“But, Mr. Sadiki, I could not possibly let you do all this work and not pay you for it!”
He deftly rolled the keys in the cloth, positioning folds between each one so that they would not scratch against each other or rattle when carried in a bag. He passed her the bundle.
“No charge,” he repeated. “If I have gained nothing by the transaction I cannot be held to blame for it.”
She thought to protest again, or to restate her claim that these were copies of her father’s keys, but his expression changed her mind. He had helped her, unquestioningly, knowing that she had been lying to him. It had been her Hecate brooch and her own name that had decided him.
“You have been very kind. Thank you,” she said again. She put the little bundle into the deep pocket of her coat.
“Use them wisely,” he said.
“I will,” she promised. “I will.”
The Bishop’s Meadows, while still a place owned by the church and where the incumbent bishop might graze his horse, had long been a public park and a popular spot for walks and picnics with the people of Hereford. Hecate leaned her bicycle against a tree and began to pace up and down the riverbank. The tower bells chimed the hour. Of course she had been early for her rendezvous with Clementine. She did her best to quell her impatience, deciding to sit on one of the wrought-iron benches nearby. She had no sooner sat down when she spotted her friend, a vision in a dress of sky blue set off by a pretty straw hat worn at a jaunty angle, walking toward her, waving cheerily.
The two friends embraced. Hecate smiled.
“You smell of roses,” she said. “Expensive ones.”
Clemmie laughed. “Do you think my mother would permit me to leave the house wearing cheap scent? Now, I am agog to hear what you have to say after your mysterious note.”
“Not that mysterious, surely. I have asked you to meet me in the park before.”
“Hecate, you wrote that you needed my help with something important!”
“And so I do. Let’s sit. The point of my asking you to meet me—other than for the pleasure of your company…” Hecate began, “is that I need to borrow your carriage. Or rather, your mother’s carriage. For a daytime trip. Friday, to be precise. Might it be available, do you suppose?”
“I suppose it might, as long as you tell me what you want it for. I sense intrigue!”
“You won’t like it.”
“In which case I absolutely demand that you tell me!”
“Father and I are to visit the earl of Brockhampton.”
“That man! After what happened at the ball and after what he has done to his dear, harmless little wife? Hecate, darling, have you taken leave of your senses?”
“John is coming with us.”
“Can it be cathedral business? I shouldn’t have thought a man who has so utterly destroyed his own reputation would be someone Dean Chalmers wants to associate with.”
“He doesn’t. That is, this is a matter more specifically to do with my work in the library. And the map,” she added, knowing she could not properly explain but feeling the need to offer something.
Clemmie shook her head. “You are making no more sense than you did before.”
“Please, can I ask you to simply trust that my reasons are good ones?”
Her friend regarded Hecate closely. “Now you sound worryingly serious.”
“It is serious,” she replied. “This is important.”
“I see. Well, I don’t know him personally at all, really, but our families are acquainted, naturally. Papa sees him at Westminster, of course, when the House is sitting. They have dined together at Rules from time to time, I believe, but only in the way men from provincial towns do when they are in London. And Mama invites him to balls. That is to say, she used to. He can consider himself firmly crossed off any future guest lists. Poor Lady Brocket.” She looked sadly into the middle distance. “How tragic that a marriage should end in such a way. Do you suppose they loved each other once?”
“What difference would that have made?”
“Oh, Hecate, how can you ask that? Two people who have loved each other, deeply, over many years … such a bond, such shared history is not lightly cast aside.”
“Not even for a young, beautiful mistress? I thought the upper classes were quite accustomed to such behavior.”
“A discreet alliance, conducted in private, perhaps … but such blatant mistreatment of his wife. And to install a new woman with the marital bed still warm…”
Hecate laughed. “Your interest in romance is impressively unshakable. Well then, may we have use of the carriage?”
“Of course you may. I suppose you will be safe with both your father and John Forsyth. Though you might do better to take Phileas. He defended you valiantly at the ball.”
“On this occasion I think John might be of more use.”
“How very … useful of him.”
“I thought you approved of John. What has he done to change your mind?”
“He has done nothing, which I suppose is rather the point. I don’t disapprove of him. He is handsome enough, but…”
“He has been a good friend to me. He … understands me.”
Her friend got to her feet, and held up her hands. “Stop. I beg you, do not attempt to convert me to the idea of John Forsyth as a suitor for you.”
“That’s not what I’m asking!”
