“I had my fill of shooting things in France,” Francis said blandly. “We’re getting up a party for croquet on the lawn. Would you like to join us, Lady Serena?”
Serena’s red lips curved in a smirk. “I’m riding out with my husband, Mr. Astley. But thank you.”
“More coldblooded than I am,” Bilge commented, with a look at his wife that was part proprietary, part indulgent, and part admiring. “And a crack shot, too. The Boche wouldn’t have known what hit them.”
“A shame we didn’t have you with us on the Continent, Lady Serena.” Francis managed a truncated bow from where he was sitting at the table. “Perhaps we could have made it home sooner.”
And with fewer casualties. He didn’t say it, but I’m sure we all heard it.
Serena simpered. “Enjoy your game.” She tucked her hand through Bilge’s arm and tugged him towards the door. We sat in silence until they had vanished, and then Christopher said, “Was it me, or was that condescending?”
“Bilge Fortescue has always been a prat,” Francis said calmly. “We went to Eton together, you know. And then we went to France together. He was a form below me, and one above Robbie.”
So nineteen, then, when conscription was instituted in January, 1916. The conscription that snagged both Francis at twenty, and Robbie, at eighteen, as well.
“Do you know his wife?”
“Just to look at,” Francis said. “I heard that old Bilgy had married her. It must have been two or three years ago now. But we’ve never been close.”
And two years ago, Francis hadn’t been in any kind of shape to celebrate a friend’s nuptials anyway, even if he and Bilgy had been friendly.
“Out of curiosity,” I said, “what sort of name is Bilge?”
Francis chuckled, and even Constance cracked a smile. “His name is William. We called him Billy, but it became Bilge after a while, since he had a tendency to talk a lot of rubbish.”
“Such as?”
“Oh.” Francis shrugged. “How special he was, how much money his family had, how the Boche would run had it been him on the Continent…”
He shook his head. “This was before we were conscripted, of course. I don’t think he acquitted himself any better than anyone else in the trenches.”
Likely not. He seemed like the kind of bloke who was all talk and very little action. All hat and no cattle, as Hiram Schlomsky would have said. Although his wife had seemed pleased enough with him, I supposed, considering the way she had chivvied him out of there.
“So…” I asked, “croquet?”
“Fine by me.” Francis got to his feet and pulled out Constance’s chair. “Kit?”
“I’m in.” Christopher stood, too. “Do you want to go and ask Miss Fletcher if she wants to join us, Pippa?”
“I might as well,” I said. “Would you like to come up with me, Constance?”
Constance nodded. “I have to go upstairs anyway. Don’t want to ruin my new shoes on the lawn.”
They were lovely, I have to say: a mix of patent leather and suede with a dainty Cuban heel that was sure to sink into the grass. The dew wouldn’t do the suede any favors, either.
“You can put them back on later,” I told her, as I got to my feet. “You’ll be more comfortable in brogues once we get outside.”
“We’ll hunt up the mallets and wickets,” Francis said. “Which part of the lawn should we use, my dear?”
Constance pointed him in the direction of the carriage house and the bit of lawn where the game of croquet usually took place, and then the men headed for the back door and the great outdoors while Constance and I took the main staircase up to the first floor.
I waited until we had gained the next story before I leaned towards Constance. “I didn’t want to ask in front of Francis?—”
Francis’s fiancée gave me a jaundiced look out of the corner of her eye.
“—but have you seen Wolfgang this morning?”
His room was on the second floor, as far as I knew, somewhere in the vicinity of my own, but I hadn’t wanted to go knocking on doors this morning. I didn’t want the noise to disturb Cecily, for one thing—she could probably use all the rest she could get, both with her condition and after the disturbed night she had had—and for another, it’s not proper for a young woman to knock on the bedroom door of a young man to whom she has no familiar or romantic ties. I didn’t want to give anyone, including Wolfgang, the wrong idea.
