X: Command Me through Alexander's Eyes - Geneva Lee Page 0,77
and my sunglasses were shoved in Clara’s bag.
“Can you bring us this evening’s appetizers?” I ask. “We have another guest coming, but I can’t allow these ladies to wait any longer.”
Gratitude shines in Clara’s eyes, and I wish I’d done it sooner. It had been polite to wait for a few minutes, but I wouldn’t allow her to wait longer. Now I realize she hadn’t wanted to defy her mother.
But her mother would never argue with me.
I can’t help kissing Clara, hoping she’ll remember that I’m doing my best to protect her. Her mother clears her throat in irritation, and I straighten, picking up my bourbon.
“I read up a little on your company, Mrs. Bishop,” I say.
“Former company,” she says. “Let’s not talk business.”
“She gets enough of that from Dad,” Clara adds.
“That’s true.” Her tight smile calls out the lie before she does. “At least, it used to be.”
Lola, who’s cheeks are now slightly flush from alcohol and no food, leans forward. “Tell us about growing up in a palace!”
“Don’t they have books devoted to that?” I ask.
“They do,” she admits, “but I hear that the reality is quite different. Although I am a sucker for happily-ever-afters.”
She looks from me to Clara. The sisters share some unspoken communication before Clara giggles.
“It’s not as exciting as it sounds.” I continue, wondering what’s funny.
“Bollocks!” she cries, sounding more British now that she’s drunk. “I bet you’ve been all over the world and that you grew up riding horses and hunting foxes.”
I grin at the shift in her polished exterior. “I suppose I did. It’s rather boring, really. Dinners with foreign dignitaries. Riding lessons. Although I’ve never enjoyed hunting.”
“I’m a member of PETA,” she says. “I don’t approve of hunting.”
Clara’s lips turn down.
“Unfortunately, it’s a tradition in our family. I’m not particularly interested in it either.” That wouldn’t get me out of it this weekend. Nothing would. I’d learned that lesson the hard way. “Actually, when I was eight, my father told me I was going on the hunt for the first time. I was incredibly excited. I’d had riding lessons before then, but I’d never been allowed to go with the men.”
“I couldn’t sleep the night before,” I continue, glad to have found something that they all seem interested in, “so I crept to the stables to brush my Arabian in preparation. Anyway, I’m in there with my horse, and I see this red fox locked in a cage. I couldn’t believe it. The second I saw him, I remembered all the hunts I’d watched begin at my family estates, and I realized we were going to hunt him.”
“So I did what any eight-year-old kid would do. I hid him.”
“Oh my god!” Lola giggles. “Where did you put him?”
“I didn’t really think it through,” I admit, still feeling a little stupid after all these years, “so I took him to my bedroom.”
“I bet your parents loved that,” Madeline says dryly.
Her interjection knocks me off course for a minute. Of course, I can’t expect her to remember my mother had already died. “My mother would have, I think, but my father did not. In fairness, though, I did make one tiny mistake when I brought him inside.”
“Which was?” Lola asks.
“My sister let him out of the cage.” I still remember how brilliant Sarah thought that move was. “It took the staff two days to trap him, but the hunt was canceled!”
“So you were the hero,” Clara says.
“That’s one way of looking at it.” I sink back against my chair, glad that my youthful idiocy amused them. “I doubt the staff thought so.”
I couldn’t help joining their laughter. Turning, I caught Clara staring at me, her eyes full of an emotion that I hadn’t seen reflected toward me since long before I saved that fox.
“I apologize,” a voice breaks in. “Last minute call and Tube delays.”
I rise to meet Harold Bishop. We shake hands, his grip as firm as mine. Remarkably, he seems nonplussed by me. Perhaps, he lets his wife worry about matters like his daughter’s love life.
“Again, I am sorry,” he says, sitting next to Madeline. “Have you been waiting for me? You should have ordered!”
“I called you,” she says coldly.
“I got caught up at the office,” he repeats. “We get such terrible mobile service there, but I should have found a phone and called you.”
I don’t have to look at Clara for confirmation of what I’m seeing. I do anyway, and it’s there, written all over her face: