“If I must, I must,” she said, an aristocrat being gracious to an underling. She smiled sweetly at the women sitting all agog around her table. “Forgive me, darlings. Family business. You know how it is.”
The women smiled and nodded and said all the right things in return, but it was clear they couldn’t wait for us to leave so they could start gossiping about us. All across the room, every eye watched as I led Eleanor to a private booth at the back and settled her in. Conversations rose slowly in the Tea Room again. The bodyguards relaxed at their tables, no doubt relieved they weren’t going to have to take me on after all. Ramon watched me with his cold, dark eyes, and his face showed nothing at all. I sat down in the booth opposite Eleanor.
“Well,” I said, “fancy meeting you here.”
“We do need to talk,” she said, leaning forward earnestly. “But you understand I couldn’t make it easy for you.”
“Oh, of course,” I said, and wondered where this was going.
“I wouldn’t want you to think I talk freely to just anyone.”
“Perish the thought.”
“Look at them,” she said, gesturing at her table. “Chattering like birds because I dared talk back to the infamous John Taylor. If I hadn’t, the gossip sheets would have had us in bed together by tomorrow. Some of them will anyway just because it’s such a good story.”
“Perish the thought,” I said again, and she looked at me sharply. I grinned, and she smiled suddenly in return. She relaxed a little and sat back in her chair. “You’re easier to talk to than I’d thought, Mr. Taylor. And I could use someone to talk to.”
I gestured at Ramon, sitting alone at his table. “Don’t you have him to talk to?”
“I don’t underwrite Ramon’s considerable upkeep for his conversation,” she said dryly. “In many ways, he’s still a boy. Pretty enough, and fun to play with, but there’s not a lot going on in his head. I prefer my sweeties that way. The whole point of toy boys is that you play with them for a while, and when you get tired of them you move on to the next toy.”
“And your husband doesn’t care?” I said.
“I didn’t marry Marcel for that,” Eleanor said, matter-of-factly. “Daddy wants me to be married, because he can still be very old-fashioned about some things. Hardly surprising, I suppose, for someone born as long ago as he was. You can take the immortal out of the past, but…Daddy believes a woman should always be guided by a man. First her father, then a husband. And since Daddy Dearest has more important things to concern himself with these days, it has to be the husband. It never seems to have occurred to him that I only ever marry men who have the good sense to do as they’re told, away from Griffin Hall. I wouldn’t marry at all if it weren’t necessary to stay on Daddy’s good side…
“I married Marcel because he makes me laugh. He’s charming and civilised and good company…and he doesn’t make demands. He has his life, and I have mine, and never the twain shall meet. In the old days, Daddy’s formative days, they would have called it a marriage of convenience. But since this is the modern age, it’s my convenience that matters. What did you want to talk to me about, Mr. Taylor? Daddy didn’t tell you anything interesting about me because I’ve gone to great pains to make sure he doesn’t know anything interesting about me.”
“You’d be surprised what I know,” I said, because you have to say something. “I’m still trying to get a handle on everyone in the Griffin family, so I can work up some theories about who might have kidnapped Melissa, and why.”
Eleanor shrugged. “We’re really not all that complicated. Daddy has his business, Mummy lives to be Queen of High Society, William runs away and hides whenever Daddy isn’t looking, Melissa is a sanctimonious pain in the arse, and my dear little pride and joy Paul won’t come out of his bedroom. And there you have the Griffins in a nutshell.”
“What about you?” I said. “Who are you, Eleanor Griffin?”
Like her brother, once Eleanor started talking she couldn’t stop. It all came tumbling out. Perhaps because it had been such a long time since she could talk to anyone honestly, to someone she could trust to keep a secret and not pass it on…because they honestly didn’t give a damn.
“Daddy never had much time for me,” she said, and though she was looking at me, her gaze was far away, in the past. “He’s very old-fashioned. His son could be an heir, and part of the family business, but not a daughter. So I was left much more to my own devices than William ever was. Mummy didn’t care, either. She only had me and William to be fashionable. So I was brought up by a succession of nannies, tutors, and paid companions, all of whom reported back to Daddy. I couldn’t trust any of them. I grew up to rely on no-one but myself, and to look out for myself first and foremost. Just like Daddy.
“Down the years I’ve tried to interest myself in lots of things to pass the time…There’s so much time to fill when you’re immortal. I’ve tried politics, religion, shopping…but none of them ever satisfied for long. For the moment I have decided simply to enjoy my money and position and be a happy little lotus eater. Does that make me sound terribly shallow?”
“Why toy boys?” I said, carefully avoiding a question that had no good answer. “Word is none of them ever seem to last long…”
“As the years go by, and I get no older, I’m drawn more and more to youth,” said Eleanor. “Real youth, as opposed to this splendid body of mine that never ages. Despite all the things I’ve done to it. I dread growing old and crotchety, and stuck in my ways…Constant exposure to young thoughts and opinions and fashions helps to keep me young at heart. I’ll never be like Daddy; for all his years and experience he’s still really no different from the medieval trader he originally was. Business is business, no matter what century you’re in. He may have assumed aristocratic airs and graces, but he’s still stuck in his old ways. Inflexible in his values, even though they were formed centuries ago…I don’t ever want to be like that.”
“What do you want?” I said.
She smiled briefly. “Damned if I know, Mr. Taylor. I’d quite like to inherit Daddy’s money, but not his business. I’ll sell my share in a shot, first chance I get. And I don’t want to end up like William, lost in his own indulgences. He thinks I don’t know what he gets up to at the Caligula Club, but everyone knows…I want to do something that matters, be someone who matters. But no-one will ever see me as anything more than the Griffin’s daughter. You have no idea how limiting extreme wealth and power can be.”
“Poor little rich girl,” I said solemnly. “Got everything but happiness and peace of mind.”
She glared at me. “You’re mocking me, Mr. Taylor. And anyone here could tell you that’s a very dangerous thing to do.”
I smiled. “Danger is my business.”
“Oh please…What do you want, Mr. Taylor?”
“Well, to start with, I want you to call me John. After that…I want to find Melissa. Make sure she’s safe.”
“And take her home again? Back to Griffin Hall?”
“If that’s what she wants,” I said carefully.
Eleanor studied me for a moment. “You don’t think she was kidnapped, do you? You think she’s a runaway. I have to say, it wouldn’t surprise me. But, as and when you do find her, you won’t take her back against her will because that would be against your principles, right?”
“Right,” I said.
She smiled at me dazzlingly. “I like you rather better for that, John. You’re actually ready to defy the Griffin himself, to his face? He’s had people killed for less. Perhaps you really are everything they say you are.”
“No,” I said. “No-one could be everything they say I am.”
She laughed briefly again. “You have no idea how refreshing it is to talk to someone…real. You don’t give a damn that I’m a Griffin, do you?”