Page 54 of The Wallflower Manifesto
“Oh, stop ruining my teasing with good sense,” Abe huffed, giving the other man an affectionate punch to the arm. “It just amuses me that your big barrister’s office is decorated with scandal sheets.”
Cresson blushed, obviously pleased by this description of the tiny room. “Have you read this one, though? It’s an essay.”
“I have, in fact,” Abe told him, stamping down the wariness that attempted to rise in his tone. “It was illuminating.”
Cresson frowned. “It is, isn’t it? Upsetting, even. When I read it, I thought it felt likeCommon SenseorUtopia, but for women. As though I’ve been missing an entire wedge of what life is like for the people around me.”
“Indeed,” said Abe, not quite knowing what else there was to say, then, with a thin flurry of absurd giddiness in being able to play apart in Millie’s ruse, he added, “I heard it was a maid that wrote it.”
Cresson looked at him for a moment and then said, “I heard it was a spinster.”
Silas himself was in the other room, thebigoffice with that Portuguese fellow who’d fandango’d Lady Bentley, though Cresson had barely begun Abe’s tour of the new broom closet before Silas called them both in to properly meet the fellow.
Dom Raul de Faria was an elegant man in his early fifties, so finely tailored that Abe felt like he needed to have a grumbling talk with the stitching in his own clothes later. He stood when Silas introduced them, treating both Abe and Cresson like they were the most important people he’d ever had the pleasure of sharing a room with.
“Mr. Murphy is my private investigator,” Silas had said with what sounded suspiciously like pride, “and Joseph Cresson here is my new junior partner.”
Well! Then it wasn’t just a broom closet after all.
Cresson, rather than looking like a disastrous intersection of bashful and thrilled, wore a small, quiet smile at the title, and shook the Dom’s hand with a tendril of confidence that Abe wasn’t sure he’d ever seen in the other man before.
Oddly, it made Abe feel proud too. Truly, it was a strange sort of day.
They sat at Silas’s big round table near the window overlooking Covent Garden, and Silas launched into his reasons for calling them in.
“I”m unsure if either of you have been following international news,” he said with a little frown, “but there has been some concerning chatter and upheaval around Dom Raul’s central estate in Lisbon. In all of Lisbon, to be truthful. While we work on managing his affairs here, we are developing some growing concern about the security of his affairs back home.”
“There is no need to hide the truth,” Dom Raul put in with a frown, “what is happening in Portugal is the smoke before the fire. Part of me regrets coming here to deal with a country house while it is unfolding, but I confess, the other part of me is relieved to have avoided it. I do not know what the next months will hold for my people and my country.”
Abe blinked at this. He could point to Portugal on a map, but that was probably the extent of his awareness of it as a nation.
Cresson, however, was nodding along as though he were an expert. “I’d say who knew a wayward colony could cause so much trouble,” he said quietly, “but, being British, I suppose we all know perfectly well.”
This made Dom Raul laugh, and even got a raise of the brows from Silas.
“Yes,” Silas said, clearing his throat, “well, it does put a bit of pressure on our work for the Dom. He has graciously decided to extend our legal purview to his complete estates in order to try to keep things continuous. That means I need Abe to prioritize some work in Reading, and I need you on it full-time, Cresson …inPortugal.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Sir?” Cresson replied.
Silas leaned back in his chair, his expression impervious. “I know you want to finish up this business with Mr. Aiden first, and of course you should. I am honestly surprised it isn’t already settled.”
Cresson pressed his lips together hard, his ears and neck turning pink. “Mr. Aiden has been cleared of the jewel thief accusations,” he said primly. “The only reason he is still in holding is because he keeps …doing thingsto antagonize the guards.”
Abe resisted the urge to laugh. “What do you mean,doing things?” he pressed. “He’s a hundred years old, Cresson.”
The pink flush climbed up Cresson’s throat. “He is … often in arguments when I arrive, and has tried to dismiss me at several junctures. He is”—Cresson winced, clearly pained by the topic—“well, he’s just …” he trailed off, his voice becoming a little louder, “he’snot a very nice man!”
Abe gasped before he could stop himself, his hand flying up to cover his lips in an attempt to stifle the immediate urge to smile.
Cresson looked miserable, like he’d just announced his plans to violently murder Mr. Aiden.
Silas, despite himself, looked a little shocked. He glanced in annoyance at Abe’s gasp and then back to his protégé with a slight wrinkle of his brow. “Mr. Cresson, you seem a little strained,” he said calmly.
Cresson lowered his gaze to his hands. “I’ll get him out this week,” he said quietly, like he was making a solemn vow. “I just need him to stop talking long enough to get the papers signed this time.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Abe offered.
