Page 47 of The Dravenhearst Brides

Third to remember—when you find yourself with a question, Merrick, and I am not there to advise, your blood holds the key.

Whatever the question, bourbon is the answer.

—Excerpt, a letter from Richard Dravenhearst’s Last Will & Testament

The arrival of the Dravenhearsts at Louisville City Hall would become the stuff of Kentucky legend.

Merrick’s bachelorhood had been notorious, but it was not his arrival with a wife on his arm that society found most surprising.

It was the prodigal return of Ruth Auclaire to the Louisville social circuit, a shock rippling through the crowd like a stone dropped into a placid lake.

She took the room by storm. Engulfed in arms, exchanging air kisses and delighted exclamations of “Been too long!”

It was Ruth who secured Margot and Merrick two cocktail glasses within moments of arrival, a mixture of lemonade and sweet tea garnished heavily with mint and blueberries. Liquid courage was her gift, even when the drys made sure there was none to be found.

She winked as she passed Merrick a glass. “Pretend there’s bourbon in it, dear.”

Before she returned to the gaggle of adoring society friends, Ruth glanced at Margot and meaningfully raised her chin, tapping it.

Margot understood, lifting her own.

Trailing in Ruth’s prodigious wake, Margot and Merrick were welcomed swiftly into the fold.

Introductions swirled. The room was filled with balding, well-to-do legislators and the wealthy business elite of the state.

Margot’s stomach soured just looking at them, these powerful, privileged men who’d condemned her husband and so many others to years of struggle with a single stroke of their pens.

Who held the authority, even now, to reverse it just the same.

Understanding the stakes, she lifted her lips in a practiced smile. Merrick turned on his Dravenhearst charm, his trademark scowl nowhere in sight.

“Yes, my wife,” Merrick said, repeating himself when a legislator’s wife expressed muted disbelief. “We wed in early summer.”

The woman raised a pair of immaculately trimmed eyebrows and pursed her lips. “Did I miss the announcement? I don’t recall seeing it in the paper.”

She hadn’t missed it. There hadn’t been one.

“Oh, Isadora,” Ruth called, swooping in from Margot’s left.

“Kindly remove the lemon from your mouth—that sourpuss smile favors no one. It’s hard to believe, but bourbon makers, too, have wives at home and hungry mouths to feed.

That’s why we simply must talk about the economic repercussions of this blasted temperance movement.

” She steered the woman away, but not before Isadora reached out for one final piece of gossip.

“Hungry mouths?” Her eyebrows raised even higher.

“Yes,” Merrick confirmed, a downright dastardly grin on his face. “We’re expecting our first child in late spring.”

“And we’re clearly not above milking it for political leverage,” Margot murmured in his ear, teasing.

“Come, Isadora,” Ruth said, her voice fading as the pair departed. “Now, where is that husband of yours? We’ve business to discuss—the business of bourbon!”

“She’ll have my job done for me by the end of the night,” Merrick observed.

“Wouldn’t put it past her.” Margot sucked down a large pull of her drink and came up empty. Her eyes met those of a spindly man across the room, a man who’d clearly been watching her.

He wore a three-piece suit and a fedora.

“Another round?” Merrick asked.

She reached for his arm. “Merrick.” She inclined her head toward Toni, who was chatting up sourpuss Isadora’s legislator husband, looking all too comfortable amongst the society crowd. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Merrick sighed. “I already saw him. He’s been making the rounds, same as us.”

“Why is he here?”

“He doesn’t want Prohibition repealed—the mob makes a hell of a lot more money when hooch is illegal. Organized crime has backed the drys from the start, been filling their coffers every step of the way.”

“That’s horrific.”

“That’s politics.”

Disquieted, Margot kept Toni in her periphery as Merrick guided her across the room to the bar.

“Looking for refills?” Alastair Pendry’s booming voice startled Margot. He placed a pair of drinks on the counter in front of them.

“Alastair.” Merrick’s scowl reappeared.

“Dravenhearst.” Alastair tipped his drink to toast. “To your good health.”

Merrick begrudgingly tapped his glass, then raised it to his lips. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t be important enough to garner an invitation tonight.”

Alastair tossed back his head and laughed. “I’ve grown my farm into one of the top agricultural exporters in the state, and you don’t think I warrant an invitation?”

“You could double your profits if Prohibition is repealed,” Merrick replied, his tone light. “You’ve the highest quality grain in the state. You’ve already taken my order for mash. Others will follow.”

Alastair tilted his head. “I make plenty of scratch, Merrick. I don’t need a bourbon boom to pad my pockets.”

