Someone called to Lady Astor.
“Must tend these people. Don’t know where our Miss M’s gotten to. Around somewhere, I expect. You go on and find her. We’ll talk later.”
From the reception room that only Lady Astor, Virginian at her core, called a parlor, to the study, to the dining room, no Hilda. Maisie heard laughter from the library, but met only a single man leaving it as she entered.
“Hullo.” He nodded, friendly, because if she was here she must be important.
“Hullo.” She greeted him, for much the same reason.
Maisie lingered in the empty room—it was, after all, a library. A small, stuffy library, but still full of books. She was just perusing the shelves when she heard laughter again and noticed a narrow door in the corner. She pushed through into the billiard room.
Hilda was in there. With Vita. And they were . . .
“Oh!”
Hilda giggled into Vita’s hair.
“Ha! Caught you with your hand in the biscuit tin,” Hilda teased. Vita took her time withdrawing her hand from inside Hilda’s chemise and sighed as Hilda fastened her dress. “I suppose if mice will play where the kittens are. Evening, Miss Musgrave. You see Miss Sackville-West has returned to England.”
“Er, yes. Good evening,” Maisie muttered to the floor, which was inconsiderately refusing to swallow her. She had a long practice of mortification, thanks to Georgina, but this was on quite a different plane. She had never seen two women kiss before, and though it was no different from seeing anyone else kiss, well, a person never wanted to walk in on other people kissing. Especially one’s boss. Maisie tried to leave the room, but her feet had forgotten how to move.
The women were irritatingly unembarrassed and made no attempt to shift away from each other once Hilda was dressed. Vita stood over her and Hilda stayed sitting on the billiard table, legs swinging idly. “Don’t look so horrified, Miss Musgrave. I rather assumed you knew,” she said.
Did Hilda assume Maisie was so much like her now that she knew everything?
“How did you get on?” Hilda wanted to know.
Maisie glanced at Vita but realized Hilda wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t all right for Vita to know.
“I, er, well, I found an awful lot, and took snaps and notes. But there was a lot more. And . . . he caught me.”
“He WHAT?”
“I got away—well, I suppose that’s obvious, but he saw my face. Though I did have makeup on, but nonetheless . . . Well, it doesn’t matter, I hope. We’ve got to develop these photographs. And he’s to have drinks with Simon next week, something about a contract. I was thinking I ought to attend?”
“Goodness,” Hilda marveled. “It was a productive journey.”
“Unfortunately,” Maisie agreed with a sigh.
“You really have a fine girl here, Stoker,” Vita pronounced, caressing Hilda’s neck.
Stoker???
“You have no idea,” Hilda agreed.
Maisie agreed to have lunch with Simon to try to allay suspicions. She had explained that the season of Christmas and New Year’s was a particularly busy time at the BBC and so it was harder to get away.
“Even at night, darling?”
Part of her still tingled and melted when he looked at her. That face, that body. The smile, the laugh, the brilliance. She badly wanted to sleep with him again. Again and again. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She still hoped he had no idea what Grigson really wanted, and that the whole deal was just about the cacao, not the newspaper, but until she was sure, she couldn’t be alone with him anymore.
“My family’s having a massive gathering, the classic bourgeois Dickensian Christmas. I was hoping to introduce you properly,” Simon went on, spinning the fantasy of her welcome, her entrance into the great house and the ancient name.
A house that, if Beanie’s information was correct, they were currently clinging to by their fingernails. Maisie might have more money in her own bank account—her own account, in her own name; it still felt like a miracle—than the Brock-Morlands had left in their fortune.
But maybe he believed it. Maybe he believed he loved her.
I hope so. Because that would be nice. Because otherwise no man ever has.
“Care for a pudding?” he asked.
“Yes, please.”
You can’t think how I want to believe it’s all at the behest of your father, saving the family name and fortune. And you’re just being his errand boy—or are you an errant boy? But I’ve got to stop you. I hope you don’t see what you’re doing. I’ll show you.
“Say you’ll come to the house. The BBC can spare you a little while, can’t they? It’s only the most bourgeois frothy programming over the holidays, surely?”
On the other hand, I would rather eat live entrails than hear the word “bourgeois” again . . .
“We’ve got such a lot of planning to do,” she said, shaking her head.
“Ah. Planning. I say, do tell your Miss Matheson that her goal for 1930 should be a bit more fair-mindedness in broadcasting, what?”