Page 89 of Finding Lord Landry

His fingers spasmed, twisting my tie out of alignment.

With an epic scowl, he yanked it open and started tying it again. “I assure you, anyone looking for more than conversation will definitely be shot down.”

I huffed out a humorless laugh. “Well, they can all join the fucking club. I’m the goddamned president of it.”

His jaw ticked. “Youhaven’t been shot down in days,” he pointed out before glancing around and plastering on a fake smile. “In fact, if you’ll recall, I’m the one who’s been trying to talk, yet somehow, you’re always conveniently too busy.”

“Mpfh.”

Kenji finally looked up at me. There was a toxic mix of anger, hurt, and lust in his eyes. The lust part threw me for a loop. “Landry, you can hardly be mad at me for looking my best when you clearly only need me to sit still and look pretty.”

His words offended me deeply. “What the fuck?” I hissed. “When have I ever treated you like a prop?”

Kenji’s eyes flashed as he finished the tie and put his palm below it on my chest, nearly high enough to strangle me. “When someone came for me with derogatory headlines and you decided to handle it yourself instead of bothering little ole me who…makes a fucking livingputting out fires. No, instead of asking for my help or getting myconsentfor peppering every news outlet with awkward Kenji photos, you took it upon yourself to manage the situation.”

Guests began entering the room, starting at the far end of the receiving line. I wrapped my fingers around Kenji’s wrist to pull his hand off me and lowered my voice even more. “I don’t want you to have to sort my shit for me.”

If it was possible, he looked even angrier. “Did it ever occur to you that Ilike?—”

“Oh, there you are, Landry!” Aunt Lydia’s smile beamed as brightly as her glittering dress, but her eyes flashed a warning that she’d noticed our heated conversation. “You remember Lord Wymer, don’t you? Lord Wymer, may I present Lord Hawling and his husband, Mr. Toma? If you’ll excuse me, I see Lord Twetts over there, and I know he’s beensoeager to meet my Cora.”

She melted away into the crowd, and Kenji’s face lit up in a welcoming smile as he greeted the baron and baroness.

“Lord Wymer, it’s been a long time!” I shook the man’s hand. “Lady Wymer, don’t you look lovely in blue? I believe I remember hearing you’d visited Fort McHenry when you were in the States last year, right? Well, Kenji here was actually born and raised in Maryland…”

The night spun out in a series of endless meet and greets like that one. With each subsequent introduction, I did my best to make a small conversational connection so that Kenji would be able to find people to talk to throughout the evening when I was pulled away for various reasons.

Tension vibrated between us despite the plastered-on smiles and deliberate touches intended to sell our “romance” to everyone there.

We finally moved from the receiving line into the library. Kenji was clearly still angry.

So was I.

How dare he get mad at me for trying to protect him. For trying to clean up my own messes for once. For keeping him from always having to take charge.

“There he is,” Ben MacNeely said as I entered the large ballroom and took stock of the crowd. “We were just talking about our next MP, weren’t we, Holmes?”

I reached for Kenji’s hand as we approached the group of men clad in crisp Armani and women in sparkling couture gowns. “That can’t be right. If I remember correctly, you were more likely lamenting Man United’s embarrassing showing on Sunday.”

Once everyone’s laughter and teasing died down and I’d thanked everyone again for coming, Samuel Holmes pulled me aside with his wife, Laura. “So, Ev… sorry, Landry—that’ll take some getting used to, won’t it? Sorry. Anyway, Laura and I wanted to talk to you about a special measure coming up in regards to the transfer of water rights. Her parents’ estate is on the Derwent and…”

He and Laura began appealing to me to support the special measure by explaining water rights in excruciating detail. I finally stopped him mid-plea.

“Sam, I understand riparian rights as I’ve been managing Davencourt Park for years, which stands on the River Wey. Unfortunately, I’m not able to dig into details about the special measure this evening, but did you know that the Davencourt Foundation funds clean water initiatives and ecological research? I’ll have to look into it, but the Derwent might be on the list of rivers positively impacted by our efforts here tonight.”

Kenji smiled and leaned forward. “Landry and Cora are also spearheading a project to establish new riverside walking trails. That project is near Epping, I think. Isn’t that right, darling? The more funding the project gets, the more trails they can create, which fits right in line with Landry’s personal hope of decreasing childhood obesity and increasing sustainable movement habits in adults.”

As the cocktail hour continued, the situation repeated itself. Someone tried to pull me aside to ask a favor or win my support on something, and Kenji managed to turn the conversation back to the evening’s purpose. Like a dutiful spouse.

He had to be hating every minute of this. It was an unwelcome reminder of all the other times in the past decade Kenji Toma had been forced to bail me out of scrapes. If only I hadn’t dragged him into this mess by telling that one little lie about being engaged to him. And if only he hadn’t felt duty-bound to double down on the lie with a bigger lie to try and fix things.

By the time I pulled his chair out at the dinner table, I was annoyed, anxious, and generally on edge.

It was probably for the best I wasn’t able to sit with him. Instead, I was seated a few places away between Baroness Colborne and Teddy’s wife, Kaveri.

Kaveri winked at me as soon as I inquired after her comfort. “I believe you’re the one in the hot seat. How has the evening gone for you so far? Okay?”

I smiled and shrugged. “I can’t say I’m not used to the scrutiny, although I’ve never had it focused on my brains over my brawn, so to speak.”

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