Page 32

C onstance, having slept for a couple of hours, still had a horribly sore head, inside and out.

But she was restless about being in bed while Solomon was on the case, and her friends would not lot her get up, even into the chair.

She tried arguing and pleading and ordering, but she had taught them too well and none of them gave in.

“Can’t you see this inaction is making me feverish?” she said at last.

“No it ain’t,” said Fran, feeling her forehead to be on the safe side. “Just relax. He’ll be here soon enough.”

How dare she think I’m so desperate to see him?

She glared at poor Fran, but the trouble was, the girl was right.

She was desperate to see Solomon, and not just to find out what was going on.

She also worried for him. The murder of Joshua Clarke and the attack on her in his house had turned the case into one of acute danger and violence.

Eventually, Fran consented to bring her the small writing desk, but when Constance tried to write anything down, her head hurt and her eyes would not focus. She shoved it away in more fright than anger. It seemed she was more hurt than she thought.

Then why does Solomon not come?

At around half past six, Janey whisked into the room.

“’Ere! What the bloody hell you been up to? What you sodding done to yourself?”

She looked so terrified that Constance didn’t even tell her off for swearing. The girl only lapsed now at moments of extreme stress.

“Hurt my head,” Constance said carelessly.

“Someone hurt it for her,” Fran said dryly, “but she’ll be fine, Dr. Donaldson said, if she just stays in bed for a day.”

“And I’m counting the wretched hours,” Constance said with a grumpiness that seemed to relieve Janey of the worst of her fears.

“You here for a bit, Janey?” Fran asked.

“Yes, I’ll stay with her,” Janey said with a warning glare at Constance, presumably in case she argued.

“Then I’ll go and get meself some nosh before the punters turn up.”

“Did you see Mr. Grey?” Constance asked Janey as soon as Fran had closed the door.

“Nah. I locked up the office. But he sent a note to say you were fine but recovering in bed from an accident. The girls is dead worried about you. Scared us all to death, you have.”

“Sorry,” Constance said meekly. “How is the case of Bibby’s locket?”

Janey glowered some more, lowering herself onto the bed.

“Good and bad. Found the cove what nicked it—well, he found it on the ground and kept it. I said it was Bibby who’d lost it, and he said she can’t have it back ’cause he’s giving it to his wife for her birthday!

There’s worse scum than thieves out there, I’ll tell you that much. ”

“Sadly, there are,” Constance agreed. “Who is this man?”

Janey grimaced. “Customer of another girl further down the street. Young fella, thinks he’s better than us, drops by every once in a while, apparently.”

“Why don’t you take Bibby and this other girl round to his house, bump into him and his wife on their way to church? I expect he’ll give it back quick enough just be rid of you.”

Janey seemed much struck by this suggestion. “I thought we was supposed to be honest.”

“It’s not dishonest to walk in the man’s vicinity. What he reads into it is his own affair.”

“So it is,” Janey agreed, grinning.

They ate a companionable meal together while the guests began to arrive in the house.

He wouldn’t come, now. Constance knew that, and she hated the longing within her, the emptiness of disappointment.

Love came with vulnerabilities she had never imagined.

Only, after his tenderness in finding her in Clarke’s house and bringing her home, she had thought he would come back today…

Angry with herself for being so pathetic, she told herself he knew she was safe here among her friends and protectors. It was the case she needed to hear about, nothing more.

Eventually, Bibby appeared in the doorway, grinned to see Janey there too, and said, “It’s my turn to sit with you, ma’am, only Mr. Grey is here. Should he wait?”

Constance threw back the bedclothes, more from instinct that any real intention to get out of bed. Janey caught them and pulled them back up, glaring.

“Send him in, Bibby,” Constance said, with a reasonable effort at calm.

Inside, she was astonished. Had he really walked through the front door among all their usual gentlemen?

Or snuck through the kitchen and up the back stairs with Bibby, the way Constance herself entered when she didn’t want to be seen by customers?

Janey stood up as he walked in. He still wore his overcoat and carried his hat. Back stairs, then. To her anxious eyes, he looked cold, and air of excitement cut through the concern in his eyes.

“Watch her, sir, she’s getting restive,” Janey said. “Ring if you need us. And she’s not to be alone until the morning. Bibby.”

