Good for her. “I think I might like Cecily,” I said.
“You’d like anyone who gave me a hard time,” Crispin answered, which was certainly true. He reached for thedoorknob. “It’s quiet out there. He must have gone inside his room.”
Or inside someone else’s. But either way?—
“I’m sure it’s safe to leave. Go get some sleep, St George. Tomorrow’s going to be another long day of playing the happy fiancé. Better make sure you’re rested.”
He nodded. “What are you doing out and about at this hour anyway?” He looked me up and down, and his lip curled. “Coming from your own late-night rendezvous, are you?”
“It’s certainly none of your affair if I am,” I said, “seeing whose room you just came out of. But for your information, I sat with Constance for a while after we came upstairs. She’s upset about Francis.”
He sniggered. “Drunk off his arse, is he?”
“Yes. And so would you be, I believe, if you had spent two years in a foxhole and you suddenly came face to face with a German.”
“Wolfie affects me that way even without the two years in the foxhole,” Crispin said. “I’m just glad that someone else in the family shares my opinion of the bastard. The way you and Christopher fawn over him is appalling.”
“Wolfgang,” I corrected, “and I don’t fawn. Christopher doesn’t, either. He just thinks Wolfgang is handsome. Which he is.”
Crispin sneered. “That’s why you spent the rest of the evening making cow eyes at him, I suppose.”
“Of course. And after the way you and Francis behaved, I had to make sure that he wasn’t uncomfortable.”
“Oh, I’m sure you made him very comfortable indeed,” Crispin said. The sneer had taken up permanent residence now.
There was nothing I would have liked more than to smack it off his face, but I took a breath and refrained. “With you leaving your fiancée downstairs in favor of visiting Cecily’s bedchamberat one in the morning, it’s not as if you have any room to talk, St George.”
Crispin shrugged, but it was sulky.
“I’m going to bed,” I said.
He gave me an up and down look. “I imagine you’d like me to leave?”
“If you don’t mind. I’ll share with Christopher, but not with you. Besides, you have a room of your own, don’t you?”
Crispin’s lip curled. “I do. Across the hall from Laetitia’s.”
“The better to keep an eye on you, I suppose? She warned the maid to stay away from you, you know.”
He sneered. “As if I would ever have anything to do with the maids.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” I said. “I know that, even if Laetitia doesn’t. Although I think she’s probably asleep by now, so you can get downstairs undetected. At least she didn’t stick her head out to look at me when I left Constance’s room earlier.”
He sighed. “I suppose I’d best go, then.”
I nodded. “I wish you would, St George. Go get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be another long day of shooting pheasant and playing the happy fiancé.”
He rolled his eyes. “Hunting. What fun.”
“You don’t have to ride out if you don’t want to,” I pointed out. “Your father isn’t here yet, to yell at you for deviating from the approved path. You can stay with us. I don’t plan to ride out. Christopher won’t, either. Or Constance. And I doubt Francis is interested in pointing a weapon at anything anymore.”
“Bilge Fortescue spent some time on the Front, too,” Crispin said, “although I doubt it will keep him from shooting at birds.”
“Bilge Fortescue can do whatever he wants. It’s none of our concern. Go to bed, St George.” I reached past him and turned the door handle. “Off you go. Sweet dreams and all that.”
The door opened and Crispin backed out. Right into the arms of the man standing outside in the hallway.
For a moment, I was afraid it was going to be Wolfgang and that we’d have a shouting match in the upstairs hallway. But it wasn’t, something which the next second made very clear. Just as no one would mistake Dominic Rivers for Crispin, no one—especially me—would mistake him for Wolfgang, either.
