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“Certainly, he would have,” Gervaise replied coolly, “or incurred my considerable displeasure.”

She laughed and they mounted the steps together. An older woman in a very large mauve hat paused as she passed them by, giving them a hard stare. She looked somewhat familiar, Gervaise thought as they passed through the doors, but it was not until they had removed their coats and been seated at a little marble table beneath a domed glass ceiling that he remembered who she was.

“Lady Sharpe,” he said aloud.

Caroline froze. “Where?” she gasped, dropping her napkin.

“I’m pretty sure that was her name. Isn’t that some neighbor of yours in Cornwall?”

Caroline leaned across the table, her face pale. “We have to leave!” she whispered, aghast. “At once!”

“She’s not in here,” he said soothingly. “I spotted her outside.”

Caroline’s color returned with a vengeance. Now she looked flustered and heated. “On the street, you mean? Do you think she saw me?” she asked anxiously.

“No,” he lied.

“Well, thank goodness for that!” She rested a hand against her plaid covered chest. “What a horrid scare!”

“Two champagne cocktails,” Gervaise told the waiter who had appeared at his elbow. He melted away at once with an impeccable bow. “Would that be so very terrible?” he asked casually, as though it would not have been inconvenient to himself if the old woman had hailed them. At least Caroline had been wearing gloves, so she would not have spotted the lack of a ring.

“Of course it would!” she answered at once. “She knows my mother! She could write to her, and all would be discovered!” She swallowed and took a calming breath. “When did you ever meet old Lady Sharpe?” she asked, retrieving her napkin and fanning her hot face.

“At that Christmas party at Vance Park,” he replied calmly. “Emmeline introduced me.” Another waiter approached with a menu and Caroline practically flinched away from him, her nervous eyes scanning the room.

“Are you alright?” Gervaise asked in a low voice as the apologetic waiter retreated. For some reason, her obvious horror satisfied a dark corner of his soul. So, she was not quite so brazen about her situation after all! He could work with that and turn it to his advantage, if only he could steel himself against his impulse to soothe her ruffled feathers. It was strange. He was not so usually squeamish about his methods when it came to achieving his own ends.

“It was just such a shock,” she replied shakily. “To be confronted with…with Penarth suddenly like that,” she confessed on an outward breath. She spoke the name of her hometown in a horrified whisper, like it was a curse word. “After we had been talking about it too! When I felt like I had left it all so far behind me.”

“Our past does have a tendency to haunt us,” he agreed, then wished he hadn’t when she shivered.

“Oh, don’t!” she begged, then looked embarrassed when he lifted an eyebrow at her reaction.

“It is only, well, your words put me in mind of that—that horrible dream I had.”

“Have you been thinking of that again?”

“Yes, I skipped ahead in my book and read ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ this morning,” she admitted. “I thought we might discuss it over lunch, but…” She bit her lip.

“It made you think of that day at the pergola?” he said slowly.

Reluctantly, she nodded her head. “It’s stupid, I know, and not in any way comparable but…it does feel now rather like I saw an apparition that day.” She hung her head. “And now I’m ruining our lovely luncheon.”

He reached across the table to squeeze her hand. “No such thing,” he said, comforting her instead of pressing his advantage. What was he doing? He ought to be pointing out that her reticence indicated she had a hankering for respectability after all. That she ought to damned well marry him!

“Now cast your eye over the menu,” he recommended instead. “There must be lots here to tempt your tastebuds.”

She put on a brave face, but it was clear that Caroline had been badly rattled. She was distracted throughout their elegant meal, and Gervaise was forced to carry their conversation by speaking of the various acquaintances he and Ralph had sought out that morning.

By the time they were served with orange blossom ice cream in two cut glass pedestal bowls, Caroline had regained some of her composure. Gervaise tentatively turned the conversation back on her. “So, you said Violet liked your new gown. Did you speak to any of the new bar staff?”

She cleared her throat. “A couple of them,” she answered lightly. “An old friend of Effie’s called Moira and an Irish girl called Kitty from Cork.” She regarded him thoughtfully. “To be honest, I think Effie and Vi were keeping the rest at bay. Did you ask them to shield me from them?”

“No, though I am glad to hear it.” He gave her a wry look. “I think Reg and Jeb were doing the same for me in the scullery this morning.”

She gave a gurgle of laughter at that. “Really?”

He nodded. “It was quite alarmingly overrun in there. They were trying to toast bread over the fire.”