“She’s a countess?” That seemed to perk up his father, but Win had already heard too much.
“And how is it a conversation in broad daylight constitutes an affair—particularly, as I mentioned, regarding a document as yet unsigned, for a license as yet un-obtained for a marriage as yet unscheduled?”
“I know you,” Juliet snapped back. “Your intentions are written all over your face. If you haven’t had the plain little mouse already, you will. Constance Gibbs called me not five minutes after I’d left the Cypress Resort. I’ve spent the remainder of the morning with your lawyer and now we’re here to officially invoke the restitution clause. I will not be mocked.”
“See here, Bitters, what’s this clause?” Win’s father asked, clearly startled by Juliet’s anger.
“It’s a good faith provision, sir,” Bitters began. “But I hardly think the present events have triggered it.”
“How could they not!” Juliet turned on him and Bitters took a nervous step back. “You’ve fought me tooth and nail every step of this process, when I am only protecting my interests. I’ve already lodged three complaints about you with your firm.”
“Three?” Bitters’ eyes widened slightly, and Win frowned. The lawyer hadn’t yet made partner, and the Grahams were nearly as powerful in Charleston as the Masters. Bitters also had newborn twins, and the man, normally haggard-looking, now looked a positive wreck.
“Three,” Juliet said pointedly. “So, you were saying?”
“Enough, Juliet,” Win said. His voice was low, reasonable, but there was no mistaking the edge to it.
Juliet turned to him. “An apology. For the files,” she said, succinctly. “And rewording of a stronger financial compensation package in the event of our divorce.”
“On the basis of one gossiping old hag? I don’t think so. Constance Gibbs will tell you anything you’d like her to, if it will get her an in on your next property sale. Or did you think she didn’t realize you’re putting Mockingbird Hall on the market?” Win shook his head as Juliet narrowed her eyes.
“I’m not going to apologize for something that hasn’t happened,” he continued, drawing in a long, steadying breath. All he needed to do was marry Juliet Graham, then wait for her to divorce him. That’s it. Simple enough.
“Oh right, because apologizing isn’t something you do, is it,” she sneered, and her voice was so strident he frowned. “At least not in public. But you’ll take care of everything on the sly, now won’t you. The knight in shining armor when there’s no one around to see, right? What is the point?”
Anger spiraled upward inside Win once again. “Juliet.”
“You think I didn’t know!” She laughed, an ugly sound. “I know everything about you, Wyndham Masters. So of course I know the story of poor, fragile Annelise Bell, too.”
“You and everyone else in our circles,” Win said, his voice now cold. “We kept it out of the news, but nothing escapes the gossips. I’m well aware of how eagerly it was discussed.” How was it he’d managed to get through nearly two years of blessed silence about Annelise, and today, it was all anyone could talk about?
“Her suicide attempt was discussed, yes. Her commitment to the sanatorium and her relapse six months later, stupid twit. But you couldn’t let it go, could you.” Juliet stepped forward, with an almost predatory gleam in her eyes. “You’re still paying for her care all these years later, and I know for a fact you secretly financed that mental health wing at Charleston Medical—”
“Stop, Juliet.” Win felt like his world was being closed over in ice. “Stop now.”
But Juliet clearly saw the impact she was having, saw it and pressed her advantage. “I will not stop!” she seethed. “That money is our future money, and I will not have you wasting it so outrageously out of guilt over a clearly unhinged girl who you should never have looked at twice to begin with. I want it written into the agreement that you will—”
“No.”
He wasn’t sure what reached her, actually. The word was one she was used to ignoring. And he still hadn’t raised his voice. But the temperature in the room suddenly seemed to plummet to match the hoarfrost that was freezing him from the inside. Maybe that was it.
Whatever it was, Juliet snapped her mouth shut, her eyes now wary. Cautious, even.
In that moment, despite everything she’d just said, Win knew he could still smooth this over. Overlook Juliet’s outburst, attribute it to nerves, or jealousy, or any of a thousand other excuses. He’d apologize, she’d apologize, and they’d continue inexorably down the path he’d so carefully charted for them.
