Chapter One
Silver and Greywere celebrating.
Constance and Solomon, as owners of the firm, were dispensing a buffet lunch with wine to all three members of their staff, in recognition of their excellent work in finding a missing child before real harm befell her. As a bonus to this triumph, the child’s doting parents were fabulously wealthy and had paid liberally for their speedy success.
Janey, the firm’s inquiries assistant, and carpenter Lenny Knox, their occasional helper, had done much of the slog of this search, and it was largely down to them that the case had been solved so quickly. Lenny looked slightly bemused to be so feted, Janey was thoroughly delighted, and Hat, the receptionist, was smiling with pleasure to be included.
Chatter and laughter and the sweet satisfaction of success in such a harrowing case surrounded Constance. She would never grow tired of sharing such moments with her husband and partner. So it was a silly time for a quarrel.
“You see?” Solomon murmured. “We are an odd mix of people, and yet we are happy.”
“Yes,” she said at once, “but can you really imagine your respectable business associates bringing their wives to such a gathering? For longer than half a minute?”
“Yes. Many of them.”
“And to the other half, you are forever tainted by association.Turning a blind eye to your unwise marriage is not the same as publicly endorsing it. It’s a lovely idea, Solomon, but not a practical one.”
They were not, of course, talking about this impromptu staff celebration but about Solomon’s wish to hold an evening party at their marital home. Constance was more than happy to entertain his friends, just not alongside her own. For one thing, his friends would not bring their wives.
“Don’t you see that it would be turning our home into another establishment?” she said, intensely. “And you want that as little as I do.”
In fact, it was strange of him altogether, for he was hardly the most sociable of men.
“The establishment is already more respectable than before,” he pointed out.
The establishment, which had begun as Constance’s well-run brothel with a charitable sideline, had, largely thanks to Solomon, recently become more of a charity with a disreputable sideline. At least, that was the perception they were aiming at, largely because Constance did not want Solomon’s wife to be known as a courtesan, or worse. The civilized evening parties for gentlemen to choose their companions had begun to double as fundraising events, so that no one knew anymore who attended for the girls and who for philanthropic intent. In fact, many came from mere curiosity and still stayed for one reason or the other.
But thenewhouse, her and Solomon’s home, should be inviolate.
“Then let’s not make our home less respectable,” she snapped. “It won’t do, Solomon. Unless you hold the party while I am out.”
“That does not work.”
“It is the only way itwillwork,” she said. “I cannot change who I am. Can’t you be content as we are?”
“Content?” he repeated, staring at her. A rare spark of anger flashedin his shrewd, dark eyes, as if the tameness of the word offended him. “Constance…”
He blinked, gazing beyond her to the doorway.
Hat stood there, clearly having answered the front door that the others had been too preoccupied to hear. Behind her stood a distinguished man Constance had never expected to see again.
Sebastian Kellar.
“Oh—oh,” she said involuntarily, even while she summoned a delighted smile and hurried to meet him. “Mr. Kellar, what a delightful surprise.”
“Mrs. Grey, a pleasure to see you again!” He bowed over her hand and turned to shake hands with Solomon. “How are you, Grey? I’m sorry. I seem to have interrupted—”
“Not at all,” Solomon said. “Are you hungry? A glass of wine, perhaps?”
“Actually, no. Happy though I am to see you both again, I’m afraid this is not a social call. It is business.”
“Then perhaps we should go through to my office,” Constance suggested, relieved. She nodded to Hat, who looked uncertain. “You do have another half-hour for luncheon,” she reminded the girl, and led the way out of Solomon’s office, and along the hallway to her own.
Kellar gazed about him. “Charming offices,” he said mildly. “I should not be surprised. Is it someone’s birthday next door?”
“No,” Constance replied, going at once to her desk—Kellar had clearly stated business, after all. “Do sit down. How long have you been back in England?”
They had last seen him in Venice during their honeymoon in March. A British diplomat with a roaming brief and unclear duties, he had been on his way to Rome when he took his leave of them, mentioning a subsequent intention to return to England. That had been four months ago, in March.
