Inside, the Bentley’s beige leather was velvety, and pale wood trimmed out the doors and dash up front.
The door latched shut beside Gen, and the city noise that she hadn’t even noticed out there stopped. The silence was so sudden that she felt like her ears were stopped up. She sniffed and breathed through her ears for a moment to try to clear them, but the car still insulated her from all sound.
Pippa opened the driver’s door.
London groaned and growled and whined like fighting ferrets.
When Pippa shut her door, it all stopped again.
Wow.
Pippa turned over the engine, and a slight hum fluttered under Gen’s feet through the deep, plush carpeting.
This thing sounded like it was even the twelve-cylinder model—the expensive upgraded engine for the truly wealthy—and it probably sounded like a snarling bear to anyone outside.
Damn.
Pippa informed Gen, “Lord Severn has arranged for you to meet his tailor at Selfridges. He wanted me to convey his apologies for not meeting you himself, but time is of the essence today.”
“Thank you?” Gen said, still unsure.
“Of course.” Pippa pulled into traffic with the easy confidence of someone driving a car that could accelerate like a roller coaster if she needed it to, and she drove them through the skyscrapers and building-lined streets of central London.
When Pippa pulled the car up to the side entrance of the city-block-sized department store that is Selfridges, a lanky man in a slim suit was waiting at the curb and opened Gen’s door. Traffic noise swarmed into the car. Hundreds of Ionic columns lined the five-story building that towered above her.
“Come!” the man holding the door ordered. “Out now, Ms. Ward!”
Pippa twisted around and told her, “That’s Graham. I’ll pick you up here when he calls.”
“All right.” Gen scooted out of the car and trotted after the man into the store and followed him up the escalator.
Way up the escalator.
Gen had never been that far up in the rarefied air at Selfridges before. She had always shopped on the lower, less expensive floors, and the escalator hummed under her feet as they rose through the floors into the ever-more-expensive areas.
The tailor whisked Gen through the designers’ areas and into a dressing room, tossing gown after gown over the changing room door at her.
Blue satin wrapped around her head, and she struggled to free herself, ripping out strands of her hair that caught in the tiny beads. A lot of the dresses had beads.
With absolutely no input from Gen, Graham decided that a scarlet silk sheath, beaded with thousands of silvery grains, best highlighted her coloring and flattered her figure, such as it was. His long examination down his nose told Gen exactly what he thought of her figure.
He also grabbed some sort of cast-iron underwear that he stuffed her into with a clinical, disinterested demeanor before he wound a dressmaker’s tape around her body like he was trussing her up to bake for Thanksgiving. The way that he handled her body felt mechanical, like he was pounding a dent out of her chassis and fine-tuning her engine’s timing before a parade.
Gen kept her panic about being manhandled under control during Graham’s disinterested, perfunctory procedure. He didn’t even look at her most of the time, either examining the overall effect he saw in the mirror or staring at the dressmaker’s tape and entering the numbers into his phone.
At the register, Gen reached her shaking hand into her purse for her wallet, not knowing how she was going to be able to afford to pay the bill for all those zeroes on the price tag.
Graham the tailor waved her off and told the clerk to put everything on his tab, including a small box of chocolates that he tucked in a bag for her. He winked and told her, “Lord Severn wants you to have a lovely time tonight.”
Well, that seemed nice of him.
Less than an hour after she left work, Gen was hustled back to the curb and the waiting car. Pippa drove her home to freshen up while Gen tried to figure out what had just happened.
Half an hour after that, Graham dropped off the dress that he had altered to just skim her curves that were uplifted and tucked and smoothed by the corset.
An hour after that, Gen locked her front door as the Bentley pulled up yet again. The insanely expensive car looked monstrous in this working class neighborhood, a noble lord striding among the peasants’ hovels. The sedan looked larger than some of the row houses that closely lined the streets, and the paint shone darkly in the moonlight that showered the roofs and fences. Light from the corner street lamp splashed a cold glare over the car’s rectangular grille.