He didn’t ask Janey for a health update, though he did spare her a searching glance before his attention returned to Constance.

He walked across the room and sat where Janey had been. He took her hand. Warmth flooded her. He had come.

“How are you?” he asked, examining her bandage and then her face.

“Better, I think, as long as no one touches my head.” The door closed behind the other woman, so she added, “You can kiss me if you like.”

He smiled. “With no hands,” he said, spreading them wide as he bent and kissed her mouth.

“Your lips are warm,” she said huskily. “But the rest of you is cold and tired. Why don’t you come up beside me and be comfortable?”

As though he had been waiting for the invitation, he kicked off his shoes and leaned against the pillows beside her, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Then he took her hand again.

A man on her bed, even if not quite in it. A man’s hat and coat cluttering her feminine room. Unprecedented. And rather wonderful, considering it was this man. Intimate…

“Did you come up the back stairs from the area door?”

“No. I came in the front, all ready to waste a great deal of time persuading your extraordinarily large footmen to admit me, but they merely sent for the girl who brought me up the main stairs without a quibble. Did you warn them to expect me?”

“Actually, no. I didn’t think you would come at this time. I suppose word has got around. It seems you are approved, since you brought me home this morning.”

“Not because I am your husband-to-be?”

Husband . Good grief, I shall have a husband. “I wonder if this has ever happened in my family before?” she murmured.

“It certainly happened in mine. We have a history of odd marriages.”

She knew his mother had been a Maroon, the descendant of an escaped slave, who had married his plantation-owning father. “What was she like, your mother?”

He leaned his head back against the pillows, close to hers but not touching. She wondered if he would answer.

“Warm,” he said at last. “Fierce.” He smiled. “And funny.”

“Was she happy?” Constance asked.

“Yes, I think so. Most of the time. She was happy by nature, and against the odds, she did love my father. But it was not always easy for either of them. There was prejudice, ill feeling. Some of my father’s acquaintances regarded her as a slave.

Some of hers regarded him as a monster, and her as a traitor of some kind.

It used to worry him that if he died first there would be no one to protect her.

There was often trouble between the Maroons and the white people…

But in the end, she went first and my father never married again. ”

“Was there prejudice against you too?”

“Some,” he said with a shrug. “Not so much.”

“And here? In London?”

“Here in London, not everyone notices or cares. I could be from anywhere. I am not above exploiting that for business reasons, though I never hide my origins.”

“Why should you?” she said stoutly.

He turned his head against the pillow and met her gaze. “Why should you?”

“You’ve met my mama,” she said lightly.

“I like your mama. She gave me you.”

She searched his eyes. He was telling her not to be ashamed of who she was, because he was not. They were both oddities in their own ways. And somehow, they had found each other. And fitted.

She must have still been weak from her head injury, for her throat tightened with foolish tears. She swallowed them back as best she could.

“What of the case?” she asked rather desperately. “What have you been doing all day? Have you found Miss Lloyd?”

“No, but I have found some rather interesting connections. Between Audrey Lloyd and Captain Tybalt, and between Tybalt and Samuels, also called Clarke. I have also discovered the hackney driver who picked Audrey up in Oxford Street last night and took her to the railway station. I think she’s in Folkestone. ”

Constance sat up straight and winced. “Folkestone? Why Folkestone?”

“Because Tybalt is there with the treasure. So are regular packets to France. And she was at the railway station just in time to catch the ten o’clock boat train.”

“Then what are you doing here?” she demanded, nudging him as though pushing him off the bed. “She could already be in France!”

“I’m tired,” he said calmly, and she smiled, because she knew it was a lie. He was here with her because he wanted, maybe even needed, to be.

“Tell me,” she instructed him, and he gave her an account of his interviews with Lloyd, Garrick, Rachel, and Sydney, his failure to find Tybalt at home, and the conclusions he had drawn.

“So Tybalt stole the treasure,” she said with excitement, “motivated by resentment against Lloyd and love of Audrey. He used Samuels to make a replica chest, which he hid in his own cabin until he managed to switch it with the real one just before everyone disembarked. Oh! What did he fill the fake one with to make it seem so heavy?”