Read Online Justice Hall by Laurie R. King - Free Book Online Page B

working a pair of silver-grey gloves from her thin hands as she came through the door. In her case, the ebony Hughenfort curls had been tamed, by nature or art, into a sleek shingle, but the chin and eyebrow were instantly recognisable. She radiated a natural superiority; her clothing was too perfect to be anything but Paris; I felt instantly a frump.
    “My sister,” said Marsh. “Phillida Darling.”
    For a startling moment, I thought he was using a term of endearment in detached irony, but I realised it had to be the surname of the teeth-on-edge Sidney. “Phillida, this is Mr Holmes and his wife, Miss Russell. They are friends.”
    Her eyes lit up. She glided across the room, dropping the gloves and her cloche hat on an exquisite marquetry end-table in passing, and held out her hand to Holmes. “What a splendid surprise, to encounter not just one, but two of my brother’s friends in a single day. Any relation to the Duke of Bedford, Miss Russell? No? Well, to think one might have missed you, if the Garritsons’ two brats hadn’t broke out in horrid spots this morning. We thought we’d lunch with them,” she explained, settling onto the divan beside me and taking out a cigarette case and ivory holder, “and we’d already set out before their nanny came down to tell them about the spots, stupid girl, and although usually I’d just have let my two in—children have to get these things some time, don’t they?—it’s really not a terribly convenient time. Thank you,” she told Holmes, who had applied a light to her cigarette. “I mean, one has a party here this week-end, and a ball in a month’s time, wouldn’t it be tiresome if half the house-maids came down in spots, too? It happened to a dear friend of mine, had to cancel the evening, the food all delivered and all. So tell me,” she said, having softened us up with the flow of trivia, “where did you two meet my brother?”
    Here in your entrance hall,
I nearly said. I caught back the impulse, presented her with a cheerful smile, and answered, “Aleppo, wasn’t it, Marsh?” I swivelled my head around as if to consult with him, and read not so much relief as approval, and that quiet humour in the back of his gaze that made my heart leap with pleasure: Mahmoud
was
there, somewhere. “That tawdry little café that your friend Joshua dragged everyone to, plying us with muffins toasted over a paraffin stove? Or was that Greece, the year before? One of those grubby but romantic spots,” I told her.
    “But what was he
doing
there?” She could see I was going to be useless as a source of information, so she turned to confide in Holmes, arching her pencilled eyebrows in appeal. “He vanishes utterly for years and years, sends us a letter every six or eight months—postmarked in London, although one
knows
he can’t be in London, one’s friends would have seen him—and then back he comes, positively
bristling
with mysteries and secrets. A person might think he’d been in prison or something—I mean, just look at his poor face. He didn’t have
that
when he left.” Referring to the scar, of course.
    “Those Heidelberg duelling academies could be quite rough,
nicht war,
Marsh?” This was from Holmes, contributing his own obfuscation.
    “Of course,” I added, “the Carpathian shepherds who took him in couldn’t have helped the healing any. Health care in the mountains is still quite rudimentary.”
    I was interested to see a flash of real irritation beneath Lady Phillida’s sisterly exasperation. Understandable, I supposed—if nothing else, the family would want to know if the heir had a string of warrants, a pile of debts, or a wife and six sons trailing behind from some foreign land. However, if Marsh had not told her where and how he had spent the last twenty years, it was not up to me to fill the gaps.
    She pouted prettily, stubbed out her cigarette, and lounged upright. “You two are as bad as my brother. Shall we see you at