“Too small in here for the footmen, so maids were asked,” she replied in the same low voice. “And what are you on about, calling me Judas?”
“Later,” I said flatly.
She waggled her brows at me—I should have to speak firmly to her about using another means of communication—and I surmised from this that she intended to use the opportunity to study the guests. I darted a quick glance at Stoker, but he had not noticed J. J. and I intended to ensure he remained ignorant of her presence. If Stoker knew she were at Cherboys, he would shout the place down, perhaps even insisting she be sent back to London. For all that he liked J. J., he was occasionally very much a Templeton-Vane, and I suspected he would place Tiberius’ privacy above J. J.’s. need for gainful employment. Besides, as irritated as I was with J. J., I still had hopes of extracting information from her. With an animal’s instinct for self-preservation, she eluded Stoker’s gaze and ducked away to serve Pietro.
I turned my attention to the consommé. It was lightly flavoured with mushroom, and a quick glance at the evening’s menu showed the theme was one of autumnal bounty.
We spooned up the light broth and Augusta exclaimed, “How delicious! One expects mushrooms in this season, but these are so refined.”
“Local to Cherboys,” Tiberius explained. “I have a chef down from London for the dinner, and he has used much of our own produce apart from a few treats—such as your own grouse, Augusta,” he added with a nod of acknowledgment.
Sir James guffawed. “Her grouse indeed! Augusta hasn’t bagged a grouse in fifteen years.”
“I do not care for the killing of things,” she said with a shrug.
“But your grouse shoots are famous,” the count put in.
Augusta smiled. “One must make allowances for the interests of one’s guests. Give any Englishman a patch of open land and he must have a shotgun to blast away at something.”
“Englishman, Scotsman, German, Italian, Frenchman, we are all the same,” Pietro replied with a disarming grin. “We must be masters of all we survey.”
“Hear, hear,” Sir James agreed.
“ ‘And thou shalt have dominion over the beasts of the land,’ ” murmured Timothy.
“Come again?” Sir James coaxed, looking slightly confused.
Augusta addressed her husband. “Timothy was quoting Genesis, James. Beasts of the land.”
“Ah yes,” her husband agreed. “Dominion over every living thing—they that walketh, they that crawleth, they that swimmeth. Is that right, Padre?” he asked with a glance to Merry.
“Near enough,” Merryweather replied pleasantly.
“The covenant of the Almighty with mankind,” Timothy put in. “To us is given authority over all living things.”
Merry kept his lips pressed tightly together, no doubt biting back a pithy remark, but Stoker had no such scruples. “You mean to say you interpret the Bible literally?” he asked in a tone anyone might have mistaken for friendliness. But I saw the amusement in his eyes and realised he was merely laying a trap.
Timothy Gresham’s expression was one of complete earnestness. “Indeed I do, Revelstoke.” In spite of Tiberius’ encouragement to be casual with one another, the doctor maintained a formality quite atodds with the bonhomie of Sir James or the courtly amiability of the count. He was not, I reminded myself, one of the Seven Sinners. Perhaps he felt the chasm which must extend between a simple country doctor and the group of accomplished and travelled gentlemen who had befriended him. And if he did, did he resent it? I watched him with greater attention as he listened to Stoker’s questions.
“Then you believe there is a specific time and date at which the world began?” Stoker continued in a dangerously polite voice.
“Eight p.m., October the twenty-third, 4004 BC,” Gresham replied with perfect assurance.
“You cannot be serious,” Stoker said flatly.
Two spots of bright colour flared high in Timothy’s cheeks. “Indeed I am, sir,” he said, obviously offended. “The Scriptures are entirely clear upon the point.”
“They bloody well are not,” Stoker began.
Tiberius rang his bell again, cutting Stoker off before he could build a head of steam. The bowls of consommé were cleared with deft precision, and under the soft clicking sounds of porcelain and silver, Beatrice turned to me. “Men,” she murmured.
I smothered a laugh and she grinned in return. I half expected Tiberius to introduce a less controversial topic over the following course, but the subject of the origins of the Earth suited him quite well, I realised as he merely turned with an air of expectancy towards Timothy Gresham as we lifted our forks and applied ourselves to plates of fried soles with parsley sauce.
“You were saying, Timothy?” Beatrice said, widening her eyes innocently. She was a minx, I realised, as proven by her eagerness for gossip during our earlier conversation. And now it amused her to provoke the doctor—or Stoker.
Timothy placed his fork carefully upon the edge of his plate. “I was merely observing that in spite of what the scientists would have usbelieve,” he said, laying emphasis upon the word “scientists” as if it were something scandalous, “that the Bible is perfectly clear upon the length of time that has transpired since creation.”
“Butyouare a scientist,” Pietro pointed out.
