“He mentioned it,” Fenella answered rather vaguely. Lord George Headington was the most ardent of her many admirers. He was clearly assuming that he held precedence over all her other suitors and was beginning to act accordingly. She knew she had only herself to blame. Sheer inertia had allowed him to continue in his assumptions, and now it seemed a foregone conclusion that he was her permanent escort. Her mother certainly was all encouragement, another complication that she should have foreseen and prevented.
Diana regarded her with narrowed eyes. “Rupert said White’s has opened a book on when he’s going to pop the question, and what your answer will be.”
“That’s so vulgar. It’s nobody’s business but mine,” Fenella said crossly. “I hope Rupert hasn’t placed any bets.”
Diana laughed. “Of course he hasn’t. That’s not my husband’s style at all. On which subject, I am supposed to meet him at the Trocadero for lunch. He hates being kept waiting.” She stood up, kissing Fenella on both cheeks. “Let’s ride tomorrow in the park. Petra, are you up for a freezing winter canter?”
“No, definitely not. I’m not as mad a horsewoman as you two, and I definitely don’t like being out in this weather if I can avoid it. But I’ll share a hackney with you now. You can drop me off on the corner of Stanhope Gardens. I can walk home from there.”
Fenella saw her two friends down to the hall to retrieve their coats. She was going back upstairs when Lady Grantley appeared at the head.
“Oh, there you are, darling.” She greeted her daughter with a kiss. “Did I hear Petra and Diana?”
“Yes, they’ve just left.”
“Good, then get your coat, I want you to come to Madame Delaney’s with me. I need your opinion on a hat. We’ll have lunch in the Savoy afterward.”
Fenella allowed herself to be swept on the tide of her mother’s plans. Lady Grantley was hard to resist at the best of times, and at this moment, her daughter was too full of her own thoughts to summon sufficient energy to try.
Chapter Three
Fenella looked at the card in her hand, verifying the street number as she stepped out of the hackney. Twenty-Four, Praed Street. She looked up at the tall, narrow row house, identical to every other on the busy street. It looked neither down-at-heel nor well-to-do, which was a fair description of the area in general.
She approached the front door, which was flush to the pavement, and banged the knocker. After a few minutes, she heard the sound of bolts being drawn and the door opened. A thin woman in black bombazine, her gray hair drawn into a severe bun, regarded the visitor through pince-nez.
“Mr. Tremayne is expecting me.” Fenella smiled, trying not to bristle at the scrutiny.
“He said.” The woman opened the door wider in wordless invitation.
Fenella stepped into a narrow hallway. The smell of furniture polish and carbolic soap assailed her nostrils. Everything was spotless, including the rag rug thrown over the highly polished linoleum under her feet. “Thank you, Mrs. . . . ?” she offered rather tentatively.
“Hammond,” the woman said. “If you’ll follow me.”
Fenella followed her up a narrow flight of stairs to a first-floor landing with three doors, and another narrower staircase continued to the upper floors. The landlady, as Fenella assumed she was, knocked on one of the doors.
It opened immediately. Edward Tremayne, in a threadbare, velvet smoking jacket, greeted Fenella with a somewhat distracted nod. “Good of you to come, Miss Grantley.”
It struck Fenella as a less-than-enthusiastic welcome, and she felt the familiar bristling. She had better things to do on a Friday afternoon than stand on a drafty landing with a clearly censorious landlady and a host who seemed unprepared for her visit. She was about to say something to that effect when Edward smiled suddenly and those blue eyes danced like sunlight on the Aegean.
“Thank you, Mrs. Hammond.” He reached for Fenella’s hand. “Come in. I’ve a good fire going and tea and crumpets. You must be freezing.” He drew her into a cozy parlor overlooking the street, closing the door quietly behind him. “I’m sorry about Mrs. Hammond. She’s a dragon, but she keeps an impeccable house, and somewhere under that iron exterior I have a feeling there’s a warm heart.”
“I’d need some convincing of that,” Fenella said, drawing off her gloves and looking around the room. There were books everywhere: towers of them on the floor, against the walls, all in imminent danger of toppling. They lined the bookshelves in higgledy-piggledy fashion. On a writing table beneath the window lay papers covered in an untidy scrawl.
“I’m sorry if it looks a mess to you; it’s the only way I can work,” Edward said, taking her coat and laying it over the back of a chair. “Sit down by the fire.” He gestured to a cracked leather armchair and turned to a small table. “I hope you can toast crumpets.” He speared a crumpet on a three-pronged toasting fork, handing it to her.
“I haven’t done this since my schoolroom days,” Fenella observed, sliding to the floor in front of the fire, the chair at her back. “In my experience, you can’t get the right proximity to the fire from a chair.”
“My experience too.” Edward joined her on the floor, spearing a crumpet on his own toasting fork. “So, have you had any further thoughts on the subject of the play?”
“Not really,” Fenella responded, gingerly pulling the hot crumpet off the tines to turn it to the other side. “Without seeing it properly, I don’t know what to think. Why have you called it Sapphire?”
“Rose is the sapphire,” Edward said slowly. “I know you thought there was no substance to her, that she was flat on the page.” He sounded rather disgruntled. “But that was too hasty a judgment.”
“Was it?” Fenella leaned back against the chair behind her, idly twirling her toasting fork. “Well, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, you didn’t exactly create an atmosphere conducive to an in-depth reading.” She turned her gray eyes full on him. “It seems to me, Mr. Tremayne, that at times you’re your own worst enemy.”
For a moment, his eyes flashed, and she braced herself for a sarcastic tirade, but the flash lasted only a second. “That, to my shame, is absolutely true.” He leaned forward and took the crumpet off her fork, tossing it between his fingers until it was cool enough to handle. “Honey or jam?”
“Honey, please.” She watched as he spread butter liberally so that it dripped through the holes in the bread to make a buttery puddle on the plate beneath. Then he spread golden honey thickly on top, licked his fingers and passed her the plate.
“There you are, Miss Grantley. How do you like your tea?”
“Milk, no sugar,” Fenella mumbled through a dripping but luscious mouthful.
For a moment, they ate in a silence broken only by the hiss and crackle of the fire, and Fenella was content to wait. Edward finished his crumpet and licked his fingers again. “Another one?”
“Yes, please. If you’re going to answer my question, that is?” She raised an inquiring brow, holding a fresh crumpet ready to spike on her toasting fork.
“Have you ever heard of a color-change sapphire? They’re very rare.”