Page 12 of Hazard a Guest
She had known, of course, that Mr. Cresson had gone to Portugal on some mysterious barrister’s business. She remembered being told that in the same breath as the news that Freddy would be occupying his empty flat in the interim.
She had, at that time, imagined that the arrangement was only for a handful of months, not a full year and change besides. But, if the papers were to be believed, Portugal was no longer the sun-drenched, pomegranate-laced holiday destination it had once been.
Some king with a name that was impossible to pronounce had gotten up to some mischief in Brazil, from what she could tell.Some other lad had refused to come back to the motherland when it happened, and now the whole country was a tinderbox. It sounded, Ember thought, correct.
It sounded like the exact kind of stupid powerful men always were.
Of course, it was possible that revolution had been quietly brewing for decades and Ember had just never noticed before. Admittedly, she’d only started looking for Portugal in herEvening Standardafter Cresson’s departure. It was a reason to think of it, she told herself. Something to notice.
Nothing more.
Silas Cain’s office came into view quickly, not more than a block and a half from the Cuckoo’s Nest, and open to the general public with a wide-open door and a meticulously maintained approach.
Ember liked the place. It smelled like authority.
And if anyone was surprised by their arrival, mercifully, Mr. Cresson immediately bore the brunt of it.
The clerks’ heads popped up one at a time like daisies, each one with identical wide-eyed and silent shock at the return of their prodigal issue.
Cain himself was already in the lobby, discussing a brief of some sort with one of them, his looming frame casting a shadow over the poor lad’s desk. Behind him, the door to his private office hung open, revealing another pair of gentlemen farther in.
“Mr. Cresson!” announced Silas Cain, immediately snapping up to attention like a general who’d been observed slouching by one of his cadets. “You’re home!”
“I am,” agreed Cresson with a bashful little hiccup of his steps, his hands immediately flying to the casual hang of the clothing he’d been forced to wear. “I’m afraid we had to come in on short notice. I’ve brought—”
“Ah,” said Silas Cain, his eyes falling on Freddy, his half brother, with something of a sigh. “Good morning, Freddy. Miss Donnelly.”
Well! He’d apparently seen her without even looking.
“Morning, Cain,” Ember said back, a little louder than necessary.
“If you don’t mind,” Cain said, gesturing toward his office. “I won’t be a moment.”
Freddy immediately shuffled off toward the office, knocking the door farther open with his knee. Silas looked a little surprised that Ember followed, likely expecting that she’d come today about the Thaddeus Beck issue, not as part of Cresson’s little coterie.
Well, she had come about that, hadn’t she? Silas just didn’t know the additional details yet.
Inside the private office, two men sat at the round meeting table next to the balcony: Cain’s investigator, Abraham Murphy, and a distinguished older gentleman that Ember vaguely recalled from the Murphys’ wedding last year.
Both came to their feet immediately, both evidently delighted at the appearance of Mr. Cresson.
Really! It was enough to make a pretty woman feel invisible.
“Ach! He returns,” exclaimed Abe Murphy, clapping his hands together with unabashed delight.
The other fellow strode across the room with his hand outstretched, clasping Cresson’s forearm like he’d just been reunited with a brother-in-arms. And Cresson, or whomever was masquerading as Cresson this morning, was grinning back in full unbridled happiness, dimples in his cheeks, even white teeth flashing.
“Senhor Cresson!” cried the other man.“De volta da minha terra! Que alegria vê-lo outra vez!”
Ember blinked, both at that blasted smile and at the sudden onslaught of foreign percussion. Before she could even process those two things, an absurd third thing happened.
Cresson opened his mouth and said,“É uma alegria estar de volta, Dom Raul, mas já sinto saudades de Lisboa.”
Dom Raul chuckled. Cresson pumped his hand in earnest. And the other three people in the room gaped at the display with open shock and fascination.
For Ember’s part, her stomach had jumped right into her throat to scream directly into her ear, shrieking,How dare he?
She’d had to bite down on her own tongue to avoid reacting to her stomach’s very valid observation, in fact.
