Page 3 of Evil at the Essex House
If theGrafwas bothered, he didn’t show it, just turned on his heel and strode out of the Savoy tearoom seemingly without noticing, or at least without paying attention to, the stares and whispers that followed his passage. A table of young ladies eyed him the way young women everywhere eye handsome young men, exchanging glances and tittering behind their hands, while several gentleman, those a few years older than us, looked at him with rather less admiration and more resentment. They were, to a man, of an age where they had most likely spent some time in the trenches, and they weren’t quite as ready to welcome the enemy with open arms into the Savoy tearoom quite yet, even if he was exceedingly young and handsome.
Christopher watched until the lobby had swallowed theGraf, and then he turned to me, eyes wide. “Well!”
“Well, what?” I inquired, picking up my teacup.
“Well, rather a lot, I’d say.” He shot another glance at the door before fanning himself with his serviette. “Did you ever see anyone so handsome?”
“Geoffrey Marsden,” I said, sourly, and returned the cup to the saucer without a noticeable click.
Christopher blinked. And thought for a moment before he conceded, “I suppose.”
“But yes, I’ll award you the point. He was definitely easy on the eyes.”
Christopher nodded. “German, though.” With all that that entailed, a decade after the Great War.
“Yes,” I said. “German.”
Christopher tilted his head to look at me. “Do you not remember him?”
“You heard me say that I didn’t, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “But I thought perhaps…?”
I shook my head. “If I’ve ever seen him before, he left no lasting impression.”
“Hard to believe,” Christopher said, with yet one more look at the door, “although, if you were five, he probably didn’t look like that then.”
“I’m certain he didn’t,” I said. “He would have been eight or so, I assume. Too young to serve, so he must be younger than Tom. He’s older than us by a couple of years, wouldn’t you say? So twenty-five or -six. When I was five, he would have been seven or eight.”
Christopher nodded. “I imagine he was a handsome little boy.”
“He might have been, although it doesn’t necessarily follow, you know. You and Crispin were both buck-toothed and scrawny at eleven, and look at you now.”
He smirked. “So you’ll admit that Crispin is handsome.”
“I’ll admit thatyouare,” I said. “That was a singular ‘you,’ not a plural one.”
He looked at me, eyebrows arched, and I sighed. “Of course he’s handsome, Christopher. He wouldn’t have half the young women in the Bright Young Set chasing him otherwise. There’s the title and money, yes, but they’ve all got titles and money of their own, don’t they, so there must be something more to it. And it can’t be his personality, since he’s an abhorrent prat. So what’s left?”
Christopher grinned. “I knew it!”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re making something out of this that absolutely isn’t there. He looks enough like you to be your brother. Yourtwinbrother. You don’t need to be told that he’s handsome. Or that you are.”
“But I never thoughtyouwould admit it, Pippa.”
“I’ve told you that you’re handsome before,” I said.
He nodded. “Of course you have. But you’ve never admitted that Crispin is.”
“But as I said, you’re practically identical. So how could he not be?” I shook my head. “You’re getting off the subject, Christopher. We were discussing theGraf von und zuNatterdorff, not your cousin Crispin. And while he may have been a handsome child—or not—I still don’t remember him.”
Christopher gave up the pursuit of annoying me to ask, seriously, “You don’t suppose he was lying, do you?”
“Why on earth would he lie? He recognized me. Knew my name, even.” My former name. My father’s last name of Schatz had been anglicized to Darling when I landed on English soil, ostentatiously German surnames being a bad idea in 1914, and not really a much better one now. But theGrafhad known it.
I continued, “He knew that I look like my mother but with my father’s eyes. Knew where in Germany we lived when I was five. Besides, what would be the point? I’m nobody important. What would be the purpose of lying to get an introduction to me? And between you and me, Christopher?—”
I shot a look at the door to the lobby myself, “—looking like that, he doesn’t need an introduction. He can just turn up and say hello, and we’d all be delighted to make his acquaintance.”
