Page 43 of A Convenient Fiction

“His rheumatism became worse, that’s what happened. He doesn’t have the strength anymore.”

Alex picked up a sheet of paper, examining the delicate lines of the sketch. Teddy Hayes was talented. Gifted, even. He shouldn’t be shut up in his room, looking at birds through a poorly washed window. “Your aunt was very weak when we brought her back from the church,” he said casually. “I had to lift her onto her bed.”

Teddy’s gaze jerked up. “Did you?”

“Quite easily.” Alex paused. “I’ll help you down to the parlor, if you like.”

Teddy stared at him. “Now?” His Adam’s apple bobbed on a swallow. “But you’re leaving directly, aren’t you? How would I get back upstairs?”

Alex returned the sheet of paper to the desk. “I suppose I shall just have to stay awhile longer.”

“At the age of thirteen? Alone in Paris?” Teddy stared at Mr. Archer, the plate of mutton and potatoes in front of him quite forgotten. “How did you survive?”

“In great style,” Mr. Archer said.

Teddy and Aunt Charlotte burst into peals of laughter.

Laura managed a smile of her own as she sipped her glass of wine.

Mr. Archer had stayed for Sunday dinner.

She still couldn’t quite believe it. Even as she watched him banter with Teddy, it felt like a dream. An impossible one, at that.

Not only had he helped her brother downstairs, he’d promised to stay long enough to help him back to his room at the evening’s end.

It was an unexpected kindness. One for which Laura should have been grateful. And she was grateful. Just as grateful as she’d been when he helped Aunt Charlotte.

She was also vaguely suspicious.

After so many days of avoiding her, why had Mr. Archer decided to linger? To help Teddy, and to dine with them, entertaining them with stories from his life on the continent?

Was this more of him playing the chameleon? Or was this Mr. Archer at last being himself?

“But how?” Teddy asked.

“I’d been on holiday with my godfather in Alexandria,” Mr. Archer said. “He was detained on business, and sent me back to Marseilles ahead of him on the steamer. During the journey, I had the good fortune to meet a well-to-do traveler. He took me about France with him for a time. Told people I was his son.”

Teddy went off into another gale of laughter.

Aunt Charlotte, by contrast, was aghast. “Why in heaven would he tell people that? He wasn’t some sort of villain, was he?”

“The worst sort, Mrs. Bainbridge. Monsieur Giraud was a sharper.”

Aunt Charlotte’s wineglass froze halfway to her lips. “A what?”

“A professional gambler,” Laura said.

Mr. Archer looked at her—really looked at her—for the first time since they’d sat down to eat. There was a roguish glint in his gray eyes. It provoked a rather disconcerting frisson of warmth in her belly. “Precisely. He’d been driven out of France five years before, when the police shut down the public gaming houses in ’37.”

“Let me guess,” Teddy said. “He took on a new identity so that he could return. A well-to-do traveler—”

“With a son,” Mr. Archer finished for him. “That’s right.”

“But why?” Laura couldn’t help asking. “For what purpose? If the gaming houses were closed—”

“Only the public gaming establishments were shut down, Miss Hayes. There were still plenty of private ones in operation. They did a steady business. A fellow like Giraud could make a great deal of money before the proprietors caught on.”

“Weren’t you afraid you’d be arrested?” Teddy asked.