The Last Night in London by Karen White (reading list .TXT) 📕

More curious now than frightened, I crept down the hallway, sticking to the side by the wall where the floorboards didn’t squeak as much, an old trick I’d learned from my grandfather’s house. My shoulder knocked one of the framed photographs, but it stayed on the nail.

In the foyer, I stopped to listen again, pausing in a bubble of shadow. The moonlight through the leaded glass windows painted willowy patterns on the floor and walls. A dim light shone from the reception room, a triangle spilling from the door left slightly ajar.

Something rustled again, followed by the solid plop of a heavy object being dropped on the floor. Whoever it was wasn’t trying to be stealthy. With more confidence, I crossed the foyer and peered around the door.

Colin stood in front of the window at the desk, Sophia’s stationery box by his feet, the desktop littered with old letters. His jacket lay discarded on the sofa, his shirt untucked and hanging loose. As I watched, he pulled his fingers through his hair and let out a groan of frustration.

“What are you doing?”

He turned his head but didn’t startle, almost as if he’d been expecting me. “Sorry. I hope I didn’t wake you. But I didn’t leave the office until eleven. I thought I’d take a few moments to have a look at some of this, in the hopes of finding Graham or Eva.” He straightened, then turned around to face me. “I wanted to see if you’d join me, but I don’t know what time you go to bed.”

“Eleven, usually. Unless I’m editing or facing a deadline. But usually I turn off the lights at eleven.”

“I wasn’t asking, but thanks,” he said.

I felt a blush stain my cheeks, making me glad the only light was from the small desk lamp on his side of the room.

“How’s Nana? She didn’t look well when we brought her home.”

“She seems much better. I just tucked her back into bed.” I glanced at the desk behind him. “Are those Sophia’s letters?” I asked as I approached to stand next to him, smelling the faint scent of Scotch and noticing the crystal tumbler on the edge of the desk, empty except for two ice cubes.

“Yes.” He faced the letters again. “Sophia had so many friends. It’s taken me a while to sort through them all.”

“Did you find any from Eva?”

He shook his head. “Besides that note about leaving her purse at Sophia’s house, there’s nothing. Which is odd. They must have been particular friends if Sophia thought enough of her to have her as a bridesmaid.”

“True, unless Eva wasn’t a fan of letter writing. Maybe she was embarrassed about her handwriting. Mine looks like a drunk chicken’s.”

“I’ve never seen a letter written by a drunk chicken, so I can’t comment. Then again, I’ve never seen one written by you, either, so perhaps you’re right.”

“That’s why I e-mail or text, to save everyone the headache of deciphering drunk-chicken scratch.”

“I’ve never seen an e-mail from you, either, so I’ll have to take your word for it.”

There was an almost belligerent note in his voice, so at odds with the Colin I knew. “Are you all right?”

He rubbed his hands over his face and then through his hair again, making him look like he’d just gotten out of bed. “Sorry. It’s been a stressful day. And all this—it’s a bit frustrating. And I’m somewhat drunk, I’m afraid.”

I crossed my arms. “I didn’t think you drank.”

“I usually don’t. But desperate times and all that.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Desperate times?”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures. Supposedly Hippocrates said it. Do you know Hippocrates?”

“Not personally.” I wasn’t sure if I liked this version of Colin. There was something electric and bristling about him, and I was pretty sure if I reached across the short space between us and touched his bare wrist exposed by his rolled-up sleeves, there’d be a spark. “Well, you certainly shouldn’t drink alone.”

He raised his eyebrows, then strode across the room. Two decanters filled with amber-colored liquid sat atop a console table.

“That’s not what I meant. . . .”

Ignoring me, he dropped two cubes into a glass before adding a generous amount of Scotch. He crossed the room to hand it to me.

“I’m not a Scotch drinker, and I really don’t like drinking alone. . . .”

He took the glass from me and took a gulp before handing it back. “There. Problem solved.” Turning to the letters, he said, “There are no letters from Precious until nineteen forty-six. Granted, if she, Eva, and Sophia lived in the same city, there’d be no reason to write, though of course back then there were no cell phones, so a lot of notes were sent.” He frowned. “And there are quite a few letters between Precious in France and Sophia between nineteen forty-six and nineteen seventy-one, when Nana moved back to London. They’re full of questions and comments about the London flat, and ‘our darling boy’—presumably my father, as he was Sophia’s only child—but none of them have any mention of Graham at all.”

“What about William? By nineteen forty-five, we know he was dead, so if Graham isn’t mentioned, either, then . . .” I let my voice stop.

“That’s the thing—William is. Rather frequently, in fact. Apparently, Sophia had his body exhumed from the cemetery in France and interred at our home parish. That caused a flurry of questions about William as a child. Apparently, as a boy my father had similar interests as his uncle William, and that’s the subject of many of the letters.”

“But nothing about Graham.” A cube of ice shifted in my glass. I stared at it, then took a sip, trying not to grimace as the Scotch burned my throat.

“Not even a mention. It almost seems as if it were a deliberate omission.”

“Maybe. To protect Sophia?”

“Or perhaps Precious?”

The Scotch warmed my blood as I allowed the implications to sink in. I swirled the liquid in my glass, then took another sip. “That would be odd, wouldn’t it? Precious told us that Graham