Kai flicked a glance to Irene. She nodded slightly. He turned back to the man. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Though I don’t think we’ve been introduced?’
A waiter had come dashing up with an extra chair, and withdrew with the man’s hat and cloak.
The man seated himself and leaned forward, steepling his fingers. ‘I trust I may speak freely before your associate?’ He nodded towards Irene. ‘Some of what I have to say may not be fit for the ears of one of the gentler sex.’
Kai looked at Irene for a moment. Irene hesitated, then looked down at her plate in a docile manner. She’d had to play this sort of role before, though admittedly not when coaching a junior at the same time. ‘Please let me stay, sir,’ she said to Kai. ‘I will simply take notes as normal.’
Kai nodded to her in a lordly manner, then turned back to their guest. ‘I assure you that Miss – ’ he barely faltered – ‘Winters here is entirely trustworthy, and is a valued associate of mine. You may speak freely in front of her. Though I would be interested to know what you propose to discuss.’
Part of Irene’s mind was surprised at Kai’s sudden elegance of speech. He’d shifted again into that extreme formality which she’d noted earlier. And while she could manage such linguistic shifts easily enough from experience in various alternates, she hadn’t thought that he’d be so capable. Stranger and stranger from a boy who claimed to be from a cybered-up alternate, where he was a petty criminal. She very much wanted to talk to Coppelia about this. The other part of her mind wondered why he’d dubbed her ‘Winters’ and what the cultural reference might be.
She watched their guest from under her eyelashes. He had relaxed a little now, and was leaning back in his chair. He was a very aquiline physical type, with a well-defined nose, deep-set shadowy eyes, high cheekbones and long delicate fingers. The perfect example of a lead protagonist in certain types of detective fiction. In fact, she wondered if . . .
‘Very well,’ the stranger said. ‘Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Peregrine Vale, fifteenth Earl of Leeds.’
Kai gave a little nod. ‘Kay Strongrock, at your service. Might I ask the nature of your business?’
The waiter cleared away the soup course and brought the main meal for Irene and Kai. He also brought a spare glass for the visitor, filling it unbidden, before retreating again. The intrusion allowed Irene to bite her lip and refrain from kicking Kai under the table, as she’d just managed to work out where he was getting his pseudonyms from. Strongrock – Rochefort. Winters – De Winter. She would have to explain to him why it was a bad idea to pull pseudonyms from literary sources. If the other person had read the book, it gave them far too much information. They’d start looking around for three possible Musketeers or mysterious Richelieu-like manipulators behind the scenes.
Even though she had to admit that being compared to Milady de Winter had its flattering side.
‘I observed you this afternoon, Mr Strongrock,’ the Earl of Leeds stated. ‘You were outside the Liechtenstein Embassy. You arrived while they were unloading their zeppelins. You watched the newspaper reporters and then questioned them afterwards.’
‘Your Lordship seems to have paid a great deal of attention to my movements,’ Kai said. There was an undertone of threat to his voice.
The Earl of Leeds tilted his hand. ‘Call me Vale, please. After all, this is a purely private meeting, in a very unofficial capacity.’
Kai raised an eyebrow, and sliced into his steak. ‘Oh?’
‘Indeed,’ Vale said. He smiled a little.
And it was at that moment that Irene remembered where she’d seen his face before. She’d picked up some newspapers earlier, to get a quick impression of the current political and temporal dynamics. Vale had been on the third page of one; shot half in profile, with him half turned away, clearly unwilling to have the photograph taken. The caption had been NOTED DETECTIVE CONSULTS WITH BRITISH MUSEUM.
Irene continued to eat, thinking furiously. If their companion was indeed a noted detective, investigating the Liechtenstein Embassy and working with the British Museum – they were either unexpectedly lucky, or in very serious trouble.
‘So,’ Kai said. ‘Leaving aside that I saw no sign of your following me . . .’
‘That,’ Vale said smoothly, ‘is what you may expect to see when I am following you.’
Kai choked slightly on his wine. ‘Pardon me. But then, sir, why were you following me? What was so interesting about my activities?’
Vale’s smile narrowed even further. ‘Why, Mr Strongrock, the fact that they mirrored my own. I suspect that we are investigating the same matter. To be frank, sir, if we are both chasing the same hare, I would rather that you did not start it and cause us both to lose it.’