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Newsflash: sadly, it wasn’t filled with wine.
It was the color of wine: all burgundies and currants, with mahogany furniture. The walls looked papered in wine-colored leather (and I hoped they were not). The furniture was definitely leather, with some dark tapestry. And there was an interesting picture of a medieval couple on the wall.
Honestly, I didn’t get to take much in before Daniel Alcott was upon me.
“The big sister!” he cried, moving my way, dragging my sister with him.
She was in ivory again, a full pleated skirt that reached her ankles and a pleated top, the halter neck a ruff of chiffon, her shoulders and arms bare.
And she definitely had help with her makeup and hair. She was good with both, but her elaborate updo was not something a layperson could do, no way, and her face looked like a TikTok influencer had been at it.
Daniel let Portia go in order to take hold of both my biceps and touch his cheeks to both of mine.
He smelled cloyingly of cologne that stated a little too boldly, I’m a man!
He pulled away but didn’t let go as he looked down on me and smiled broadly.
Startling blue eyes. Thick, golden-blond hair, the same as his mother’s color, if a shade darker. A healthy tan. He was tall. He was fit. He was handsome.
He was fake as shit.
I’d seen pictures of him, more when I started researching the whole family after Portia hooked up with him, then deeper when she’d asked us to this week at Duncroft.
He was not the financial wunderkind his brother was. He was his mother’s light to his father’s dark. And Daniel’s reputation was more of a happy-go-lucky playboy than his older brother’s inveterate philanderer.
But regardless of his effusive welcome, he did not want me there, and the fact he’d not even glanced at Lou told me how he felt about her.
In other words, the edge I was riding about this week got sharper.
Sharp enough to cut.
When I said nothing, he finally let me go and looked to Lou.
“Louella,” he muttered far less enthusiastically, as was his touching only one cheek to hers.
I watched this and turned annoyed eyes to my sister before I moved in and did the touching cheeks thing myself. “Portia.”
“You look pretty,” she said.
We moved away and I let my gaze wander her head and hair before I replied with grudging honesty, “You do too.”
I turned my attention to Daniel’s parents, and I saw that Portia had told no fibs. Like Daniel and Portia, Lou and me, they were decked out. Exquisitely tailored suit and tie for Richard, a one-shouldered, deep-rose satin gown with a knotted waistline and some gathering to give it some interest, for Jane.
“Lord and Lady Alcott,” I greeted.
“Oh, it’s Richard and Jane, of course,” Daniel invited, to his father’s jaw growing tight, the same happening around his mother’s eyes.
“Drink, Miss Ryan?” I heard said low, and I looked to my side to see a tall, thin man in a black three-piece suit and pale-blue tie that had the family shield emblazoned on it standing there, though also slightly behind me.
A new member of staff.
The butler.
That meant I’d seen four maids, whatever they called the guy who took care of the bags and car, and a butler.
Already a lot of staff, but I figured there was even more.
A number of them.
