The Bourbon Kings

by J. R. Ward

  Greta was not so phlegmatic. Even though she was obviously on her way out, with a big, bright green Prada bag up on her shoulder, a smaller orange one in her hand, and her car keys dangling from her grip, that glare, coupled with her abrupt silence, suggested she wasn't heading off anywhere until he went back to his family's party.

  "It's all right," Lizzie said quietly. "You can go."

  Greta muttered something in German. Then went out the door into the garden, speaking under her breath.

  "What was she saying?" he asked when they were alone.

  "I don't know. Probably something about a piano falling on your head."

  He took a draw off the rim of his glass, sucking the cold bourbon in through his teeth. "That it? I would have expected something more bloody."

  "I think a Steinway dropped from even a short height could do some damage."

  There were half a dozen five-gallon plastic buckets around her, each stuffed with a different kind of flower, and she chose from them as if she were playing notes on a musical instrument: this one, then that one, back to the first, then the third, fourth, fifth. The result, in a short order of time, was a glorious head of petals sprouting above the highly polished silver container.

  "Can I help?" he said.

  "Yes, by leaving."

  "You're almost out of those." He looked around. "Here, I'll bring you another bucketful--"

  "Will you just go back to your dinner," she snapped. "You're not helping--"

  "And you're nearly done with these, too."

  He put his glass down on a table full of empty bowls and started hauling the heavy loads over.

  "Thank you," she muttered as he removed the empties, taking them over to the ceramic sink. "You can head off now--"

  "I'm getting a divorce."

  Her face showed no reaction, but her hands, those sure, strong hands, nearly dropped the rose she was drawing out of the bucket he'd brought her.

  "Not on my account I hope," she said.

  He tipped over one of the empties and sat down on its bottom, holding his bourbon between his knees. "Lizzie--"

  "What do you want me to say--congratulations?" She glanced at him. "Or are you in the mood for more of a two-hankie, throw-myself-at-you-in-tearful-relief reaction? Because I'll tell you right now, that's the last thing you're going to get from me--"

  "I never loved Chantal."

  "As if that matters?" Lizzie rolled her eyes. "The woman was having your child. So maybe you didn't love her, but you were clearly doing something with her."

  "Lizzie--"

  "You know, that exasperated, be-reasonable tone of yours is really flipping annoying. It's like you think I'm doing something wrong by not giving you a platform to talk about alllllll the ways you were a victim. Here's what I know to be true: You came after me long and hard, and I gave in because I felt sorry about what was going on with your brother. At the same time, you were lining up the perfect, socially acceptable beard to hide the fact that you were banging the help. Your problem came when I refused to be your shameful little secret."

  "Goddamn it, Lizzie--it wasn't like that--"

  "Maybe on your side--"

  "I have never treated you as an inferior!"

  "You've got to be kidding. How did you think I was going to feel when you told me you were in love with me and then I read about your engagement in the society pages the next morning?" She threw up her hands. "Do you have any idea what that was like for me? I am a smart woman. I have my own farm that I'm paying for with my own money. I've got a master's from Cornell." She pounded on her chest. "I take care of myself. And still . . ." Her eyes shot away from his. "You still got me."

  "I didn't put that announcement out."

  "Well, it was a great picture of the two of you."

  "It was not my fault."

  "Bullshit! Are you trying to tell me there was a gun to your head when you married Chantal?"

  "You wouldn't speak to me! And she was pregnant--I didn't want my kid to be born a bastard. I figured it was the only way to be a man in the situation."

  "Oh, you were a man, all right. That was how she ended up carrying your baby."

  Lane cursed and dropped his head. God, he'd wasted so much time wishing he could do things over with Lizzie--starting way before they'd gotten together, when he'd been having casual sex with Chantal and had believed her when she'd told him she was on the pill.

  But everyone knew how that had turned out.

  And the pregnancy hadn't been the only surprise Chantal had had in store for him. The second one had been even more devastating.

