Page 61 of Peril in Piccadilly
I shook my head. “Come in. Close the door behind you. Did you drive all night to get here?”
“Only half of it.” He shut the door behind him and followed me into the sitting room. “There are very few cars on the road at night, so I don’t have to worry about the speed limit.”
“How many times were you stopped and ticketed?” I wanted to know as I gathered my blanket and pillow from the sofa.
His lips curved. “None. But I did have to outrun a copper somewhere near Basingstoke.”
“Of course you did. And purely for the sport of it, too, I’m sure. He probably knew it was you, you know. Getting away from him won’t change that.”
Every copper in every town between here and Little Sutherland was familiar with Crispin’s Hispano-Suiza, not to mention Crispin’s penchant for taking his life in his hands.
“He’ll have to prove it was me to give me a fine,” Crispin said with a shrug and turned his attention from the sofa to me. “What are you doing, lounging around in your pyjamas? Why aren’t you ready to go?”
Go where? And aside from that— “Has it escaped your attention that it’s five o’clock in the morning, and that I didn’t know you were going to be here?”
“Oh, so when you rang me up last night, it wasn’t a cry for help?” He smirked, as if he knew the answer to that question already.
“Of course not,” I said steadily. “I merely wanted to know if Christopher had contacted you. I didn’t think you would spend half the night getting here so you could help me look for him.”
“Well, I had to wait for Father to fall asleep before I could get away. He would have told me not to bother.”
Yes, most likely he would have done.
“Well, it’s too early to do much,” I said, “and too dark to see anything, as well. Everyone else is asleep. Why don’t you get a couple of hours’ sleep yourself, and then we can get started. Perhaps we can catch Tom at home before he heads out for the day.”
“Knock me up at seven, then.” He headed for the Chesterfield, snagging the pillow out of my arms on his way past, before dropping down on the leather.
“You can nap in Christopher’s room,” I said, turning on the spot to follow his progress. “It doesn’t have to be in the middle of the flat.”
“I don’t want to get too comfortable,” Crispin answered, untying his shoes and shrugging out of his jacket and waistcoat before tugging off his tie. “This way, I won’t bother you while you get ready.”
He wouldn’t bother me if he were in Christopher’s room either, preferably with the door shut, but as I had chosen to spend my own night on the sofa instead of tucked up in bed, I had no room to tell him to do otherwise. Instead, I just waited until he had made himself comfortable, curled up on his side on the Chesterfield with one hand tucked under my bed pillow, before I shook out the blanket I was holding and draped it over him.
“Thank you, Darling,” came from underneath the folds. I could see the tip of his nose and his eyes, and they didn’t open.
“No problem at all,” I told him, and then I turned out the light and left him there in favor of scurrying into the hallway and my own room.
I had no pillow and blanket, of course, without which there was no point in trying to go back to bed. I was awake now anyway, so I changed into a skirt and jumper, as it had been cold yesterday, and I didn’t imagine that it would be any better today, especially if we were to spend most of the day tooling around in Crispin’s motorcar. I brushed my teeth, fluffed my hair, put on makeup, and finally, with nothing else to do but with another hour to go before I could wake Crispin, I wandered into Christopher’s room and sank down on the edge of the bed and folded my hands in my lap.
I don’t know what I thought I was doing. The only time we were able to do mind-reading, was when we were in the same room, partaking in the same conversation, and someone said something that we both thought was funny or interesting. At that point our eyes would meet, and I’d know that Christopher was thinking what I was thinking. But the rest of the time, no. He’s the closest thing I have to a soulmate, and I love him to pieces, but I could not reach out mentally and get any kind of response back. Nor would I have expected to, had I been reasonable about it, because that sort of thing just doesn’t happen in the real world. But I was worried, and short on sleep, and a bit taken aback that Crispin had motored here in the middle of the night from Wiltshire and was currently snuggled up on my couch… and I suppose I wasn’t thinking clearly. So I spent a few minutes reaching out, trying to find Christopher, and of course I had nothing to show for it. I couldn’t tell whether he was happy or sad, comfortable or suffering some great fate. I couldn’t even tell whether he was alive. I would like to think that if he were dead, I would know it, but I certainly couldn’t feel it that morning. Although that meant that I could tell myself that he was alive, of course, so that’s what I did. With gusto.
Because there was no real reason to believe he wasn’t. The most likely explanation for his absence was that he had gone off somewhere willingly, with someone he knew, and had either forgotten to let me know, or the message had gone astray on its way to me.
The second most likely explanation was that something had happened to him—he had been hit by a motorcar, for instance—and was currently in a hospital bed somewhere, unconscious, unable to let me know what had transpired.
Down the list from that, was that someone had taken him against his will, and was keeping him hostage. But who would want Christopher? He’s from a wealthy family, yes, but Crispin is worth quite a lot more. And while they do look alike, there was no way that anyone would look at Kitty and think that she—that he?—was Crispin. It wasn’t even likely that anyone would look at Kitty and think that she was Christopher, not unless they had come across him—as her—before.
So no, Christopher was alive somewhere, where he had gone hopefully of his own free will, and once Crispin was awake, we would get started on looking for him.
With a few minutes to spare, I wandered past the Chesterfield into the kitchenette and started boiling water for coffee. I’m normally a tea drinker, but after the night I had had—after the night we had both had—I figured the extra dose of caffeine would help us both to wake up.
Crispin was out for the count, eyelashes fluttering and lids twitching as he dreamt. He didn’t even stir when I brushed past him on my way to take a seat on the coffee table with a cup of coffee in each hand. “Rise and shine, Goldilocks.”
He muttered something indistinguishable at that, but didn’t open his eyes. Not until I put one cup down and poked him in the cheek. “Up and at’em, St George. It’s just gone seven and there’s coffee.”
His nose twitched at that, and his eyes fluttered open. For a moment or two they were cloudy and confused, and then they fastened on me and cleared. “Darling.” His cheekbones darkened, and he cleared his throat and sat up, dropping his gaze from my face to the cup in my hands. “Did you say coffee?”
I shoved it at him and lifted the other cup from the table for myself. “I normally take it light and sweet, but black as tar seems indicated today. The better to wake us up.”
