“You invited her,” Solomon pointed out. “And my brother.”
“So I did. And I will be glad to see them, really. I would just rather go to bed.”
“Well,” Solomon said, “I’m sure that can be arranged, too.”
She opened her eyes with that lazy smile that made his pulse race. She didn’t blush so often now when he said such things, but it was an endearing trait in a woman of her profession.
When she didn’t reply, merely caressed his fingers, he said, “Why did you never tell me about Jeremy’s past?”
“I suppose it never came up.”
“Then you weren’t shielding me from the similarity with David’s past?”
She thought about that. “Because they were both imprisoned, you mean? I suppose Jeremy was young too, though not as young as David. I never thought of it as similar… Everyone’s story is different. I tend not to compare them.”
He suspected there was more than that. Though she would not hide things from him now, loyalty to her girls, and to the rest of the household, most of them waifs and strays of one order or another, compelled her discretion. She had known most of them longer than she had known him.
“He likes you,” Constance said. “Jeremy. He was happy enough to leave you to protect me.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him!”
“You probably said thank you, or he noticed the way you pat your horses. He notices a lot, does Jeremy. He’s a very good judge of character.”
Which was no doubt why he reacted badly to the bully in Napier.
Constance snuggled closer, resting her head against Solomon’s shoulder, and gave a contented little wriggle. “Actually, this is quite exciting. It’s our first night coming home after a day’s work.”
“And our first dinner party.”
“Dinner party?” she repeated, a ripple of amusement passing through her. “It sounds a little too civilized for a feeding of my mother!”
*
Juliet Silver wasan eccentric, larger-than-life character in most people’s opinions. She bustled in behind Lottie the parlor maid, wearing a massive, tentlike garment that defied fashion rather than ignoring it. It appeared to be a cross between a loose tea-gown and a sack, yet with her improbably bright gold hair and the long ropes of pearls, it somehow looked right on her.
She was beaming as she entered the room. “Good house, Connie, though a bit modest for you, isn’t it? Not as grand as theother place. Evening, son. My, don’t the pair of you look well and smug, just as you should. How was Italy?”
“We brought you a gift from Venice,” Solomon said, presenting her with the box. “Which somehow survived the journey home. Sherry? Brandy?”
“I’ll have a sherry, love, since we’re celebrating. But you didn’t need to bring me gifts.”
“That’s the whole point of them, isn’t it?” Constance said.
She was always a little prickly around her mother, although she seemed to have abandoned the downright rudeness that had shocked Solomon when he first saw them together. They had reached a better understanding of each other based on the fact that beneath their various failings, abandonments, and insults, they both cared a great deal.
Even now, as he set a glass in front of each of them, Constance had her eyes on her mother, almost anxious about her reaction.
Juliet lifted out the unique, bowl-shaped vase. It was made of fine Venetian glass and shot through with flashes of color, almost like reflections on the sea. Her pudgy little hands held the vase up to the light and somehow, in the delicacy of their touch, seemed elegant themselves.
“It’s for the flat, not the shop,” Constance said.
With Solomon’s help, Juliet had recently opened a shop of antiques and curios in Covent Garden. It had a pleasant flat above that she was inordinately proud of.
“Oh, I know that,” she said, her voice gratifyingly awed. “I could never bring myself to sellthis… It’s the most beautiful glass I’ve ever seen.”
“Glad you like it,” Constance said gruffly. “Solomon chose it.”
Which was a lie. Solomon refused to allow it. “Youdid. I was merely there to approve. We’re glad you like it, Juliet. How is the shop?”