Gen’s brand-new high-heels wobbled on the rough cement as she walked the few steps to the sidewalk, and she clutched the dress’s heavy fabric to hold the hem above her ankles. A small, matching purse dangled from her wrist, another surprise from Graham when he had delivered the altered dress.
She didn’t feel like a princess.
More like a vandalized statue.
Yet she needed to blend in at the party to keep an eye on Lord Severn, Arthur, so she bobbled on her high heels to the waiting car. She had worn her work coat over it, a modest but tailored beige trenchcoat, which kept her warm in the near-freezing night. The weather had turned colder that day.
This time, when Gen slid into the back seat while Pippa held the door, Lord Severn, Arthur, was waiting for her. She said, “Oh. Hi?”
He said, “Good evening,” and looked away, out the side window at the lit windows of the other houses across the narrow street.
Tonight, Lord Severn, Arthur, was wearing a suit-type tuxedo with a dark gray tie. Just as the dome light inside the car dimmed, Gen saw that the monochrome black and silver contrasted his eyes, and they looked pale baby blue.
He had thick, black eyelashes, too, the bastard. He really had won the genetic lottery: looks, a noble title, and untold wealth.
The man even smelled good. A trace of his cologne wafted through the car: spices and faint wood smoke.
Pippa slid into the driver’s seat and pulled the car away from the curb, driving through the affordable section of Islington. Gen hoped they wouldn’t get mugged in such an ostentatious car.
She started, “Um, thank you for the dress, and the shoes, and the purse, and everything.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to look at him anymore. Her brain might turn to goo from his gorgeousness, and he had spent thousands of pounds on the clothes she was wearing that evening. It was embarrassing. “I can pay you back.”
“It’s fine,” he said, still looking away.
“No, I will pay you back. I didn’t want to make a scene with Graham, but I don’t want you to pay for all this.”
He flipped his fingers, dismissing her thanks and her offer. “It’s quite all right. You would have been within your rights to bill me for them, so I’m merely avoiding the hassle and billing fees.”
She sucked in a shocked breath. “I wouldn’t.”
He turned slightly to look at her from the sides of his eyes. A streetlamp passing over the car flashed pale light over his face, illuminating his cheekbones and hard jaw. “You’re a barrister. Of course, you would have.”
“Just because I’m a barrister doesn’t mean that I don’t have scruples!”
“There are many professions where ethics matter less than results. The law is surely one of them.”
“Look, I know how a lot of lawyers operate. My boss, Octavia Hawkes, quotes Machiavelli so much that I think she’s going to launch a coup. I’m not like that. I won’t compromise what’s right.”
When he laughed, he leaned back against the car seat. “Practicing for your QC application already, are you?”
“I’m not. I believe that.”
“Perhaps, but you won’t for long. And if you didn’t bill me for the dress and your time tonight, Octavia Hawkes would.”
“I wouldn’t let her. I’d strike it out,” Gen insisted.
“We’
ve already taken care of the dress. Bill me for the hours yourself so that you won’t get on the wrong side of your boss. I understand. I expect it.”
“I can’t believe that you think I would do such a thing!”
“I’ve dealt with many lawyers in my life. Many. You should do it.”
“You don’t know me well at all.”
“I’m pretty good at reading people.”
“You didn’t ‘read’ me very well yesterday morning. Or maybe that was just your arrogance, thinking that all women want to fall on their backs and hand you their panties.”
This time, he turned and looked straight at her. The inside of the car brightened as they sped through Knightsbridge, one of the poshest parts of London near Kensington Palace. Light shone out of the glass buildings and huge windows of the expensive apartment buildings, illuminating the street. He said, “I did misread you that afternoon, but I don’t think that about women.”
