true,’ Bright said. ‘I assure you that I bought the scurrilous place for the view!’
Between the two of them, Sally and her admiral spent the next few minutes describing—in muted tones—the result of one old rogue’s hobbyhorse. The tea level lowered in the pot and the cakes vanished one by one. When they finished, Brustein told them of his arrival in England in 1805 from Frankfurt-am-Main at the request of his cousin, Nathan Rothschild, who had begun his British sojourn in Manchester as a cloth merchant.
‘When Nathan got into the London Exchange, he needed more help, but I found life more to my liking in Devonshire.’ Brustein sat back, and Sally was quick to position his ottoman under short legs. ‘Thank you, my dear. Admiral, she is a treasure!’
‘I know,’ Bright said softly, which made Sally’s face go warm. ‘And she blushes.’ He smiled at her, and was kind enough to change the subject. ‘Do you still go into the office, sir?’
‘Once in a while. I have turned the business over to my sons, David and Samuel. William Carter died several years ago, and we bought out his family. We’ll keep the respectability of the Carter name, though.’
He pulled out a pocket watch then, and gave the Brights an apologetic glance. ‘I must end this delightful gathering,’ he said, the regret obvious in his voice. ‘My wife, Rivka, is not well, and I usually spend most of my morning with her. She will wonder where I have gone.’
‘We wouldn’t dream of keeping you any longer,’ Sally said quickly.
The Brights stood up. Brustein struggled to join them, and the admiral put a hand under his elbow to assist. Jacob Brustein took his arm with no embarrassment.
‘You’re a good lad,’ he said. ‘Can the fleet manage without you?’
‘It had better,’ Bright said, pulling up the shawl where it had slipped from the old man’s narrow shoulders. ‘More shame on me if I didn’t lead well enough to make a smooth transition.’
Brustein hesitated at the door to the sitting room. ‘I wonder—could you both do me a small favour?’
‘Anything,’ Sally said and Bright nodded.
‘My Rivka, she is confined to her bed. It would mean the world to me if you could visit her in her room.’ He patted Sally’s hand. ‘For years, she would prepare tea and cakes for visitors who never came.’
Sally could not help the tears that started behind her eyelids. I did not think I had another tear left, after all that has happened to me, she thought in amazement. ‘Nothing would make us happier,’ she replied, as soon as she could talk.
Helped by one of them on each side of him, Brustein led them upstairs and into an airy room with the windows open and curtains half-drawn. A woman as small as he was lay in the centre of her bed, propped up with pillows. Brustein hurried to her side and sat down on the bed, taking both her hands in his. He spoke to her in a language that sounded like German to Sally. The woman opened her eyes and smiled.
‘Ah, we have company,’ she said in English. She glanced at her husband, her eyes anxious. ‘You gave them tea and cakes?’
‘Delicious tea and cakes,’ Bright said.
Sally took his hand, because his voice seemed almost ready to break. ‘Your husband was the perfect host,’ she said.
Rivka Brustein indicated the chair. ‘Sit, pitseleh, sit,’ she whispered, looking at Sally. ‘Tell me about your new home.’ Her gesture was feeble, but she waved away her husband. ‘Jacob, show this handsome man your collection of globes. I want to talk to the nice lady.’ Her soft voice had a measure of triumphant satisfaction in it that lodged right in Sally’s heart. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged her away.
Twenty minutes was all Rivka Brustein could manage. Her eyes closed and she slept. Gently, Sally released her hand and put it on the snowy coverlet.
She opened her eyes. ‘You’ll come back?’
‘I’ll come back.’
‘Will you read to me?’
Why weren’t the old ladies I tended as sweet as you? Sally thought, as she blew Rivka a kiss from the doorway. ‘I’ll bring a book you will enjoy,’ she said, wondering if anything in her own library—the one the admiral had declared off limits—was fit to read. ‘I’ll find something.’
Rivka slept. Sally closed the door quietly behind her.
‘Thirty years, and no one from this neighbourhood has ever visited,’ the admiral murmured as they left the Brustein manor. He looked back at the house to Jacob, who stood in the door. ‘I have to wonder now what revelations are waiting for us at our other nearest neighbour’s domain.’ He patted her hand, which was crooked in his arm. ‘You’re a good girl, Sophie.’
‘I am as shocked as you,’ she said. ‘Such a nice old couple.’ She looked ahead to the much more substantial estate barely peeking through the foliage. ‘Who lives here?’
‘We will probably be above ourselves here, so mind your manners,’ he teased. ‘The estate agent told me Lord Brimley resides here through the summer. He is a marquis, no less.’ Bright stopped. ‘The name rings a bell with me, but I cannot remember why. Brimley. Brimley. Perhaps we shall see. Are you game for another house?’
She nodded. ‘This is certainly more enjoyable than trying to avoid staring at walls in our…your…house.’
He started walking again, then gave her a sidelong look. ‘You were right the first time, Sophie. For all its warts, it is our house.’
I wish I felt that way, but you are kind, she told herself. She wished her face did not feel so hot. Hopefully, the admiral would overlook her embarrassment. ‘That notion will take some getting used to.’
‘Indeed it will.’ He sighed. ‘And we are no further along towards solving the dilemma of finding mechanics to remodel.’
‘And paint,’ she added. ‘Gallons of paint.’
He chuckled and tucked her arm closer. ‘Paint, aye. If I were on my flagship, I would bark a few orders to my captain, and he would pass my bark down the chain of command until—presto!—it was painted.’
Lord Brimley’s estate loomed larger than life, compared to the more modest Brustein manor. They walked slowly down his lane, admiring the faux-Italian ruin that looked as though it had been there since the Italian Renaissance. ‘D’ye think Michelangelo did a ceiling inside the gazebo?’
She nudged him. ‘You know he did not!’
‘Rafael, then. Perhaps Titian?’
‘Oh, you try me!’
He laughed and tucked her hand closer. ‘Let us behave ourselves.’ He leaned down to whisper in her ear as they climbed the shallow steps to the magnificent door. ‘Now if this is a house of the first stare, the butler will open the door even before we… Ah.’
Sally couldn’t remember when she had seen so much dignity in a black suit. Instinctively, she hung back on the last step, but the admiral pulled her up with him.
‘I am Admiral Sir Charles Bright, recently retired,’ her husband said, not in the least intimidated by the splendour before him. ‘This is my wife, and we have come calling upon Lord Brimley. I have recently purchased the Hudley estate, which abuts this one.’
The butler ushered them in, but did not close the door behind him, as if there was some doubt they would be staying long. Bright gave her a sidelong wink, which sorely tried her.
‘I will see if Lord Brimley is receiving callers,’ the butler said. He hesitated one slight moment, as if