Gray found the man seated in front of the tray staring at it. He looked like a salivating dog.
Ellen was back with her two friends.
“I’m not here often,” Gray said, hoping to dissuade the man.
“Never mind. Just tell your staff to expect me.”
Lord Sinclair laughed. “He’s not serious, Detective Fletcher, even though food is more important to my brother than many things.”
“I am still growing. I need sustenance.”
Gray was raised taking tea with people he neither liked nor respected. He knew social chitchat better than most and loathed it. But it had been some time since he’d done this.
“Come. Sit, Fletcher,” Bramstone said, waving to the seat to his right. He was next to Cambridge now. Albert handed him a cup of tea out of cups Gray didn’t think he’d ever seen before. Delicate white and trimmed with gold around the rim.
“Let them talk. They have much to catch up on,” Lord Sinclair said, waving to his sisters and Ellen. They were now seated on his sofa. She was in the middle and still pale but at least breathing more freely.
She had panic attacks as he had when he’d left his family. The first one had shocked him because he’d never experienced anything like it before. Albert had been there to help him through it.
“What crime are you working on at the moment, Detective Fletcher?” Mr. Sinclair asked.
Albert handed him a plate of cake. His plum cake.
“I cannot discuss any cases with you, Mr. Sinclair.”
“Come now. Detective Sadler is quite chatty. I often get information for my newspapers from him.”
“Newspapers?” Gray asked.
“He owns theTrumpeterand theBugler,” his brother said. “They have a law-and-order section in each, I believe?”
It surprised him that Cambridge Sinclair owned newspapers and even more that the staid and proper Detective Timothy Sadler talked to this man about Scotland Yard.
“I see it has shocked you that I would dabble in such things.”
“Not shocked, no. As I am not living the life I was born into,” Gray said.
Cambridge shrugged. “It is not for everyone. Someone needs to keep us safe, Detective. I don’t suppose you have a copy of Captain Broadbent and Lady Nauticus tucked away somewhere?”
Gray couldn’t stifle the shudder.
“Right then. Clearly, you are a sturdy, unimaginative soul to shudder at such a literary genius. Have you read it?”
“I have not.” He really should be offended by that, but he wanted to laugh at the excitement in the man’s eyes.
“I’ll have a copy sent around,” Bramstone said. “Try before you mock, Detective Fletcher. Broadening the mind comes in many guises.”
“All true,” Cambridge said, waving his cup for Albert to refill it.
His butler was simply in heaven. After refilling the cup, he scooped up the now empty tray and said he’d have it replenished at once.
“When you have read it and understand the author’s brilliance, we will conduct a literary salon here. I will have to run it by the Duchess of Yardly—”
“Good Lord, is she still alive?” Gray said.
“Most definitely and as crotchety and awkward as ever,” Cambridge said.
“This is your parlor, Fletcher. For pity’s sake, sit,” Lord Sinclair said.
