Jenks materialized almost before the door was closed.
“Mr. Grey is exhausted, Jenks. Could you send up some luncheon in a little? Something cold might be best because I’m trying to persuade him to go to bed.”
“Of course, madam,” Jenks replied, bowing.
Somehow, Constance had won Jenks to her side—possibly because he had no idea who and what she was, but possibly because he just liked to see his master happy. And Constance was making him happy.
Mostly.
She gave her hat and coat to the butler, and David remembered to hand over his. Then she took his arm in a cozy sort of way and guided him to the main sitting room, which also served as dining room and study.
David looked about him in a baffled, curious kind of a way.
“All those books,” he remarked. “Thisis Solomon.”
“Even at ten years old?”
“Always.” He walked restlessly across the room, examining pictures on the walls. “This is the island. Jamaica.”
“Do you remember living there?”
He nodded. “I do now. In bits and pieces, like any childhood, I suppose.” He shivered and drew nearer to the fire. “Why did he come here?”
Constance sat down, watching him. “To England? To make it the center of his trading empire, I suppose.”
“He is well thought of,” David said. “Wealthy, successful.”
Interesting. David had made some effort to look into his brother. “He worked hard at it,” Constance said.
“Why?”
“Largely because it was something to do, I suspect. His is a restless soul, always looking for something else.”
“But now he has you.” It was a statement, and yet Constance thought it was not entirely free of mockery.
“He has me,” she said steadily.
“Will you live here with him?” David asked, walking to the window and looking out over the roofs to the river. “In this rather modest little house where you can still smell the stink from the river?”
“Youareremembering your past, aren’t you? No, we decided to choose a home together.”
“Where is that?”
“We haven’t found it yet.” She felt defensive because, in truth, that failure bothered her. Their engagement had not been meant to last so long. But work, Silver and Grey, had got in their way. Was that her fault? Had she tried too hard to make this a success because she so desperately wanted to makerespectablemoney? To be worthy of him?
And he had not come to her bed since that first time…
Banishing the memory, she refocused on David.
He said, “I used to know what he was thinking. I remember that. We finished each other’s sentences and sometimes didn’t even need to speak at all to understand. He was like my other half. And yet we forgot each other.”
“Oh, no.” She wasn’t having that. “He never forgot you for a moment. He scoured Jamaica looking for you for the rest of his childhood. Your father scoured the other islands till he died, insearch of any word, any clue. While Solomon traveled the world, making his fortune, he was always looking. He pays agents in every major port in the world to look out for you, to pass any possible word on to him. I believe he had a few hopeful lines of inquiry, but they always came to nothing. Until, quite by accident, he saw you in a photograph.”
There was no malice in David’s intent gaze. “Because I look like him still. I’mnotlike him, though, am I?”
“In character? I barely know you.”
“But you’re helping me. You don’t believe I murdered that man?”
