"Small world, isn't it?" said Colin in a voice with an undertone that made the hairs on the back of my neck bristle. "Especially where certain people are concerned."

My head swiveled back around to Colin. I was beginning to feel like the monkey in monkey-in-the-middle — a very confused monkey. I wished someone would explain to me what was going on, instead of just glowering at each other through me. To be fair, Dempster wasn't glowering. His expression could be more aptly described as a gloat. And for Colin to have glowered, he might have had to use his facial muscles, which were frozen in an expression of such complete impassivity that I feared it would take a hammer and chisel to crack it.

"You two know each other?" I said belatedly and entirely inadequately.

Neither bothered to reply. I didn't blame them. It had been a completely inane question. If they didn't know each other, they were certainly putting on a pretty good pretense of it.

"Well, I certainly wouldn't want to keep you," Dempster said smoothly. "I look forward to our coffee, Eloise."

I wished he would stop saying my name. Every time he did, Colin moved just a little farther away. My elbow felt very cold without his hand there.

"Thanks." I smiled tightly. "See you then."

With his umbrella sticking out under his arm like the Kaiser's sword, Dempster trip-trapped smartly across the square. Even his back looked smug.

"What was that all about?" I demanded.

Instead of answering, Colin jammed his hands in his pockets and looked straight ahead. "Where is that Greek restaurant of yours?"

We were definitely back into Mr. Hyde mode.

"Leinster Street. In Bayswater."

"Right. Shall we?"

He didn't wait for a response. I trotted along after, wondering what the hell was going on, but Colin's pace didn't leave much breath for interrogation. It had to have something to do with the Pink Carnation papers, but I couldn't imagine what Dempster might have done to elicit that sort of hostility. Admittedly, Colin had reacted with an entirely unwarranted vitriol when I'd sent in my humble request to be allowed to view the family papers. And that was before he'd even met me in person. His reaction when he met me in person, on his aunt's drawing room floor with the papers scattered around me like a child surrounded by the crumbs of purloined cookies, had been even more extreme. That was just plain not normal. In fact, we were entering the realm of creepy. I don't care how proud you are of your family heritage; it doesn't justify treating perfectly innocent historians like psycho serial killers just because they want to have a peep at your papers.

I was getting pretty damn fed up with this whole Jekyll and Hyde routine. By the time we'd made it to Leinster Street, I was windburned, breathless, and thoroughly out of patience with Colin, his mood swings, and his little dog, too. Sailing past him as he held out open the door for me, I held up two fingers to the maitre d' and squirmed into the banquette he indicated, letting my bag slip from my shoulder and fall to the floor with a defiant thump.

"A carafe of your house red, please?" I asked, before the maitre d' could escape. Just because I was pissed with Colin was no need to be rude to the staff. Just because some people couldn't control their tempers didn't mean I couldn't. Just because…

I realized a waiter was standing over me, waiting for me to take the offered menu. Belatedly, I took it from him, glad for the dim lighting that hid my flush, part irritation and part windburn.

Taking the chair across from me, which looked ridiculously little and spindly with him looming over it, Colin sat himself gingerly down. Whether that was because he feared the staying power of the chair or because he had picked up on the ominous tilt of my menu was unclear. I suspected the former.

I had meant to continue in cold silence, blasting him with the frost of my displeasure, but irritation and curiosity got the better of me. Abandoning any attempt to read the menu, I tossed it aside and leaned forwards with both elbows on the table.

"What was all that with you and Nigel Dempster out there?"

Instead of answering the question, Colin planted both his elbows on the table. "How long have you known Dempster?"

"Since about six o'clock this evening," I answered automatically, and then kicked myself for it. What was I doing answering his questions? I had asked first. Just because his elbows were bigger than mine didn't give him any right to bag first answer.

"Really," said Colin, managing to inject a world of mistrust into that one simple word.

"Give or take half an hour," I added. "I wouldn't want to be anything less than perfectly accurate. How long have you known Dempster?"

"Awhile."

