CHAPTER FORTY-TWO #2
Archie’s hand came up again, not to Duncan, but to the back of Ceci’s neck, his fingers sliding into her hair with the same focused tenderness as before.
His touch was an anchor. He leaned in, but he didn’t kiss her.
He pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth, a soft, deliberate touch.
Then he shifted, his mouth finding the line of Duncan’s jaw. The contact changed Duncan’s breathing.
He went utterly still, his eyes closing, and Ceci felt the tremor pass through him where his hand rested at her waist. Archie drew back just enough to speak, his voice rough against Duncan’s skin. “Tell me you mind this, too.”
Duncan’s eyes opened. They were dark, nearly black. He looked at Ceci, then back at Archie.
“No,” he said. “I don’t mind.”
It was permission. It was invitation.
Archie kissed him again.
This time, the kiss held. It carried the stable yard, the years after, all the restraint made useless by the shape the three of them had finally dared to stand inside.
Duncan answered him with one arm coming around Archie’s shoulders and the other staying steady at Ceci’s waist, as if even desire in him had to make room for everyone it had claimed.
Ceci watched the old current sharpen into something present.
Duncan made a small, wrecked sound. Archie stayed close, breath uneven, forehead nearly touching his.
Ceci’s hand tightened in Archie’s shirt, holding them both there, and for one suspended moment, the three of them were one continuous line of heat and choice.
Archie drew back first, forehead resting against Duncan’s.
His hand remained in Ceci’s hair. For a moment, none of them spoke or moved. Then the clock in the hall struck once.
Only once.
Then again, too soon.
Duncan lifted his head.
Archie’s hand stilled against Ceci’s back. The clock struck a third time, though the hour had not changed.
Ceci closed her eyes.
“Tell me that is a normal house thing.”
“No,” Duncan said.
Archie’s mouth brushed her shoulder, his voice gone dry and low. “I was about to become sentimental. This is very rude timing.”
The clock stopped.
For a moment, none of them moved. Then Duncan said, “He has seen enough to know where to press.”
Ceci opened her eyes.
“Then we make sure pressing there costs him.”
The shift back to business came more easily than it would have hours earlier. The honesty had done its work. They returned to the table with the odd, sharpened calm of people who had stopped pretending the room contained only one danger.
Archie poured more whisky. Ceci sat in Duncan’s chair because it happened to be nearest. Duncan remained standing behind her, one hand resting for a second on the back of her neck. The touch was slight. Archie noticed it and smiled into his glass.
“Now,” Duncan said, “what did we learn tonight besides the fact that Hart ought never to be allowed near a political supper?”
Archie counted off on his fingers.
“Hargreaves is weak enough to admire firmness, Maddox is already halfway purchased by the idea of order, Ives wants a line he can print that will sound intelligent to frightened men, and Greene is Mosley’s courier in decent shoes.”
Ceci added, “And Voss is framing BUF participation as a patriotic emergency measure if war comes. Not a fringe movement. A necessary corrective.”
Duncan nodded.
“Yes. Which means he is not trying to stage a vulgar coup. He is trying to insinuate fascism into legitimacy before the crisis arrives.”
“Or with it,” Archie said. “If Britain panics badly enough.”
Ceci looked down at the Hart note still lying on the table.
“If enough men like Hart let him shape the language, the rest follows. First, the argument that Parliament is weak. Then the argument that emergency requires stronger hands. Then the argument that ordinary politics is an indulgence the nation can no longer afford.”
“And by then,” Duncan said, “democracy is already being asked to apologize for itself.”
The fire settled softly.
For one second, the library held only thought and lamp glow and the peculiar, dangerous intimacy of people planning to oppose something much larger than themselves. Ceci reached for Archie’s abandoned pencil and turned it between her fingers.
“What do we do first?”
Duncan answered at once.
“We find what ties Voss to Greene and Hart beyond social acquaintance.”
“And if Hart won’t admit it?”
Archie smiled without warmth.
“Hart will admit anything if one asks the right person instead.”
Ceci looked at him. “Meaning?”
“Meaning,” Archie said, “that Hart tells women what he would never tell men because he still believes gossip lives only in drawing rooms and not in the world afterward.”
“You have someone in mind?”
“Oh yes.”
The look Archie gave them then was bright, wicked, and entirely operational.
“Lady Judith Rowe dislikes politics, admires charm, and cannot resist the pleasure of being treated as indispensable. If Sabrina gets hold of her tomorrow, Hart’s whole little evening may pour out over tea.”
Ceci grinned despite everything. “That is evil.”
“It is efficient.”
Duncan looked from one to the other.
“Sabrina will do it.”
“Gladly,” Archie said.
The plan settled after that. Sabrina would work Judith.
Archie would draw Ives into talking about Tuesday’s “informal continuation.” Duncan would see whether Greene had left any trace in Liverpool circles beyond Hart.
Ceci would stay in the library with Leopold’s papers and search Vale’s correspondence for any other references to the 1894 man, the 1907 woman, or the keeper.
At last, when the clock struck one, Margaret herself appeared in the doorway in a wrapper and expression severe enough to halt a cavalry charge.
“All three of you,” she said, “to bed.”
Nobody argued.
The moment the door shut behind her, Archie began laughing first, then Ceci, then even Duncan, who bent his head as though laughter were a thing best kept from the walls.
They rose.
Archie came around the table and kissed Ceci once, quick, and warm and impossible to misread now. Then he clasped Duncan’s shoulder in passing, fingers lingering at the nape for the briefest second.
“Good night, my various difficulties,” he said. Ceci smiled. Duncan told him to go to hell. Archie left looking pleased with himself. When the library door closed, Duncan and Ceci were alone again. The room altered at once.
She looked up at him from beneath the lamplight, still flushed from brandy, revelation, and the lingering warmth of Archie’s mouth. Duncan touched her face very gently.
“We move carefully,” he said.
Ceci’s mouth curved.
“Yes,” she murmured. “But we are moving.”