have done enough. You didn’t have to get me anything.”
We entered the living room, teeming with faces both familiar and not, but one in particular was absent. I appeared to have girded my loins for nothing, but the reprieve wasn’t as comforting as I had imagined.
“Where is the Grande Dame?” I craned my neck. “Woolly said she arrived.”
“Her car arrived,” Neely clarified. “It’s in the driveway.”
Nothing on earth would prevent that woman from attending this shower. It had nothing to do with me, I was but a vessel in her eyes, but this vessel held the future of the Woolworth and Lawson families. She had grand plans for her grandchild, and I smiled and nodded through them, but Linus and I had our own ideas on how we would raise our child.
Through the window, I spotted her car idling against the curb. “Has anyone spoken to her driver?”
“I don’t believe so.” He pursed his lips. “We assumed she was waiting to make a dramatic entrance.”
That did sound like her, but the magazine crew was setting up, and she would never allow that without her direct oversight.
Neely steered me toward the hot seat, but I veered in the direction of the door instead. “I’ll handle it.”
The party couldn’t start without her. If we tried, she would never forgive the snub, and never was a long time for a necromancer. Even one her age.
“Ah, there you are,” Dr. Rogers greeted me. “You appear to have frosting on your…” he gestured toward my face, “…everywhere, actually.” His lips thinned. “We discussed your sweet tooth at your last appointment, Grier, and we agreed—”
“Oh, would you look at that.” I pointed out the window. “I, uh, see someone calling my name.”
Pinched face drawing tighter, he followed my line of sight. “You read lips?”
“I am a woman of many talents.” I sidled past him. “Gotta go.”
Out on the porch, I sucked in a grateful breath to have escaped before Dr. Rogers’s droning lecture on my expanding waistline made me want to cram a cupcake down his gullet. Pretty sure that was not the magazine spread the Grande Dame had in mind. Plus, it would be a total waste of a cupcake.
Waving my arms over my head, I waited until the driver noticed and opened his door. Then I waddled to the swing, crossed my fingers the chains would hold, and sat to wait on him. He didn’t take long to climb the steps onto the porch, and he arrived with his snappy little hat tucked under his arm.
Composing my expression, I asked in a tranquil voice, “When does the eagle intend to land?”
“Ma’am?”
“The Grande Dame,” I clarified. “When will she be joining us?”
Lowering his head, he kept darting glances at the front door. “I have a message for Mr. Woolworth.”
“I’m his wife.” As he was well aware. “You won’t get in trouble if you tell me first.”
Slowly, he knelt at my feet, which alarmed me enough for Cletus to pop into view over my shoulder.
“The Grande Dame,” he whispered, so low I thought I misheard him, “is missing.”
“Define missing.”
“Madam requested I ready the car at a quarter till sunset.” The leather of his black gloves creaked where he rested his hands on his thighs. “I loaded the gifts at the rear of the house, as is proper, then I drove to the front.” The wild light in his eyes made me grateful for Cletus’s presence. “Madam wasn’t waiting on the landing, as is her custom, and the door was ajar.” He wet his lips. “I searched the downstairs, and the maid searched upstairs.” He made fists on his lap. “We found no trace of her.”
“That’s when you decided to come here.”
Penitent, he bowed his neck until I worried it might snap in two. “Yes.”
“You are aware I’m the Potentate of Savannah?” I studied him. “Why bring this to Linus instead of me?”
“I…” He mashed his lips together. “You’re...”
“In the family way,” I supplied. “Wearing the bustle wrong? Tin roof rusted? Eating for two?”
Honestly, I only knew what half those meant, but you heard some weird crap when you were pregnant.
The color drained from his cheeks in a rush, and he lost his voice altogether.
“Breathe.” I patted his shoulder, and he jumped under my hand. “I get it.”
The Grande Dame reported all her troubles to her son, which cut me, the local authority, out of the loop on minor nuisances. Most of them specific to her or to her interests. Linus believed it was habit from the