9. Chapter Nine #3
“Really, I should’ve known the game was up the second you arrived,” Tallulah said, giving Caroline a little chuckle before returning her full attention to Marcie. “That was real, by the way? You two didn’t text each other ahead of time, work that little bit of theater out?”
Marcie and Caroline shared a confused look.
“I wouldn’t be upset,” Tallulah said.
“Not at all,” Caroline said, sincerely. “I got a text about the news—Dr. Kothary must have told Yukiko right after she got off the phone with Jack and Marcie. I knew that whatever happened, she’d need me—”
“More like you needed her,” Tallulah said with a smirk.
Caroline fell silent.
“Oh, don’t be that way,” the grande dame said—and now, Tallulah was every bit the haughty woman-of-the-house she’d been, just on our side of the fence. “A great many people over the years have promised to protect the things I love. But talk is cheap.”
If she’d caught the name my angel let slip a minute ago—that errant Eliza—she gave no sign of it.
Later on, I’d decide she almost certainly had, but had wisely decided to file it away in whatever mental structure passed for a Rolodex of its own inside of her skull.
Filed away, but not forgotten. I was just relieved we hadn’t blown the whole play.
Marcie blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“You defended a woman you’ve known a fortnight, Marcella.
The smart play—the Victoria Ruocchio play—would’ve been to let me savage her and keep your eyes on the prize.
” She shook her head, impressed. “And that came after you made me feel like a guest in my own house when you got that phone call.” She looked at me, her gaze warming towards me for the first time since I’d set foot in the dining room.
“He showed me he’d burn this whole thing to the ground to protect you, and then you showed me you’d do the same thing to protect your people.
That’s the kind of loyalty you can’t buy.
The kind I expect from someone with the last name Ramsey. ”
Marcie took my hand beneath the table and squeezed it. “That’s what you’ll get from us.”
Tallulah took another sip. “I’m sure. The lawyers will bore us all senseless in the morning, no doubt, but it’ll be worth it. Won’t you have fun imagining the look on that usurper’s face when she hears the news?”
It took a second for the full import of her statement to sink in. “In the morning, you said?”
Tallulah was already nodding. Now that we’d finally cleared the unpleasantness between us, she had the air of a woman looking forward to moving on to new business.
Maybe we’d revitalized her. “It’s gone dark outside, haven’t you noticed?
The sultan is drunk, besides, and my Carl would climb right up out of the ground to slap my rear if I let a pregnant girl and Daniel’s golden boy drive three hours through these hills at this hour.
Especially in that gaudy monstrosity you’ve got parked out by my fountain. ”
I chuckled, thinking of the way the McLaren stood out like a sore thumb next to the gothic structure.
“Oh, Jack is fine,” Marcie began. “We couldn’t possibly—”
“You can, and you will,” Tallulah said, her tone taking on an unexpected seriousness. “Consider it the first act of a long and profitable friendship.”
Marcie looked at me. So did Caroline. Both of them seemed to be looking for permission to say yes.
Or maybe they were trying to sway me in one direction or another.
Either way, it didn’t seem like we had much of a choice.
“We didn’t, er, prepare for this…” I began.
Tallulah waved a hand. “Everything will be taken care of,” she said imperiously.
“That’s terribly kind of you,” Caroline piped up.
Her tone was warmth itself, brimming with gratitude for Tallulah’s kindness, though the look she cast in my direction through her lashes carried a hint of something else beneath that bubbly exterior.
“Marcie, you really shouldn’t be traveling tonight, anyway. Not after all this.”
The smile Marcie gave her assistant was intimately familiar to me. It generally meant my angel was about fifteen seconds away from shedding her innocence and doing something truly depraved. “Oh my gosh! I just realized I’m going to be in a mansion tonight with my very own servant!”
Caroline inclined her head, leaning into the bit. “Your wish is my command, madam.”
Tallulah’s gaze went from Marcie to Caroline, then to me and back again. I watched her arrive at a very obvious conclusion. Then I watched her decide with an enormous amount of dignity to pretend she hadn’t.
“Right,” she murmured. “Gadfrey. Put the Averys in the east wing.” She made a show of pretending to think. “The far east wing. Assistant in the bedroom next to theirs.” She rolled her eyes. “And take the good champagne with them; it’s plainly wasted on me tonight.”
She rose, gathering her red dress around her like a queen about to take leave of her castle.
“Congratulations, Marcella. On the baby, the new client, and anything else in your life you feel like celebrating.” She turned to me. “And Jack?”
“Yes?”
A wry smile tugged at the corners of Tallulah’s lips.
“I may have misjudged the sultan. But being Daniel’s golden boy will only get you so far.
” She nodded in Marcie’s direction. “If you don’t keep every one of that girl’s promises, you and I are going to have some words.
And not the kind you usually have with women these days. ”
“You won’t have to worry about that,” I promised her. “This partnership is just as sacred to me as it was to Daniel.”
“Good. I’ll see you in the morning, then.”
And with that, Tallulah Harrington swept out of her own dining room.
Leaving me with my pregnant wife, the knowledge that I’d stolen Victoria Ruocchio’s most important client, and a young woman who couldn’t stop flirting with either of us.
Something told me the celebration had just started.