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Knowing he would probably regret it later, Garrett moved aside so his brother could step into the foyer. The cool evening air that followed him inside sent a chill down Garrett’s back and when Ian dropped his duffel on the floor, a plume of dust left a dirty ring on the Italian ceramic tile. He would consider it a bad omen if he believed in that sort of thing.
“Spacious,” Ian said, gazing around the foyer and up the wide staircase to the second floor. “You’ve done well for yourself.”
“Don’t touch anything.” Things had a mysterious habit of finding their way into Ian’s pockets and disappearing forever. “And take off your boots. I don’t want you trailing mud on my floors.”
“Could I trouble you for a shower?” Ian asked as he kicked off his boots, revealing socks so filthy and full of holes they barely covered his feet.
“You can use the one in the spare bedroom.” It was the room that possessed the least valuable items. “Up the stairs, first door on the right. I’ll fix something to eat.”
Ian nodded, grabbed his duffel and headed up the stairs. Garrett considered wiping up the dust on the floor, but there would probably be more where that came from, so he decided to take care of it in the morning after Ian was gone. He walked to the kitchen instead and put a kettle on for tea, then rummaged through the icebox to see what leftovers his housekeeper had stashed there. He found a glass dish with a generous portion of pot roast, baked red skin potatoes and buttered baby carrots from last night’s dinner.
He reached for a plate then figured, why dirty another dish, and set the whole thing in the microwave.
While he waited for it to heat, he noticed his wallet lying on the counter and out of habit slipped it into his pants pocket. He wasn’t worried about the cash so much as his credit and ATM cards. The last time Ian had stayed with their brother Victor, he’d run off with his Mastercard and charged several thousand pounds’ worth of purchases before Vic even realized the card was missing. Electronic equipment mostly, which Garrett figured Ian had probably sold for cash.
Garrett wasn’t taking any chances. After a shower and a meal and a good night’s sleep, he would loan Ian a few hundred pounds—that he knew would never be repaid—and send him on his merry way. With any luck, he wouldn’t darken Garrett’s doorway again for a very long time.
Ian emerged a few minutes later, freshly shaven, his hair still damp, wearing rumpled but clean clothes. “Best shower I ever had,” he told Garrett.
“I made you tea.”
He saw the cup and scowled. “I don’t suppose you have anything stronger.”
Garrett shrugged and said, “Sorry.” Unless he wanted his liquor cabinet cleaned out, Garrett was keeping it securely locked for the duration of his brother’s visit. Besides, Ian probably had a bottle or two stashed in his duffel. Given the choice between a meal and a bottle of cheap whiskey, the alcohol always won.
“Well, then, tea it is,” Ian conceded, as though he had a choice. “You just get in from work?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Came by earlier, but you weren’t here. I waited for you in the park across the road.”
It was a wonder he wasn’t arrested for loitering. The authorities in this neighborhood had no tolerance for riffraff. “I wasn’t working.”
“Got a lady friend then, do you? Anyone I know?”
Garrett nearly chuckled at the thought of Ian socializing with the royal family. “No one you know.”
The microwave beeped and Garrett pulled out the dish.
Knowing Garrett couldn’t cook worth a damn, Ian eyed the food suspiciously. “You made that?”
“Don’t worry, my housekeeper prepared it.”
“In that case, slide it this way,” Ian said, rubbing his work-roughened hands together in anticipation. Garrett watched as he shoveled a forkful into his mouth, eating right there at the kitchen counter, standing up.
“Delicious,” he mumbled through a mouthful of beef and potatoes. He followed it with a swallow of tea. He wolfed down the food with an embarrassing lack of regard for the most basic table manners. Their mum would have been horrified. They may have lived like paupers but his mum had always insisted they carry themselves with dignity.
“So,” Garrett asked, “why did you get fired this time?”
“Who says I was fired?” Ian asked indignantly.
“Please don’t insult my intelligence.”
He relented and answered, “The owner of the ranch caught me in the hay barn with his youngest daughter.”
“How young?”
“Seventeen.”
Garrett was about to say that a twenty-eight-year-old man had no business chasing a girl more than ten years his junior, but that was almost exactly the age difference between himself and Louisa. But that was different. Louisa was an adult—even if her family didn’t treat her like one. Not to mention that Garrett intended to marry her, while he was quite sure his brother was only using the young girl in question.
