Page 26 of The Ruling Class
“So what do you do when you’re not teaching random teenagers to navigate the big, bad streets of DC?” I asked.
I put the car in Park. Adam unbuckled his seat belt, squaring his shoulders slightly as he replied. “I work for the Department of Defense. Before I was assigned to the Pentagon, I flew for the Air Force.”
“Why the Pentagon?” I asked.
“That’s where I was assigned.” Adam stiffened, the muscles in his neck the only noticeable tell. His tone reminded me of the fight I’d overheard him having with Ivy.
Adam—whose fathermade things happenin DC—had gone from an assignment he enjoyed to working at the Pentagon.
“Your father wanted you in DC?” It was a stab in the dark.
“My father is very family oriented.” Adam’s voice was completely flat. He looked like a soldier standing at attention, eyes forward, never flinching. “He’s also very good at getting what he wants.”
“So is Ivy.” Those words slipped out before I’d thought them through. “Not family oriented, obviously,” I clarified. “Good at getting what she wants.”
Adam was quiet for several seconds. Finally he said, “Your sister is nothing like my father, Tess.”
I hadn’t meant to bring up Ivy.
“She would do anything for you,” Adam told me, angling his head to catch my gaze. Even blue eyes stared into mine. “You know that, right?”
“Sure.” That was what he wanted to hear.
“She won’t ask you to go to the funeral with her.” The set of Adam’s features was neutral, carefully controlled. “But I’m not going, and Bodie doesn’t do funerals. He’ll drive her there, but that’s it.” He let that sink in. “It would mean a lot if she didn’t have to go alone.”
A lot to Adam, or a lot to Ivy?
“Your father stopped by earlier this week to talk to Ivy.” I needed a subject change, and that did the trick. Adam’s jaw ticked slightly. An instant later, he wiped all trace of emotion from his face: not a hint of a smile, not a hint of a frown.
“You didn’t know,” I realized. I’d assumed that Ivy would have told him.
“Did you and my father meet?” Adam almost managed to keep his voice level, but I caught the tension underneath. He wanted me to tell him that the answer was no. He wanted me kept away from his father. I turned that over in my mind and thought of Bodie catching sight of William Keyes and ordering me to stay in the car.
“No,” I told Adam, noting the relief that flickered briefly across his face. “We didn’t.”
CHAPTER 18
The next morning, I put on a faded black dress and went downstairs to wait for Ivy.
“Going somewhere?” Bodie asked me.
I didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Justice Marquette has a grandson who goes to Hardwicke.” As far as excuses went, that was a flimsy one. “He’s a friend of a friend.”
That was stretching the truth, given that I didn’t have much in the way of friends at Hardwicke.
Bodie raised an eyebrow at me. “So you’re going to the funeral.”
“Yes.”
“For the grandfather of a friend of a friend,” Bodie reiterated.
I shrugged and headed for the car. “It feels like the right thing to do.” I wasn’t talking about my tenuous connection to Henry Marquette, and we both knew it.
Maybe Adam was right. Maybe Ivy needed me. Or maybe she didn’t. But no one should have to go to a funeral alone.
“Theodore Marquette served this country long and well.” President Peter Nolan stood at the podium. He had a weighty presence and a powerful speaking voice. As he eulogized, Ivy’s hand found its way into mine. She didn’t keep hold of it for long. But even that fleeting moment of physical contact told me that I’d been right to come.
I knew in my gut that she was thinking about our parents’ funeral. My own memories of it were fuzzy.