“Like Hell, you don’t. I know guys like you, arrogant and full of yourselves. Let me tell you one thing, buster: I’m not like that. So you can just stop thinking that you can charm my panties off and stop being mad because you can’t. I’m here because you can’t keep your panties on. If you acted like a damn adult, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Now you cowboy up and quit sulking.”
Lord Severn, Arthur, had listened in smoldering, angry silence, and his eyes narrowed. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.” The car slid to a stop, and he was out of his door before she could say boo. The door slammed, and air puffed through the car.
Arrogant son of a— She turned to get out of the car and wrestled the beaded dress, which was too tight around the thighs when she was sitting to move comfortably, even though it looked perfect when she was standing. She reached for the door handle and just got a fingernail on it before it was yanked out of her grasp.
The car door opened. Whooshes and crunches of city noise rushed into the car with the cold night air.
Lord Severn, Arthur, was standing on the sidewalk, holding the door. A smile curved his lush lips and danced in his silvery eyes.
He asked, “Shall we, darling?”
FIRST PARTY
Outside Gen’s car door, Lord Severn, Arthur, stood, slightly bent, with his hand extended to help her out of the car. Behind him, people crossed the sidewalk, most wearing business suits or work clothes under their winter coats, hurrying home late.
Gen touched Lord Severn’s, Arthur’s, large, warm hand to steady herself as she got out of the car, and he grasped her fingers as she stumbled when her heel caught in the hem of her dress once again.
Damn it. Someone should prevent her from wearing high heels. She was too tall for them. With these silly shoes on, she was over six feet tall.
Gen stood in front of Lord Severn, Arthur, on the sidewalk in front of the tall building, so near to him that warmth rolled out of his suit jacket and brushed the bare skin of her neck. She could have turned her head and kissed the soft spot on the underside of his chin. He was even taller than Gen was.
She stepped back and dropped his hand. Her fingers felt cold.
“Come now,” he said. “It’s time to go.”
Gen turned to take a gander at where they had ended up. She had been so distracted by arguing that she hadn’t been watching where they had been driving.
Downtown London rose all around them, the buildings taller and finer than where Gen lived in the Islington area. She knew this street. They were near the British Museum, the Regent’s Park, and not too far from Hyde Park in Soho. This part of town hosted the posh hotels for London’s rich visitors—foreign royalty, movie stars, and people with more money than sense.
The hotel that towered above them, the Langham Hotel, had been the first grand hotel in Europe. Gen’s mother had told her its story several times, beaming with British pride about it. When they had moved back to London, her mother had taken seventeen-year-old Gen around town to all the places where the rich people lived. Gen’s mother had been a solid middle-class Brit before she married Gen’s father, an exotic Texan from a far-off land, but she’d had a charity scholarship in a private boarding school where uppity people sent their spoiled children to be educated.
The Langham Hotel had always been one of their stops when they walked around London. Honey-colored blocks and creamy bricks rose many stories into the air. Every window—and there were many of them on the long and wide building—was arched as if it were a church. It was a kind of church, although it was devoted to the worship of money and prestige.
Lord Severn jutted his elbow at her again, offering her his arm rather than taking her hand.
She had been fine with holding onto him last night when he had helped her down the stairs. She should be fine with it this time.
Do it, dammit.
Gen looked up at the Langham Hotel and curled her fingers under his arm. She hoped that she sounded flippant when she said, “Are you taking me to a hotel for a reason?”
His warm smile was entirely at odds with his anger in the car. “The party tonight is in the grand ballroom and the courtyard garden.”
“Someone’s birthday?” she asked.
“It’s a benefit supper and dance for a charity.”
“Probably something I’ve never heard of, some sort of esoteric, upper-crust dance company or classical music orchestra.”
“The Rainforest Alliance is an established charity that preserves wildlife and their habitats all over the world.”
Okay, so she might have heard of it. “Do you do these charity events often, or is this a new attempt to repair your reputation? I’m happy either way.”
“Often,” he said. “Several times a week, I eat rubbery chicken, mingle with snobby people, and throw money at good causes as fast as I can so that I may leave and do something fun.”
