Chapter Twenty-Two #4
Kellar beamed, his handsome face for once clear and honest with his happiness.
“Where is she?” Constance asked.
“In there, pretending not to care that you couldn’t come.”
Constance and Solomon walked in together.
The meal appeared to be over, for people were milling and chatting and laughing in groups.
Champagne appeared to be flowing. There was a dazzling array of rich and powerful here.
Some of them were clients of Constance’s establishment who would pretend not to know her.
She barely gave them a thought. She recognized the Duke and Duchess of Kelburn.
And then, with more genuine pleasure, she saw their daughter Lady Grizelda and her Hungarian husband, Dragan Tizsa, who had become good friends.
But she could not stop until she found Juliet and saw for herself that all was well.
And then she glimpsed her.
Juliet stood between a couple seated at a small table, one of her hands on the shoulder of each, as she entertained them with some amusing tale that may or not have been true. Then her restless gaze spotted Constance, and her smile froze.
She straightened, excused herself, and glided across the floor.
Somewhere in the last few months, the brassy vulgarity that had served her so well in the past had peeled away to leave a charmingly eccentric English lady.
She walked like one and talked like one, and it was more natural than Constance’s pretense had ever been.
Constance searched desperately for happiness in her mother’s face and was thwarted, even when Juliet smiled and hugged them both at once.
“Damn it, Ma, are you happy?” Constance said brokenly.
Juliet pulled back, blinking at her. “If you’re happy for me.”
Constance saw then what clouded her mother’s eyes. Anxiety. They had never needed each other’s approval, but Juliet had always known her daughter’s ambivalence toward Kellar.
Constance caught her breath. “I only wanted to be sure he was serious,” she blurted, and sounded so much like a parent that suddenly the tension broke, and they were both laughing.
Juliet clutched her arm and led her to a quiet corner near the musicians who were playing to a largely inattentive audience.
“So, who is Graham Silver of Thornleigh?” Constance demanded.
“Your grandfather,” Juliet said promptly. “A minor landowner in the southwest. Sebastian tried to invite them, but they still won’t speak to me.”
Constance, who had once longed for, even actively searched for, respectable family, said stoutly, “Then I shan’t speak to them. Who needs them?”
Juliet laughed, and seized two glasses of champagne from an attentive waiter. She presented one to her daughter. They clinked glasses and drank together in perfect accord.
*
It was some time later when Constance found Solomon seated beside Lady Griz and Dragan Tizsa.
“What a pleasant surprise to meet you both here,” she remarked, joining them.
“Oh, Dragan solved some puzzle for the Foreign Office,” Griz said casually, “and Mr. Kellar was impressed. Especially when we told him we were friends of yours.”
“It is fortuitous,” Solomon said, glancing at Constance for permission to address the matter now. They had discussed many things during the journey from Channing.
Constance nodded.
Solomon said, “We have been talking, Constance and I, because our circumstances are about to change.”
There seemed to be no need to elaborate. Grizelda’s eyes lit up in instant understanding, and Dragan smiled and raised his glass.
“It changes one’s perspective,” Constance said.
“And one’s life,” Griz said without regret. “Are you giving up Silver and Grey?”
That had been the most difficult discussion of all.
“Not if we can help it,” Solomon said, “but neither of us wish to go on as are, working nearly every day from dawn until dusk and often beyond. Not when we have a child who needs us. We need to enjoy these next years to the full. And yet what is life without mysteries to solve?”
“You have a solution,” Dragan guessed.
“We have a possibility—a proposal, if you like. We think the answer is to expand the firm, preferably in partnership with you two. We can take on new staff—former policemen might make good recruits—and temporary experts for particular cases if we need to. That way, we ourselves can take on as much or as little as we like. So could you. We could have some kind of flexible rota, so that one of us is always in overall charge, but the cases, big and small, tick over all the time. We already have two increasingly good assistants, and a receptionist.”
Griz and Dragan exchanged startled glances.
“Don’t answer now,” Solomon said quickly. “Think about it. We can always find other solutions.”
“We like it in theory,” Griz said cautiously. She smiled. “Grey and Tizsa? Tizsa and Grey?”
“I still think Silver and Grey has a better ring to it,” Dragan said.
Constance smiled, leaning against Solomon’s shoulder. The future had never seemed so right or so bright. And whatever it brought, she and Solomon would embrace it together.