A palm thumped against the door. “Gwyneth! Come down. You have the most extraordinary visitors.”
She must, indeed, if Crispin had bothered to come to tea; the twins usually hid at the sight of Raven and Daria. She called back in answer; the footsteps receded. She put her writing away and hurried after them.
Ridley Dow, in a dove gray vest and a plain black coat whose exquisite cut needed no other adornment, had completely captivated Aunt Phoebe and the twins. Gwyneth, watching him chat eagerly and articulately about nothing—the weather, his dogs in Landringham—blinked suddenly at the gleaming black hair and dark, dark eyes, the warm, vivid smile. She touched her own hair vaguely, wondered if she had ink on her face. Then she caught sight of Judd in the shadows, with a cup and a saucer in one hand and a cake in the other, and not sure what to do with either.
She went to him, smiling. The little, wistful look on his face vanished when he saw her.
“Has Mr. Dow solved the mystery of the bell, yet?” she asked.
“Not even close,” Judd answered, glancing around for someplace to put his cup. “He keeps talking about magic.”
“Magic,” she repeated, astonished. She slid a lantern made of the jaws of some toothy fish to one side on a shelf otherwise cluttered with bone bracelets and strands of tiny colored shells. He looked at the raw mahogany doubtfully; she took his saucer, set it down for him. “What does he mean by magic?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out yet.”
“Tell me when you do.”
He smiled finally, bit into his tea cake. He looked slightly less careworn than he had in the stationer’s shop, but not much. His coat was neatly patched at one elbow; the glossy polish on his boots didn’t hide the cracks and scars. An image of a roof beam thudding into the guest rooms of her story glanced through her head; she wondered suddenly how close it hit to truth.
“How is your father?” she asked. Never, Aunt Phoebe had told her more than once, ask a personal question at tea for which you are ill prepared to hear the answer. Embarrassment is a distressing sight to others trying to enjoy themselves with cakes and commonplaces. But she and Judd were old friends, and she truly wanted to know which might weigh more heavily on him: his father or his roof.
Not his father, evidently. “He’s very cheerful,” Judd answered composedly. “Very patient, on the whole, except with our dreadful cook, who stays with us out of the goodness of her heart, though I do fervently wish that she would abandon us and flee.”
Gwyneth swallowed tea too quickly, stifled a cough.
“Really? Is she that bad? No wonder she stays: Who else would have her?”
“Exactly.”
“Your poor father.”
“Yes. Her boiled beef makes him miss my mother sorely.” He raised his cup again, still smiling. But the crook of his pale brows, the line above the light, summery blue of his eyes, made her own gaze focus clearly behind her lenses.
She said softly after a moment, “Yes. So do I. Miss my own mother, I mean.” He nodded, vanished behind his cup. “We must have lost them both at the same time. How strange.”
“You were away at school.”
“I was. And missing Sealey Head abominably.”
His eyes appeared again, wide with surprise. “You were among all the delights of the great city. How could you spare us a thought?”
“You’d be amazed what sentiments the smell of the Landringham fish market could summon in me.”
“Really?” He put his cup down abruptly, ignoring the tremulous rattling as he gazed at her. “Does that mean you’ll stay here? But what if your writing makes you famous?”
She opened her mouth, found herself wordless. She could only laugh with delight and longing at the preposterous idea, a sudden, merry peal that brought Dulcie scampering toward her, and, following, Aunt Phoebe.
“My dear,” Phoebe said, amazed, “what can Mr. Cauley have been saying to you?”
“He worried that my literary efforts will make me so famous I might leave Sealey Head and wander about the world like my father.”
“Litterforts!” Dulcie cried, pushing her face gleefully into Gwyneth’s skirt.
“Indeed,” Gwyneth said, swooping the child up into her arms. “Say good day to Mr. Judd Cauley, whom you last met, I believe, when you were a bubbling infant. Most days, I do not believe, Mr. Cauley, that my litterforts will find their ways out from under my bed.”
“Fortunately,” Aunt Phoebe said, her voice abruptly booming like one of the conch shells, “your father will be able to provide for you, in any event, so you needn’t—Ah.” The door opened behind Gwyneth. She watched, amused, as Phoebe’s face rearranged itself into a familiar pleased expression before she remembered the amiable and wealthy Mr. Dow, and her pleasure wavered into sudden confusion.
“The bird,” Dulcie announced briefly, chewing a finger thoughtfully over Gwyneth’s shoulder. Daria’s sprightly laugh preceded them into the company.
Dr. Grantham joined them a little later, on his way back from Aislinn House. Aunt Phoebe summoned her brother and a bottle of sherry, for which the doctor seemed most grateful.
Toland, bypassing commonplaces, asked the question on everyone’s mind: “How is Lady Eglantyne?”
Even Daria was silent, blinking moistly at the doctor. He sipped sherry and sighed.
“This is wonderful. It brings out the sun in your veins, even in a windowless room.”
“The grapes on the tiny island where it is made have nothing to do all day but grow fat with light.”
“Perhaps it might benefit Lady Eglantyne,” Daria suggested, herding them back to the topic.
Dr. Grantham sighed again, put down his glass. “Very little change,” he said bluntly, “and none for the better. She seems content to dream her life away. I have warned the family solicitors that if they don’t send for her heir immediately, I will. An idle threat, since I have no idea where to write. I thought you might know someone, Toland, who knows someone?”
“Indeed I do,” Toland said quickly. He plucked the bottle off the tea tray. “Come with me to the library; I have an address there for someone closely acquainted with the young lady. Quite a glitter she sheds in Landringham society, I’m told. I suspect Sealey Head will be a shock to her.”
The silence he left behind was broken by Daria’s slow, tidal flow of indrawn breath. “Oh,” she cried, trembling with the idea, “we must give a party for her!”
“Surely not on such a sad occasion,” Aunt Phoebe said doubtfully, and Raven nodded shortly.
“Great-aunt dying in her bed and all that,” he murmured.
But their expressions disagreed with them; they were silent again, seeking ways around the unfortunate event.
“A quiet party,” Daria said. “To welcome the newcomer to Sealey Head, acquaint her with her neighbors. You shall all be invited, of course. And Mr. Trent, and all the Trevor boys and everyone else who is agreeable, or with whom she might do business. And you must come, Mr. Dow! Being from Landringham yourself, you must know her.”
“I know of her,” Ridley Dow said, after a tiny, surprising hesitation. He seemed oddly wary, Gwyneth realized, still affable, but choosing his words with care. “As Mr. Blair intimated, she travels in exalted circles, generally unfrequented by dull scholars. Anyway, I am away from the city much of the time.”
“Surely not,” Daria murmured, smiling and surveying him under her eloquent lashes. “Surely never dull.”
“Can you at least tell us her name?” Gwyneth asked. He seemed reluctant to do even that, she saw with sudden, avid interest.
“Miss Beryl,” he answered briefly. “Miranda Beryl.”
“Soon to be Lady Beryl,” Daria breathed, “of Aislinn House. Please tell us you’ve met her!”
“I believe we have met,” Ridley conceded, after a swift, wordless appeal across the room to Judd. “Once. At least once. Very briefly. I doubt she would remember.”
“But you do? Tell us, Mr. Dow, is she very beautiful?”
Something hit the floorboards near the mahogany shelves. Glass splintered. A smell of fish oil pervaded the room. Judd, his face scarlet, bent to rescue the fish jaws, and sent strands of seashells clattering off the shelf with his elbow, then bumped a tall wooden shield balanced against the wall. It rapped him back and landed with a bang
