Chapter Eleven #3
Truthfully, Vesper had never thought about it before.
She had what she considered to be very good relationships with the staff at Holloway’s; many of them had worked for the club since she was a girl.
She knew that they were paid a fair wage, and that the family did not enforce any unreasonable rules or expectations of their conduct.
However, it had never occurred to her to wonder if, despite all that, some of them might wish to seek a job elsewhere—or whether they even felt they could.
She glanced up at Ashbridge and some of her consternation must have shown on her face, because his mouth twitched.
“Don’t look smug,” she grumbled, draining her glass of champagne. “Smug men are unattractive.”
“And I’m meant to be fretting about what Vesper Holloway finds attractive, am I?” he asked; rather than landing harshly, the words felt almost teasing. Vesper wouldn’t have thought Ashbridge had it in him to tease anyone.
She met his eyes and held them.
He opened his mouth—
And then Maggie was back, whisking away Vesper’s empty glass, looking starry-eyed once more beneath the brightness of the smile Ashbridge leveled at her.
A thought occurred to Vesper, and she leaned forward. “Maggie—you didn’t happen to get a look at the man who distracted Gus that night, did you?”
Maggie nodded. “He had dark hair, dark eyes. Maybe about your age.” She nodded at Ashbridge. “He was handsome, I suppose, but not in a very memorable way, d’you know what I mean? He looked like a lot of other handsome men.”
“Did you speak to him? Hear his accent, anything?” Vesper pressed.
Maggie shook her head. “It was noisy, and Gus was serving him, so I barely paid him any notice. Only caught a glimpse of him as he walked away—I saw him hand the drink to the fellow that ended up being sick, but I only saw his face in profile. I teased Gus about him a bit, told him I thought he preferred blonds. He told me the next time he saw a blond with eyelashes that long, he’d return to his usual preferences. ”
Maggie was gone again, hailed by a man several stools down, and Vesper sighed. “This hasn’t been very helpful.”
“I don’t know,” Ashbridge said thoughtfully. “We now know that in both instances, someone was handed a drink by someone else. That provides a person with a perfect opportunity to do something with the potion, after it’s left the bartender’s hands but before it’s consumed.”
“True,” Vesper acknowledged. “I was hoping I might recognize the man if she described him, but ‘handsome with dark hair’ is not exactly a limiting description. Look at you, after all.” She gestured at Ashbridge’s general person.
He gave her a strange look.
“What?”
“You just gave me a compliment,” he said, brow creasing. “Are you feeling well? Should I take you to the doctor?”
“I’m leaving,” Vesper said, reaching for the beaded clutch she’d brought with her and retrieving a few coins, which she tossed onto the bar—more than enough to cover both her drink and Ashbridge’s.
She slid off the stool, and glanced at him.
“What?” he asked, taking a last sip of his Bee’s Knees before rising to join her.
“I thought you’d be one of those men who take umbrage at the notion of a woman paying for his drink.”
“I’m on the clock, Holloway. Saves me the bother of submitting an expense claim at work to be reimbursed.” He flashed a smile at her—quick and devastating—and then took her arm and led her to the cloakroom.
It was only once they were on the street again, huddled in their coats against the increasing chill of the October night, that they resumed their conversation. “Well,” Ashbridge said, sticking his hands in his pockets, “I suppose this won’t make for a very interesting report for Raffles.”
“Are you reporting everything we do to her?” Vesper asked, feeling a bit uneasy.
She supposed this possibility should have occurred to her before now; for all that Ashbridge was proving more entertaining to spend evenings with than she’d anticipated, he was still a Flea, and it would be wise not to forget that fact.
He glanced down at her. “No.” He hesitated then, and Vesper let the silence stretch out between them, curious to see how he would fill it. “I don’t think she needs to know… every detail of our work.”
Vesper considered him for a long moment—the stern brow, the serious gray gaze.
Nothing about this man indicated that he would be willing to bend even the smallest of rules—and, somehow, she thought that visiting illicit clubs without the full knowledge or blessing of his employer counted as a moderately large rule, actually.
So why?
Why was he risking this? What was he about?
She realized, with a creeping sense of frustration, that she did not entirely understand Max Ashbridge. It had been quite a while since she’d met a man she didn’t consider to be the most easily solved puzzle.
“Well, I’m glad to hear it. Shall we go to Grenoble’s tomorrow, then? Perhaps find something for you to report back to this Raffles woman?”
She felt Ashbridge’s gaze on her face, and glanced sideways, their eyes meeting for a brief second before he looked away. “Until tomorrow, then.”
She told herself, as she walked home after watching Ashbridge hop onboard a northbound bus, that she wasn’t looking forward to it.
But that, too, would have been a lie.