Page 43 of The Spy and the Nightingale
Isobel tipped her head to the side, her eyes meeting his. “I appreciated the romance of it as a girl. As a woman on the other side of it, that seems to me a selfish sentiment. The surviving loved one is forever shackled to grief should it happen. Jamie did not wish it for me. If I had been the one to go first instead, I would have hoped for him to find contentment with another woman in time. No, more than contentment. Love.”
He signaled to a fiacre driver approaching the stand, ready to pick up new passengers. “Surely new love need not diminish the one lost.”
“Perhaps all is not lost for that girl in the ballad.” Isobel shook out her skirt, ready to step into the fiacre once it stopped. “I hope so, anyway.”
He hoped so too. Only it wasn’t of the girl in the song he’d been thinking.
The short ride to his rooms was a quiet one. Isobel did not speak. Lost in thoughts, perhaps. Or memories. He hoped he hadn’t set off melancholy ones, asking her to sing. And she’d chosen which song to sing. He’d meant to thank her for it, but the conversation turned before he’d had a chance.
She sat beside him in the fiacre rather than opposite. In thedark, he slid a hand to hers. She turned hers palm up, fingers slotting into his, and leaned her head against him for the remainder of the ride.
Once in his rooms, she set about lighting the oil lamps. “You are quite different from one another, you and M.Baudelaire,” she observed brightly, determinedly so. “I wonder that you work so well together.”
He hung up his hat. “One might argue that it helps that we are so dissimilar. Baudelaire brings certain assets to bear. My own are quite different.”
“Oh yes, he quite openly advertises the excellence of hisassets.” The smile was in her voice with her face turned away.
His own mouth lifted in return.
“It is rather impossible to take seriously anything he says,” she continued, “but I suspect it is but part of a carefully crafted facade. And youdolike him, despite your differences in temperament.”
“He makes it difficult to do otherwise.” This, drily.
She laughed. “Yes, he does. That you trust him as a partner in matters more serious suggests he is far less frivolous than he appears.” She laughed again at his noncommittal noise. Lamplight gleamed in her dark hair and on the plush velvet of her pelisse. Humor still in her voice, she added, “You may both keep your secrets. I do not seek to uncover them. But I like M.Baudelaire as well. Am I allowed to ask if you met with success tonight in whatever brought you to Frascati’s?”
“We had success of sorts. Did you learn anything from your conversations?” He tracked the slide of kid glove over satin and velvet as Isobel absently stroked a finger over the trim along the front of her pelisse.
“Nothing that pointed towards Lucy. I did learn bits of gossip about several of the players. I will write down what I have learned, if you provide paper.” She tried to work the button at the top ofone glove, making a noise of frustration when it did not immediately yield.
He removed his own gloves. “Allow me.”
Her eyes met his as she slowly extended her arm, although she looked elsewhere as he undid the button. He took care not to brush against the bare skin just above her glove, although his fingers tingled with the impulse.
Once freed of her gloves, she seated herself at the table. “Is there anyone of most importance? Should I start with M. Fournier, perhaps?”
He shed his greatcoat. “If you like.”
“He is a banker, a royalist who profited tremendously during the First Restoration and has continued to do so with the Bourbon monarchy restored. His oldest daughter is marrying soon to a man more than twice her age who was recently elected to the Chamber of Deputies. M. Fournier arranged the marriage for personal gain: his money and daughter in exchange for rubbing shoulders with the elite.”
So far that tracked entirely with what he knew. “Was there any specific gossip about his political leanings?” He set writing supplies before her.
She shook her head. “No. Chiefly his love for wine and women. And gambling. Mainly at Frascati’s, but he recently won large at a private gambling salon in Montparnasse. I did not catch a name, unfortunately.”
He knew the one. In the main it attracted Bourbon loyalists with more money than sense.
“What else...?” Isobel tilted her head. “His wife lives entirely apart from him in Faubourg Montmartre and has done so for some time. He has a mistress currently living near to him in Chaussée-d’Antin. Before that, he regularly patronizedmaisons de tolérance. I do not know their names. I expressed curiosity about Le Repaire, as though you’d mentioned it to me as anentertaining destination, but it led nowhere. None of them have been there.”
“Did you learn anything about the third man who playedtrente-et-un?” He unbuttoned his jacket. “Not the young one.”
“The man who spoke with me after quitting the table? None of the women recognized him; I did ask. I discovered nothing beyond that.”
Oberlin had done more than speak to her and had been close to gaining a broken wrist in consequence. “That’s information in itself, especially given how pointed his attention was. Directed at both of us.”
She looked unnerved by his final remark. “What does it mean? You misliked him well before he spoke to me. I observed the tension between you.”
“Natural antipathy for me, perhaps, although I rather doubt that was all it was. His interest appeared personal from the outset.” Maybe only because Oberlin coveted Isobel. Maybe for reasons more nefarious.
“And the game?”
