The Dark Enquiry. Deanna Raybourn

and apparently the feeling was mutual. I ought to have overlooked it, I scolded myself. I ought to have done more to support her. She was my friend, and although the house in St. John’s Wood was pretty and comfortable, it struck me that it must sometimes be lonely, for Fleur’s company was beyond the pale for respectable society ladies.

      “That would be lovely,” I told her truthfully, and we chatted of trivial things until Terese appeared with the pot of chocolate and a plate of dainty feather biscuits.

      When we were alone, Fleur poured out with graceful gestures, and permitted me to sip deeply from the cup before she took up her needlework. She had taken to doing whitework to pass the time, and I marvelled at her deft and graceful stitches, so precise and very nearly impossible to see rendered as they were in white silk on a background of white linen. I admired her latest creation and we chatted for a few moments of inconsequential things.

      Then, her eyes upon her work, she said gently, “Nicholas was here this morning.”

      I flicked her a look of surprise. “Was he indeed?”

      She continued to stitch, her hands never varying in their slow, precise rhythm. “I want you to know I would never keep such thing a secret from you, nor would he want me to. He loves you quite devotedly.”

      I set down my cup with a resounding crack. “Fleur, I have never, would never, suspect you of resuming your attachment to Brisbane. You shared something twenty years ago, but you have both grown far beyond that. And you are two of the most loyal people I know. Your affection for me would prevent either of you ever from acting upon any such impulse.”

      The lovely face diffused into a smile. “I am so glad you know this! You are very right. My passion for Nicholas burned itself out very quickly. We were too different, or perhaps too much alike. I never knew. I only knew that the physical attraction we held for one another did not endure. Only the affection remained. For me, he is like a son now. Well, perhaps not a son. A nephew,” she added with a generous smile.

      That she could speak of such things without blushing I put down to her French blood. She was the only person in Brisbane’s life who referred to him by his Christian name, and it struck me then that any other woman might have been jealous. For my part, I was glad for what he had shared with Fleur. She had been the first woman to offer him unfettered affection. It pained me to think of how solitary his life had been before he had met her, and how little feminine kindness he had known before their liaison.

      “Of course,” she went on, “his attachment to you is entirely different. I think the physical passions will be quite enduring with the two of you.”

      “Fleur, really,” I murmured.

      She gave a little laugh, the light peal of silvery bells. “I have embarrassed you—how pretty you are when you blush! But I am too much a woman of the world not to know a man entirely enthralled when I see it. You have bewitched him, my dear. And I congratulate you. It is not easy to keep a man of that mettle. I have tried,” she said ruefully, and I knew she was not talking of Brisbane.

      “My father,” I guessed.

      She gave a little shrug and put on a brave smile. “Hector is a magnificent man. But it was not to be,” she said lightly.

      I shuddered slightly to hear my father described so, but I was glad she had appreciated his better qualities, if only for a little while. “I am sorry that he broke off the connection,” I offered. “Perhaps he is out of the habit of romance. It has been so long since my mother died.”

      It was a sorry excuse, but the best I could offer her. Sitting in her exquisite, sunlit morning room, surrounded by her elegance and her warmth, it seemed impossible to me that he could have been so stupid as to cast off her affections. But then, my father had never been renowned for doing the sensible thing, I mused with some irritation.

      She shrugged again and let the comment pass. “Nicholas is worried about you.”

      I sighed. “I am worried about him. That is why I have come. I wonder sometimes if we did not make a terrible mistake in our marriage.”

      She cocked her head to the side. “Why do you say such a thing? You love him, he loves you. These are the only facts which matter.”

      “I wish it were as simple as that.” I spread my hands. “I want so badly to be part of his life, his real life—his work. And he promised I could help him with investigations if I applied myself to certain studies. I have done so, and I have proven in the past that I can be useful, to a surprising degree at times. And yet still he fights me, conceals things from me. He forces me to blunder about in secret, a far more dangerous approach,” I pointed out, warming to my theme, “and then he is enraged when I do. There is no winning with him.”