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Bridget.
    "Oh right." He nodded, picking up the thread of conversation. "Well, you'll have heard the name, of course— he's rather more famous than my brother, and a good thing too, because old James is vain enough already—"
    A new voice interrupted from the back door; a cultured male voice, instantly identifiable. "That's slander, that is." He let the kitchen door swing closed again behind him as he came into the warmth, his blue eyes finding Bridget first, then Christopher, and finally coming to rest on me. "Miss Ravenshaw, I presume." The familiar smile flashed, as James Swift came across to greet me, offering a hand streaked with red from the afternoon's shooting. "Don't mind the blood," he said. "I've just committed murder."

V
    And after that, she set herself to gain
    Him, the most famous man of all those times.
    Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Merlin and Vivien"
     
    I had heard others talk about the magnetism of the man, A but even having been forewarned, I fell victim to it now, myself. He was shorter than his brother, and stockier, with the same handsome features less carefully drawn, as though they'd been formed by a hastier hand. That didn't surprise me. James Swift's appetites—for food, for drink, for women—were legendary, and now that he was nearing forty he'd begun to pay the price of self-indulgence, the once-sharp lines of jaw and cheekbone thickening and growing faintly softer, heavier. He must have seen the change himself, because he'd grown a beard since I'd last seen him interviewed on television—a closely trimmed dark beard that made a rakish contrast to the waving lion's mane of golden hair that touched his collar at the back.
    He tossed that hair now, casually, and smiled, and gave me back my hand. "You don't look fierce at all," he said. Then, over my shoulder, he told Bridget: "My love, I can't battle with this one. I might do her damage."
    "Don't you believe it," said Bridget. Grinning, she reached for another sandwich and drew one leg up underneath her on the chair. "She scares my publisher to death, you know. The only reason he gives me those obscene advances is because he's terrified of saying 'no' to Lyn. He did it once, in the beginning," she revealed, with a sympathetic shake of her head, "and he's never been the same man since."
    "You don't say." James Swift took a second, more piercing look at my innocent face before bending to the sink to wash his hands. "Bridget's told you, I'd imagine, that I've fallen out with Ivor."
    I nodded. "Yes, she did mention you weren't entirely happy."
    "Is that how she said it? She puts things so politely." Turning off the taps, he moved to dry his hands on the tea towel. "The truth is that we nearly came to blows last time we met, but then I don't need to tell you what Ivor's like," he said, turning to face me. "You worked for him, didn't you?"
    Yes, I had worked for the great Ivor Whitcomb. Ivor was the Goliath of the London literary scene—an older agent, powerful, abrasive, and a man who'd frightened me to death when I'd first come to work for him. He'd all but engineered my marriage. Martin Blake had been his blue-eyed boy, his favourite client, and in Ivor's eyes I had become the one responsible for Martin's self-indulgences, his early death. If I had been a better wife to Martin, he'd once told me, Martin would have been at home that night, instead of driving home from God knows where so drunk he couldn't see the road. I hadn't let the accusations bother me—Ivor was simply the sort of boss that one endured and, after all, his pay was good. But I could never forgive him for the things he'd said my first day back, just after losing Justin. How he'd said it was my fault for being thoughtless, for not giving up my riding like Martin had told me to. Not a word of consolation, not the smallest show of sympathy. I'd posted out my CVs that afternoon.
    I looked at James now, and answered him. "That's right. I was with Ivor three years, before Simon