Page 109 of Corpse in the Canal

Adelaide nodded thoughtfully and sipped her chocolate. Then her eyes lifted to his face. “And you? I suppose you will follow them tomorrow?”

“I thought I might stay on for a few more days. I wanted to ask you and Clarence to walk with me tomorrow, perhaps have luncheon at the Duke’s Arms.”

“You’ll have all the old tabbies gossiping before you step over the door.”

“It doesn’t worry me, though it may not be what you want.” His heart jumped with fear because of the words he wanted to say, mostly in case they came out wrong. “I would never encroach or knowingly cause you difficulties, but I would like us to be friends.”

Adelaide waited, then nodded cautiously.

His breath caught and he almost threw his plate down on the table between them. “No, dash it, I want us to be more than friends. I want to court you. I want to look after you and Clarence, even though I am a wreck of a man with a past that can never be made clean—”

She moved abruptly and he stopped talking, knowing with despair that he had blown up his chances.

But she hadn’t bolted for the door. She threw herself down at his feet, taking both his hands and staring up at him seriously, almost sternly. “You are clean. You are innocent and clean. You are a good and kind man, David Grey, and Clarence and I will be proud to call you our friend.”

It took a moment for the meaning of her words to seep through his agitation and turn to wonder. “You feel it, too, this…rightness.” Slowly, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. When she didn’t object, he kissed the other too, more lingeringly.

“I have been trying to find my feet here,” she said. “And failing. I was pure as the driven snow, while rumors and gossip about me flew around the county. To the devil with that. I will make my own way, choose my own friends. And this, whatever this is between you and I, is worth exploring.”

She reached up and kissed him on the mouth. It was so sweet, he could not move, though the instant her lips left him, he took them back. Passion flared like new life within him, full of hope and wonder and beauty.

Oh yes, this was worth exploring, and fighting for. Risking all for. Even when Clarence burst into the room and they fell apart, they were laughing and joyful with this all-encompassing new love.

*

The rainstorms made the road so perilous that Constance and Solomon put up for the night at an old-fashioned posting inn and traveled the rest of the way to London in bright sunshine.

“We’ll miss the ceremony,” Constance said discontentedly. The movement of the carriage still disagreed with her, but she noticed it less, since she concentrated more on ensuring that Solomon did not suffer.

“But we will be in time for the wedding breakfast,” he pointed out.

It crossed Constance’s mind that she was not dressed for a wedding, which made her laugh because her mother would not care for that. No one would or could upstage Juliet on such a day as this.

As they spilled out of the carriage at the hotel, Solomon pulled off his bandage and threw a coin to the boy selling newspapers there. The headlines were all about the Ottoman Turks declaring war on Russia, and the likelihood of France and Britain being drawn in on the Ottoman side, but war was a worry for another day. Solomon found the wedding announcements while Constance peered over his arm.

“There!” she pounced. “Miss Juliet Silver, daughter of Graham Silver of Thornleigh, to Mr. Sebastian Kellar, second son of Sir John and Lady Kellar. Who the devil is Graham Silver of Thornleigh?” Juliet must have made it up.

“I have no idea,” Solomon said, handing the newspaper back to the boy. “Shall we?”

It was Kellar who happened to be striding toward the door while they argued their right to entry with a hotel footman, who saw them first. He hurried over with an exclamation, thrusting a hand out to each of them.

“You came!” he said delightedly, while the sheepish footman effaced himself.

“We were held up by the weather,” Solomon said, shaking his hand. “Heartiest congratulations.”

Kellar beamed, his handsome face for once clear and honest with his happiness.

“Where is she?” Constance asked.

“In there, pretending not to care that you couldn’t come.”

Constance and Solomon walked in together. The meal appeared to be over, for people were milling and chatting and laughing in groups. Champagne appeared to be flowing. There was a dazzling array of rich and powerful here. Some of them were clients of Constance’s establishment who would pretend not to know her. She barely gave them a thought. She recognized the Duke and Duchess of Kelburn. And then, with more genuine pleasure, she saw their daughter Lady Grizelda and her Hungarian husband, Dragan Tizsa, who had become good friends. But she could not stop until she found Juliet and saw for herself that all was well.

And then she glimpsed her.

Juliet stood between a couple seated at a small table, one of her hands on the shoulder of each, as she entertained them with some amusing tale that may or not have been true. Then her restless gaze spotted Constance, and her smile froze.

She straightened, excused herself, and glided across the floor. Somewhere in the last few months, the brassy vulgarity that had served her so well in the past had peeled away to leave a charmingly eccentric English lady. She walked like one and talked like one, and it was more natural than Constance’s pretense had ever been.