“I do not think my brother would want you seen by everyone who visits the house,” she said. “A little discretion goes a long way.”
“That is how you spend your time?” I answered, made bold by anger. “Drinking tea and listening to music?”
My defiance amused her. “There are worse ways to pass the time,” she said.
“Before what?” I asked.
She gave me a quizzical frown. “I’m afraid I don’t follow,” she said.
“Passing the time suggests you are occupying yourself between events,” I clarified. “What are the events?”
“Balls, dinners, galas of one kind or another,” she said without much enthusiasm.
“More time passing,” I said.
“You think like my brother,” she said, sitting at the notched kitchen table, turned slightly sideways to avoid wrinkling her dress. “He would have me do Great Things with my time. I don’t think I am cut out to be a steeplejack, do you?”
“Are you cut out to be a socialite?” I asked.
Her elegant eyebrows rose and the corner of her mouth twitched. “You are a feisty one, aren’t you?” she said. “I can’t recall the last time a purebred Lani even looked me in the face, let alone reprimanded me for my lifestyle, excepting Grandmamma, of course.”
Her grandmother was Lani! That explained Willinghouse’s coloring, his impeccable accent, his knowledge of the Lani way. And now he was a politician, a man of prestige and power. It was remarkable. I wondered why he had not told me at our first meeting, but Dahria was watching my expression shrewdly, so I went on the offensive.
“Purebred?” I said.
“Oh, don’t take offense,” she remarked with a casual flick of her wrist. “That’s ever so tiresome. You know what I mean.”
“I’m not a racehorse.”
“Not, I assure you, what I meant,” she said with a half bow of mock apology.
I considered her pale face, which was much lighter than her brother’s. I would never have guessed she was part Lani. The thought prompted an idea. I had no government seal, no detective papers, no police badge. But there was more than one kind of authority.
“I am going into the city in a moment,” I said. “With Mr. Von Strahden. Just waiting for the carriage to be ready.”
“And I hope you have a fine day of it,” she answered with a slight smile.
“Come with me.”
“I beg your pardon?” she said, caught between amusement and actual shock.
“Come with me.”
“Why?” she said, still dryly amused. “I think Mr. Von Strahden can be trusted to travel with you unchaperoned.”
“I don’t need an escort,” I said, waving away her sly innuendo.
“So, again, why?”
“Better than sitting here all day,” I said. “You might have fun.”
“With you?”
“With what we will be doing.”
“Which would be what?” She was trying to sound disdainful but there was something in her eye she couldn’t keep out. Curiosity.
“I’ll explain as we ride,” I said. “On one condition.”
“Which is?”
“We don’t tell your brother,” I said.
And with that, I had her. Her eyes flashed and something passed between us, the thrill of adventure stripped of consequences, so that for a moment I forgot the woman’s snide superiority.
“What are we going to do?” she asked, very slightly breathless.
“We’re going to solve a murder,” I said.
CHAPTER
16
I HAD DAHRIA PUT me hurriedly into one of her maid’s outfits, the kind with a demure coal-scuttle bonnet that shaded my face from all sides, so that I had to turn my head to look at anything not right in front of me, something Dahria found unreasonably amusing. Under the frock I wore a long chemise, drawers, and wool stockings with tightly laced high-heeled shoes on which I wobbled precariously. For her part, Dahria replaced her tea gown with a corset and crinoline that supported a vast frippery of a dress trimmed with lace and ribbon that she thought was more appropriate for outdoors, and I was conscripted into helping her get into it all. I scowled and sneered throughout the process of lacing her into the rigid, formal attire, and told her that she looked like a walking lampshade, but a tiny, idiotic part of me was envious. She could barely sit down, but that just reminded me that her birthright was to be a kind of butterfly, while mine was to hang by my boots and fingernails from chimneys. She donned a broad-brimmed hat with a gauzy white veil and a parasol, and was done, a vision in mauve.
“Walk behind me,” she said as we went downstairs to the kitchen. “And speak only when you are spoken to.”
It had been my idea, but she was already in charge.
Von Strahden was waiting for us, checking his pocket watch. He turned with a look of comic exasperation, but it stalled abruptly as he took us in. “I was about to berate you for making me late,” he said, “but beauty, I see, cannot be hurried. Lady Dahria, you will be joining us, I take it?”