I stuck out a hand. “Pleased to meet you, Freda.”
“Likewise, Phillip.”
We shook.
CHAPTERFOUR
We hadn’t noticed Christopher,but as it turned out, he had seen us, and he showed up at Montrose’s—our—table just a few minutes after Crispin and I did, with a look of mingled consternation and worry on his (very pretty) face.
“Pippa? Crispin? What are you?—?”
I interrupted him before he could say any more. “There you are! We thought we’d lost you.”
Christopher shut his mouth on the rest of the sentence and looked at me. And looked closer. And winced. “Is that my dinner jacket?”
“It’s your entire evening suit,” I said brightly. “Top hat and all. I considered wearing St George’s, but I thought the process of switching off at the end of the night might prove awkward.”
Christopher cut his eyes to Crispin for a moment, and something, some thought, passed between them. It was Christopher’s turn to look amused while Crispin looked sour.
“So it might,” Christopher agreed blandly. “Hello, Crispin. Pretty frock. Although you should have shaved your chest first.”
“So Darling tells me,” Crispin said, “Why is everyone suddenly so concerned about the hair on my chest?”
“Because you’re flaunting it,” I told him, at the same time as Christopher asked, “Everyone? Who’s everyone?”
“Darling threatened to make me shave it off back in the flat,” Crispin said. “Next would be my legs, no doubt, and after that?—”
“Stop!” I slapped a hand across his mouth. “For God’s sake, Georgina, have you no sense of decorum? Next, you’re going to ruin the illusion by telling us all about your hairy back?—!”
Montrose sniggered and Christopher choked on a laugh. Crispin’s fingers wrapped around my wrist and tugged my hand down so he could speak to me over it. His eyes were deeply annoyed. “I do not have a hairy back, you horrible?—!”
“Georgina?” Christopher managed. “Really, Crispin? You couldn’t have found something better than Georgina?”
“We don’t all have names that lend themselves to abbreviation,” Crispin said sourly and let go of my arm. “It’s easy when you’re Philippa, or for that matter Kit. Harder when you’re Crispin Henry Jonathan. Darling suggested Crispina and Henrietta, but?—”
Christopher winced. “Yes, I can see why you’d prefer Georgina. We’ll just call you Georgie, old chap.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Crispin began, but by then someone else had joined us, and he closed his eyes. “Oh, Lord.”
The newcomer, at least, was in black tie and not a dress. “St George? Is that you, old bean?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, just turned and yelled over his shoulder, “Over here, chaps! Look who I found! It’s St George, and he’s wearing a frock!”
Crispin sighed. “Yes, Hutchison. It’s me.”
Soon Hutchison was joined by two other young gentlemen of the Young and Bright variety. They were all in evening kit, and all in much the same state that St George had been in when he’d first arrived at the flat two hours ago. Sauced to the gills, and feeling no pain.
“You remember Montrose, don’t you?” Crispin said, and at least Hutchison seemed to, so they must have gone to Cambridge together, as well. “This is my cousin Christopher, and Miss Philippa Darling.”
There was a lot of giggling at that, and both Christopher and I had our hands kissed while the others debated which one of us ought rightly have our hands kissed the way we were dressed, while Crispin rolled his eyes. By now he was, as he had told me earlier, as sober as a judge, and he didn’t seem to appreciate his friends’ inebriation any more than I did. That kind of thing is much easier to deal with when one is properly lubricated oneself.
The three young men had a girl with them, also from the Society of Bright Young Persons, and also deeply inebriated, and she greeted Crispin’s appearance with shrieks of merriment. “Mercy, St George, don’t you look a picture!”
“Yes, yes,” Crispin said, with another eyeroll. “Sit down, Gladys, before you fall down.”
He tugged her down on the other side of him, while two of the other three crowded in next to Christopher on the other side of the booth. The final young gentleman—I thought his name was Blanton—squeezed in next to Gladys.
They made short process of Montrose’s bottle of champagne, and then they ordered two more. There were toasts to Crispin’s old age, as well as to the rest of us.
