I beamed up at my bestie, truly the jelly to my donut, and teared up thinking how lucky I was to have her in my life. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” She rolled her eyes, used to my emotional outbursts. “Now, gird your loins. It’s time to go welcome the eager masses.”
“Girding her loins was what got her into this mess.” With a mist of hairspray, Neely finished tweaking my updo. “Or was it ungirding, since she got knocked up?”
Laughter burst out of Lethe in a snorting explosion of mirth, and poor Linus reddened until his cheeks resembled ripe beefsteak tomatoes.
Mmm.
A BLT would be great right about now, especially with fresh tomatoes from the greenhouse.
Focus, Grier. Focus.
“Want to run away together?” I cuddled into Linus after he helped me onto my feet. “This party is really for your mom.” I stared up at him. “As long as she’s here, no one will miss us.” I kissed his chest through his shirt. “We can rent a hotel room for the day and…cuddle.”
A pleased rumble worked through his chest, and his arms tightened around me as my argument—or the southernly drift of my hands—swayed him to seeing things my way.
Dressed in a crisp white button-down shirt and charcoal slacks, he was begging me to take a bite.
“Forget girding.” Lethe caught my wrist. “Cuddling is actually what got you into this mess.” She hooked her arm through mine and hauled me off him. “However, there were definitely loins involved.”
“Meanie,” I grumped. “I almost had him.”
“You can manage two hours for posterity.” She turned me toward the door. “Then I’ll make excuses, and we’ll tuck you in for a short nap.”
“Nap,” I said dreamily. “I’m ready for you.”
Linus, who wasn’t scandalized in the least by my torrid affair with sleep, chuckled at my love struck whimper of longing.
“We have a surprise for you,” Neely said, stealing me from Lethe. “You’re going to love it, but you can’t have it until your unofficial shower.”
The number of humans and shifters on that guest list, the real one, had scandalized the Grande Dame. Her shock had forced us to split invitations into two groups. While I didn’t mind doubling my cake intake, I hated how it made me appear too ashamed of my non-para and Low Society friends to let them hobnob with the High Society.
Thankfully, they all knew the truth. I just wished both halves of my lives played better together.
“Aww.” I patted his arm. “You guys have done enough. You didn’t have to get me anything.”
We entered the living room, teeming with faces both familiar and not, but one in particular was absent. I appeared to have girded my loins for nothing, but the reprieve wasn’t as comforting as I had imagined.
“Where is the Grande Dame?” I craned my neck. “Woolly said she arrived.”
“Her car arrived,” Neely clarified. “It’s in the driveway.”
Nothing on earth would prevent that woman from attending this shower. It had nothing to do with me, I was but a vessel in her eyes, but this vessel held the future of the Woolworth and Lawson families. She had grand plans for her grandchild, and I smiled and nodded through them, but Linus and I had our own ideas on how we would raise our child.
Through the window, I spotted her car idling against the curb. “Has anyone spoken to her driver?”
“I don’t believe so.” He pursed his lips. “We assumed she was waiting to make a dramatic entrance.”
That did sound like her, but the magazine crew was setting up, and she would never allow that without her direct oversight.
Neely steered me toward the hot seat, but I veered in the direction of the door instead. “I’ll handle it.”
The party couldn’t start without her. If we tried, she would never forgive the snub, and never was a long time for a necromancer. Even one her age.
“Ah, there you are,” Dr. Rogers greeted me. “You appear to have frosting on your…” he gestured toward my face, “…everywhere, actually.” His lips thinned. “We discussed your sweet tooth at your last appointment, Grier, and we agreed—”
“Oh, would you look at that.” I pointed out the window. “I, uh, see someone calling my name.”
Pinched face drawing tighter, he followed my line of sight. “You read lips?”
“I am a woman of many talents.” I sidled past him. “Gotta go.”
Out on the porch, I sucked in a grateful breath to have escaped before Dr. Rogers’s droning lecture on my expanding waistline made me want to cram a cupcake down his gullet. Pretty sure that was not the magazine spread the Grande Dame had in mind. Plus, it would be a total waste of a cupcake.
