Victoria came back with a cup in each hand. “Black coffee, no sugar,” she said, handing him one. “Tea with milk and two sugars.” She passed the other to Lainie.
“Thanks, Vicky.” Lainie took it and sipped, with a grateful sigh. She flicked a glance at him through her lashes. “You’re surviving, then.”
He swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “Just.” He raised the cup. “Although if one of your brothers helped make this, I should probably check it for traces of strychnine.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. They don’t usually behave like the Corleone family. Will set kind of a bad precedent.”
“Story of his life.”
She grinned. He watched her narrowly, but there were no shadows in her eyes. Not a hint of lingering anger or regret. From her demeanour, Farmer might have been only a passing acquaintance. The corner of his mouth curved upward.
Another of the children, a small-to-medium-sized boy, came toddling over with a melting ice cream cone and laid a sticky miniature hand on Richard’s knee. He sighed and looked around for a suitable toy. Mister Ed was obviously private property, and he didn’t want to sacrifice the Barbie. The little boy looked like a holy terror, and her life had obviously been hard enough.
Lainie came to the rescue with a neon-green foam sword. Her ungrateful nephew whacked her around the ribs with it before charging off to decapitate his siblings.
Lainie looked at Richard ruefully. “Most of them will be taken off for a nap soon.”
He wouldn’t mind one himself. He had an entirely new respect for people with kids. They were exhausting. He also questioned the sanity of teachers, nannies and anyone who voluntarily wrangled the little beasts en masse. Naturally high spirits seemed to go into warp speed under the influence of pack mentality. He watched a card game disintegrate into something more like a reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo.
He’d occasionally wondered if he’d missed something, being an only child. Grievous bodily harm, by the looks of it.
“Thank you for coming.” Lainie spoke in his ear. He turned to look at her. Her green eyes were level and serious on his. “I do appreciate it. I know this is so not your scene.”
It wasn’t. He hadn’t met a woman’s family since his university days. And his girlfriend at the time had also been an only child. But this was obviously the centre of Lainie’s world, and he...cared about Lainie.
He shrugged. “We said we were going to spend the day together.”
When they’d made plans for their day off, she’d forgotten about the family gathering, but needs must. The rest of the week was going to be packed with performances, meetings and duty appearances, so there wasn’t going to be another chance to spend time with her away from the prying eyes of the public.
There were no paparazzi here. No pretence.
Just the vaguely threatening stares of her five hundred brothers.
One of them dropped into a seat opposite, a half-empty coffee cup in his hand, and Richard sat calmly under his scrutiny. It was the youngest. Cal, the only one with a beard.
He looked fairly unhappy about the proximity of Richard’s hand to his sister’s thigh.
Too bad.
“So,” Cal said, with suspicious civility. “Richard.”
“Cal,” Lainie returned warningly.
“Rumour has it you’re a bit of a prick.”
“Cal!”
Her brother’s face remained politely enquiring.
Richard’s lips twitched. “That does seem to be the general consensus.”
Cal leaned back, frowningly inspecting his jumper, which bore traces of his children’s lunch. “And are you?”
“I believe your sister has said so more than once.” He smiled slowly, looking down into Lainie’s indignant face. “And I respect her opinion.”
She shook her head at him. Reluctant amusement lightened her eyes to a gleaming shade of mint.
Cal watched them in silence. “Good enough.” He stood up, drained the last of his coffee, and clapped Richard on the shoulder as he passed by. “Welcome to the family. See you in two weeks at the next birthday party.”
“I’m adopted,” Lainie said. “I share no genes with these people.”
Richard glanced pointedly through the archway into the other lounge, where her freckle-faced, still partially red-haired father was playing Playstation with the teenagers. He tugged gently on a lock of her own hair.
Lainie put her hand up to rescue her scalp, her fingers closing over his. “Coincidence.”
Without thinking, he nodded at the framed photograph on the mantel. “Your sister is indicating otherwise.” He belatedly recalled that she’d almost cried the last time they’d talked about Hannah. It was still a novel experience, keeping a watch over someone else’s feelings.
Fortunately, her eyes remained clear. Her expression softened as she looked at her sister’s image.
“That’s Auntie Hannah,” said yet another childish treble, and he looked down at a young girl with a brown ponytail. He was relieved to see that this one had clean hands and looked old enough to entertain herself.