Leather & Lark (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #2) (21)
Standing in the shadows, I watch through the crack between the hinges as Stan Tremblay leaves the sitting room. He doesn’t glance in my direction as he strides away with sure and powerful steps, his head bent, papers tucked beneath his arm. He might be nearing his seventies, but he’s still one of the most formidable people I know. A specter of my childhood.
My parents leave a few moments later, talking about mundane things. Lunch and liquor. Where they might go for dinner. Things that seem so far removed from the conversation they just finished, and yet this is the way it’s always been. Deals in dark corners. Life in the light.
I let them pass by and wait until my heart calms enough that I can hear clearly before I leave my hiding place and grab the bottle of lotion from the bathroom, then take the stairs by twos.
Hands trembling, I make it only a few feet down the hall before I set the lotion down and press my palms to one of the decorative tables lining the corridor and stare at my reflection in the gilded mirror. My cheeks are flushed as waves of adrenaline wash through my veins.
I can’t let them take Rowan from Sloane. I need to find a way to stop them. I must.
But I don’t know how.
I don’t have some family enforcer on my side. No one who can rally for my position. I’ve always been the one to protect, not the one to scrap with the other apex predators for a slice of prey or territory.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I whisper to my reflection as tears well in my eyes.
My watch vibrates against my wrist and I look down to see Rose’s name flash up on the screen.
Hello Boss Hostler! I’ll be ready to make a dukey run soon!
My nose scrunches and I wipe my eyes as I try to decode Rose’s circus lingo, pulling out my phone to blink down at her message as though it might help to see it on a larger screen. It doesn’t.
Boss Hustler …?
Boss HOSTLER. The dude in charge of the show. That dude is you.
Okay … And I’m supposed to make what now?
A dukey run, you know? To Leytonstone Inn to take all the wedding shit to the venue? How about we meet at 3pm at your place. Got the dress? I can’t wait to see it!
I glance down the hallway toward my aunt’s favorite wing of the house and bite down on the inner edge of my lip until blood washes over my tongue. Though I might not know how to fix this situation that seems as inevitable as an avalanche, I can’t let Sloane down on the most important day of her life either. We’ve still got a handful of days until the surprise elopement that Rowan has been planning for the last few weeks. Maybe I can convince her and Rowan to run. They could get out of Boston. Get out of the country. Live some other paradise life far away from here. But as fast as these ideas come up, so too do the thoughts that whisper about how this will never work. Because families like mine, we don’t get to where we are by letting shit go, or by allowing such simple things as borders and geography to stand in our way. Not when we have every resource at our fingertips to do what we want.
I need to find another way.
I clamp down on my panic. I just need to get the dress and get the fuck out of here so I can find a safe, quiet place to figure it out. Breathe. Plan the next steps and then take them one at a time, just like I’ve practiced.
With a single deep breath that fills every crevice in my lungs, I wipe my eyes a final time.
I’ll be there.
I slide my phone into my pocket and turn my attention back to the mirror. I take another deep breath.
Smile, I tell myself.
Keep smiling.
I smile and smile and smile until it looks just right, until everything beneath it is stored away. Only when I’m sure I look just the way I’m supposed to do I take a step back from the mirror and head down the corridor.
I find Ethel not in bed, where she often is just before lunch, but in her craft room, where paints and threads and yarn and canvases line the white shelves and tables, everything laid out with impeccable precision and kept clean despite frequent use. She’s sitting at her favorite wingback chair, which faces a window overlooking the sea, her hair a cloud of white curls resting on her hunched shoulders, her focus honed on the needlepoint in her hands. With a sudden swear and a hiss, she puts a finger in her mouth and for a second my smile is genuine.
“You should take a break from stabbing yourself so you can visit with your favorite niece,” I say with manufactured brightness as I enter the room.
Ethel gives a sharp, startled inhale that spills out with a rumbling cough. “Sweet baby Jesus, girl. You’ll scare me to death before I make it to the nursing home.”
“That’s one way to piss Mom and Ava off. They’ve been packing for days.”
I set the bottle down on her table and press a gentle kiss to my aunt’s cheek, her wrinkled skin dusted with powder and blush, the scent evoking my childhood memories of sitting at her vanity as I played with her makeup. The comfort of those moments isn’t enough to mask the worry that burns in my chest and threatens to ignite into panic.
“Ava should go back to California. She’s got enough to worry about at home, she doesn’t need to be here,” Ethel says as I turn away and face the black garment bag that hangs from the top edge of the closet door.
“You know she won’t, not until she’s got everything packed up at least. She’s stubborn. Wonder where she got that from.”