His guide led them through the hall to a door that opened into a garden.The enclosed space was abundant with the scent of jasmine.A sprawling jacaranda tree, a month past bloom, cast deeper shadows over a patch of ferns.
Beyond the wall, violet light flickered across the distant edge of the clouds.
The man from the festival sat at a small wrought iron table.Borthwick was still in uniform, even as he sipped on a crystal glass of scotch.
“Culpepper, was it?Can’t say I know the name.”He pinned Neil with a cold gray stare.“Or you.”
“We haven’t met,” Neil admitted.“I was a professor at Durham for a number of years before leaving to pursue independently funded research projects.”
He clung to the story, which he’d quickly concocted on their way there.
Constance had wanted him to pretend to be an Oxford don who had fallen into disgrace after running off with the dean’s daughter.
Are we trying to bluff Borthwick or write a sensational novel?Neil had pressed back.
“And how may I help you, Dr.Culpepper?”Borthwick’s tone mingled the same curiosity and irritation Neil would have been feeling at an unexpected and unsociably late call.
Nothing about it signaled that the man in front of him was a threat.Neil felt a creeping sense of danger regardless.“Actually, I was sent here to help you.”
“By whom?”
Neil swallowed against a dry throat.God, he was terrible at this.
“Lord Aldbury.He thought I might be able to shed some light on that little historical puzzle you’re working on.”
Padma had said that Borthwick was an associate of Aldbury’s but had been short on the details of their relationship.Neil hoped he was making a reasonable leap of deduction—and not stumbling over a cliff.
The garden was shadowed with gloom.Neil found it hard to read the nuances of Borthwick’s expression as the colonel absorbed his story.
Did Neil need to brazen this out—or grab Constance and throw them both over the garden wall before someone got off a shot?
He thought of what Constance had said while he waited for her by the laundry line.
We know far more than we ought to about who they are and what they’re doing here.We can use that.
“It’s a late hour for a call,” Borthwick noted neutrally.
“Aldbury made it out to be rather urgent,” Neil replied.“I came directly from the train—just stopped at the club for dinner.I can’t think straight when I’m hungry.”
He was nattering on like an idiot.He needed to get out of here.He had done what they had come here for.Borthwick was in the building.Wasn’t that all they needed to know?
Constance’s words floated back to him.
I am not walking out of this awful place with nothing.
A low roll of thunder sounded in the distance.The wind set a few small dry leaves dancing around Neil’s polished shoes.
“I could take a look at it now, if you like,” Neil offered.
His heart pounded in the wake of his own words.This was insane.
Borthwick silently studied him.Neil couldn’t even begin to read what was going on in the man’s mind.
“Why not?”the colonel abruptly concluded.
Without further ceremony, he rose and strode into the house.
“Follow him!”Constance hissed.
