To Sketch a Sphinx - Rebecca Connolly Page 0,11
of this, but it is not as though we meet socially. Perhaps I am mistaken.”
She had to scowl at that. “No, you’re right. Not that my relations would know that, as we are not close, but all the same, I am no fashion plate.”
Tilda huffed loudly. “You’re a bloody rotten pair, the both of you. Ungrateful wretches.”
“Tilda…” Hal pleaded, fearing they might have actually offended the woman to such a degree as to earn her wrath.
“Hush,” she said at once. “Did you think I did not notice that neither of you has any sense of fashion? I can assure you, I knew it from the first sight of you. As much as I would enjoy sending you off to make a spectacle of yourselves, I will resist the urge.” She sniffed as though it was a grand and generous sacrifice on her part.
Belatedly, Hal thought of thanking her anyway out of sheer deference.
Luckily, her husband was much quicker. “We are very grateful,” he said, and Hal could only hope he conveyed the proper sincerity in his expression.
If his face could contort in such a human way.
She was not entirely certain it could.
“You will be perfectly middling in the fashion you wear upon your arrival at your new destination,” Tilda assured them as she began to form the shape of a waistcoat on Sphinx with rather bold fabric. “Enough that Hal’s fashionable relatives will wrinkle their noses up and insist that you have a new trousseau ordered. Upon which suggestion, you will reply that, owing to your recent nuptials, you have a new trousseau that has been sent ahead of you to the finest modiste in Paris. I will provide you with the name and address, at which time, these sumptuous items will be made available to you.”
Hal peered over the screen once more at the woman, looking impressed at the forethought.
“I see,” Sphinx murmured, wincing as he craned his neck, no doubt against the flourishes of linen around his neck. “And then we will be the spectacle we need to be?”
Tilda hummed a laugh to herself. “Everyone is a spectacle in Paris, love. Which means that, in effect, no one is.”
“Why don’t I find that encouraging?” Sphinx asked aloud, looking over at Hal and meeting her eyes with longsuffering, cynicism, and, she was surprised to find, an odd light of humor.
She could have smiled, but she matched his longsuffering with a sigh instead. “Nor do I.”
It was destined to be a short trip across the Channel, but as there were so few people aboard, it seemed as though it was taking ages and ages. Or perhaps that was only because his wife wasn’t speaking to him.
She wasn’t ignoring him, per se. At least, he didn’t think so.
They hadn’t even been married for twenty-four hours, and hadn’t even managed a disagreement yet, let alone a fight. That was a minor miracle, considering their previous exchanges with each other. But then, the details of their mission had given them a lot to consider, and it was entirely possible that Hal was nervous.
This was her first assignment in the field, as he understood things, and without the full information, there wasn’t much room for anticipation. Weaver had hosted the newlyweds the night before, after they had finished their costuming session with Tilda, and this morning he had driven them to the docks in his coach, giving them the information about where and when the next batch of information would come to them.
It was made perfectly plain to them, however, that none of that information was to be investigated during their Channel crossing.
Why, John hadn’t felt the need to ask, but he could only presume that Rogue, Trace, or his brother Jeremy, known as Rook, had some suspicions about the situation, if not direct information.
It wasn’t exactly likely that the information came from Trace, as he had only been reinstated a few weeks ago, but the other two…
Not that it mattered. Shortly before they left port, a sailor pushed past John roughly, grunting a sort of apology as he did so, leaving a parcel beneath John’s arm when he readjusted his path off the ship.
Without a word, John had handed the parcel to Hal with a warm smile. She’d returned it with a dazzling version of her own, and wordlessly slipped the parcel into the drawing portfolio at her side.
It sat in there now, folded between sketches and notes and what not as though it was only a parcel of extra sheets for her