Page 3 of The Last Night in London

“Splendid. Although there is one thing...” She stopped, smiled.

“One thing?” I prompted.

“Yes, well...” She moved to the driver’s side and slid in while I was left staring at the large animal in the passenger seat—either a horse or a dog; I couldn’t tell—whose lolling tongue kept me at a respectful distance.

“Should I sit in the back?” I asked around the dark brown head.

“Oh, gosh, sorry.” She turned toward the beast. “Come on, George.” She reached around and patted the leather of the rear seat.

The dog gave what sounded like a sigh before forcing its girth over the console and between the seat backs to perch itself on the ridiculously small backseat.

“George?” I asked, crawling inside with my backpack and putting on my seat belt.

“After Prince George—they’re the same age apparently. Colin thought that the little prince and the dog had similar expressions.”

“Colin?” I asked, unprepared for the jolt of surprise his name registered. “Your cousin Colin, our schoolmate? Colin who avoided me?”

“Technically, I think he’s my second cousin. His grandfather David—his paternal grandmother, Sophia’s, husband—and my grandmother Violet were siblings.” She avoided looking at me, focusing instead on the gear shift. “And don’t be daft, Maddie. Colin only avoided you because you made it clear you wanted nothing to do with him. You two just... Well, you were a bit like chalk and cheese, but I think that was just a matter of two people being separated by the same language.”

“Ha. As ifIwere the one with the accent.”

Arabella sent me a sidelong glance. “Admittedly, he was a bit miffed that you didn’t say good-bye to him when you left Oxford. He thought you owed him the courtesy of a farewell.”

I sucked in my breath. “I don’t say good-bye to anyone—it had nothing to do with him. I only said good-bye to you because you drove me to the airport. I doubt he remembers that now—or me. It’s been seven years.”

“Yes, well, he’s been in Devon—Salcombe, actually, a nice little resort on the coast—on holiday with friends for the week, and he asked me to watch George. And since...” She stopped as if suddenly aware of what she was about to say.

“Since what?”

Arabella made a good show of focused concentration as she pulled out into traffic, nearly sideswiping a taxi. For our survival, I allowed her to wind her way out of the airport traffic, waiting until she was on the A4 before repeating, “And since what?”

She was silent for a beat and then allowed the words to rush out, as if speaking quickly would hinder my interpretation of them. “Since Colin lives with Miss Dubose, I thought I’d kill two birds with a single stone and deliver both you and George at the same time.”

A cold sweat erupted over my scalp. “Excuse me? Colin lives there? In the flat I’m going to be staying in?”

“Yes. They’re very close—Miss Dubose has always been like a grandmother to him. She just dotes on him—he even calls her Nana.”

I couldn’t imagine stony-faced Colin calling anyone by such an endearment. I, for one, had always been Madison to him, a solid brick wall I wasn’t ever likely to scale.

Arabella continued. “Sophia, Colin’s grandmother, owned the flat. When she died, Colin’s parents inherited it. But even when she was alive, Sophia allowed Miss Dubose to live there. They were great friends since before the war. Miss Dubose never married, you see, or had children, so she more or less adopted her best friend’s family as her own. When she went into hospital last month and her doctors told us to prepare for the worst, she asked that Colin move in so that they could spend more time together and he could help get her finances all settled. That’s his specialty, so it made sense.”

“You said she wasn’t in the best of health. So she’s ill?”

“No specific illness, but she’s ninety-nine. Her heart is weak, and her doctors say her body is beginning to shut down. She looks rather good, however. One would have to examine her very closely to agree with them.”

“So Miss Dubose, the nurse, Colin, and I will all be living in the same flat. Together.”

“Precisely. And George, too, don’t forget. It’s a very large flat, and Colin works extraordinary hours, so you’ll probably never run into each other.” She stopped talking as if there wasn’t anything else she needed to explain.

“And you didn’t think to mention this to me before—like when I agreed to come here in the first place? What did Colin say when you told him?”

Arabella kept her eyes on the road in front of her and remained silent.

“Seriously? You didn’t tell him it was me?”

“I told him that a freelance journalist I’d hired to interview Miss Dubose would be staying in one of the spare bedrooms for a fortnight or so. He didn’t have a problem with that.”

“But you didn’t tell him it was me.”