Chapter 24

Twenty-Four

THE PINK TOPAZ ROOM

I was in search of my sister.

Lou and her folks had come and gone.

Things had started poorly, considering the plasters on my temple. But I deftly sidestepped that concern with a little white lie of clumsiness due to Amaretto on an empty stomach and taking Lou aside to tell her Ian and I had kissed…twice. This last capturing her attention, and plasters were forgotten.

Lady Jane swooped in to finish my brave efforts by greeting Lou and her family with her brand of warmth, offering them luncheon and a tour of the house, which both Jo and Kevin, her dad, couldn’t hide they were eager to accept.

Lou and I chatted in the Cat’s-eye Room while Lady Jane guided the tour, with Lou holding court to Portia coming in and awkwardly, but still sweetly, giving Lou a hug and telling her she was there if Lou needed anything. Then a studiously separate visit from a sheepish Daniel for him to ask after her and share his goodbyes. This led to an uncomfortable visit from Richard, where I had more proof he did not lie the night before, his concern evident. And finally, Ian, who stayed with us for a while, then took off because he had a phone meeting, but he didn’t leave before he told me to be ready to go to the village at three.

This last made Lou very bright and cheery.

Oh, and by the way, it was clear Ian took them all aside and made sure they didn’t share last night’s incident, because no one said a thing.

Richard joined us for lunch, but Daniel and Ian didn’t, and Portia and I alone gave hugs and kisses at Jo and Kevin’s car, with Portia’s hug for Lou lasting longer than mine, and me having good thoughts about how Lou closed her eyes and held on tight throughout it.

However, it was only me who stood at the base of the steps of Duncroft and watched their car drive away until I couldn’t see it anymore, Portia dashing up the steps and disappearing into the house.

There was nothing to make me feel great about it all, but I felt better. Lou seemed in good spirits. I knew her mum and dad would take excellent care of her. And she’d be home soon and safe from all the stress of Portia and Richard and Jane.

Though, when I did walk back up the steps, Richard was waiting for me.

I worried about another uncomfortable conversation, but he took the opportunity to, rather formally, apologize for what happened the night before. Although the apology was stiff, I could tell he was still angry about what happened, and it seemed authentic.

Since it wasn’t his fault, I didn’t think he had anything to apologize for, and although it was nice he did it, I thanked him and told him an apology was unnecessary.

He finished by requesting, “Please don’t think too badly about my son. We all do things that are imprudent when we’re backed into corners. Daniel’s learned now, lamentably through something upsetting happening to you, he shouldn’t have done any of it. Not from the start of getting involved with that young woman. But I can assure you, this won’t be repeated again.”

He couldn’t assure me of that, he wasn’t Daniel. But since we both very much wanted our talk to be over, I accepted his assurances, and the talk was over.

Now, it was nearing three and I needed to have a chat with my sister before Ian’s and my first date, and I couldn’t find her.

My efforts were rewarded when I looked into the Pink Topaz Room.

This was another smaller, though not cozy room. The pinks were bright and blinding, almost overpowering.

But my sister, curled into a window seat, resting against fuchsia taffeta throw pillows and a magenta cushion, wearing another long, flowing skirt, this one shining silk the color of a ballet slipper, with a matching fluffy turtleneck sweater, looked designed for the space.

“Hey,” I called.

Listlessly, she turned her head to me. “Hey.”

I made my way to the window seat and wedged my ass in with her.

For her part, she tucked her legs tighter to give me room.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I should be asking you that.”

“As you can see, I’m perfectly fine,” I assured her.

“I can’t even leave,” she said as a belated and perplexing answer to my opening question, turning her head back to the window.

“Pardon?”

Her gaze remained at the window. “I don’t have a ride to the train station. I don’t have a car. I don’t own a car. And I’m too angry at Daniel to ask him to take me. They don’t have Uber here. And even if I could get there, I need the money I have left to pay rent, not buy train tickets.”

This was my cue, but I didn’t get to take it. She turned her face to me.

“That isn’t a ploy to get you to give me money or something. I’m just realizing…” She took a big breath. “I get myself in muddles sometimes,” she whispered.

Okay, it seemed we hadn’t had a breakthrough last night.

She’d had a revelation.

She peered back out the window. “I lied to him, you see.”

Now I was confused.

“To Daniel?”

She shook her head at the glass. “To Ian. I told him I was thirty-one. I thought, if he knew how young I was, he wouldn’t ask me out. When I met him, he was so…Ian, I had to have him. So I pretended to be someone else.” Her voice got quieter. “I pretended to be like you.”

Oh my.

