Page 67 of Finding Lord Landry

“I… uh… think so?” I replied, wondering why it was important which reporter asked which question. “She was wearing a fluffy hat over her ears, so I didn’t see what color hair she had. But she was tall.”

“That’s Janice,” Cora said, nodding as she looked down at her phone. “There’s a picture of her in the hat. I recognize it from the Fulham art gallery thing.”

Nan’s eyes pinned me, even though her expression was kind. “Next time, try to remember to marry your knife and fork when you’re finished eating.”

I gave her a slow blink. “I’m… sorry? I don’t…” I glanced at Cora for help.

Cora responded while typing something into her phone. “Put the knife and fork side by side on the plate to indicate you’re finished eating. It’s alright. I already scheduled an etiquette refresher for tomorrow afternoon. Then Henri will be back with the first suit fittings. After that, we’ll have a formal-ish dinner party with just the Winthrops where we can practice the etiquette lesson. Sound good?” She glanced up and looked around for Reg, who was busy chopping something on a cutting board while talking to a younger woman who was also wearing a chef’s coat. “That okay with you, Reg?”

He nodded. “It’s one of the reasons Beth is here this week. Three or five courses?”

“Five.”

One of Nan’s assistants was busy tapping notes into a tablet as she stood next to Nan, asking questions. The housekeeper was fluttering in and out with various cleaning staff. Ed was filling out a sudoku puzzle in the newspaper with a sleek, ebony pen. A cooling cup of tea sat too close to his elbow, so I reached over and nudged it out of the way.

“Thank you, darling,” he murmured without bothering to see who’d done it.

I noticed the meticulous care with which his face had been shaved and his white hair styled. Someone had pointed out Ed’s personal valet at one point as he’d bustled through the kitchen on his way to the laundry, but this was the first time I’d stopped to think about the man. Ed’s clothes were elegant and fine but also current. There was no way the earl shopped for himself, of course, and I’d already learned enough to know Nan didn’t bother with minor details such as fetching clothes from Brooks Brothers or whatever.

EvenIno longer did that for the guys in the Brotherhood. I had lower-level assistants who did it for me.

The Davencourt wealth was different than the Brotherhood’s money in some ways, but in others, it was similar. I wondered now if that was—at least in part—because of Landry’s influence on the Brotherhood.

Bash, Silas, Dev, and Zane all gave generously to good causes. Much of their wealth was used anonymously for good, but enough of it was used publicly to keep the judgmental media off their backs. The same seemed to be true here with the Davencourt family.

“Did you leave an appropriate tip?” Nan asked.

It took me a minute for the words to compute. “I… wasn’t the one who paid.” I remembered belatedly something about this from all of their previous instructions, but I hadn’t remembered it in the heat of the moment. “I forgot. Sorry.”

Cora and Nan both groaned. “No,” Cora said. “Remember we talked about this? We said you needed to pay to stave off any rumors about you marrying him for his money.”

“The bill was probably less than fifty bucks,” I said, losing my patience. “Who the hell cares? Landry always pays. He hasn’t let me pay for anything in the ten years I’ve known him. None of the guys do. I work for them!”

A hush came over the kitchen as I realized what I’d said. “I mean, Iusedto,” I quickly corrected, remembering one of the many lies I was supposed to tell. “So it’s a habit for him to pay. Are we seriously going to pretend there’s no income gap between us? He’s a… a world-famous supermodel. A viscount. I’m an executive assistant. Let’s be real here.”

I’d almost let slip he was a billionaire in his own right, thanks to the software he’d created with the Brotherhood. The idea that he wouldn’t be the one to pick up a simple brunch tab was laughable. A fifty-dollar tab to him was like spending a fraction of a penny. There’d been memes about how little the very wealthy felt day-to-day expenditures like the rest of us did. “Had I made a point of pulling out my card to pay for breakfast, it would have looked like the performative action it was.”

Cora lifted an eyebrow. “Or it might have looked like you share his money now, and it doesn’t matter who pays because it all comes out of the same account.”

I felt off-balance and on edge. “I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I’m not exactly used to being the one in the spotlight. I’ll do better next time, I promise.”

Ed spoke up without lifting his eye from the Sudoku. “Liv once asked for a ginger ale at Buckingham Palace. Drank it right out of the bottle before the server could bring her a glass. I thought my mother was going to faint dead away.” He looked up at me and winked. “No one died. I can promise you that.”

Nan gazed at him fondly. “No one died, but the headlines called her the Duchess of Canada Dry for about a week.”

They chuckled and shared a few more memories before Ed left to take a walk in the park with his valet and a member of the security team.

A little while later, when I’d finally extracted myself from the interrogation, I slunk upstairs. Cora passed me in the hallway when I stopped at the door to my room. “Are Nan and your uncle together?” I asked her.

She glanced around us to make sure we were alone. “It’s sort of an unspoken secret around here. Everyone suspects, but no one talks about it.”

“Why not? It’s sweet.”

She hesitated. “Nan’s worried about Landry’s reaction. She doesn’t want him to find out.”

“He doesn’t know?” I asked in surprise.

She shook her head. “And you can’t tell him. He was very close to his mom, but he’s always been close to Nan, too. It would be weird for him.”

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