Crumper dropped his newspaper and grinned. “Why do you think I’m here?” He rose, turned his back for a moment, then smoothly revolved toward the bed and posed, teapot in one hand, cup in the other, face politely blank, a perfect self-parody. “Will you have Earl Grey, sir?”
“I’d laugh but it would hurt. Yeah, sir will have Earl Grey.”
“Very good, sir.”
Tom received the steaming cup and studied his new friend with satisfaction. “Y’know, Crump, when I first met you I thought you were a cartoon character.”
Crumper poured himself a cup and went back to his chair. “Sometimes I overplay the part,” he acknowledged.
“What I can’t get is how a guy with your intelligence doesn’t get bored doing that stuff.”
“There are different types of intelligence as well as different degrees of it. I have the kind that directs itself to order and organization, but is lacking in imagination, not to mention academic discipline. I’d have been a disaster at university, but I’m brilliant, if you’ll pardon my complete lack of modesty, as a butler.”
“I’ll pardon it because you’re dead right. You are brilliant.”
“As a butler,” Crumper repeated. “You, on the other hand, have the kind of intelligence that takes imaginative leaps. You would do well at university.”
“Thanks. I’d like to think so. My scores were good enough, but my folks didn’t have enough money to send me.”
“I suspected that was the case. The question is, how are you going to manage it now?”
“Manage what?”
“Going to university. Or, as you Americans say, going to college. I understand that one of the best in America is in your town.”
“Crump, what are you going on about? Where do you come up with sending me off to college at the ripe old age of fifty-five? Who was talking about college anyway?”
“No one. But you should be.”
“Why, for God’s sake?”
“Because it’s the only way you’ll ever have a chance with her.”
It took Tom a good minute to recover from this remark sufficiently to reply to it.
“It would take more than college,” he said glumly.
“I’m not convinced it would. You have met my daughter?”
This nonsequitur was so abrupt, Tom hardly knew what to say, and settled for, “Uh, yes?”
“I also have a son you have not met. Julie opted for the local comprehensive, that’s public high school to you Americans, because she has no ambition. But David was always precocious, and Sir Gregory was kind enough to send him to Winchester, as he sent me. Winchester, I should explain, is what you would call a prep school, a very good one. David went to Cambridge and he now teaches chemistry at a girl’s school in Abingdon. He is engaged to be married to a lovely girl he met there who teaches French.” At this point Crumper lifted his cup to his lips and deliberately threw away his punch line. “Her grandfather’s a duke.”
Tom laughed until his head hurt, which was about a second and a half. “O.K., Crump, you’ve made your point. So give me a small fortune and I’ll quit the force and go to college. I’ll lose forty pounds and fifteen years and grow my hair back, and then I’ll divorce that woman who never loved me anyway”—Crumper’s eyebrows rose, not in disapproval but in recognition of the information Tom had not previously shared—“ but Crump, old buddy, she would still be in love with the skinny carrot-top!”
Crumper could not stop himself from saying in a perplexed tone, “There’s no accounting for taste, is there?”
“Will you be serious, or should I go back to sleep?”
“I shall be serious. And seriously I shall admit that Kit Mallowan is no mean rival. He is a very fine human being. Tremendous courage. Wonderful wit. Kind, generous, easy to know.”
“Gee, thanks, Crump. This is really helping.”
“But he has a massive disadvantage when it comes to your lady friend.”
“Yeah, I know, the house and the title. But so far that hasn’t put her off.”
“That’s because she hasn’t known him long enough.”
“You’re saying there’s something unattractive hidden behind that almighty impressive exterior?”
“No. I’m saying the almighty impressive exterior goes clear to the bone.”
“You’re going to tell me what that means, right?”
Crumper hesitated a moment. “I might be mistaken, Tom. I wonder if I might be wrong in getting your hopes up.”
“Not to worry. My hopes have never been within twenty miles of up.”
“All right, then. I believe that Kathryn sees Kit Mallowan as an ordinary human being who has the ill fortune to be lumbered with being the Seventh Marquis of Wallwood. She is probably misled by his references to the house and the title as the ‘Greater Beast,’ as if they were as much of a curse as the ‘Lesser Beast,’ the wheelchair.”
Crumper studied his teacup, then said, “but I was present, I believe, when he first used those terms. He was playing backgammon with Sir Gregory and I was serving sherry. He said to Sir Gregory, ‘When it comes to marriage, there are two things standing between me and a bride. Two beasts, so to speak.’ Then he tapped the arms of his chair and said, ‘This is the lesser one.’ ”
Tom promptly validated Crumper’s opinion of his intelligence. “So the beasts are dragons in front of the tower that holds the Princess Bride. It’s about how women see him. He doesn’t want to be pitied and he doesn’t want to be—”
“Coveted,” Crumper supplied.
“Yes. So the house and the title are not beastly except for the fact that they attract gold diggers and social climbers.”
“Precisely. They are not beastly in themselves.”
“So Kathryn thinks Kit Mallowan is stuck, poor man, with being the Marquis—”
“Whereas in fact Kit Mallowan quite enjoys being the Marquis.”
Tom let out a thoughtful “Mmmmmmm” and sank back onto his pillows.
Crumper stood up. “I must go. The nurses in these places are more polite but they’re just as tyrannical, and they said I could only stay half an hour.”
Tom dragged his thoughts away from Kathryn. “Huh? What places? More polite than what?”
“More polite than the ones in National Health hospitals. You don’t think every ill person in Britain enjoys this sort of luxury, do you? This is a private hospital. Very posh. Very pricey. You are a fortunate man.”
“But Crump!” Tom cried in alarm. “Who put me here? Who’s going to pay for it? My travel insurance won’t cover this!”
“No, but your traveling companion will. And Tom, one more thing.” Crumper stopped by the door, enjoying the surprise on Tom’s face. “I seriously doubt that any man who doesn’t have the balls to get out of a loveless marriage deserves Kathryn Koerney.”
Crumper was gone, the door closed behind him.
Tom closed his eyes. “Don’tcha hate it,” he muttered, “when people are right?”
He drifted off to sleep again, and in spite of the headache, some of his dreams were surprisingly pleasant.
About the Author
CRISTINA SUMNERS holds a B.A. in English from Vassar, an M.Div. from the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, and an M.Phil. in medieval English studies from Oxford University. She has taught English and religious studies, and has served churches in Texas and England. Married to a scientist, she lives in Taos, New Mexico, where she is at work on her third suspense novel, Familiar Friend.
ALSO BY CRISTINA SUMNERS
Crooked Heart
THIEVES BREAK IN A Bantam Book / November 2004
Published by Bantam Dell A Division of Random House, Inc. New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2004 by Cristina J. Sumners
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