Page 69 of The Number of Love
“You’re a good man in bad circumstances, Red. But circumstances change. Yours will too.” One of the queries he’d sent to his father’s old friends would surely pan out. Or some other opportunity would arise. Red wouldn’t be left like this forever, not when he was willing and able to work.
“Even so. What’s the best I can hope for? Manual labor. Hardly something that could support a girl like your sister, who’s used to the finer things. Whodeservesthe finer things.”
“My sister can get on quite well whatever her lot—and don’t you dare sell her short by implying otherwise.” Not to mention that Dot was part owner in their shipping company as well. A fact that did neither of them any good at the moment, but it would someday, when the war was over.
Not that it would do anything but make Red feel worse about himself just now. He wasn’t looking for a wife with means. He was looking for the means to provide for her himself.
As they made their way to the first landing, silence overtook them—a rather brooding one. Had the discomfort in his side not been increasing with every step and his energy flagging by a proportionaldegree, he may have smiled at the frown furrowed into his friend’s brow.
They were just turning to the next flight of stairs when Red said, “How do you suppose he convinced her to tell him where she lived?”
“If I were to guess...” He paused not for effect, but to suck in another breath and grip the railing better. Couldn’t Dot and Aunt Millie at least have found a flat on the ground floor? “He asked.”
Red’s scowl didn’t lessen any. “And she simplytoldhim where he could find her?”
“Where to findme.” Blast, but when had these stairs grown as tall as the Matterhorn? “She knows we’re old school chums.”
“But—”
“Trust me, Red. I know the type of fellow my sister likes, and Phillip Camden isn’t it. She’s never gone in for the sort who is chasing a different girl every week.”
Red didn’t look quite convinced, but Drake couldn’t spare the breath to offer any more encouragement just now.
Funny though. All the exertion didn’t at all distract his mind from winging a few streets away to where he imagined a certain letter being dropped into a certain post box.
Margot obviously didn’t care for Camden’s type either. But did she care forhis?
21
So intriguing.” The duchess was leaning back in her chair, her teacup dangling from her hand and her trousered legs crossed in what looked like a pose for an advert in one of the fashion magazines Maman had always liked. “I know it’s all still theoretical, but it sounds very revolutionary, doesn’t it?”
“Indeed.” Margot sipped the last of her own coffee—apparently what the duchess preferred to serve in her dainty little teacups—with a smile. She and Maman hadn’t been able to find or afford decent coffee since moving here. The very scent was enough to take her back to Belgium. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that she heard Papa chuckling over his own cup. “Einstein’s mathematics are certainly sound. I don’t know how one could prove his theories, but theycouldbe true. Which is quite amazing.”
The duchess hummed and sat forward to slide her cup onto the end table by her chair. “The mathematics themselves are a bit beyond me, I confess. But the ideas...” She flashed a smile. “If my grandfather keeps sending me what journals he can find, can I keep passing them along to you? I’ve so enjoyed getting to talk to someone about something other than this dratted war.”
Margot could only blink for a long moment. Surely she’d wake upand find this had been nothing but a dream. Because surely nowhere in this world did a place like this still exist. The beautiful Stafford townhouse, the tea cakes with real sugar in them, the hostess who could converse intelligently about something other than children and clothes and aide meetings. “Of course, Your Grace. I would be delighted.”
“Good. And you can call me Brook. After all”—her smile went impish—“apparently I have already proven a terrible influence on you. The ward matron has done nothing but scowl at me ever since you cut your hair. It looks lovely, by the way.”
“Oh.” Margot lifted a hand, not to touch the waves that she rather thought she’d mastered creating by now, but to motion the compliment away. “It was more for a point than for fashion. I don’t much care whether I’m in vogue.”
Brook opened her mouth but got out no reply before there came a genuine cacophony from the entryway. Doors opening, closing, the butler’s shuffle, and what sounded like a dozen—or perhaps two—enthusiastic little voices calling out, “Maman! Maman!Tu ne devines jamais ce que on a fait!”
Instantly the duchess’s face lit, and she leaned forward with her arms outstretched for the miniature people who came barreling into the room. Boys, apparently. The larger probably around five, the smaller perhaps three. They were dressed similarly in short trousers and knee socks, the caps that matched their jackets both askew as they hurled themselves into their mother’s arms.
“What did you do?” Brook asked in response to her boys’ claim that she would never guess. “Grandpapa didn’t take you to the sweets shop again, did he?”
“I learned my lesson after you left me with them last time.”
Margot turned her head to see a full-sized person following the boys at a more sedate pace. A gentleman, obviously, and presumably either the duchess’s father or father-in-law. He wore a small smile that seemed perfectly at home in the corners of his mouth and a jacket with four gleaming black buttons, and he’d taken five steps into the room before he seemed to notice that it held someone otherthan his grandchildren and their mother. But when he looked over at Margot, it was with a ready smile.
“The zoo!” the bigger of the little ones exclaimed, switching without any seeming thought from French to English.
“How fun!” Over her son’s head, Brook said, “Papa, this is Margot De Wilde, about whom I was telling you earlier. Margot, my father, the Earl of Whitby.”
“How do you do, my lord?” Margot slid her empty coffee cup onto the table nearest her and held out a hand to shake.
Lord Whitby took it with a sparkle in his eye to match his grin. “Ah, the mathematician! Yes, Brook was telling me how excited she was to find someone with whom to discuss that journal. And your brother is the violinist, I believe?”
