As the gates open, my heart starts to skip beats, like it’s seizing.
The long drive up to the house is ridiculous—old-movie-that-Angie-has-made-me-watch ridiculous. Hedges are carved like we are at a children’s zoo or some crap. They aren’t the weirdest part either. No, a hedge shaped like an animal is crazy, but the massive fountain is worse. It has three naked boys frolicking in the water, like they’re splashing, only they’re made of cast iron like the other boys.
The pool, oddly enough, is out front and long and thin; not what you’d expect for a house of such grandeur. At the very end of the long driveway is another cast-iron sculpture of two boys, naked boys, playing leapfrog. I cough a little to avoid the questions threatening to leave my lips about his parents’ obsession with naked boys. It’s something I have seen only in Europe and usually at overly fancy places with stodgy and annoying people who think too much of their own opinions and self-worth.
At the end of the weird and pervy driveway is a house that puts all houses, and most Italian castles, to shame. It’s Elizabethan in style if I’m not mistaken, which I know only because I have actually taken the tours, and it has turrets, real ones.
No, the house I cannot prepare for.
It looks like it might still have slaves and a cotton plantation out back, but it’s the castle edition of plantation house tours.
The front steps form a half oval with staircases on either side, in case you prefer to leave from the left instead of the right. The kind you would imagine a woman in one of those huge old-fashioned dresses going down, like Cinderella, the Disney cartoon.
I immediately start sweating. He reaches over. “See, I knew you’d like it.” The stupid smile is still plastered in shock to my face from the cheeky spy comment, so he thinks I love it.
When he parks, a man comes out to the car. Dash jumps out, offering the man a hug. He’s older, clearly Dash’s father, with gray hair and a white mustache. He’s in a suit, which makes me uncomfortable, but if I lived here I would wear a suit every day too. Why not?
“Jane, this is Nichols, our driver and valet.”
I don’t understand what that means. I have seen thirty-two countries and fought in a war, and I still don’t know what a valet does. I assume he means valet parking, as in he has a man who is paid a salary to park cars. How did I not know this was a job possibility?
The man bows to me, making me sweat more. “Miss Jane, it is lovely to finally meet you.”
He’s English, of course. Why wouldn’t he be?
“Jane.” Dash mutters my name. It means I’m not doing the right thing. He and Angie always say, Jane, the correct response is to blah blah blah, when I am not making the right choice or action or saying the right thing.
“It’s so nice to meet you, sir.” I step out as he gets the door and offer him my hand. He gives Dash a strange look and smiles wide like he knows a secret I don’t.
Dash blushes. Clearly I didn’t have the right response.
“Young Master Benjamin has spoken very highly of you, miss.”
He said master? Did he, or did I mishear because of the accent?
Dash slides an arm behind my back, leading me to the large front steps. “Oh, Nichols, you old charmer.” I notice there is a difference in Dash’s tone and accent. He speaks differently here. There’s an affect in his words he doesn’t have in the North.
He leads me up the stairs, leaving our bags in the car. I glance back, and the poor old man is lifting them from the trunk. I pull from Dash’s arm but am whisked back in. “You will let the poor man do his job, Jane. He’ll think you think he can’t do it.”
I snarl under my breath and pull my cell phone from my pocket, sending the message I had typed out to Nancy, the secretary whom I consider my favorite. “Mr. Nichols, can you leave my bags, please? I’m staying at the inn in Middleton, actually.”
“You mean Middleburg, miss? Am I to understand you have made prior arrangements?” He asks like he might chuckle.
Dash’s hand tightens on my waist, making me nearly jump, but I breathe through it. I will not let him see me cry because he may or may not have lied about his entire fucking childhood. When he said country-club rich, he knew I thought he meant I might have to drink a martini and smile when they told weird stories about their trips abroad. I might have to wear argyle. He lied. When he said affluent he meant blue blood. When he said hoity-toity he meant something I don’t think I have a measurement for.
I am fuming, which is almost refreshing since my brain desperately wants to solve the murder and vicious torture of eleven women. But that’s cool, we can hang here and they can all laugh and wear sweaters and make me drinks I don’t like.