The Bourbon Kings #1 (18 page)

She wanted real.

Maybe he wasn’t so above that wife of his, after all.

Ex-wife,
he corrected himself as he kept drinking.

“T
o what do I owe this honor.”

As Gin’s father spoke, it was a statement, not a question, and the tone suggested that her standing in the doorway to his bedroom was an intrusion.

Too bad,
she thought.

“I want to know what the hell you’ve done with Richard Pford.”

Her father didn’t miss a beat over at his bureau, continuing to take the gold studs out of his French cuffs. His black tuxedo jacket had been folded once and laid on the foot of the chaise lounge, and his black and red suspenders had been shucked from his shoulders and dangled from his waist like ribbons.

“Father,” she barked. “What have you done.”

He left her hanging until he’d undone his bow tie and pulled the thing free from his collar. “It’s time you settled down—”

“You are hardly in a position to advocate for marriage.”

“—and Richard is a perfect husband.”

“Not for me.”

“That remains to be seen.” He turned and faced her, his eyes cool, his handsome face impassive. “And make no mistake, you
will
marry him.”

“How dare you! This isn’t the turn of the century. Women are not chattel—we can hold property, have our own bank accounts—we can even vote. And we sure as hell can decide whether or not we want to walk down the aisle—and I will not, ever, go on a date with that man, much less marry him. Especially if it benefits you in some way.”

“Yes, you will.” For a split second, his stare flicked up over her shoulder and he seemed to shake his head as if he were dismissing someone who was out in the hall. “And you will do so as soon as possible.”

Gin twisted around, expecting somebody to be standing behind her on the threshold. No one was there.

She refocused on him. “You’ll have to put a gun to my head.”

“No, I won’t. You’re going to do it on your own, voluntarily.”

“I will not—”

“Yes, you will.”

In the quiet that followed, her heart skipped a number of beats. Over the course of her life, she had learned to both hate and fear her father—and in this tense, air-less silence between them, she wondered not for the first time what he was truly capable of.

“You can choose to fight,” he said smoothly. Or you can be efficient about this. You are only going to hurt yourself if you don’t do this for the family. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to retire for the evening—”

“You can’t treat me like this.” She forced some strength into her voice. “I’m not some corporate executive you can hire and fire, and you can’t order me around, not when it’s going to ruin my life.”

“Your life is already ruined. You had a child at seventeen, here in this house, for godsakes, and have followed that up with the kind of promiscuous behavior typically reserved for Las Vegas strippers. You barely graduated from Sweet Briar due to an affair with your married English professor, and as soon as you moved back here, you slept with my chauffeur. You are a disgrace to this household, and what is worse, I get the distinct impression that part of your enjoyment in these exploits is the embarrassment it causes your mother and me.”

“Maybe if I’d had a good male role model to look up to, I wouldn’t find men so universally unappealing.”

“Would that you found
any
of them unappealing. That is not your problem, however. For some reason, Richard is undaunted by your reputation, an error in judgment he will no doubt come to regret. Thankfully, that is not my concern.”

“I hate you,” she hissed.

“The sad thing is, my dear, you lack sufficient depth for that level of enmity. If you had any intelligence at all, you’d realize that Richard Pford will be able to keep you in the lifestyle that you require as much as air itself for the rest of your days. And you will be ensuring the further success and financial health of the family who gave you those high cheekbones and lovely peaches and cream complexion. It will be, when all is said and done, the only contribution you will ever make to the name ‘Bradford.’”

Gin was dimly aware of breathing hard. “Someday you’re going to pay for your sins.”

“Are you getting religious now? I would think any kind of conversion for you might be difficult even for the likes of Jesus.”

“How can you be so hateful? I’ve never met anyone as cold as you—”

“I am taking care of you the only way I know how. I’m giving you a fortune at your disposal, a worthy name, and you can even take Amelia with you if you want. Or she can stay here—”

“As if she’s a piece of luggage?” She shook her head. “You are depraved. You are absolutely, clinically depraved—”

He bolted forward and grabbed her arm, for once allowing some emotion to escape that aristocratic mask of self-assurance. “You have
no
idea what is required to keep this family afloat. None. Your most difficult task day to day is prioritizing whether to get your hair or your nails done first. So do
not
talk to me about depravity when I am solving a problem for all of the leeches under this roof. Richard Pford’s favorable terms will help us continue to afford this.” He shook the skirt of her gown. “And this—” He jabbed his forefinger at the necklace around her throat. “And all the other things that you take advantage of every day
without pausing to reflect, for even an instant, how they are provided to you or at what cost. Marrying that man is the one and only thing that has ever been required of you in exchange for the blind luck of your birth and the freedom of your avarice. You are a Bradford through and through, capable only of consumption, but sometimes payment must be made, so
yes
,” he spat, “I can assure you that you will become the very happy, very beautiful, and very married Mrs. Richard Pford. You will give him children and be faithful to him, or so help me God, I will spank you like the five-year-old you are. Do we understand each other? Or perhaps you would like a crash course in trying to be like the people who wash your cars, make your food, clean your room, and press your clothes. Perhaps you’d like to know how hard it is to work for a living.”

“I despise you,” she said, shaking from head to foot.

