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Lifting the fresh drink in a salute, he drained it in one long pull before placing it on the tray next to his other empty glass and helped himself to a third.
The server’s eyes widened with a subtle expression of dismay.
The company’s charity gala was in full swing. Staff mingled, serving hors d’oeuvres and champagne whilst the posh crowd socialized.
The bow tie around Ryder’s neck felt like a noose. Not a week back in London and his youngest sister, Sarah, nicknamed Sadie, had popped by his flat to beg him to come. He should have come up with a reason to be unavailable. But he’d come, dressed like the aristocrat he didn’t want to be, and couldn’t seem to escape.
Hobnobbing with the one percent. He should pass out his business card for Dìleas Security Agency, although his father would have a fit of apoplexy.
A grin threatened to ruin his practiced expression of polite interest. Ryder took another sip of champagne to hide it. Tight bubbles, a rich golden color, and a complexity of citrus, tropical fruits, spices, and oak. With a price tag to match.
Only the finest for a Montague event.
His gaze wandered the room. This was definitely a crowd that could use executive protection services. The sheer wealth, societal status, and political power present made it a target-rich environment. He’d already noted the men stationed along the perimeter in dark suits and earpieces, their gazes on a swivel. They worked for Mason Winters, who, like Ryder, was a former Special Air Service member now involved in security.
Ryder’s father had chosen to ignore that Ryder worked in the executive protection business and could have provided his own people for the event.
After all, it would be unseemly for the future earl to be seen working as one of the help.
“If you keep that up, you’ll make a spectacle of yourself.” The frosty patrician voice came from behind him.
He braced himself before turning. “Hello, Father.”
Philip Montague, the current Earl of Cannington, and CEO of Arborleigh Holdings, frowned, deepening the grooves on his narrow face. Dressed in a Savile Row bespoke black tuxedo, his silver hair was neatly groomed, his blue-gray eyes as icy as his tone. “Your mother has worked hard on this event. The least you could do is be civil and socialize with our guests.” Philip cast a pointed look at the drink in Ryder’s hand. “Perhaps you should switch to tonic.”
Perhaps you should fuck off.
“Three glasses will hardly tip me into public drunkenness.” Ryder was twenty-nine and a special forces combat veteran, yet his father treated him like he wasn’t old enough to shave. “And these are your guests, not mine.” If he threw a party, it wouldn’t be full of back-stabbing, social-climbing snobs trying to one-up each other whilst they handed out fake compliments and traded gossip.
“They are important members of our social circle and valuable business partners. You would do well to network with them.”
Some things bloody well never changed.
Ryder swallowed the rest of his champagne. “I don’t work for Arborleigh Holdings. Becca is the one who needs to network.”
“Your sister knows her place, as well as yours.”
The bubbly soured on Ryder’s tongue. That hadn’t taken long. “My position with Dìleas Security Agency is going well, Father. Thank you for asking.”
Philip scowled. “I hardly think your—”
“Darling.” Elizabeth Montague, Countess Cannington’s dulcet voice cut short whatever his father was about to say. His mother floated toward Ryder, her face radiating happiness.
This was why he’d let Sadie guilt him into attending. It had been too long since he’d seen his mum. Wrapped in an elegant black and gold off-the-shoulder designer gown highlighting her trim figure, his mother had styled her blonde hair in a chignon, diamonds glinting at her ears and on her fingers.
Sadie followed in a strappy blush pink gown, a carbon copy of their mother in looks except for the blue-gray eyes she’d inherited from their father.
“Mum.” Ryder bent to kiss his mother’s cheek, inhaling gardenias. The familiar scent reminded him of happier times growing up on the family estate, Arborleigh, before his parents had packed him off to Eton, then Oxford, to fulfill his destiny.
Before he learned money and privilege didn’t buy happiness. That the boy he’d been hadn’t been worthy of love. In the army, no one had cared about his birthright, and he’d fought every day to prove himself—become a man he could be proud of.
His fingers tightened around the thin stem of the flute in his hand.
For fuck’s sake.If he didn’t relax, he’d snap the delicate glassware in half. Then what would his father say?
His mother wrapped her hand around his forearm, the rock on her ring finger ten times the size of the one he’d purchased eight years ago for Nathalie. Somewhere in the family vault was another diamond meant for his future wife.
As long as his family approved of her, of course.