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He grinned broadly, maybe because of my fake pout, more likely because he knew the reaction he caused. He took another drag from his fancy-ass cigarette and walked away to blow the smoke well away from my person.
“I hope this story doesn’t end with you telling me you think Dorothy’s shenanigans meant she got what she deserved,” I said.
He shook his head. “Virginia was powerless. Dorothy was one of the first women in modern times who had scratched her way to holding a modicum of power, and I don’t blame her how she chose to use it, or either of them for how they were forced to live their lives.”
“Good answer.”
“Hungry?” he asked.
“I think dinner is imminent.”
“As much as I want to see my father react to your shirt and that fetching bra, I ran into Stevenson on the way here and asked him to request Bonnie set up a chef’s table in the kitchen. Mum and Dad can stare at each other across a twenty-five-foot expanse. You and Louella and I are going where it’s warm, it smells good, and people actually like each other.”
“That sounds amazing.”
He took another drag, crushed out his cigarette, and held his hand my way.
For some reason, I sensed taking it was a bigger declaration than just Ian leading me to the kitchen (and collecting Lou along the way) for dinner.
So I hesitated.
When I did, he turned it palm up.
He wanted me to take it.
He wanted me to make that declaration, not just follow him out of the Conservatory, or the other way around.
He wanted us connected.
And the way he was now holding his hand to me made him seem vulnerable.
Exposed.
Like he was taking a huge risk.
No, like he was teetering on the edge and holding that hand to me so I’d save him from falling.
I took his hand.
And we found Louella on the way to the kitchen.
Eight
THE CARNATION ROOM
I lay in bed, waiting for the book I’d just bought about the Dorothy Clifton possible murder/possible accident/possible suicide to download on my Kindle.
Ian had shared the Duncroft House Wi-Fi password over dinner.
Ian had done a lot of things over dinner.
For one, he’d charmed the pants (figuratively) off Louella, and in all honesty, me.
For another, he’d exposed us to an entirely different staff of Duncroft. Those who smiled, joked, called Ian by his first name, and were wholly comfortable around him as they went about their business.
Bonnie, the rounded, very pretty, middle-aged, classically trained chef (who Richard had called a “cook”) even sat with us and ate dessert while she bombarded me with questions about my business and pastry-making secrets. All this while I inwardly squirmed because Ian watched as it happened, and he did this with great intensity.
We then moved back to the Conservatory (definitely Ian’s favored space, and I didn’t think it was only because that was where he could smoke). There, we had after-dinner drinks and I watched while Ian beat Louella in a game of backgammon.