Her father was likewise breathing hard, and he coughed into his fist. “As if I care. Go have your temper tantrum and kick and scream—it will only prove me right. If you are any kind of a woman, instead of a spoiled little brat, you will wake up in the morning and do your duty for once in your life.”

“I could kill you right now!”

“But that would require getting and loading a gun, wouldn’t it. Not exactly something you can ask your maid to do, assuming you don’t want to get caught.”

“Don’t under estimate me—”

“Given the low standard you’ve set for yourself, that would certainly be difficult to do.”

Spinning around, she tripped out of the room, and ran down the hall to her suite. Throwing herself over her threshold, she locked herself in and panted.

Oh, hell no,
she vowed.
You are not going to do this to me.

If he thought she’d been trouble before, wait’ll he got a load of what she was going to do now.

As she marched betwen her bath and her bedroom, plans twisted in her head, many of which involved felonies and her father. Eventually, she had to get out of her dress, and she left the thing where it fell on the
floor, stepping free of the pool of silk before continuing to pace in her bustier and her stilettoes and those diamonds that her brother’s slut wife had tried to get first tonight.

As she seethed, all she could think about was the very first time she had hated her father …

S
he’d been six, maybe seven, when it had happened. New Year’s Eve. She’d woken up because of the fireworks, which had crackled and bloomed over the distant downtown area. Scared, she’d gone looking for Lane, the one she had always taken solace from … only to find him down in the parlor with Max.

Gin had insisted on staying with her brothers and doing whatever they did. It had been the story of her life back then, her always running to keep up, get some attention, be on anybody’s radar. The household had revolved around her parents and catered to her brothers. She was the footnote, the afterthought, the rug that was tripped over on the way out the door to something better, more interesting, more important.

She hadn’t wanted to drink that stuff in the bottle. The bourbon had smelled bad, and she knew it was a no-no, but if Max and Lane were going to have some, she was going to as well.

And then they’d been caught.

Not once, but twice.

As soon as Edward had come into the parlor, he’d ordered her to go back to bed, and she had left via the back way as he’d told her to. When she’d gone down the staff hall, however, she’d heard voices and had had to hide in the shadows or be discovered … when her father had come out of Rosalinda Freeland’s office.

He’d been in his dressing robe and in the process of tying the two halves together as he’d emerged, and he’d been glaring, as if he were angry—but there was no way he could have heard any of their voices down in the parlor. Gin’s first instinct was to run for the front of the house to warn her brothers. Fear had stopped her, though—and then Ms. Freeland had stepped out and grabbed her father’s arm.

Her young mind had wondered why the office lady’s blouse had been untucked,
and her hair, which had always been so orderly and stiff, was at bad angles.

The two of them had argued in hushed tones, saying things that she couldn’t hear over the pounding of her heart. And then her father had marched off and Ms. Freeland had disappeared back into her office and shut her door.

Gin had remained there for what had felt like a year, afraid to leave in case Ms. Freeland came back out. Except then she had gotten scared that her father would come back down that way and find her.

He shouldn’t have been there with that woman.

He would not be pleased that she had seen him.

In her bare feet, she had whispered to the staff stairs and stuck close to the cold plaster wall as she ascended. Up on the second floor, she had become frozen as another round of fireworks went off, and as soon as they finished, she had taken shelter in the open door of a guest suite, wishing she had somewhere safe to go.

Going back to her room alone had seemed terrifying. Plus what if her father was looking for her?

Curling into a sit, she had tucked her legs up against her chest and hugged her knees. Their father must have found her brothers. There was no way the man would have missed them if he’d used the front stairs.

And that frightened her more than any noise outside.

Moments later, Edward came up the grand staircase, and her father was behind him, looming like a monster. For some reason, her brother’s gait was sloppy, and the skin of his face was gray. Her father had been as straight-backed and disapproving as a church pew.

Where were the other two?

No words were spoken as the pair of them proceeded to their father’s door. And when they arrived at their destination, Edward stepped off to one side and then stumbled into the dark room as the way was opened for him.

“You know where the belts are.”

That was all their father had said.

No, no,
she thought.
This was not fair—Edward wasn’t involved! Why was he—

The door shut with a clap, and she trembled at what was going to come next.

Sure enough, a sharp, slapping sound was followed by a swallowed grunt.

And again.

And again …

Edward never cried. He never cursed.

She had listened to this enough times to know.

Gin put her head down on her thin forearms and squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t know why their father hated Edward so much. The man disliked the rest of them, but her brother made him furious.

Edward never cried.

So she cried for him … and decided, then and there, that if her father could hate Edward? Two could play that game.

And she was going to pick the one who was at this very minute wielding that belt.

She was going to hate her father from now on.

R
efocusing, Gin found that she had sat down on her bed, put her knees to her chest, and linked her arms around herself—as if she were once again sitting just inside that guest room with nothing but a Lanz nightgown to keep her warm, and what was happening in her father’s room terrifying her to the core.

Yes, that was when it had started for her—and William Baldwine had never given her cause to reconsider her hatred. This business with Richard Pford was just another entry on a very long list.

But it wasn’t the worst.

No, the worst that man had done was something that only she seemed to suspect, something that no one else had brought up, whether it was under Easterly’s roof or in the newspapers.