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“For commoners, no. In private even, not that unusual. Britisharistocracy flaunting their skeletons in public, however? There’s no greater faux pas. The levee broke, as it were, when the duke’s brother was arrested with a prostitute overdosing in his Bentley outside the gates at Kensington. After that, the palace had no choice but to disavow the whole lot of them.”
“Yikes.”
Lee glances at me over his shoulder. “Yikes indeed.”
“Excommunication hasn’t stopped them from name-dropping like they’re doing Christmas at Sandringham,” Jamie says derisively. “To hear them tell it, it’s all a simple misunderstanding that’ll be cleared up any day now. Never mind a series of poor investments and fraud investigations has left them near squalor. I’m surprised they’ve kept the estate this long.”
“Well, now we have to take a look,” I say, sitting forward to poke my head between their seats. “Can we go to the estate sale? Just for a few minutes?”
“Yes, can we, darling?” Lee bats his eyelashes.
“Right. Hang on.” Jamie makes a sudden U-turn. “If you both promise to behave yourselves.”
Lee’s quick to quip back. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
8
JAMIE PARKS HISJAGUAR BESIDE ABENTLEY AND A BEAT-UPVolkswagen coupe on the gravel car park in front of the manor house. It’s astounding, this place. Four stories of ornate original architecture surrounded by green lawns. A pond on the east side is ringed by willow trees dipping their limbs in the still water.
“Are you serious?” I mutter the exclamation to myself, though Lee hears me and chuckles.
“Shoulders back, chin high. Act like you belong.”
“People actually live like this,” I say in continued astonishment. I’ve seen these places in movies, but they’re so much more elaborate and impressive in person.
“It’s all right,” Jamie says dismissively.
A young woman in a blue pantsuit approaches with a blinding white smile to hand us each a registry of items available for sale. She escorts us around the west side of the main house, through a river stone–paved garden, until we reach a brick courtyard where tables are set out to display silver serving sets, jewelry, books, paintings, and the various collected possessions of one of Britain’s once-great families.
It’s sort of depressing.
Like picking over a corpse.
Jamie is unfazed. Immediately he’s on the scent of a cute brunetteadmiring the vases and candleholders. In seconds, he has her twisting her hair around her finger and leaning on one hip. Incredible.
As he’s been doing most of the morning, Lee has his head bowed over his phone.
“George?” I ask while we peruse a table of carved jade candleholders.
Lee nods absently.
“Did he shave that horrid mustache?”
“What? Oh, no, luv, this is a new one.”
“A new what?”
“A new George.”
“What happened to Mustache George?”
“Too clingy.” Lee picks a couture silk kimono-style robe sheathed in plastic off a clothing rack. Then he sees the price tag and throws it down like it tried to bite him. “New George is more chill. A go-with-the-flow kind of bloke.”
I shake my head. “I swear, everyone in England is named George.”
We drift over to another table. Most of the stuff arrives at a weird intersection of seventeenth-century English country and eighties Miami drug dealer. Then I spot a hardbound encyclopedia of the trees of France and decide, well, no sense letting material go to waste. I have my research project to think about, and this estate could provide ample inspiration.
I browse the stacks of leather-bound first editions and obscure volumes about the most random of topics. From the history of English carpentry to great ships of the empire. Modern fashion to mapmaking. I find a leaf pressed between the pages of an account of an early expedition to Greenland. Minutes later, my arms are full, and another attendant of the sale offers to set my shopping aside for me while I continue browsing.