  "So can we be done here?" Lizzie asked as she moved on to the next bowl. "This is really none of my business."

  "Why didn't I stay here with her?" He leaned forward. "You've got this all figured out, so why didn't I stay here with her--why've I been gone for almost two years? And if I wanted a child with her, why didn't she get pregnant again after she lost the first one?"

  Lizzie shook her head and stared at him. "What part of 'not my business' are you failing to comprehend?"

  And that was when he went for her.

  As with their first kiss in the garden, in the darkness, in the summer heat, he rode an out-of-control emotion as he took her mouth, the instinct nothing that he was going to fight: One moment they were arguing, the next he'd lunged across the distance, grabbed her by the nape and was kissing her hard.

  And just as before, she kissed him back.

  It wasn't passion on her side, though. He was pretty damn sure that for her, the meeting of mouths was nothing but an extension of their conflict, the verbal argument going nonverbal.

  Lane didn't care. He'd take her any way he could get her.

  TEN

  It was, of course, a perfectly stupid idea.

  But as Lizzie kissed Lane back, it was as if she were funneling two years of anger, frustration, and pain directly into him. And damn him to hell, he tasted of bourbon and desperation and raw sex--and she liked it.

  She missed it.

  And didn't that just make her more mad. She wanted to say that this was horrible. Against her will. A violation.

  None of that was true. She was the one who thrust her tongue into his mouth, and she was the one whose fingers bit into his shoulders, and she was the one, God help her, who brought their bodies up close together.

  So that she felt his erection.

  His body hadn't changed in the time they'd been apart, all hard muscle and long limbs. And he kissed the same as he had before, rough and hungry in spite of the fact that he'd been raised a gentleman. And the heat was just as hot.

  And then, to make things even worse? Memories of them being together, skin to skin, straining, rocking, egged her on, burying all the hurt and sense of betrayal under an avalanche of erotic recollections.

  For a split second, she realized that she was going to have sex with him then and there.

  Yeah. 'Cuz that would show him she meant business.

  Real Gloria Steinem moment.

  Instead, something got knocked over on the table and a clatter broke the silence; then a splash draped her hip and upper thigh in a shock of cold water. Jumping up, she shoved him away with such force, he tripped and fell back, landing on the tile floor.

  With a slash of her forearm, she wiped her mouth off. "What the hell are you doing!"

  Dumb question. More like what was she doing.

  He was up on his feet a heartbeat later. "I've wanted to kiss you since I came back."

  "The feeling is not mutual--"

  "Bullshit." He reached for his glass and took a swig. "You still want me--"

  "Get out!"

  "You're kicking me out of my own conservatory?"

  "Either you leave or I do," she snapped, "and these flowers are not going to get into those bowls themselves. Unless you want half your tables empty at your Derby party?"

  "I don't care what they look like. Or about the damn party. Or any of this--" As he waved his hand around, it might
have been more convincing if he hadn't had a ration of his family's bourbon in that glass of his. "I've left this behind, Lizzie. I'm really done with it."

  Motrin. That's what she needed.

  Less being around him, more pain relief in a bottle.

  "I give up," she muttered. "You win. I'll go."

  As she turned away, he caught her and spun her around, dragging her against that body of his. It was then that she noticed how much older he'd gotten since she'd seen him last. His face was leaner, his stare more cynical, and the crow's-feet were deeper at the corners of his eyes.

  Unfortunately, it only made him look more handsome.

  "None of the crap with Chantal is what you think," he said darkly.

  "Even if only half of it was--"

  "You don't understand--"

  "I was in love with you." As her voice cracked, she pushed away from him. "I didn't think we were going to get married necessarily, but not because you were heading to the altar with someone else. Who was pregnant--and got that way while you were with me."

  "I'd ended it with her, Lizzie. Before I came back here that April, I told her it was over."

