Chapter 12 - A Serpent in Mayfair
The tires of my private jet touched down on the tarmac at London Stansted precisely at seven o'clock the following morning.
Fog clung to the English countryside like wet velvet.
A bulletproof Bentley Mulsanne was waiting on the tarmac, its engine purring in low anticipation.
I did not stop at my townhouse on Grosvenor Square to sleep or wash off the flight.
I drove directly into the heart of Mayfair, stepping out into the brisk morning air before the wrought-iron gates of Vance & Sterling Chambers.
Marcus was waiting for me on the granite steps, clutching a leather dossier thick with court filings.
"The injunction hearing is set for two o'clock," Marcus warned, falling into step beside me.
"If Vanguard Apex enforces the forfeiture clause, Alden Global will lose control of the Dover shipping channel before evening."
"Who signed the injunction on behalf of Vanguard Apex?" I asked, my voice slicing through the London mist.
"Their senior trustee," Marcus said, opening the mahogany doors to the private conference hall.
"A woman named Lady Beatrice Vance."
I froze on the threshold, the air vanishing from my lungs.
The name struck me like a physical blow to the chest.
Nine years ago, when Camden proposed to me in the gardens of the Hamptons, he told me he was an orphan.
He claimed his aristocratic British mother had died in a tragic carriage accident when he was merely a boy.
I had wiped away his tears.
I had given him my father’s name, my father’s fortune, and my unyielding trust.
"Beatrice Vance is alive?" I breathed, my fingernails biting into the palms of my leather gloves.
"Not only alive, Mrs. Pierce," a sharp, aristocratic voice rang out from the shadows of the vaulted room.
"She is sitting right here, waiting to reclaim what your peasant family stole from mine."
A woman in her late sixties stepped into the pool of morning light.
She was draped in bespoke charcoal cashmere, her silver hair pulled back in a severe chignon.
Her cheekbones were unmistakable.
May you like
They were the exact cheekbones Camden had inherited, refined by centuries of cold British arrogance.
The puppet master had finally stepped onto the stage.
