Page 84 of Corpse in the Canal

She should at least have returned to gazing into the fire, but she didn’t. She watched him prowl toward the decanter, still there since this morning’s medicinal crisis, and pour reasonable measures into two glasses. The butterflies in her stomach leapt higher, for she liked the way he moved—freer than Solomon, less controlled, perhaps, but no less graceful or efficient.

He walked toward her, a glass in each hand. She should have asked him to set her glass on the table beside her, but she risked holding out her hand to take it from him, and when their fingers touched, awareness thrilled through her skin to her veins.

“How is Solomon?” she asked, mostly to give herself a reason for remaining in his company. If Solomon had relapsed, after all, she would have heard about it.

David sat down in the chair on the other side of the fireplace. “He seems fine. Constance had a nap earlier in the evening and is with him now. I expect he will sleep with her beside him.”

“Did he not sleep on your watch?”

“No. We were talking some of the time. For the rest…it still feels a privilege to share silence with him. I like being in his company, even for such a reason.”

“He likes being in yours.” So do I, God help me. “It must be strange for both of you, when you were once so close as children and yet have grown up far apart.”

He seemed to think about that, sipping his brandy. “It is a good kind of strange. We are both restless in spirit, so we enjoy changes.”

“Is that why Solomon ignores the businesses that made him rich and turned to investigating?”

“From what he says, he began it to be near Constance. But I think it quickly became a passion for both of them.”

She frowned in incomprehension. “Poking their noses into the minutiae of people’s lives? That is not the Solomon I remember.”

“Isn’t it?” David said. “Isn’t that what he did when he helped you in Jamaica?”

Adelaide closed her mouth, then took a drink to give herself time. “Perhaps,” she admitted. “I wanted to think he did it for me.”

“He did. And now he’s doing it for the Harveys.”

She hadn’t thought of it quite like that either. “He has no need of Harvey’s money,” she said slowly. “Nor anyone else’s.”

“Neither has Constance, I gather.”

She felt his gaze on her face and strove to keep her expression neutral. “And if they find a truth that Harvey does not like?”

“It will still be the truth. Do you think it’s likely?”

“What? That they find things to Percy’s discredit? And to his father’s? I suspect they already have. Percy was not well liked, and with reason.” She took another sip of brandy and raised her gaze to his. “Do you believe they will find the truth?”

“Yes. They always have so far.”

“And do you help them?” she asked curiously.

“I have done on odd occasions, more to do with watching Solomon’s back in dangerous company.”

“You are not afraid of that, are you? You have been in dangerous company yourself.”

He shrugged. “I have a different idea of danger to most. But I would always defend my brother.”

What did he mean by that? Was it some kind of warning? A suspicion…such as Constance’s?

“I did not shoot Solomon. You know that. Do they?”

He didn’t answer directly, but still he held her gaze. “They know you have not been entirely truthful. That can be misleading.”

Her fingers tightened on the glass. “If I have kept something back, it is nothing that can help their investigation.”

“Are you the best person to judge that?”

The pause went on too long.