Love & Liability (A High Tea & Flip-Flops Novel Book 2)

by Linda Cassidy Lewis

  Mom meets me at the door. “I was just coming to tell you we’re going in to dinner.” She waves in the Shakespearean comedy troupe behind me.

  Gordon and Amanda insisted that Ethan stay, which makes us nine at the table. Just as I’m about to take the chair Jeremy’s pulled out for me, Gordon speaks.

  “Please, Marie and Chelsea, sit by me. Amanda had you for tea, but I’ve not had much chance to enjoy your company.”

  Amanda and Gordon take their usual places at opposite ends of the table while the rest of us shuffle around. Mom and I move to each side of Gordon. But Amanda stops Jeremy from sitting next to me.

  “Here please, Jeremy.” Amanda indicates the chair to her right. Richard, frowning because he’d been about to sit there, instead claims the chair to her left.

  Uncle Bert sits beside Mom, and Ethan moves to Jeremy’s side, leaving Laura to choose either the chair between me and Ethan or Richard and Uncle Bert. I beckon her with my eyes and am relieved when she comes to my side. Game of Thrones pops into my mind because it feels like we’re positioning for battle.

  This time, I know not to try to chat with the “staff.” But I’ll have to speak to Gordon, obviously, unless my mother monopolizes his attention. Please do, Mom. I’d rather listen and learn.

  “Chelsea,” Gordon says before I’ve had a single taste of the soup, “what do you think of our England?”

  “I love it. Even if it is cold.”

  “You find us unwelcoming?”

  “Oh. No. I meant the weather. I was already prepared for the people to be reserved. Like Jeremy.”

  Gordon glances down the table toward Jeremy. “Is he?”

  “Well, he’s not as snooty as he used to be. And I guess I partly got the wrong impression of that. He was really just kind of shy around me.”

  Gordon’s eyebrows shoot upward. “Shy?”

  “Yeah. But still, he can be stuffy. Maybe not what you—”

  “Albert has shown me so many fascinating places in London,” my mom says.

  For a moment, Gordon seems perplexed at Mom’s deflection. Then he smiles at her and looks quizzically at Albert. I guess he hadn’t heard they’d been dating … if that’s what they’re doing. I take advantage of Gordon’s attention being on my mom telling him about all those fascinating places to tune into the conversation at the other end of the table.

  “… that those plans are already finalized,” Jeremy tells his mother.

  “I did. But you know your father. He’s already decided to make the offer.”

  “Could you ask him not to, please?”

  “I would think you’d be grateful, Jeremy,” Richard says. “Your wedding should be an event in this community.”

  Our wedding? They’re discussing our wedding plans? I’m trying to catch Jeremy’s eye, but he’s too busy glaring at Richard. I tune everyone out and finish my soup. We should have more courses in our meals at home. Jeremy must think Mom and I are barbaric. All this time I’ve been trying to get him to loosen up when I should have been learning from him. We could be sort of elegant on a budget.

  “Is that so?” Gordon’s voice startles me, but I don’t realize his question was actually directed to me until my mom says my name.

  “I’m sorry … um … Gordon … sir, could you repeat that?” (Why am I just now realizing I don’t know how I should address him?)

  Gordon shows no sign I’ve insulted him. In fact, he might be slightly smiling—it’s hard to tell because he has such deeply ingrained frown lines.

  “Your mother tells me you have a degree in marketing?”

  “Oh. Yes. But just a BS, not an MBA.” (Do they even call those degrees by the same names here?) And how did a discussion of London’s tourist spots veer to my education, anyway?

  “Interesting that you and your mother both work with finances,” Gordon says.

  “Quite interesting,” Richard adds.

  I don’t get his tone and glance at Jeremy for a clue, but he’s glaring at his brother again.

  “But, now, you write novels?” Gordon asks.

  “She also handles the marketing for our business.” Jeremy sounds like he’s making a point in argument. “She’s both intuitive and skilled in that.”

  Richard sneers at Jeremy. “Your business?”

  “Yes, Richard. Chancing Press is a limited liability corporation.”

  Invisible weapons are definitely drawn at that end of the table.

