Nick rubbed at his face again. “I can’t tell if you’re trying to be funny, or you’re furious, or…”
“All of the above,” I said. “It’s almost poetic. Same reporter and all.”
“Damn it to hell.” He scowled. “What do we do now?”
“I think we have to do what we didn’t do last time.”
“Murder him?” Nick offered, and I laughed in spite of myself.
“Tempting,” I said. “But what I meant was, I think we need to call in the authorities instead of trying to fix this ourselves.”
“The police?” he asked, confused.
“In a manner of speaking.”
He blanched. “Last time it would’ve been Marj,” he said. “So this time you must mean…”
But the esteemed Lady Bollocks had already gone home for the evening, which is why Nick and I ended up briefing her on this latest disaster in the Mayfair apartment she shared with Gemma, and which I had somehow never been inside.
“I prefer to keep my professional life and my personal life separate,” Bea said, when I pointed this out.
“But we were friends before you started working with us,” I pointed out. “And I’d never been here then, either.”
“I didn’t like you then,” she said, leading us from the marble-floored entryway into their drawing room, where Gemma was sprawled on a sofa covered in zebra-print silk, and fuchsia and emerald throw pillows. The drapes were in a fabric that evoked lush plant life; the whole room felt like a mini-jungle right there in the middle of London, expensively styled and as bold as Bea’s own taste always seemed conservative.
“This place is gorgeous,” I said, in spite of myself.
“It was in Architectural Digest last month,” Gemma said. “Bea designed it herself.”
“When did you have time to do that?” Nick asked.
Bea pushed up the sleeves on her black cashmere sweater. “I am a monument to efficiency,” she said. “Stop blathering and get to the issue at hand. Gemma and I have dinner reservations at nine.”
At this, Gemma sat up and set her book on a brass occasional table shaped like a woman’s face and sat forward, her chin in her hands. “The Laird of Trembleton’s brawny loins can wait,” she said.
Bea listened patiently at first, but when we got to the more sordid details, she snapped a pencil she’d been holding and gripped the pieces like shivs until we finished.
“Is it written on a stone tablet somewhere that whosoever accepts this job has to deal with Clive Fitzwilliam unearthing a sex scandal?” she snapped. “Apparently this and blackmail are Clive’s only skills. I could kill him. I’m not best pleased with Annabelle, either, for that matter,” she added. “Nor, frankly, with you, Nick.”
He looked chastened.
“I need you to be scrupulously honest right now,” she added. “No sparing anyone’s feelings. I will not ask again, and I do not want to look foolish. Is this true? Were you unfaithful?”
“No,” Nick averred. “I was not.”
Then she turned on me.
“I asked you,” she said, “whether everything was all right on the marital front.”
“And I told you the truth,” I said.
“You didn’t answer at all, come to think of it,” Bea mused.
“This stupidity of mine was ages ago. It’s lunacy that he’s bringing it up now,” Nick said.
“Lunacy is you thinking people weren’t watching your every move the second you showed up alone,” Bea said.
“There, we are in agreement,” I said.
“But everyone at that party knows better than this,” Gemma mused, more to herself than to us. “At least two-thirds of them are sleeping with someone other than their spouse. They know the rules. Gossip if you must, but you don’t talk to the papers, especially Clive, even if you were shagging Annabelle.”
“Which I was not,” Nick interjected. Bea waved her hand as if this were immaterial.
“She’s right. Even if you were, someone violated the code,” Bea agreed. “Appalling. What is Great Britain coming to?”
“Right,” Nick said, rolling his eyes at me. “But, like it or not, we’re here now. You helped us through the last one, as our friend, but this time we’re coming to you as our, er, boss.”
Bea seemed mollified by this statement of her authority. She paced around the drawing room for a moment, stopping in front of the tiled fireplace to reposition a frame of her and Gemma on what appeared to be a catamaran.
“Leave it to me,” she said.
“What?” I asked. Nick and I exchanged glances.
“Leave it. To me,” Bea responded.
“Shouldn’t you…tell us what you’re going to do?” Nick asked.
“Do you trust me?” Bea asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Yes,” Nick said, looking over at me.
“I guess so,” I said. She turned to glare at me. “I mean, yes,” I hastily corrected myself.
“Then there is no need for you to know anything else.” She clapped her hands together. “I hate to be rude, but we’ve those dinner reservations, and as you can tell, I need to sort my hair before I’m seen in public.”
Bea’s crisp dark bob looked exactly the way it always looked: perfect.
“Bea,” I said as she escorted us to her black-painted front door. “I know we say it a lot, but you’re not actually going to kill Clive, are you?”
“Not personally,” Bea said, and closed the door in our faces.
* * *
“Nick!” I said, climbing onto the bed and shoving him. Nothing. I rolled him harder. “Nick. Nicholas. Wake up.”
Nick stirred. “Pistachio housecakes,” he mumbled.
“You choose now to be a sound sleeper?” I said, aggravated. I eased myself up so I was full on sitting atop him. Nada. I resorted to tickling him anywhere I thought would work. His lumbar region did the trick. He shot up like a cannon, sending me tumbling to the side.
“What is it?” he asked.
I slid off him and tossed The Sun onto the bed.
“Bea,” I said. “She gave him exactly what he wanted. That’s how she took care of it. No wonder she didn’t want us to know what she was going to do.”
“Clive?” Nick asked. His hair was
