Strong Spirits: Secret Billionaires #6 by Blair Babylon

Author:Blair Babylon [Babylon, Blair]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Malachite Publishing LLC

32

A Delicate Intelligence Operation

Footsteps rumbled the House of Lords committee room as the observers filed out. Their grumbling and lumbering echoed on the antique plaster and high ceilings in the Palace of Westminster.

Gen glanced up as they left the room.

Some of the senior barristers scowled at her. They didn’t like being excluded.

Octavia Hawkes winked at Gen as she nearly stumbled down the steps.

Lee and Rose looked up at her, and she shrugged at them. They settled down harder in their chairs, unmoving. Looked like they were staying.

James Knightly sneered at her as he stomped out. His eyebrows had a tight gather between them, and his nose was lifted on both sides like he had sniffed skunk.

Gen took James’s jerk expression to mean that she was doing a pretty good job. She straightened the lapels on the pearl gray jacket over her borrowed dress and turned back to the committee.

All of the committee members—Lords Butterfield and Coatham and Ladies Bazalgette and Hart from the dinner at Spencer House, Baroness Honeycutt and Lords Fane and Caine and Sumner from the Parisian wedding, plus the other lords and ladies whom they hadn’t schmoozed—leaned forward and rested their arms on the table that surrounded Gen and Arthur on three sides.

The door to the hallway clicked closed.

Baroness Honeycutt told Gen, “Proceed.”

Gen’s mouth turned so dry that her tongue stuck to her molars. She sipped from the water glass at her table.

“I have a slide deck,” she told the committee. “I just need to connect my laptop.”

She fiddled with her computer for a few seconds, and Rose ran over to connect a cable to the projector’s side.

A picture of Spencer House came up on the screen, shot from farther away than Christopher’s attorneys had shot theirs.

Gen’s picture showed the flagpole, where the Union Jack flew along with the banner of the earldom, showing that the earl was in residence when the picture was taken.

Looking at the British flag, Gen wondered how she could have missed what Arthur’s back tattoo was for so very long. The distinctive blue triangles and red crossed stripes etched into his skin should have been a, well, a red flag.

Just to emphasize that she was right about everything and Christopher’s interpretation of everything was wrong, she leaned over the desk and told Ruckus, “Lay down.”

The terrier dropped to the floor and laid his head on his white paws.

“Good boy.” Gen straightened and looked at the committee.

Beside her, Arthur was watching. To anyone else, he probably looked just as relaxed as before, but the slightest tremor of one of his knees told Gen that Arthur was so tense he might scale the walls.

All right, here we go. Gen needed to say what needed to be said without saying anything at all.

Truly, she needed to be the most British she had ever been.

Gen sucked in a deep breath and said, “Listen to me carefully. Listen to what I’m not saying because I can’t say it. Are you listening?”

The committee members glanced at each other uneasily but leaned in.

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