Read An Old Betrayal: A Charles Lenox Mystery (Charles Lenox Mysteries) for Free Online Page A

She knelt down to give Sophia a point of toast with marmalade, which Sophia immediately dropped to the floor, sticky-side down, and then, face serious, biting her lip with concentration, set about attempting to pick up.
    “No, dear,” said Lady Jane gently, stopping her with a hand.
    Lenox picked the toast up from the floor and wiped the spot with a cloth that was close to hand. “I observe that our daughter is rather clumsy, Miss Emanuel,” he said with a smile. “Jane, perhaps we oughtn’t to apprentice her to the seamstress quite yet, as we had planned.”
    Ellie clucked disapprovingly from the corner. “To think of making such a joke, the poor darling.”
    “At any rate we might wait until her fourth birthday, I suppose.”
    Jane laughed. “Four? Shall she remain indolent as long as that?”
    “I had planned to take her outside now,” said Miss Emanuel. “Unless you would prefer we stay here in the nursery a while longer?”
    Lenox looked at his pocket watch. He should by rights leave for his office again now; Graham would be expecting him. Instead he said, “I think I can find time to take her for a walk,” and then, to assuage his guilt—or his lack of guilt, for which in fact he felt guilty—he said he would go downstairs and find ten minutes of work to do in his study, until Miss Emanuel had readied the child to leave.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Later that evening Lenox was glad of the roast chicken, potatoes, and peas he had eaten at home that afternoon, because during the debate there was only time for a biscuit and a glass of port in the Members’ Bar, during a ten-minute recess. It was a heated session. In the end it was nearly two o’clock in the morning when the Artisans’ and Labourers’ Dwellings Improvement Act passed, a strange hybrid object that belonged in the affection of neither party wholly but had enough disjointed support between the two that it became the law of England. When the tide had finally turned, Disraeli gave Lenox, his chief ally among the liberals, a grave nod from across the aisle. It was a gesture few saw but that seemed to Lenox to imply much: thanks, future favors asked and given, even friendship. Compromise received a bad character from some men in the House, the look had said; but not from either of them.
    He went to bed utterly spent and permitted himself the luxury of sleeping until nine. When he woke he put on his warm dressing gown—there was a chill outside that morning, the sunlight hard and frosty—and took his cup of coffee in the armchair near the high windows in their bedroom, where he could watch from three stories up the hum of Hampden Lane. Across the street at the booksellers was the oysterman, selling three for a farthing, or six with bread and butter for two farthings, and passing him on the street were any variety of urgent gentlemen. It was a peaceful thing to watch them from a still place, warm and rested.
    Kirk came in with a note at twenty past the hour. It was from McConnell. The evening before, Lenox had found a moment to invite the doctor to lunch the next day, but it appeared that his friend had to decline.
    Dear Charles,
    Unfortunately I’m committed to lunch at the Surgeons’ this afternoon, but what do you say to our meeting tomorrow instead? I can come to the Athenaeum at one o’clock if you’re free then. Best to Jane and Sophia.
    Thos. McConnell
    Even a detective so far out of practice as Lenox was capable of stopping into the Surgeons’ Club and asking at the front desk whether Dr. McConnell was there. At two o’clock, after a leisurely morning of work at Parliament, that was what he did, though he felt rather shabby for it.
    “He is not in at the moment, sir,” said the dignified gatekeeper of the place. Portraits lined the walls of this entranceway, where in one corner a man struggled into a pair of galoshes.
    “Was he in earlier this afternoon?”
    “No, sir. We have not seen him this week past, sir.”
    “Ah. I must have