Page 5

C onstance saw at once that the newcomer had caused a subtle stir.

Beside her, Sydney Lloyd tensed. His mother, seated beside Solomon, looked positively dismayed for the tiniest instant before she smiled in welcome and went to greet him.

Only the elder daughter Jemimah looked uncomplicatedly delighted as she bounced up and reached the visitor before her mother.

“Ben, how wonderful! You may greet Papa at last. Papa, you remember Sydney’s friend, Mr. Devine?”

Mr. Devine was a pleasant-looking young man with a shy smile but sharp eyes. He bowed to the room in general, and to Mrs. Lloyd in particular, before allowing himself to be hauled before his host, who smiled somewhat glacially and invited him to sit.

Jemimah brought him a cup of tea and offered plates of sandwiches and cakes to everyone.

“ Your friend?” Constance murmured to Sydney with a hint of teasing.

“Well, he was,” Sydney replied wryly. “Though he’s likely to end up as no one’s if my father takes him in dislike.”

“Why should he do that?”

Sydney regarded her. “When we left England in the spring, Jemimah was fifteen years old, still in short skirts with pigtails and puppy fat. Now look at her. And poor old Ben in attendance. Not easy for a father to watch his daughter growing up.”

“But he didn’t, did he?” Constance said. “It was you he was watching grow up when he took you on his treasure hunt. Did you enjoy it?”

“I did,” Sydney replied, his eyes gleaming rather like his father’s. “I can see why my father is so addicted to his adventuring.”

“Then you intend to follow in his footsteps?”

“Oh, it’s too early to say,” Sydney murmured.

Constance took a dainty little cake from the plate offered by a distracted Jemimah and smiled her thanks at the girl. Sydney snatched a couple of sandwiches.

“Tell me about the treasure,” Constance urged before taking a bite of cake and placing the rest back on her plate.

“You mean how it was pinched? Dashed if I know.” A smile came into his eyes.

He would break hearts in a year or too, Constance thought, if he wasn’t doing so already.

“Are you really going to find it for him? One would think he might find it humiliating—the great treasure seeker used to braving hostile lands needing a young woman to track his property down in his own country.”

“Well, the criminal world of London requires a different kind of knowledge.”

“And you have such knowledge?” he asked. “How does that come about?”

“Secret of the trade, Mr. Lloyd,” she said vaguely. “Were you upset by the loss?”

“Shocked,” he answered. “It makes one think.”

“What does it make you think?”

“Well, either some stranger has access to our house and wanders about at will in the middle of the night, knowing everything of my father’s habits, or someone already in the house has betrayed us by stealing.”

“And which do you believe?” She sipped her tea.

“Neither seems credible, to be honest. And yet it’s gone.”

Constance picked the last piece of cake on her plate. “You fetched the strong room keys from your father’s bedchamber, the evening you came home.”

“I did.”

“Did anyone see you do so? Was anyone else in the passage when your father unlocked the strong room?”

“No, the servants were all downstairs getting ready to serve dinner.”

“What about the footman who helped you carry the chest upstairs?”

“Harry? He went back down as soon as we dropped the chest outside the strong room. Papa and I lifted it inside.”

“And then what?”

“We left it there and joined the others in the dining room, where Mama was worrying about the soup going cold.”

“Did your father not lock the strong room door?”

Sydney blinked at her. “Of course he did.”

“You mean you saw him do it? Or you merely assume he did?”

Sydney smiled with something very like delight. “You think he just forgot to lock the door? And someone just happened to try it and nabbed the treasure?”

“Is it a possibility?”

“Sadly not,” Sydney replied. “I watched him lock the door and pocket the keys, and then we went downstairs together.”

Constance changed tack. “What did you do for the rest of the evening? After dinner?”

“Came in here so we could regale everyone with more of our adventures over the last eight months.”

“Who is ‘everyone’?” she asked.

Sydney looked amused again. “My mother and sisters and my aunt.”

“Did you have any visitors that evening?”

“No, it was a strictly family evening.”

“When did the family party break up?”

Sydney smiled at her. “Goodness, you are more thorough than the policeman in your questions! It must have been just before eleven. And yes, I went straight to bed. If you want the truth, I was exhausted and had, besides, drunk too much champagne and port. We didn’t have such luxuries on board the ship—which is a mistake, in my view. ”

“Well, that is an argument for another day.” She finished her tea and set down the cup. “Did you sleep all night? Did any unusual sound disturb you?”

