Page 2 of The Devil in Oxford
Without a thought, I took Leona by the hand, dragging her across the floor and into the far corridor leading to the changing rooms.
“Hari Anand?” she squeaked. “You’ve taken up withHari Anand? Please tell mehe’sthe reason your fencing has become abysmal!”
“He isnot,” I grumbled, rushing the pair of us down the corridor. “AndIhave not.”
“Oh, Ruby, I’ve always adored Hari, ever since he first came to the hospital! I haven’t seen him in years.”
I let out an exasperated sigh, pausing alongside a fragrant glass jar holding branches of wintersweet, its papery yellow flowers catching in the fading sun. “Keep your voice down! I’ve not taken up with Hari—he’s my solicitor, for goodness’ sake!” And truthfully, the man was more of a brother to me than anything else. He’d been badly wounded when I first met him in Amiens, but the two of us struck up an easy friendship that endured long after the war.
Hand in hand with Leona, I stormed down the darkened hallway before shoving her bodily into our private dressing room and slamming the door, locking it behind us.
The walls inside the dressing room were covered in a pale pink patterned fabric that muted the sound of our voices. Likewise, all the furniture was soft and plush and various shades of the hue, giving me the amusing image of being wrapped in bunting. We weren’t, of course, but there was something delightfully absurd about the room—at once utterly darling and not at all suited to me, for I was anything but darling.
“If he’s not your distraction then why, may I ask, are you hiding from the man like he’s unexpectedly seen you in your knickers?” She laughed, slumping into a sumptuous porcine-colored velvet armchair, and began tugging at her shoes, one by one.
“It isn’t Hari the man that I am avoiding. It’s Hari the solicitor.” I finished with the fastenings of my jacket and tossed it over an ornamental screen before stepping behind it and slipping out of my pants. “Hari the man is perfectly agreeable.”
“You’re not in trouble, are you?” She nervously folded her long fingers into her lap. “If you were—I know I don’t have much money, or much else for that matter—I’d help you if I could.”
My high-necked indigo evening gown hung on a hook behind me. I slipped it off the wooden hanger and stepped into the dress, tugging it up over the fresh scar on my breast before peeking my head back out from around the floral screen. “It’s nothing like that. It’s a legal matter, that’s all. I don’t want to deal with it before Christmas.”
“Sothat’swhy you came to the Ashmolean today.”
“Partly…,” I admitted, struggling with the tiny pearl-studded buttons up the back. “My housekeeper, Mrs. Penrose, told me that Hari intended to call upon me this afternoon—I needed some air… I needed…” My pulse thundered in my ears as I debated whether to speak aloud the true ghost that had been haunting mydays. The reason I’d lost sleep, the reason for my increasing nightmares and for dodging poor Hari like a bridegroom at the altar. “You see, there’s another imposter.”
Leona sucked in a sharp breath, the words hanging between us for several seconds.
An imposter. A fraud. Yet another charlatan pretending to be my dead mother. I swallowed hard as the awkward silence stretched on.
“Oh, Ruby, that’s terrible.Another?I thought they’d finally stopped coming after the war.”
As had I. It had been years since another crept from the shadows to plague me. “It’sfine. Truly. I’d hoped to put off the conversation until January. I’m not overly sentimental about Christmas, but there’s something about this time of year that makes me rather melancholy. Perhaps it’s the greenery. The fig pudding. Who evenlikesfig pudding?”
“Or the fact that everyone is with their families and yours is dead?”
“There is that…” I wrinkled my nose. “But I have a cat, as well as a meddling octogenarian who has taken up the mantle of paternal duties with aplomb.”
She reached out, taking me by the arms, lips pressed into a firm line. “Darling, of course you’re bound to be sad.Anyonewith a heart would be sad. I miss my family terribly in winter and they’re simply in Egypt. The nights are dreadfully long. It’s dark. Cold. It isn’t the holidays that are causing it, it’s the weather that makes a body lonely!” Leona enveloped me in a warm hug, the scent of her jasmine perfume filling my nose.
Loneliness?I chewed on the word for several seconds. Perhaps that was all it was. A logical, reasonable little thing. She stepped back, holding me at arm’s length, appraising me from head to toe. “Enough of that, you have a horde of antiquarians to entertain.”
I let out a wet laugh, wiping at the moisture that had strangelygathered beneath my eyes. Perhaps I did have a functioning heart after all.
“That color suits you. One might even confuse you for a lady.”
I laughed, grateful for her change in subject, as she stepped back. I flopped onto an absurdly puffed-up rose-colored ottoman and began rolling my stockings up my leg, affixing them with an old velvet garter. “One might be mistaken on that score.” I glanced to the closed door. “Do you think you could occupy Hari until I can make my escape?”
Leona raised a brow, looking from me to the ground-floor window behind me. “You do realize that’s a five-foot drop to the street.”
I wet my lips and nodded. “Perhaps I’d better wait to put my shoes on once I land then, hmm?”
Leona laughed. “Very well, I can buy you a few moments, I suppose. For old times’ sake. But first…” She stood and came closer, tucking an errant curl behind my ear. “There. You look beautiful. Even if you are still rather damp from fencing.”
I grinned, pressing a gentle kiss to her cheek. “You are a darling. Same time tomorrow morning as usual?”
Again, a strange expression crossed her face. Precisely as it had when I last mentioned the museum. She gave her head a slight shake. “I don’t think tomorrow would be a good idea.”
I gathered up my beaded handbag, fastening it. “Whyever not? We meet here every morning. I know they’ve been keeping you busy, but surely you don’t have to be at the museum atdawn.”
