And yet Lizzie couldn’t hate the woman. She knew what had happened behind closed doors between Chantal and William Baldwine. She’d seen the shattered makeup table in here, the blood on the vanity, the aftermath of the real violence that had gone down—and thus proved that wealth and social standing didn’t guarantee you safety and security.

Or love.

All things considered, it had only been a matter of time before someone killed Lane’s father. It was just too bad that Edward had had to be the hero, once again.

“So what’s it going to be?” she said as she stared down at her midsection. “Are we done here?”

She gave things another couple of minutes to percolate; then she got to her feet and washed her face off with cold water. Cleaned her mouth out. Waited a little longer.

As she looked at herself in the mirror, the reflection that stared back at her was a washed-out version of her normal appearance, her skin sallow, dark bags under her eyes, a faint green line around her mouth.

Rearranging the top of the dress again, she thought about Chantal’s wardrobe. The woman would never have gone the consignment route—or put anything from Talbot’s on her perfectly proportioned body. She had been Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, all the way.

And only the current seasons, of course.

On Lizzie’s side? Jeez, before she had worked here, she couldn’t have named those designers, much less recognized their work. And even now, after a decade of rubbing shoulders with the likes of the Bradfords’ kind of money—or what they’d used to have, at least? She really didn’t care.

Rich people had a way of inventing stress for themselves, and what was considered fashionable or not was exactly the kind of self-engineered, arbitrary obsolescence that gave them a bad name.

Now, ask Lizzie about the different sorts of flowering plants in the Aquifoliaceae family? The perfect time to plant new trees? What kind of sun hydrangea needed? On it. Then again, that’s what you focused on when you’d gotten your master’s in landscape architecture at Cornell. As opposed to your Mrs. from some rich guy.

Chantal and she were polar opposites. And although Lizzie didn’t like to be arrogant, she could totally understand why Lane had made the choice he had.

Turning away, she walked through the suite, taking note that it, too, needed a vacuum job and a dusting. She would take care of that later, along with the rest of this wing. With all the staff let go, except for her and Greta in house, and Gary McAdams and Timbo on the grounds crew, Easterly was definitely a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-’er-done situation.

Plus, she was stressed with everything Lane was dealing with and there was no better remedy for that than making tidy little Dyson tracks in rugs.

Unless you were mowing a lawn, of course. And Gary was getting used to letting her do that, too.

Back out in the corridor, she was almost at the back stairs, when Lane came up them.

“There you are.” His worried eyes went over her as if he were looking for signs of an internal injury or a worrisome rash. “Are you okay?”

“Just fine.” She smiled and wished there was time to brush her teeth. “I’m ready to—oh, shoot, my purse. Hang on—”

“I’ve got it.” He held the simple clutch up. “And I’ve brought the car around in front. Gin and Amelia are coming with us. Max is on his own—if he goes at all.”

“Great.”

As she came up to him and got her purse, she took a moment to enjoy the view. Lane was a classically handsome man, with thick, old-school Hugh Grant hair that cowlicked on one side, a jaw that was strong but not hard, and eyes that were nearly impossible to look away from. He was wearing a dark blue suit and an open-collar white shirt, and she knew the disrespect was intentional. Where Lane came from? One only ever wore black and a full tie to anything that resembled a funeral. What he had on now was more for lunch at the club.

It was a screaming f-you to his father’s memory.

Indeed, his tribe had a lot of rules. And didn’t that make the fact that he loved her loud and proud a testament to how much he valued her over the elitist way he’d grown up.

Lizzie was well aware that people in town thought he was just with “the gardener.”

As if there were something wrong with getting your hands dirty for a living.

Fortunately, she didn’t care what they thought any more than he did.

Putting her hands on his shoulders, she looked up into that blue stare she loved so much. “We’re going to get through this. We’re going to shove that urn where the sun don’t shine and afterward, we’ll visit Miss Aurora at the hospital and hope for some good news, ’kay? That is our plan.”

His lids closed briefly. “I love you so much.”

“We can do this. I’m right by your side.”

Lane wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly to his body. Everything about him, from the way he fit against her, to the scent of his aftershave, to the tickle of his still-damp hair on her cheek, grounded her.

“Let’s go,” she said as she took his hand.

Walking down to the kitchen and then proceeding out to the front of the house together, she managed to discreetly take a piece of Wrigley’s out of her purse and pop the gum in her mouth. What a relief. The mint taste not only cured her dry mouth, but it seemed to settle her stomach a bit.

When she and Lane stepped out of Easterly’s broad front door, she paused to appreciate the landscape down the hill to the river. The green descent to the shimmering stripe of water was the kind of thing you saw on the cover of a coffee-table book about how beautiful America was.

Annnnnd then there was the “car.”

The Bradfords had a Phantom Drophead, and not an old one, either. Then again, how could they not have at least one Rolls-Royce while living in a place like Easterly? Today the top was up, and as Lane went ahead and opened the passenger side for her, Lizzie looked inside at the mother and daughter pair who were in the backseat.

Suicide doors were good like that, providing a completely unobstructed view.

Gin was dressed in peach and she lifted a graceful hand with a huge diamond on it in greeting. Amelia was in skinny jeans and a red and black silk top that, yup, was Chanel, going by its double-C buttons—and the girl didn’t seem to notice anything, her attention riveted on the iPhone in her hands.

Lizzie almost didn’t accept the palm Lane held out for her, because she was used to getting in and out of such non-dangerous, non-moving, non-threatening things as—gasp!—cars, by herself. But she knew the gesture was both reflexive and yet important to him, a way for him to show her that he was thinking about her and taking care of her.

As she settled in and clicked her seat belt, she glanced back at Gin.

“Isn’t Richard coming?”

“Why would he?”

Back before the two of them had made their peace, Gin’s quick retort would have been a jab at Lizzie designed to make sure she knew her place as a staff member. Now, it was a total dismissal of the woman’s husband—and though it was sad to consider such a thing an improvement, Lizzie had learned well before she had come into the lives of the Bradfords that she had to take good news where she could find it.

Amelia glanced up. “I’m glad he’s not here. He’s not family.”

Lizzie cleared her throat. “So . . . ah, what’s on your phone?”

The sixteen-year-old swung the screen around. “Dymonds. It’s like Candy Crush, but better. Everyone plays it.”

“Oh. Cool.”

As the girl refocused, Lizzie turned back to the windshield and felt as though she were eighty years old. Make that a hundred and eight.

Lane slid behind the wheel, and Gin spoke up. “This is just us at the cemetery, right?”

“And Max.”

“He’s coming?”

“Maybe.” Lane pushed a button to start the car and put them in gear. “I hope so.”

“I don’t understand why we can’t just empty that urn on the side of the road. Preferably in a ditch or over a dead skunk.”

“That argument is not without merit,” Lane muttered as he reached out and squeezed Lizzie’s hand. “And I’m taking the staff road out. I don’t want the reporters down at the front gates to see us.”