Chapter One. En Garde #2
“If he’s not your distraction then why, may I ask, are you hiding from the man like he’s unexpectedly seen you in your knickers?” She laughed, slumping into a sumptuous porcine-colored velvet armchair, and began tugging at her shoes, one by one.
“It isn’t Hari the man that I am avoiding. It’s Hari the solicitor.” I finished with the fastenings of my jacket and tossed it over an ornamental screen before stepping behind it and slipping out of my pants. “Hari the man is perfectly agreeable.”
“You’re not in trouble, are you?” She nervously folded her long fingers into her lap. “If you were—I know I don’t have much money, or much else for that matter—I’d help you if I could.”
My high-necked indigo evening gown hung on a hook behind me.
I slipped it off the wooden hanger and stepped into the dress, tugging it up over the fresh scar on my breast before peeking my head back out from around the floral screen.
“It’s nothing like that. It’s a legal matter, that’s all.
I don’t want to deal with it before Christmas. ”
“So that’s why you came to the Ashmolean today.”
“Partly…,” I admitted, struggling with the tiny pearl-studded buttons up the back.
“My housekeeper, Mrs. Penrose, told me that Hari intended to call upon me this afternoon—I needed some air … I needed…” My pulse thundered in my ears as I debated whether to speak aloud the true ghost that had been haunting my days.
The reason I’d lost sleep, the reason for my increasing nightmares and for dodging poor Hari like a bridegroom at the altar. “You see, there’s another imposter.”
Leona sucked in a sharp breath, the words hanging between us for several seconds.
An imposter. A fraud. Yet another charlatan pretending to be my dead mother. I swallowed hard as the awkward silence stretched on.
“Oh, Ruby, that’s terrible. Another? I thought they’d finally stopped coming after the war.”
As had I. It had been years since another crept from the shadows to plague me.
“It’s fine. Truly. I’d hoped to put off the conversation until January.
I’m not overly sentimental about Christmas, but there’s something about this time of year that makes me rather melancholy.
Perhaps it’s the greenery. The fig pudding. Who even likes fig pudding?”
“Or the fact that everyone is with their families and yours is dead?”
“There is that…” I wrinkled my nose. “But I have a cat, as well as a meddling octogenarian who has taken up the mantle of paternal duties with aplomb.”
She reached out, taking me by the arms, lips pressed into a firm line.
“Darling, of course you’re bound to be sad.
Anyone with a heart would be sad. I miss my family terribly in winter and they’re simply in Egypt.
The nights are dreadfully long. It’s dark.
Cold. It isn’t the holidays that are causing it, it’s the weather that makes a body lonely!
” Leona enveloped me in a warm hug, the scent of her jasmine perfume filling my nose.
Loneliness? I chewed on the word for several seconds. Perhaps that was all it was. A logical, reasonable little thing. She stepped back, holding me at arm’s length, appraising me from head to toe. “Enough of that, you have a horde of antiquarians to entertain.”
I let out a wet laugh, wiping at the moisture that had strangely gathered beneath my eyes. Perhaps I did have a functioning heart after all.
“That color suits you. One might even confuse you for a lady.”
I laughed, grateful for her change in subject, as she stepped back.
I flopped onto an absurdly puffed-up rose-colored ottoman and began rolling my stockings up my leg, affixing them with an old velvet garter.
“One might be mistaken on that score.” I glanced to the closed door.
“Do you think you could occupy Hari until I can make my escape?”
Leona raised a brow, looking from me to the ground-floor window behind me. “You do realize that’s a five-foot drop to the street.”
I wet my lips and nodded. “Perhaps I’d better wait to put my shoes on once I land then, hmm?”
Leona laughed. “Very well, I can buy you a few moments, I suppose. For old times’ sake. But first…” She stood and came closer, tucking an errant curl behind my ear. “There. You look beautiful. Even if you are still rather damp from fencing.”
I grinned, pressing a gentle kiss to her cheek. “You are a darling. Same time tomorrow morning as usual?”
Again, a strange expression crossed her face. Precisely as it had when I last mentioned the museum. She gave her head a slight shake. “I don’t think tomorrow would be a good idea.”
I gathered up my beaded handbag, fastening it. “Whyever not? We meet here every morning. I know they’ve been keeping you busy, but surely you don’t have to be at the museum at dawn.”
She stared at the snowflakes falling outside the large leaded glass window, her fingers running absently on the wooden sash. “It’s nothing. It’s only Reaver has this project that’s consuming him, and he insisted I be at his side all day tomorrow.”
I stared at her unblinking. “Frederick Reaver.… You work for the Frederick Reaver?” The words came out as a squeak.
How on earth had she omitted that tiny fact?
The man was a legend among Mr. Owen’s set.
Universally adored by the papers as one of the great minds of our age.
“Why didn’t you mention that before? Leona, that’s a boon! No wonder you’re happy at the museum.”
“I’m s-sorry. It must have slipped my mind,” she murmured, picking at the cuticle of her left thumb.
This sudden reticence worried me. I took a step closer, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Is everything all right?”
She rubbed her left eye and shook her head.
“I’m fine, Ruby. Truly. It’s only a headache.
It’s come on all of a sudden.” Her voice cracked and she flashed me a small smile.
“Off with you. I’ll keep Hari occupied. Maybe even have him buy me supper somewhere expensive.
He can certainly afford it if he’s having to keep you out of trouble. ”
Leona was behaving strangely, but I hadn’t time to parse out what it meant.
Perhaps it was only a headache as she said, or perhaps she simply wasn’t as happy at the museum as she’d implied.
After all, I knew how hard she’d fought to be taken seriously by the academy.
And for her to have a permanent position at the Ashmolean—one of the most respected, if not the preeminent museum in Britain—and under Frederick Reaver?
It was everything she’d ever dreamed of.
The heavy wooden sash groaned as I lifted it.
A gust of wind sent a maelstrom of wet snow inside, striking the side of my face.
My fancy shoes in my left hand, I threw my legs over the side, balancing there—half in, half out.
“With your headache, shouldn’t you fix yourself some tea and go to bed?
I’m sure Hari won’t mind.” I’d meant the words kindly, and yet Leona stiffened as if struck.
But whatever it was would have to wait until the morning, I was already late for supper with the antiquarians, and that would never do.