Wolfgang grunted, and I added, “Aside from Dominic Rivers, I suppose. He knows everyone, and everyone knows him, but according to St George, he grew up in Southwark. But when you’re peddling something everyone wants, I guess your background doesn’t much matter.”
“Pardon me?”
“Dominic Rivers. Over there, the young man with the black hair and olive skin.”
Wolfgang eyed him.
“He’s a dope merchant. From what I know, he supplies the entire Bright Young Set with dope. Someone must have asked him to bring something, I suppose, and he’s here to deliver.”
Crispin had made it clear with his reaction that he hadn’t invited Rivers, so perhaps Laetitia was the culprit. Although I couldn’t imagine what reason she might have had to want to get high. She was already on cloud nine over the engagement, and wouldn’t be looking to forget anything.
No, it was more likely that one of the other guests had contacted Rivers with a request for some sort of dope, and Rivers had arranged to meet him or her here. That was how it usually worked: you didn’t go to Rivers, he came to you.
My eyes flicked to Francis, who was still standing by the wall, sullenly clutching a glass. It was more than half full, so it had been refilled since the last time I had seen him toss the contents back. Constance stood on one side of him, teeth sunk into her bottom lip and eyes worried, while Christopher stood on the other. From his expression, and the way his hands flew, he was doing his best to reason with his brother, but from Francis’s face—brows lowered and jaw clenched—Christopher wasn’t making much headway.
Did Francis know who Dominic Rivers was, I wondered?
Francis has spent most of the eight years since the War blunting the shellshock with any kind of dope he can get his hands on. I’ve seen him strung out on opium and practically catatonic from high levels of Veronal. I didn’t think his supplier had ever been Dominic Rivers—Francis is thirty, and deals with a rougher, more adult crowd—but if Dom was here, and had what Francis wanted, I wouldn’t put it past Francis to make use of that opportunity. Not in his current state of mind, at any rate. I hoped Christopher had realized the danger and was taking steps to prevent it.
“Nice company your cousin keeps,” Wolfgang remarked snidely, and I returned my attention to him.
“St George? He’s not my cousin. And he wasn’t the one who invited Rivers here. I don’t know who did, but he made it clear that he hadn’t.”
“Hmm.” Wolfgang eyed the dope dealer. He had switched from dancing with the Honorable Cecily Fletcher to dancing with Lady Violet Cummings now, and Cecily was the one in Geoffrey’s arms. She looked stiff and uncomfortable, as if he were attempting to grasp her more closely than she wanted to be held. It was certainly something he would do, I thought, even if I had never had the displeasure of being forced to dance with him myself. At any rate, Cecily looked as if she were making an effort to keep her body at a distance from his.
Although he wasn’t slobbering all over her, at least. Instead, he was pointedly ignoring her in favor of watching something, or perhaps someone, on the other side of the room. I twisted my head in that direction, but saw nothing interesting. Francis, Christopher, and Constance were still holding up the wall. A maid in a neat gray uniform was approaching them with a cup of tea that she handed off to Constance, who I guessed must have had her fill of sherry already. Not much of a party animal, my future cousin-in-law. Although in justice to her, with the way Francis was knocking back the heavy liquor, perhaps she thought that one of them had better stay sober, and perhaps she was right. Francis would become more and more of a cross to bear the more he drank, I imagined.
Then Wolfgang turned me around again, and I was looking at Crispin and Laetitia, still revolving around the floor together. Being newly engaged, they probably weren’t expected to dance with anyone else tonight, or perhaps it was simply a choice on Laetitia’s part, to not let Crispin out of her grasp.
“They make for a handsome couple,” Wolfgang commented, and I made a face.
“I suppose.”
My tendency, since I dislike them both, is to disregard that particular fact. Or rather, I’m well aware that Laetitia is lovely. I just don’t like to acknowledge it. As for Crispin… he looks practically identical to Christopher, and Christopher is quite cute, so of course I’m aware, on a purely esthetic level, that Crispin is good-looking. It’s not something I usually think about, however. You won’t find me gawking at him with stars in my eyes the way Laetitia was doing.
Wolfgang smirked. “They’ll make beautiful babies.”
“Ugh,” I said.
He chuckled and spun me around. “Not ready for that step?”
“Not ready for them to take it, certainly. Nor are they, I imagine.”
Or at least Crispin wasn’t. Aunt Roz had dumped a baby in his arms a few months ago—a baby that looked enough like him to be his own, and a baby that everyone had, in fact, believed to be his—and he had looked like a rabbit in the headlamps of an oncoming motorcar.
No, definitely not ready for fatherhood.
“I saw in theTimesthat the wedding is to take place in December,” Wolfgang remarked. “In German society, that would be cause for gossip.”
Yes, no doubt it was cause for gossip here, too. Crispin had assured me that Laetitia wasn’t in the family way—if she had been, it wouldn’t have taken my involvement to make Crispin propose; between Uncle Harold and Laetitia herself, they would have forced him to do the right thing—but there was no question that people would be, and probably already were, talking.
“She’s just eager,” I said. “Not expecting.”
He squinted at me. “You’re certain of this?”
“As certain as I can be. St George said so. And as far as I know, the last time they shared a bed was in January.”
“He told you this?” Wolfgang sounded shocked.
