An Old Betrayal: A Charles Lenox Mystery (Charles Lenox Mysteries) by Charles Finch Read Free Book Online Page B

deceived him. Perhaps it was because Lady Jane was already so loyal to Toto that he didn’t want to finalize her bias.
    “When you look him in the eye it is difficult to imagine him straying,” said Lenox.
    It was rather late at night, and Lady Jane had been writing letters at a small table in his study, keeping him company as he sat and worked. Now they were together upon the sofa.
    “Everyone I see now mentions it to me.” Her voice was terribly sad.
    “What does Toto say?” he asked.
    “The fight has gone out of her.”
    “Out of Toto?” he asked, skeptical.
    “For the moment anyhow. She scarcely leaves the house, I believe. At least George is some consolation to her—but she is redder-eyed than I ever saw her before, that much is certain.”
    Gradually the conversation shifted to more cheerful topics. Lady Jane was planning a supper in two weeks, at which Disraeli was to be among the guests, along with James Hilary, Lord Cabot, and several other political figures. Mixed in would be some of her particular friends, selected because they had no political interest whatsoever, and therefore could lift the party beyond the threat of workplace boredom, fizzy as yeast in a loaf of bread. For a long while they debated which of these friends might sit where.
    “I cannot see the Prime Minister sitting next to Jemima Faringdon,” said Lady Jane, pursing her lips.
    “Is it because she could not tell you whether he was a Tory or a brand of face powder?”
    She laughed. “I don’t think she’s as foolish as that. Certainly there is no face powder she could not identify by name, for beginners. But perhaps she would be better going in with Lord Cabot. He admires a lovely woman, and she enjoys flattery.”
    “True enough—and yet Disraeli himself is known as an admirer of young women.”
    They talked on like this for a while longer, until at last, yawning, she said she thought she would retire. “Can you come up?” she asked.
    He sighed and stood up, walking back toward his desk. “No, I must stay awake and review a memorandum Graham has written, I’m afraid, about the Irish question, blast it to hell. Oh, and if you would tell the housemaid I need more candles—I find I’ve run out.”
    “Already?” she asked from the sofa. “Have you been eating them?”
    “It has been many nights of work,” he said.
    Her face turned sympathetic, and she came across the room on soft footsteps, embracing him when she reached him and kissing his cheek. “You poor dear,” she said. “Yes, I’ll have them sent in right now. But don’t be too long coming up to rest.”
    “No, I won’t,” he said: just as capable of misleading his wife as McConnell, apparently.

CHAPTER NINE
    Two mornings later Sophia was having a friend to visit her nursery, a young gentleman, not grown far above two feet, by the name of William Dean. He was the son of the vicar of Hampden Lane’s small church, St. Paul’s. Lenox—as he had promised himself he would—went to visit his daughter.
    It was a clear morning, a breeze coming through the cracked windows. Sophia was intent upon a small wooden horse, while Master Dean, unaccustomed perhaps to the strict demands of a London social call, was staring at the wall and drooling.
    “How old is this child?” Lenox asked Miss Emanuel.
    “Nearly eighteen months,” she said.
    “I have never understood this strange tradition that has us dress our small boys in martial clothing. This one seems to be wearing a regimental jacket.”
    “I think he is very fine,” said Miss Emanuel.
    “Yes, as if he could lead a battalion into Waterloo on horseback.”
    The nurse laughed. “Leave the poor child alone.”
    Lenox smiled and tousled the boy’s hair, then bent down to give Sophia a kiss, catching as he did the clean, sharp scent of Pears soap on her skin. “Good-bye, Miss Emanuel. I shall be rather late this evening, I expect, but I will visit you again in the morning.”
    He had found when he woke up