"How can any landscape be blighted that contains you, Lady Anthea?"
"How charmingly mendacious. Seriously, I should have thought you'd be off to the grouse moors."
"I shall be, in a few days. How do you come to be still in London?"
"I have invitations from both my nephews, and I'm keeping them on tenterhooks about which I shall accept. A wealthy maiden aunt must have her little amusements—Oh!" she hissed. "Look! Or, rather, don't seem to look, but look all the same. Sir Malcolm Falkland and
that girl!"
Julian glanced around discreetly. Sir Malcolm was coming out of Hookhams Library, accompanied by a pink-faced young man with a high collar, a mousy middle-aged woman, and a tall, slender girl dressed all in black.
"So that's Miss Clare," said Julian softly.
Lady Anthea nodded, her false black side-curls fluttering. "You know, the sister of that strange young man—no, one mustn't speak ill of the dead—that
unfortunate
young man who was so friendly with Alexander Falkland."
"I gather he died abroad some weeks ago?"
"Yes. I wasn't much surprised. He always looked rather frail. And I believe he was terribly attached to Alexander. The news of his being a positive
criminal
must have broken his heart. Then along comes this girl, his sister, and Sir Malcolm takes her under his wing, and the next thing anyone knows, they're inseparable! Everyone says he'll marry her as soon as she's out of mourning. Fancy such a sensible man turning spoony at his age! She could be his daughter!"
"I hope you're mistaken, Lady Anthea. I'm sure there would be legal complications."
"I didn't mean that, you wicked man. I meant she's young enough to be his daughter. Of course, I'm sure she's perfectly respectable. I was never one to believe that an eccentric upbringing
necessarily
gives a girl unsound morals. And she's not so
very
plain. A good modiste might do something with her—"
"I believe I'll take advantage of this opportunity to meet her."
"Do, by all means, then come and call on me and tell me all about her."
Julian inwardly resolved to be in Jericho first. "With the greatest pleasure, if I can possibly find the time before I leave town."
He stepped back to let her carriage drive off, then approached the group outside Hookhams. Sir Malcolm greeted him cordially and presented him to Miss Clare.
He bowed over her hand. "I've looked forward to this meeting."
"So have I. My brother told me how astutely you conducted the murder investigation."
"That was kind of him. I thought highly of him as well. I was sorry to hear of his death." He could not resist adding, "You look remarkably like him."
She did not even blink. "Yes, people always said we were very alike."
The resemblance was not as strong as Julian would have expected. Her face was framed so differently now: the starched white neckcloth replaced by a lace collar, the head encircled by a bonnet and a softening fall of curls. Not her own hair, surely—it could not have grown so fast—but far more convincing than Lady Anthea's sham ringlets. Julian detected the handiwork of George Tibbs, who, after all, had begun his career in the theatre making costumes. He had abetted his niece's masquerade as a man—now he was no doubt helping to ease her back into her life as a woman.
Sir Malcolm introduced Julian to the middle-aged woman, who was Miss Clare's hired companion, Miss Meeks. The idea of Verity Clare needing a duenna amused Julian mightily, but of course Sir Malcolm's future wife could not live in London unchaperoned.
The young man with the fearsome collar was a barrister named Pruitt, who had been having a legal colloquy with Sir Malcolm and was eager to resume it. "Of course, the essential difference between trespass
vi et armis
and trespass on the case lies in the immediacy of the injury."
"To be sure, Mr. Pruitt," said Sir Malcolm. "But do you really think this is the time and place—"
"But the principle is so difficult to apply in vehicular accidents. Logically, it oughtn't to matter whether a carriage that runs someone down was driven by the owner or his servant, and yet the court made precisely that distinction in—in—I can't think of the case—"
"Reynolds versus Clarke,
" murmured Miss Clare.
Sir Malcolm's jaw dropped. He gazed at her with a mixture of pride and alarm.
"Why, I believe you're right, Miss Clare!" Pruitt exclaimed. "But how did you know?"
"Oh, my brother was forever talking to me about his studies. I couldn't help but pick things up."
"We're just walking over to Gunter's for ices, Mr. Kestrel,"
Sir Malcolm interposed hastily. "Would you care to come?"
"I should be delighted."
Miss Meeks peered anxiously at the sky. "I do hope it isn't going to rain."
"We may be tempting the gods," owned Sir Malcolm. "But I'm willing to risk it, if the rest of you are."
They set off, Sir Malcolm giving his arm to Miss Clare, Julian escorting a flustered Miss Meeks. "I never quite like to hear people speak of ‘the gods' as if there were more than one," she confided. "It sounds so unchristian."
Sir Malcolm overheard and looked around at her. "I didn't mean to offend you. I'm afraid a lifelong study of the classics does give one a sense of capricious deities looking over one's shoulder, waiting for a chance to wreak havoc."
"Dreadful!" She shuddered. "How could anyone have conceived of that as religion?"
"Euripides might have agreed with you. He wrote, ‘
If the gods do evil, they are not gods.'
But he also portrayed them in a better light." He quoted some lines in Greek.
"That's very apt," said Miss Clare, smiling. "But Miss Meeks doesn't understand you."
Pruitt goggled at her. "You don't mean to say you read
Greek,
Miss Clare?"
"My brother taught me a little," she admitted.
Julian wondered how long she would go on using Quentin as a blind for her own achievements. Long enough, he supposed, for people to become accustomed to the notion of a baronet's wife who read dead languages and studied law. She was learning to compromise. But Julian felt sure she would always be tempted to leap boundaries and confound expectations. He remembered the inscription on the casket that contained Portia's picture in
The Merchant of Venice: "Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath. "
Sir Malcolm seemed happy to take his chances. Eyes alight with love and admiration, he said, "Why don't you translate for me?"
He repeated the Greek lines. She thought a moment, then smiled and turned to Julian, inviting him to share a joke that only the three of them could fully understand:
"Zeus on Olympus dispenses many fates;
The gods bring many things surprisingly to pass.
That which we expected does not happen;
A god finds means to bring about the unexpected.
And so it happened here."
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