“You are needed for another inquiry, Beth,” Minerva said. “Mr. Falkner lives more modestly than Mr. Chillingsworth. He is not far from Rupert Street, and according to Mrs. Drable, he is in need of a cook. She will put your name forth for that.”
“Hard to poke around from the kitchen.”
“You are ever resourceful, and it is the only way in at the moment.” She looked at Chase, then at all the others. “Questions? Do we all have a right understanding of what is needed?”
Heads nodded. Chairs scraped. Chase and Brigsby walked into the garden. The blond young man went around the house. The old woman and the girl came through the morning room, followed by Minerva. They left, but Minerva sat down at the table where Rosamund still ate her breakfast.
“Is your baggage ready?” she asked after calling for some coffee.
“It is already down. The coach comes in an hour.”
“Eat a good breakfast. It will have to last you some hours, and you may find the food at the coaching inns distasteful.”
Rosamund looked down at the meal she had barely touched. She had spent the last hour planning what she would say to her sister, and also wondering about Kevin.
She relived that kiss, although she tried not to. The memory had intruded without warning a number of times since she left that big house. She could still feel that soft, warm skim over her lips, slow and sensual. Her own lips had throbbed in response, and her cheeks had tingled. For an instant, she had not been able to move.
Two seconds, maybe three. At most five or six. None of it took longer than that. And yet, it was difficult to put it out of her mind.
“I want to speak to you before you go,” Minerva said. She gestured for the servant to leave.
Rosamund turned all her attention to her friend.
“I have conducted the inquiry you requested. I have some information.”
Charles. She immediately felt guilty about that moment in the garden with Kevin and how she kept reliving it.
“He is not in London,” Minerva said. “Nor do I think he will be here this Season. He is in Paris. He has been living there for some years now.”
Her heart sank. She had let a big house to impress a man who would not see it. She was going to have tutors in speech and comportment to improve for a man who did not even live in the same country. Clever, clever girl. “Is his family still here?”
“Oh, yes. The Copleys remain in the same house you gave to me. They are in residence now.”
She wondered if she would pass them in the park one day, while she rode in a fine carriage and was dressed in one of Madame Tissot’s dresses. She would greet them and pretend they had not been cruel to her. What would their reaction be? She pictured astonishment, even confusion. That would be worth something, although not nearly enough to justify the funds she was laying out.
“He is not married.”
Minerva mentioned that ever so calmly, as just another bit of information gleaned from an inquiry. Nothing in her tone indicated she thought it signified much.
Only Rosamund knew Minerva guessed that it was a very important detail to the client in question. She knew from the studied nonchalance in Minerva’s expression, and from the way she chose right then to sip some coffee.
How much did her new friend know? The woman had a profession in conducting inquiries. Had she made some about Rosamund herself recently?
A servant entered, carrying the morning mail. He set a tall stack in front of Minerva, and another one at the place used by Chase. Then, to Rosamund’s surprise, he set a large letter in front of her place, along with a much smaller one.
The small one was from Beatrice, she knew. She had written to her friend with a question, and here was the answer. She set it aside to read in the carriage. She stared at the big letter. The hand that wrote her name had formed elegant letters.
“Oh, dear,” Minerva murmured.
Rosamund looked over to see Minerva extracting an identical letter from her stack.
“Oh, dear,” she said again. This time firmly. Almost like a curse. She slit open the letter and read it, then looked hard at the one in front of Rosamund.
Rosamund picked up hers and opened it. Such a lovely hand. Feminine. Just as impressive as the clerk’s penmanship, but clearly not a scrivener’s style. “It is an invitation to a dinner party, a week hence.”
“Indeed it is,” Minerva said. “You can decline.”
“Lady Agnes Radnor. Oh, I met her. In the park.”
“You did? How unfortunate. Really, you should decline. You will have just returned from a trying journey and cannot be expected to meet all those people so soon.”
“All those people?”
“The family. I’m sure the whole lot of them will be there to examine you. I would not wish them on an enemy and do not want to think of you enduring them, let alone all at once.”
“I suppose they are only curious.”
“You are too kind. Truly.”
It touched her that Minerva wanted to spare her, but from what? She would end up meeting these relatives of Kevin’s eventually. After Agnes, Felicity, and Kevin’s father, how much worse could it be? Declining this invitation would only delay the ordeal.
“I believe I will attend this party. Once it is over, they may lose interest.”
“Unlikely.”
She laughed. “I must go above and prepare to leave. Thank you for the report. Your inquiry was quick and thorough. You must let me know what fee I owe you.” She stood. “I also thank you for your hospitality with my whole heart.”
* * *
“I wonder why we say, ‘I am’ instead of ‘I be.’ After all, the verb is ‘to be.’ Yet, when we conjugate it in the present tense, there is no ‘be’ to be found.”
