Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties #2)(10)

“I’d say the house has been quiet without you, but that’s a lie.” Bo had lived at the Magnusson house in the servant’s hall since their parents died in a car accident more than two years ago. Part of the family, really. But the way Bo was standing over Astrid—almost too protectively—and the way she was swaying nearer to Bo—almost too close—made Lowe think something had changed between them while he’d been in Egypt.

Interesting. Lowe loved a good scandal.

Astrid made a distressed noise. “What happened?”

“Oh, this? Didn’t I write you about it?” he asked as she lifted his left hand. “I lost it in a game of Five-Finger Fillet.”

“What?” Astrid and Bo said together before Astrid continued, “—in the world is that?”

“Knife game,” Lowe said, holding out his hand, palm down. “You put your hand on the table, fingers spread, and take the tip of your knife and stab between your fingers . . . tap, tap tap!”

“You are a liar!” Astrid squealed, horrified, but laughing. “Is it really gone? Is it a trick?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He wiggled his remaining four fingers before lunging at her side to tickle her until she squealed some more, begging him to stop. “All right,” he said. “Enough of that. Are the two of you my entire greeting party? Where’s my big brother and this fictional wife of his?”

A cheerful voice floated over his shoulder. “Fictional? I thought you were the one with a thousand stories up your sleeve.”

He turned to find a small, heavily freckled woman in a red silk dress with an oriental collar. She flashed him a pretty smile and crossed her arms under a great pair of breasts.

“You must be the spirit medium.”

“I’m also your brother’s fictional wife.”

“Hello, Aida.” He started to shake her hand, then leaned in and hugged her. “For the love of God, you’re family now.” He held her at arm’s length to look at her. “Are you really having Winter’s child?”

“The doctor says I am.”

He hugged her again as she laughed. “God help you if it’s a boy.”

“Christ alive, don’t squeeze her to death,” a deep, melodic voice said at his side. His older brother, Winter Magnusson, the mighty bootlegger. At twenty-nine, Winter was Lowe’s senior by four years and twice as burly. Lowe accepted his embrace, clapping him on the shoulder.

“You look like death warmed over,” Winter said. “Don’t they have a barber in first class?”

Yes, but he was too paranoid to allow anyone near him with a straight razor. Not to mention the problem of his dwindling funds. “I’m thinking of growing a beard.”

“Not if you want to live in my house,” Winter said.

Married or not, Winter was still his same old dictator self.

Lowe was too tired to fight, so he turned his attention back to Aida. How in the world his brother, with his gruff attitude and scarred eye, had been able to attract a pretty thing like her was beyond Lowe’s comprehension. “Astrid described you perfectly in her letters.” As for the breasts, Winter had mentioned those in the longest piece of correspondence he’d ever sent to Lowe. It said: I’m in love. Got married to a tiny, freckled girl with nice breasts and good sense. You’ll like her. And then a telegram a month later: You’re going to be an uncle.

She smiled back at him. “And everyone tells me you’re the luckiest man alive.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the porter helping Hadley onto the platform, like she was an invalid, or . . . Oh, that’s right. She was still officially on the run from her fictional husband. Better put the kibosh on that, as his friend, Adam, would say, before the story spread to his family’s ears. “Excuse me,” he told Aida, before rushing back to the porter. “Thank you for everything. I’ve got her now,” he told the young man, quickly taking her arm.

Just as quickly, she pulled away. “I can walk,” she muttered.

After giving the porter another five-dollar bill—his last—Lowe turned to find his family staring. Expectantly.

He cleared his throat. “Hadley Bacall, meet the Magnusson clan.” He hastily rattled off everyone’s names. “Miss Bacall and I met on the train.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Hadley muttered to herself.

“Her father works for the de Young Museum.”

“As do I,” she added.

“Right, of course,” he said, mildly flustered. Why didn’t he just say that to begin with? It’s not like anything scandalous had happened between them. Well, minus the ripped the dress; his eyes instantly angled toward her coat while his brain remembered the stitched peacock feathers curving over her luscious backside for the umpteenth time.

For the love of God, wake up, man!

“She’s a curator,” he managed to spit out. “The museum is interested in what I uncovered in the desert.”

There. That seemed to make sense to everyone. He struck his hands in his pockets and exhaled while Hadley politely elaborated on her undying love of mummies and the stories they told about the Egyptians’ diet and way of life . . . talk, talk. And his family acted impressed . . . Yes, yes. Good. Everything was normal and fine.