“There’s nothing socially inappropriate about a good shag.”
“Give it a rest already. She’s not my type.”
“So not a married closet queen, eh?”
On the edge of losing her temper, she shot back, “Payton Crane might have been a ‘horrid slag,’ as you called her, but our relationship was special to me. Her emotions ran very deep, something you couldn’t possibly understand.”
“Fine, but if you’re going to bend my ear about all the despicable ways that woman fucked you over for the past two years, the least you can do is allow me to detest her.”
Channing closed her eyes and sighed, scolding herself for treating Kenny the way she’d treated everyone of late. This wasn’t even about Payton. She was arguing with herself over what to do about Lark’s attention. It made her feel good for now, but what about later if Lark wanted more than she could give? “By all means, detest her. But please just sod it over Lark. I don’t want her to get the wrong idea.”
Kenny shrugged, a final surrender to her objections. “She seemed nice.”
“She is nice. And she rather liked you, though God knows why.”
* * *
Robin Saunders, read the phone display. Channing knew her as administrative assistant to Mitch Medrano, the charismatic CEO of Albright Trust. Robin had left a message earlier to say she’d call back at precisely eight p.m. BST, which was three in the afternoon in Boston.
“This is Channing Hughes.”
“Please hold for Mr. Medrano.”
She’d been dodging this call all week, convinced that nothing good could come from an exit interview with Mitch, especially if his suspicions led him to ask about Payton. Or maybe he simply wanted to be sure she hadn’t absconded with competitive intelligence. Walking off her job without notice was admittedly unprofessional but she’d hardly left them in a lurch. Her desk was clear already, all of her projects handed off in preparation for the extended leave of absence she’d taken so she could tend to matters of her grandfather’s estate.
“Channing, how are you? Belinda and I were quite pleased to read in the Financial Times about your grandfather’s memorial at the library. Such an accomplished man. Did I ever tell you that we used his text in my economics class at Yale?”
She genuinely liked Mitch, and his wife too. For someone rightly considered the corporate elite, he was down-to-earth, helping to foster a family atmosphere in the office. While Payton had been almost paranoid about Mitch discovering their affair, Channing liked to think he’d have been sympathetic to their situation. It was plain that Payton was trapped in her marriage because society had for so long deemed it the only relationship worthy of recognition.
But Mitch couldn’t possibly have known of their affair because it was the best kept secret in Boston. Two lovers had never been so discreet.
“Channing, your resignation took us all completely by surprise. I couldn’t imagine what happened to bring that about so suddenly. Was it something to do with a client? I know some of those guys are Neanderthals still stuck in the 1950s. Please tell me you didn’t have to deal with that. I don’t care how big their contract is, Albright doesn’t put up with that kind of garbage. All you have to do is bring it to us.”
“No, it was nothing like that. Truly, I apologize for the abruptness of it all. To be honest, it surprised me as well. I thought with my extended leave already scheduled—”
“And then Belinda wondered if it involved someone here at the office. We don’t sweep that sort of thing under the rug either, Channing. Human resources takes these issues very seriously.”
A sickening mix of panic and embarrassment triggered a warm shudder. His cryptic musings hinted that he might know about her relationship with Payton after all. If so, then HR and legal had probably huddled with their knickers in a knot and insisted he call her for assurances that she wouldn’t sue the company for sexual harassment. The thought had never seriously crossed her mind. Yes, her career had suffered from the affair—mostly because she’d willingly passed up the chance to apply for a promotion that likely was hers for the asking. Overnight travel for client meetings was her only chance to be with Payton without the stress of someone finding out.
“I spoke with Payton. She said you were very close to your grandfather, that he was your only family in England. So of course it makes perfect sense that you’re still struggling with his loss, maybe feeling homesick. I can see how that might have snuck up on you the day you left. It’s just that you’re not the kind to do something rash.”
