But it went without saying that the man had not sailed halfway around the world and found himself in a palace with nothing more important to do than meet someone from England.
So why was he standing alone?
The queen moved directly in Hollis’s line of sight to speak to two gentlemen, blocking her view of the man. She leaned to her right, but the man had shifted, too—she couldn’t see him.
“Look!”
Hollis gasped with a start and jerked toward the sound of Caroline’s voice. “Caro! You scared me half to death.” She pressed a hand to her heart.
“Do you remember what I said about—? There she is! Look now, Hollis.Quickly.”
“Look at who?” Hollis complained.
Caroline nodded in the direction of a woman with ginger hair. “The plump one. Do you see her? She’s built for childbearing, that one.”
“Caro! She’s not a horse, and really, we’reallbuilt for childbearing when you think of it. The lady in pale yellow?”
“That’s the one.”
“And?”
“Why are you being so obtuse?” Caroline said. “I’m hardly in London at all andIknow who she is—Lady Blythe Northcote, the daughter of the Earl of Kendal. Itoldyou about her.”
“I’ve never heard of Earl Kendal.”
“You’ve never heard of him because he rarely comes to town. He’s a bit of a recluse. But his daughter has come of age and gone very well past it, and honestly, Hollis, you spent an entire weekend in my company not a month ago, and Itoldyou then I’d met the perfect woman for Beck.”
There was a lot Caroline said that floated off into the clouds, particularly on the weekends Hollis spent with them in the country. But she heard her loud and clear now and gaped at her. “What do you mean, ‘perfect for Beck’?”
“There is only one thing that can mean, Hollis. It’s time he married.”
Hollis gasped. “But you were so against it, Caro!”
“I was against it forme, darling, not Beck. He should have been married ages ago. Who is that vast fortune going to, I ask you?”
“Well,youif he doesn’t have an heir.”
“Hmm,” Caroline said, as if she’d just considered the possibility. “That’s tempting, I won’t deny it. But why should Beck be allowed to remain a bachelor all his life? We all know he needs someone to look after him.”
Hollis laughed. Beck had looked after them all these years, but to Caroline, it was the other way around.
“I am determined,” Caroline insisted, and as she launched into all the reasons her brother ought to marry, Hollis glanced back to where the man had been standing. He wasn’t there. She went up on her toes and looked around the room. He was nowhere to be seen.
“What are you doing? Oh, dear, Leopold is gesturing for me,” she said. She grabbed Hollis’s hand and squeezed it. “See that you don’t interrogate the queen’s guests. Eliza would be very cross with you.” She went off to join her husband.
“I’m not going tointerrogateanyone,” Hollis muttered to herself. Why was it that she was constantly having to explain that the art of publishing had more to do with getting the details precisely right? That didn’t mean she interrogated people, it meant sheclarified. And, yes,she carried a pencil and a bit of paper with here wherever she went, another complaint from her family. But she didn’t want to forget a blessed thing.
As Caroline glided away, Hollis tried to find the man in the crowd again, but he was nowhere to be seen. Where could he have gone? Why would he leave the room before the tea was served? Surely he wasn’t allowed to wander about St. James unaccompanied.
She suddenly thought of baby Cecelia, away from her parents in this old palace, and a shiver of ice shot down her spine.
She was being ridiculous. He couldn’t wander around the palace on his own—there were guards and servants and people everywhere. What was the matter with her? How could she find something sinister in a man for merely standing by himself? If that made people sinister, then she was sinister.
Cecelia was perfectly safe.
Hollis forced her attention to the tea.
The footmen began to move through the room, inviting people to take a seat at one of six tables set for tea. Hollis looked to the other end of the room, hoping to see Eliza.
