The Betrayal of the Blood Lily (56 page)

Reading through Mrs. Selwick-Alderly’s notebooks, I had shaken my head over the complexities of Alex Reid’s family relationships. They were nothing compared to Colin’s. A cousin turned stepfather trumped a rogue half brother any day.

It couldn’t be true. That man couldn’t be Mrs. Selwick-Alderly’s grandson, Colin’s . . . second cousin? First cousin once removed? Second cousin once removed? Whatever it was, to have your cousin run off with your mother on your father’s deathbed represented a pretty major betrayal.

I must have been mistaken. The resemblance was probably only an illusory one, a matter of chance. I was awful at remembering faces at the best of times. It was another classic case of my imagination getting the better of me.

At least, I hoped it was. The alternative was too mind-boggling.

I tugged on Colin’s sleeve. “That man—that man talking with Serena—is your stepfather?” I asked, very slowly and very carefully.

“My mother’s husband, yes.”

I didn’t miss the subtle distinction there.

“But—” How could I put this delicately? I couldn’t. “Isn’t that your cousin?” I blurted out.

“That, too,” said Colin, with determined lightness. “Very economical, isn’t it? Saves on the Christmas presents.”

“Sensible, that,” agreed Budgy, his mouth full of tuna tartare. “Bloody pain in the arse, Christmas shopping.”

I smiled brightly at Budgy. I had to get rid of him. I had to get rid of him so I could grill Colin.

This all just got weirder and weirder. Colin’s stepfather was his
cousin
? This wasn’t even P. G. Wodehouse anymore; I had stumbled across the line into Evelyn Waugh. Brideshead Regurgitated didn’t even begin to describe it.

What did Colin mean not telling me that his mother was married to Mrs. Selwick-Alderly’s grandson?

To be fair, I could see that it was the sort of thing one might not want to trot out on the first date or two, but we had been dating for more than two months now. He had spare socks and a razor in my flat. Enough said.

“Should we—do you want to—” I scrambled for words, entirely at a loss. I would be willing to wager that Emily Post never came up with a formula for dealing with this. “Do you want to, er, go over and say hi?”

I had never felt more gauchely American.

“Not particularly,” said Colin, with a tight smile. “But I suppose we’re going to have to.”

“Bloody relatives,” agreed Budgy amiably, around a mouthful of tuna tartare. If one were to consider one’s silver linings, Budgy was pure sterling. He seemed to be an extremely restful sort of person to have around in a crisis.

Across the room, Serena’s face was hidden by the long curve of her salon-shiny hair, but her posture had tensed into a question mark, shoulders curved forward, head bowed. Her body language screamed discomfort.

I wasn’t the only one who had noticed.

“Will you excuse us?” said Colin wearily to Budgy, and I felt all my indignation abruptly evaporate.

As my mother has pointed out to me in the past, men are people, too. When you prick them, they bleed. If we’re insecure, they’re insecure. If I thought this was awkward, it had to be about ten times worse for Colin.

As we crossed the room, I slid my arm through his in a gesture of girlfriendly solidarity. I don’t know if Colin noticed, but it made me feel better.

“What is your, er, mother’s husband doing here?” I whispered.

“He’s a dealer—an art dealer,” Colin specified. “Pretty ridiculous, isn’t it?”

I wasn’t quite sure where the ridiculous came into it, but it wasn’t the sort of thing you could very well ask.

“He got Serena her first job,” Colin added.

“Before . . . ?”

A shadow of a smile appeared around Colin’s lips at my deliberate obliqueness. “Yes. Before.”

A few yards ahead, Serena and her cousin/stepfather were unconsciously mimicking the poses of the couple in the art poster hanging behind them. In the poster, a young lady turned her face away as the beribboned gallant beside her leaned forward, seeking her attention. Like Serena’s, the face of the girl in the painting was unreadable, shadowed by her towering hair.

A horrible suspicion blossomed. Forget
Brideshead
, we were talking
90210
, the English edition. Or that Andrew Lloyd Webber musical where everyone sleeps with everyone.

“Your cousin and Serena,” I said. “They weren’t—”

“No!” The honest horror on Colin’s face put that suspicion to rest, at least. “They were rather close at one point, but not like that. Jeremy was—is”—he amended wryly—“considerably older.”

