The Gold Digger's Ledger novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Terms

Miranda moves into the townhouse, meets Gus, and breaks a near-miss with Tristan with one line; Honor summons her to lunch.

At one in the morning, Tristan unlocked a townhouse with five floors and showed me the only room he had opened for me.

The ground floor was lit. Everything above the second floor was dark.

"The fourth floor is being painted," he said, when I looked up the stairwell.

The hall didn't smell like paint.

I noticed that and said nothing.

The guest room had a bed with a white quilt, a lamp, and a lock on the inside of the door.

He held out a key on a green ribbon.

"Use it," he said. "I'd rather you did."

"You'd rather I locked you out?"

"I'd rather you knew you could."

That was either very decent or very clever, and I was too tired to decide which.

I tried to take off Lydia's dress by myself and failed.

The zipper had caught at the middle of my back, right where I couldn't reach.

I stood in the hall in my stockings, twisting my arm behind me, and Tristan came out of the study with his tie in his hand.

"Hold still."

"I can do it."

"You've been doing it for four minutes."

I held still.

His fingers found the tab. The zipper dragged down an inch, then three, and the cold air hit my skin.

His knuckle rested against my spine.

He didn't move it.

I heard him breathe in, slowly, and I felt that breath on the back of my neck.

For one second, every sensible thing I knew about men and money went out of my head.

"Miranda," he said, very low.

"That one's an extra," I said. "Put it on the bill."

He stepped back at once.

"Noted," he said, and his voice was dry, but his hand was not steady when he went back into the study.

I locked the door with the green ribbon key and lay awake listening to a house with too many quiet rooms.

In the morning I went downstairs in my own jeans and found an old man in a cardigan at the kitchen table, buttering toast with great concentration.

He had white hair, bright blue eyes, and a cane hooked over the back of his chair.

"You're her," he said.

"I'm who?"

"The girl from the video. Four hundred thousand people have watched you take that book out of Lydia Beaumont's hand."

My stomach dropped.

"I'm Gus," the old man said. "Tristan's grandfather. Sit. The coffee is dreadful, because we're between cooks."

Tristan stood at the stove in his shirtsleeves, pushing eggs around a pan.

I looked at the bare wrist and then at the eggs.

"You cook?"

"Badly," Tristan said.

"Very badly," Gus agreed. "My daughter-in-law tells me you're a thief, Miss Dunleavy."

"I told her I was," I said.

"I know. That's what I liked. Thieves don't read out the total." He pointed the butter knife at me. "Show me the book."

"No."

"Splendid." He seemed delighted. "A woman who writes everything down and shows it to nobody. I haven't met one since my wife."

Tristan set a plate in front of me. The eggs were grey at the edges.

I ate every bite, because I never leave food on a plate.

Gus watched me do it.

"Tristan, you're a fool," he said cheerfully. "She's the only person who's ever eaten your cooking and not lied about it."

"Grandfather."

"I'm eighty-four. I'll say what I like."

Under the table, my phone buzzed.

It was a text from the bar's manager: Are you okay?

I typed back that I was fine and that I would be in Thursday.

Tristan was watching me over the pan.

"You're keeping the job," he said.

"I'm keeping everything that's mine."

"The book. The job."

"My mother's phone number."

He nodded slowly.

Then the doorbell rang, and he went to answer it, and came back holding a cream envelope with a gold crest.

He didn't hand it to me. He set it on the table next to my plate, face up.

The card inside was written in a firm, upright hand.

Calloway Club. Noon tomorrow. Come alone. Wear something of your own. H.P.

Gus read it upside down and whistled.

"My daughter-in-law has never once asked a person to wear something of their own," he said. "She must be frightened."

I looked at Tristan.

He was looking at the card, and his thumb was pressed white against the edge of the table.

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