The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig Read Free Book Online Page A

Clemmie nodded “yes.”
    *   *   *
    Trust Aunt Anna to insist on unnecessary melodrama.
    Clemmie limped her way over to Aunt Anna’s late and annoyed, last night’s blister biting into her heel. Aunt Anna’s apartment was all the way over on East End Avenue, near the Asphalt Green, about as far away from Granny Addie as she could get and still remain on the East Side. Aunt Anna’s was the fifth door down on a long, narrow hallway. Clemmie hit the buzzer harder than she had to.
    The door opened, but it wasn’t Aunt Anna.
    “What are you doing here?” demanded Clemmie.
    “Good morning to you, too,” said Jon. He was wearing boxers with snowmen on them and a worn T-shirt with the words YALE UNIVERSITY in cracked blue lettering. His legs were bare, lightly fuzzed with brown hair. Clemmie hadn’t seen this much of Jon since their childhood days swimming at Aunt Anna’s fourth husband’s country house. “Anna is letting me stay until I find an apartment.”
    “Right,” said Clemmie slowly. He’d said last night Caitlin had gotten the house. Clemmie wondered if he had been thrown out. “I forgot. Columbia.”
    “Yep,” said Jon. He made a sweeping gesture, reminiscent of Sir Walter Raleigh. “Would you like to come in, or would you prefer to continue discussing my job prospects here on the stoop?”
    “In,” said Clemmie, squeezing past him. “I wouldn’t want you exposing your unmentionables to the world any longer than necessary.”
    “They’re called snowmen,” said Jon mildly, closing and locking the door behind her. “And there’s nothing unmentionable about them.”
    Clemmie decided to quit while she was arguably ahead. She unwrapped her maroon cashmere scarf from around her throat. “Is Aunt Anna around? I came to see her.”
    Jon raised both brows. “I didn’t think you were here to see my humble self. Or my snowmen.” Clemmie could feel her cheeks heating, the curse of fair skin. Before she could retort, he said, “Anna is still asleep. So you’re stuck with me for the moment.”
    “Oh.” So much for I’ll see you at eight. “Do you think she’ll be long?” There was work piling up back at the office.
    Jon grimaced. “She took a sleeping pill last night. She’s going to be dead to the world for a while.”
    Her mother would tell her it served her right, listening to Aunt Anna. Clemmie felt like an idiot on multiple levels, standing here, in Aunt Anna’s hallway, holding her scarf in her hands with her coat half-unbuttoned. “Look, Jon, if Aunt Anna said anything to you about Granny—”
    “Let me take this,” said Jon, and relieved her of her scarf. He held out the other hand for her coat.
    Clemmie moved back. “I don’t really have time. Aunt Anna was going to be tell me about—”
    “Bea,” said Jon. He took her coat from her and dumped it on a chair, her scarf trailing out below, classic guy hospitality. “I know.”
    “And I suppose you know who this Bea person is?” Clemmie said sharply.
    Jon crossed his arms over his chest, obliterating the lower half of YALE . “What do you know about where your grandmother came from?”
    “She came from England,” said Clemmie haughtily. She had no idea what this had to do with Granny’s medication, but she certainly wasn’t going to admit that to Jon. Or his snowmen. “By way of Kenya.”
    “That’s it? ‘From England?’”
    “Don’t forget the Kenya bit. Don’t give me that look. You know Granny Addie wasn’t exactly big on the childhood reminiscences.” Clemmie squeezed her eyes shut, hating herself. “I mean isn’t. Crap. Isn’t.”
    Jon raised a brow. “Did you ever ask her anything? About herself? Or her youth?”
    “I am a horrible, self-centered, ungrateful granddaughter and I am going straight to hell,” said Clemmie through her teeth. “Point taken. She’s dying and I suck.”
    “Clemmie—” Jon scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.