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“Can we please just enjoy our dinner?” Jane requested.
At that point, it was an impossible request.
But I exchanged a glance with Lou, and we both sent careful smiles in Portia’s direction.
Which meant we were going to try.
It ended up an epic fail.
But we gave it our best shot.
Five
THE CARNATION ROOM
“I think we should find a way to get Portia and leave.”
I was standing at the window, cradling my snifter of Amaretto, and staring out at the shadowed landscape that, yes…was all but obscured by mist.
Britain’s reputation for fog wasn’t quite as true as everyone not in Britain thought it was, just as it didn’t always rain. Frequent gray days and drizzle was more in keeping with the truth, and fog didn’t happen often.
But when it settled, it didn’t mess around.
And still, this was the worst I’d ever seen it.
Even with my foreboding about that fact, my attention cut directly to Lou at what she said about all of us leaving.
We were back in the Wine Room. She was seated in a leather wingback chair drinking port.
After-dinner drinks didn’t happen for anyone but me and Lou. The minute we exited the Turquoise Room, an irked-looking Richard claimed an aggravated-looking Ian, and they disappeared somewhere. Portia and Daniel said quick goodnights, and they disappeared like they were advanced in age, it was midnight, well past their bedtime, not nine thirty and they were young and spry.
Jane just disappeared.
So now it was again Lou and me.
I walked to the chair at angles with hers and gladly sat in it, giving my feet the rest they needed. As worth it as they were, beautiful shoes could be a pain.
“I know. Dinner was a lot,” I agreed.
“It’s not that,”—she stared moodily into her port—“I just don’t feel good about this place, this visit…these people.”
My reception hadn’t been exactly warm, but it’d been better than hers.
And she’d come into this week with trepidation, and nothing had happened since to make things better for her.
“Do you want me to take you to the train station tomorrow?” I offered.
Her head snapped up, an abrupt and even violent movement that alarmed me, and what she said alarmed me more.
“I think we three should stick together.”
It had been a trying day, but unusually, in my opinion, Lou was overreacting to it.
“They’re just dysfunctional, Lou. We aren’t the soul of adjusted familial relationships either.”
“Daniel is trying too hard. So hard, I don’t trust him one whit. Richard and Jane are…” she trailed off with that, like the walls could hear us talking about our hosts, and she wasn’t comfortable uttering her thoughts out loud. “And Ian is unbearable.”
Ian was arrogant and conceited, arguably justifiably so, he was just that attractive.