Well, from the way things currently stood, at least that explained why Ian dated her, something I’d wondered about but hadn’t yet asked.

“We ran into Daniel on our second date. It was a fluke. But Ian asked him and his party to join us. There were five of them. They were rowdy. They took over. Daniel was flirty. I thought it was weird, him flirting with his brother’s date. But me being me,” she said self-deprecatingly, “first, I was angry that Ian asked them to join us and then didn’t seem too broken up they were horning in on our time. So then I thought it would show Ian what a hot ticket I was, and I leaned into Daniel’s flirting. I got cocky. I also got drunk. Which led to me, for the first time with Ian, actually being me. It also led to me letting it slip how old I really was to Daniel, and Ian heard.”

And that explained how Daniel thought he’d stolen Portia from Ian.

She rested her head against the glass and kept speaking.

“Ian is a gentleman. When he took me home, he didn’t call me on my lie. He kissed my forehead and said in a really nice way that I only see as nice now, we weren’t going to work. At the time, I didn’t understand what was happening. I’m not used to, when it’s over, guys just ghosting me. It’s more usual, me ghosting guys. And it made me mad. I’d worked hard on him.”

Hmm.

I didn’t know what “working hard” on a man entailed, but then, I wasn’t Portia.

“Like, the next day, Daniel called me,” she shared. “I don’t know how he got my number, but when we were talking the night before, we found we have mutual friends. It wouldn’t be hard. He asked me out. I was mad at Ian, so I said yes.”

“So now, how do you truly feel about Daniel?” I asked.

Both her shoulders went up, but she didn’t take her attention from the window when she answered, “I don’t know. I sure am mad at him about Brittany. So I must feel something.”

“Do you still feel something for Ian?”

That was when she looked at me. “Who wouldn’t?”

Who wouldn’t, indeed.

She waved a hand dismissively. “I’m over it. Last night, I got over it. The whole Brittany thing and how completely dumb Daniel was about it. How I saw Ian was with you, protective and angry on your behalf. You know, I never liked Frankie. He was so up himself. Sure, his pastries are great, but he’s not the Michelangelo of custard and cream and dough.”

That made me grin at her.

“You need a decent man in your life. Someone better than Frankie.” Her tone changed. “Someone better than Dad.”

“You know Dad loved you,” I said softly.

“I know,” she replied. “But he was also a big, stupid jerk. I know it’s wrong, but I really wish what’s happening to Lou happened while he was alive. He needed to be shook. He needed to see what he had right in front of his face, and that there were ways he could lose it that all his money and the rest of the money in the whole world couldn’t buy it back for him.”

It was wrong, but I understood what she was saying.

Thus, I agreed, “Yes.”

She flipped out a hand, an indication of her coming subject change. “I’ve been going over it in my head. I’m not good with numbers, but I still have some money. Enough to squeak by for a couple of months. I’ll find a job. I’ll be okay. It’s all getting so boring anyway, the clothes and fancy dinners and stuff. It might be good to cook at home. I want to learn how to make Indian food.”

I decided it best to ignore her sense of entitlement in saying clothes and fancy dinners were boring and replied, “That sounds good. But I wanted to talk to you about maybe not finding something because you have to, and instead, finding what’s right for you.”

“What am I good for?” she asked. “I’m a rich man’s daughter who doesn’t have any real money. I’m semi-kinda-famous because of that. That’s all I have going for me.”

My tone was firm when I stated, “That isn’t true.”

She straightened a bit. “Really? So what is there to me, Daph?”

“You dress great. You know designers.” I smiled at her. “You’re really good at shopping. You could be a stylist. Get a job at Liberty, Harrods, work your way up.”

Something lit in her eyes even as her face brightened with excitement.

She hadn’t considered she could do something she liked and make money at it.

“Same thing with getting a job at a fashion magazine. It’d have to be entry level, but you could give it a shot. Or try working at a designer boutique. You like to travel. You can be a travel agent. Or a flight attendant,” I suggested.

“I like the idea of helping people shop better.”

“Then go with that.”

Her enthusiasm held on, but only for a moment before the despondency set back in, and she again gazed out the window.

“Daniel,” I surmised.

“I’m surprised at how much it hurts, knowing he fucked that woman. Knowing he put her in this house and brought me here, let her touch me, do my hair. Knowing what kind of person she was, how she’d use what he gave her to get what she wanted, then she’d do something as whacked out as what she did to you last night.”

“You’re surprised to find that you were using him to try to get Ian back, but somewhere along the line, you started liking him.”

