Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Prue and Chassie started giggling again.
A throat was cleared.
We turned to see Fitzgibbons in the hall.
He looked freaked.
Oh shit.
What now?
“My ladies, we have visitors,” he announced.
“Who?” Prue asked carefully, totally feeling his vibe.
“Lord Raleigh. Miss Courtney Wright. And Miss Chelsea Renfrew,” he intoned.
Prue groaned.
Chassie gasped.
“They’re waiting for you in the green sitting room,” Fitzgibbons stated.
Prue’s “Now?” sounded choked.
“Lady Temperance requested you attend them…immediately.”
“Bloody hell,” Prue whispered.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Rally’s a friend of Battie’s,” Chassie whisper-told me. “And Courtney is his fiancée.”
“Okay,” I said.
That didn’t seem so bad.
“And Chelsea,” Prue said her name like it tasted bad, “is Battie’s ex-girlfriend.”
Oh boy.
“She just doesn’t like to be his ex-girlfriend,” Chassie whisper-appended. “She prefers the ‘ex’ not to be a part of that and is committed to the act of reversing Battie’s decision about it.”
“Yikes,” I replied.
“Shall I take your things?” Fitzgibbons had come closer.
“No…no, I think, no,” Prue mumbled and focused on Fitzgibbons. “Did I miss something? Was this visit planned?”
Fitzgibbons’s face, a man who always seemed like a super friendly guy, got tight.
“It is not,” he said shortly. “And they’re staying the weekend.”
Oh boy!
“The entire weekend?” Prue was back to sounding strangled.
That being a long weekend, since it was only Thursday.
“They had a good deal of luggage. And Miss Renfrew informed me to inform my wife that she needed to prepare so Cook has enough food in for company,” he stated stiffly.
“She sure does like to act like she’s duchess when she’s around,” Chassie whisper-bitched. “She did it even before her and Battie were a thing.”
“And Tempie sure hates it when she does,” Prue agreed. “We better get in there.”
I wasn’t sure how three people could show up—unannounced and with luggage—and everyone was just going with it.
What I was sure of was, I didn’t want any part of it.
I was about to make my excuses, when Chassie grabbed my arm in a surprisingly firm grip, and yet again I was being dragged by a Talyn somewhere.
I looked helplessly over my shoulder at Fitzgibbons, and he had the good, albeit unhelpful, grace to wince.
“How is she even here when she’s an ex?” I whispered urgently to them as I was dragged.
“She gloms on to whoever might get her through the door of wherever Battie is. This time, it’s Rally,” Prue explained.
“Or Courtney,” Chassie whispered. “Tempie likes Courtney.”
Sadly, since the sitting room was close to the front hall, that was all I got before we were in.
Temperance was casually lounged in the corner of a sofa. She had a martini in hand. She was wearing all red today, and she looked amazing.
However, even if I didn’t know her very well, I knew she wanted to kill somebody.
Battle was standing at the mantle in what he’d been wearing earlier, one of his fabulous sweaters and a pair of jeans.
He looked over his shoulder at us when we entered, and the expression on his face made me wonder if he actually did kill somebody.
I did a quick head count of the rest and noted gratefully my next adventure wasn’t going to be burying a body, because there was a man with thinning blond hair, but he was quite good looking, sitting on the couch opposite Temperance and next to a brunette who was very pretty.
And sitting next to Temperance on her couch was blonde so gorgeous, she’d make Blake Lively weep with envy.
She was wearing a slouchy cream sweater that was better than mine, because it fell down her shoulder, matching cream, lightweight wool slacks and a pair of soil brown Laurent Vendôme slingback glazed leather pumps.
She looked like a magazine spread advertising fabulous sweaters, or wool slacks, or Saint Laurent pumps.
Oh, and she looked like she matched the room, which could be by design.
What she didn’t look like was a blonde freckled-nosed chick who’d recently received the devastating knowledge that Queen Guinevere wasn’t actually buried at Glastonbury Abbey. It was just a trick the medieval priests there played to get the medieval version of tourists to show up.
“Good Lord,” the blonde cried through burgeoning hilarity, “what are you women wearing on your heads?”
I noticed Prue’s hand start to move to the flower crown, even as I sensed a calamitous scattering of emotions beating into the room from Battle and Temperance, and both Lord Raleigh’s and his fiancée’s shoulders curled in like they were trying to disappear themselves.
Obviously, this meant I had to forge into the breach.
I mean, what else could I do?
And I did this by striding forward quickly, before Prue could take off her crown, with mine firmly and proudly in place, and I dumped my baker’s box from Burns the Bread on the table between them.
“It’s a flower crown,” I answered. “We just returned from Glastonbury.”
“You’re the American,” she observed unnecessarily.
“In the flesh.” I stuck my hand out to her. “Vivienne Dupree.”