God, he loved her.

“Let’s do this,” Lane heard himself say.

Edward steepled his hands, putting his elbows on the padded arms of the chair. Across the parlor, on the silk sofa, his little brother was cozy-cozy with the horticulturist, Lizzie, and one had to admit, the ease with which the two of them sat side by side was indicative of a connection not typically found in Bradford marriages: It was in the way he casually draped an arm over her shoulders. How she rested her hand on his knee. The fact that they made eye contact with each other as if both were checking that the other was all right.

He wished Lane well. He truly did.

Gin, on the other hand, was in a more traditional relationship with her future spouse. Richard Pford was nowhere to be found, and that was just as well. He might be marrying into the family, but this was private.

“We are here for the reading of William Wyatt Baldwine’s last will and testament,” Babcock stated as he took a seat in the other armchair and opened his briefcase upon his lap.

“Should Mother be included?” Edward interjected.

The executor glanced over the top half of his case and said smoothly, “I do not believe it is necessary to disturb her. Your father was primarily interested in providing for his offspring.”

“But of course.”

Babcock resumed extraction of a rather voluminous document. “The decedent engaged me for the previous ten years as his personal attorney, and during that time period, he executed three wills. This is his final will, executed one year ago. In it, he provides that any debts of a personal nature shall be paid, along with any appropriate taxes and professional fees, firstly. Thereafter, he has created a trust for the bulk of his assets. This trust is to be split equally in favor of Miss Virginia Elizabeth Baldwine, Mr. Jonathan Tulane Baldwine, and Mr. Maxwell Prentiss Baldwine.”

Cue the pause.

Edward smiled. “I take it my name was omitted on purpose.”

Babcock shook his head gravely. “I’m so sorry, son. I advocated for him to include you, I did.”

“Cutting me out of his will is the least onerous burden that man put upon me, I assure you. And, Lane, do stop looking at me like that, will you.”

As his little brother shifted his eyes away, Edward got up and limped across to the bar cart. “Family Reserve, anyone?”

“For me,” Lane said.

“As well,” Samuel T. spoke up.

Gin remained silent, but her eyes, too, watched his every move as the lawyer described particulars relative to the trust that had been established. Samuel T. came over for his glass and Lane’s, and then Edward was taking his own back across to the armchair he’d been in.

He could honestly say he felt nothing. No anger. No nostalgia. No burning desire to close distance, reconnect, recon order. Fix something.

The detachment had been hard earned, honed by him long living with the contradictions of the fire of his father’s resentment and the freeze of the man’s estrangement.

It would not do for others to feel anything, either—at least when it came to him and his disinheritence. His relationship with his father, such as it had been, was the business only of the pair of them. Edward didn’t want to nurse the sympathy of others; his brother and sister needed to be as phlegmatic as he was.

A year ago, he thought.

Wonder why the change in the will had been made. Or perhaps he had never been provided for, the earlier incarnations not including him, either.

“—now to the individual bequests.” At this point, Babcock cleared his throat. “I would note that there was a significant bequest in the will to Ms. Rosalinda Freeland, who has since deceased. The house that she resided in, at three-oh-seven-two Cerise Circle in Rolling Meadows, was in fact owned outright by Mr. Baldwine, and it was his wish that the property be deeded free and clear over to her. However, in the event she predeceased him, which in fact happened, a further provision was made in this instrument that this residence, along with the sum of ten million dollars, be gifted to her son, Randolph Damion Freeland. Said assets to be placed in a trust to his benefit until he is thirty years of age, with myself or my designee serving as trustee.”

Silence.

The cricket kind.

Ah, so this was why you didn’t want my mother down here, Edward thought to himself.

Samuel T. crossed his arms over his chest. “Well.”

And that fairly much covered it, even as no one else said anything. It was clear, however, that Lane’s soon-to-be-ex-wife wasn’t the only woman William had impregnated out of wedlock.

Perhaps there were other sons or daughters in the world, too.

Although, truly, the answer to that didn’t matter to Edward any more than any kind of inheritance did. He had come here for a different reason than the will. It merely had to look as though he had arrived for the same meeting everyone else had gathered for.

He had a necessary to dispose of, as his grandmother would have said.

TWENTY-THREE

As Mr. Jefferson ran through long paragraphs of legalese, Gin wasn’t focused on the will reading or, really, the fact that Edward had been cut out. Her only prevalent thought was that Amelia was home … and Samuel T., as he sat over there, on that sofa, representing Lane’s interest in a professional capacity … was under the same roof as his own daughter.

Neither of them knew it, of course.

And that was on Gin.

She tried not to imagine the pair of them sitting side by side. Tried not to see, as she recalled them both with a specificity that burned her memory, the common features, the similar movements, that narrowing of the eye when they were concentrating. She also especially deflected the fact that two of them hid their formidable intelligence behind a laconic sociability … like it was something they didn’t want to get too showy about.

“And that concludes the salient provisions.” Mr. Jefferson removed his reading glasses. “I would like to take this opportunity to answer any questions. The will is in probate at the moment, and a tallying of assets is beginning.”

There was a silence. And then Lane spoke up. “I believe you have said it all. I’ll see you out. Samuel T., join us?”

Gin ducked her head and only then let her eyes follow Samuel T. as he got to his feet and went to open the double doors for his client and his client’s father’s executor. He didn’t glance back at her. Hadn’t greeted her or stared at her.