The Deception of the Emerald Ring (15 page)

I was sick of here.

Everything that had seemed quaint when I first arrived in London had become alien and irritating. Those tiny little bottles of shampoo that cost as much as a full-sized one back home. The way the coffee shops all inexplicably closed by eight. The strange way street names had of changing halfway down a block. The fact that I couldn't get a tub of American peanut butter and no one seemed to sell skirt hangers. I wanted to go home. I missed my little apartment in Cambridge where the sink leaked and the closet door wouldn't close. I missed the rutted brick streets of Harvard Square, where my heels stuck between the stones and my boots slid out from under me in slushy weather. I missed the musty, charred smell of Peet's Coffee that clung to my hair and wouldn't wash out of my sweaters. The thought of the microfilm readers at Widener made me weak with nostalgic sorrow.

With my plastic basket hanging from the crook of my arm, I stared through blurry eyes at the array of preprepared foods. Instead of Lancashire hotpot and chicken tikka masala, I saw the weeks spreading out before me in an endless row of fruitless research and dinners for one. Same old library, same old dinners, same old rainy gray sky. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, world without end, amen, with only the occasional outing with Pammy to enliven the gloom, and no chance of home till Christmas.

Only the buzz of the phone in my pocket stopped me from dropping my head into the frozen foods section and bawling.

Resting the edge of my basket on the shelf, I dug into the pocket of my quilted jacket, where I had stuck the phone for easy access during my incessant phone-checking stage. It would probably be Pammy again, I thought listlessly, tugging the phone clear of a fold in the lining. If it was, I'd have to hit ignore and pretend to have left my phone at home. I'd been avoiding Pammy, who tended to regard relations with men as though she were Napoleon and they an opposing army. She mustered her artillery, chose her position, and attacked. Over the past week, we had proceeded from "I don't see why you don't just call him already," to "You could find out where he lives and just buzz and see if he's home," to "If you're not going to call him, I will."

"No, you won't," I informed the buzzing phone.

Only, it wasn't Pammy's number on the screen. In my confusion, my grip loosened, and I had to do a little juggling act with the phone to keep it from plummeting into a pile of prawn sandwiches. It wasn't a London number at all, which ruled out Pammy, nor was it an American number, which ruled out my parents, my siblings, college roommates, and, of course, Grandma.

My withered spirits flamed to life with a surge that sent the blood rushing clear down to the tips of my fingers and up to my hairline. Sussex! I didn't know what the area code for Sussex was, but this was an English area code, and one that decidedly wasn't London.

I jammed down on the receive button so hard that I nearly broke a nail.

"Hello?" I demanded breathlessly.

"Hello, Eloise?" It was a male voice on the other end, but not the male voice I'd been hoping for. It was a nice enough voice, deep and wellmodulated, but it wasn't Colin's. Even across the uncertain cell connection—my cell wasn't terribly fond of the Whiteley's shopping center—his accent was decidedly American.

"Hello?" the voice repeated, as I stood there, disappointment seeping through me along with the chill of the freezer case.

"Oh, hi. Yes, this is Eloise," I replied belatedly, getting a grip on my emotions and my phone. If it was an American calling from somewhere in England, it had to be someone I knew. He certainly seemed to know me, if he was calling and asking for me by my first name. Maybe that Duke grad student I had met at the Institute of Historical Research? "How are you doing?" I gushed, to cover my confusion.

"I'm fine." The voice at the other end of the line sounded mildly perplexed, but game. "How are you?"

"Um, I'm okay. Just on my way home from the library," I provided cheerfully and unnecessarily, playing for time. It was no use. I was still drawing a complete blank in my attempt to determine the caller's identity. I gave up. "Who is this?"

"This is Jay."

"Jay!" I enthused, desperately digging about in my memory for any Jays I might know. There had been one in college, but that had been a very long time ago, and I had heard he preferred to go by James these days, anyway, now that he had become a serious proponent of postmodern literary criticism. "Hi!"

Damn, I'd said that already, hadn't I?

I was about to go for another round of "So, how are you?" or maybe a leading "So, what are you up to these days?" when the unidentified Jay stepped in, his voice turned to gravel by the uncertain reception of my cell phone. "You have no idea who I am, do you?"

