Page 37 of Murder at Somerset House (A Wrexford & Sloane Mystery #9)
“I’ve heard what some of our servants said about me when they thought I wasn’t around. It’s questionable whether I have any legitimate right to claim I’m his daughter.”
“I have absolutely no doubts about that—you have his eyes and his smile.” He crouched down and pulled her into a hug. “You are my sister in every way that matters. As for the tattle-mongers, you leave them to me.”
She shyly circled her arms around his neck.
“If ‘Wrex’ is too fraught with memories, please call me ‘Alex.’ Or any other moniker you wish to choose.”
“I—I don’t really remember a lot about him. I was very young when he died,” she admitted.
“Then perhaps ‘Wrex’ is a nice continuum,” he suggested. “Because of our difference in age, I am somewhere between a father and a brother.”
Eddy leaned back, a pensive look shading her face. “Perhaps you’re right.”
“Think about it,” he suggested, then quickly rose. “Now, let us get down to brass tacks. Prove to me that you’re capable of winning Lucifer’s trust.”
Eddy smiled and began to sing.
The stallion pricked up his ears and came to gaze at her over the stall gate. With a shake of his head, he let out a soft whinny. She moved to greet him, caressing his velvety nose while she continued her Gaelic song.
“I’ll be damned,” whispered Wrexford. After unlocking the connecting gate, he took the stallion by the halter and led him out into the mews.
Eddy walked by Lucifer’s side, ruffling her fingers through his mane.
“You’ve proved your first point, imp,” he said with a grin as he drew to a halt in front of the tack room. “But let us see what he thinks of a sidesaddle.”
Her smile was no longer looking quite so confident.
But to the earl’s surprise, after showing a quick flash of bared teeth, the stallion submitted to the indignity with docile good grace. He quickly replaced the halter with a bridle.
“Up you go.” He gave her a leg up into the saddle, then hurried to fetch his own mount from one of the grooms, who was keeping a careful distance from Lucifer.
“Keep him at a sedate walk until we reach the park,” ordered Wrexford, after assuring himself that she looked relaxed and comfortable atop the muscled stallion.
“And you, you had better be on your best behavior, you big devil,” he added to the stallion, “or you’ll answer to me.”
Lucifer snorted in impatience to be off.
“Let’s not dawdle,” said Eddy, handling the reins with consummate skill. “Lead the way!”
“Raven?” Day had long since faded into night and Cordelia frowned, wondering whether it was merely a quirk of the muddled shadows in the parlor. “ Raven ?”
He shot up from his slouch in the armchair by the unlit hearth, blinking the sleep from his eyes.
“Good Heavens, I thought you went home hours ago!”
“I—I wanted to keep working on these equations,” he answered, quickly shuffling the jumble of papers in his lap into some semblance of order.
Over the last fortnight, he had become a bit of a fixture at the Sheffield residence.
“I feel that I’m getting close to some insight, but it’s proving damnably hard to pin down. ”
“Don’t say damn ,” responded Cordelia. “We wouldn’t want Wrex and Charlotte to think we are encouraging you to form bad habits.”
“I know a lot worse words than damn ,” he replied.
“Say one of them in this house and I’ll wash your mouth out with soap,” she warned.
That made him grin. “You can try. But first you would have to catch me.”
A chuckle tickled in her throat as Cordelia lit an oil lamp and placed it on the side table next to the burned-down stub of Raven’s candle. “Is there a reason you don’t wish to return home?” she asked gently.
He looked away, his features hardening to a brittle sharpness. “We’re doing interesting work here. I don’t much care for mucking about with baby birds.”
“We could bake them in a pie,” called Sheffield from the corridor.
“Kit!” she huffed, spearing him with an exasperated look.
“Just a little jest to lighten the moment, my love.” He, too, looked as if he had been hard at work.
His coat and cravat had been discarded, and the sleeves of his linen shirt were rolled up to bare his forearms. As he took a sip of brandy from the glass in his hand, winks of light from the cut crystal facets illuminated the smudges of ink on his fingers.
“Mac would have to make a very good sauce,” observed Raven. “Otherwise they would taste horrible—they’re naught but skin and bones.”
“That’s not funny.” She waggled a finger at both of them. “That Eddy has a passion—and a special gift for it—is not a subject for mockery.”
Raven ducked his head in contrition. “I’m not mocking her. We’re just … different.”
“Differences are what make life interesting,” said Sheffield.
“Look at me—I was a mindless fribble, and Cordelia was a brilliant problem solver. I didn’t make a very good first impression, but she showed both patience and kindness in answering a rather dumb question I asked on card-playing and probability—”
“Actually, it was a rather insightful question.” She smiled. “I realized then and there that you had a brain in your cockloft, you just had to be encouraged to use it.”
“My point is,” he said to Raven, “opinions can change if you keep an open mind.”
“I’m not sure I’ll ever warm up to the birds,” muttered Raven.
“I wasn’t referring to the birds, Weasel.” A pause. “And you damn well know it.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes, but before she could snap a retort, the sudden rap-rap of the knocker on the front door echoed in the corridor.
“Who could that be at this hour?” she wondered.
“The servants have all retired, so I shall go and see,” said Sheffield. “It’s probably Wrex, looking for the errant fledgling.”
Raven shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
The sound of voices, too muddled to make out the words, drifted back to the parlor.
However, when Sheffield returned, it was not the earl who accompanied him but rather a tall, reedy gentleman with a long face dominated by a Roman nose and a genial smile.