“ForbotheringJuliet.”
“Was she bothered?” Solomon asked gently. “It seemed to me thatyouwere the one upset.”
“Oh, she was bothered,” Constance said with certainty. “She might have thrown him out after one minute or even ten, but she was upset enough to forget to lock the door behind him, to knock back a cartload of gin, and fall asleep. She hasn’t drunk like that in years, not in the daytime anyway, and certainly not since you found her the shop.”
Solomon sat up straight, staring at her. “You think hethreatenedher?”
Constance shook her head. “That’s not his style, is it? He’s not some underworld villain from the East End. I doubt he makes threats at all, just acts when he considers it necessary.”
“Then what upset her?”
“Hedid. His existence, his presence.” And how far she had fallen.
*
There was nothing,Juliet reflected, like a daughter’s contempt tomake a drunken old tart pull herself together.
She had needed the gin for her nerves after Sebastian’s visit. She hadn’t meant to slug quite so much, though in truth she had needed the sleep too. Still, Connie’s disapproving face could curdle the milk as well as sober the most legless of topers. And despite the slightly woolly head, Juliet was stone-cold sober.
She hadn’t invited him to her sitting room, or even her kitchen for a cup of tea. But then, he hadn’t asked. He had only stopped to issue an invitation to dine. At a public place, too.
“A quiet eating house,” he had called it.
She had known he would come back after his visit to the shop. But she certainly hadn’t expected it to be for that reason. She had probably gawped at him with her ugly old mouth wide open. Why the devil would he risk being seen with someone like her? It wasn’t as if she had any beauty or even glamor left. She could dress and paint herself into an eccentric, even interesting person, but not one of Sebastian’s class. At best, she was vulgar. At worst…
Well, there was no point in dwelling on the worst.
“I’ll think about it,” she had said, just to make him go. “But probably not. Goodbye, Sebastian.”
To her surprise, even a certain amount of foolish pique, he had not lingered, merely smiled as if he understood perfectly, which he probably did, the bastard. Then he had placed his hat back on his handsome head and departed, closing the door behind him.
Juliet had headed straight back upstairs, forgetting even to turn the key in the lock, and seized the gin with shaking hands.Stupid, stupid.She let Constance down too often through gin, when life had seemed unbearable and all she had was a couple of hours of oblivion. That wasn’t true, of course, and even when she behaved appallingly, she had never forgotten that what she had was Constance herself.
Trust the girl to turn up the only time she didn’t want her around. She had done that as a child, too. As if she sensed her mother’sshameful weakness from afar and bolted back home to catch her at it. Still, Connie’s astringence had had its sobering effects, along with Solomon’s calm yet powerful presence.
She would not be dining with Sebastian Kellar.
Really, she would not.
