Enter Pale Death(30)
While Lily twittered on, she was listening intently to Mr. Fitzwilliam who, like her, had chosen to check in earlier than expected. As they both turned from the desk at the same moment, he smiled and held out a hand. “How do you do, Miss Richmond. Rowley Fitzwilliam, also here on business. Pardon me, I couldn’t help overhearing. I’ve never met a writer of romantic novels before. How delightful! We must—”
“And you’ve never read one either, young man,” Lily said sharply, looking him up and down. “Though you could well be the subject of such a work. Yes—tall, dark, handsome and doubtless disreputable.”
For a moment Fitzwilliam was taken aback but he rallied to slap his fedora back on his head at a louche angle and narrow his eyes. “That’s just the effect of the gangster hat. All the go at the moment—the slouch—but don’t be deceived! This is not a stickup, madam.”
“I see. I’m pleased to note that St. James’s is still stocked with its share of fashionable—and law-abiding—young gallants. Ah, there goes my luggage … Excuse me—I must away to my broom-cupboard.”
That should have been enough to put him off any further approach, Lily thought. Mad old bat. Harmless but better avoided. Not what she’d been expecting, though, her target. What had she expected? Joe had gritted out a warning that he was an exemplary Englishman while hinting darkly that he might well, under this cover, be planning to steal the crown jewels or overturn the government. The smart, jokey chap she’d encountered in the lobby had given out no such dire signals. Lily decided that if she should ever be trapped in the Castlemaine lift she would not be displeased to find Fitzwilliam trapped in there with her. Strangely, he seemed like a man who might well have a handy screwdriver in his back pocket and he’d have the athleticism to climb up and free a cable perhaps. If all else failed he’d keep her entertained. Lily hoped she wouldn’t be called on to shoot him.
Her pre-judgement of the room allocated to her had been equally unjust, she recognised as she settled in. It was spacious enough for a couple and equipped with two single beds. The furnishings and the linen were all of excellent quality and the water came boiling out of the taps in the bathroom next door. She kicked off her laced shoes and removed the heavy spectacles that distorted her vision. Though longing to apply a slather of cold cream to her makeup, she resisted the urge, planning to make a further foray into the lobby when the rush had abated. She hung up the jacket of her heather-mix Hebe suit and, with relief, took out of her brassière the layer of padding that boosted her lissom 34 inches to 44 inches of imposing bosom. She flopped down onto one of the beds, relishing a moment to spend with the book she’d bought half an hour before. She’d been drawn by the title: Midsummer Masquerade. It had seemed appropriate. She’d better read it and find out how this historical novel business was managed. How taxing could it be? Lily was full of confidence. She was able to write and she knew some history after all.
Lily hadn’t counted on anyone but her Aunt Phyl actually being fascinated sufficiently by this stuff to want to initiate a conversation about it. Her cover story was meant to be plausible if questioned but so dull as to deflect interest in the first place. In extremis, she would have to call on her deafness or authorial modesty to wriggle free.
She persevered for ten minutes. Ten tedious minutes of soulful sighs and side-slipping glances, fans and hearts a-flutter and—the last straw: “ ’Pon my soul, Mr. Ponsonby” and the book broke its spine on the wall opposite.
Back to business. Lily went to reception and began to make notes. She’d overheard Fitzwilliam booking a table for four at one o’clock. Lily rang down to the desk and requested a lunch table for herself at 12:30. She would be already in position when his guests arrived and could always linger over coffee if she needed to prolong her surveillance. Joe was going to get his money’s worth. This Fitzwilliam was troubling her boss in a way that was a mystery to her. Not such a mystery to Joe, she had concluded, and wondered what he was deliberately hiding from her.
NO WONDER AT all that Special Branch had been bored out of their skins keeping a watchful eye on this bird, Lily reckoned. His three guests were respectability itself. A Tory grandee with a finger in every financial pie in Westminster, his glum wife and, last to arrive, to make up the numbers, Lily guessed, a lady who by her looks could be no other than Fitzwilliam’s younger sister. Tall, slender, dark and fashionably though not showily dressed, she moved easily into her place in the group. After a loving exchange of kisses with her brother, she was presented to the other two. “You haven’t met my sister Margaret, who is in her other life Mrs. Hubert Hawkes? She’s so often travelling the world these days I don’t have a chance to see much of her.”