Page 24 of The Pearl (The Godwicks 3)

Arthur didn’t tell her that she didn’t know the half of it.

4

The Waltz

Two nights down with Regan.

Eight to go.

And in the meantime, Arthur was snooping.

On Regan, of course. He told himself it was because she had made herself an enemy of the Godwick family—finding a way to legally steal a painting from them and then practically forcing Arthur to sleep with her to get it back.

“Really,” Arthur muttered to himself as he fought off another pesky erection. “How dare she.”

In the back of his mind, he knew he was snooping because she fascinated him, aroused him, infuriated him, and stripped him of all his defenses. He had to get some of those defenses back.

Know thy enemy,he reminded himself.Biblically, if necessary.

His parents had a private service they used to vet employees and household staff, which included complete background checks and that sort of thing. Seemed rather intrusive to Arthur, so he turned instead to the internet. He spent half the morning after his last encounter with Regan in his father’s office at the townhouse, online, digging up everything Google could tell him about her.

First, he learned her maiden name was Moira Regan Pryce, but she’d always gone by Regan.

She was thirty. Her birthday was in August. Clearly her parents had found something to do on those long, cold December nights in Wales.

With a little more digging he found that Regan and Sir Jack Ferry had a grand wedding at St. Paul’s. He even found a photograph of them standing on the steps afterward—Regan looking like his granddaughter in a white lace wedding gown and Sir Jack looking a little like that American actor Gene Hackman. The article mentioned a candle had been lit on the altar in honor of her mother Hannah, who’d died when Regan was only four years old.

Four? How horrid. She’d mentioned her mother had died young, but she hadn’t said exactly how young. What would that do to someone, to lose their mother at four years old? He couldn’t imagine life without either of his parents, even his father who drove him mad most days, but especially his mother who’d been the love of his life at that age. He remembered how she’d read to him and Charlie every night at bedtime, fairy tales and silly stories about frogs and toads, cats and hats, and bears going to the moon. She called him her Morning Star since he always woke up so early. Charlie was her Evening Star who went wild at night before bed.

He had to wonder if, subconsciously perhaps, that was why Regan had gotten married so young? To recreate in some way the family she’d lost?

He discovered only one other piece of information that seemed significant. When Regan married Sir Jack Ferry, there were a few small write-ups in the gossip rags. The usual rubbish about a social climber marrying a rich old toff. One thing jumped out at him: she was described as a student at the time. She’d been studying painting atLOCAD, the prestigious London College of Art and Design.

Regan was an artist. Or had been once. He tried to find out if she’d ever graduated, but couldn’t access any of the alumni pages.

He sat back in his father’s big leather desk chair and with the toe of his shoe, swiveled the chair toward the windows that looked into the shadowy back garden and the trees shedding their autumn leaves.

Once upon a time, Regan had been a young artist. Then she’d met a rich man who’d offered her the security of money and marriage and discovered the price of both was higher than she ever expected to pay. She seemed to be paying the price now, even months after Sir Jack had died. Working late at The Pearl, still wearing her watch to cover her wrist tattoo, buying Arthur to sleep with because she wouldn’t give herself time to date.

After their most recent encounter in front of her mirror, Regan had slipped on her robe and said, “You can go now. After years of sleeping with a man I loathed, it’s the height of luxury to sleep alone.”

He hadn’t even asked to sleep in her bed…although if she’d asked him to, he would have. How was it that he could feel so close to her while they were having sex, but the moment it was over, he was dismissed like a servant? Probably, he admitted to himself, because to her, he was a servant and nothing else. And, as she’d said, he’d have to get used to it.

When he was done snooping, he knew more facts about Regan, but the truth of her still eluded him.

The doorbell rang. Arthur went to the door and there was Zoot again in her red coat and boots, holding out another notecard to him.

“We meet again,” Arthur said. “I promise to mind my Ps and Qs today.”

“Just read the note,” she said, glaring. “I can’t go until you’ve read it and given me your answer.”

He opened the card, expecting to find another note from Regan summoning him to her bedroom.

Instead he found an invitation.

“The Fox and Hen Hunting Club Ball,” Arthur read aloud. “A hunt ball? Brilliant. My favorite.” Of course he was being sarcastic. Hunt balls were an old English tradition, hunting clubs celebrating the end of their season. He didn’t hunt, and he tried to avoid balls. Regan really was a sadist.

“The boss wants to know if you’ve got a tux or something formal to wear,” Zoot said. “She needs a date to the ball. Geezer friends of her crap dead husband are throwing it, and she wants them to see she’s getting fresh young cock these days.”

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