Page 68 of Infamous

‘It is nothing to do with modesty. It’s a precautionary measure against vomiting on your very nice mahogany table.’

‘Everybody who’s anybody has vomited on this table. I would consider it rude if youdidn’tvomit on this table.’

‘Good to know.’

Nash grinned, but therewassomething off about his usual devil-may-care demeanour; it seemed like a performance, a valiant but nonetheless transparent attempt at normality.

‘Are you all right? We heard .?.?. Well .?.?. And we saw Liza leaving this morning.’

‘Ah, yes. She was just doing a little redecorating. I thought it perhaps too avant-garde to move half of the furniture onto the lawn via the closed window, but she’s justfullof fascinating ideas like that.’

‘Nash .?.?.’

‘Please don’t look all sad and sorry for me, Edie, it puts me in the mood to kick something,’ Nash said, with enough vitriol that Eddie believed him. ‘Speaking of .?.?. Where the hell is my dog? She wasn’t hiding with you and Miss Li last night, was she?’

‘No,’ Eddie said, frowning.

She had last seen Juno following Rose and Miss Cliffe around the party; she assumed that at some point, the dog had taken the only sensible course of action and gone to find somewhere quiet to hide.

‘ForChrist’ssake!’ Nash shouted, jumping to his feet and startling Eddie so badly that she almost fell out of her chair. ‘This really is the last straw. ItoldLiza she’d scare the poor stupid beast away if she didn’t stop screaming, and now look.’

‘She probably just went to ground to get away from the party,’ Eddie said slowly. ‘I’m sure she will turn up eventually, once she’s hungry.’

‘No, no .?.?. She hates to be without people, and she always comes when she hears my voice. Damn it all to hell.Henry?’

He strode from the room, continuing to shout for assistance. Eddie just sat in her uncomfortable chair, listening to the sound of him raging through the house and the low, reassuring rumble of Henry’s responses once he had been located. Eventually she heard the front door open and slam shut again; a moment later Mrs Hall appeared with the bottle of wine, a platter of freshly toasted bread and a large pat of butter. When she saw that Nash was no longer there, she looked murderous.

‘Sorry,’ Eddie said uselessly. ‘Thank you for the bread, Mrs Hall. I don’t suppose there is much point uncorking the wine.’

Rain had begun to patter against the window; as Eddie watched, softly crunching away at her toast, a drop managed to squeeze its way through a gap in the frame and make a long, dark trail down the wallpaper until it slipped into the skirting board and disappeared. She stood up and went to examine the leak, and as she reached the glass she saw the distant figures of Nash and Henry, heads and umbrellas bowed against the wind, Henry trying valiantly to keep his lamp alight.

Kitty entered and pulled up a chair, reaching for some toast. She looked surprisingly and irritatingly well-rested.

‘Have you seen the South Parlour? It looks like a hurricane hit it. And there is a very convincing phallus on the wall of the armoury. I suppose they might make it a permanent feature.’

‘Have you seen Juno?’

‘The dog? No. She has the good sense to leave me alone.’

‘Nash has gone out to look for her. He thinks she’s lost.’

‘She’s a dog,’ said Kitty. ‘She will come back when she’s hungry, or when she feels the urgent need to urinate on something valuable or slather somebody in saliva.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘And very wise you are, too. Well .?.?. about this, at any rate. Perhapsonlyabout this, after last night’s performance. Aha!’ Mrs Hall had returned with boiled eggs, lurid pink strips of salmon, sliced apples and soft cheese that turned Eddie’s stomach. ‘This will do nicely, thank you, Mrs Hall.’

Mrs Hall looked slightly pained. ‘When Mr Nicholson comes back and starts calling for his eggs, please inform him that you have eaten them.’

‘Gladly.’

The rest of the house woke up in increments, drifting downstairs and eating whatever they could manage, their dispositions directly proportional to how well or poorly they had behaved the night before. Eddie’s insides were still rebelling; when she couldn’t stand to be around the food for a minute longer she took her manuscript to the library and spent a few industrious hours glaring at it, which only came to a close when she accidentally knocked over the inkwell and lost half a page to the flood, leaving her with fewer words than when she had started. She promptly gave up, left her manuscript to dry out and went to find Rose, who was helping Anne and Mrs Hall in the armoury.

‘You don’t have to do that, you know,’ she said, crossing her arms and watching as Rose kneeled precariously on top of a side table and dabbed carefully at the chalk. ‘It’s hardly your responsibility.’

‘I know,’ said Rose, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. She had scraped her hair up messily on top of her head and was wearing her plainest day dress, which was now soggy at the bodice and the knees. There was a bit of chalk smeared prettily on her chin and she was dewy with exertion; Eddie found herself looking for too long, and then glanced quickly away. ‘I thought I’d make myself useful.’

‘Juno is missing. Nash has been out there for hours.’