From almost the moment he completed his studies at Cambridge—Trinity College—Colin had served as one of Queen Victoria’s most trusted agents, charged with assisting the Crown in matters requiring a modicum of discretion. Or so I had understood early in our relationship. As the years passed, it became clear his work entailed more than helping aristocrats out of embarrassing situations; and since the succession of Edward VII to the throne, official demands on his time had increased steadily. Naturally, he was not at liberty to discuss any of this with me, and naturally that only heightened my curiosity. As there existed no legitimate method for me to satisfy this curiosity, I indulged my imagination and turned to Le Queux.
I closed the book, rose from the chesterfield, and crossed the room to my desk, where I was standing when my husband entered.
“Hello, where did you come from?” he asked, drawing a hand through his tousled dark curls, his manner breezy and casual. “I thought you were upstairs.”
“I’ve just come down.” As the words came out of my mouth I wondered why I had decided to lie. “Have we had a visitor? I thought I heard the door.”
“Sir John Burman proffering an invitation to a shooting party. I declined for a multitude of reasons. He sends you his regards.” His own falsehood rendered mine more palatable.
More than a year had passed since Katharina von Lang, Colin’s hitherto-unknown grown daughter, had disrupted our bucolic family life. My initial acquaintance with her proved challenging to us both, but I had done my best to welcome her into our household. Although the specter of her late mother, whom Colin had loved long before we met, still haunted me, I found Kat’s quick wit and intelligence endearing, at least when she resisted the urge to sermonize about wicked stepmothers. The situation called for understanding. She had lost a mother she’d hardly known; that she would not immediately embrace me came as no shock.
Introducing her to our three sons, Henry, Richard, and Tom (currently all at Anglemore Park, our country estate in Derbyshire; I had come to London alone to meet my husband upon his return from weeks abroad), had proved shockingly easy. At seven years old (technically our ward, Tom, was a few months older than his brothers), none of them had much interest in a girl of any age. They dismissed her as a boring grown-up until Henry realized her potential as a useful ally. In possession of a fortune of her own (albeit one her mother’s solicitor would control until she turned twenty-five), she could buy sweets without begging for spending money. They accepted her without reservation. Less simple was introducing her to my mother.
Lady Catherine Bromley could be accurately described neither as understanding nor accepting, particularly when it came to matters that might prove socially embarrassing, a camp into which illegitimate children unquestionably fall. Colin and I broke the news to her at my parents’ home in Kent. She fainted and refused to be brought around for forty-five minutes; the deep frown frozen on her face the entire time told me she was not, in fact, unconscious. My father, accustomed to her dramatics, was unmoved. He called for his newspaper and read it without giving her so much as a passing glance until she made a great display of coming round, at which point she insisted we bring Kat to her the next day. Their meeting did not go quite as I had expected.
“No, no, my dear, you must not adopt so coarse a nickname. Katharina is much more elegant, suitable for the daughter of a countess,” my mother had said.
“I shall rely on you, Lady Bromley, to guide me through society. London is so different from a convent school.”
Kat’s effort to torment me by manufacturing a closeness to my own mother could not have been more misguided. She tried, though, and spent several months under a most unpleasant tutelage before recognizing her error and decamping to St. Hilda’s, Oxford. This suited me well, as my friend Margaret Michaels, wife of an Oxford don, had recently given birth to an adorable baby boy. This having led to inconceivably tragic boredom (her words), she welcomed Kat into her household, delighted at having someone new to converse with, even if Kat’s interests did not intersect with Margaret’s passion for Latin.
“I do wish I hadn’t missed Sir John,” I said to my husband, turning my thoughts back to the present. “Such an amusing gentleman.”
Colin’s eyebrows shot nearly to his hairline. “I’m afraid I see rather less of his humor than of his devotion to king and country.”
I fluttered my eyes. “Surely you don’t expect a silly girl like me to be more concerned with work than amusement?”
“You’re dreadful, Emily.” He took my hand and raised it to his lips, his dark eyes intense. “You know I would tell you more about my work if it were possible. That I can’t is in no way a comment on either your intelligence or your gender.”
“I know, I know, it’s not me. You can’t take anyone into your confidence.”
He shifted uneasily and sighed. “It’s a matter of—”
I put my palm on his cheek. “I’m only teasing you. I know how important your work is.” I felt guilty for having overheard his conversation. “Surely Sir John wouldn’t object to you taking a little holiday after all the weeks you’ve just spent doing heaven only knows what while I waited, not asking a single question.”
“My dear, in all the years that I have known you, you’ve never gone more than two hours together without asking impertinent questions about my work.”
“I had rather hoped you find it endearing,” I said.
“I do.” He pulled me close and kissed me. “As things stand, Sir John himself made the same suggestion of a holiday. What would you say to Florence?”
“A busman’s holiday, then, that involves determining who broke into Kat’s house
