Her hand stilled on her gown. Somehow, her face lightened. She wanted him to be with her, which warmed him. How had he come to doubt this?
“In the meantime,” he added, “David might have remembered more for us to mull over. I’ll speak to him again tonight.”
“You only have one bedchamber,” Constance pointed out. “Why don’t you collect your things for traveling, and stay with me tonight?”
She was not even sure he would say yes. In guilty wonder—had he been cold or thoughtless in his behavior to her?—he touched her cheek and her lips.
“I would like that,” he said huskily.God, I would…
She turned her face into his hand in a quick caress. “Then go home, Solomon, and fetch what you need. You’re dead on your feet. I’ll speak to Janey and write instructions for her and Lenny.”
*
Jenks looked slightlysurprised to see him. No wonder, since he must imagine the man upstairs to be his master. Solomon almost gave in to the urge to tell him the truth, but it was important that Jenks should not be knowingly involved with harboring a fugitive. As long as the butler did not see them together, he should be safe.
Hurrying upstairs, he found David standing in the middle of the sitting room floor, staring at the door as though wondering whether or not to rush out.
Solomon shut the door. “It’s only me,” he said lightly. “I’ve come back for a few things. Are you comfortable here?”
The question seemed to take David by surprise. “Yes,” he said after a distinct pause. “He doesn’t bother me—the man downstairs. Jenks? Mrs. Silver told him to let me rest and just leave my meals on the table.”
Pitying his brother hurt. They had been born together in privilege, and so all Solomon had should be shared with him. And yet their lives had diverged in totally opposite directions. Again, he stuck to facts.
“I think the dead man is called Chase.”
David’s eyes widened and he sat down abruptly. “Chase… Yes! Herbert Chase?”
Solomon nodded, then sat opposite him, leaning forward. “When you were watching him in the Crown and Anchor, trying to work out who he was, was he speaking to someone else? Part of a large group or a small one?”
David frowned. “He was on his own…most of the time. A couple of people spoke to him—just in passing—but he didn’t really want to talk. I had the impression he was waiting for someone.” His eyes drifted. “Probably this one fellow I did see him with. He looked like a sailor. Sat at the same table and had a conversation.”
“A friendly conversation?”
David shrugged. “Hard to tell. Seemed serious, but didn’t last long.”
“Did you recognize this sailor?”
David shook his head. “Wasn’t really looking. It was him, Chase, who caught my attention.”
“Why?” Solomon asked. “What was it about him that held your attention?”
“I—I’m not sure… Wait!” David stared at him as though seeing something else entirely. “He looked at his watch. That’s what made me think he was waiting for someone. He took it out of his pocket in a secretive kind of way, and shoved it away again. People don’t have watches in the Crown and Anchor, as a rule. But also, it reminded me of something. Someone. And he began to look familiar to me. I just couldn’t think why—until I saw him dead again.”
“And did you notice this other sailor talking to him before or after you spoke to Chase?”
“Before.”
“Did the sailor stay in the Crown after they spoke?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing him again. But I was a bit…drunk.”
Solomon let it go. “Thinking back to the previous time when you saw Chase, on the ship—how did you know he was dead?”
“Captain said so.” David’s eyes became unfocused again, and he rubbed them. “I think. A lot of things are still…hazy.”
“Then this happened before your illness? Before you lost your memory?”
David nodded.
