2024-08-23 15:07:01
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Chapter 832
Patricia's slap rang across the roof like a dropped plate.Nobody moved. A waiter froze with a tray of glasses in his hands. At the next table, the old lady in diamonds slowly put down her fork.The manager did not touch his cheek. A red handprint came up on it, one finger at a time."Did that hurt?" Alex asked him, worried. He held out his napkin. "You can have this. It's clean. Mostly.""Thank you, sir. It's quite all right."The manager turned to Patricia. He was still perfectly polite. That was the scary part."You asked who gave me the nerve, madam. Ms. Vale did. Her company, Halcyon, owns this hotel from tonight. And you have just slapped the manager of a Halcyon hotel, on a Halcyon roof, in front of Halcyon's guest." He lifted one hand. "Security."Two men in dark suits came from beside the lift. They were very big and very quiet."Don't you dare touch me!" Patricia backed against her chair. "I'm a Tiffany! I'm Mr. Ellis's guest! Mark! Tell them!"Mark Ellis looked out at the s
Chapter 831
"Mark Ellis is back."Marissa said it to the whole Tiffany kitchen like news from the palace.Serena did not look up from her tea. "Is he."Mark Ellis. The boy with the very white teeth who had courted her for one summer, before the house married her off to Alex. He had stopped calling the week her mother died."Three years abroad, and he's come home rich," Marissa went on. "He's taking the whole family to dinner tonight, on the Seacrest's roof. And he asked for you specially."At the end of the table, Gideon hid behind his newspaper. It was upside down. Nobody told him.Marissa held out her phone for everyone to hear."Serena. It's Mark. I hear your mother's name isn't on her perfumes anymore. I want to put money behind them, under her own name again. Come to dinner and let me show you the numbers."Her mother's name, on a bottle again. The promise she had made at her mother's bed. The one thing she could not say no to, and somehow Mark Ellis knew it."I'll come," she said. "For my m
Chapter 830
The nightclub strip was all neon and noise. Men in paper masks with glitter on them spilled out of doorways, singing."Not those!" The Count was grey on the back seat, one hand under his ribs. "A white one. A doctor. Find me the doctor!"A young man in a white party mask stumbled past the car. The Count threw the door open and caught him by the sleeve."You! Are you a doctor?"The young man pushed up his mask. Under it he was about nineteen, and very drunk. "I'm an accountant, mister."The Count let go and fell back on the seat.The driver rang every number in the Count's phone. Barons. Bankers. The mayor, who answered with his mouth full. Nobody knew the mask's name. Nobody had ever seen his face.At last a Morgan footman picked up, half asleep. "The mask, sir? He comes and goes with one woman. A Ms. Vale. From Halcyon.""Halcyon." The Count opened his eyes. "Drive. Run every light."They ran four.---At that hour the Harbour Exchange was asleep. One bright lamp burned in the empty
Chapter 829
The Seacrest stood on the Westmere cliff like a white ship that had run aground and decided to stay. Its roof restaurant hung over the bay, all glass and little gold lamps.On the second evening, Count Roger Stone of Ashcliff gave a dinner there.Everybody came. The harbour families. Two barons from up the coast. The mayor, who had not missed a free dinner in eleven years.At the Count's right hand, pink and shining, sat Dr. Henry Foster. At the far end of the table, alone, in black, sat Rebecca Morgan. She had not touched her wine.The Count rose and tapped his glass with a gold ring."Friends. Yesterday morning, a man in a mask stood at Thomas Morgan's bed and told me I was dying."A ripple of laughter."First he gave me three days. Then he looked at me again and took one back." He spread his big sunburned hands. "Two days, he said. Go home and write your will, he said, so your children don't fight over the silver."The roof roared."My children," said the Count, "will be waiting fo
Chapter 828
Alex looked at the little blue box in her hands as if he had never seen it before."A kind lady gave it to me," he said."A kind lady? Why?""For being good." He nodded hard, pleased with the answer. "She said I was very good.""Very good at what?""Standing still," he said proudly. "I'm the best at it."It was true. She could hear that it was true. And it sounded exactly like a child's lie.Then she closed the box. She did not ask again."Will you put it on me?" she said instead. "My hands are still stiff."She turned her back to him, careful of the bandage, and lifted her hair. His fingers fumbled at the clasp. Once. Twice. He dropped the end down the back of her collar."Alex, it's a clasp. It isn't a lock.""It's a tiny clasp," he said, keeping a straight face. "Clearly meant for a lady with dainty hands. My big paws are struggling here, so be patient with me while we work on our truce."She laughed before she could stop it. The clasp closed with a tiny click. The jade settled col
Chapter 827
Natasha Vale did not answer at once.She walked past Patricia as if she were a puddle and looked at the vase for exactly one breath."A market copy," she said. "A few dollars.""That's a lie!" Patricia cried. Then she remembered who she was talking to. "I mean... with respect, Ms. Vale, you've hardly looked at it."Natasha's eyes moved along the brown lines under the newspaper."Broken once already," she said. "And glued. Badly.""I did say somebody already did the puzzle," Alex said brightly.He wandered over to the old door and began to swing it like a bored child. In, and back. In, and back. The old latch clanked."It only goes this way," he told Gideon. "In. See? It's a silly door."Natasha watched it swing inward, away from the step."And that door never touched it," she said. "It opens into the room. Somebody stood outside and dropped this on the step."Every face in the yard turned to Patricia."You knocked," Serena said quietly. "You called my name. 'Serena, darling, are you t
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