City of Jasmine. Deanna Raybourn
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Starke,” he said, shaking my hand slowly and holding it for an instant longer than he ought.
“Mrs.,” I corrected gently. “I am a widow.”
A fleeting expression of sympathy touched his features. “Of course. The war took a lot of good men.”
I didn’t bother to correct him. Gabriel had died during the war—just not doing anything useful like actually fighting.
He glanced to Aunt Dove. “Lady Lavinia was just telling me about your Seven Seas Tour, but she needn’t have. I’ve been following your exploits in the newspapers. It’s dashed thrilling. Will you be doing any flying here?”
“Not just yet. My plane is still in Italy. Aunt Dove and I are here for pleasure. We mean to relax and revive before we move on to the Caspian for the next leg of our tour.”
“Damascus is the place for that,” he assured me. “Lots of picturesque sights and loads of delicious gossip, but it’s just the spot for shopping or lounging in a bathhouse or lying by a fountain and letting the world pass you by.”
Those pursuits would interest me for about a day, but I smiled. “I’m very interested in how the interim government is faring, as well. I know the French are determined to meddle, and I’m curious how their efforts compare to the British presence in Palestine.”
Mr. Halliday’s brows lifted in delighted astonishment. “I say, beauty and brains. What a refreshing combination! Most women only want to talk tea and scandal, but if you really want to know the truth of the political situation, I am more than happy to give you the lay of the land, so to speak.”
Aunt Dove smelled the opportunity to make a new conquest and leaped on it. “How very kind of you, Mr. Halliday. My niece and I were just about to go to dinner. Won’t you join us as our guest?”
He accepted quickly, extending his arm to Aunt Dove. I followed, watching him as he deftly negotiated the crowds to secure a taxi and handed her in. He turned to me and I put my hand in his.
“Mrs. Starke,” he murmured.
“Evie, please,” I told him.
To my amusement, he blushed a little. To cover it, he gave swift and fluent instructions to the driver and turned to us with a beaming face. “I think it’s going to be a devilishly good night.”
* * *
In fact, it was an extraordinary night. The restaurant where we dined was very new and very French with exquisite food and wine. Aunt Dove was at great pains to be charming to Mr. Halliday, who himself was a delightful companion. A tiny European orchestra was tucked behind the palms, playing popular music, and as the evening progressed, bejewelled couples rose and began to dance. I was tired from the journey—or perhaps it was too much champagne—but the whole of the evening took on an otherworldly quality. It seemed impossible that I had come so far in search of a ghost, and as I sat sipping at my bubbling wine, I began to wonder if I were making a tremendous fool of myself. The war was over. And on that glittering night, it became quite apparent that the world had moved on. Why couldn’t I?
Mr. Halliday was charming company. He was an expert storyteller, and his anecdotes about the expats and officials in Damascus ranged from the highly amusing to the mildly salacious. But he’d chosen his audience well. Aunt Dove loved nothing better than a good gossip, and much of our meal was spent chatting about her travels in the South Pacific, an area Mr. Halliday longed to see.
“Oh, you must go!” Aunt Dove instructed. “If nothing else, it’s a lovely place to die.”
Mr. Halliday burst out laughing then sobered as he looked from Aunt Dove to me. “She is serious?”
“Entirely,” I admitted. “Auntie won’t travel anywhere she thinks would be unpleasant to die.”
“That’s why I don’t go to Scandinavia,” she said darkly. “It’s far too cold and bodies linger too long. I’d much rather die in a nice warm climate where things decompose quickly. No point in hanging around when I am well and gone.”
Mr. Halliday looked at me again and I shrugged. “Ask her about her shroud.”
“Shroud?” His handsome brow furrowed.
Aunt Dove smiled broadly. “Yes, a lovely tivaevae I picked up last time I was in the South Pacific.”
“Tivaevae?”
“A quilt from the Cook Islands,” I explained. “Auntie travels with it in case she dies unexpectedly. She wanted something nice for her cremation.”
“You ought to come up and see it,” she told him, leering only a little. “It’s quite the loveliest example of South Pacific needlework—all reds and aquas and a green so bright it matches Arthur perfectly.”
“Arthur?” Mr. Halliday looked well and truly lost.
“My parrot, Arthur Wellesley,” she replied.
She beckoned the waiter over for another bottle of champagne, and Mr. Halliday threw me a rather desperate look. “I wonder if I might prevail upon you for a dance, Mrs. Starke? Lady Lavinia, if you will excuse us, of course.”
Aunt Dove waved us off and I rose and moved into his arms for a waltz. He was a graceful dancer, but not perfect, and it was those little missteps that made me like him even more. He apologised the second time he trod on my feet, pulling a rueful face.
“I am sorry. I don’t seem to be able to concentrate very well this evening.” But his eyes were warm and did not leave my face.
“All is forgiven, Mr. Halliday,” I said.
“John,” he said automatically. “Your aunt is an entirely original lady,” he said. “Like something out of mythology.”
“She can be,” I agreed. “By the way, if you haven’t any interest in sleeping with her, you ought to know what she means when she asks you to come up and look at her shroud.”
He tripped then, and it took him a full measure of the waltz to recover.
“Mrs. Starke—Evie. Really, I would never presume to believe that I would behave in so ungentlemanly—”
I cut him off. “Mr. Halliday, it’s none of my business what you get up to. I just wanted to offer a word of warning in case her intentions came as a surprise. They often do.”
“Often?” His voice was strangled.
“She is affectionate by nature,” I explained. “Demonstrably so. And while many gentlemen are receptive, it can be a trifle unnerving when some poor soul goes to her rooms actually expecting to see her shroud or examine her stamp collection.”
He smiled, almost against his will, it seemed. “Does she have a very fine stamp collection?”
“She doesn’t have one at all.”
“Oh,” he said faintly.
“Sometimes gentlemen misunderstand her intentions,” I explained. “It occasionally results in unfortunate events. I shouldn’t like to see a repeat of the Aegean.”
“The Aegean?”
“There was a young man who thought she was actually kidnapping him. It was all a tempest in a teapot, I assure you, but he happened to be the son of the local magistrate, and things got rather out of hand. That was when I took up drinking as a hobby.”
He smiled deeply, and I saw he had the suggestion of dimples. It wasn’t fair, really, to compare them to Gabriel’s. His had been so deep a girl could drown in them when he smiled. In repose, Gabriel’s face had been decidedly handsome, but when his mouth curved into a cheerful grin and his dimples flashed, the effect had been purely devastating.
Something of Halliday reminded me of him, a trick of the light, the curve of a high cheekbone, perhaps. But Halliday’s eyes were a mild grey where Gabriel’s had been such a startling blue I