Ah. Gen had seen the pictures of his idea of “fun” in the tabloids.
She climbed the white, stone steps holding his arm, but they separated to push through the revolving door. He waited for her on the other side with his proffered arm.
Inside the hotel, the decor was refined, understated, and British. Most of the room was monochromatic like a silver nitrate black-and-white photograph from some earlier age when everyone had exquisite taste.
White-painted wood moulding trimmed the walls and was wedged into every available seam and corner of the walls that stretched several stories into the air. However, instead of traditional wooden trim around the doors, black-veined, white marble slabs had been cut into the shape of moulding to embellish the openings.
Towering columns crowding the huge room were carved from this zebra-striped stone. Meeting rooms and restaurants that adjoined the lobby were closed off by black wrought-iron doors backed with glass, airy and yet imposing at the same time. The chandeliers at the ceiling glowed like suns and dripped crystal that had subtle touches of burnished golden drops.
The whole place felt like only old money was welcome.
The only splashes of color in the hotel lobby were the enormous bouquets of fuchsia and white flowers in a few niches. Their flowery scent flowed across the floor, tickling Gen’s nose. Even nature was restrained from its usual, riotous expression.
Gen stopped, flummoxed as to where she should go.
Lord Severn laid his hand over her fingers that were still trapped in his elbow and gently pulled her forward.
They walked through the lobby and back to an enormous ballroom staged with white-covered tables. The three-story marble columns were alabaster and topped with pale gold finials, different than the ones in the lobby. The crowd milled around the tables, whirling and splashing among the furniture and through the doors like waves washing up around rocks.
As soon as they entered the doors, Lord Severn raised his hand in greeting and called out, “Hello, Bertrand! So nice to see you again.”
The man who must be Bertrand turned around—a willowy man in his sixties—and saw them. A grin widened on his wizened face and he walked
over with his hand extended to shake. “Severn! I thought you weren’t going to make it!”
Wow, people did use Severn like it was Arthur’s name.
Probably stuck-up people, but whatever.
As he approached, Bertrand’s eyes strayed to Gen, and he glanced down to her toes and up to her eyes. His gaze lingered where her hand was tucked into Arthur’s elbow.
Bertrand’s gaze snapped up to Lord Severn’s, Arthur’s, face, and his grin widened further. “You old rascal. And who do we have here?”
Lord Severn shook Bertrand’s hand and then patted Gen’s fingers in the crook of his arm. “This is Genevieve, a close friend.” His arm loosened and allowed her fingers to slip free so she could shake Bertrand’s offered hand.
Bertrand’s smile seemed awfully sly. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet a close friend of Arthur’s. Most of his friends don’t make it past the two-week mark.”
“Pleasure to meet you, too,” Gen said, wary of what the hell he had meant. She was supposed to be posing as his girlfriend, but there seemed to be all kinds of subtext there. Was Lord Severn, Arthur, discreetly signaling to them that she was a prostitute or something?
They mingled some more. People seemed genuinely happy to see Lord Severn, not sniffy or anything. He must have a better reputation among the noble class than he did in the tabloids.
The third couple to whom he introduced her were Edward and Anne de Vere, the Earl and Countess of Oxford. Gen shook the Countess’s hand and said, “Very well tonight, ma’am. How do you do?”
Lord Severn, Arthur, slipped his arm around Gen’s back and rested his palm on her waist.
The warmth of his strong hand leeched through the thin silk of her dress, and his arm was firm across her back.
Gen’s bones froze and locked.
The smallest part of her, a part that almost felt foreign or long-forgotten, wanted to lean against his side and seek more of his warmth and firm flesh.
But far more of Gen’s body—her blood and bones—froze with fear.
The Countess was watching Gen’s face with worried eyes.
Through an act of will, Gen forced her fingers to break the fearful frost and open, letting the Countess’s hand drop.
Stiff Drink: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #1 Page 9