The Other Daughter by Lauren Willig Page A

Montfort, and tossed it down for her.
    â€œI don’t want to risk seven years’ bad luck.”
    â€œThat’s only mirrors, not tables.” He made his way unerringly to the chinoiserie cabinet that housed the impromptu bar. “What will you have?”
    She’d had the odd bit of sherry over the years, but cocktails were a mystery. “You choose.”
    â€œHow very trusting of you.”
    â€œHardly. If you’d meant to ravish me you would have done so already.” The words were out of her mouth before Rachel could reconsider them. Frankness had always been her besetting sin. One of them, at any rate.
    Gin bottle in hand, Mr. Montfort raised a brow. “Perhaps I was merely waiting until I had you in my lair.”
    â€œAnd muss the white carpet?”
    â€œThat’s what the maid is for. She scrubs up after all my orgies. Lovely woman.” Mr. Montfort was busily pouring potions from glass bottles into a silver shaker. “A little Jeyes Fluid, and, voil à ! Virtue restored.”
    â€œSo long as there’s no Jeyes Fluid in my drink.” Whatever he was pouring certainly smelled astringent enough.
    â€œWe haven’t quite been reduced to that. Unlike the States, where they’ll quaff rubbing alcohol if you pour it into the right sort of glass and mix it with bitters.” Glass and silver tinkled. “I believe you’ll find this reasonably potent.”
    His smile as he held out the drink was so natural, so friendly, that Rachel found herself, for a moment, wobbly on her unaccustomed heels, the world out of balance.
    Rachel’s fingers closed around the cold glass, the outside already slick with condensation, and Mr. Montfort turned away again, back to the bar, and the world settled back into place. It was the slanting shape of the mirrors, the shifting colors of the wall, Rachel told herself; they were enough to make anyone dizzy. There was no point in letting herself be so undone by a momentary show of—what? Ordinary kindness?
    Mr. Montfort was many things, but she doubted he was kind. She’d do best to remember that.
    They were business partners, that was all.
    If he’d noticed her momentary confusion, Mr. Montfort made no sign. He was busy mixing another drink, dashing in a bit of this and a bit of that with a practiced hand. All the same, clasping her hands behind her back, Rachel made a show of examining the paintings on the walls, striving for a sophistication she was far from feeling.
    Most of the paintings were modern, abstract to the point of incoherence. All except for the portrait dominating one wall. It featured a woman in the costume of the turn of the century, her hair piled high on her head, her neck impossibly long. Her arms curved around a child in a white lace smock, his head an angelic mass of curls.
    On the face, it was a sweet domestic portrait. But when one looked closer, Rachel thought she could see a familiar glint of mischief in the moppet’s dark eyes. Black eyes, eyes so dark one couldn’t detect the difference between iris and pupil.
    â€œHow too precious.” Rachel masked her nervousness with mockery. “Was that you?”
    â€œWas and is.” Mr. Montfort poured out his drink with a professional twist of the wrist. “Minus the curls, of course.”
    â€œAnd that is your mother?” The picture was too stylized to provide a good sense of likeness, but there was something very like Mr. Montfort about the cheeks and chin. It was a striking face, but not necessarily a restful one.
    â€œBrilliantly spotted,” drawled Mr. Montfort. He dropped a cherry into Rachel’s drink. “Most beautiful debutante of her generation and international scandal.”
    Rachel lifted her drink, sniffing it warily. “We have that in common, then. Scandalous mothers.”
    â€œMine married them. One after the other.” Before Rachel could decide whether or not to take offense, Mr.