A Stranger in Mayfair - Charles Finch [2]
“Charles!” cried out Lady Jane. “There you are! Whatever punctuality I ever could claim has been stolen from me by this city. I’m so sorry. But do introduce me, please, to your friends.”
She was a lovely woman, though not immediately striking. She was plainly dressed, in a simple blue gown with a gray ribbon at the waist, and her dark curls looked natural, not affected. What Clara noticed, however, was the tremendous poise and wisdom of her eyes—and the faint lattice of wrinkles around them. She must have been thirty-five or thirty-six. Lenox himself was forty or just past.
After all the proper introductions had been effected and Bess had regaled the company at length with the story of that day hunting with Lady Jane’s father in 1854 or 1855, Lenox invited the pair to dine with them the next night. When this plan was agreed he and his wife left, looking, Clara thought with a feeling of melancholy, as pink-faced and happy and thrilled as all newlyweds should.
She listened to her aunt expatiate on Lady Jane’s virtues, and then heard her conclude, “And really he doesn’t seem all that bad—for a detective, I mean. For a detective.”
Chapter One
For an Englishman it was a strange time to be in France. During much of the century a strong enmity had existed between the countries’ two governments, first because of Napoleon’s rather uncouth attempt to conquer Europe, then because of the lingering hostility born of that time. Now, though, the emperor’s nephew ruled France and had shown himself more liberal than his uncle—he had freed the press and the government from many of their previous restrictions—and an uneasy peace had sprung up across the Channel.
Even during the worst of times, just after Waterloo, for instance, there had been civility among open-minded French and Englishmen, and now a man like Lenox, who loved so much about France—its coffee, its food, its wine, its architecture, its countryside, its literature—could visit the place with open admiration. There were republican rumblings in the capitol, however, and many Frenchmen, whose grandfathers had survived the revolution, felt fearful of what the next years might bring. Both Lenox and Lady Jane were happy that they had come when they did. Who knew what changes another shift in regime might bring? Who knew whether they would ever be able to visit again? And since that was the case, they had done all they could. Lady Jane had ordered dresses by the dozen (the seamstresses here being so infinitely preferable to English dressmakers—even at the height of the war fashion had been smuggled from one country to the other), while Lenox had spent his days closeted with a dozen different politicians, all of them sympathetic.
For he was in fact the newly minted Member of Parliament for Stirrington—had been elected not six months since. In that time he had barely entered the great chamber, however. He and Lady Jane had married in the Whitsun Recess, and now, in the Summer Recess, they were on their honeymoon. Paris was their final destination. They had spent three weeks traveling through the beautiful lake towns of the Alps, then another two in the French countryside.
In truth, as wonderful as it had been, both longed to be home. They missed London, missed their friends, and missed the little street off Grosvenor Square, Hampden Lane, where they had lived in side-by-side townhouses for the better part of two decades. When they returned the two houses would be one: Over the past months an architect had supervised the demolition of the walls between them and seamlessly joined the buildings’ rooms to create one large house. It gave Lenox a good deal of private pleasure to contemplate this physical symbol of their union. For long years Jane had been his closest friend, and he could scarcely believe that he was lucky enough now to be married to her. Their births were close enough (hers slightly