The English language possessed a small but substantial group of words, descended from medieval days, which had, in the course of being rubbed with use over the centuries—like a silver coin changing hands for the thousandth time—gained or added an N. The select few people who called Charles Lenox Charlie, for example, would have been, to a medieval person, employing his little, or eke, name—but time had transformed the words an eke name into a nickname. Conversely, the word that was a synonym for a snake had once been a nadder and was now an adder; a napron had become an apron; and as late as Shakespeare’s time, an uncle had been a nuncle.
That last word still just floated in the language of the city, and Sir Crispin Quentin was (in Lenox’s mind anyhow), by virtue of his gentle, old-fashioned manner and ever-present smile, the truest example of that breed—a nuncle. And his wife, Lady Martha, thereby a naunt.
They had met later in life, Sir Crispin and Lady Martha Quentin, each well past the age of fifty. They were almost identical to look at: thin, red, and, but for the fact that they were always beaming, not especially attractive. They had in all other ways besides appearance been hopelessly mismatched. He was a successful merchant, born to a butcher, while she was a spinster who happened to be the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the land—the Duke of Northumberland.
It had been a pairing made by love. As a consequence, perhaps, they were always at the greatest pains to encourage in others the happiness that they had found, against every odd, in each other—for by class they should never even have met, and once they had, her father might still have forbidden her the match. The very “Sir” in his name was an embarrassment to her bloodlines: a knighthood won from the Queen for selling hemp in industrial quantities and then funding a scholarship for orphans to attend one of the city schools, Westminster, and later, if they passed the entrance exams, a university of their choice. Next to the Dukedom of Northumberland itself, not large potatoes.
But the Quentins were beloved; for who could not love two people so full of love themselves, humble before its mysterious and surprising grandeur. Their house was (by baronial standards) relatively modest, yet all of London met there, including members of the royal family—and including, at least that evening, Lady Jane, Lord Deere, and Charles Lenox.
The Quentins decorated in the new style. It was Victoria and her admirers who had spread it—a sort of prodigious clutter, walls and tables crowded past elegance, every piece of cloth in the room double- or triple-embroidered, little remnants of statuary, wretchedly heavy silver platters and ewers, big dark clocks, etchings of colossal ruins. The spare black-and-ivory elegance of Lenox’s childhood was gone now—submerged beneath a rockslide of things, objects.
Sir Crispin and Lady Martha themselves might have been decorated by the same hand. He wore broadcloth trousers with a soft velvet coat of bottle green, she a gown with a wide crinoline and a recession of ruffles from waist to high neck that must have required ten times more material than the average dress.
“Edmund’s stockings would look very subdued here,” Charles murmured to Lady Jane, as Deere greeted their jolly hosts.
“You’re so old-fashioned, Charles,” replied Lady Jane.
“That’s a slander, and I’ll tell you why—I ordered a sack coat at my tailor’s last month.”
“Did you!”
“I didn’t want to,” he admitted, “but I did.”
“That will look very handsome at the races next spring. Very American.”
Lenox threw up his hands—everyone else on the face of the earth would have spotted the victim on the 449 as an American before he, apparently—but Jane, busy taking her shawl from her shoulders, didn’t notice.
“Charles Lenox!” said Sir Crispin, striding forward with his hand out. “How pleased the young ladies will be that another dancing partner has arrived!”
Lenox smiled. He loved Sir Crispin—he had no starch in him, the old chap, would reminisce at the drop of a hat about childhood days in the butcher’s shop. “How pleased I am to be here, sir. I thank you for having me.”
The party was an admirable one. In all, there must have been forty people there, but one never felt jostled or hemmed in. A small room had been cleared for dancing, with a string trio in one corner. There was a different small room for socialization and food and drink—a division of which Lady Jane (who knew about these things) voiced her approval.
By ten o’clock, Lenox was sure that he had won a small victory over his friend, because the woman he was meant to meet, Kitty Ashbrook, had not appeared.
Then, though, just after the hour, she arrived, in the company of her mother, and Lady Jane led her over to Lenox—casually, to her credit, with every semblance of the introduction coming as an accident.
