The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings #2) - J. R. Ward Page 0,23
this broadcast with breaking news. William Baldwine, sixty-five, the chief executive officer of the Bradford Bourbon Company, is dead of an apparent suicide. Numerous anonymous sources report that the body was found in the Ohio River—”
“Oh … hell,” Samuel T. muttered as he reached forward and turned up the tinny radio even further.
The report had more fluff than substance, but the moving parts were all correct as far as Samuel T. knew. Clearly, their efforts to squash the story until they were ready to come forward had failed.
“—follows an accusation against Jonathan Tulane Baldwine of spousal abuse by his estranged wife, Chantal Baldwine, just days ago. Mrs. Baldwine was admitted to the Bolton Suburban Hospital emergency room with facial bruises and ligature marks around her throat. Initially, she accused her husband of inflicting the injuries. She recanted her story, however, after police refused to charge Mr. Baldwine due to lack of evidence …”
As Samuel T. listened to the rest of the report, he looked up ahead to the tallest hill.
Easterly, the Bradford family’s historic home, was a glorious spectacle at the apex of the rise. Overlooking the Ohio, the mansion was a whitewashed grand dame in the Federal style, with a hundred windows bracketed by glossy black shutters, too many chimneys to count, and an entrance so grand that the Bradfords had made it their company’s logo. Terraces sprawled out in every direction, as did manicured gardens full of specimen flowers and fruit trees, and great magnolias that had dark green leaves and white blossoms as big as a man’s head.
When the mansion had been built, the Bradford money had been new. Now, as with those bank accounts, there was a patina of age to it—but all kings started off as paupers, and all venerable dynasties were nouveau riche once. The term “aristocrat” just measured how far back you had to go to get to the upstarts.
Also depended upon how long you could keep your position going into the future.
At least the Bradfords didn’t have to worry about money.
The many-acred Bradford estate had two entrances. A staff one, which bisected the cutting gardens and vegetable fields and went up to the garages and the rear of the mansion, and a formal, gated path of glory for family and proper guests. He took the latter, the one Lodges had been using for a century, and as he ascended, he glanced at himself in the rearview.
It was good that he had sunglasses on. Sometimes one didn’t need to see one’s own eyes.
Gin would be having breakfast, he thought as he pulled up in front of the house. With her new fiancé.
Getting out, he did a pass-through with a hand to make sure his hair was back where it needed to be and picked up his great-uncle’s briefcase. His blue and white seersucker suit reordered itself on his body without any prompting, and there was no reason to worry about his bow tie. He’d done it properly before leaving his bedroom suite.
“Good morning!”
Pivoting on his handmade loafer, he raised a hand to the blond woman coming around the side of the house. Lizzie King was pushing a wheelbarrow full of ivy plants and had a glow about her that was the best recommendation for clean living he’d ever seen.
No wonder Lane was in love with her.
“Good morning to you,” Samuel T. said with a slight bow. “I’m here to see your man.”
“He should be here shortly.”
“Ah … do you need help? As a gentleman and a farmer, I feel as though I should offer.”
Lizzie laughed him off and jogged the handles. “Greta and I’ve got this. Thanks.”
“And I’ve got your man,” Samuel T. replied as he lifted his briefcase.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“Don’t worry. I’m going to make Chantal go away—and I’m going to enjoy doing it.”
With another wave, he strode over to the mansion’s entrance. Easterly’s pale stone steps were shallow and broad, and they brought him up to the Corinthian columns around the glossy black door with its lion’s head knocker.
Samuel T. didn’t bother with formalities. He opened the way into a foyer so big one could have bowled in it.
“Sir,” came a British clip. “Are you expected?”
Newark Harris was the most recent in a long line of butlers, this current incarnation trained at Bagshot Park across the pond, or so Samuel T. had heard. The Englishman was very much out of the David Suchet as Hercule Poirot mold, officious, pressed as a fine pair of slacks, and vaguely disapproving of