I wish I had paid more attention to the dates on those photos. Mentally, I translated “considerably” to “about a decade.” He looked to be in his mid or late thirties, which would make him roughly ten or more years older than Serena and I, a little closer in age than that to Colin. Not too old for a teenage girl, or even a girl just out of college, to have a massive crush, especially if he was someone already established in the field she was looking to join.

Remembering Serena’s relationship with the archivist in the Vaughn collection, another one of these good-looking thirty somethings, it wouldn’t have surprised me in the slightest if that was what Colin was leaving out, not a matter of fact, but of feelings. Serena’s feelings.

No wonder Serena had issues with her mother.

“Your mother is an artist, too, isn’t she?” I said.

Colin nodded, and there was a grim twist to his smile as he said, “Jeremy represents her. It’s a charming little incestuous tangle, isn’t it?”

“Well . . . ,” I began, and faltered.

Colin gave me a knowing look.

What else was there to say? It
was
an incestuous tangle.

But I couldn’t just leave it at that, not with Colin looking all sardonic and knowing. To agree now would only make him feel worse. And it was Valentine’s Day, damn it.

In an attempt at a quick save, I babbled, “It’s not that surprising, is it, when families all gravitate to certain professions? Especially something like the art world, where if you don’t have an inside connection, it’s very hard to know where to go or how to get involved. So I can see how that would happen,” I finished all in a rush.

Colin didn’t say anything, but one of his arms snaked around my shoulders and gave me a quick squeeze before releasing me again.

I felt my throat tighten up for no apparent reason. Maybe it was because it was Valentine’s Day. Maybe it was because I had already had two glasses of pink champagne.

Whatever it was, for no reason in particular, I blurted out, “I like you.” And, then, because it felt too stupid to be all emotional over nothing, I added, “Even if your family
is
mad.”

Colin choked on a laugh that came out sounding like a snort. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he said, in a truly atrocious American accent. In his normal voice, he added, “Come on. We might as well get it over with.”

Words to live by.

I had to scurry to keep up as he picked up the pace. The floor was slick and shiny, hell on heels. I felt like a water-skier being tugged along behind a supercharged boat on uneasy waters. We skidded to a stop in front of Colin’s assorted and tangled relations.

“Eloise!” Serena’s greeting was pure relief. She launched into a hug before I could even unfold my arms into the proper landing position.

Once we got untangled, I hugged her back, marveling, as always, at the fragility of the bones beneath the expensive cashmere. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Serena in anything but cashmere. It was as though, lacking proper padding of her own, she needed the extra insulation.

Next to us, stepfather/cousin and stepson/cousin marked their dual relationship with the briefest of all possible handshakes.

Colin’s mother’s husband treated us all to a broad, open smile. The sort you see on televangelists and traveling salesmen. I could hear the slap of flesh on flesh as his palm met Colin’s. “Colin.”

Colin’s answering smile was decidedly anemic. “Jeremy,” he said, without enthusiasm.

“Hi,” I said, sticking out a hand. “I’m Eloise Kelly.”

I was tempted to add “Colin’s girlfriend,” but I wasn’t quite sure if we were at the public declaration stage yet.

“Colin’s girlfriend!” chimed in Serena.

Well, there was that, then.

Did it count as meeting the parents when it was a stepfather? A stepfather who was also a cousin? I decided not.

Jeremy favored us with an isn’t-that-sweet look. “Your first Valentine’s Day together?” he said in a knowing way that made Colin stiffen like a shrinky dink in a hot oven.

“Well, you know, it’s Presidents’ Day that really counts, but you have to make do with what you have,” I said flippantly, just to say something, before Colin turned entirely to stone like the children in the wicked witch’s garden.

I just hoped he wouldn’t ask me what or when Presidents’ Day was. Ivy League universities tend not to break for national holidays, so I’d lost all sense of when most of them were. And I’d been pretending to be English for so long, I’d lost track of my own history. I had a vague idea that Presidents’ Day was in January or February and was something to do with Lincoln’s birthday, but I wouldn’t have been prepared to swear to that. If he wanted to know the regnal dates of any British monarch, on the other hand, I was his girl.