"None," I admitted, scooting out of the way of a very large woman with a basket filled entirely with cat food.

There was a pause on the other end, and an exhalation that might have been a sigh, a breath, or simply interference on the line. The voice returned. "Sorry, I should have explained. Your grandmother gave me your number."

"Oh!" I stopped dead in the middle of the aisle. "Of course! She did tell me. I just well, forgot."

Between midnight elopements, rebellion in Ireland, and disappearing Englishmen (by which I meant Colin, although I supposed it applied to Geoffrey Pinchingdale-Snipe, as well), grandparental setups had been low on my list of priorities. Besides, I never thought he would call.

"And you didn't think I'd call," supplied Jay.

"It's not nice to read the mind of someone you haven't even met yet," I said, leaning back against a tower of biscuit tins.

"It wasn't mind-reading," clarified the voice from Birmingham, "just common sense. I probably wouldn't have called—"

Should I be offended by that? I wondered, quickly shifting my weight back onto my own two feet as the biscuit tins started to wobble. Of course, I wouldn't have called someone Grandma was trying to set me up with either, but that was beside the point.

"—but it turns out we have a friend in common."

"Who?" I asked, deciding to abandon righteous indignation in favor of curiosity.

"Alex Coughlin."

"You know Alex?" I exclaimed, pressing myself back against the biscuit tins as a mother holding a small child's hand went by.

Just to be clear, Alex is not an Alexander but an Alexa. She is also my best friend. We had gone to school together from kindergarten until twelfth grade, parted with the utmost reluctance for different colleges, and maintained a voluminous e-mail correspondence ever since. We'd spoken and written less of late, due to a combination of the transcontinental time difference and Alex's grueling schedule as a second-year associate in the litigation department of one of the bigger New York law firms, but it was the sort of friendship that was too deeply rooted to be shaken by absence. Pammy might be on-the-spot, but Alex was a soul mate.

There was the sound of tapping in the background and a pause before Jay answered, in a preoccupied way, "She's dating my college roommate."

"Oh," I said. "Wow, small world."

"Hey," said Jay abruptly. "I'm going to be in London next Tuesday on business. Are you free for dinner?"

"Tuesday " I stalled. "Um "

It would make Grandma way too happy if I went. She might start giving my number out to yet more men. Probably unfortunate ones without all their own hair, into which category Jay might fall, for all I knew. And his mother was named Muffin. Or Mitten. Or something like that. And Alex's Sean was a nice guy, but wasn't there just a little something too incestuous about going out with his roommate?

And what if Colin called?

I looked down into my basket at the lonely little pack of chicken strips, the sparse array of yogurts, and the tiny carton of milk. Tonight, I would sit at the little round table in my subterranean flat, with a book propped up on the plastic flowered tablecloth scarred with the burn marks of a former inhabitant. After my solitary dinner, I would take my solitary plate to the sink, and fix myself an equally solitary cup of cocoa. If I wanted to be truly festive, I might even let myself have a marshmallow in it.

"Dinner would be lovely," I said firmly.

"Cool. Listen, I have to run, but I'll call you Tuesday and we can work out the details."

"Looking forward to it!" I trilled, and then winced at how eager I sounded. Like a pathetic, desperate spinster, delighted at any date. But it was too late to rectify it with a qualifying "Always nice to meet a friend of Sean's," or "It will be good to hear an American accent," or "Too bad my boyfriend is out of town for the week, or you could meet him, too." Jay had already rung off.

It was just dinner, I reminded myself, as I headed for the checkout. A casual, friendly dinner with a friend of a friend. Nothing to get all stressy about. Anything had to be better than another night staying in and watching reruns of Frasier. Not that I object to Frasier, per se, but there's something deeply depressing about having nothing better to do in a foreign country than watch American television.

And Colin wasn't going to call. Ever.

Alex was getting a phone call within the next day. Alex, I remembered guiltily, had left a "Hey, something just happened—give me a call!" message on my voice mail yesterday, but I'd been too preoccupied to call back. I would wager the entire collection of yogurts in my basket that the message had something to do with her boyfriend informing her that his college roommate was being set up with her best friend. I tried to imagine how that conversation must have gone, in boy-speak.

JAY: "Some crazy old biddy is trying to set me up with her pathetic granddaughter."