“Such as the clank of keys or the squeaking of the hinges on the strong room door? Sadly not.”

“How did you learn that the treasure had been stolen?”

Sydney grimaced. “My father creating a one-man bawling match. He was up with the lark as usual and went straight to gloat over his treasure—or to let Rachel poke around it, maybe.”

“Who is Rachel?”

“Rachel is my younger sister. She’s twelve years old, so fortunately you won’t see much of her. Would you excuse me? I should shake hands with poor old Ben.”

“Of course,” Constance replied.

As he rose, her sweeping glance caught the figure of his aunt, Miss Audrey Lloyd, knitting contentedly, quite alone by the fire.

There was something oddly touching and yet unbearably lonely in the vignette—the maiden aunt living in another woman’s house, always there and yet, it seemed, used to being barely noticed.

Constance stood and walked across the room to her. “Miss Lloyd?”

The lady looked up in surprise, peering over her spectacles. “Indeed. How do you do, Mrs. Silver? What a lovely name to have.”

Constance drew forward the nearest chair and sat beside her. “Do you think so?”

“I do. Did I hear aright that you and Mr. Grey are helping Barnabas find his lost treasure?”

“We shall certainly do our best. It is quite a bizarre happening.”

Audrey shook her head. “Most peculiar. I can’t imagine what… Or who, which is even worse, don’t you think?”

“Yes, it might well be. Where does Mr. Lloyd keep the keys to the strong room?”

Constance asked mainly to see if his sister knew, but she answered immediately.

“On his person. Or in the drawer by his bed. Everyone knows that.”

“Everyone in the house?” Constance asked. “Or is there a wider community of family and friends who are aware of his habits?”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Audrey said vaguely. “But then, I don’t pay a great deal of attention. I have my own interests.”

“May I know what those are?”

“Oh, just a few little charities.”

Constance glanced at her work. “What are you knitting?”

“A scarf. For the poor.”

“That is kind.”

“Not very,” Audrey said distractedly. “A mere drop in the ocean, really. One does what one can, when one has so much while others have nothing. Imagine not being able to keep your children warm in winter, or even fed. It is a great gift, to be born into a wealthy family, don’t you think?”

Those weak eyes blinked up at Constance, who, on impulse, spoke honestly.

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know. I made my own way in the world.”

Audrey smiled at her. “Did you, dear? I admire that. When will you marry Mr. Grey?”

The question flustered Constance. “We have not yet set a date.”

“You should. If you love him.”

Oh, I love him. That was never the issue…

“I suppose he is different,” Audrey said. “Does your family not approve?”

“My mother would marry him herself if she could.”

Audrey laughed, an unexpectedly merry sound. It lightened her tired face and the weak eyes behind the spectacles. Constance thought that she was probably still on the right side of forty, although she looked older most of the time.

“So what do you think happened to Barnabas’s treasure?” Audrey asked.

“I don’t honestly have a clue,” Constance admitted. “Yet.”

All the same, she had noticed Jemimah casting both anxious and imploring glances at Mr. Devine, who was now in laughing conversation with Sydney.

Jemimah alone had been unsurprised by the young man’s visit.

No servant had shown him in, which meant that the security of the Lloyds’ abode was less than perfect.

Or that the servants were so used to his being received that they let him find his own way—the privilege, surely, of only the most frequent and favored of callers. Interesting.

Excusing herself to Audrey, Constance walked over to join Jemimah at the table, where she was replacing the plates she had just been offering to the guests.

“What a beautiful gown,” Constance said, guessing what would most please the girl at this moment.

“Oh, do you think so? Thank you! It’s new.”

“I can see that,” Constance said gravely. “Quite the height of fashion, too.”

“So is yours,” Jemimah replied with just a hint of wistfulness. “I wish I were as beautiful as you are.”

“I’m not really, you know. If you behave as if you are, people tend to believe it.”

Jemimah’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“I have found so.”

She frowned. “How does one behave as if one is beautiful?”

Constance leaned closer. “Well, for one thing, one does not keep trying to catch the eye of the gentleman whose admiration she wishes to attract. She ignores him, in the knowledge that he will come to her.”

Jemimah blushed, looking guilty. “What if he doesn’t?”

“That rather depends on the gentleman in question. Are we talking about Mr. Devine?”

“Does it show?” Jemimah asked ruefully.

“What it shows to me—and probably to your father—is that Mr. Devine is a more frequent visitor to the house than your father might like.”

Jemimah blanched. “Oh, please hush! I have done nothing wrong!”