Page 10

chapter ten

It felt somehow decadent to be out and about on a weekday morning, not at work.

Gabriella took the bus to Victoria Embankment and eyed the people traveling with her. Mostly young women with small children or retirees, with their wicker shopping baskets and umbrellas.

She had a half day off because she’d worked last Saturday morning, and fortunately the half day she’d been allocated on the schedule happened to land on a Friday. Her friend Ben had told her once it was his slow day. He was a junior in the Inner Temple Chambers, and the solicitor he worked for took long pre-weekend lunches and sometimes didn’t appear at all, unless he was due in court.

The bus rumbled past Westminster Bridge, and she watched New Scotland Yard pass by on her left. She hadn’t seen James for the last two nights, and wondered how he was going with his investigation.

Just the thought of him caused a little lift to her spirits. She didn’t know what to make of her feelings and where they were leading. They were definitely going somewhere, though. And not to a place her mother would approve of.

She wouldn’t approve of anything about their relationship, including the dinners Gabriella served James in her flat, and including the fact that he wasn’t Catholic. Or Italian.

The only other country she would take as acceptable for her daughter was an Irishman, because the Catholic bishop of Melbourne was Irish, and her mother was a devotee to the man.

She probably didn’t even know where Wales was.

But her mother wasn’t here, and Gabriella didn’t have even the slightest care about things that seemed to weigh her mother down.

New Scotland Yard disappeared behind her, and the bus stopped a few more times until it rumbled to a halt near Blackfriars Bridge and Gabriella disembarked.

She headed down a street and had to wander around for a bit until she found the right building.

She stepped into the gloomy cool and quiet of Inner Temple and found it deserted, or, nearly.

Someone was typing behind a door somewhere—she could just make out the clack, clack, ping—and there was a low murmur of voices further down the passage. Ben had told her he was on the first floor, so she headed up the stairs and when she reached the landing she stopped to study the plaques on the wall, looking for a clue as to where to go next.

A young man in drainpipe pants and a jacket and tie came running down the stairs from the floor above, hand out to swing around the balustrade and take the next flight down, when he caught sight of her.

He nearly pitched down the stairs in his effort to stop his forward momentum.

“Hello,” he said, trying to straighten up.

“Hello.” Gabriella could see the bright interest in his eyes. “I’m looking for Ben Cohen. Can you tell me where to find him?”

“Ben?” The man blinked. “Sure, I can.” He walked past her, down the passage she was standing in. “Just down here.”

“Thank you, you can just tell me which door, I don’t want to keep you.”

She followed behind him, but he turned back with a smile. “No trouble. Happy to help.” He began to walk backwards so he could face her. “You sound Australian, like Ben.”

“We’re friends from Melbourne,” she said, and he gave a nod, stopped, and knocked on a door.

“Cohen. You’ve got a visitor.”

Ben opened up, frowned, then frowned even more deeply at the sight of Gabriella. “Gabby.” Then he smiled his sweet smile. “Come in.”

She had to sidle around the young man who’d shown her the way. “Thanks for the help.”

He nodded, eyes still bright with interest. “Well, cheers.”

Ben closed the door and shook his head. “I’ll have a thousand questions now.”

Gabriella grinned. “Don’t get a lot of visitors?”

“Don’t get a lot of visitors,” Ben agreed. “But particularly not beautiful young women visitors.”

Gabriella laughed at that, and still shaking her head, sat down in his visitor’s chair.

Ben went to a little side desk, switched on the kettle there and found two mugs and some tea bags. “No coffee, sorry. And no milk. We’ve run out.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m fine.” She hated black tea.

He switched off the kettle and sat down. “Why are you here? You’ll be seeing me tomorrow night with the rest of the group, won’t you?”

“Of course, I never miss.” At the start of her move to London, Ben, Dominique and Trevor, the three Australians who’d been her cabin mates on the ship over, were the only people she’d known. None of them had ever missed the catch-up they organized every two weeks.

“But this couldn’t wait?” Ben asked.

“I want to hire you,” she said. “And I didn’t want to necessarily discuss it tomorrow at our usual meetup.”

“Hire me?” He almost swallowed the words. “You know I’m only a junior?”

“I know. Does that mean you can’t look into something for me?”

