Page 49 of Peril in Piccadilly
I didn’t say so, of course—I had said so before,ad nauseam, and saying it again would not make any difference—but Violet must have read my mind, or at least my expression, because she added, perhaps in an effort to be sympathetic, “It could be worse, you know.”
“Could it?”
“She loves him. At least she has that going for her.”
I supposed she did, now that I thought about it. I had always discouraged Crispin from proposing to Laetitia because he didn’t love her, and I still stood by that, even if I had had to reconsider my stance on him throwing caution to the wind and proposing to the girl he really loved. If that girl was me, as Christopher assured me she was, I could only be glad that Crispin hadn’t gone down on one knee and declared his love, because I wouldn’t have responded well.
But now that Violet had pointed it out (and I had had a moment to consider), I supposed she was actually right and it could have been worse. He could have ended up engaged to someone he didn’t love, who also didn’t love him.
“His father might have set him up with someone like me,” Violet said, as if she had, indeed, read my mind and not just my expression. “I wouldn’t have put it past Duke Harold.”
She looked from Christopher to me and back. “Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy Crispin’s company. But I don’t love him, and I don’t want to marry him. We wouldn’t get on well together in the long term.”
“He can be a bit of a pill,” I agreed, blandly, while Christopher ventured, “But if his father and yours had insisted?—”
Violet confirmed, “I would have considered it. So just be grateful that it didn’t happen that way.”
Indeed.
“But you don’t know anything about the burglary?” I pressed. “No idea who the burglar was, for instance?”
She shook her head. “How would I possibly know that? I don’t associate with the types of people who break the law.”
“Dominic Rivers broke the law,” I pointed out, and I was absolutely certain that she had associated with him.
Her eyes turned cold and flinty. “Dom is dead. He certainly didn’t take my mother’s emerald and sapphire brooch.”
I hadn’t suggested that he had done. But before I could say so, Christopher asked, “Your mother lost an emerald and sapphire brooch?”
He gave me a significant look, as if this ought to mean something to me.
Violet nodded. “Emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds in the shape of a peacock. Lovely piece, if a bit old-fashioned.”
“Valuable, I suppose?” She didn’t answer—I’m sure the answer was self-evident—and Christopher added, “How many emeralds? And sapphires and diamonds?”
“Oh, God.” Violet flapped a hand. “Who knows? Ten? Fifteen?”
“You wouldn’t recognize them if you saw them again?”
She stared at him as if suspecting he had lost his mind, and Christopher clarified, “Not the brooch. I’m certain you would recognize that. But the individual stones.”
Violet shook her head. “One diamond is very much like another, isn’t it? Just like one emerald is like another, and one sapphire?—”
“Yes, of course.” But he did give me another significant glance, even if he didn’t ask any more questions.
“Coincidence,” I told him thirty minutes later, as we made our way along Curzon Street towards Hyde Park Corner and the nearest tube stop.
“Mmm,” Christopher responded. The murmur had a distinct disbelieving quality to it, something not easy to do with a single letter.
“There’s no evidence whatsoever that Wolfgang has anything to do with the jewelry thefts.”
He flicked me a look. “You thought of it, too.”
I opened my mouth to argue that I hadn’t. Before I could do, he went on, “You must have, because I haven’t mentioned his name. All I did was look at you.”
“Thought transference,” I told him sullenly. “We’re soulmates, Christopher. Platonic soulmates. Capable of mind-reading.”
His lips quirked. “Is that what we are?”
