Page 113 of Murder at the Debutante Ballby

“Yes.”

“I don’t think I’m the best person to ask. I don’t care if people don’t like me. You do care.” She hugged the pillow to her chest as she studied me. “I wouldn’t wear that if I was you.”

I looked down at the dress I’d changed into. It was sage green with applique flowers of cream on the skirt and a cream lace panel at my decolletage. I’d pinned a black ribbon around my waist and another at my throat. Although my aunt insisted I no longer needed to wear mourning, I wanted some black on my daytime outfits for a little longer. “What’s wrong with it?”

“The Hobarts are humble people. You dress like a toff these days.”

I sighed. It was true. I’d arrived in London in December with little more than the black dress I’d been wearing in mourning for my grandmother. Ever since, my aunt had kept the city’s dressmakers busy making me new outfits suitable for the niece of the owner of the Mayfair Hotel. Uncle Ronald had paid for them all, and not begrudged a penny of it. He was generous with his money, as long as the spending of it served a purpose. Beautiful ballgowns and day dresses were precisely what I needed if I was going to represent the Bainbridge family, and therefore the Mayfair Hotel.

I sighed. “You’re right. I’ll change into something plainer before I go.”

“If Mrs. Hobart is the sort to find fault in anything you do—”

“She is.”

“Then you should wear black. She’ll think it inappropriate to be seen in lighter colors only six months after your grandmother’s passing.”

“True, and I don’t want to do anything that would make her think poorly of me.”

She smiled as she settled the pillow onto the bed. “A person would think you were trying to impress her.”

“Then a person would be wrong. I have no reason to impress Mrs. Hobart. It’s as you said, I just want to be liked by everyone.”

“If you say so.” She threw the second pillow at me. I wasn’t ready and it hit me in the face. She giggled.

“Now you’re just asking for trouble.”

I picked up the pillow, but instead of throwing it back at her, I chased her around the room until she managed to snatch up a pillow of her own and defend herself. After a vigorous pillow fight that ended in giggles and gasps for air, we finished cleaning the room together then parted ways in the corridor.

***

The home of Harry’s parents was a comfortable family abode in Ealing, within walking distance of the railway station. Fortunately the rain stopped just before I left the hotel so I remained dry and didn’t drip all over Mrs. Hobart’s clean floor. Thankfully Harry was already there when I arrived. It would have been awkward if he was late.

It was somewhat awkward anyway. Mrs. Hobart’s stiff greeting at the door left me with no doubt about her feelings towards me. We exchanged excessively polite greetings before she got in her first comment about Miss Morris, although Miss Morris’s name was never actually mentioned.

“Harry has beenverywell of late,” she said as she directed me towards the sitting room. “He’s been so settled, so happy this past week.”

“I’m pleased to hear it.”

“Not that we’ve seen much of him, his father and me. He’s been much too busy to call on us every day like he used to.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Oh no, not at all! Not when the reason for his busy-ness is making him happy.”

She indicated I should enter the sitting room ahead of her. Harry and his father stood. D.I. Hobart—I couldn’t get used to calling him Mister after knowing him as Detective Inspector since our first encounter—greeted me with more amiability and familiarity than his wife. We’d worked together on a few occasions so it was understandable, but his welcome was in stark contrast to Mrs. Hobart’s.

Harry’s greeting was somewhat odd, too. “I haven’t seen that dress in a while. Has something happened?”

I smoothed my hand over my waist and down my black skirt. “Nobody has died,” I assured him. “Nobody I know, that is. I just thought it…more appropriate than what I had on earlier.”

He frowned. Then his gaze slowly moved to his mother as she headed off towards the kitchen. He didn’t quite smile, but his features lifted in amusement. “You’ll have to try harder than that,” he said under his breath.

“Care to offer any hints as to what I should do?”

With another barely perceptible movement of his features, the amusement was replaced by earnestness. “Just be yourself.”

“That’s no help at all.”

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