The River of No Return

Bella propped her slippered heels on the windowsill. “If only there was someone I liked.” She reached out for Julia’s hand. “I wish you were out of mourning so that you could join me. At least then I would have someone to laugh with over it all. Mother is blue-deviled, and Clare refuses to participate in the Season.”
    Julia took her friend’s hand and swung it between their chairs. “You should be glad I can’t participate,” she said. “I was raised by wolves. Or rather, by a wolf. I don’t know how to dance, or play the harp, or anything.”
    “All you have to do is learn how to simper. A good simper disguises all blemishes.”
    Julia snorted. “You wouldn’t know how to simper if your life depended upon it.”
    “That is why all the other girls go flying off the shelf and I am left behind, gathering dust in the shop window.”
    “You just said you were a valuable commodity.”
    “Ah. Do I contradict myself?” Bella wiggled her toes and squeezed Julia’s fingers. But her expression was thoughtful. “I wonder if Count Lebedev knows this Altukhov?”
    “Ask him during dinner.”
    Bella flopped her feet apart and then together. “Wouldn’t it be thrilling if the count were involved in some infant-smuggling scheme, and we were the ones to expose it to the eyes of the world? But we cannot ask him. He is gone.”
    “What?” Julia sat up straight in her chair, pulling her hand from her friend’s.
    “Yes. The footman said so. I told him to alert the count about the maniac, in case he did know anything about an Altukhov who might be hiding a baby. But Lebedev is gone. And not just for the day. He loaded up the second-best coach and drove off this morning, early.” She put the back of her hand over her brow. “‘Of joys departed, not to return, how painful the remembrance!’”
    “Oh, Bella, be serious! Where is he gone? Is he ever coming back?”
    “How should I know?”
    Julia had to will herself to remain in her seat and not climb the walls. Devon. That was the answer. Julia knew it. Lebedev was gone to Devon to investigate Eamon. To find out if he was Ofan. When he got there it would take the Russian five seconds to realize that Eamon was a buffoon, with no more power over time than a broken pocket watch. And when the count knew that, he would start wondering: Who else had been at Castle Dar that day?
    Bella was eyeing her with some trepidation. “Are you well, Julia? I know you are chafing after all this isolation, but please don’t start talking about lepers.”
    Julia forced herself to smile. “I’m fine.” She placed her shoulders back against the chair in a semblance of relaxation and turned a rigid smile on her friend. “Tell me more about Greenwich. With whom did you dance?”
    Bella shook her head. “You can’t fool me, Julia. It is high time that you kicked over your traces and I’m the one to help you.”
    “Oh, no!” Julia curled her feet up under her and held on to her chair’s arms with both her hands. “You are far too corky, Arabella Falcott, and I won’t be led astray by you.”
    “But, my dear,” Bella said, with real concern in her hazel eyes. “You would do the same for me, were I in your shoes. And take it from me: You are curling up at the edges.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
    A t eight thirty the following morning, Nick set out for Soho Square without a pang of guilt, although he had just sold his mother a bag of moonshine about how he was going again to the House of Lords. He was sorry to lie to her, but she had cornered him in the breakfast room and ranted about some gentleman who had the misfortune to look strangely at her upon her return from Greenwich. She had even set the coachman on the poor man.
    Alva had told him to find her in Soho Square—no address, no description of the house. He supposed he would just turn up and wait. Kicking his heels in the square seemed as reasonable a way as any other to escape one’s whinging mother on the one hand, and the House of Lords on the other.
    He had survived yesterday’s ignominious ceremony by remembering Julia crammed into a chair with him, sending paper airplanes into the fire. He was able to keep a private smile on his face all through the parading and hat doffing and bobbing up and down. The smile slipped when he had to get down on his knees to present his Writ of Summons to the Lord High Chancellor, but he had soldiered on, reading the oath of allegiance and signing the test rolls. Finally he was