Was he having her on? Like Payton, Mitch sounded very much as if he wanted her to confirm that she’d left for personal reasons unrelated to Albright. Apparently that was the company line—get this matter closed as soon as possible. Homesickness was as good a reason as any, she decided, since she had no desire to drag her own name through the mud with a salacious exposé. “That’s exactly it, Mitch. I’ve been feeling out of sorts since Poppa died, a longing for the family home, if you will. It overwhelmed me all of a sudden.”
“I understand completely, believe me.” His voice took on a fresh enthusiasm that sounded like relief. “I went through something similar last year when Pop died. Rest in peace.”
She envisioned him genuflecting, good Catholic that he was.
“It helped me a lot to feel like I had a family here at Albright. What I’m saying is this—I’d like you to reconsider, Channing. I get that you’re feeling overwhelmed. By all means take as much time as you need. The whole summer if necessary. But then come on back. We’re your family now, all of us at Albright. We’ve got a busy calendar this fall for mergers.” He then lowered his voice. “Just between us, I don’t think Boyd Womack can handle all these clients. Sometimes I think Payton threw him into the deep end of the pool just to see if he’d drown.” He named several projects their team had been working on, and even mentioned that he was counting on both her and Payton to close the Grandover deal by October.
He honestly didn’t have a clue why she’d left.
“What I’m saying is you should take some time to get your bearings. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone if there’s anything we can do to help. I’ll need to run all this by the board, so it could take a while for HR to put together a formal package. But the bottom line is you belong here at Albright. In fact, I’m looking for you to take over the Eastern region. Senior client manager. Will you think about it at least?”
Head up the Eastern region? That was Payton’s job.
Was there such a thing as mental whiplash? She’d climbed out of bed this morning moderately wealthy only to learn she was broke. But not to worry, because she could rent out her uterus to her gay best friend and become a countess. Now Albright was riding in on a white horse to save her from financial collapse—by giving her Payton’s job.
So what the hell did that mean for Payton?
Chapter Seven
Penderworth was as fascinating on the inside as it had appeared to Lark from the driveway. Not a royal mansion by any means, but grand just the same. Though to hear Channing tell it, it was quite ordinary despite its historic designation as a manor home.
The guided tour had so far been a history lesson, from the craftsman masonry and woodwork to the rugged period pieces blended among more modern furnishings. Very few fine antiques—just old stuff. On the upper floor were four cavernous bedrooms, one of them converted to a study. All had high ceilings with crown molding and crystal chandeliers, and large casement windows. Channing’s room had a private bath, a renovation from twenty years ago. The older lavatory, with its claw-foot tub and marble top basin, was off the main hallway. Though far from lavish, it was a splendid home for a family, certainly more opulent than Channing was willing to admit. Penderworth was a palace compared to the dilapidated row house in Mattapan where Lark had grown up.
Lark paused at the top of the stairs to envision life at Penderworth more than two centuries ago, before electricity and running water. The eyes of the manor’s earliest
occupants followed their movements from imposing oil portraits that lined the second-floor hallway. All covering cracks in the walls, Channing had said.
“Channing, I can’t believe you might lose all this after having it in your family for so long.”
“I’m sure it never occurred to Poppa that I might someday want to live here, or he’d have told me about his portfolio. I’d made a life for myself in Boston, and for all he knew I was happy there. For all I knew, as well.”
The Channing Hughes enigma again, revealing yet another permutation of her complex persona. Gone for now was the angry brooder with the sardonic swagger. This Channing was coming to grips with her vulnerability.
At first glance, the invitation to tour was Channing honoring a rain check, repaying a favor for the ride home from the pub. Or maybe she’d felt compelled to demonstrate, as she had on the plane, that she was capable of being polite. Surely she knew that good manners displayed only as social pleasantries didn’t strictly require follow-through.
Or maybe Channing actually liked her well enough to extend herself, something Lark had begun to doubt until she got the invitation.