  "That didn't stick, though, did it--"

  "She was three months along when I found out, Lizzie. Do the math with me. The night before I came home for Mother's birthday at the end of March was the last time I was with Chantal. You and I . . . we got together that May, and it was at the end of June that I found out about the pregnancy. If you remember, I didn't leave Easterly that entire time. You knew where I was every night and day because I was with you." He stared down at her. "Three months along. Not two months, not one month. Three, Lizzie."

  She put her hands to her face, fighting the logic. "Please stop doing that."

  "Doing what?"

  "Saying my name. It gives you the illusion of credibility."

  "I'm not lying. And I've wanted to tell you this for nearly two years." He cursed again. "There's more, but I don't want to get into it. It doesn't affect what's between you and me."

  Before she was aware of making a conscious decision to sit down, she discovered she was in the rolling seat she'd been using. Staring at her hands, she flexed her fingers, feeling the stiffness in the joints--and for some reason, she thought of Chantal's perfectly manicured tips and smooth, unmarked palms. Talk about your opposites. The hands she was looking at were a workman's, with scratches on the backs from errant rose thorns and dirt under the nails that she would get out only when she was home tonight. There were freckles, too, from digging in the sun without gloves on--and absolutely, positively no million-dollar diamonds.

  "I married Chantal at the courthouse after you left me," he said starkly. "It wasn't the baby's fault, and having grown up without parents, I wasn't going to do the same to any kid I had--regardless of how I felt about its mother. But then I just had to get out of town. Chantal didn't get that the marriage was in name only so I went up north to New York and stayed with a buddy of mine from U.Va. It was shortly after that that Chantal called to tell me she'd lost the pregnancy."

  The bitterness in his voice made the words so low that she could barely understand them.

  "She doesn't love me, either," he muttered. "Didn't then, doesn't now."

  "How can you be so sure," Lizzie heard herself say.

  "Trust me on that one."

  "She seemed pretty excited to have you back."

  "I didn't come here for her and I made that clear. And that woman is capable of getting attached only to a meal ticket."

  "I thought she had her own money."

  "Nothing compared to mine."

  Yes, she imagined that was true. There were European countries with lesser annual revenue than the Bradfords had.

  "You're the love of my life, whether you're with me or not." When she looked up in shock, he just shrugged. "I can't change what happened and I know there's no going back . . . all I ask is that you don't fall for appearances, okay? You've had ten years around this family, but I've been with them and the people who surround them all my life. That's why you're the one I want. You're real. You're not capable of being what they are and that's a very, very good thing."

  She waited for him to say something else, and when he didn't, she looked back down at her hands.

  For some reason, her heart was pounding, sure as if she were too close to the edge of a cliff. Then again, she supposed that was the truth--because his words were getting into her brain and shuffling her mental decks.

  In ways that didn't really help her.

  "I am so terrified of you," she whispered.

  "Why?"

  Because she wanted to believe what he was saying with the desperation of an addict.

  "Don't be," he said when she didn't reply. "I never meant for any of this to happen. And I've wanted to make it right for so long."

  It seemed appropriate that they were surrounded by all the flower bowls that she had been filling. The evidence of her work, of her sole purpose in being on the estate, was a reminder of the divide that would always put distance between them.

  And then she took pains to recall that photograph and article in the Charlemont Herald about the marriage, two grand Southern legacies joining in a feudal arrangement. And she remembered the days and nights right after she'd found out about Chantal, all those hours of suffering until she'd felt like she were dying.

  Although he was right about one thing. Pride had mandated that she continue working at Easterly, and so she had been on the estate every day but Sunday for essentially the last twenty-four months. Lane had not come back. For two years . . . he had not come back to see Chantal.

  Not much of a marriage.

  "Let my actions speak for me," he said. "Let me prove to you that what I'm telling you is the truth."

  In her mind, she heard her cell phone ringing, over and over again. Right after the break-up, he had called her a hundred times, easy--sometimes leaving messages she never listened to, sometimes not. She had taken two weeks of vacation right after she'd found out, escaping even her farm in Indiana, and going back northeast to Plattsburgh and the apple orchards of her youth. Her parents had been so glad to see her, and she had passed those days tending to McIntosh trees with the other manual laborers.