  “Isn’t that lovely?” Amanda lays one hand on each of her sons’ arms.

  “I don’t believe you mentioned the incorporation,” Gordon says. “Are you finding the American business law a challenge?”

  “Not at all,” Jeremy says. “For the most part, it’s based on British law.”

  “Ah. Well, then.”

  Luckily, the next course is served and we all grow quiet for a couple of minutes. As I eat, I watch Jeremy. Finally, he looks up at me, and I get a smile. A weak one. His jaw looks so tense I’m surprised he can chew. I think I’ve missed some subtext to the conversation around this table. Well, except for Richard’s brattiness. I get that. And there he goes, breaking the silence.

  “After dinner, dear brother, will you favor us with your playing?”

  Another glare from Jeremy.

  “Oh, please do,” Amanda says.

  Playing?

  So yeah. Jeremy plays piano. Jeremy plays piano very well. But I’m doing great at hiding the fact I had no idea he plays, so it’s all cool.

  “Oh, Jeremy, that was beautiful,” Mom says when he finishes his piece. “I had no idea you played. Did you, Chelsea?”

  Jeremy keeps me from deciding whether to lie. “Thank you, Marie, but since we don’t have a piano at home, I didn’t feel it worth mentioning.”

  “Well, we’re going to remedy that,” she says like a piano is something she’ll pick up on her next trip to Target.

  We’re having drinks and coffee in what the Pearces call their family room. It’s the first room we sat in this afternoon. The one with the wall of photos. When, at Amanda’s urging, Jeremy begins to play a second piece, I get up and move toward the photos. I’m anxious to see if there’s anything else I don’t know about my fiancé.

  Yep. There is. He’s wearing glasses in the photos taken when he was a child. He doesn’t wear glasses now or even contacts—I’d have noticed. And there he is with Laura, both teens, dressed in fancy riding clothes and sitting on what looks like twin horses. And there he’s in ski gear. Probably in the Alps. Or maybe somewhere more exotic. Speaking of exotic, here’s a photo of the whole family posed in front of the Taj Mahal. Another of them looks like it’s in some Asian setting, a Buddhist temple maybe. And there are several shots of the Pearce children, at various ages, taken in tropical locales.

  “I’d be happy to show you the family albums, if you like,” Amanda says from behind me.

  When I turn toward her, I see that Jeremy has finished playing. I didn’t even hear the music stop.

  “Yes, I’d like that. Jeremy’s seen all my childhood photos, but he had none to show me.”

  “We have hundreds. I’ll get some copied for you, dear.” Amanda smiles as she looks at the wall behind me. “He’s quite photogenic, don’t you think?”

  “Totally.” Why did Jeremy give me the wrong impression of her? She doesn’t seem coldhearted to me. I’ve seen that smile on my mom. It’s a proud mother’s smile.

  Jeremy’s watching us intently. When he realizes I’m looking at him, he beckons me over. Yeah, like I’m going to just walk away from his mother.

  “Well,” she says. “I suppose we should rejoin the others.”

  Wow. It almost makes you believe it’s true that mothers have eyes in the backs of their heads.

  Ethan left after dinner … well, after the obligatory after-dinner coffee, which to his credit he drank rather than opting for more liquor like the other men. I can’t believe how much these people drink. We sit around talking, mostly about the places the Pearce
s have traveled to, which is a subject Mom brought up. I’ve missed parts of the discussion because I’m trying to think what I’ll say if they ask me about my world travels—which are non-existent. This is my first trip outside the United States, well, except for a couple of trips to Mexico, and that’s so close to home, I’m not sure that counts. My mom traveled to a few interesting places, at least, before she had us kids.

  Luckily, no one asks me, and I’m relieved when it’s time for bed.

  Mom will be sleeping in a bedroom on the second floor—or whatever number they’ve assigned it—but the rest of us are on the floor above that. Except for Uncle Bert who has a “cottage” on the grounds, which, in Pearce terms, probably means a six-bedroom house. Jeremy and I are in his old room. He says Amanda moved the kids up here when they were teens so she could take over most of the second floor to create a master suite. You’d have to see that suite to believe it. I’ve seen it. Her dressing room alone is bigger than our bedroom at home. Her dressing room. I’m hoping to sneak around to snap photos of all the rooms in this house. Gabi will freak when she sees them.

