“Speak of the devil…” I said.
He managed a smirk, although the rest of him looked distinctly the worse for wear.“Were you discussing me, Darling?How immensely gratifying.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you had heard what we were saying,” I told him, and leaned back on my chair.“You look terrible, St George.Have you changed your mind, then?”
“About—?”It took a second, and then he shook his head.“Oh, no.I’ve just come to see you off.Laetitia would kill me if I left her alone here all day.”
She probably would do, at that.
“You could bring her,” I said, and then made a face as soon as the words were out of my mouth.The last thing I wanted was to spend an entire day in Lady Laetitia’s company, especially in the close confines of a motorcar.“What am I saying?”
He sniggered.“Amusing though it might be to watch the two of you hiss at one another like two cats for an entire day, I’ll pass.It would be a rather tight squeeze with all of us.”
“We could borrow the Bentley,” Christopher suggested.“We’d likely all fit in that.”
But Crispin shook his head.“If Laetitia and I go, Geoffrey will want to come, too, and even the Bentley isn’t large enough for that.”
I made a face.“Indeed.”
Not that Geoffrey takes up any more space than the rest of us, but he’s the type you don’t want to get too close to, especially if you’re a woman.Add Laetitia and Crispin, and this simple drive to the Cotswolds would be the trip to hell instead.
“We could take two vehicles,” I said, “I suppose?—”
Crispin and Laetitia could be in one of them, with Geoffrey, and the rest of us in the other, and that way, I wouldn’t have to deal with any of the three of them.
He sniggered “It’s all right, Darling.I don’t want to drive to the Cotswolds and back today anyway.I had a rather rough night.”
He did look it.Like Christopher, his eyes were shadowed and heavy.Unlike Christopher, who at least was dressed and ready for the day, Crispin was still in his dressing gown and slippers, with his fair hair as fuzzy as dandelion fluff around his head, instead of slicked back to its usual metallic sheen.
“What happened?”Christopher wanted to know.“When you left my room last night, I thought you were going to bed.You looked ready to drop.But then I heard a motorcar outside.Did you go out for a drive?”
Crispin shook his head.“Must have been one of the others.Geoffrey, or perhaps Francis.I went straight to bed.”
“I don’t think Francis spends much time at the village pub anymore,” I commented, and Christopher shook his head.
“Thank God for Constance.”
Yes, indeed.Since the war ended, Francis had developed a rather nasty taste for alcohol and dope.He’d go up to London to smoke opium with his fellow survivors.He’d drink himself into a stupor at the local pub, and he’d dope himself into oblivion with Veronal and sleep for days at a time, all in a determined effort to keep the memories of the trenches at bay.We were all delighted that Constance had come into his life and given him a reason to want to do better.
“Geoffrey, then,” Crispin said.“Or perhaps it just sounded like the motorcar was here, when it was passing by down on the lane.When it’s quiet, they sound like they’re closer than they are.”
“I can’t imagine that it matters anyway,” Christopher said.“I just wanted to make certain that you were all right.You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine, old bean.”Crispin put a hand on his shoulder for a second and then flicked me a look across the table.“I just came down to wish you both happy travels.You’ll be back tonight?”
“That’s the plan,” Christopher said.“I don’t imagine that it can take all that long to find one woman in two very small villages.We’ll be back for supper, I’m sure.”
Crispin nodded.“I’ll see you both then.”
He moved towards the door to the hallway.We could hear him exchange greetings with Francis and Constance in the foyer, and then he headed up the stairs and back to bed while they came inside and took their seats at the table.
ChapterThree
“There it is,”Constance said some three-and-a-half hours later, as we drove into the picturesque village of Lower Slaughter.By then, I had had my fill of beautiful thatched cottages and meandering waterways and most of all, the unending road in front of us.I was feeling cross.
“There what is?”
“The church,” Constance said, as if it were obvious.
