I did not expect Seraphine to come alone.
That was probably why I let Eliot step aside without asking a second question when he said, very carefully, that Lady Seraphine Halbrook had requested a word and had done so without sending it through anyone else first.
He had looked at me in that quiet way of his, the one that usually meant he had already formed an opinion and was waiting to see whether mine would disappoint him.
"She is waiting," he said.
"That sounds urgent."
"It sounds deliberate."
"That is not the same thing."
"No," Eliot replied. "It usually isn't."
I set the letter I had been pretending to read aside and stood. "Where?"
"The west terrace."
That made me pause.
Not because it worried me. Because it was interesting.
People who wanted privacy chose smaller rooms. People who wanted to be seen choosing privacy chose terraces.
"That was a choice," I said.
"Yes."
"And you're letting me go alone."
