coffee table. Stacked on the floor by the big desk. Stacked on the big desk.

“I have a lot of projects on the go. Diversity is the key to making a fuckton of money,” he called from his bathroom. “And my assistant isn’t here to keep it in check.”

“Have you not heard of a cloud?” I called back. “I think the amount of paper in here is responsible for the extinction of two species of birds, one of squirrels, three chipmunks, and an adorable class of owls.”

He came out of his bathroom grinning.

He stopped in front of me. “Do you know you’re at your most fuckable when you’re giving me shit?”

“A girl tries,” I quipped.

He reached, grabbed my wrist, lifted my hand and dropped the two halves of a small blue pill in my palm. He then curled my fingers around them.

“Go. Sleep. When I finally seduce you, I want you firing on all pistons too.”

I rolled my eyes. “Flirt.”

“Tease.”

I winked at him then got up on my toes and kissed his cheek.

After that, I headed to the door.

“Daphne?”

I stopped and turned back.

“Dad orchestrated tonight. He wanted me, you, Danny, Mum and Portia uncomfortable. He also put Chelsea in that position. Mary. Michael. Michael is his closest friend.”

And there was the reason for his earlier Mr. Broody.

“I know,” I said gently.

“And then came you, making me end the night smiling.”

“Don’t get soppy on me, Lord Alcott.”

“Never.”

I stopped bantering and said, “Sleep well, honey.”

“You too, Daphne.”

I shot him a smile. Then I went to my room.

I was still feeling woozy.

I was also feeling warm. I was feeling happy. I was feeling confused at both. I was trying not to feel worried about the fact I was beginning to feel a lot for the very-soon-to-be Earl Alcott.

What I was not feeling was, after I checked in on Lou (who was thankfully sound asleep), when I hit the Rose Room and saw how fabulous it was when the girls had prepared it for me to relax for the evening, another bridal bouquet being placed on the turned-back fold of the sheets.

And this one I knew wasn’t right.

But it was sending a message.

I just didn’t understand what that message was.

Because it wasn’t roses.

It was an exact replica of the one I left in the bathroom down the hall.

But bigger.

And it was carnations.