Chapter Four
Chapter Four
“Okay!” Abraham said brightly, clapping his hands together. “Moving on. Cocktail hour is at five, though I see you’ve gotten a head start on that, Mr. Sheffield. Can’t be late!”
“Who was that?” Kate whispered as Abraham led them out of the portrait gallery, where the man glared his revenge at Rebecca’s portrait.
“Marcus Sheffield,” Abraham whispered with dramatic distaste, shaking his head. “He and Ms. Hempstead were once… paramours.”
“Those two used to root?” Jake said in surprise. “He sounded like he wanted to fuck her over .”
“Well, I said once upon a time,” Abraham said, eyes gleaming at the chance to impart some NDA-free gossip. “According to my sources, they were young and in love, and Mr. Sheffield swore he wanted to marry her. She had a great deal of restrictions on her, being the Hempstead heir and all. Her father didn’t approve. Apparently, Mr. Sheffield was quite the drinker and gambler back then.”
“Still is, by the look of that nose,” Kate murmured.
“Right?” Abraham said gleefully, tapping the side of his own nose for emphasis. “Ms. Rebecca was going to run away with him. But when she got to the airport, he was a no-show. Her father had gotten wind of the scheme and offered him an obscene amount of money to buzz off, and he took it like the fly he is. Broke her heart, and she swore vengeance on him.”
“Marcus Sheffield!” Kate gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Now I recognize that name! The Sheffield takeover. Oh my gosh, that’s him ? I didn’t even think he was still alive after everything he went through.”
It had been one of the more sensational bits in Kate’s Google deep dive, which was really saying a lot, considering the Hempstead family history. In the early eighties, before Rebecca had really earned her reputation on the market, she’d staged a hostile takeover of a small family business that had just been listed publicly. But instead of buying up shares at a fair rate, she brutalized them in the marketplace first, fueling rumors of corruption and incompetence, driving the stock price down to almost zero before scooping up the ashes of what remained at a fraction of their value. It had earned her the Bitch Bull reputation and cemented her reign of terror over the market.
“What’s he doing here this weekend?” Kate whispered, glancing back toward the man at the far end of the gallery.
“Bad luck for Ms. Rebecca, his son is Kennedy’s godfather,” Abraham said. “Boarding school buddies. And Ms. Kennedy is very, very precious about family, even questionably extended family. So here he is, on her private island, making it his personal mission to drink through the whisky supply before Sunday.”
“I’m surprised Rebecca let him set foot on the island,” Kate said, shaking her head before cocking it to the side. “Actually, I’m surprised she let anyone set foot on the island this weekend. I thought she had a reputation as a recluse.”
“Oh, she did not want to,” Abraham said, pausing just before the exit leading out of the portrait gallery into the main house. “Again, sources I can’t divulge, but when Kennedy asked her about hosting the wedding here, Rebecca refused. But Ms. Kennedy has an iron streak up that sweet spine of hers. She went behind Rebecca’s back to the board of trustees at the Hempstead Family Trust and requested a vote. She beat Rebecca by one vote . Hers.”
“Yikes,” Kate murmured. She couldn’t imagine sweet, people-pleasing Kennedy Hempstead going up against someone as formidable as Rebecca Hempstead, even if the woman was her aunt. Kate couldn’t even stand up to her dry-cleaner lady, who always overcharged her for dresses. Maybe the girl had more to her than Kate realized.
“But you didn’t hear it from me!” Abraham said, spinning on his heel and marching them toward a table with a leather bag embossed with Kennedy and Spencer’s initials on the front. “And here we have your gift bags for the weekend. Only one left, I’m afraid, so you’ll have to share with your plus-one.”
“Oh, he’s not… we’re not,” Kate started, but she didn’t know what to say they were .
“I’m a late addition,” Jake said, giving Abraham an apologetic smile. “Jake Hawkins?”
Abraham looked down at the list of guests on his clipboard, frowning and clucking his tongue. “Yes, I see you. Kate Valentine and her plus- one, Jake Hawkins. As I said.”
“There must be a clerical error or something. We are two separate ones,” Kate said, reaching for the clipboard. “I’m a one, and he’s a different, completely independent one. No pluses involved. If I could just see that for a minute?”
But Abraham snatched the clipboard to his chest, looking offended. “We do not make clerical errors. He is your plus-one. If he is not your plus-one, then he does not belong here and he’ll have to leave the island. Hmmm?”