  By the time she had returned, he'd been gone.

  The phone calls had dried up after a while. And eventually she had stopped flinching every time a car pulled up to the front court.

  "Please, Lizzie . . . say something. Even if it's not what I want to hear--"

  The sound of a woman laughing softly cut him off and brought both of their heads around to the doors that opened into the garden. When Greta had left, one of panels hadn't shut all the way, and through the opening, Lizzie could see two people walking down a brick path toward the pool in the far corner.

  Even in the subtle glow from the landscaping lights, it was clear that the gown the woman had on was a brilliant red, its voluminous folds trailing behind. Beside her, a tall man in a suit had gallantly offered her his arm and was staring down at her with the kind of attention one might reserve for a meal.

  "My sister," Lane said unnecessarily.

  "Is that Samuel T.?" Lizzie asked.

  "Who cares."

  She looked back at Lane. "You broke my heart."

  "I'm so sorry. It wasn't what I wanted, Lizzie, not in any way. I swear to God."

  "I thought you were an atheist."

  He was quiet for a time, his eyes roaming around her face. "I'll baptize myself a hundred times if that's what it takes. I'll memorize the Bible, I'll kiss a ring, I'll do whatever you want--just please--"

  "I can't go back, Lane. I'm sorry. I just can't."

  He fell silent. And then after a long while, he nodded. "All right, but can I ask you for one thing?"

  No. "Yes."

  "Just don't hate me anymore. I'm doing plenty of that on my own time."

  *

  The garden was as fragrant as a woman fresh out of a bath, as precisely arranged as
a parlor, and as private as a college library.

  Which was to say, it was semi-private. Easterly's many windows overlooked the carefully tended beds of white and cream flowers, all of which were discreetly lit.

  Fortunately, Gin had no problem having sex in public.

  As she hung on to the powerful arm of Samuel Theodore Lodge III, she didn't bother to hide her smile. "So how long have you been with her?"

  "When did we arrive here? An hour ago?"

  She laughed. "Why, oh, why, dear Samuel, do you bother with women like that?"

  "What other kind is there?"

  It was hard to tell who was steering whom into the darker recesses of the farthest corner, where the brick walls met on the back side of the pool house. But that was where they were both headed.

  "I didn't know you were coming," she said, reaching up to touch the diamonds at her throat . . . and then allow her fingertips to drift downward over her bodice. "I would have bothered to put panties on."

  "Trying to turn over a new leaf, are you."

  "I like it when you take them off of me. Particularly when you get frustrated and rip things."

  "I'm not in an exclusive club, though, am I."

  "Don't be coarse."

  "You're the one who brought up underwear. You're also the one who wanted me to come out here with you. Unless you actually needed fresh air for once?"

  Gin narrowed her eyes at him. "You are a bastard."

  "Not according to the dictionary. My parents were well and truly married when I was conceived." He cocked a brow. "Which I don't believe you can say about your own daughter, can you."

  She stopped, the tide turning in a direction she had not intended. "That is over the line, Samuel. And you know it."

  "It's a bit odd, you talking about propriety. Aren't you fucking that married partner in my law firm? I believe I heard that somewhere recently."

  Ah, so that was why he was acting this way.

  "Jealous?" she drawled, her smile returning.

  "He can't satisfy you. Not for long, and not the way I can."

  When he went to grab her, she let him--and enjoyed the way his hands bit into her waist and his mouth ground against hers. It didn't take him long to lift her skirting up her thighs, and keep it there in spite of all the crinolines.

  Then again, he'd been getting under yards of fine material since he was fourteen and going to cotillions.

  Samuel T. groaned as he discovered for himself that she hadn't lied about having nothing on underneath her dress, and his fingers were rough as he pushed his way inside of her. The heat and the need that came next were such a blissful relief from everything she didn't want to think about, the sex washing away her regrets and her sadness, giving her nothing but pleasure.