“I checked you out online, Lady Hughes. I know…it’s kind of stalker-ish. But trust me, everyone who meets you does the same thing. You have a way of sticking in people’s heads. And unless you’ve fudged your work bio, you’re still holding a pretty decent hand.” To say nothing of the fact that women who knew how to present themselves in a world where appearances mattered could usually write their own ticket. “This is a temporary setback, nothing more.”
She kept her voice down, since Channing said she hadn’t yet told the domestic couple in her employ that the dwindled estate would soon force them into retirement. Her concern for their welfare was poignant.
Channing nudged her to start back down the stairs. “That should be a comfort to us when we’re all sleeping rough, with our pitiful signs and tin cups. Best watch your step here…I’m fairly certain the insurance has lapsed.”
“If I were litigious, I’d have sued you already for destroying my company car.”
“Point taken, Dr. Latimer.”
“I bet this is a great house for parties.”
“Perhaps for the Penderworths. We weren’t the partying sort, Poppa and I. Most of his closest associates had real money, if you know what I mean. Like Kenny’s dad, the Earl of Alanford. A party here would be like a social welfare visit for them. Speaking of Kenny, my silly viscount friend…he’s joining us for supper with his boyfriend Oliver. Hope you don’t mind. He’s really quite harmless.”
“He’s really quite hilarious.”
She’d genuinely enjoyed their banter at the pub. And while she appreciated Channing sharing her friends, she wondered if Channing had invited the guys as a buffer, a way to keep her in the friend zone. Which was disappointing. But also fine. Best not to get the wrong idea.
Their tour wrapped up downstairs in the great hall before another row of gilded portraits, where Channing shared a bit of history on the Hughes family. Great-great-grandfather Samuel had launched the family business in 1910, a small textile company that grew rapidly with a contract for the half-million military uniforms needed in the First World War.
“Little did our defense ministers realize the khaki dye they demanded had to be smuggled in from Germany.”
“So you’re descended from scofflaws.”
“Oh no, I’m a Hughes.”
Lark sighed loudly. “I refuse to laugh at slapstick humor.”
Channing grinned, exposing a slight upper snaggletooth Lark hadn’t noticed before. “Speaking of slapstick, Kenny was quite impressed to hear that I’d actually made a friend, meaning you of course. Though I can’t imagine why. I’m not a monster…despite what you might have seen of me on the plane.”
“We all have our bad days.” Hearing Channing relegate her to the friend zone was deflating at first—she wanted Channing to find her fascinating—but there was something to be said for making it onto what was probably a very short list. “I’m a sucker for anyone who tosses her drink at a creep. If you’re going to be a monster, be a righteous one.”
Channing guided her down the line where they eventually reached a portrait done in the Dutch Masters style, a brightly-lit mustachioed face against a dark background. She stood back and folded her arms as if studying it anew. “This was Poppa, my grandfather…painted thirty-odd years ago before I was born. He never seemed to age but for the gray. Cheeky looking, wasn’t he?”
Lark had to agree. “A white beard and he’d be Santa Claus.”
Channing lingered as if paying homage, her eyes glassy with tears.
“You miss him.”
“Very much. I’d have liked the chance to say goodbye.”
“For what it’s worth, goodbyes aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be. Especially long ones.” She briefly described her mother’s lingering deterioration from diabetes and a series of strokes, frankly admitting the most trying part of the ordeal was Ma’s angry disposition.
“Seven years. That’s so dreadfully sad. I suppose I should feel lucky Poppa didn’t suffer.”
“You’re allowed to feel any way you want.” Lark regretted that her reflections on Ma had shifted the spotlight away from Channing and onto herself. “I bet you and your Poppa made quite a pair.”
“Mum sent me back here to live at eight years old. Poppa and I were rightly terrified of one another but we somehow muddled through. He was quite important then, a member of Parliament, economic advisor to Thatcher. Very proper. Whereas I had an embarrassing knack for finding trouble.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“Nothing too awful. But when I found it, it was usually because Kenny lifted the rock and showed me where it was.”
