Lane passed a lot of the time wandering from room to room, hands in his pockets because he was feeling like drinking and knew that it was a bad idea. Gin and Richard had disappeared somewhere. Amelia had never come down. Edward was MIA.

Lizzie was sticking right with him.

“Excuse me, sir.”

Lane pivoted around to the uniformed butler. “Yes?”

“Is there anything I can do?”

Maybe it was the English accent, but Lane could have sworn Mr. Harris was subtly pleased by the ignominy. And didn’t that make Lane want to reach over and rub all that Brylcreem’ed hair into a frosting-on-the-cake mess.

“Yes, tell the waiters to pack up the bars and then they can go home.” No reason to pay them to stand around. “And let the parkers and the buses go. If anyone wants to come, they can just leave their cars out front.”

“Of course, sir.”

As Mr. Harris dematerialized, Lane went over to the base of the stairs and sat down. Staring out through the front door to the fading sunshine, he thought back to the meeting with the board chair. The scenes with Jeff. The meeting with John Lenghe.

Who was supposed to show in an hour, but who knew.

Jeff was right. He was using strong-arm tactics, and muscling people and money around. And yes, it was under the guise of helping the family—shit, saving the family. But the idea that he might be turning into his father made his stomach churn.

Funny, when he had gone to that bridge and leaned over that edge, he had wanted some kind of connection with or understanding of the man. But now he was filing that under be-careful-what-you-wish-for. Too many parallels were mounting, thanks to the way he was behaving.

What if he turned into the sonofabitch—

“Hey.” Lizzie sat down next to him, tucking her skirt under her thighs. “How’re you doing? Or wait, that’s a stupid question, isn’t it.”

He leaned in and kissed her. “I’m all right—”

“Have I missed it?”

At the sound of a familiar voice that he hadn’t heard in a very long time, Lane stiffened and twisted around slowly. “… Mother?”

Up at the top of the landing, for the first time in years, his mother stood with the support of her nurse. Virginia Elizabeth Bradford Baldwine, or Little V.E. as she was known in the family, was dressed in a long white chiffon gown, and there were diamonds at her ears and pearls around her throat. Her hair was coiffed perfectly on her head and her coloring was lovely, although definitely the result of a good make-up job as opposed to health.

“Mother,” he repeated as he got to his feet and took the stairs two at a time.

“Edward, darling, how are you?”

Lane blinked a couple of times. And then took the nurse’s place, offering an arm that was readily taken. “Do you want to come downstairs?”

“I think it’s appropriate. But oh, I am late. I have missed everyone.”

“Yes, they have come and gone. But it is all right, Mother. Let us proceed.”

His mother’s arm was like that of a bird, so thin under her sleeve, and as she leaned on him, her weight barely registered. They took the descent slowly, and the whole time, he wanted to swing her up and carry her because it seemed as if that might be a safer option.

She took a tumble? He was afraid she was liable to shatter at the bottom of the stairs.

“Your grandfather was a great man,” she said as they came down to the foyer’s black-and-white marble flooring. “Oh, look, they are removing the drinks.”

“It is late.”

“I love the sunlight hours in the summer, don’t you? They last ever so long.”

“Would you like to sit in the parlor?”

“Please, darling, thank you.”

His mother didn’t so much walk as shuffle across to the archway, and when they finally got to the silk sofas in front of the fireplace, Lane sat her in the one that faced away from the front door.

“Oh, the gardens.” She smiled as she looked out of the French doors across the way. “They look so wonderful. You know, Lizzie works so very hard at it all.”

Lane hid his surprise by going over and helping himself to a bourbon at the family’s cart. It was beyond time that he gave in to his craving. “You know Lizzie?”

“She brings me my flowers—oh, there you are. Lizzie, do you know my son Edward? You must.”

Lane looked up in time to see Lizzie do a double take and then cover the reaction well. “Mrs. Bradford, how are you? It’s wonderful to see you up and around.”

Even though his mother’s last name was legally Baldwine, she had always been Mrs. Bradford around the estate. That’s just the way things were, and one of the first things his father had learned to hate, no doubt.

“Well, thank you, dear. Now, do you know Edward?”

“Why, yes,” Lizzie said gently. “I’ve met him.”

“Tell me, are you helping out with the party, dear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I gather I have missed it. They always told me I would be late for my own funeral. It appears as if I’ve misjudged my father’s as well.”

When a couple of the waiters came in to start shutting down the bar in the corner, Lane shook his head in their direction and they ducked back out. Off in the distance, he could hear the clanking of glassware and bottles and a patter of talk from the staff as things were dealt with in the dining room—and he hoped her brain interpreted that as the party winding down.

“Your choice of color is always perfect,” his mother said to Lizzie. “I love my bouquets. I look forward to the days you change them. Always a new combination of blooms, and never a one out of place.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Bradford. Now, if you will excuse me?”

“Of course, dear. There is much to do. I imagine we had a terrible crush of people.” His mother waved a hand as gracefully as a feather floating through thin air, her huge pear-shaped diamond flashing like a Christmas light. “Now, tell me, Edward. How are things at the Old Site? I fear I have been out of circulation for a bit of time.”

Lizzie gave his arm a squeeze before she left the two of them alone, and God, what he wouldn’t have traded to follow her out of the room. Instead, he sat down on the far side of the sofa, that picture of Elijah Bradford seeming to glare down at him from over the fireplace.