“No.” He steepled his fingers. “I usually get the grunt work from my senior. Looking up case law, drafting submissions, that sort of thing. I’m not expected to get my own work yet. But I can look into something for you. Of course I can.”

“All right.” She set her handbag on the desk and pulled out the sheet of paper she’d worked on this morning before coming in. “I think I might have found my father, but I need to check this is correct before I approach him. As you’ll see, it’s a lot more complicated now.”

She pushed the paper across to him and he looked down at it for so long, she started to fidget.

“Gabriella.” He looked up, eyes wide. “If this is right . . .”

“I’m the Honorable Someone-or-another, I know.” She grimaced.

“Not just that . . .” He shook his head. “Your father’s son from the result of his bigamy is not the Honorable So-and-So, as he no doubt thinks he is. And that will be a very bitter pill to swallow.” He got up and took a massive tome off his shelf.

She read the title as he set it down on the desk. “Who’s Who?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Gives a list of all the nobs and their offspring, so you can keep track of who to doff your cap to.”

“I don’t know if he has any other children, although obviously it’s possible.” She hadn’t really run the thread of her father’s betrayal all the way through to its logical conclusion. But if he’d married her mother and then someone else, his offspring other than her were illegitimate in the eyes of British law. And had no claim to the ancestral estate.

That would hurt.

“This is explosive.” Ben flipped to a page, and his finger stopped at an entry. “One son, two daughters.”

Gabriella leaned back.

“How sure of this are you?” Ben asked. “Because this will cause a massive stir, and I’ll tell you now, if it comes down to what they’d rather be true, the snobs here would prefer you to be lying, and would love it if you were the illegitimate one.”

“I’m pretty sure.” She pulled out the documents that Ruby had sourced for her, and then placed her parents’ marriage certificate and her birth certificate on top of them.

Ben looked them over, making notes on a pad beside him as he worked through them, noting all the details. Eventually he lifted his head. “This looks rock solid.” He tipped back in his chair, gazing up at the ceiling. “This is something that I’ll have to run past my senior, because it will draw attention. I can’t do anything under the radar.” His chair landed back on the floor with a clatter.

She didn’t ask what he would do if his senior refused to allow him to work on this. They’d cross that bridge when they came to it. “What’s the next step, after you’ve spoken to him?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ll research it if he gives me the green light but isn’t interested in advising me. If he is interested, he’ll know the tricks better than me.”

She nodded, scooped up the papers, and carefully replaced them in her bag. “Thanks, Ben. You know everything I make that I don’t need to live on gets put aside to pay for this search, so please bill me for your time.”

He rose as she did, and studied her. “If I have expenses, I’ll pass them on, but this is for friendship, Gabs. Don’t insult me by insisting.”

She hesitated. Gave a nod. “All your expenses,” she said.

He put out his hand, and she shook. “Thank you.”

He walked her out, not just off his floor, but all the way out of the building.

“How did you get those reports? They’re from the Home Office,” he said.

“You know the friend I made during that business in the summer?” She glanced at him. “She did something hush hush in the war.”

Ben’s eyes widened. “She has contacts?”

“It seems like she has a lot of favors owing, and she wasn’t shy calling them in to help me.” She still couldn’t believe how much Ruby had done for her.

“Well, she got you iron-clad proof.” Ben suddenly grinned. “This is going to raise my profile, that’s for sure.”

She gave him a quick hug. “Hope that’s a good thing. I’ll see you on Saturday.”

She walked back toward the embankment and got onto the bus. As she sat down near the back she tried to identify the hot, tight feeling in her chest.

Anxiety, she decided. And fear. And trepidation.

No one was going to be happy with her once this was set in motion. Other than Gino, who wanted to marry her mother.

Now that she’d discovered her father wasn’t dead, just a bigamist, she didn’t think her mother would be happy at all. She didn’t believe in divorce, although surely the Church would give her an annulment for the bigamy?

She shrugged.

She had set out to find her father and she had.

But she didn’t fool herself that there wouldn’t be a lot of drama in her future.

And once it was all done, what would be her next step?

She had originally thought she would find him, or find out what had happened to him, and return to Melbourne.

That wasn’t so clear, any more.

The bus passed New Scotland Yard on its way back.

Not clear at all.