Charlotte had envied since childhood, and her skin was rosy fair from sun and pleasure.
She dropped everything on the kitchen table, ignoring the jars, and threw her arms around Charlotte, hugging her so fiercely she almost lost her balance.
“Oh, I have missed you,” she said exuberantly. “It’s wonderful to be home again. I’ve got so much to tell you, I couldn’t have borne it if you had been out. I haven’t had any letters from you for ages-of course I haven’t had any letters at all since we left Rome. It is so boring at sea-unless there is a scandal or something among the passengers. And there wasn’t. Charlotte, how can anyone spend all their lives playing bezique and baccarat and swapping silly stories with each other, and seeing who has the newest bustle or the most elegant hair? I was nearly driven mad by it.” She disengaged herself and sat down on one of the kitchen chairs.
Gracie was standing rooted to the spot, her eyes huge, her imagination whirling as she pictured ships full of card-playing aristocrats with marvelous clothes. Her broom was still propped against the wall in the passageway and her duster stuffed in the waist of her apron.
“Here!” Emily picked up the smallest of the packages and offered it to her. “Gracie, I brought you a shawl from Naples.”
Gracie was overcome. She stared at Emily as if she had materialized by magic in front of her. She was too overwhelmed even to speak. Her small hands locked onto the package so tightly it was fortunate it was fabric, or it might have broken.
“Open it!” Emily commanded.
At last Gracie found words. “Fer me, my lady? It’s fer me?”
“Of course it’s for you,” Emily told her. “When you go to church, or out walking, you must put it ’round your shoulders, and when someone admires you, tell them it came from the Bay of Naples and was a gift from a friend.”
“Oh-” Gracie undid the paper with fumbling fingers, then as the ripple of blue, gold and magenta silk fell out, let her breath go in a sigh of ecstasy. Suddenly she recalled her duty and shot off back to the hallway and her broom, clutching her treasure.
Charlotte smiled with a lift of happiness that would probably not be exceeded by any other gift Emily might bring, even for Jemima or Daniel.
“That was very thoughtful,” she said quietly.
“Nonsense.” Emily dismissed it, a trifle embarrassed herself. She had inherited a respectable fortune from her first husband, the shawl had cost a trifle-it was so small a thing to give so much pleasure. She spread out the other parcels and found the one with Charlotte’s name on it. “Here-please open it. The rest are for Thomas and the children. Then tell me everything. What have you done since your last letter? Have you had any adventures? Have you met anyone interesting, or scandalous? Are you working on a case?”
Charlotte smiled sweetly and benignly, and ignoring the questions, opened the parcel, laying aside the wrapping paper neatly, both to tantalize Emily and because it was far too pretty to tear. She would keep it and use it at Christmas. Inside were three trailing bouquets of handmade silk flowers that were so lush and magnificent she gasped with amazement when she saw them. They would make the most ordinary hat look fit for a duchess, or in the folds of a skirt make a simple taffeta dress into a ball gown. One was in pastel pinks, one blazing reds, and the third all the shades between flamingo and flame.
“Oh, Emily. You’re a genius.” Her mind raced through all the things she could do with them, apart from the sheer pleasure of turning them over and over in her hand and dreaming, which was a joy in itself if she never got any further. “Oh, thank you! They are exquisite.”
Emily was glowing with satisfaction. “I shall bring the paintings of Florence next time. But now I brought Thomas a dozen silk handkerchiefs-with his initials on.”
“He’ll adore them,” Charlotte said with absolute certainty. “Now tell me about your trip-everything you can that isn’t terribly private.” She did not mean to ask Emily if she were happy, nor would she have. Marrying Jack Radley had been a wild and very personal decision. He had no money and no prospects; after George Ashworth, who had had both, and a title as well, it was a radical social change. And she had certainly loved George and felt his death profoundly. Yet Jack, whose reputation was dubious, had proved that his charm was not nearly as shallow as it appeared at first. He was a loyal friend, with courage as well as humor and imagination, and was prepared to take risks in a cause he believed right.
“Put on the kettle,” Emily ordered. “And have you got pastry baking?” She sniffed. “It smells delicious.”
Charlotte obeyed, and then settled to listen.
Emily had written regularly, except for the last few weeks, which had been spent at sea on the long, late- summer voyage home from Naples to London. They had sailed slowly by intent, calling at many ports, but she had not mailed letters, believing they would not reach Charlotte before she did herself. Now the words poured out in descriptions of Sardinia, the Balearic Isles, North Africa, Gibraltar, Portugal, northern Spain and the Atlantic coast of France.
To Charlotte they were magical places, immeasurably distant from Bloomsbury and the busy streets of London, housework and domestic duties, children, and Pitt’s recounting of his day. She would never see them, and half of her regretted it and would love to have watched the brilliant light on colored walls, smelled the spice and fruit and dust in the air, felt the heat and heard the different rhythm of foreign tongues. They would have filled her imagination and enriched her memory for years. But she could have the best of them through Emily’s recounting, and do it without the seasickness, the weariness of long cramped coach rides, highly irregular sanitation and a wide variety of insects which Emily described in repulsive detail.
Through it all there emerged a sharper, kinder and less romantic picture of Jack, and Charlotte found many of her anxieties slipping away.
“Now that you’re home, are you going to stay in the city?” she asked, looking at Emily’s face, flushed with color from sun and wind but tired around the eyes. “Or are you going to the country?” She had inherited a large house in its own parklands, in trust for her son from her marriage to Lord Ashworth.
“Oh, no,” Emily said quickly. “At least-” She made a small, rueful face. “I don’t know. It’s very different now we’re not on a planned journey with something new to see or to do each day, and somewhere we have to be by nightfall. This is the beginning of real life.” She looked down at her hands, small and strong and unlined on the table. “I’m a little frightened in case suddenly we’re not sure what to say to each other-or even what to do to fill the day. It’s going to be so different. There isn’t any crisis anymore.” She sniffed rather elegantly and smiled directly at Charlotte. “Before we were married there was always some terrible event pressing us to act-first George’s death, and then the murders in Hanover Close.” She raised her fair eyebrows hopefully and her blue eyes were wide, but they knew each other far too well for even Emily to feign innocence. “I don’t suppose Thomas has a case we could help with?”
Charlotte burst into laughter, even though she knew Emily was serious and that all the past cases in which they had played a part were fraught with tragedy, and some danger as well as any sense of adventure there may have been.
“No. There was a very terrible case while you were away.”
“You didn’t tell me!” Emily’s expression was full of accusation and incredulity. “What? What sort of case? Why didn’t you write to me about it?”
“Because you would have been too worried to enjoy your honeymoon, and I wanted you to have a perfect time seeing all the glories of Paris and Italy, not thinking about people having their throats cut in a London fog,” Charlotte answered honestly. “But I will certainly tell you now, if you wish.”
“Of course I wish! But first get me some more tea.”
“We could have luncheon,” Charlotte suggested. “I have cold meat and fresh pickle-will that do?”
“Very well-but talk while you’re getting it,” Emily instructed. She did not offer to help; they had both been raised to expect marriage to gentlemen of their own social status who would provide them with homes and suitable domestic servants for all house and kitchen labor. Charlotte had married dreadfully beneath herself-to a policeman- and learned to do her own work. Emily had married equally far above herself, to an aristocrat with a fortune, and she had not even been
“Have you been to see Great-Aunt Vespasia yet?” Charlotte asked as she carved the meat.
Great-Aunt Vespasia was actually George’s aunt, and no immediate relative to either of them, but they had
