Wipe Richard’s stain off of me, she thought to herself. Fuck him right out of me.

As if he could read her mind, Samuel T. reached across and took her hand in a warm, strong grip. As his thumb made circles on the inside of her wrist, she felt the touch throughout her body.

“Samuel . . .” she whispered.

With a slow shift, he turned her palm over and then lifted it, as if he were going to brush her knuckles with his lips.

Instead, he held her hand up so that her engagement ring and wedding band were facing her. “I was going to say that, of course, I was going to take us out through the back gates. The last thing we need is to be seen together by the press.”

Samuel T. dropped his hold and started the engine. And as he drove them away, he was so calm and in control that they might as well have been in a modern automatic, instead of a classic manual.

Goddamn it, she thought. How dare he be so composed.

The lanes they followed were winding, the views of ponds and weeping willows, stands of specimen trees and beds of ivy, lending precisely the kind of peacefulness that one would wish to find in a final resting place.

None of this reached her as she seethed. But Samuel T. couldn’t know that. She didn’t want him to see inside of her any more than he already did.

“Aren’t you impressed with me,” she asked tightly.

“Always.”

“And now he decides to be charming. After he turns me down.”

“I didn’t turn you down.”

“You didn’t? Hmm . . . if you in fact kissed me back there and I’ve forgotten about it already, I’d say you’re losing your touch.”

“Tell me why I’m supposed to be impressed with you?”

She smiled at the change of subject, taking it as a small victory, but she noted a change in the quality of their banter, and saw in it a loss of something she had once held dear. The back and forth was very much their currency of relating, but gone was the sexual edge and the roiling erotic anger. As recently as a week before, this would have escalated into name-calling and a revisit of all past slights and indiscretions . . . until they fell into a bed and consumed each other.

Now? She got the sense they were both skating over the real issues, moving across the frozen surface of their past . . . and the bitter-cold reality of her present.

“What am I impressed with, Gin?”

“That I didn’t mention, not even once, that hideous blouse Chantal was wearing. See? I am turning over a new leaf.”

“You told her to miscarry her baby. I think on the scale of insults that is far worse.”

“I don’t get points for honesty? Come now, you’ve always told me how much you hate when I lie—and I do want her to lose that monstrosity.”

“I didn’t know you cared that much about the sanctity of your brother’s marriage vows.”

“Oh, that doesn’t concern me in the slightest. I’m just looking to reduce the number of claims to the estate.”

“There’s my girl.”

“Not that there’s much to it—and isn’t that the true tragedy.”

Samuel T. pumped the brakes as they descended a hill and took a turn toward a series of outbuildings. On the far side of them, a concrete wall was broken up by a section of chain-link fence that was wide open.

As they passed through the gate, a couple of uniformed groundsmen who were smoking over in the shade perked up and gawked at the car.

“Remind me not to mess with you,” Samuel T. murmured.

“Too late for that.”

“Yes,” he said grimly. “I believe that is true. So where’s your husband, Virginia Elizabeth.”

“Don’t call me that. You know I despise that name.” Gin shrugged. “And Richard is at work. Or in hell. It doesn’t matter to me.”

“How are things between you?” The inquiry was casual. The tone was not.

Gin stiffened in the old leather seat and thought about what had happened in her dressing room. “The same. He leaves me alone, I leave him alone.”

“You want to get a drink?”

“Yes, please.”

NINE

Chantal treated the doorway of the crypt like it was a Shakespearean theater stage, her arms flying left and right, her weight playing contrapposto to the swings, her hair cascading around her shoulders, a blond ocean in a tempest.

“—treat me like that! I mean, how could you simply stand there as your brother insults me and your sister assaults me!”

Lane watched the show from a distance, easing back against the corner of Elijah’s sarcophagus and just letting things roll. He wasn’t going to tolerate the emoting forever, but he was operating on the belief that the woman would eventually lose this burst of energy, given that it was eighty-five outside and she wasn’t in the shade as long as she stayed where she was.

In fact, he was far more concerned with Lizzie, but he should have known better than to think she’d get involved: She was across the way, one hip against the flank of Constance’s marble tomb, her left eyebrow cocked like she was considering what kind of Rotten Tomatoes score to give the performance.

And as for Gin’s comment that had started it all?

Well, that could have been worse, couldn’t it. Which, considering what had actually come out of his sister’s mouth, was a true testament to Gin’s history of outrageous behavior.

“Well?” Chantal finally demanded. “What do you have to say for yourself ?”

“I thought my divorce petition was pretty self-explanatory.”

“This is not a joke.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“You’ve tried to keep me out of everything. I wasn’t there for your father’s will reading, you didn’t tell me about this—”

“You were left nothing in the will. And you are not a member of this family—”

She grabbed her stomach. “This is a member of the family. This is the next Bradford—”

“No,” Lane snapped, “that is the next Baldwine. Theoretically.”

Chantal wheeled around on Lizzie. “You need to leave. This is between him and me.”

Before Lizzie could respond, Lane cut in: “She can stay—or go, but it will be on her terms, not yours.”

“You always did have a preference for the help.”

Lane smiled coldly. “Watch yourself, Chantal. You went down that road once before and it didn’t end well for you.”

“Oh, yes, your ‘momma.’ I forgot—tell me, have you replaced Miss Aurora in the kitchen yet? Or are you going to wait until she dies.”

Lizzie shook her head. “I think I will leave, actually.”

“And I’m done here, as well.” Lane straightened. “This is going nowhere—”

“You can’t shut me out of your life, Lane! This gives me rights.” Again, she put her hands on her lower belly. “This is the next generation of your family! What you couldn’t give me.”

As Lane went up to the woman, he tried to keep his temper under control. “You aborted my child, in case you forgot. Which I have not.”

Chantal’s face went red. “You gave me no choice!”

“And I don’t even know if it was mine.”

“How dare you.”

“After what you did with my father? Really?”

As she raised her hand to slap him, he caught her wrist and held it firmly. “I’m walking out of here right now, and if you know what’s good for you, you will let me go. Without. One. More. Goddamn. Word.”

Lizzie ducked her head and hustled by Chantal, striding for the steps and the Rolls parked down below. The way she stared at the ground scared him. She had made it clear that his drama was not attractive or enticing in the slightest: She loved him in spite of his family, not because of his money and his position and the emotional upset that seemed to be cresting in every corner of his fricking life.

“Lizzie,” he called out.

“Will you pay attention to me!” Chantal demanded. “I matter! I am important!”

With a sudden surge, Chantal jumped at him, throwing fists, kicking him, screaming and tossing her head until her hair was in his face, in his mouth. Grabbing on to her, he tried to hold her at bay, but also keep her from falling and hurting herself in those high heels.