“Don’t give me that look of disapproval,” Ian countered. “It wasn’t my fault. She seduced me.”
Of course. Nothing was ever his fault. Someone else was always to blame for his irresponsibility. “Did you ever consider telling her no?”
“If you’d seen her, you wouldn’t have told her no, either.”
Unlike his brother, Garrett wasn’t a slave to his hormones. He had principles. He didn’t take advantage of women. Not sexually, anyway. Besides, he wasn’t taking advantage of Louisa. If she married him, she would never be denied a thing she desired. With the exception of a few children, that is.
“What are you going to do now?” he asked Ian.
“Like I said, I have something fantastic in the works. A sure thing. I just need a bit of capital to get it off the ground.”
He didn’t say it, but Garrett knew exactly what he was thinking and saved him the trouble of having to ask. “Don’t look at me. I’ve thrown away enough money on your so-called sure things.”
Ian shrugged. “Your loss.”
Garrett doubted that.
Ian finished his dinner, stopping just shy of licking the dish clean. “Delicious. Best meal I’ve had in weeks.”
“I assume you need a place to stay.”
He leaned back against the countertop and folded his arms over his chest. “There’s a very comfortable bench in the park I could sleep on.”
“You’re welcome to use the spare bedroom. For one night,” he stressed. “And I expect everything to be as you found it when you go.”
“I’ll even make the bed.”
“Well then, I’m off to bed,” Garrett said.
“Already? I thought we might catch up for a while.”
“I have an early breakfast meeting.”
Ian looked appalled. “You’re working on a Saturday?”
“Sometimes I work Sundays, as well.” A concept Ian, who worked as little as possible, would never grasp. “Help yourself to whatever you find in the icebox, and I have satellite television if you want to watch it. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“See you in the morning,” Ian parroted as Garrett walked from the room. He felt uncomfortable leaving his brother to his own devices, but short of staying awake all night, he didn’t have much choice.
Consequently, Garrett didn’t see Ian in the morning. When he rolled out of bed at 6:00 a.m., Ian had already left. With half the contents of the liquor cabinet and Garrett’s car.
The e-mail showed up in Louisa’s personal in-box late Saturday afternoon. At first when she saw the blank subject line she assumed it was junk mail, then she noticed the return address—G.B. Man—and her heart nearly stopped.
That couldn’t be a coincidence. It had to be him.
Not now, she thought to herself. Not when things were going so well. She took a deep breath, preparing herself for the worst, and reluctantly double clicked to open it. The body of the e-mail read simply, Did you miss me, Princess?
No gruesome nursery rhymes or threats of violence this time, still a cold chill slithered up her spine. This was going to put everyone into a panic and security back on high alert. Which meant her chances of leaving the castle and going on a normal date with Garrett were slim to none. Why did the Gingerbread Man have to choose now to start harassing them again?
She leaned over for the phone to ring security, when she noticed the time stamp on the e-mail and realized it had actually been sent yesterday morning. Louisa didn’t check her in-box daily, but her brothers did. If they had gotten one, too, wouldn’t she have heard about it by now?
Was it possible that the Gingerbread Man had sent a message to her alone? And if so, was it a coincidence that it started at the same time she began seeing Garrett? Was he trying to complicate things?
She sat back in her chair, wondering what she should do. The e-mail hadn’t been threatening at all. Just a reminder that he was still there, which they all had assumed anyway. If he had planned to actually harm a member of the family, wouldn’t he have done it by now?
If she accidentally forgot to mention this to security, what difference would it really make?
She sat there with her finger hovering over the delete button, weighing her options. If it turned out her brothers and sister had gotten an e-mail, too, she could just tell them that she must have erased hers accidentally, assuming it was junk mail. She hated to lie, but this was her future on the line. Her relationship with Garrett might be destiny, but even destiny had its limits. Would Garrett want to court a woman who wasn’t even allowed to leave the house, and by dating her very possibly make himself a target?
It would be best, for now, if no one else knew about this.
Before she could change her mind, she stabbed the delete key, promising herself that if he contacted her again, threatening or not, she would let the family know. Until then, it would be her secret.
