day with inconsequential chatter. She was still complaining about the condition of the road to London when Sir Julius entered.
'Father!' she trilled, going to him.
'Good evening, Sir Julius,' said Serle.
'What the devil are you two doing here?' demanded Sir Julius.
'That's a poor welcome, to be sure!' protested Brilliana. 'Can you not even rise to a kiss for your daughter?' Her father reluctantly planted his lips on her cheek. 'That's better,' she said, standing back. 'Now, let me look at you properly. Has Susan been taking care of you?'
'I can take care of myself, Brilliana.'
'And you do it tolerably well, Sir Julius,' said Serle, hoping that a compliment might endear his father-in- law to him. 'I've never seen you in such fine feather.'
'Then you need spectacles,' chided his wife. 'Father is not well.'
'I was perfectly well until
Brilliana gave a brittle laugh. 'You always did have a weakness for a jest, Father,' she said. 'But the fact is that you look pale and drawn
to me. Your diet is patently at fault. I need to take it in hand.'
'You'll do nothing of the kind.'
'No,' agreed Susan, smarting at the implied criticism of her. 'Now, why don't we all make ourselves comfortable?'
Brilliana chose the sofa and patted it to indicate that her husband should sit beside her. Sir Julius sat on the other side of the room. Susan occupied a chair that was midway between her father and her sister. An unlikely silence descended. It was broken, improbably, by Lancelot Serle.
'We are waiting to hear what happened yesterday, Sir Julius.'
'Are you?' grunted his father-in-law.
All that we know is that a friend of yours was murdered,' said Serle. 'May one ask where you were at the time?'
'Not a foot from where Bernard was standing.'
'Heavens! Then you could so easily have been killed yourself.'
'I don't need you to remind me of that, Lancelot,' said Sir Julius with asperity. 'He was not the first man to perish beside me. Those of us who have fought many times in battle know the anguish of losing dear comrades - and that's what Bernard Everett was.'
'Yet he did not die in battle,' noted Serle.
'You're being pedantic.'
'Let father tell the story, Lancelot,' ordered Brilliana. 'He'll be able to be more explicit than Susan's letter.'
'How explicit do you wish me to be?' asked Sir Julius, sourly. 'One second, he was alive; the next, he was dead. Do you want to know how much blood was shed, Brilliana, or what a man's skull looks like when it's been split open by a musket bullet?'
'Father!' she protested.
'I thought not. I'll stick to the bare facts.'
He gave them a terse account of what had happened and told them what steps had been taken to catch the malefactor. Serle picked up on one of the names that was mentioned.
'Christopher Redmayne, did you say?'
'He was a witness to the crime.'
'Then you have fortune on your side, Sir Julius.'
'Do I?' 'Yes,' Serle went on. 'Mr Redmayne is a most resourceful young fellow. If he is involved, then it is only a matter of time before the villain is brought to justice.'
'I beg leave to doubt that,' said Sir Julius.
'Why?'
'He and I have contrary opinions as to what exactly happened in Knightrider Street yesterday. I fear that he will be misled into looking in all the wrong directions.'
'You're being very unkind to Christopher,' said Susan, hotly. 'I have more faith in his abilities. He has never failed before.'
'I endorse that,' said Serle. 'Have you so soon forgotten that it was Mr Redmayne - with the help of that constable, of course - who solved the murder of your own son, Gabriel?'
'Lancelot!' snapped his wife.
'It's true, isn't it?'
'There's such a thing as tact.'
Sir Julius blenched. He needed time to compose himself before speaking. A wound had just been reopened and the pain made him gasp. He had suffered so much remorse over the untimely death of his son that he tried to put it out of his mind. He glowered at Serle.
'Some things are best left in the past,' he said, pointedly, 'but I am saddled with a son-in-law who has a compulsion to haul them into the light of day. Please, Lancelot - spare me any further reminders.'
'He will,' promised Brilliana, calling her husband to heel with a malevolent glance. She conjured up a bright smile and distributed it among the others. 'Let's talk about something else, shall we?'
'What did you have in mind?' said Susan.
'What else but this attachment that Father has made?'
'This is not the time to bring that up, Brilliana.'
'I think that it is. Your letters have whetted my appetite.'
'Letters?' echoed Sir Julius, eyebrows bristling. 'Have you been spreading tittle-tattle about me, Susan?'
'No,' she replied, quickly. 'I simply mentioned that…' She paused to choose her words with care. 'Well, that someone has come into your life, and that you seem to spend a lot of time with your new friend.'
'Do you have any objection to that?'
'None at all, Father.'
'What Susan objects to,' said Brilliana with the boldness of an older sister, 'is that you pretend to be visiting your parliamentary friends when, in fact, you are sneaking off to be with Mrs Kitson. I don't think it's unreasonable of her, Father. Do you?'
Sir Julius scowled. The tension in the room was almost tangible. Susan braced herself for an explosion that would be largely aimed at her, and she wished that she had never even told Brilliana about their father's growing interest in a certain lady. It had been a serious mistake on her part. When she was kept safely down in Richmond, her sister was comparatively unthreatening. Brought to London, however, Brilliana Serle had an uncanny knack of introducing maximum embarrassment into any family discussion.
Susan closed her eyes in readiness but the expected onslaught did not come. Instead, repenting of his evasive behaviour, Sir Julius chose to be more honest with his daughters. He cleared his throat.
'You were right to upbraid me, Susan,' he confessed with a forgiving smile. 'My friendship with Dorothy - with Mrs Kitson - has been cloaked in too much secrecy. My only defence is that I feared our acquaintance would only be a short one, and that I would be left looking foolish if I had set too much store by it.'
'Tell us about her,' coaxed Brilliana.
'It's difficult to know where to start. Suffice it to say that she's one of the most remarkable women I've ever met. Mrs Kitson has so many accomplishments that she takes my breath away.'
'How old is she, Father?'
'Brilliana!' reproached Susan.
'It's a fair question,' said her sister. 'It would be insupportable if he were infatuated with someone who is younger than we ourselves.'
'Mrs Kitson does not fit into that category,' Sir Julius assured her, yet neither is she declined in years. I would describe her as being in the very prime of life.'
'Widowed, I presume?'
'Yes, Brilliana. Twice.'
