As they rattled through the streets, she found herself trying to guess the house’s location by the carriage’s direction. They traveled west along the Strand, through the chaotic traffic of Trafalgar Square, and headed down Pall Mall past the War Office, its gates flanked by royal guards in bearskin hats. A few more quick turns followed, and Cordelia saw they were on something called Curzon Street, outside a pretty white town house on a quiet block. Cordelia was relieved to see it indeed seemed to have a roof on it, and all the other necessary outside bits to match.
She turned to James, astonished. “Mayfair!” she said, poking an accusing finger into his chest. “I was never expecting such a posh address!”
“Well, I’d heard the Consul lives near here, with her ne’er-do-well sons,” James said. “Wouldn’t want them lording it over us.” He disembarked from the carriage and offered her a hand to help her down.
“By which you mean you wanted to live near Matthew.” Cordelia laughed, looking up to take in the house’s four stories. Warm light spilled from the windows. “You ought to just say so! I wouldn’t blame you.”
The front door opened and Risa stepped out. She had been in more formal clothes earlier, for the wedding, but she had changed into a plain dress and apron, and clutched her cotton roosari at her chin against the wind. She waved them inside. “Come in out of the snow, silly children. There is hot food for you inside, and tea.”
She had spoken in Persian, but James seemed to understand well enough. He bounded up the front steps and quickly took control of the logistics, directing the coachman to take their valises upstairs.
Cordelia came inside more slowly. Risa helped her with her velvet sacque coat, and then with Cortana, taking the sword carefully as Cordelia stared around in surprise. The entryway was lit with a soft glow from the ornate brass sconces that lined the walls. There was wallpaper in a pattern of birds and passiflora on a deep emerald-green background. “So pretty,” she said, grazing the outline of a golden peacock with her fingertips. “Who chose it?”
“I did,” James said. At her surprised look, he added, “Perhaps I should show you around the house? And Risa, perhaps Effie could set out a simple supper? I believe you said something about tea.”
“Who’s Effie?” Cordelia whispered, while Risa, Cortana in hand, led the coachman upstairs with the bags.
“New maid. Risa hired her. Apparently she used to work for the Pouncebys,” said James, as Cordelia followed him into a large dining room with a thick carpet, a marble fireplace, and tall windows overlooking Curzon Street. Her eye was immediately drawn to a set of four illuminated drawings arranged on the wall. James watched her nervously, the fingers of his right hand tapping against his leg, as she approached them.
They were Persian miniatures done in richly pigmented shades of scarlet and cobalt and gold. She spun to look at James in astonishment. “Where did you find these?”
“An antiquities shop in Soho,” James said. She still couldn’t quite read his expression. “They were selling off the estate of a Persian merchant living abroad.”
Cordelia leaned close to examine the beautiful nasta‘？l?ˉq calligraphy above the images of prophets and acolytes and musicians, birds and horses and rivers. “This is by Rumi,” she whispered, recognizing a verse: The wound is the place where the Light enters you. It had always been one of her favorites.
Her heart beating quickly, she turned to take in the rest of the room, with its silk-covered walls, its elaborately filigreed chandelier and rosewood table and chairs with carved details.
“The table expands to seat sixteen,” James said. “Though I’m not sure I know that many people I’d want to have dinner with. Come see the rest of the house.”
Cordelia followed him into the corridor, her full skirts barely fitting through the doorway. There was a beautiful drawing room, papered in blue and white, with a massive piano; skipping the study, they headed downstairs to a kitchen full of warm yellow light. A small door in the wall led out to a patch of garden—snow-covered now, but there were rose trellises whose flowers would bloom in summer.
A maid in a black dress—Effie, Cordelia assumed—marched into the kitchen, an empty tray in her hand. She eyed James and Cordelia speculatively, as if sizing them up for sale. She had steel-gray hair swept up in a pompadour, and a gimlet eye. “I’ve laid on some food for you in the study,” she said, without bothering to introduce herself. “It won’t be nearly so good when it’s cold.”