Page 69 of The Vanished

Jesse looked blank. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Mr. Lefferts told Father that your mother married a rancher from Montana.”

He nodded then, his expression growing sad. “My mother and I were estranged. I didn’t get on with my stepfather.”

“So you went to New York?” Honor asked.

“Yes.”

“How old were you at the time?”

“Stop interrogating Mr. Bellamy,” Clarissa admonished them. “It’s impolite.”

“We’re just making conversation, Mother,” Rose said. “How else can we get to know him better?”

“Do you have any favorite holiday traditions?” Honor asked. “What did you do at Christmas if you were estranged from your family?”

“Last year I was invited to a coworker’s home for Christmas.” Jesse smiled self-deprecatingly. “He took pity on me because I was alone. And then, on New Year’s Eve, I went to Times Square to see the ball drop.”

“What ball? Who dropped it?” Rose cried.

“It doesn’t actually fall,” Jesse explained. “It’s a beautiful lighted iron sphere that’s slowly lowered down a flagpole. The ball reaches the bottom precisely at midnight, and everyone cheers, claps, and sings. It’s quite a sight. But why don’t you tell me about you?” he suggested, turning his smile on Aunt Clarissa, who was clearly forgiven. “How do you pass the time in London?”

This was the opening she had been waiting for, and she began to regale Jesse with tales of London society. Clarissa peppered the conversation with the names of titled, influential people, but Jesse was clearly unimpressed, since he had likely never heard of any of them, though he nodded and asked questions when Clarissa paused for breath.

“Once you’re the Earl of Gosforth, you will move in the highest levels of society,” Clarissa said. “Unless you decide to bury yourself in the country, like my brother. But you’re young and would benefit from the connections you can make. I wager if you took a house in London for the Season, you would be on every hostess’s guest list.”

“And that could be more perilous than the missions you flew during the war,” Geneva said, but her attempt at a joke fell flat.

Clarissa had stopped talking rather abruptly, probably because she had realized that if Jesse didn’t marry Geneva, he would be introduced to eligible young women of his own class and might marry elsewhere, which wouldn’t benefit any of them.

“You would, of course, need to observe a period of mourning, and then take your cousins to London with you,” she said when the silence stretched on. “So they can meet eligible young men. It would be up to you to see them advantageously wed and negotiate a marriage settlement.”

“Yes, of course,” Jesse muttered, then fell silent.

For the remainder of the meal, they alternated between awkward silence and banal observations, and Geneva was relieved when dinner finally came to an end and she could escape to her bedroom.

FORTY-ONE

SEPTEMBER 2023

Keswick

Quinn woke with a start and grabbed for her ringing mobile. She had lost hope of hearing from Logan, but she thought the call might be from Jude, who might want to find out if there were any new developments and confirm that he was on his way. She was surprised to discover that Gabe was up, and Max was no longer in his cot. She could hear them chatting in the other room as Max inquired about breakfast.

“Hey,” Jude said when Quinn answered. He sounded unusually disgruntled, and she heard a lot of noise in the background, mostly people talking loudly.

“Hey, yourself. Are you on your way?”

“Not exactly. There is a power outage at the airport at Stuttgart.”

“Any foul play suspected?” Quinn asked, instantly alert. These days, one’s mind immediately went to bad actors rather than some more innocent explanation.

“Doesn’t look like it, but all flights are canceled. I will try again tomorrow. Power ought to be restored by then.” It got a little quieter as Jude must have exited the waiting area. “I’m heading back to base. Have you heard from the police?”

“Nothing since yesterday.”

“And Drew? Was he able to make any headway?”