Robert was nibbling Mona’s earlobe.
“What can you tell me about Connie Hopper?” she asked.
“How can you think about Connie when I’m doing this?” Robert nuzzled Mona’s neck.
“Feels lovely.”
“More the response I was hoping for, woman. Now turn around so I can give you a proper snog. Let’s swap some saliva.”
After kissing for a while, Mona came up for air. “How well do you know Hopper?”
“You still thinking about that man? If you are going to think about another man while I’m trying to seduce you, what chance do we have?”
“Don’t sulk, Robert. You know how my mind works. There’s a puzzle concerning Espeth and Connie. My mind can’t turn off. It keeps racing.”
Robert reached for a cigarette and lit it.
“I wish you wouldn’t smoke, Robert.”
“I smoke out of frustration, Mona. It’s due to you.”
“The sooner you tell me the sooner we can get back to necking.”
“Oh, well, then.” Robert stubbed out his cigarette and took a sip of his coffee while Mona took a drink of her hot chocolate spiked with a touch of liqueur. He didn’t know how she could stand the combination. Robert did know that he couldn’t touch liquor for a year in order to get Mona to marry him. He also knew Mona deliberately tempted him by drinking alcohol in front of him. She was a devil. “I don’t know him very well. He’s quite a bit older than I. We’re not in business or anything like that.”
“How do you know him?”
“I guess the Bluegrass social circuit. Love of horse racing, that sort of thing.”
“What do people say about him?”
Robert shrugged. “Not much, I’m afraid. Connie’s always been very low key. No scandals of any sort. He has reasonably good manners. Knows which fork to use at a dinner party and never discusses politics or religion with anyone. Never gossips about anyone. Never been seen in the female servants’ quarters after midnight. He’s one dull boy if you ask me.”
“Unlike you.”
“Definitely unlike me.”
“Hmm.”
“Why this interest in Connie Hopper? Did he do something to you? Shall I fight him in a duel at dawn?”
“I was just wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“Why a young woman like Elspeth, who is British and has her own money, would marry a much older man who is American and basically broke?”
“You once called the British snobs of the worst kind.”
“I did?”
“Yes, you did and you’re quite right. Elspeth doesn’t have the right breeding credentials for a brilliant upper class British marriage.”
Mona looked flummoxed. “She’s John Alden’s daughter, the greatest Egyptologist who ever lived. He discovered Queen Ahsetsedek IV’s tomb intact.”
“John Alden was born in an East London slum from an unmarried working girl, if you know what I mean.”
“I see where this is going. I guess it doesn’t matter that Alden elevated himself from the ‘gutter’ and worked his way to a Ph.D. from Oxford.”
“I never mentioned the word gutter.”
“But that’s what you meant.”
“I’m trying to tell you why Elspeth married whom she did if you let me finish.”
“Sorry.”
“John Alden was a cockney who went on to achieve many wonderful things, but then he marries an Egyptian native, which resulted in Elspeth.”
“I see what you’re saying. The noses of the blue bloods across the pond were bent out of shape, and they wouldn’t let Elspeth play with their sons.”
“Exactly. Both classism and racism played into the scenario.”
“Well, boy of mine. What are they going to say about me when we marry?”
“My British friends are going to insult you behind your back, but they will be polite to your face. You’re too rich for them to offend, and they can’t afford to be rude because they figure that in twenty years they’ll palm one of their worthless offspring onto one of our offspring. That’s the way it will be.”
“Why should I marry you?”
“Because you love me and no matter what, we are going to do what we want to do—similar to what your parents did. They crossed social lines to be married, didn’t they?”
“Oh, how can I refuse you, Robert, when you make such sense? Yes, my father lost the Moon inheritance because he married my mother.”
“Were they happy, Babycakes?”
“They loved each other very much. It hurt my father to lose his inheritance, but he loved my mother too much to let her go. Yes, Robert, they were fortunate because they realized money can’t bring happiness. Love does.”
“Money can sure keep wolves away from the door, though,” Robert teased. On a more serious note, he said, “We’ll be okay, Mona. Trust me. No one will ever hurt you if I can help it.”
“Promise?”
Robert took his index finger and crossed his heart. “Hope to die.”
Mona snuggled closer to Robert on the couch. “We’ll be happy, won’t we?”
“No one will touch us,” Robert promised.
Little did Robert know when he uttered those words that he would be proven wrong.
Trouble was fast approaching.