* * *

SEAN: "Bummer. Pass the chips."

* * *

Sean had gone to Stanford, and thus, like many New Englanders who had sojourned briefly on the West Coast, liberally flung around expressions like "bummer" and "dude" that real Californians would blush to employ.

I considered and substituted the sound of crunching chips for passing chips, since Sean was in New York and Jay in England, thus ruling out chip-passing, game-watching, beer-spilling, and those other rituals of male communication. My name would have been offered up, chips would have been spilled on Sean's end, and Alex would have called over to the phone to provide enthusiastic bona fides, along the lines of "She's my best friend in the whole world! You have to call her!"

* * *

JAY: "But her grandmother "

* * *

ALEX: "No, really, she's fabulous. What a weird coincidence."

* * *

Unless, of course, Alex didn't want to encourage him to call me, in which case the hypothetical conversation would have been played in much the same words, minus the "You-have-to-callher" bit, but in a tone of cagey wariness. Or did I mean wary caginess?

Tuesday with Jay. It sounded like the title of a Neil Simon play. It even rhymed. But at least pumping Alex for information and planning my wardrobe should get my mind off Colin.

I shoved my last yogurt into a plastic bag, firmly resolved. I would have dinner with Jay, delve into the intricacies of the Pink Carnation's escapades without any more help from the Selwicks, and generally forge ahead on an independent, Colin-free course. If the Alsdale lead didn't pan out, I could always try searching under likely aliases for Jane and Miss Gwen, or go at the problem sideways by researching Emmet's rebellion, on which there was a wealth of scholarship, looking for names or facts that just didn't fit the established narrative. Any one of those anomalies might lead me straight to the Pink Carnation—and, while I was at it, the Black Tulip.

I heaved my bag of groceries off the counter and strode boldly out into the mall, buoyed by my new-formed resolutions. And, unbidden, one last little mischievous thought crept across my mind.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if it made Colin jealous?

"Didn't I tell you it would be a splendid crush?" demanded Emily.

Letty wasn't quite sure "splendid" was the word she would have applied. Peering into the drawing room of the narrow red brick house on Cuffe Street, she was tempted to turn around and go straight back to her recently acquired lodgings. But going back to her lodgings meant being alone. Being alone meant thinking. As for thinking It had become a very dangerous pastime.

Back in London, her thoughts had run along straightforward lines, organized into compartments such as "servants' wages," "placating parents," and "preventing sister from eloping." Ever since she had woken up on the Dublin packet, an entirely new category had monopolized her thoughts: Lord Pinchingdale. Late at night, long after Emily was fast asleep, Letty lay awake, rehearsing endless scenarios in her head. It hadn't escaped her notice that she grew more eloquent, and Lord Pinchingdale more easily convinced, in each successive daydream. By the time the boat had docked, delayed by a slight squall a mere day out of Dublin, Lord Pinchingdale was brushing a strand of hair off her cheek, gazing meaningfully into her eyes, and declaring soulfully that he had never truly seen her before.

Naturally, that was what would happen. Right after she was crowned Queen of France.

Reluctantly, Letty retrieved the remnants of her common sense. Soulful glances might not be terribly likely, but the more Letty thought about it, the more optimistic she was about her impromptu journey—at least, once the initial headache faded, and her mouth stopped feeling like a well-worn camel path. Thanks to Henrietta's revelations, she at least understood why Lord Pinchingdale had been treating her like the more disgusting sort of leper. Aside from that slight aberration, he had always struck Letty as a kind and reasonable man. Once she convinced him that she hadn't deliberately set out to ruin his life, they could both apologize to each other, and go on from there.

It all made excellent sense. Or, at least, it had while she was still on the boat.

Tomorrow, she promised herself. Tomorrow she would seek out her husband in his Dublin lodgings.

As for tonight well, Emily would have been very disappointed if Letty hadn't accompanied her to Mrs. Lanergan's party, Letty rationalized to herself. Emily had kept up a constant monologue on the boat about all the wonderful things she wanted to do—and darling Mrs. Alsdale to do with her—once they got to Dublin. While shopping figured prominently, Mrs. Lanergan's annual party headed the list. Emily had planned her toilette, fretted over the ship's delay, and chattered about how many beaux she planned to attach.