Six
It was after noon when Garrett’s meeting finally ended. He was in the company limo on his way to the club to play squash with Wes, when he received a call from the police informing him that his car had been in an accident. Apparently, in his haste to flee Garrett’s town house, Ian had run off the road and into a tree.
“He was pretty banged up,” the officer told him. “But he was conscious and alert when they put him in the ambulance.”
Despite everything, Garrett was relieved Ian wasn’t hurt too badly. If he’d died, Garrett would have been the one to break the news to his family. Since it was Garrett’s car Ian had been driving, they would likely pin the blame on him. Not that he cared what they thought of him any longer. It was just a hassle he didn’t need.
“Did he say how it happened?” Garrett asked.
“He claims he swerved to avoid hitting an animal in the road, a dog, and lost control.”
Ian had always had a soft spot for animals. Dogs especially, so it was a plausible excuse.
Garrett dreaded the next question he had to ask. “Was alcohol involved?”
“We assumed so at first. There were a dozen or so broken bottles of liquor in the car. Expensive stuff, too.”
Tell me about it, Garrett wanted to say.
“He denied being intoxicated, but we won’t know for certain until we get the results of the blood test. He must have been going quite fast though. I’m sorry to say that the car is totaled.”
It wouldn’t be the first car Ian had demolished with his careless driving. Or the last. Besides, Garrett had never expected to get it back. He didn’t have the heart to report it as stolen and Ian would have eventually sold it. At least now Garrett would get the insurance money, and Ian would have to face what he’d done while the wounds were still fresh.
He thanked the officer for the information and instructed his driver to take him to the hospital instead, then rang Wes to cancel. With any luck, this fiasco wouldn’t find its way into the papers, or, if it did, he hoped no names were released. With the royal family keeping a close eye on him, the last thing he needed was a scandal. Not that he should be held accountable for his brother’s actions, but in his experience royals had a … unique way of looking at things.
Garrett should have listened to his instincts and never let Ian in the house. Or maybe this time Ian would finally learn his lesson.
The limo dropped him at the front entrance of the hospital and Garrett stopped at the information desk to get his brother’s room number. Ian’s was on the third floor just past the nursing station, but when Garrett walked through the door, he was totally unprepared for what he saw. He’d expected Ian to have suffered a few bumps and bruises, maybe a laceration or two, but his baby brother looked as though he’d gone a dozen rounds with a prize fighter.
His face was swollen and bruised, his nose broken and both eyes blackened. His right wrist and hand were wrapped in gauze, and he’d suffered small nicks and cuts on both arms. From the broken bottles, Garrett figured. His left leg was in a cast from foot to midthigh and suspended in a sling.
Garrett shook his head and thought, Ian, what have you done to yourself?
Instead of seeing Ian the troublemaker lying there, under the bandages and bruises Garrett could only picture the little boy who used to come to him with skinned knees and splinters, and his anger swiftly fizzled away.
“Garrett Sutherland?” someone asked from behind him.
He turned to find a doctor standing just outside the room. “Yes.”
“Dr. Sacsner,” he said, shaking Garrett’s hand. “I’m your brother’s surgeon.”
“Surgeon?”
“Orthopedics.” He gestured out of the room. “Could we have a word?”
Garrett nodded and followed him into the hallway.
“Your brother is a lucky man,” the doctor began to say.
“He doesn’t look so lucky to me.”
“I know it looks bad, but it could have been much worse. The fact that he suffered no internal injuries is nothing short of a miracle.”
“What about his leg?”
The doctor frowned. “There he wasn’t so lucky. His lower leg was crushed under the dash. The impact shattered the fibula and snapped his tibia in three places. The only thing holding it together are rods and pins.”
“But he’ll recover?”
“With time and physical therapy he should make a full recovery. The first six weeks will be the most difficult. It’s imperative he stay off the leg as much as possible and keep it elevated.”
“So he’ll stay here?”
“For another day or two, then he’ll be released.”
Released? Where was he going to go?
He realized, by the doctor’s expression, that Garrett was expected to take Ian home.
Bloody hell. He didn’t have time for this now. Nor did he feel he owed his brother a thing after all the grief he’d caused. But who else did Ian have? Where else could he stay?
“I know it sounds like a daunting task,” the doctor said. “But if money is no object, you can hire twenty-four-hour care if necessary.” His pager beeped and he checked the display. “I’ll be back to check on him later.”
