Elizabeth gives him one sharp tilt of the head. “Yes, sir. Shall I… um… also start some baths?”
William chuckles. “Always so candid, our Elizabeth. Yes, that sounds wonderful.”
Elizabeth scoots out of the sitting room, backward, closing the doors with a flourish.
“I’m sorry I didn’t invite you over earlier,” William says. He crosses the room to a gorgeous roll-top secretary desk and flips through a stack of correspondence. “I didn’t know if you could be trusted. No offense.”
Pax’s head swivels about, taking it all in. A curl flops adorably over his forehead. “None taken. I wouldn’t trust me at first, either.”
William seems to find Pax’s awe delightful, and he belly-laughs. Pax smiles at him. “What did you say your last name was again?”
“I didn’t.”
I perch on the edge of a leather sofa. I run my finger around one of the tufted buttons. The material looks and feels like silky caramel.
“Vanderbilt,” William says at last. He crosses the room to the fireplace. He doesn’t look at us. Is he… embarrassed?
Pax closes his eyes and tosses his head back. “Like Commodore Vanderbilt? The naval officer? The railroad tycoon?”
Spirit is having a heyday with this. It’s flashing me images of stacks of money and biplanes and yachts and castles nestled in the mountains. But I’m not getting a feeling of greed. Just a feeling of… excess.
William shrugs. “In Sweden they sayatt glida in på en räkmacka.” He chuckles. “It means literally ‘to slide in on a shrimp sandwich.’ It refers to someone who didn’t have to work to get where they are.”
Nirav, who has been running the palm of his hand over the back of a horse statue, as if petting it, starts to laugh silently. He wheezes and tears pop out of the corners of his eyes.
I can’t help it. I laugh, too. Then Pax, and at last, William joins in.
Ah, that kind of laughter that feels like a summer rainshower, washing all your emotions clean.
I miss that feeling.
Elizabeth returns with brandy in smooth, heavy snifters. She disappears quickly, and William lifts his glass.
“To new friends,” he says.
“May they become old friends,” Pax adds. He winks at me. Friends?
We clink glasses. The brandy is silky and it burns. It warms me to my toes.
“So,” Pax says to William. “I don’t understand. How did you end up working for Clarice?”
William swirls the brandy in his snifter. Nirav watches him and copies the motion with his hot chocolate. William grins at him.
“You misunderstood that relationship, Pax. Clarice works for me.”
“So those contacts when you left,” I say. “Those were yours. Not hers.”
William takes another long pull from his brandy snifter. “Yes. All mine.”
An anxious, odd swirl of emotions rises at that revelation. Did Pax even need to…convinceClarice, then? My eyebrows knit together, and I stare at the thick, sweet brandy, suddenly a tad ill.
If you’d admit yer feelings to the boy, it’d change things, Stella.
You told Pax it was okay. You said it was nothing but business.
You talked him into going.
Spirit can sound oddly like a conscience.
