Enter Pale Death(6)
“It wasn’t easy. We knew we loved each other but he knew I loved my job just as much. That’s why he held off asking me to marry him. James is a thug—I can’t say you didn’t warn me. He’ll beat a man senseless, put a bullet through him if he has to, but he’s not entirely insensitive. He could see I was having a ripping time and thought I might choose to stick with the police force and reject him—choose danger over domesticity. Because that would have been his own choice if he’d had to make one. His own masculine choice. He couldn’t grasp that I might be willing to give up all this”—she rolled her eyes with humour around his office—“for a lifetime of cooking and cleaning. But I loved him,” she finished as though that were explanation enough.
“How did he get around to … er …?”
“He never did ask me. Oh, he intended to! He took me out for a romantic dinner at the Savoy and all the signs were there that he was working up to saying something important. But he dropped me off on my doorstep at the end of the evening with not a word spoken. He kissed me good night and turned to go. I lost my rag. I grabbed him by the ears and said some very unpleasant things. ‘Cowardly stinker … Conscienceless seducer … What a waste of an evening …’ That sort of thing. I finished with an ultimatum. He had twenty-four hours to ask me to marry him, or I was off to Paris to manage Aunty Phyl’s new dress shop on the Rue St. Honoré.”
“Seems to have worked.”
“Not then and there. He still couldn’t find the words. A bloke fluent in half a dozen languages, and he couldn’t come up with the four little words I wanted to hear in any of them! In the end, he had to get a little help from Dickens. I got a note pushed through the door next morning. It said: ‘Bacchus is willing.’ ”
Joe snorted with laughter. “You were lucky you got a joke in English! It might have been something pithy from Pushkin. Now, what was his contribution to the Sighing Suitor’s Manual? Habit makes the heart grow fonder. That always clinches it for me!”
“Anyway—do it properly, Joe. You don’t want to overhear Dorcas telling an unflattering story like that in years to come. Give her something to look back on with pleasure. Some romantic tale to thrill or amuse her friends with. There’s three things that’ll fix a proposal in any girl’s memory: A special place, an unexpected gift, some silver words.” Lily gave him a sideways glance of mock assessment. “A bloke like you, living in London in June, not without a bob or two, with a tongue that can charm birds out of trees … There shouldn’t be a problem. But do it straight away. When are you seeing her again?”
“Very soon. She’s been away, but she’ll be back home in Surrey this coming weekend when her term ends. My sister’s laying on a family welcome-home knees-up. I’ll be sure to make time at some stage of the junketing to come out with something memorable. ‘Sandilands is certain,’ I shall say. Or: ‘How about it, old gel?’ Which do you advise?”
Lily smiled her approval. “That’s settled, then. I shall think about you on Saturday night while I’m sipping my Sancerre in solitary state, one beady eye on this exemplary Englishman of yours, watching him toy with his lobster.”
Joe was suddenly concerned. “Hang on a minute! Not quite sure I like the scene you’re conjuring up. You’re a very attractive woman, Lily, to be out and about in the West End by yourself. A potential target. I think I’d better arrange for back-up.”
“A police chaperone? Not on your nellie! Not unless the lovely sergeant on reception happens to be free. He had a bit of a twinkle, I thought. But quite unnecessary. What could go wrong? You are worried about this, aren’t you?”
“It occurs to me—belatedly—that Englishmen, even pillars of society, have been known to crumble under the influence of wine and the allure of a smile across a candlelit room. If you add in the sense of security a discreet establishment offers—well—a powerful fellow like this, with all the good looks and wealth you could wish for, might just throw caution to the winds.”
Lily raised her eyebrows, exasperated as always by his delicate circumlocutions. The only concession he made to her sex.
“I mean, in a state of unbuttoned ease, he might just be minded to offer himself a little well-earned distraction,” Joe elaborated.
“It’ll make a nice change from fending off the plumber then. Joe, you know how I deal with drunken chancers … or, as you’d put it, an excitable bloke with designs on my virtue.”