The Betrayal of the Blood Lily

Chapter Thirty-Three

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.

I twinkled sweetly up at Colin’s mother’s husband. “Will you speak to my boss, too?”

That had not been in the script. Jeremy mustered an uncomfortable laugh. “I’ll have to leave that to Colin,” he said a little too heartily, before adding, with an admonitory nod to Colin, “Make sure he tells you all the details.”

“Don’t worry, Jeremy,” said Colin dryly. “I will.”

Showing more gumption than I had given her credit for, Serena seized her moment. “Will you excuse me?” she said. There were two bright spots of color high on her cheeks. “I have to coordinate with the caterers.”

“I have to be off, too,” said her stepfather. I had a feeling that if she had said that she had an emergency operation, he would have had a bigger one. “I promised Adam I’d give him my assessment of those new bronzes.”

“Don’t let us keep you, then,” said Colin pleasantly.

“Colin.” In reverse of their greeting, like a tape unwinding backwards, Mrs. Selwick-Alderly’s grandson nodded to his stepson before sending a practiced smile my way. “A pleasure, Eloise.”

“Likewise!” I chimed.

As he turned away, his smiled seemed to hover behind him, like the Cheshire cat’s. His teeth were very, very white. That, I have learned, is not normally the case across the Pond. He must have gotten them capped. I wondered if Mrs. Selwick-Alderly had paid for it.

As I watched, Jeremy hailed Serena’s boss. At least, I assumed that was who the other man must be. Unlike Jeremy’s perfect dental apparatus, he was bucktoothed, and his jacket was tweed over a black turtleneck, rather than an Italian tailored suit, but there was a certain similarity of expression, nonetheless. They were happily smarming away for all they were worth. That should keep him occupied for a while. Serena had gone to ground, not with the caterers, but with Nick and Pammy. I was pleased to see that Nick had slung an arm around Serena’s shoulders. Not a particularly demonstrative arm, but an arm nonetheless. Of course, he had been squeezing Pammy’s waist earlier in the evening, so it was hard to read too much into it. The main point was that she had a buffer zone.

We hadn’t said hi to either Nick or Pammy yet, or to Joan Plowden-Plugge, who was still roaming about like a wicked witch in search of a flying monkey. But I had had enough. I wanted to go home. I had a million questions to ask, none of which could effectively be dealt with in a room full of people. Especially when some of those people were the very people I wanted to talk about.

“So what’s this March thing?” I asked in a falsely casual tone.

“My mother’s birthday.” Colin traded his empty glass for a full one. He offered it to me first. I shook my head. I felt befuddled enough without muddling myself further with a third glass of bubbly. “She’s invited us to Paris for a long weekend. Jeremy wants us all to play one big happy family.”

“Oh,” I said. It was my word of the night. And then, because I couldn’t help myself, “How did — ?”

I didn’t have to finish the sentence. “My mother wind up with him?” he finished for me.

I nodded. “Pretty much.”

Colin let out a gusty exhalation, that was probably meant to convey something to me, but didn’t. He stared for a very long time at the bronze on its own square stand in front of us. If one didn’t know better, the concerned squint could have been taken as the concentration of a serious connoisseur. I had a feeling it wasn’t the bronze he was seeing, though.

After a prolonged scrutiny, he finally said, “I suppose it was natural. My father was ill. My mother was much younger. Jeremy was there.”

That wasn’t exactly what I would call natural, but if it made Colin feel better, I wasn’t going to argue.

“Your parents married pretty young, didn’t they?” I said by means of encouragement. What I really wanted to know was how he felt about all this. But as stupid as I can be about boys, I did know one thing; direct questions about emotions are the fastest way to the end of a conversation.

“My mother was young,” Colin corrected.

“How big an age difference was there between them?” I asked, reassuring myself that, yes, Colin and I were only three years apart and that couldn’t really be accounted much of anything as far as age differences go.

He had to pause for a minute to do the mental math. “Fifteen — no. Sixteen years.”

“Eeeek,” I said before adding, inconsequentially, “My parents are six months apart. They went to college together.”

“My father had already been through university and the army when he met my mother,” said Colin. “She was sixteen.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say other than another eek, so I didn’t say anything at all.

Colin rubbed a tired hand over his forehead. Fortunately, it wasn’t the hand holding the champagne, or that could have gotten very messy. I’ve done that sort of thing before. “I think she thought he was . . . oh, a sort of James Bond. When all he really wanted to do was settle down and be a farmer. So it was something of a disaster.”

I felt a slight chill go through me at that James Bond bit, in spite of the heat generated by the press of too many bodies in too small a space. Not so very long ago, I had gotten myself in trouble with my suspicions about Colin’s own . . . well, shall we call them extracurricular activities? He claimed to be writing spy novels, but I still had my suspicions.

But I would have dated him anyway, I told myself. It wasn’t just the James Bond thing.

Okay, maybe it had been, just a little bit, in the beginning. It had been his ancestors, his Englishness, all those external aspects that had initially attracted my interest. Well, and a certain amount of very evident physical chemistry. But it had been long enough now that those weren’t the reasons I stayed. If it were just the accent, or just the titillation of dating a descendant of one of my favorite spies, it would have been easy to call it quits. When it came down to it, I just plain liked him. I couldn’t even quite say why.

Why do we ever like anyone? Why does one couple click and another not? It’s never neatly reducible to a checklist of quantifiable items, no matter how hard we try to parse it out for the benefit of interested friends and parents. Or even for ourselves. I just knew that I enjoyed being with him. I knew that it made me happier when I saw his number pop up on my cell phone screen. I liked the smell of his aftershave. I liked the way he grinned when I said something that amused him. The idea of Colin as James Bond had been titillating, but I’d be just as happy to take him as a gentleman farmer — so long as he didn’t expect me to have anything to do with the livestock.

Fortunately, Colin was too busy dealing with his parents to notice my momentary spasm of guilt-induced soul-searching.

Sixteen. Wow. It boggled the brain. Even if they hadn’t gotten married till she was eighteen . . . that was still an eighteen-year-old married to a thirty-four-year-old. No wonder the marriage had failed. From what Mrs. Selwick-Alderly had said, she didn’t think much of Colin’s mother. But you had to wonder what Colin’s father had been thinking, too. At thirty-four, shouldn’t he have known better?

“So your father got ill. And then Jeremy came along,” I said carefully.

“Yes.” With an obvious effort at fairness, Colin said, “He and my mother are much better suited than she and my father ever were.”

“And just think — you keep it all in the family!” I said cheerfully.

A ragged laugh ripped out of Colin’s throat. “Are you sorry you got yourself involved in all this?”

Leaning against his side, I looked up at him, as though there were only us in that whole, overcrowded space. “I didn’t get myself involved in all this. I got myself involved in you. And, no, I’m not sorry.”

His hand closed convulsively over mine. “Let’s go home,” he said.

“What about Serena?”

Colin’s eyes pressed briefly shut. When he opened them, he said resolutely, “She’ll be fine. It is her party, after all. Unless you want to stay?”

I shook my head. “No.”

I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the remains of my Valentine’s Day, and it didn’t have anything to do with pink champagne or papier-mâché Cupids. I leaned my head against Colin’s shoulder, the lacy sleeves of my dress whispering against his jacket.

“Let’s go get some grilled cheese,” I said.