That was certainly informative. He was just lucky I had left my thumbscrews in my other bag.

"Right," I said. "Okay. I don't know what's going on between you and Dempster, but if you want to be mad at him, be mad at him. Don't get all pissy with me."

It wasn't the most elegantly phrased argument I've ever made, but it got the point across. Colin removed his elbows from the table and looked at me curiously. "You really don't know?"

"I don't even know enough to know what I'm not supposed to know," I said irritably. "I met Dempster for all of five minutes this afternoon while I was doing research at the Vaughn Collection. He's the archivist there, you know."

"I knew that," mumbled Colin.

"So if you'd like to sit here and fume about Dempster or whatever else it is that's eating at you," I said, warming to my theme, "feel free to go right ahead. I'll just head off home and spend the evening watching the snooker championships."

"It's not snooker season, actually," offered Colin, in a conciliatory way.

"Fine. Darts, then."

"Envisioning them thrown at my head?" he asked ruefully.

Despite myself, I smiled back. "We were getting there."

We both leaned back as the waiter appeared and placed the carafe of wine in the center of the table between us, expertly flipping glasses right way up. He took our order, too, but don't ask me what I ordered, or how I ordered. When he had sidled away again, we both leaned forward, as at an unspoken cue.

After a long moment, Colin said, "Would an apology do, or does it have to be the darts?"

I melted in an instant. But I wasn't going to let him off the hook quite that easily. "I'll accept an apology if it comes with an explanation."

Colin rubbed his neck with his hand, regarding me like a hopeful puppy dog. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer just to fling something at me and get it over with?"

I leaned back against the cushioned back of the banquette, folded my arms across my chest, and waited.

"Dempster?" I prompted.

Colin considered for a moment, contemplated the olive plate, considered some more, and came out with, "We don't get on."

"That much I figured out on my own."

Colin shifted restlessly in his seat. "It's a long story."

I patted the side of the glass carafe. "We have a large carafe of wine."

Colin let himself relax into a rueful grin. "I really am sorry. I didn't mean to drag you into it."

"Since I've already been dragged," I suggested, grasping the carafe with two hands and tipping it forwards over his glass, "it would be nice to know what's going on."

"Thanks." Colin took the glass I held out to him. He raised it an ironic salute. "Cheers."

"So?" I urged. "Story?"

After a moment's consideration, Colin gave me the short version. "Dempster dated my sister."

That was not quite what I had been expecting.

But it did certainly make a lot more sense. For a man to leap to the defense of his archive was just kind of odd; for him to leap to the defense of a sister was really rather sweet. Especially when that sister had just gone through a particularly nasty, self-esteem-destroying…

From the dark reaches of memory, in a completely different part of my brain, a snatch of gossip came floating up to the fore.

"He's that one!" I yelped.

Colin gave me a look.

I shrugged. "Pammy told me."

"Pammy talks a lot."

"She means well. She just wanted to make sure I didn't say something that might upset Serena. Wait — let's not stray from the point. Dempster is Serena's evil ex?"

I was still grappling with this key concept. It wasn't totally inconceivable. He was a reasonably good-looking man, if one went for the tall, dark type, and the little bit of gray at his temples only gave him a distinguished look, reminiscent of up-and-coming politicians and the better-looking sort of college professor. I put Dempster's age at late thirties, early forties, but that wasn't too ridiculous a leap for a girl in her mid-twenties, especially one looking for a replacement father figure. Grant, of unlamented memory, had been thirty to my twenty-two when we started dating. He liked them young, young and adoring. Hence my eventual replacement. But that's another story. Grant had no business butting in on my date.

Colin was watching me over the small bulb of the candle, the uncertain light playing off the planes of his face, making his eyes seem even more shadowed and wary than they were. "How much did Pammy tell you?"

"Only that Serena had just gone through a particularly nasty breakup." I think Pammy's phrasing had been more along the lines of "royally dumped," but that wasn't something that needed to be repeated to Serena's brother. I can be tactful. When I remember to be.