Crispin glanced across the table at Christopher. The fourth young man, the one whose name I didn’t know, was also looking at Christopher, and it didn’t seem as if Christopher would mind terribly spending more time with him.
Crispin must have seen it, too, because he turned his attention from Christopher to me, via Montrose. The look he and Freddie Montrose exchanged lasted barely a second, but it was noticeably there.
Crispin looked at me. “Darling?”
His reluctance was obvious, at least to someone who knows him well, and I’ve watched his expressions on and off for twelve years now. I can’t read him as well as I can Christopher, but well enough to know that at that moment, he wanted me to say no, to come up with some reason why we couldn’t go.
And I’m sorry to say that I did what I usually do in that situation, which was the opposite of what Crispin wanted me to do, because a large part of my life is about doing what I can to annoy him.
I smiled brightly. “That sounds marvelous. We’ve got Crispin’s Hispano-Suiza; we can take Christopher and someone else. Perhaps you, Mr. Montrose?”
Montrose nodded pleasantly. “That would be delightful. Thank you.”
I turned to the only other real woman in the party. “You’re welcome to ride with us too, Gladys. If you’d prefer to go with us over going with the young men.”
Four of them, in whatever vehicle they had gotten here in. In the Hispano-Suiza, at least I would be there to make sure everyone behaved.
Not that anyone was likely to misbehave, actually. Certainly not Christopher, and I didn’t get the impression that Crispin was particularly drawn to Gladys, either, for all that he had flirted outrageously with her. For him, that was practically instinct. And as for Frederick Montrose… well, the idea of him trying to get something going with a young woman in his current getup was too ridiculous for words.
“Darling?” Gladys repeated, as she looked between me and Crispin.
“Just St George’s idea of a little joke,” I told her, after which Crispin put a hand to his chest and a wounded look in his eyes.
“You cut me to the quick, Darling.”
“On a regular basis, I’m sure,” I told him, and gave him a nudge with my hip. “Go on, St George. Out of the booth.”
He sighed but moved. “On your own head be it, Darling.”
“Be what?” I asked, but he just shook his head and looked around.
“Where’s my wrap?”
“Here you are.” I fished it out of my—of Christopher’s—top hat and handed it to him.
He eyed it, and me, and it. “You’re not going to help me into it?”
I gave him a look. “It’s a wrap, St George. There’s no ‘into.’ You just wrap it around you.”
“Wrap it around me then, Darling. You’re my escort for the evening, aren’t you? Isn’t it your duty to make sure I’m wrapped up against the evening chill?”
Now that he mentioned it, I guess it was. I flung the wrap around his shoulders while Christopher somehow managed to get into his own with no problem, as did Montrose. Hutchison did the honors for Gladys. And then we headed out of Rectors and away from the drag ball and down the street to the car park and Giles and Crispin’s Hispano-Suiza.
Ronald Blanton’splace turned out to be an exceedingly lovely flat in a very exclusive mansion block in Mayfair. It quite blew Christopher’s and my flat in the Essex House Mansions out of the water. It was twice as big, for one thing, with a proper library, and one more bedroom, and staff quarters. Ronnie had a live-in manservant, an older man with sparse hair who greeted us in the foyer when we walked in, and who displayed no signs of surprise or anything else, not even at the sight of Christopher, Crispin, and Frederick Montrose in their dresses and wigs, nor for that matter of me in my—or in Christopher’s—top hat and tails. He merely divested the men of their evening wraps and me of my hat, stowed them in the appropriate closet, and withdrew, at Ronnie Blanton’s request, to his quarters for the evening. “Off to bed, Dobbins,” Ronnie said gaily, “there’s a good chap. We’ll take care of ourselves for the rest of the night.”
“Yes, Master Ronald.” Dobbins inclined his head and withdrew. Rivers and Hutchison shared a snigger, Christopher and I a look.
“Come in, come in!” Ronald waved us all into the sitting room. “Make yourselves comfortable. Hutch, will you do the honors? Dom…”
Dominic Rivers and Hutchison nodded, upon which sign Blanton drew Rivers out through the door into the hall, practically vibrating with eagerness, while Hutchison headed for the bar cart. “What’ll it be, chaps?” he asked over his shoulder. “Shall we have more champagne in honor of St George’s birthday, or something else?”
“Champagne cocktails!” Gladys giggled, and Hutchison shrugged.
“Someone better check the larder for oranges, then.”
Gladys turned toward the kitchen, but the third young man, the quiet one, whom Christopher had told me in the car was named Graham Ogilvie, shook his head. “Better not interrupt, pet. Hutchie’ll make you a nice French 75 instead. Won’t you, Nigel?”
“Certainly,” Hutchison said, and got busy with the bottles. “What about the rest of you? Miss Darling? Or should I say Mister Darling?” He smirked.
