Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [52]
I cursed my own absent husband: This was no time to be away in London.
“You know why she’s here?” Alistair asked Marsh in a low voice.
“I suppose so. She has the right, certainly. She might even have something to contribute.”
“Your sister will not be pleased.”
“Then Phillida can remain behind.”
The door opened and Iris Sutherland came back in. “My God, Marsh, what mad and profligate genius thought to place a radiator in the lavatory?”
“Henry put them all over the house, when he and Sarah came back to England after Father died. He said it was an attempt to keep Sarah from freezing, after all the winters she’d spent in Italy. Actually, I think it was make-work to keep the estate builders employed over the winter. I don’t believe he ever expected the things to work.”
“It’s glorious in there; I’m surprised you don’t lose guests regularly, find them camping between the fixtures. Is it possible I may escape England without a case of chilblains?”
“That,” replied Marsh carefully, “will depend on how long you stay.”
“Well,” said his wife, with equal care, “I rather thought I might go to Town with you on Wednesday. To meet the boy.”
It made sense, that Iris Sutherland would wish to lay eyes on young Thomas Hughenfort, her husband’s nine-year-old nephew and heir, the boy who might keep her from inhabiting Justice Hall as its duchess. And if, as it seemed, she had been close to the family before Marsh and his cousin decamped to Palestine and left her to her life in Paris, she might indeed have something to contribute to the discussion. If nothing else—and despite any irregularities in this marriage—the lady had a good head on her shoulders.
The coffee came, steaming hot and the consistency of India ink. Marsh pawed through a cabinet, brought out a bottle of Calvados brandy, and held it up for approval.
“Oh Marsh, you remembered! Yes, that would be absolutely perfect. Do you know, I believe that’s the very bottle we drank from after your father’s funeral. Could that have been—Good Lord, twenty years ago?”
“I’m afraid so. And it probably is the same bottle. Does it taste poisonous?”
“It tastes heavenly.”
I expected him to add a dollop to his own cup, as a hair-of-the-dog, but instead he added from the jug of hot milk. Alistair took his black; I had milk in mine. With a cup in my hand, it was difficult to fade quickly and politely away, but I was very interested to see more of this new Marsh—yet another unsuspected side to the man.
When we were settled again, Marsh took out his cigarette case and offered one to his wife and me, then to Alistair. When they were all three lit, he resumed his cup and said to her, “How’s Dan?”
I seized on the name. Aha!—Iris has a man in Paris, and this marriage, as I thought, was of convenience only. No wonder they were friends; no wonder Alistair wasn’t worried.
But: “She’s fine. Sends her greetings, says I should scold you for passing through Paris and not stopping with us.”
“We were in a hurry.”
“Yes. I was sorry to hear about your brother—but I wrote to you already about that. Henry was a good man, in his stolid British way. Would that he had lived a long time.”
If he had (all four of us no doubt were thinking), we should not be gathered here. Had Henry, Lord Beauville, lived long, or even had he remarried and fathered a son or two, Marsh could have returned to Palestine following the funeral. I put down my half-empty cup and stood to go; these people had many things to communicate, and I was definitely superfluous to requirement.
“If you don’t mind too much, I’d like to sneak a look at the Greene Library,” I said.
“You needn’t go,” Marsh told me (“No, do stay,” urged Iris), but I assured them I would see them at luncheon, and I went.
Half an hour later, comfortably set in the intoxicating Greene Library with a stack of books and an armchair near the window, I glanced up to see three figures draped in voluminous