Waving my arms over my head, I waited until the driver noticed and opened his door. Then I waddled to the swing, crossed my fingers the chains would hold, and sat to wait on him. He didn’t take long to climb the steps onto the porch, and he arrived with his snappy little hat tucked under his arm.
Composing my expression, I asked in a tranquil voice, “When does the eagle intend to land?”
“Ma’am?”
“The Grande Dame,” I clarified. “When will she be joining us?”
Lowering his head, he kept darting glances at the front door. “I have a message for Mr. Woolworth.”
“I’m his wife.” As he was well aware. “You won’t get in trouble if you tell me first.”
Slowly, he knelt at my feet, which alarmed me enough for Cletus to pop into view over my shoulder.
“The Grande Dame,” he whispered, so low I thought I misheard him, “is missing.”
“Define missing.”
“Madam requested I ready the car at a quarter till sunset.” The leather of his black gloves creaked where he rested his hands on his thighs. “I loaded the gifts at the rear of the house, as is proper, then I drove to the front.” The wild light in his eyes made me grateful for Cletus’s presence. “Madam wasn’t waiting on the landing, as is her custom, and the door was ajar.” He wet his lips. “I searched the downstairs, and the maid searched upstairs.” He made fists on his lap. “We found no trace of her.”
“That’s when you decided to come here.”
Penitent, he bowed his neck until I worried it might snap in two. “Yes.”
“You are aware I’m the Potentate of Savannah?” I studied him. “Why bring this to Linus instead of me?”
“I…” He mashed his lips together. “You’re...”
“In the family way,” I supplied. “Wearing the bustle wrong? Tin roof rusted? Eating for two?”
Honestly, I only knew what half those meant, but you heard some weird crap when you were pregnant.
The color drained from his cheeks in a rush, and he lost his voice altogether.
“Breathe.” I patted his shoulder, and he jumped under my hand. “I get it.”
The Grande Dame reported all her troubles to her son, which cut me, the local authority, out of the loop on minor nuisances. Most of them specific to her or to her interests. Linus believed it was habit from the years he spent as Potentate of Atlanta, but he was often adorably clueless when it came to his mother.
Now that he was married, she was inventing reasons to call him or invite him to visit her. Alone. Had she impacted my ability to do my job, it would be one thing, but she hadn’t. I suspected her antics stemmed from fear he no longer needed her. As long as she didn’t escalate after the baby was born, I could let it go on a bit longer.
Before I formed a plan on how to handle this latest crisis, I had to be certain. “Only you and the maid know?”
This news couldn’t break, not now, not when things had barely gotten back to normal in Savannah after my grandfather almost sent the city up in flames. The driver was smart to keep a lid on this, but we had more damage control ahead of us.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Can she be trusted to keep her silence?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All right.” I made a quick decision. “Here’s what you’re going to do.”
The tension left his shoulders, and he sagged with relief. “Anything, ma’am.”
“First, you’re going to tell me your name.”
“Marco Bartoli.”
“Nice to officially meet you, Marco.”
Linus joined us on the porch, his eyes as dark as midnight, and I knew Cletus had let him listen in. “The wards were breached?”
“No, sir.” Marco paled further. “They never so much as flickered, which is why I didn’t worry at first.”
A tiny shake of Linus’s head told me to proceed, that he had no more questions at this juncture.
“Here’s what you’re going to do, Marco. Get the Grande Dame’s gifts out of the car and bring them into the house. You will attend the shower as her proxy. When the moment is right, you will announce she had urgent business that called her away from the city, that she sends her love and apologies, and present her gifts to Linus and me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Remember,” I urged the driver. “You must act as if everything is fine.”
With a bow, he rose and left to follow my orders. “Yes, ma’am.”
A line formed between Linus’s brows, the sole outward indication of his distress he allowed on his face.
“Two hours,” I reminded him. “Neely will tell our guests I need a nap, and we’ll begin our investigation.”
Two hours was a long time to know someone you loved might be in danger and not lift a finger to help, but the house was filling with sharks, and this news would chum the waters if it broke.
“Thank you.” He took my hand, and his fingers were ice cold. “She’s difficult at times but…”
“…she’s your mother,” I finished for him, kissing his knuckles, “and she loves you more than anything.”