The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings #2) - J. R. Ward Page 0,107

chrome hook, her “wedding dress” such as it was, looked terribly plain. Nothing but an Armani suit with an asymmetrical collar—and the thing was white, because yes, she was the damn bride.

Nude Stuart Weitzman slingbacks were lined up underneath it.

And on a pullout shelf, a dark blue velvet Tiffany’s box that was worn on all four of its corners sheltered the massive Art Deco pin that her grandmother had received upon her marriage to E. Curtinious Bradford in 1926.

The debate was whether she was going to take the two halves off its pin backing and do a Bette Davis, or if she was going to put it off to one side as a whole piece on that dramatic collar.

“Marls—”

In the mirror, her maid appeared in the doorway looking as twitchy as a mouse about to make a bad move with a trap, her cell phone in her palm. “She’s not coming.”

Gin slowly turned the chair around even further. “I beg your pardon.”

Marls put up the phone as if that proved anything. “I just spoke to her. She said … she’s not coming.”

“Did she indicate exactly why?” Even though with a cold rush, Gin knew. “What was her reason?”

“She didn’t say.”

That little bitch.

“Fine, I’ll do it my damn self. You may go.”

Gin hit the make-up like a pro, a hypothetical conversation with Tammy lighting up her temper as she imagined telling that—what was the word … feckless—that feckless little whore who Gin had been nothing but good to for all these years … all those galas Tammy had been comped on … that fucking cruise through the Mediterranean last year where the only thing the woman had had to do for her luxury fucking berth was slap some mascara on Gin every day—oh, and then what about those ski trips to Aspen? And now that woman doesn’t show up …

Thirty minutes of barely coherent internal monologue’ing later, Gin had her face, her suit and that pin on, her hair cascading over her shoulders, those slingbacks giving her that extra bit of height. The make-up counter had not fared nearly as well as she had. There were brushes, tubes of mascara, and false eyelashes scattered everywhere. A pick-up-sticks mess of eye pencils. And she’d broken one of her powder compacts, the flesh-colored cake cracked and disintegrated all over the rolling table.

Marls would clean it up.

Gin walked out into the bedroom, picked up the pale, quilted Chanel shoulder bag from her bureau, and opened her bedroom door.

Richard was waiting in the hallway. “You’re six minutes late.”

“And you can tell time. Congratulations.”

As she kicked up her chin, she started by him and was not surprised when he grabbed her arm and yanked her about.

“Do not keep me waiting.”

“You know, I’ve heard they have effective drug therapies for OCD. You could try cyanide, for instance. Or hemlock—I believe we have some on the property? Rosalinda solved that mystery for us quite readily—”

Two doors down, Lizzie came out of Lane’s suite. The woman was dressed for work, in khaki shorts and a black polo with Easterly’s crest on it. With her hair pulled back in another of her rubber bands and no make-up on, she looked enviously young.

“Good morning,” she said as she approached.

Her eyes stayed forward, as if she were walking the streets of New York City, determined not to make trouble or seek it out.

“Are you still on the payroll,” Richard said, “or is he no longer cutting checks to you now that you’re not just bringing flowers to his bedroom?”

Lizzie showed no reaction to that. “Gin, you look beautiful as always.”

And she just kept going.

In her wake, Gin narrowed her eyes at Richard. “Don’t speak to her like that.”

“Why? She’s neither staff nor family, is she. And given your money situation, cutting costs is very appropriate.”

“She is not up for discussion or dissection. You leave her alone. Now, let’s get this over with.”

THIRTY-SIX

As Lizzie descended the main staircase, she was shaking her head. Gin … defending her. Who would have thought that would ever happen?

And no, she wasn’t going down to the mall to get BFFL bracelets for the pair of them. But the not-so-subtle back-up was a lot easier to handle than the condescension and not-at-all-subtle ridicule that had gone on before.

Down in the foyer, she headed around to the back of the house. It was time to do fresh bouquets—with so many late-spring flowers blooming, there was no florist cost, and creating something beautiful was going to make her feel like