Grave Apparel (54 page)

As
Lacey
headed out the door into the cold she thought of Stella. She
wondered
how
her girliest friend managed to stay
warm
with all the
cleavagebaring
outfits
she
wore.
Stella could
find
a
way
to
show
off
“the Girls”
muffled
in a
down
parka from nose to toes at the South Pole. Not
Lacey.
Forging
out into the weather to catch a cab to meet
Jeffrey
Bentley
Holmes for lunch,
Lacey
chose a cheerful peacockblue raincoat to combat the wet gray
weather.
Very
few
of the drab drizzly December denizens of the District were
following
her colorful lead.

The cab dropped her
off
at
Weatherfields,
the
new
restaurant on
Fourteenth
Street. She breezed through the front doors be hind three beige trench coats—that is, three men in beige trench coats, who
looked
like
they
had just come from a Senate hear ing and
couldn’t wait
to bore someone.

The restaurant
was
all blond
wood
and creamy interiors, and a
clear
foursided
gas
fireplace
was
blazing
away
in
the
center
of the room. It
was
very
clubby and
cozy,
but
it
couldn’t
calm
her
apprehension.
The
host
was efficient
and
courteous.
He
took her raincoat and led her to the booth where
Jeffrey
sat. It had a nice
view
of the front
windows
and all the beige trench coats
walking
through the
door.

Jeffrey
stood up as she approached the table, reaching
over
and
offering
his hand.
Lacey
hadn’t
forgotten
how
much she
liked
Jeffrey,
she had simply
filed
it on a top shelf
somewhere
in the back of her brain. She had
never
really
expected
to see him again,
but
his smile told her he had
very
much hoped to see
her.

“Lacey,
it’s
wonderful
to see
you,”
he said without a trace of
irony,
which put her at ease. His smile
was
warm.
He helped her out of her
jacket
and
waited
until she sat in the chair the host held for
her.
She had once been the messenger of
very
bad
news
for him and for the entire
Bentley
clan,
but
if he had been angry with her then, there
was
no sign of it
now.
Jeffrey
looked
won
derful as
always,
his perfectly cut sleek blond
hair,
his casually
elegant
and
expensivelooking
gray
slacks
and
navy
blazer.
By
the House of
Bentley,
no doubt.

“I understand
you’re
not
available
for dates,
Lacey.
Except for lunch. Therefore, I
take
it your status has changed?”

“There is this
guy.”
Lacey
fiddled
with her napkin and laid it in her nap.

“There
always
is,
isn’t
there, and this particular guy
would
be named
Donovan,
wouldn’t
he?”

“Yes,
it’s
Vic
Donovan.”

“Right.
I
met
him
at
the
Bentley
ball
in
September.
You
disappeared and he was looking for you. About that
time—
about the time everything was
happening.”
Jeffrey leaned
for
ward, resting his forearms on the table. “He was ready to
tear
the place apart looking for you. I had a feeling he might be
the
guy.”

She smiled at him.
“You’re
very
perceptive.”

“That’s
me.”
He
smiled
back
and
casually
picked
up
the
menu.
“You’ll
let me
know
if that status changes,
won’t
you?”
“You’d
be the
first,
I’m sure. Probably the only one on the
list.”
She laughed at the thought of men standing in line for
her.
So
unlikely
in
Washington,
D.C., she reflected, a place where so
many
men were
truly,
madly,
deeply in
love
only with them
selves.
And maybe their security clearances.

“I’d
be
in
front
of
a
long
line,
I’m
sure,”
Jeffrey
said
gal
lantly.
“You
might be surprised. But I
wouldn’t
be.”

“Really?
How’d
you get to be so insightful?”

His lips played with a smile. “In my
family,
you
have
to read

the
subtext
beneath all those calm collected
Waspy
exteriors.
Or
they
eat you
alive
like
piranhas.”

The
Bentleys
had made their name in classic haute couture
fashion
with a liberal use of luxurious
fabrics.
Jeffrey’s
uncle
was
the
famous
Hugh
Bentley,
a
legendary
designer.
But there
were
skeletons
in
their
closets,
and
in
their
ancient
steamer
trunks, which had been disinterred
vividly
in articles bylined
“Lacey
Smithsonian” for
The
Eye
Street
Observer
.

“Ah,
family
subtext.
We
all
have
some of
that.”
He put the menu
down.
“You
look good,
Lacey.”

“So do you,
Jeffrey.
It’s
nice to see you. Last I heard you were in retreat. Thinking deep thoughts, no
doubt.”

“Not so much. At the
monastery,
it
was
a luxury not to think.

Just to
be.”

“Tell
me about it?”

“It’s
an uncluttered place, stark and beautiful. No place to
hide
from
yourself.
A
chance
to
decompress
after
all
that
trauma in the
family.
I did some carpentry for the monks. That was fun and relaxing, centering. Built some shelves, lots
of
bookshelves.
They
get a lot of reading done
there.”

Jeffrey
Bentley
Holmes
didn’t
look
like
someone
who
made a living swinging a
hammer.
He looked like a
beautiful
male
model
in
a
Bentley’s
sportswear
ad,
a
role
he’d
also
played for his
family.
But Lacey had seen his carpentry
and
design skills at the Bentley Museum of Fashion, in the
District
near the National Building Museum. He designed the wing
of
the museum that featured the Bentley
family’s
permanent
col
lection of designer clothing from the 1940s to the present,
and
he had also been the store designer and head builder for
the
Bentley
retail
stores.
Jeffrey
told
her
once
he
far
preferred
working
with
wood
over
celebrity
photographers
and
tempera mental
models.

“And
now
you’re
back in
Washington,”
Lacey said.
“The
city that
fashion
forgot?”

“Not just
forgot.
The city that ran screaming
from.”
He tilted his head slightly to indicate a
fashion
disaster at a table across the aisle.
Lacey
looked
up.

Ouch.
Who
let
the
Congresswoman
from
California
wear
loud
plaid
tights
with
a
mustard
yellow
suit?
Lacey
wondered.
Don’t
Congresswomen
have
people
to
keep
them
from
doing
these
things?

“The reason I’m here? Seems
there’s
this little public rela tions mess. Uncle Hugh stealing some designs long
ago,”
Jef
frey
said. He smiled.
“You
may
have
read about
it.”

“I seem to recall something about
that.”
Lacey
had in
fact
written those stories, a series of scoops that did not endear her
to
the
rest
of
the
Bentley
family.
Had
they
joined
them
for
lunch,
they
would
now
be ordering
Lacey’s
head on a plate. She thought it
was
a miracle that
Jeffrey
held no grudge.

“You
didn’t
create the situation,
Lacey.
You
simply shone a light on it, one that should
have
been turned on brightly years ago.
Now,
however,
the
family
wants
me to
wallow
in their mis
ery
with
them,
to
try
to
mitigate
the
damage.”
He
settled
back
in the cushioned booth. “I helped drag them through the muck, so I get to try to
wash
some mud
off
the
family
name.”

“You’ve
been
called
back
into
action
for
the
Bentley
empire?”

“I thought resigning from the board
would
get me
off
the hook. But
now
the
family
seems to think I’m the only one pre sentable enough to meet the
public.”

“Because of
me.”
She met his
eyes.
“I’m so
sorry,
Jeffrey.”
“Don’t
be.
Because
of
you,
Lacey, I
learned
some
hard
truths that I needed to
know.”
“You’re
not angry with me?”

“Did I come here to poison you?” He laughed. “I hope not. They tell me this is a great restaurant,
I’d
hate to ruin
their
reputation.”

“But your
family—”

“Sadly,
you are not their
favorite
person. But you are one of
mine.”