Crispin caught her, but not without a grimace. One she, thankfully, didn’t see.
“There, there.” He patted her awkwardly on the back. Perhaps it was his father’s presence that inhibited him, because he’d certainly made a much better fist of it last night. “What’s wrong, Gladys?”
“Everything,” Gladys wailed, clinging like a vine. “That wretched journalist is dead, and Dom is gone, and Ronnie’s a mess, and Hutchie said that I should come and ask you about last night?—”
I caught Crispin’s gaze over Gladys’s head, and drew a finger across my throat. He arched a brow. “Really, Darling?”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course not, St George.”
I didn’t want him to kill her. I simply wanted him to shut her up before she said something we’d all regret. She’d already come quite close to the line with that remark about the dead journalist, and the last thing we wanted was for Uncle Harold to get any inkling of what we’d been up to last night.
Christopher, who has more experience interpreting my body language, came to the rescue. “Come and have a seat, Miss Long,” he said, “and Crispin will mix you a drink.”
He detached her quite deftly from his jumper, while Crispin, looking relieved, headed for the bar cart.
“Father?” he asked over his shoulder. “Would you like something to drink?”
Gladys gulped, as if she had just now realized who Uncle Harold was, or perhaps realized that he was there at all. The buckle in her knees could have been an attempt at a curtsey, or simply a reaction to the news. At any rate, she dropped into the chair with a horrified whisper of, “Your Grace?”
Uncle Harold inclined his head regally. “And you are, my dear?—?”
“I’m sorry, Father,” Crispin said from over by the wall. “This is the Honorable Gladys Long. You know her people, I’m sure. Gladys, my father, the Duke of Sutherland.”
Gladys gulped again.
“Darling?” Crispin added. “Kit? Something to drink?”
It was a little early for me, honestly, but under the circumstances… “I’ll have whatever Christopher’s having,” I said, as Christopher made his way over to Crispin and the bar cart. “Miss Long? What would you like?”
Gladys requested a Gin Rickey, and since that was simple enough to fix, we all had them. All except Uncle Harold, who sipped on straight bourbon.
“So, Miss Long…” he began, with what I assume he thought was an avuncular twinkle in his eye, but which really looked much more like beady inquisitiveness, “you and my son are close.”
Gladys giggled nervously. “Yes, sir. Your Grace.”
“Did you help him celebrate his birthday last night?”
She shot a glance at Crispin. “I… um… yes, Your Grace.”
“Where did you go?”
“A group of us went to Rectors,” Gladys said, which of course was true as far as it went, “We met St George and his party there. And then we finished up in Ronnie Blanton’s flat in Mayfair.”
Uncle Harold looked politely puzzled. “Rectors nightclub?” he echoed. “I thought that shut down.” He glanced at Crispin. “Didn’t Mitchell run afoul the licensing laws?”
Crispin nodded. “Yes, Father. The club isn’t open to the general public anymore, but last night, it was used for a special event.”
“Your birthday?”
I smirked, and so did Christopher. “No,” Crispin said, straight-faced. “Just a celebration of some kind. A ball, if you will. A hundred or so people. Most of them had no idea who I was.”
“So I won’t be getting a bill for the hiring of Rectors for an evening’s debauchery?”
Crispin shook his head. “No, sir. It was nothing to do with me. We just went there. Kit, Philippa and I, Gladys and her friends. Freddie Montrose, an old schoolmate from Cambridge.”
A shadow crossed his face when he mentioned Montrose’s name. I waited for Uncle Harold to comment on it, but if he noticed, he chose not to remark.
“And then you came back here,” he said instead. His Grace’s tone, or rather, his lack thereof, made it abundantly clear how he felt about that fact.