And yet, he suddenly couldn’t imagine enduring the woman for even one more day. Not anymore.
“I suppose if you’re invoking clause one sixty-two, I should as well,” he said, his voice taking on a new, infinitely bored inflection. “Though in my case, as you’ll note, the infraction is rather a bit higher up the list. Since the affair is already well underway, and consummated.” Juliet stiffened, but Win held her gaze. “Or are you going to deny your liaison with Robert Vettig? I have several photographs and electronic communications to corroborate my allegation, if that helps at all.”
She stared at him. “You spied on me?”
Win nodded. “At great length. Admittedly, you made it easy.”
“You didn’t…you couldn’t!” Juliet’s face grew pale—first with shock, then, reassuringly, with anger. “I always knew you were a scheming bastard. But this…” She scowled, her lips twisting into a snarl. “You disgust me. I wouldn’t marry you if my life depended on it.”
“Ah, then it’s settled.” Win turned to Bitters, who could only stare at him, gape-mouthed. “Juliet has tendered her decision to cancel our engagement. Please draw up the appropriate paperwork.”
His soon to be ex-fiancée apparently wasn’t finished. “You—”
Win continued, cutting her off. “Though Juliet has triggered the action, please accord her all rights in the agreement as if I was the cause. Full restitution at the sums agreed upon for the current timing.” He shot a glance at Juliet. “I suppose I shouldn’t even ask you to be discreet.”
Her expression had grown calculating. “I’m keeping the ring,” she informed him coldly. “And the wedding gifts. All of them. And if you dare insinuate that there was any wrongdoing on my part…”
“Of course not,” Win said calmly. “Now, if our business is concluded here…?” To his left, Bitters still remained frozen. To his right, Win’s father could only stare.
Win sighed as Juliet caught the men’s shocked gazes, then launched into another round of demands. He’d known about her affair with the financier Vettig for the past three months—and hadn’t much cared. But that was before Juliet had threatened Bitters, a man who was simply trying to do his job, and before she’d dragged poor Annelise into her rant.
Annelise, who’d been good, and sweet, and so very much more fragile than he’d realized. Win had fallen hard for the shy, sensitive art student when they’d met in college, drawing her into his fast-paced, complex life without ever stopping to think of how much he was overwhelming her. When she’d withdrawn, he’d misunderstood—misjudged every one of her reactions. He’d tried to do more, be more, but he’d only made everything so much worse. His desperate attentions had proved the most harmful, in the end. He’d hurt her—terribly—and for all that he’d never intended to cause her any harm, she still hadn’t recovered.
It wouldn’t happen again
Chapter Five
“You can’t really expect me to believe he’s going to have three bodyguards with him. I don’t care what you told Edeena.”
Cindy Marks stood with her arms folded, skewering Marguerite with a glare that was somewhat ruined by the squeals of delight behind her. The Marks’s children had raced through every square inch of the old plantation house and then invaded the yard with unflagging energy, leaving no door unopened or path unexplored. They’d just found the family of ducks off the edge of the doc
k and were already rushing back to the house to find something to feed them.
Cindy tried to ignore them, but their excited laughter clearly pulled at her, and she spared them a brief glance before returning her gaze to Marguerite.
“When does Rob get here?” Marguerite asked.
“He had an overnight surveillance job. He’s sleeping it off while these guys exhaust themselves.” The kids were back from the house with a bag of rapidly defrosting corn, and Cindy frowned, distracted for a moment. “Corn?”
“The housekeeper gave it to them, I’m sure. It’s better for the ducks than bread,” Marguerite said. “Win probably won’t have security on us, no, but he’ll be there. He’s…capable.”
It was the safest word she could come up with for the man. There was remarkably little about him on the internet, despite Marguerite’s belated Google searches. It was as if no one dared to say anything about the man other than the party line which was: rich, pampered, and rich. Oh, and smart. But mostly rich.