“We’re in a depression, the likes of which hasn’t been seen before. The economy of the state at large—”

“Don’t waste your breath on me, boy,” Alastair interrupted, his voice hard. “If I had the power, I’d burn your distillery to the ground.”

“That’s why I didn’t sell it to you.” Merrick narrowed his eyes. “Five years ago, when you made an insulting offer to a desperate man.”

“No, you had too much foolish pride for that. It’s the Dravenhearst trademark, that ego of yours. Your father had it too.”

Merrick shook his head, frustrated. “I’m done feuding with you, Alastair. No matter what you see when you look at me, I’m not my father. I have people depending on me now, my own family. If you’d open your eyes and look beyond my last name, maybe you’d see that.”

With that, he drained his drink, berries and all. Out of the corner of her eye, Margot clocked Ruth beelining across the room toward them. For Alastair.

“Your family”—Alastair snorted and nodded toward the approaching Ruth—“is cursed. Riddled with predilections, with liars and sinners alike.”

Margot frowned.

“Adultery is a sin, Alastair,” Merrick said.

Alastair frowned. “You don’t have to believe me, I’m sure you won’t, but she was planning to leave your father for me, that final night.

Ask your butler, he was in on it. She was expecting, and it was mine.

She was leaving. For me. And she wasn’t the only one—ask that horse trainer of yours too.

” A second nod toward Ruth. “Ask her about her own little bastard baby. There’s more to this story. ”

Margot’s jaw dropped. Ruth’s baby? What on God’s green earth—

“I already know about Julian,” Merrick snapped. “I’ve always known.”

Margot gasped.

“No.” Alastair shook his head, glowering. “You have no idea. The devil is inside your walls, Merrick. You’re protecting your ‘family’ from the wrong people.”

“Alastair.” Ruth at last entered their circle, her voice clipped.

“’Lo, Ruthie.” Alastair inclined his head, his lip curling in distaste. “Long time, no see.”

“The years have been…kind.” Ruth’s words sounded and tasted of a lie in the air.

“Far kinder to you, I reckon. Undeservedly so.”

Ruth tapped her toe twice, a deadly staccato. “Merrick, perhaps you should take Margot for a dance? Alastair and I have much to catch up on, some lovely times.”

Merrick acquiesced, guiding her away from the dueling pair.

“When is your speech?” She took his hand.

“A little under an hour, just before dinner is served. I’m giving the introductory bit, and Colonel Blanton will follow.”

“Right.” Margot released a shaky breath. “So we’ve a bit of time. About what Alastair said…”

“Which part?” Merrick’s arms stiffened around her.

“About Ruth.” She darted her eyes up to meet his. “Something about a baby?”

Merrick sighed. “Yes. Julian is her son.”

Her son. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s not my secret to tell, particularly with the stakes as they are. She’s an unmarried woman. We’ve kept it quiet—how in blazes Alastair found out, I’ll never know.”

“Who’s the father?”

“I’ve no idea.” Merrick shook his head. “She’s never said.”

They revolved slowly. Once. Twice.

“How old is Julian?”

“Nineteen, born in 1914. And to head off the follow-up, Nancy Drew, I don’t know who the hell Ruth was seeing then. I was eleven, for Christ’s sake, had just lost my mother. I don’t recall ever seeing Ruth with a man, before or since. If she had a beau, she kept it discreet.”

The song bled into a second. Margot’s mind reeled.

All the time they’d spent together—all their talk of Babette and Eleanor, of motherhood, of that cursed house, and yet, Ruth had never once mentioned…

It felt like a betrayal. A deep one. She opened her mouth, then closed it when Merrick stumbled over her feet. She righted him and kept dancing.

A few seconds later, he did it again.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He flashed an earsplitting smile. A very odd one. “You’re pretty,” he said, looping his arms around her neck. Margot staggered under his sudden deadweight.

“Merrick, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he slurred, his hands coiling in her hair. His voice was off…his grip too. Fumbling, drunken.

She’d never seen him drunk, and he certainly hadn’t been drinking tonight, save the single shot of bourbon at the manor. This was a dry event. It couldn’t be that…could it?

She untangled his groping hands. Already, people were staring. Her gaze shifted through the faces in the crowd, halting at Alastair and Ruth. They were still huddled together at the bar, whispering fiercely. An empty glass rested on the counter beside them.

Merrick’s glass.

Alastair!

The bitter old cad had given that drink to Merrick not fifteen minutes ago. Could he have laced it with something?

She turned back to her husband. His amber eyes were glassy. Frighteningly so. He leaned in to plant a wet kiss on her lips.

Margot knew she had to do something. He looked drunk. If people noticed, started whispering, it would hugely discredit his speech against temperance.