Free The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings Book 2) by J. R. Ward

9, No. 2 better.
    On his thigh, he played the left-hand part. On the wheel, he commenced the right.
    If he had not been a lawyer, as his father, his uncles, and his grandfather had been or currently were, he would have been a classical pianist. Alas, not his destiny—and not only because of the legal legacy. At best, he was serviceable at the keys, capable of impressing laymen at cocktail partiesand at Christmas, but not talented enough to challenge the professionals.
    He glanced at the passenger seat, at an old briefcase that had been used by his great-uncle T. Beaumont Lodge, Jr. Like the car, the thing was a classic from an earlier era, its brown hide well worn, even bare in patches on the handle and the flap with the gold embossed initials. But it had been handmade by a fine Kentucky craftsman, built to last and look good as it aged—and as it had been in his uncle’s time, its belly was full of briefs, notes, and court filings.
    Unlike in T. Beaumont’s time, there was also a MacBook Air in there, and a cell phone.
    Samuel T. was going to pass the briefcase down to a distant cousin, someday. Perhaps a bit of his love of the piano, as well.
    But nothing was going to a child of his own. No, there would be no marriage for him, and no children out of wedlock—not because he was religious, and not because it was something that “Lodges simply don’t do,” although the latter was certainly true.
    It was because he was smart enough to know he was incapable of being a father, and he refused to do anything that he did not excel at.
    This lifelong tenet was why he was a great trial lawyer. A fantastic womanizer. A highbrow drunkard of the very finest order.
    All of which were a ringing endorsement for dad of the year, weren’t they—
    “We interrupt this broadcast with breaking news. William Baldwine, sixty-five, the chief executive officer of the Bradford Bourbon Company, is dead of an apparent suicide. Numerous anonymous sources report that the body was found in the Ohio River—”
    “Oh …
hell
,” Samuel T. muttered as he reached forward and turned up the tinny radio even further.
    The report had more fluff than substance, but the moving parts were all correct as far as Samuel T. knew. Clearly, their efforts to squash the story until they were ready to come forward had failed.
    “—follows an accusation against Jonathan Tulane Baldwine of spousal abuse by his estranged wife, Chantal Baldwine, just days ago. Mrs. Baldwinewas admitted to the Bolton Suburban Hospital emergency room with facial bruises and ligature marks around her throat. Initially, she accused her husband of inflicting the injuries. She recanted her story, however, after police refused to charge Mr. Baldwine due to lack of evidence …”
    As Samuel T. listened to the rest of the report, he looked up ahead to the tallest hill.
    Easterly, the Bradford family’s historic home, was a glorious spectacle at the apex of the rise. Overlooking the Ohio, the mansion was a whitewashed grand dame in the Federal style, with a hundred windows bracketed by glossy black shutters, too many chimneys to count, and an entrance so grand that the Bradfords had made it their company’s logo. Terraces sprawled out in every direction, as did manicured gardens full of specimen flowers and fruit trees, and great magnolias that had dark green leaves and white blossoms as big as a man’s head.
    When the mansion had been built, the Bradford money had been new. Now, as with those bank accounts, there was a patina of age to it—but all kings started off as paupers, and all venerable dynasties were nouveau riche once. The term “aristocrat” just measured how far back you had to go to get to the upstarts.
    Also depended upon how long you could keep your position going into the future.
    At least the Bradfords didn’t have to worry about money.
    The many-acred Bradford estate had two entrances. A staff one, which bisected the cutting gardens and vegetable fields and went