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“Don’t worry about it, Miss. That happens all the time. This house used to be run by four boys. These walls have seen more than their fair share of breadcrumbs and food andGod only knows what elseon them.” Theodore sighs wistfully at the walls as he’s reliving all the hours of scrubbing them down.
“Even by Kingsley?” I ask, eyeing the owner of the house, who looks like he’s never made a mess in his life.
“Well, maybe not him. But he’s always had a stick up his butt.”
I let out a gasp, this time luckily covering my mouth before more bread escapes from it.
Theodore leaves, whistling while Kingsley chews his food, his jaw twitching.
“I did not expect butlers to talk about their employers like that.”
Kingsley gives me a wry look. “Butlersdon’t. Theodore is not your usual butler. He works here because I can’t get him to leave.”
“And don’t you forget it!” Theodore yells from the butler’s pantry.
“I love him,” I whisper once I’m sure I’ve swallowed all my food. As better as I feel that this dining room has seen worse dinner guests than me, I’m not sure being compared to rowdy teenage boys is really that much to be proud of.
“Don’t bother whispering. He can hear everything you’re saying.”
“No, I can’t! Don’t believe him.” The shout comes loud and clear from the other room again.
I laugh while Kingsley rolls his eyes again and mouths, “Told you.”
“I guess you need someone to keep you in line,” I say thoughtfully, while chewing on another piece of bread. “Did you actually bake this?”
He looks up from his plate, and then, reticently, nods.
“It’s delicious. If your day job doesn’t work out, maybe you can run a bakery out of your house. It’s all the rage.”
He makes a funny face but then sits back, hands clasped in front of him as his eyes glaze over and he sinks deep into thought.
He doesn’t move for five minutes—not that I care, I’m too entranced by my food. Eventually, he resurfaces and picks up his fork, joining the land of the living again.
“So, I’ll call Jarvis about the trust tomorrow. Make sure that he sends all the paperwork over as soon as possible. And once all the paperwork is in place, we’ll start.”
“Start?”
“Well, the goal is that at the end of the three months, I’m going to feel comfortable that you have, at least, a foundational understanding of what your rights and responsibilities are. How to manage your money and stocks and who you can trust to help you with those things. So yeah, there is a lot to go through. Gaining an understanding of The Hamilton Group and how it and other business like it run will be a learning curve in and of itself. Maybe you should think of something you have questions about and we can start from there. I’m sure you’ll have more as you learn more. There’s a lot you need to know.”
I scratch the back of my head, wondering how I’m going to tell him what I decided about my inheritance. “About that…”
He shakes his head. “No. Save it. You need some rest. You’ve been with this information for just over a day. I can only imagine that you have a lot of thoughts about it. It’s okay to sit with it for some time. I think you’re going to have a lot of feelings about it over the next few months. And they’re probably going to change dramatically over that time. So don’t be making any great declarations. I’m not going to listen to them tonight, so don’t waste your breath.”
Somehow, he always just knows.
“How did you know what I was going to say?”
He wipes the corners of his mouth with his napkin, folds it, and lays it down on the table, smoothing his hand over it.
And as always, I can’t stop watching him.
The little lines on his face that I teased him about give him a gravity that adds to the whole irresistible illusion. Cultivated and sophisticated. But with a stormy undercurrent that thrills me.
“God complex, remember?” He sits back, taking a long drink from his water glass, eyeing me. “Is there anything you need right now?”
“Like the recipe to this stew?”
“It’s cassoulet. I meant, do you need clothes or essentials or anything like that?”