Cindy snorted. “Capable isn’t really going to get the job done, if you get targeted. You know if your sister or God forbid, Vince, thinks you’re at risk, he’ll just assign us to your ass again.”
“And I would welcome that—with a heads up, if you don’t mind, so I can make sure my ass is presentable.” When Cindy didn’t smile, Marguerite rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. I promise if I get into trouble and I think Win is in danger—let alone me—I’ll call you. If I don’t, it’s not you I’m worried about. Now that she’s gotten home and chummied up with Queen Catherine, Edeena could breathe the slightest hint of concern about me and I’d have half the Garronia National Security Force in wetsuits splashing up on that dock.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Cindy said, her eyes going wide. “I saw those guys. They are hot. Edeena’s got an in with ‘em?”
“She’s got more than an in. There are easily a dozen of my cousins enlisted in one form or another.”
“A dozen!”
“Garronia’s a small country and military service for the men is compulsory—unless they conscientiously object, and then they have to perform two years of charitable service. The majority choose military service—and a fair number stay on.”
“Like your cousins.”
Marguerite sighed. “Like my cousins. But trust me, though they’re hot, they’re a pain in the ass. You wouldn’t want them on your doorstep.”
“Well, Rob may not want them, but I always appreciate some good eye candy,” Cindy grinned. Then she sobered again, her gaze settling on Marguerite. “I seriously don’t like what I’ve found about Holt Hall, though. You read my report?”
“I did—and I appreciate it tremendously. I’ve read some of what you found, but by no means all of it.” Marguerite wondered if Win had known all of the sad history of the Holt family, and that that was why he’d tried to warn her off her mission to un-curse poor Dawson. Strangely though, the dire account of tragedy, abandonment and the odd horticultural phenomenon of the house’s purported black thumb only made her more convinced that she could help him. Chances were good that most of the family’s misfortune was coincidental, and then the planting mishaps merely served as a physical manifestation everyone could hold up as proof. She wondered if soil could turn spontaneously acidic—or maybe there’d been a chemical leak. There had to be a reason for the flowers all to die at once. “What’s your take on the curse? You think it’s real?”
To her surprise, Cindy took the question seriously. “It’s the south. You can’t turn around without finding something that’s jinxed or cursed or enchanted by some old ghost or another. That said, the dead plants were real, and the timing was a little too early for it to be a toxic dump. But that doesn’t mean something couldn’t have turned in the soil. Your best bet is to ask a county exchange agent, local farm expert, something like that.”
“The article you pulled on that said those tests have all been run.”
“Yeah, well—that was thirty years ago. Tests improve.”
Marguerite nodded. She’d thought the same herself. “And the house?”
“I’m way more worried about that old heap, and not because it could have squatters—the place looks like a crypt. Even the pictures they have from this year look like they were taken a century ago.”
“Photoshop tricks, I bet.”
Cindy gave a half shrug. “Maybe. But do me a favor and bring some sort of home inspector with you to make sure the structure’s solid. Or old Dawson himself would do, just so long as it’s not you walking first across those floors.”
Marguerite’s phone chirped, and she frowned down at it, not recognizing the number. “Local area code,” she said, holding the device out to Cindy.
Cindy took it smoothly.
“Ms. Saleri’s line, to whom am I speaking?”
There was the briefest moment, then a voice Marguerite already seemed to be hearing in her sleep rolled mellifluously over the phone. “How on earth did I ever live without you, Ms. Marks?”
“Not well, I can assure you,” Cindy said, but a smile now creased her face. “I assume you’ll know I’ll be keeping an eye on you both from a distance.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
Cindy handed the phone to Marguerite as a childish scream rose in volume from the water, followed by a splash. “Lord save me from little boys,” the bodyguard muttered, before turning and striding away, leaving Marguerite staring at her phone.
“Ms. Saleri?” floated the smooth, aristocratic voice.
She put the phone to her ear. “I thought you’d agreed to call me Marguerite.”
“So I did. Are you ready to begin our research today?”
