Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
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.
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.