Barbara Dunlop - The Elliotts - Bedroom Secrets - Under Deepest Cover

“Don’t mind him,” said Maeve, Bryan’s grandmother. She was a petite woman and still a beauty. Her mostly white hair, piled up on her head in an elegant upsweep, carried traces of auburn, and her nose bore a sprinkling of pale freckles. Her green eyes were sharp as a bird’s and missed nothing. “He’s a gruff old goat, but deep down he’s a charmer. Welcome to The Tides, Lindsay.”

Maeve grasped both Lucy’s hands and squeezed them, and Lucy instantly fell in love with the woman. She was just adorable.

Though Lucy quickly ceased to be the center of attention, she could sense the Elliotts watching her at various times. When others arrived—Bryan’s uncle Shane and his cousin Teagan and Teagan’s fiancée, Renee—conversations broke into small groups, and the talk focused on the magazines. Which was only natural, since almost all of them worked for EPH.

Even an outsider could see the tensions. Those who worked for the same magazine flocked together, sometimes with heads bent low. Sometimes voices were raised, then boisterous laughter would break out, a spontaneous hug here and there.

Lucy wasn’t used to any family showing their feelings so freely. In the home where she’d grown up, she’d been taught to keep emotions in check. Voices were never raised, laughter seldom heard. And hugging? Forget it.

No wonder Lucy had rebelled so far in the other direction, allowing her life to get about as messy as one could get.

“Let me refill that wine, Lindsay,” Daniel said. “Which one were you drinking?”

“Uh, red?”

“Burgundy? Or was it the pinot noir?”

Lucy felt sure she should know the difference, but she didn’t. Her parents hadn’t allowed alcohol in their house, and In Tight had leaned toward beer and the hard stuff.

At her clueless expression, Daniel took her elbow and led her to the bar, where several bottles were lined up. “This is the burgundy,” he said, “a particularly nice one from Australia. The pinot noir is a Chilean variety. Dry, but with a hint of floral and oak.” He smiled at her. “Pretend you’re interested in my boring dissertation on wine, okay? Make me look good.”

Lucy laughed. “I am interested. I just don’t know much about wine. I think I drank from the bottle with the green label.”

He picked up the bottle and refilled her glass. “Actually, I have an ulterior motive in cutting you out from the herd. I wanted to have a private word with you.”

Uh-oh, here it comes, Lucy thought, tamping down her panic. Bryan’s father had picked up on something out of kilter. She’d blown it.

“I’m very worried about Bryan. He’s been traveling so much lately. And when he showed up for his brother’s wedding here in May, he had a split lip and a limp. He claimed he was in a car accident, but his car didn’t have a scratch on it.”

This was all news to Lucy. She looked up at him blankly.

“You mean, you don’t know?”

“We haven’t been dating for long,” she said, her voice shaking with nerves. “It’s been a real whirlwind. I still have so much to learn about Bryan. He hasn’t mentioned any car accident.” All of which was true.

“I feel like he’s hiding something. And I’m not just being a paranoid dad. His mother is worried, too. And Cullen. We all feel like he’s not being honest with us. Maybe trying to protect us.”

Oh, dear. How was she supposed to respond to that?

She wanted to tell Daniel not to worry, but in good conscience, she couldn’t. Bryan was in danger almost all the time. She wanted to reassure Daniel that Bryan wasn’t involved in something nefarious, that he wasn’t embroiled in trouble. She couldn’t do that, either.

“Bryan is a very private person,” she finally said.

“But what was he doing in France? Surely it couldn’t take weeks and weeks to swap recipes.”

Bryan had told her to stick to the truth as much as possible. But she knew nothing about what he did in France. She shrugged helplessly. “He was meeting with all kinds of people.”

“You mean like chefs and restaurant managers and spice dealers?”

And terrorists and spies. She nodded.

“Well, maybe there’s more to running a restaurant than I thought. Maybe now that he has a girlfriend, he’ll stay home more. You’ll take good care of him, won’t you?”

“More like he’s taking good care of me.”

Dinner was the typical five-course extravaganza. Though the Elliotts had a chef come in even for their family dinners, Maeve was a fine cook in her own right and couldn’t resist dabbling in the kitchen. The meal tonight was vichyssoise, followed by a field-green salad, braised salmon, beef tips with fresh asparagus, and fudge-caramel mousse.

“What do you think, Bryan, love?” Maeve asked. “Up to your standards?”

“Gram, you know even Une Nuit can’t compete with the dinners you serve here,” he said diplomatically. He’d enjoyed the dinner but he’d spent most of his time watching Lucy, who was so nervous she could hardly swallow. She was doing a spectacular job posing as Lindsay. She’d often shot him nervous but affectionate looks throughout the evening, and a couple of times she’d sought him out and taken his hand.

He had to admit, the feel of her smooth little hand in his had stirred something inside him until it was becoming increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction. But that was the general idea when working a cover story. Live it, believe it, and you could be convincing.

But was he living it a little too much? He certainly had no problem doting on “Lindsay.” He even stole the cherry from the top of the mousse and presented it to her, which started a boisterous argument among the cousins. When they’d been kids, they’d always fought over the cherry until Maeve had been forced to go to the kitchen and bring out the jar of maraschinos, giving each of her grandkids one.

“So,” Patrick said, “where is your twin sister this evening, Shane?”

“Why are you asking me?” said Shane, who was editor in chief of The Buzz. “You know Fin. She’s eating and sleeping at Charisma these days, she’s so obsessed with this competition.”

The others at the table agreed. This was one of those times Bryan was truly grateful not to be in the magazine business. He didn’t like this competition among his aunt, uncles and cousins for control of EPH. He had no idea what his grandfather’s goal had been in setting up the contest, but surely it wasn’t to put them all at each other’s throats.

“No need to criticize,” said Scarlet, sticking up for her boss. “Aunt Finny is devoted, that’s all. She truly cares about Charisma.”

“Oh, and I don’t care about The Buzz?” Shane shot back.

“I didn’t say that.”

More arguments broke out after that. Bryan leaned back and folded his arms, rather enjoying the melee. The things some people thought were important.

Lucy interrupted his amusement. “Excuse me,” she said quietly to him. “I’ll be back.”

He thought she’d just gone to the powder room, but when she hadn’t returned in ten minutes, he started to worry. Maeve had brought out the dessert, and Lucy’s sat untouched.

Realistically, Bryan knew nothing could happen to Lucy while she was at The Tides. The place was safe as Fort Knox. But her absence made him uneasy, and he excused himself to go look for her.

The downstairs guest bath door was open, the light off. If she’d ever been there, she wasn’t there now.

He wandered all around the first floor, thinking maybe she’d gotten distracted by his grandparents’ artwork or knickknacks, some of which were museum quality. But she was nowhere.

Surely she hadn’t gone upstairs. Unless she’d felt ill and wanted to lie down. But wouldn’t she have said something to him?