The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings #2) - J. R. Ward Page 0,135
crested the top—but Lane forgot about the weather as he saw a long black limousine parked right across the front entrance.
“Who the hell is that?” he said aloud.
After John got out with his piece of luggage, Lane put the top up and went over to the uniformed driver.
As the window went down, Lane didn’t recognize the chauffeur. “May I help you?”
“Hello, sir. I’m here with Chantal Baldwine. She’s picking up her things.”
Sonofabitch.
FORTY-FIVE
“No, I’m not using tissue paper.”
As Lizzie opened drawer after drawer of clothes, she thought to herself, Not only am I not wrapping your stuff in frickin’ tissue paper, but you’re lucky that I don’t just open a window and start pitching things on top of your limo.
“But the wrinkles.”
Lizzie cranked her head in Chantal’s direction. “Are the least of your problems. Now, come on, get working. I’m not doing this on my own.”
Chantal looked affronted as she stood over the five Rubbermaid containers Greta had brought into the walk-in wardrobe. “I don’t usually do things like this, you know.”
“You don’t say.”
Grabbing one of the bins, Lizzie began to transfer folded things—pants, jeans, yoga gear—in a steady stream. Then she moved on to the next drawer. Underwear. Jeez, she remembered going through these before, when she’d snuck in to match the lingerie she’d found under William Baldwine’s bed to something that Chantal owned.
Surreptitiously, she glanced over to the make-up table.
The blood on the cracked mirror had been cleaned up. But the glass was still broken.
She could only imagine the fight William and Chantal had had. But that was not her business. What was her biz? Getting this woman as far away from Lane and Easterly as she could get her.
It was kind of like weeding an ivy bed, she decided. Get out the bad, keep the good.
“Start on the hanging things,” she ordered the woman. “Or I’ll strip them off that rod on a oner.”
That got Chantal moving, her manicured hands opening the glass doors and taking garments out hanger by hanger. But at least she made a pile to be carried from the suite.
Lizzie was on the third bin when Lane strode into the dressing room.
Chantal turned, looked at him … and put her hand on her lower abdomen.
Yeah, yeah, we all know you’re pregnant, sweetie, Lizzie thought to herself. Like we would forget?
“These are my things,” Chantal said with self-importance. “And I shall remove them.”
Like she was Maggie-frickin’-Smith—
Okaaaay, maybe someone needed a Snickers bar, Lizzie decided. And it wasn’t yonder beauty queen.
After all, there was no reason to get bitchy. It wasn’t going to improve the situation and God knew there was enough of that under this roof already.
“Yup,” Lane said, coming in. “You really should get them out of my house.”
He walked over to one of the glass-fronted closets, threw the doors open, and put his entire upper body into the line-up of hangered clothes. When he reemerged, his strong arms were full of colorful, expensive swaths of silk, taffeta and organza.
“John!” he called out. “We need an extra pair of hands in here!”
“What are you doing!” Chantal rushed forward. “What are you—”
A stocky older man came in wearing … wow, an absolutely amazing set of golf shorts there. Who knew you could make clothes out of grass?
“Hey, there,” the guy said with a flat Midwestern accent and a wide-open smile. “How can I help?”
“Grab some and carry it down to the limo.”
“Sure thing, son.”
“You can’t! You won’t! I can’t—”
“Oh, and this is my fiancée, Lizzie.” Lane smiled in her direction. “I don’t think you’ve met her before.”
“Fiancée!” Chantal stamped her stiletto. “Fiancée?”
As she stamped her actual foot again, Lizzie thought, Wow, she’d always assumed that move was reserved for Friends episodes.
“This is my friend John,” Lane said to Lizzie. “You remember, the Grain God?”
“Hi.” She offered the man a wave. “Thanks for helping.”
“I’m a farmer, ma’am. I’m not afraid of work!”
The guy looked at Chantal, who was still going firecracker, and then he stepped around her, opened the next compartment, and strong-armed about two dozen full-length gowns.
It was like he was hugging a rainbow.
As the two men left with the clothes, Chantal followed after them, tripping over the padded hangers that fell to the floor in their wakes, a trail of sartorial bread crumbs.
Lizzie smiled to herself and went back to her packing.
Man, it felt good to clean house.
Outside of Gin’s bedroom, some kind of commotion was making its way down the corridor.
She was too busy trying to find her cell phone to care, however.