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“One glass!” she protested with a laugh.
Neil gave Mom and Tony the casual tour as we trekked across the house. Mom took all the pointing out of architectural details and oil portraits in stride, but Tony was as overwhelmed as I had been the first time I’d been to the house.
“Doing okay?” I asked under my breath, leaning toward him so he could hear me.
“No,” he said with a wink. “But I’ll survive.”
“I was completely out of my depth when I came here the first time, too. I hate it. I feel like the ghost of the queen is going to pop out at me.” I half-covered my mouth as I whispered it, hoping to direct the comment to his ears only. Since Mom and Neil walked farther and farther ahead of us, mutually rapturous over the sunlight in the west gallery, I doubted they would be interested in our conversation, anyway.
“Becky seems to pick it up quick.” Tony cleared his throat. “Not that that’s a bad thing.”
“But how are you gonna keep ‘em on the farm when they’ve been waited on by liveried servants twenty-four hours a day?” I suggested with a wry smile. Tony wasn’t going to be able to keep my mom living at the level she’d been living at with us. I would absolutely give them money if they wanted it, but they had their pride. Mom was going to go back to a daily life of laundry and bills, with the added aggravations of finding parking spaces and trying to navigate a city with more people in it than in the entire upper peninsula of Michigan.
“You know she wants to get back to a more normal life,” I went on. “Don’t be threatened by her enjoying my money by proxy.”
“What was that?” Neil called back.
“I said this wallpaper is tacky.” I smiled sweetly at him.
“Well, get an Ouija board and tell Baroness Rothschild. I’m sure she’d love to discuss it with you,” he said with a roll of his eyes before moving on to explain to my mother the significance of the plaster medallions in the ceiling.
Right. Like I’d ever touch an Ouija board, let alone bring one into Deathbyshire Manor.
Since we would have guests coming in all morning, brunch had been laid out buffet-style in the blue dining room. We filled our plates and waited for the servants to pour our coffee and juice, which we could have easily done by ourselves in half the time.
“So, is your whole family going to be here for Christmas?” Mom asked Neil, folding her napkin across her lap. She quickly followed it up with, “Siblings, I mean?”
I saw the nanosecond of grief I’d grown so familiar with flicker a crease across his brow. It was so fast, but I never missed it. He forced a smile. “My brothers. My sister is on a yacht somewhere.”
“I haven’t seen them since the wedding,” Mom said, seeming pleased at the prospect. “I really like the one’s wife...Kristine?”
“I just love her,” I agreed.
“Yes, she and Runólf will be here,” Neil said. Then, without missing a beat or sounding suspicious in any way, he smoothly added, “Oh, and our friend El-Mudad will be here with his daughters.”
My mom’s eyebrows shot up. I knew she thought I’d cheated on Neil with El-Mudad while Neil had been in the hospital. No, not thought. Feared.
Either way, it was insulting.
Even worse, Tony knew all about El-Mudad. There was no way he’d driven us around on dates and not noticed me stumbling, sex-dazed, from the back of the Maybach. And he knew about our secret sexy playhouse and that El-Mudad had gone out there with us plenty of times. But an NDA prevented him from telling my mom. More importantly, he was just a good guy who minded his business.
“I didn’t realize he celebrated Christmas,” Mom verbally tiptoed around El-Mudad’s religion.
“I don’t celebrate Christmas, either, in the strictest sense of the word. But spending time with the people you love is as much the spirit of the season as the hymns and decorations.” Neil’s glance briefly flicked to Tony.
And I realized what Neil had said. He knew just as well as I that Tony was fully aware of the relationship we had with El-Mudad. So, it was a relief when Tony said, “I totally agree.”
I reached for Neil’s hand under the table and squeezed it. We might not have been able to be open to everyone about our boyfriend, but we had an accomplice in our corner, and that felt like enough for the moment.
Once everyone started eating and talking, it felt a lot more like a meal at home. My home, at least. Though Neil was perfectly comfortable and happy at his “country house,” it would never feel like more than a museum to me. But we chatted about Mom and Tony’s flight and when we could expect our other family members to arrive, as well as how much we were missing Olivia. For the first time in my entire life with Neil, I felt like Mom and I fit in.