  Anyway.

  This weekend, Jeremy, Laura, and Richard will be staying in the same rooms they slept in when they all still lived here. They even had their own, like, common room with a media center and kitchenette, making this whole floor a kind of dorm. I don’t know how much time they spent here though. The way Jeremy tells it, they spent most of their time at boarding schools. I haven’t seen Laura’s and Richard’s rooms, but Jeremy’s room is way bigger than ours at home. It even has a fireplace, but I think that’s a holdover from when the house was first built. It’s warm in this house, but there was only one fireplace burning downstairs, so that was probably just for ambience. In my quest to learn all I didn’t already know about Jeremy, I’m itching to examine every bit of this room, but he has other ideas. He’s kissing my neck as he guides me toward the bed.

  “Does Richard have his own place or does he still live with your parents?”

  Jeremy puts a hand over my mouth. “Could we not talk about him at the moment? Or ever.”

  Sigh. He has only one thing on his mind. I grab his wrist and do this awesome leverage and spin move so he ends up flat on the bed with me on top of him. He looks startled for a moment. Then he grins.

  “All right, girl, show me what you’ve got.”

  “You can’t handle what I’ve got.”

  “Then I shall die happy.”

  I sit up, straddling his thighs. “Close your eyes.”

  “I’d rather look at you.”

  “Close your eyes and use your imagination, Mr. Writer.” He closes them. “No peeking.”

  “You haven’t gotten into sadism without telling me, have you?”

  “Hush.”

  For a moment, I sit quietly admiring the handsome man beneath me. My treasure. With my fingernail barely touching, I trace over his eyelids, down the length of his nose, across his top lip, and then the bottom. His breath slows. He lies still. Slowly, I unbutton his shirt, brushing my lips across the skin as I uncover it. I unbutton his jeans and pull his shirttails loose. Grasping his collar, I lift him to sit and strip off his shirt. His eyelids flutter.

  “Quit peeking.”

  I lay him back down. I wait until I’m sure he’s keeping his eyes closed before I rake my nails lightly over his shoulders and down his biceps and across his nipples and down his stomach. His groan satisfies me, empowers me. I start over, this time raking his skin with more pressure. He takes a deep, shuddery breath. I slip farther down his thighs so I can run my tongue around his navel, while I slide down his zipper.

  “Wait,” he says, his voice a husky whisper. He’s breathing hard now. His fingers tangle in my hair. “Wait.”

  “No.”

  I spring loose the object of my desire from the confines of his underwear.

  CHAPTER 11

  I wake again just before dawn. With all the liquor and wine and food I consumed last night, I didn’t sleep well. I got spooked one of the times I woke. A strange noise started me thinking about how old and how big this house is, and I wondered if it might be haunted. Then I worried it was a ghost that kept waking me, so I spent the rest of the night with my head under the covers and my body pressed against Jeremy’s.

  Now, after scanning the room for any unwanted visitors, I tiptoe to the window to catch the sunrise. Sometimes I miss being awake when most of the world is still sleeping—not that I miss waking that early to go work in a deli, which is where I worked when I first met Jeremy. But I miss the peacefulness. At home, Mom is always awake before I am, unless she’s sick, so there’s no time for quiet morning thoughts alone.

  Standing at this window at the top of the house, surrounded by silence, is even better than driving alone through mostly deserted streets. As the sky lightens, the grounds come into view, shrouded in mist tinted pink by the first glow of sunrise. It’s breathtaking. Jeremy was so lucky to grow up in such a beautiful place.

  He stirs behind me. “What are you doing up so early?”

  “I wanted to see the sunrise. Come look. It’s so gorgeous and romantic, like that scene in the movie Pride and Prejudice when Keira and Matthew see each other across the misty moor.”

  “You’re not looking at a moor. And since when are you an Austen fan?”

  His grumpiness surprises me, but I choose to ignore it. “You know I love that movie. You watched it with me and Mom just last month.” He says nothing, so I turn back to the window. The light is now coloring the mist golden. A movement below draws my eye. “Oh. Isn’t that your uncle?”

