Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
To the man’s credit, his father didn’t push anything else during that call.
He’d asked, “Blake is with ye?”
“Aye. We’re headed down shortly.”
“How’s she faring?”
“Not great.”
“Ye need anything, she needs anything, ye ring me,” his dad ordered.
Dair didn’t reply.
“Obviously, I’ll be attending the funeral,” his father went on.
Dair continued to say nothing.
“This isn’t the time, son. Just see to Blake,” Balfour concluded.
“Not something you have to tell me,” Dair returned. “I’ll see you at the funeral.”
And with that, he rang off.
When he was able to turn his phone back on after the flight, he had texts from Davi to say she’d picked up Mum, told her, and they were making plans to come down. They’d be in England by Friday, latest, but they were hoping to be down the next day.
This on top of a variety of group texts from Ned and Alex sharing their plans (Ned was flying commercial and was already on his way—Hale Wheeler was sending one of his planes to Alex and Rix to bring them over).
Blake spoke briefly to her sister on the ride from the airport to Treverton.
His woman had woken up to a call from the police communicating their need to speak to her as well as, since she was in the country, requesting she identify the body.
They were dropping their bags first and then heading to take care of that unhappy chore.
In the interim, they got further news of the crash, and this included a two-year-old had also lost her life.
Blake was wandering around lifeless, but when she heard that news, it visibly crushed her.
In turn, that crushed him, but there was nothing he could do but be at her side and see to anything that needed to get done.
As he drove up the drive, he took in the vivid green lawns and yellow Bath stone of the manor proper.
Wallace money was new money. Balfour—kickstarted by his father’s minor but not insignificant success with a small printing company—had built it and diversified it. And when the time came, he constructed a fine home in the country from good red Scottish stone in an old-style that was both roomy and mildly ostentatious.
His mother’s hand had kept that at “mildly.”
Treverton was old money, which somehow managed never to be ostentatious, even if it was a massive house with an attached, forward angled wing, twenty-five-foot ceilings inside, a dozen bedrooms, and a detached private chapel.
And, not incidentally in this time, a family cemetery behind that chapel.
Dair had always liked Treverton, mostly because the rooms were huge, there was a good deal of land attached to it to explore, and the stables were always full.
Now, he saw it differently.
Because it was Blake’s.
She was not fully American legally, since she had dual citizenship.
But she was fully American otherwise.
Nevertheless, Treverton suited her.
A man wearing dark brown trousers, a tan blazer with dark brown edging on the lapel, a white shirt and patterned brown tie came out the front door before Dair came to a stop outside it.
Dair bent forward to eye him suspiciously through Blake’s window and realized his estimate of the bloke being “a man” was generous.
“That’s Jeff. Mum’s butler,” Blair told him tonelessly.
Butler, his arse.
The bloke couldn’t be over thirty. He was blond, tall, tanned, fit, and obviously a boy toy.
Jesus Christ.
The tentacles of Helena’s bullshite were so strong, they reached even beyond her death.
They got out and he moved around the car to take Blake’s hand as they walked to the front door.
On their journey, Jeff was eyeing him too. He did it with surprise, and he was far from happy to see Dair approaching at all, much less holding Blake’s hand.
“Hey, Jeff,” Blake greeted when they arrived.
“Blake,” the man replied.
“Lady Sharp,” Dair corrected, and got both their attention.
“We don’t—” Blake started.
He looked down at her.
“You’re Lady Sharp now, darling,” he said gently.
For the first time since they woke up, light hit her eyes as she considered him.
But for once, she decided not to quarrel.
Instead, she turned to Jeff and introduced him.
“Jeff, this is Alasdair Wallace.”
“Yes, I know. Big fan,” Jeff lied stonily.
“Always great to meet fans,” Dair replied on his own lie, or it was in this instance, then went right into, “Ye can get the bags and take them to Blake’s room. We’ll be sharing it.” With that, he handed the man the car fob but warned, “We’ll be needing to leave soon, so I’d like that back promptly.”
There was angry red in the man’s face as he stiffly nodded, and Dair considered this evidence he was rarely asked to do any menial tasks around the house, if he ever was.
No. His tasks were not menial in the slightest.
Dair guided Blake into the house.
She took him to one of the less formal rooms, though it was all formal, so this one was incrementally less formal.