He did like the way she looked—that much he admitted to himself immediately. She was small, with chestnut hair and skin slightly more tanned than fashionable, even white teeth, and a sweet, dimpled smile.
Nevertheless, he was prepared to be merely polite with her—and would have been, had he not, before he quite knew how it had happened, offered to dance with her.
How did Jane engineer these things so effortlessly? He couldn’t even remember posing the question—but not five minutes after they’d met, Lenox and Kitty Ashbrook were moving onto the parquet floor together.
This floor was made in a lovely geometric pattern of blond wood, which picked up the click of every shoe. When they had clicked across the room and reached the end of the line of dancers, he held out a hand and she accepted it. They bowed to each other, the music struck up, and they danced.
Such dancing was always filled with small conversation. Miss Ashbrook began it. “You are a detective, Lady Deere said, Mr. Lenox?” she said as they made a turn.
“Ah! Yes. An amateur—like a rock collector, if you will. Or a curate who practices astronomy on Mondays.”
She smiled. “So inept as that?”
“I hope not, but I fear so.”
It was a rather antiquated dance—pleasantly antiquated, however, and they went through their paces, matching hands, twisting away from each other and back.
He had half forgotten the pleasure of dancing with a lovely woman, not because he hadn’t done so, but because his pleasure in the act itself had vanished some time before. He hadn’t even quite noticed its absence until now, to his surprise, it returned.
When they passed, she said, “I warn you that I cannot marry you, Mr. Lenox.”
He burst into laughter, gently taking her hand as they spun toward each other. “It is the first preemptive rejection I have received, and I offer you my warm admiration for that. Very original. And why should you marry me, after all!”
She gave him a smile of appreciation and apology. “I must seem abrupt,” she said.
“Oh, no—not at all.” They circled another couple and then met face-to-face. “In fact, I suspect we are in the same position, Miss Ashbrook.”
“Which one is that?”
He waited until they were close once more and said, “We are both the projects of well-meaning friends.”
She laughed. They finished the dance in what Lenox thought was at least respectable—and on her part, indeed, graceful—fashion. Without speaking, they stood before each other, awaiting the recommencement of the music, and he felt a little thrill at this unexpressed agreement that they would dance again. It was by no means a given. Only the knowledge that his friends would be triumphant over the fact subdued the gratification of the feeling; and not all that much, if he were honest.
They danced a varsouvienne, and in their third song as a pair, a waltz, they took each other into a swift embrace, swift but to Lenox heady indeed. All the while they kept up a lively conversation. He discovered that Miss Ashbrook was uncommonly intelligent—she had read books and periodicals he didn’t know existed, in French and Russian as well as English—but showed it without the laborious pride one found in so many widely read men and women.
She was most fond of the novel, she disclosed. Her favorite writers at the present moment were Mr. Fenimore Cooper and Monsieur Balzac, she said, but neither of them could touch Thackeray. She adored Sir Walter Scott. She had lately been in Cornwall, and thought it the most beautiful countryside she had ever seen—but wished, in her innermost heart, to see the distant islands of northern Scotland.
Lenox knew more about travel than fiction, and replied with some knowledge of both Cornwall and the Orkneys. He said that he, too, had longed to go there—one more delicate filament of connection between them.
Before Miss Ashbrook’s arrival, Lenox had drunk two glasses of chilled champagne, and as he danced he knew he had a light head. The young lady smelled of lavender, and her hair as it swung near his face had the rich indescribable scent of—well, a woman who has been dancing. He might not marry her, he thought, but he was very happy to be dancing with her.
It might have gone on, but for an interruption. One of Sir Crispin’s footmen came to say that a Mr. Graham was waiting on Lenox in the front hallway if it was convenient for him to step away.
Not particularly—but of course Lenox went, leaving Miss Ashbrook among friends, curious to see what news Graham had.
“Hello, Graham,” he said when they met.
“I apologize for the intrusion, sir.”
“Not at all. What is it? Nothing bad, I hope?”
“No, sir—no. But there is a gentleman who may have some information in response to our advertisement.”
Lenox raised his eyebrows. “About the American? More than a guess?”
Graham nodded. “I believe it is, sir.”
That was as good as a guarantee. “Give me a moment to get my coat.”