“Where are you from, Eloise?” Jeremy asked.

I noted the deliberate use of my name. Very smooth. Not smooth in a sketchy way, but smooth in the way of Ivy League administrators, politicians, and nonprofit fundraisers, peoples used to shmoozing and being shmoozed, where their charm, not their faces, are the deciding factor in their fortune’s.

“I should have thought that Presidents’ Day reference would have given me away,” I said. “America. New York.”

“Where in New York?”

Oh, we were playing that game, were we? Fortunately, it was a game I knew how to play and played well. You don’t grow up in New York without learning how to play the pecking order game.

“Manhattan,” I said sweetly. “Upper East Side.”

Colin’s stepfather nodded, as though I had given the correct answer in an oral exam. I could see myself being moved from one mental category to another. “Do you know—,” he said, and began listing names.

I didn’t. But I let him go on anyway, while I made my own mental categorizations. Mrs. Selwick-Alderly’s prodigal grandson was definitely what Pammy would call a “smootharse.” Too smooth. He was all polish with no contrast, all gloss with no texture. His clothes were perfectly chosen and perfectly maintained, not a stray thread or old stain showing anywhere. His hair was as glossy as Serena’s and what lines there were on his face looked like they’d been mapped out by a designer, the modern male equivalent of the beauty patches once worn by eighteenth-century lovelies to draw attention to their charms. Even his speech had been perfected down to the last little nuance. Not too posh, since that would be a social solecism of its own, but just posh enough. Posh enough to sound like he was deliberately trying not to be posh, which is its own sort of bizarre status symbol.

Wishing I had paid more attention, I remembered Colin’s father as I had seen him in those pictures in Mrs. Selwick-Alderly’s album. For all that they were cousins, you really couldn’t get more of a contrast. Colin’s father had had a craggy sort of face. Not craggy in terms of irregularity of feature, but craggy as in lived-in. Broken in. Comfortable. Like an old Barbour jacket.

“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head as he named a famous gallery about ten blocks from my parents’ apartment. “I’ve walked past it, but I’ve never been inside. My family aren’t really art collectors.”

“Next time you’re in New York, let me know, and I can arrange a private viewing for you,” Jeremy offered magnanimously.

The “we aren’t art collectors” clearly hadn’t registered. I suppose, in a field like art sales, you had to be impervious to rejection. If you battered away long enough, odds were that you could talk someone into buying.

But it wasn’t just that. He struck me as the sort who likes to make a splash, who likes to be in a position to offer favors—even if, in my case, the recipient had no interest in the favor whatsoever. Jeremy still got to make a point of showing that he could. It was another one of those pecking-order games.

Despite the fact that I had been roped into the game as his straight man, Mutt to his Jeff, Elvis to his Costello, I didn’t think the performance was aimed at me. Nor was it being staged on Serena’s behalf. For all that Jeremy oozed charm in her direction, there was something offhanded about it, more habit than design. Serena wasn’t the target either. Colin was.

And Colin wasn’t playing.

Having exhausted my limited knowledge of New York galleries, Jeremy transferred his attention to Serena. “Will I see you in March?” he asked.

Visibly uncomfortable, Serena shrugged her shoulders slightly in lieu of an answer. I could see the sharp bones of her clavicle through the soft fabric of her dress.

“March is a busy season for us,” she offered, in what was clearly the first stage of a long and elaborate attempt at evasion. A simple no would have been far more effective.

“I’ll have a word with Adam,” said Jeremy kindly. “I’m sure we can get it sorted.”

I presumed Adam must be Serena’s boss. It also seemed very obvious that she didn’t want whatever it was sorted, but she managed a sickly smile. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Your mother would be very sorry not to see you.”

Oh, boy. More family drama. I couldn’t blame Serena for looking slightly green. I would be green, too, if someone nearer in age to me than my mother presumed to speak to me on her behalf.

Jeremy turned back to me. “Will we see you, too, Eloise?”

He was probably trying to be nice. But that “we” pissed me off on Colin’s behalf. It wasn’t his place to be inviting me to whatever this March thing was if Colin hadn’t. And Colin hadn’t. I chose not to dwell on that bit. It was far simpler and easier to be irked at his stepfather instead.