I eyed the tin’s contents and felt my gorge rise.
“You had no dinner last night, no breakfast this morning, you haven’t spoken a word since we left the Georgian, and you’re as pale as rice pudding,” Nell lectured sternly. She took Reginald from her bag and placed him beside Bertie on the compartment’s small table, so they could both look out of the window. “If you don’t eat something this minute, Lori, I’ll telephone Papa when we reach London and tell him you’re not fit to continue the journey. Reginald insists. He’s very worried about you.”
I couldn’t see Reginald’s face, but I could tell by the upright angle of his ears that he was indeed perturbed by my behavior. Grudgingly, I pulled a tiny piece from one of the brownies, popped it in my mouth, and washed it down with tea. Nell folded her arms and waited until I’d finished the entire brownie, and two more besides, then ordered me to drink her tea as well as mine. When I’d downed it, she unfolded her arms, reached for Bertie, and promptly changed from a tough-talking blackmailer into a timid, twelve-year-old child.
“Feel better?” she asked.
With a sense of shock I realized that I’d thrown Nell for a loop. It had never occurred to me that a tsunami-sized mood swing or two might unnerve someone as serenely self-possessed as Lady Eleanor Harris. Her cornflower eyes were twice their normal size, and she clung so tightly to Bertie that his stuffing bulged beneath his sailor shirt. Shamefaced, I reached across the table to pat her hand.
“I didn’t sleep well last night,” I lied. In fact, I’d slept better than I had for months, despite a series of vivid dreams that should have made a married woman blush. “I always get cranky when I don’t get enough sleep. And I guess I’m feeling a bit fed up with all of this running around.”
“Are you sorry you brought Bertie and me with you?” Nell asked soberly.
“Good heavens, no, Nell, not one bit,” I exclaimed. “You’ve both been great. It’s just that ...” I sighed. “This isn’t how I’d hoped to spend my second honeymoon.”
Nell relaxed her grip on Bertie, but her expression remained grave. “Being married isn’t easy,” she said knowingly. “I’m the only one at school whose parents still live together in the same house. Except for Petra de Bernouilles, but she’s a Catholic and they’re not allowed to divorce. Are you going to divorce Bill?”
“Nell! What an idea!” I dismissed the question with a breezy chuckle while telling myself that perhaps it would be better if my own hypothetical twelve-year-old weren’t quite as perceptive as Nell. “I’ll admit that I’m disappointed that Bill couldn’t come with me on this trip, but what’s one trip?”
“When’s the last time he came with you?” she inquired.
“The last time? That would be ... This is August, right?” I tilted my head nonchalantly and squinted into the middle distance. “A year ago,” I answered finally. “Bill was here last August. We spent a few days in London and a week at the cottage. It was wonderful.”
“A year,” said Nell.
“Hardly any time at all,” I said, and before Nell could point out that it was nearly half of my married life, I changed the subject. “By the way, I forgot to ask—did Bertrand hear any juicy tidbits from the maids?”
“Nothing new.” Nell straightened Bertie’s beribboned sailor hat. “They’re dotty about Gerald, but the whole town seems to be dotty about Gerald. Did you learn anything new?”
“Gerald promised to do what he could to keep William from leaving Boston,” I told her, “but I don’t.think he’ll be able to do much. He. says he’s through practicing law.”
“Did you believe him?” Nell asked.
“I did,” I replied. “And I still do. If you’d seen his face last night, Nell, you’d have believed him, too. I don’t understand why Aunt Dimity expected him to lie to me.”
“Perhaps because she heard him lie to William about the other thing,” Nell suggested. “The ‘quarrel that happened so long ago.’ I have an idea about that.”
“Tell me,” I said, glad to divert Nell’s mind, and my own, from all thoughts of Bill and the D-word.
Nell’s gaze wandered to the suburban sprawl that had begun to crowd out the countryside. “Yesterday,” she said, “when I was poking round the Larches, I opened the door of a sort of storeroom and I saw the most marvelous thing—a cross made of gold and covered with jewels.”
“It’s called a reliquary.” I nodded. “I saw it, too. I went into the room by mistake and there it was, gleaming away at me.” I paused, distracted by the memory of Gerald’s breath on my hand as he’d bent to examine my cut finger. “Gerald said that the reliquary’s part of a collection he’s cataloguing for ...” I frowned, unable to recall his exact words.
“For whom?” Nell asked.
“A private collector or a museum, I imagine.” I shrugged. “Gerald didn’t mention any names.”