Marguerite couldn’t help herself. She smiled the same way Cindy had, but she wasn’t sure what amused her more. Was it Win’s haughty, amused tone, his turn of phrase, the rich indolence to his voice? Or had it simply been far too long since she’d embarked on anything that was truly an adventure?
“I’m ready when you are,” she said.
“Excellent,” he said. “As it happens, I’m heading your way. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”
Win wasn’t surprised to see Marguerite waiting by herself when he pulled up to the house. She headed down the stairs with a light step, carrying a tote bag that looked like she could be prepared for anything from a shopping day trip to a weekend getaway. Win felt his body engage with interest at the latter idea, and he grimaced behind the tinted windshield as she approached. Better that he let those thoughts go. His reactions to Marguerite were too uncontrolled, too intense. If he didn’t watch himself, he’d rush her far too quickly for a man who up until a day ago was quite officially off the market.
In fact…perhaps it would be better if Marguerite thought he was still off the market. That might make things easier all around. Then Marguerite Saleri could cheerfully be on her way, and Win would take on his next challenge: finding some way to trigger the release of his family’s trust funds without the charade of a marriage. After the debacle of Juliet, there was no way he was putting himself through another marriage attempt. Let alone poor Bitters.
A rapping on the window jolted him. Win shot a glance to the left, aware that Marguerite had stopped as well. “Are you serious?” he heard through the window.
He punched a button and the window slid down. Cindy stood outside the car, her arms crossed. “I so knew you weren’t going to have bodyguards with you. You know I’m going to have to report that.”
Win fished in his jacket and pulled out a phone, which he handed to her as Marguerite opened the door and slid into the vehicle beside him. “Two of my best security personnel will be following at a discreet distance until we reach our destination. They are, happily enough, also proficient at construction. I plan to use them to enter the premises despite the key Dawson Holt has so graciously supplied, to ensure that the interior is not in as ramshackle condition as the exterior. I’ll have them transmit a message if anything unfortunate happens.”
; Opposite him, Cindy blinked. She took the phone. “How likely is it that this goes to a call center in Charleston to feed me whatever load of crap you prefer to dump?”
“Cindy,” Marguerite said, her tone warning. Win offered Cindy a, well, winning smile.
“I have no intention of allowing Ms. Saleri to come to harm on my watch,” he said, as formally as he could muster. He reached for another phone and swiped it on, then hit a number on speed dial. Moments later a second vehicle pulled in behind him. Cindy straightened and watched it. It was a utility van, with a home inspection decal on the side.
“Fair enough.”
Beside him, Marguerite groaned. “I swear to God, you’d think I was sixteen years old and going to my first dance,” she said, her words barely audible.
“Thank you, Mr. Masters,” Cindy said, stepping back from the car. “You take care now.”
Win thanked her as well—the woman was only doing her job—and pulled out of the long drive, the van lumbering behind him. He could sense the mortification flowing off Marguerite in waves, but she knew the drill better than anyone. She’d been living in a royal, or at least semi-royal, household her entire life. Security was simply part of the package.
Her thoughts must have been tracking his because, without turning her face from the window, she asked, “How heavy is your family security?”
“Now? Remarkably light. I usually use drivers who are trained bodyguards. When I drive solo, the entourage you just saw or some variation thereof are usually in play.”
That made her turn. “Seriously? Every day?”
“Well, not every day, no, but every day I travel. For the most part, their job is very boring, so I generally hire multi-taskers who can serve as private assistants, translators, and more usually construction experts like the gentlemen following us today.”
“So they can handle a hammer and a gun.”
“I prefer to be efficient.”
She chuckled, relaxing further. Win kept his gaze on the road as she studied him, still not quite ready to meet her eyes. She smelled faintly of honeysuckle and sunshine, as if she’d spent all morning outside in the garden, and he wanted the scent imprinted on his memory. He wanted everything about this woman imprinted on his memory, which was a problem.
Chosen: Gowns & Crowns, Book 7 Page 5