“I’ll come down,” Constance said calmly.
Solomon followed her, his steps unhurried. He just hoped it was that Kenny that Madly had with him.
The lower hall was empty of all, save two footmen. Which was as it should be. Madly would have been put in the anteroom next to the closed doors of the main reception room. The anteroom door was open.
Solomon was right. He hadn’t been as sure as he pretended that Madly would help. But he had indeed brought Veronique’s equally large husband with him. Both men were standing. Kenny looked a trifle crushed compared with last night, and there was a small cut on his chin, as though Madly had made him shave to fit the part. Madly himself bowed with impeccable grace.
“Ma’am, your devoted servant,” he said to Constance, while Solomon waited in the passage outside. “This is a friend of mine, one—er…Mr. Jones, whom I would like to recommend to your membership. He is, of course, happy to answer questions.”
Constance looked Kenny up and down and flared her nostrils with distaste. “I will speak to him,” she said with undisguised doubt. “Please, go upstairs, Mr. Madly. Mr. Jones, do sit down.”
Solomon did not like the air of triumph with which Madly swaggered from the room. It faltered slightly at sight of Solomon, who spread his hand to show him the way.
Madly laughed. “Damn, but you’re a complacent husband, Grey.”
“Not in the least,” Solomon said calmly. “No, this way,” he added, getting in the way of the staircase and pointing to the open door opposite the main reception room. It was lit but empty.
Madly stopped outside it, but his eyes held more mockery than threat. “She saidupstairs.”
“That was for Kenny’s benefit.”
Madly elected to stroll into the small room. “I daresay I might make it upstairs when the kerfuffle begins. Although…would the kerfuffle be more interesting? A man likes a good fight.”
“Not in this house he doesn’t.”
“Hmm. Aren’t you afraid to leave her alone with that thug?”
In truth, he was. It was necessary, but every sense was on full alert, and Solomon stood by the open door, casting frequent glances down the passage.
“No,” he said. “Constance has ways of taking care of herself. And she is surrounded by her own very capable people.”
“You’re not at all as I expected, you know,” Madly said, sauntering toward the window and throwing him a curious look over his shoulder. “Yes, I did my own—er…investigation there. I thought you must be some poor sap the incomparable Constance was leading by the nose, tricked into marriage by a true professional.”
“Somehow I didn’t expect you to have quite such a common mind.”
Madly blinked. Unexpected color seeped into his cheeks. “Oh, I left my aristocratic manners behind me decades ago. Constance always intrigued me, though I never got near her. Call me jealous. And impressed in my own common way. Are you going to guard me all night? Even through the kerfuffle?”
“One hopes for very little kerfuffling.”
Something that was almost a smile flashed in Madly’s hard eyes. “Just when I thought you were a serious man.”
“I thought I was a poor sap tricked into marriage.”
“You bear further study, but I can see why she likes you.”
Solomon did not reply.
Madly mused, “She was like some exotic butterfly, fluttering through an ugly swamp. Beautiful, incomprehensible in such surroundings, and fascinating for that reason. And yet so insubstantial she could not be touched, let alone caught. I know because I tried.”
Again, Solomon made no comment. He knew his Constance. She did not need a character reference from anyone, let alone from such a man as Jason Madly. And yet it struck him that Madly was giving her one, without request and without offense. His peculiar honor again? Or…
Solomon’s blood ran cold. Was Madly making up for betrayal?
*
“Sit,” Constance saidregally to the unspeakable Horatio Kenny. “I shan’t waste time interviewing you,Mr. Jones. We both know you would never obtain membership here. What do you want?”
“Two thousand pounds,” Kenny said promptly. “And I’m out of your hair for good.”
