closed her reticule and let the doorman escort her indoors.
“Sit here.” The doorman indicated a simple wooden bench. He left the room without waiting for Thalia to obey.
Thalia did not sit. She took her time looking around the foyer as she waited. Every inch of the anteroom was decorated, an assembly of plasterwork, frescoes, and mosaic tiles, and all the decoration had the same theme—greenery. Vines, trees, flowers, or shrubbery—it was all portrayed with such realism that Thalia could pick out individual drops of dew on the foliage.
At last, the haughty doorman returned, accompanied by a middle-aged Dakota Sylvestri woman, haughtier still.
“I am Mrs. Peter Viridian, His Excellency’s wife. The ambassador is busy at the moment. You are Miss Cutler?” Everything about Mrs. Viridian, from her expression to her inflection, made it clear she’d expected someone far better than Thalia. She wore a morning gown that seemed made of autumn leaves and velvet. She looked disapprovingly at Thalia through a gold-rimmed pince-nez strung from a black grosgrain ribbon, which made her eyes seem piercing.
“I am.” Thalia stared right back. “As I told the doorman, I’ve come to see Mr. David Nutall.”
Mrs. Viridan sniffed. “I believe the ambassador has written to tell you that the man who told you his name was Nutall does not wish to communicate with you.”
“I know no such thing.” Thalia glared at Mrs. Viridian. “I won’t believe that unless he tells me so himself.” Maybe not even then, Thalia thought. “Let me see him. If he tells me to leave him alone, I’ll go.”
Mrs. Viridian examined Thalia as if she were a new kind of bug. “Rudeness like yours would undoubtedly camp on the doorstep until it gets its way. I have the ambassador’s permission to admit you to Mr. Nutall’s presence for half an hour, no longer. Don’t abuse our courtesy.”
Thalia said, “Show me some first, then we’ll see.”
“Follow me.”
For a lady of her years, Mrs. Viridian moved fast. Thalia had all she could do to keep up. Their way led through a maze of corridors and stairs, all decorated as lavishly with artful greenery as the foyer.
Thalia knew perfectly well it was still morning. Yet as they climbed and descended steps, as they moved through the corridors of the palatial building, Thalia’s sense of time and place wavered as the light shifted. Surely it was late afternoon on a hot summer’s day? Unless it was very early morning? Or dusk come early on a winter day?
Thalia kept her mouth shut but her eyes open, taking careful notice of their route. She did not trust Mrs. Viridian to bring her to Nutall without trickery. She might need to find her own way back on short notice.
At last Mrs. Viridian ushered Thalia into a small but sunlit room, and shut the door upon her before Thalia could protest. She heard the key turn. Thalia tried the door—locked—before she registered a presence behind her. She turned quickly. The sunlight angling in through the slats of the narrow wooden window blinds made it hard to see all the way into the dim corners beyond.
“There you are. How spruce you look.” Nutall, entirely composed, entirely calm, regarded her from a rattan chair that he seemed to find very comfortable. His feet, in carpet slippers, rested on a matching ottoman.
To judge from the tidy blizzard of newsprint and teacups in his immediate vicinity, Nutall had been peaceably drinking tea as he read the newspapers, but he looked delighted at the interruption. “Forgive me if I don’t get up. Do sit down and join me. You’ll find the green chair most comfortable, I think.”
“Thank you.” Thalia took the cup of tea he poured for her and sank into the chair he’d recommended.
Her friend looked very different. His hair had been cropped so short the parts he’d dyed were gone. What little hair remained was pure gray. It made him look surprisingly old. His carefully tended mustache was gone. It made his upper lip seem longer than she remembered. He appeared to be tired but not in any kind of distress.
Now she’d finally rejoined Nutall, Thalia could hardly choose where to start with her questions. “Who is that harpy? Does she actually keep you locked in here? Did she intercept my letter?”
“Sandwich?” Nutall offered her a half-demolished plate of assorted tea sandwiches and bonbons that would have done credit to Mrs. Morris on a lavish afternoon. “Pay no attention to Dorcas. She has an overdeveloped sense of my importance.”