read through and comment upon. He had mockingly asked her if she couldn’t type out a decent summary for him, implying she couldn’t type.
Of course she couldn’t, but she would never tell him that. ‘Father doesn’t have a typewriter,’ she had adduced instead. ‘He insists on writing everything in longhand and so far he has never had a complaint from anyone.’
The door opened, and Brookes, her father’s impeccable butler, appeared on the threshold. ‘Viscount Woolsbury to see you, Lady Alkmene.’
Alkmene blinked. She had not seen the viscount in years. And why would a man who stuck to protocol under all circumstances call upon her without having announced his visit in advance?
Had something happened?
‘Show him in, Brookes,’ she said, organizing the notes in her lap, her thoughts racing.
The viscount’s son, Duncan, had been her childhood nemesis. They had been forced to play together, Duncan always throwing sand in her hair or hiding toads in her bed at his father’s mansion in a remote shire where Alkmene had been placed to spend the summer when her father was away.
Having lost her mother at the age of four, Alkmene had been shipped around from one house of pitying friends to another by a father who had certainly loved her, but loved his botanical adventures even more.
Not one to be resentful, Alkmene had enjoyed her times in other households where she was spoiled by the servants and readily forgiven for any pranks she pulled by the mistress of the house who did not dare punish such a ‘sweet little thing without a mother’.
Duncan Woolsbury, however, had had no qualms about pestering her, and she in turn none about getting even with him for it.
After they had grown up, she had seen him once or twice at a soirée of mutual friends, where she had concluded he had become a lot more serious and bookish-looking than the boy she remembered from climbing trees and splashing through brooks. Duncan had always wanted to become an explorer and find something spectacular like a new species of bird or a forgotten tribe. But Alkmene recalled having heard more recently that he had become assistant to an expert in archaeology, no longer looking for live cultures, but dead ones, long buried.
And now his father was here to see her, out of the blue. It could hardly be a social call. Where Alkmene had enjoyed a rather close bond with Duncan’s mother and his two younger sisters, she had never had much contact with the viscount. He had been kind to her but in the way you treat a puppy you take care of for a few weeks. Good care, but in a sort of detached manner, because it is not your own dog and you know you will let the little thing go again, after a while.
Putting Jake Dubois’s stack of notes on the table beside her, she rose to meet the large man with gingerbread hair who barged into the room, to shake her hand. He examined her from head to toe and boomed with his baritone, ‘Alkmene, you look well, girl, very well. I do apologize for dropping in like this, unannounced, but it is rather an informal affair.’
‘Of course,’ Alkmene said as if she had expected no less, gesturing for him to take a seat. To Brookes, who hovered at the door, she said, ‘You may bring us some coffee.’
Brookes nodded and shut the door with an impeccably soft click.
Alkmene knew he would stand there for a few seconds listening, anxious to hear what this unexpected visit was all about. So she waited until she was absolutely sure Brookes had walked off to see to the coffee. Cook would have to heat water, so it would take some time for the butler to return.
To her visitor she said engagingly, ‘I have not seen you in ages. Then again I have not seen a lot of my old acquaintances in ages. I’m afraid I get out too little.’
Her conscience pricked a moment as she had been out and about, to Dartmoor and then again to the Winters estate, with Jake Dubois, for murder investigations. But it would be unwise to mention anything like that to an old friend of her father’s. They were surely corresponding, and if the viscount would mention something like Alkmene being involved in anything potentially damaging to reputations, Father would write at once to other friends to have her shipped off to the countryside where she could do no harm.
Knowing the viscount he would readily believe her lie of getting around so little. He was the sort of man who thought women should sit indoors and paint, or if they ventured out of doors, should tend to roses and shop for hats. Innocent little pursuits that didn’t get them tired. According to the viscount anything could get a girl tired.
Probably because he had a wife plagued by suddenly arising headaches and two daughters who got the vapours as soon as they didn’t like something or someone.
Alkmene smiled at the viscount. ‘Have you already been to Alberley?’
The house was one of the family’s favourite summer haunts, a place she remembered fondly for the many old trees growing in the garden and the mysterious stone steps leading down into what was basically an ordinary wine cellar but which had been a smugglers’ hiding place to her and her playmates.
She remembered Duncan had this wooden sword he always brought on their adventures and swung in the air, one time knocking into a bit of lead piping that gave a bang audible through the entire house. The servants in the kitchen had been certain the entire house was collapsing upon them and had fled outside, where they had stood gossiping until it was too late for dinner.
‘No, we have not found the time to go to Alberley this year,’ the viscount said. ‘My wife is very busy with Anastasia’s twins and preparing for Delphine’s wedding.’
It was logical that his wife would be loath to leave London when such joyous familial developments put her in the centre of attention with all of her friends.
Alkmene remembered vaguely that her father had written a letter of well wishes when the twins had been born to the viscount’s eldest daughter. Two boys right away. That was so like Anastasia, who had always liked to do everything perfectly in a single try.
And since there was mention of an upcoming wedding, the youngest, Delphine, had apparently gotten engaged.
Alkmene could not remember having read an announcement of the engagement in the papers, but then these things could happen overnight. Especially if the parents were eager to have the wedding performed before the groom and bride got to know each other better and might decide they were not the perfect match after all. She suspected Delphine would have had only a small say in the choice of groom. He would no doubt be the parents’ carefully selected candidate, someone of the same background, who brought in property and smarts. But what made a man eligible in the eyes of demanding parents didn’t guarantee he was a likeable person to deal with on a daily basis.
Knowing such considerations would never enter the viscount’s mind, Alkmene smiled politely. ‘I'm so happy for you all.’
The viscount sat on the edge of his seat, resting his hands on his knees. ‘My wife is preoccupied with all of these things, but one thing is never far from her mind.’
He fell silent as the door opened and Brookes carried in the silver tray with coffee cups. Apparently there had been hot water ready and waiting in the kitchen for him to have prepared this so speedily.
Alkmene gestured to the butler that he could put the tray on the central table. ‘I will pour myself. You may leave us.’
Brookes was clearly disappointed that he didn’t get a chance to overhear some snippet of conversation that would give him a clue as to why the viscount was here, at night, for this informal visit. He lingered at the table, rearranging one of the pink lilies in the tall crystal vase.
But Alkmene kept her eyes on the reluctant butler with a stern gaze, so that he retreated to the door and closed it behind him, still soft and polite, not betraying any frustration on his part over this missed chance to find out more.
Alkmene checked that the door was indeed closed and then went to pour coffee.
The viscount said, ‘My wife is concerned about Duncan.’
Alkmene