“Thank you. It was a bit difficult for me, especially after Girton,” she added with a knowing look. “You spend all that time and effort earning an education, and then once you return to the outside world, no one really cares. You’re supposed to be perfectly happy managing a household and having children. I love my children, of course. But … it wasn’t enough,” she admitted with a shy glance at me.
I hummed in agreement. “I understand completely.”
She relaxed a little and began to pour our tea. “Well, Greece must have been a marvelous adventure. Your mother said you lived in Athens before Corfu. Did you visit the sites there often?”
“Not often, no,” I replied. “In truth, most of my days were spent managing the household and mothering.” I flashed her a smile. “It’s only been in the last year or so that I’ve begun to focus on myself a little more.”
A faint blush stained her cheeks. “Of course. I know how lucky I am to have the time and resources to dabble in my little activities.”
“Don’t dismiss yourself,” I said. “I think it’s wonderful what you’ve done. My path has just been … different.”
Her eyes softened. “I was so sorry to hear about your husband. My husband, Gerald, was as well. They knew each other at Cambridge.”
“Did they? I had no idea.”
“Yes.” Then she perked up. “He gave me something to show you, actually. Here, let me fetch it.”
Cecelia crossed the room to a small writing desk and picked up a leather-bound folder. “It’s a photograph from a dig in Greece that they attended one summer with some other fellows from their Hellenic club.”
“How lovely.” I vaguely remembered Oliver telling me about that. His father refused to pay for his passage, so he talked his way onto a shipping vessel and worked alongside the crew all the way to Greece.
Cecelia sat beside me and handed me the opened folder. The photograph showed a group of young men in various states of dress. Most had shed their coats and ties and had rolled up their shirt-sleeves. They stood outside, some holding shovels and pickaxes as props, all squinting in the sun. I found Oliver immediately, standing front and center with his foot propped on the step of a shovel, his hand resting jauntily on the top of the handle. He smiled broadly at the camera, and I couldn’t help smiling back. He looked so young and happy, like there was nowhere else in the entire world he wanted to be at that very moment. A strange sort of gladness filled my chest. His life had been cut so short. But I was grateful that he had been able to accomplish so much with the time he had.
“That’s my Gerry there in the back row,” Cecelia said, pointing to a tall man with dark hair and round spectacles.
But my eyes were drawn to the gentleman just beside him. I frowned in confusion and drew the picture closer to my face. But no. I had not been mistaken.
“Is something wrong?” Cecelia asked.
“That man beside your husband is Lord Linden,” I said slowly. “I’m sure of it.”
Cecelia inspected the photograph and nodded. “It certainly does look like him. Though I’ve only met him in passing.”
I turned to her with a frown. “He told me he didn’t know Oliver.”
“Perhaps he forgot,” she offered. “It was an awfully long time ago.”
“Yes, but it would be rather odd to forget someone that you were in Greece with for a whole summer, wouldn’t it?”
“Then … do you think he’s lying?” Cecelia’s eyes widened, and for a moment, I envied her naïvety.
“I don’t know,” I said diplomatically, rather than discuss the murder investigation that had been taking up my time these last few weeks.
“I’ll ask Gerry when he gets home this evening,” she said. “Perhaps he would know something.”
“That would be extremely helpful.”
“Of course! I’ll write to you straightaway and make sure it’s sent first thing tomorrow.”
I stayed for another ten minutes, but I couldn’t tell you what we spoke about. My mind whirled with any possible reason that could explain the baron’s actions. But none of them were particularly compelling. The simplest reason was by far the most likely one: Lord Linden had lied to me about knowing Oliver. What remained to be seen was why. And I was determined to find out.
When I returned to Portman Square, I entered the library, still half lost in thought. Then I stopped short and blinked at the scene before me. Tommy was sitting on the sofa with my father, and together they were looking through a book. Delia stood nearby, watching them with a smile on her face. She turned at my entrance and immediately approached me.
“He’s having a good day,” she murmured, gesturing to our father.
He was giving Tommy the kind of indulgent smile Oliver had often worn when in the presence of our children, but I couldn’t remember ever seeing that expression on my father’s face before. During my childhood, he had been even more distant than my mother. A mixture of stern and silent that, frankly, made me feel rather nervous when he did deign to spend time with us. At times, he seemed more like a mythical figure than a real person. But as I watched him openly admiring my son, something pinched in my chest, and it was a moment before I realized it was envy. Both for the man my son got to experience and for the father I could never really get to know.
“Let me take Tommy so you can talk with Father,” Delia said.