“I’m sure we can sort this out, mate,” Jake said, giving Abraham a shaky smile. “I bet there’s a spare cupboard or an empty hallway where I can bunk down, right? I hardly take up any room, and I once survived a week and a half in the jungle on a single protein bar. You’ll hardly notice I’m here.”
“I thought you said it was two days and there was a shawarma place within walking distance,” Kate murmured to him.
“This is not the jungle, and we are not serving protein bars,” Abraham said flatly. “The Manor accommodations are full, as is my schedule. So if you are not her plus-one—”
“He is my plus-one,” Kate blurted out. “I just remembered.”
Abraham looked at her. “You just remembered he is your plus-one?”
“Yes,” Kate said, before shaking her head. “I mean, obviously I remembered him. I meant I just remembered that I forgot that I RSVP’d for both of us. But that’s him. He’s him. The plus.”
“Mm-hmm,” Abraham said, clearly not convinced but needing to move them along. “The welcome bag has a map of the Manor and the island so you don’t get lost. I’m sure you were already warned about sticking to the Manor grounds and not wandering from the designated paths into the wilds?”
“Viscerally,” Jake muttered.
“Good. And do please note that Ms. Hempstead has very strict rules about the comings and goings in her home. She’s graciously opened her doors to us, and we are to treat our access as the precious gift it is. Now! We have cocktails and appetizers in the salon in twenty minutes. Let’s get you both to your room.”
“Sorry, room?” Kate said, leaning in, sure she had misheard him. “Singular?”
Abraham looked at her with such a professionally blank expression she imagined she wasn’t the first unruly guest he’d dealt with. “He is your plus-one, yes? So, you share a room.”
“I did… say that, didn’t I?” Kate said, nodding like the soothing rhythm might save her from the panic of sharing a room with Jake Hawkins. “I definitely… did… say that.”
“Yes, you did,” Abraham said, giving her a long-suffering look. “My assistant will show you up. Jean-Pierre! Where is that little Frenchman when you need him?”
Kate was still mildly hyperventilating at the idea of Jake disrobing within ten square feet of her when they passed into the full glory of the house. She stopped under a wide archway, supported by marble columns carved in the expression of satyrs grimacing under the weight, her gaze going up and up as her eyes grew wider and wider.
“What in the ever-loving fuck?” she breathed.
The interior lighting of the Manor looked as if it hadn’t been updated since its original construction in the twenties, all yellowed wall sconces and dramatic chandeliers. The walls were paneled in a dark wood, like chocolate bars stacked sideways, with no less than three staircases parading upward from this part of the house. Oil paintings hung on every open surface, all of them looking frightfully authentic. But it wasn’t the clearly haunted details of the house that riveted Kate.
It was all the animals .
Lions and tigers and an enormous grizzly bear, oh my; but there was also a bobcat, a moose head, several types of deer with varying headgear, an entire family of possums suspended by their tails under one of the staircases, and a large jackrabbit that still had the terrified gaze of its final death throes etched into its furry face.
“I’ll find Jean-Pierre,” Abraham said, leaving them at the mercy of the taxidermied occupants.
“This is a murder house,” Kate said, sightless black eyes following her no matter where she moved. She turned instinctively toward Jake as if his effortless attractiveness could somehow erase this new memory. “I knew Rebecca was into big game hunting, but I didn’t know she kept them. I figured she just murdered for fun and left them there, like other terrible rich people. So many stuffed animals.”
“And yet they couldn’t capture the most elusive game of all,” Jake murmured. “The dreaded Care Bear.”
The comment caught Kate by surprise and she snorted in laughter, smothering her mouth in her sweater sleeve to hide the reaction. But she couldn’t hide the way her entire body shook with rebellious laughter, which seemed to please Jake greatly.
“I can’t stay here,” she said, looking around again in horror. “I can’t wake up to a squirrel playing a tiny banjo or a platypus that sings ‘ Don’t Worry, Be Happy .’”
Now it was Jake’s turn to snort, though he didn’t bother hiding his reaction. The feeling of making Jake laugh shot through her veins like champagne bubbles, rising straight to her head. It was almost enough to make a girl forget her troubles for the weekend.
Almost.
Until a voice echoed through the hall of horrors. “Valentine, you sneaky lying bitch .”