  Jeremy gets out of bed to peer over my head. “Yes, it is … apparently on the way to his cottage.”

  “But I thought he slept in his cottage last night.”

  Jeremy pulls me back against him and whispers in my ear. “You’re very sexy in the morning.”

  “No, you’re just very horny in the morning. And don’t we need to get showered and dressed?”

  “Precisely my thought.” He pulls me away from the window. “To the shower with us.”

  The kitchen of Dovewood House shocks me. It’s not only the largest one I’ve ever seen, but it’s also completely modernized. A dining table sits at the far end, in a large alcove with floor-to-ceiling windows and glass doors offering a spectacular 180-degree view of the grounds. The room glows with the natural light plus chandeliers and recessed spotlights all illuminating pale sand-colored stone countertops and floor, beige walls, white cabinetry—scads of it—and stainless steel appliances. I can’t imagine this looks anything like the original kitchen.

  Amanda, Gordon, Uncle Bert, and Mom are engrossed in conversation around the table. A short older woman stands at the stove, evidently the Mrs. Flynn Jeremy’s told me about. But surely she’s not cooking more for this meal because there’s already a dozen dishes displayed on the breakfast bar. I’m relieved to see this meal is a casual buffet.

  Jeremy takes my hand, and we walk up behind Mrs. Flynn. He taps her on the shoulder. When she turns around, her face lights up.

  “Here’s me dear boy.” She lays down her wooden spoon to clasp his face between her hands. “Say you missed me cooking, even if that’s a lie.”

  “Indeed I do miss it, as well as your smiles. But don’t you worry. I’m being well fed at home.”

  She lets him go and folds her hands above her stomach as she looks me over. “By this pretty one?”

  “Yes, and her mother, Marie.” He puts his arm around my shoulders. “Mrs. Flynn, I’d like you to meet my fiancée, Chelsea Cole.”

  I hold out my hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot of great things about your cooking.”

  Mrs. Flynn swats away my words, but she’s beaming. She takes my hand in both of hers and leans close so she can speak quietly. “I’m being forever grateful if you make me dear boy happy for the rest of his life.”

  “That’s my plan.”

  She winks at me, and then she turns back to the s
tove and picks up her spoon. “I’ve got your favorite dish planned for tonight.”

  “Which one?” Jeremy asks.

  She chuckles and shoos him away. “You and the miss eat your breakfast now.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I follow Jeremy’s lead and fill a plate from the buffet spread. I’m a little mystified by Mrs. Flynn’s display of affection toward him. Surely she’s not a relative or he wouldn’t call her Mrs. But then, I’m already confused by the Pearce family relationships. I’ll have to ask him about her later.

  “Did you sleep well?” Amanda asks.

  When Jeremy doesn’t respond, I do. “Very well, thank you. I got up early to watch the sunrise.” Jeremy nudges me with his knee. Did I say something wrong?

  “It’s peaceful waking here in the country.” Amanda laughs lightly. “It’s peaceful here all the time, I suppose. The city can be so stressful.”

  “Not for Gordon,” Uncle Bert says. “He thrives on it.”

  “Some of us have no choice,” Gordon grumbles.

  I sense reproof, but I don’t know why. And my mom, ever vigilant to avoid discord, jumps in.

  “I can’t wait to take a walk around your beautiful grounds.”

  Uncle Bert grins. “It will be my pleasure to act as your guide, Marie.”

  I’m still looking at Gordon, so I catch the dark look he shoots at Uncle Bert. I feel like I’ve missed something. Maybe they argued before Jeremy and I came downstairs. If so, whatever was said doesn’t seem to have bothered Uncle Bert. I wish Laura had been at the table; she’d clue me in.

  A few minutes later, Gordon stands. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a few phone calls to make. Jeremy, I’d like you to come to my study when you’ve finished eating.” He’s already turning toward the door when he adds, “If you will.”

  Laura and I are sitting in the sun on the terrace. When she came down to the kitchen and found out Jeremy was with his father, she decided to bring her coffee and toast breakfast outside. At her invitation, we left Richard and Amanda alone in the kitchen.