She turned again to me and shocked me by admitting openly, “Yes.” She reached out and grabbed my hand. “What he did, with Brittany, how it played out with you, that happening after we found out about Lou. He couldn’t know it would happen, but my God, Daphne, how fucked up is that? It’s a terrible coincidence, but in the end, it was Daniel who orchestrated it. And that’s not cool.”

“Tell him you’re disappointed in him and talk it through. If you don’t like how he handles it, I’ll take you to the train station and buy your ticket home.”

When she was going to interrupt me, I shook her hand.

“No,” I kept going. “You’ll accept. It’s my prerogative to take care of my little sister when she gets herself in a jam.”

She shook her head ruefully. “I don’t know how you put up with me.”

“I love you, that’s how.”

“You shouldn’t, you know. I’m terrible.”

I felt a quiver of trepidation snake down my spine at the weightiness of her words.

But I said, “How about you let me make that decision?”

She held my gaze when she confessed, “It hurts to see how into you Ian is. How well you two get along. How perfect you seem to fit. I shouldn’t be surprised. I was being you when he asked me out. It still doesn’t feel good.”

I could only imagine.

And not totally over Ian, I could see.

I could also imagine that.

“I like him, Portia. A lot,” I informed her.

She let me go and said to her lap, “I can tell.”

“And I know it seems confusing, but somewhere along the line, you’ve fallen in love with Daniel,” I pointed out.

My sister looked again to me. “I think you’re right, which is the bitch of it. Because he’s kind of a moron.”

I started laughing.

It took her a second, but she laughed with me.

When I sobered, I ventured, “Do you know where he’s at with you?”

She was blunt when she inquired, “You mean, does he want me for my money?”

I didn’t verbally confirm, though I was pleased she understood that was a possibility.

She still answered, “It seems I’m going to find out.”

She was correct about that.

“I can tell he’s freaked. I say, make him worry,” I advised. “At least a little while longer. Stay distant but don’t leave. Talk to him tomorrow.”

She nodded. “I think that’s a good plan.” Then she asked, “Do you think, truly, Lou’s going to be all right?”

What I thought, truly, although I was sure Portia coming to my room in the middle of the night to find me scared out of my mind and bleeding was part of it, the thing that was bothering her the most was Lou’s diagnosis.

And that said a great deal about my sister.

“I think we have to have a lot of hope for her.”

“Well, at least that’s something I can do,” she mumbled.

“Hey,” I said, feeling my phone vibrate in my pocket. “Stop talking about yourself like that. It hasn’t been easy to find your way, but it seems you’re getting closer to the right path and that’s all you. You’re putting the work in. And that’s something to be proud of.”

“You always had more confidence in me than me.”

“And again, that’s because I love you.”

She gave me another funny look and my phone vibrated again.

I pulled it out.

It was a text from Ian.

Ready?

“I’ve got to go,” I told my sister.

She didn’t look happy, probably guessing who the text was from, and I didn’t get how she could be with one and have feelings for him, at the same time having the same for the other, but I knew it’d be confusing.

“Go,” she urged. “Will I see you again tonight?”

“I don’t know, maybe not. Ian and I are having dinner in the village.”

“Have fun,” she said apathetically, but at the same time, oddly, it seemed earnest.

“I will. While I’m gone, don’t be too hard on yourself.”

“I’ll try.”

I could tell she’d fail, but maybe a little self-pity would do some good.

At least it seemed to be making some inroads already.

I pulled her into my arms and gave her a hug.

I then kissed her cheek and left the room.

Ian was waiting for me in the foyer, wearing his camel coat over his cardigan, a pine-colored scarf tucked through a half-fold around his neck. He was holding my duffle and purse.

Testimony to how hot he was, a man waiting for a woman while holding her purse, and he looked fabulous doing it.

But his attention wasn’t on me as I approached.

It was down the hall from where I’d come.

When I arrived at him, he simply looked down at me and raised his brows.

And jeez.

We were here, already, because he didn’t have to say the words and I knew what he was asking.

“Portia and I had a chat. I’ll tell you on the way to the village.”

He nodded and handed me my bag, then shook out my coat to help me put it on.

It was only then I noticed he also had my scarf and gloves.

Yeesh.

This man.

No hand holding as he walked me down to his Jag, which was waiting for us at the foot of the steps. No. He slung his arm around my shoulders, and I slid mine along his waist.

He held the car door open for me.

With the sun of the first cloudless day we’d had since arriving glinting against British racing green, the sleek car purred down the drive of Duncroft on its errand of taking us to the village.

And I wasn’t paying attention.

But Ian and I took off on our first date when it was exactly three oh three.