Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [24]
Here in your entrance hall, I nearly said. I caught back the impulse, presented her with a cheerful smile, and answered, “Aleppo, wasn’t it, Marsh?” I swivelled my head around as if to consult with him, and read not so much relief as approval, and that quiet humour in the back of his gaze that made my heart leap with pleasure: Mahmoud was there, somewhere. “That tawdry little café that your friend Joshua dragged everyone to, plying us with muffins toasted over a paraffin stove? Or was that Greece, the year before? One of those grubby but romantic spots,” I told her.
“But what was he doing there?” She could see I was going to be useless as a source of information, so she turned to confide in Holmes, arching her pencilled eyebrows in appeal. “He vanishes utterly for years and years, sends us a letter every six or eight months—postmarked in London, although one knows he can’t be in London, one’s friends would have seen him—and then back he comes, positively bristling with mysteries and secrets. A person might think he’d been in prison or something—I mean, just look at his poor face. He didn’t have that when he left.” Referring to the scar, of course.
“Those Heidelberg duelling academies could be quite rough, nicht war, Marsh?” This was from Holmes, contributing his own obfuscation.
“Of course,” I added, “the Carpathian shepherds who took him in couldn’t have helped the healing any. Health care in the mountains is still quite rudimentary.”
I was interested to see a flash of real irritation beneath Lady Phillida’s sisterly exasperation. Understandable, I supposed—if nothing else, the family would want to know if the heir had a string of warrants, a pile of debts, or a wife and six sons trailing behind from some foreign land. However, if Marsh had not told her where and how he had spent the last twenty years, it was not up to me to fill the gaps.
She pouted prettily, stubbed out her cigarette, and lounged upright. “You two are as bad as my brother. Shall we see you at luncheon?”
“They may be stopping here for a day or two. Perhaps more,” Marsh told her.
Her eyes went wide in dismay. “What, over the week-end? Oh, Marsh, why didn’t you tell me earlier we were having additional guests?”
“It was just now decided.”
“Well, next time you must let Mrs Butter know in advance.” It was a gentle scold, for the sake of keeping face before guests, but she must have heard the edge to it because she turned to me with a little laugh. “Men—they just don’t understand the servant problem, do they? We have to coddle Mrs Butter—where would we be if she up and left? Anyway, lovely to know you won’t be leaving right away, do feel free to stay on until Monday—we’ll have to get together for a nice long girlish chat. And at least we won’t have to worry about thirteen at table Saturday night.”
She stepped over and kissed the air near her brother’s cheek, which gesture he accepted without a flinch, and then she swept from the room. Alistair slowly let out a gusty breath, and reached for his cigarettes. All four of us twitched, like a group of hens settling their ruffled feathers, and I reflected that my own visceral response to the accents of power and privilege had at least become more controllable over the years. I was still intimidated by women like Phillida Darling, but I did not show it outwardly.
“We were, I believe,” Holmes said, recalling us to our state before Lady Phillida had entered, “speaking of the nature of change.”
Alistair shook out his match and cut into any response his cousin might have made. “Not here. Not with that woman and her husband listening in at the windows. I even caught the daughter with her eye to a key-hole last week.”
“This afternoon,” Marsh said, sounding resigned. “After lunch we will put on our boots and remove ourselves from windows and key-holes.”
The lack of hope or even interest in his voice stung me into speech. “We did come here to help,” I told the duke sharply.
As if I had not spoken, he flicked his cigarette into the fire and left the room.
Luncheon was every