Page 44 of A Lady’s Guide to Mystery and Mischief

It reminded Farah of home.

Leila put her teacup aside, rising with a glittering smile. “How good to see you again, Miss Rafiq.”

“You as well.” Farah made a vague gesture to their surroundings. “I was just admiring your home.”

“A combination of English and Mesopotamian sensibilities,” Leila remarked before returning to her seat. “Something I’m sure you’re quite used to.”

Farah sank into the chair next to Leila’s and accepted a cup of tea. “Is Mr. Montgomery in?”

“Holed up in his study, no doubt,” Leila muttered. “Unsurprising, considering Mrs. Steele’s appearance at the musicale last night.”

Farah cleared her throat, wishing she could keep up with the woman sitting to her side. Leila did not strike her as unkind, but her honesty and clear dislike for pleasantries bordered on unnerving. “Is he still upset?”

“Not outwardly, no.”

“I see.” Farah paused before continuing. “He told me that he wanted to marry her.”

Leila raised an eyebrow in her direction as she sipped her tea. “Is that all he told you?”

Without thinking, Farah added, “He also told me that another man came between them.”

Leila’s tone was incredulous. “Another man.”

“Am I mistaken?”

A tense silence fell, during which Leila shifted her focus to the carpet that hung on the wall behind Farah’s head. When she finally spoke, it was to say, “I suppose not. In any case, Mrs. Steele extracted herself from the situation when all was said and done. She’s always been a clever girl.”

“Do you wish it had gone differently?” Farah asked.

Another person might have accused her of overstepping, but Leila did no more than shrug. “I used to. All I want now is for Peregrine to move forward. It’s pointless for him to dwell on the past.”

Farah nodded absently. Was that where Grey was? Stuck in the past, still trying to navigate his way through heartbreak? Farah thought about her heartbreaks and realized she’d never marinated in them for more than a week or two at a time.

That’s because you’ve never been in love, silly.

“Are you finished with your tea, Miss Rafiq?” Leila’s cup emitted a loud clink as she set it down in its saucer. “I thought we might take a little tour of Montgomery House.”

“Oh, yes!” Farah quickly downed her last few drops of tea. “I’d love that.”

They left the room, and Leila guided her through a hallway, this one also covered in painted flowers.

“Are you very fond of flowers, Mrs. Montgomery?” Farah inquired, bending to examine a small table that boasted a metallic beetle under a bell jar. “I noticed the entryway was painted with them as well.”

“I’m as fond of flowers as the average person,” Leila replied. “Peregrine, on the other hand—”

Farah stood to attention. “Mr. Montgomery?”

“I thought you’d noticed,” Leila said, raising a single eyebrow. “You gave him flowers, did you not?”

“Yes, I—” Farah cut herself off. Grey had struck her as being lost for words that day. The suggestion that the flowers she’d given him could have been the cause made something unidentifiable and warm bloom in her chest. She would have never described Grey Montgomery as sentimental or sensitive, and yet—

“The library,” Leila announced, pushing open a door at the end of the hall. “I’ve spent decades collecting my favorite Arabic novels, and I—oh, hello, Peregrine.”

Farah’s heart dropped at Leila’s greeting. Grey sat by a roaring fireplace, a book in his hands. There was something terribly intimate about seeing him in a space that was entirely his own, his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow, his neckcloth nowhere to be seen.

“Miss Rafiq,” he said, tone clipped. Then, as if realizing that Farah was, in fact, present, he stood. “Miss Rafiq. To what do I owe—”

“I asked her to join me for tea,” Leila interjected with a grin.