“You don’t know?” Mrs. du Lac arched a brow.
“No, I—”
“She doesn’t listen to you?”
Lottie paled. “She listens to me. I just…I gave her the morning off. After traveling, you know.”
“You gave her the morning off?” Mrs. du Lac’s barely noticeable brow lift let us know that she did not approve.
“Lottie is being humble,” I said, wrapping my arm around her waist. “She forgot to mention it wasn’t her decision. It was mine.”
This was what a husband did. Defend his wife. Stood by her side.
Mrs. du Lac’s gaze slowly, deliberately, landed on me. “How thoughtful.”
Mrs. du Lac left and Lottie quickly shoved herself off me. Betrayal etched her features, lips parted. She looked like she was going to talk, but then she swallowed and shook her head, following after her mother.
STORY
* * *
Lottie had told me to follow the servants and bring back her house shoes, but I was lost. The du Lac servants had taken me inside the home, and that was it. They weren’t like Crowne servants with our rigid codes.
The du Lacs were a different breed of rich people. If Crowne Hall was stuck in the Victorian era, then the du Lacs never left the Gilded Age.
“Angel?”
I stiffened at the voice and kept walking, as if that would stop a guy like West du Lac. A moment later, his hand encircled my bicep, and he tugged me back.
“What are you doing in Asheville?”
“I’m here until the Crownes go home.”
He quirked a brow. “You’ve never been to my neck of the woods before.”
You never brought me.
I shrugged.
He dropped me and looked around, mischief lighting up his eyes. “I guess I owe you a tour.”
I’d always seen West at Crowne Hall, so even when we were teenagers, he dressed nicely, whether it was a suit or expensive designer clothes. Today he wore a cutoff shirt and athletic shorts, as though he’d just been working out.
The sight twisted my stomach.
It was…oddly intimate.
“I’m working.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m so late. I can’t find Lottie’s room.”
His brow furrowed, then he gripped my wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re in the wrong part of Du Lac Manor. Let me show you, and if I happen to give you a tour along the way…”
I tugged my wrist free. “She’s probably out there waiting for me!” I dragged two hands over my face, clammy, stomach filled with knots, as ridiculous tears clogged my throat. Picturing Lottie waiting there had my heartbeat rising. I just wanted to do my job and not give her any more reasons to hate me.
Give me any more reasons to hate myself.