Page 13 of Hazard a Guest
Murphy looked like he wanted to march right out into the lobby and force Cain to come share in their shock, his eyes flicking between the door and Cresson with building indignation.
“Ninguém se livra da saudade de Lisboa,”the Dom said, clapping Cresson fondly on the back and guiding him back to the table. “Not ever.”
Cresson then seemed to feel the weight of their stares, his smile melting slightly off his dimpled cheeks. “Oh,” he said, a touch of pink crawling up his throat. “Sit down, everyone. Please.”
They did, though Cresson himself was interrupted during his descent into the chair, a quick call from Cain ringing back through the door.
“Mr. Cresson! Come have a look at this, will you?” the voice boomed, as though Cresson hadn’t been gone for a year and instead had just been at his desk last night.
If there was anything amiss in that, Cresson did not register it, sliding back out of his seat and making a smooth journey back to the outer office like he was perfectly reaccustomed to the tempo here despite any time away.
They waited for the door to click shut behind him before Abe, Ember, and Freddy rounded on Dom Raul as though he could explain what they’d just seen.
“What in the name of sense,” said Abe Murphy, baffled, “did you do to that poor lad?”
“It’s worse than you think,” Freddy mumbled.
“I wouldn’t say worse,” Ember put in. “Better, even.”
And Dom Raul began to chuckle, leaning back in his chair with the look of a proud papa. “It wasn’t me,” he said with a shrug, “it was the seven hills.A Lusitânia. No one is immune, I am afraid.”
“No,” said Abe, shaking his head, “no, no. You’ve turned our Cresson into a damned Corinthian! It’s abominable.”
“I don’t mind it,” said Ember, winning her another pinch from Freddy.
“What is hewearing?”Abe continued to rant.
“Oh, trust me,” Freddy returned, “it was better than the alternative.”
“It wasn’t,” said Ember, just to give herself the opportunity this time to snatch her arm away before it could be pinched.
Dom Raul looked like he was having a wonderful time.
Truth be told, Ember couldn’t blame him for that.
CHAPTER 4
“Should I even bother unpacking?” Joe said with a sigh, staring down at his pack, still salt-caked and rumpled from a week at sea, leaning weakly against the sofa he’d slept on like all it wanted in the world was a break.
“Probably not,” said Freddy, slumping onto the sofa in question with a groan and a frown toward the pack in question. “Whatisthat, anyway? Don’t you have a valise?”
Joe laughed, more from exhaustion than amusement at such a question. “No.”
“Well, why not?” Freddy demanded.
“Because it isn’t practical,” Joe replied with a faint impression of a smile. “Besides, I’ve had that pack since I was a student. It’s sealskin. Sturdy. I trust it. Do you trust your valise?”
Freddy looked stunned by the question, though he did take a moment to consider it. “I probably don’t,” he admitted with a shrug. “But I don’t ask terribly much of the thing one way or the other. Why? Should I pop out and get one of those … what is that, anyway?”
“A knapsack,” Joe responded, his amusement beginning to blossom in earnest now at the way Freddy was worrying at the inside of his cheek, considering such a mundane thing like it was threatening his very perception of a world. “Or just a pack, if you’re talking to a merchant.”
“Knapsack,” Freddy repeated warily. “What the hell’s a knap?”
The outcome of their meeting at Bow Street today had been beyond anything Joe might have anticipated at the outset. And even the outset had challenged his own powers of anticipation quite a lot.
If he’d been a gambling man, and he wasn’t, there was no wager on the planet that would have had him guessing the arrival of Ember Donnelly at his front door mere hours after he set foot in London again.
As for the content of her demands, that would have challenged even the most talented oracle.
