Page 86 of Finding Lord Landry

The little fucker was on the settee again.Of course.

Instead of risking waking him, I slunk back out of the room and closed the door.

And then got to work.

The following morning, Kenji came striding into the kitchen, bright-eyed and gorgeous in a new outfit of wide-legged black trousers and a trim-fit toffee-brown sweater so soft it had to have been cashmere.

If I hadn’t been so tired, I would have wanted to parade him around town and then pose with him for the cover of a magazine with the feature cover line claiming, “Legal Experts Agree: Kenji Toma is Off-Limits To Other Men.”

“Good morning, everyone,” he said cheerily, breezing past me to grab the sole Starbucks cup remaining in the carrier. “I would include my darling,devotedhusband in that greeting, but he’s currently dead to me.”

“I am devoted to you,” I corrected with a sleep-deprived grumble. “Devoted to your protection.”

“Mpfh. I assume that’s the reason Zee Barlo and an unknown woman from the Vista Bonita Active Seniors Community happened to leak photos of a certain viscount’s cheaty husband within hours of each other?”

“You’renota cheaty husband,” I muttered. “You’d never. That was the whole point.”

“Oh my god, Landry, what did you do?” Nan asked, peering over Cora’s shoulder at the laptop screen.

After a late-night Brotherhood strategy session, we’d come up with the right media distraction to pitch to the crisis PR manager.

Zane had, with his irresistible “oh shucks, he’ll kill me for this, but you just have to see it” charm, sent old photographs of a knock-kneed chess geek winning prizes at various tournaments in the greater mid-Atlantic area circa 2002 to 2010.

Additionally, Kenji’s grandmother, who’d still been awake, thanks to the time difference, had “accidentally” changed the security settings on a few Facebook posts featuring her chubby-cheeked grandson as an infant and as a gap-toothed second grader at Old Line Elementary School.

Cora gasped and clutched her chest. “Oh my god, the cowlick.”

Nan leaned over and grinned. “That shirt collar makes your neck look as skinny as a pin. Aren’t you just thesweetest.”

Kenji’s glare was laser-hot against the back of my head as I turned to grab a breakfast sandwich from the tray. His voice was dangerously sweet. “This aggressive memory-lane campaign seems incredibly reactive, but I look forward to seeing the equivalent photos released of the Right Honorable Judas Iscariot in his infant dinner jacket and his prep-school tweeds. Maybe a shot of him playing polo, hmm? I heard he was incredible at it, and I, for one, would love to see a heretofore unseen shot of the viscount in his awkward prepubescent years.”

Cora snorted, preparing to tell him the truth of my polo experience before I stopped her with a look.

Nan ignored the tension. “Look at you with your gran at your graduation. Och, such a lovely photo. She’s obviously very proud of you, Kenji.”

He took a breath. I imagined him doing a hard-and-fast scroll through his mental list of helpful Chaska Inira wisdom.

So I decided to help him out.

“Fire cannot put out fire. Let the flames of anger pass before you speak, and you will not burn what you wish to protect.”

His eyes widened in slow motion. “Did you justChaskame?”

I bit back a smile. When an angry Kenji Toma was the match, I was happy tinder. “I simply believe in a tempered response. Consider meditation and reframing before?—”

His slender nostrils flared with anger as he clapped a hand over my mouth. “Did it occur to you to consult with the person who was being smeared in the original headline? Did you ever stop to think that I make a living putting out fires and managing messes like this full-time? Or that we—” He made a jerky arm motion between me, Cora, Nan, and himself. “—have a crisis PR team on call right now who actually specializes in responding to ridiculous headlines like this?”

“I had their approval,” I tried to say from behind his hand. But it came out sounding more likeM’adder proovuh.

He yanked his hand away when I finally licked it. His voice was calm but with a clear thread of danger underneath. “Watch your back,my lord. You are on a very short list of extremely long and detailed revenge plans.”

My dad wandered into the room with theTimesunder his arm and a mug of tea in one hand. After seeing everyone gathered around the laptop, he leaned over and lifted his glasses to get the right angle before asking, “What are we looking at, and why is my purported son-in-law upset?”

Kenji cleared his throat. “Sorry, sir. But you’ve raised a man-child who still needs scolding from time to time. I’m happy to take the duty off your shoulders.”

I couldn’t hold back a snort of surprise. Cora’s face lit up with approval. It was nice to know Kenji wasn’t intimidated by the fifteenth Earl of Davencourt.

“Don’t I know it,” Dad said with a grin before looking back at the laptop screen and Kenji’s chess picture. “Wait a moment. That’s a FIDE tournament. Just how good a player are you, son?”

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