I watched as his attention returned to his brother and tried not to feel glad that a man I was attracted to was not married. What the hell had I been hoping for anyway? An affair with someone dead for almost two hundred years?
‘I would be at Whitebeams now if this other matter had not detained me.’
‘Other matter? You mean Miss Trenton is still missing? How are you involved?’
‘Luncheon is served, my lord,’ Garrick said from the doorway.
‘Good. You’ll stay, Jas? And Garrick, lay for yourself as well and eat with us. I want to bring everyone up to date.’
We sat around the oval table, Garrick seeming remarkably at ease. He was obviously far deeper in his master’s confidence than the average valet. Looking round as we settled after the first flurry of passing bread and butter and deciding between ham, tongue or chicken I had the whimsical thought that someone was going to start taking the minutes of the board meeting at any moment.
Lucian told James everything up to the encounter with the footpads in the alleyway. ‘And then Cassie appeared.’
‘Where from, for goodness sake?’
‘We had better tell him,’ Lucian said to me. ‘You can trust him.’
‘What with?’ James demanded.
‘It isn’t where I came from,’ I explained. ‘It is when. I travelled back in time from the future.’
There was silence broken by the sound of the butter knife falling into the silver dish.
‘The future. And you have convinced my brother and Garrick of this how, exactly?’ James said eventually.
We explained, taking turns, and then Garrick got up and fetched the contents of my bag. ‘With your permission, Miss Lawrence? I don’t know how else to explain these things, sir.’
‘What is this?’ James, of course, had to pick up a condom.
‘A condom,’ I said. All three men stared at me, rendered comically speechless. Then I remembered that condoms then were ghastly things made of cows’ intestines and secured with ribbons and mainly used to prevent infection. If nothing else, this one ought to convince James. ‘Open it.’
Bless him, he had gone pink. He bent his head over the tiny package, trying to puzzle out how to get into it. He tore it open and stared at what had fallen out. ‘Impossible.’ He handed it to his brother who passed it on to Garrick who hastily handed it back to James.
‘Unroll it,’ I suggested. Why is there never a banana when you need one?
‘Good God,’ James said faintly after a moment. He dropped his napkin over the condom.
‘I should explain that sex before marriage is quite normal in Britain when I come from. It is a matter of personal choice – just in case you are running away with the idea that I am a... professional.’ That did it. He went scarlet. ‘And we have no idea how my presence here, in the past, will affect the future, so I am trying to give away as little as possible. You can’t tell anyone.’
‘No-one,’ Lucian said. ‘I need your word of honour, Jas.’
‘You have it.’ James took a large swallow of ale. ‘Who in blazes would believe me if I told them?’ He reached for the ale jug, topped up his glass and took another drink. ‘I am assuming I am awake and neither drunk nor concussed?’
‘If you are, we all are,’ Lucian said, sounding rather more cheerful about it than I had expected. ‘So, Cassie is assisting with the search for Arabella Trenton.’
James listened in silence to our account of the morning until I mentioned searching the house. ‘Her brother? You, Cousin Cassandra, have a nasty suspicious mind. I cannot say I blame you – I do not like the man. Are we going tonight? I’m in if we are.’
‘Why don’t you like him?’ I asked. ‘He seemed very pleasant to me.’
The colour was up over James’s cheekbones again. ‘Let us just say he does not like me, or my friends.’
Ah. So Lord Cottingham suspected, or knew, about James’s orientation and made his disapproval clear. But, it seemed, did nothing else about the matter, despite it being a criminal offence. Presumably the upper classes closed ranks to protect their own, even if they disapproved. And if they would shield one law-breaker for his sexual preferences, who else – or what else – might they turn a blind eye to?
The warning glance Lucian shot at his brother before he spoke confirmed that I guessed right about the reason for the friction. ‘When we go depends on what Cottingham is doing. Have you any idea, Garrick?’
‘As it happens, my lord, I have. I made a point of speaking to Mr Jepson, his lordship’s valet, when I saw him this morning at the chemist. He was complaining that his gentleman was attending Lady Worthington’s masked ball tonight. Not only had he failed to warn Mr Jepson that he would be requiring his domino, but he is not expected back until the small hours and Mr Jepson resents yet another late night.’
‘Belle Worthington’s ball? Confound it, I wanted to go to that,’ James complained.