They wrapped up the portrait tour with Channing’s father, a handsome air force officer killed in the First Gulf War when she was just a toddler. And Aunt Frances, who’d suffered from depression and taken her own life shortly after a miscarriage. It was a lot of tragedy for one family, despite the fortune they’d enjoyed. And now Channing was last of the line.
“Any chance your portrait gets added to—”
“Excuse me, Miss Channing. Shall I bring tea?”
Lark pivoted toward the familiar voice and found herself face-to-face with none other than Subject 17, Maisie Browning. A flicker of recognition flashed in the woman’s eyes, but then she fixed her gaze firmly on Channing. Clearly she was anxious, perhaps that Lark would give away something learned in the interview. She recalled that Mrs. Browning hadn’t told her employer of her wish to retire. It was possible she’d also hidden the extent of her ailment.
Channing said, “There you are. Cecil said you were feeling a bit under the weather. Are you better?”
“Yes, thank you. Nothing of concern.”
“I say we pass on the tea since Kenny should be here any moment for supper. Unless of course”—she addressed Lark—“my guest would like to show off her tea skills.”
“No, thank you. But I’ve been practicing at home. Four and a half minutes, no swishing the tea bag, milk first.”
“I had a clue you were very bright. Lark, please allow me to introduce someone I consider part of my family.” With obvious affection, Channing wrapped an arm around the housekeeper’s shoulder. “This is Maisie Browning. She and her husband Cecil—he’s the gentleman you saw waiting for me at the airport—they’ve worked for the Hughes family here at Penderworth for…”
“Thirty-four years. I was the first to hold you the night you were born.”
“I remember it well. Your hands were cold,” Channing teased. “Maisie, please meet my new friend from Boston, Dr. Lark Latimer. Lark came to my rescue on the plane when I found myself on the receiving end of someone’s misguided attentions. By incredible coincidence we ran into each other last week at the Crown and Punchbowl. She’s in Cambridge for a few weeks working on a project for her company.”
“I do clinical
research for Gipson Pharmaceuticals,” she said formally, signaling her willingness to play along. Confidentiality was everything in the medical world. “Something in your kitchen smells wonderful.”
“That’s my shepherd’s pie.”
“It’s Kenny’s favorite,” Channing added, making a gagging gesture behind Mrs. Browning’s back. “Everyone spoils that lad. It’s no wonder he’s such a pill.”
Maisie’s eyes darted toward the front window and she smiled. “There’s Lord Teasely now. I’ll set supper out, you can help yourself whenever you like.”
Lark winced to see Maisie hobbling back toward the kitchen, her arthritis an obvious burden on this rainy day. The sooner Channing and the Brownings had a heart-to-heart talk about the future of Penderworth, the better off they all would be.
* * *
“…I thought I’d bloody died and gone to hell,” Kenny wailed. “There I was, standing in the office of a senior partner confessing not only to the fact that I was gay, but also that by some mortifying coincidence I happened to be bonking the man our client was suing for millions.” He tipped his head toward his boyfriend Oliver. “Plemmons was absolutely gobsmacked. You’d have thought I was shagging his mum.”
Oliver made a Who, me? face and shrugged. In contrast to Kenny’s crisp oxford shirt and slacks, Oliver wore the uniform of a tech hipster—jeans and a plain black T-shirt with a hoodie. His shaving schedule was bimonthly at best. He cleared his throat and spoke directly to Lark, “So you won’t think I’m a prat, his client wasn’t suing me personally. It was a patent case involving one of our products. I merely represented our technology interests. We eventually settled by merging with their company and firing all the solicitors.”
“A man after my own heart,” Channing said. “Albright insures companies through mergers and acquisitions. My job was to figure out how much capital they stood to lose if it all suddenly went pear-shaped.”
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