Harvard recognized interest in a woman’s eye when he saw it, and as soon as he’d finished shaking her hand, he put some distance between them.
“Where’s Rupert?” Preston waved his empty glass at one of the waiters discreetly doing the rounds of the room. “He was supposed to be here—and at work yesterday.” Preston didn’t even glance at the young man who took his glass. “Gin and tonic,” was all he said.
“Rupert’s my younger brother,” Samantha told Harvard before addressing Preston. “He’s gone to Paris for the weekend with his latest fling. Didn’t he tell you?”
“No.” Preston was clearly irritated at the news. “And it isn’t a matter of telling me; he’s supposed to request time off, not just take it whenever he feels like it.”
“I don’t think Rupert understands how employment works.” Samantha sipped her champagne. “You know this is the first proper job he’s ever had. He’ll eventually get the hang of it. To be fair, he does seem quite serious about getting to know the company now that he’s come into his shares.”
Marcus caught Harvard’s eye. “I suppose Rachel’s told you that every direct descendant of the original three brothers inherits shares in the company on their thirtieth birthday. Of course, I don’t think the grandfathers thought there would be quite so many children when they came up with their plan. In a few years, the board will be overrun with Father’s ex-wives and kids.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Preston said. “There are only two of his ex-wives on the board. He discovered prenups after he divorced for the second time. Mainly because I shoved one under his nose and demanded he sign it. It’s a miracle Father has any income to live off at all.”
“I’m just grateful that wife number four didn’t get any shares from their divorce.” Samantha shuddered. “Can you imagine having to take someone called Honey seriously in a meeting? Honey? I mean, honestly. And that wasn’t even an assumed name; her parents actually chose it.”
“Not as bad as Sasha Darling.” Marcus grimaced. “Stepmother number five picked her own stage name and kept it when she married Dad.”
“Stepmother number five is the same age as your younger sister,” Samantha said with barely hidden glee as she smoothed a hand down her pink satin sheath of a dress. “At lunch last month, Sasha Darling asked me where I’d gone to school. I said Oxford, and she said, ‘Is that a comprehensive in Slough?’”
“It’s best all round if you just don’t talk to her,” Marcus said. “I smile and nod. Then run at the first opportunity. It’s mortifying that our father married a stripper who’s barely out of her teens. The only upside is that he did it in Vegas and didn’t make us attend.”
“You must think we’re terrible snobs,” Preston said to Harvard, appearing a little shamefaced at the conversation. “The truth is, we have nothing against the girl. It’s just the cliché of it all. Our sixty-year-old father married a twenty-year-old stripper. It’s straight out of a bad Hollywood movie, and we’re related to it.”
“I disagree,” Samantha said. “I am a terrible snob and I own it. It takes a lot of effort to be this elitist, and I feel I should get the credit for the time I’ve put in.”
Harvard couldn’t help his chuckle. “Then well done. That was the perfect level of snobbish disdain.”
Samantha pretended to take a bow. “At last, some recognition,” she said before sipping her champagne.
A walking stick jerked out and nearly tripped Rachel on the way to the bar.
“Gran, are you trying to kill me?” She frowned at the slender octogenarian, who was seated on the ornate high-backed chair she always claimed when she visited. As usual, her clothes would have given Grace Kelly a run for her money, her snow-white hair was fashioned into a tasteful chignon, and her lips were painted the faintest shade of sparkling pink.
“Darling girl, if I were going to kill you, I wouldn’t do it with this cane. It’s my favorite.” She poked at an upholstered stool. “Sit down and tell me all about this man you’re marrying.”
Rachel knew an order when she heard one, and seeing as her grandmother was the only person on the planet she took them from, she sat. “What’s there to tell? He’s American, he’s a former spy, he’s beyond smart, and he looks like that.” She pointed over at him as she did her best to avoid lying to her gran. “Who wouldn’t marry him?”
Mary Prudence Talbot was clearly suspicious. She gave her granddaughter the considering glare that only a dowager countess could pull off. Rachel tried to appear innocent. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a look she’d ever been able to do well.
“I suspect there’s more to this than meets the eye,” her grandmother said. “I’ll get the information out of you eventually.” Her eyes strayed back to Harvard. “Are you going to rescue him? The barracudas are circling.”
Rachel glanced over to where her cousins had congregated around her fake fiancé. “He can take care of himself.”
“Samantha’s trying to seduce him.”
“No, she isn’t. She’s just being Sam.” Which meant flirting with anything that had a penis.
“You’re very certain of your fiancé’s devotion.”
“Trust me, Harvard has no interest in anyone but me.” But definitely not for the reasons her grandmother envisioned.
“Are you going to bring him over here so I can meet him?”
“No. I have no idea what will come out of your mouth, and I think I’ll spare him the experience.”
Her gran put her hand to her chest. “I can feel some pain in the general vicinity of my heart. Might be an attack. Best not to exacerbate it by making me anxious.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Remind me again. When was the last time you had a heart attack? Oh, never. That’s when.”
“There’s a first time for everything. I do believe I’m feeling faint. You’d better call your mother over.”
“Oh, for the love of Prada, don’t involve Mother. She’s already causing enough trouble as it is.”
“Perhaps I’d feel better if I was distracted, say by a handsome American man…”
Rachel let out a sigh as she stood. “When are you going to grow out of this manipulative streak of yours? You don’t even do it very well.”
“And yet, it’s still effective.” She smiled serenely. “Do bring me a sherry when you return with your man.”
“Honestly.” Rachel let out a huff as she stalked to the bar. She asked them to deliver a sherry to her smug grandmother, then took the drinks she’d ordered for herself and Harvard and made her way back across the room.
“I hear you’re Rachel’s bodyguard,” Preston said, in a clear attempt to change the subject away from his father’s many wives.
“Yep. Have been for a few months now.” He went with the story his team had come up with when they’d first taken the job of investigating the thefts at TayFor.