The Missing Page (Page & Sommers #2)

by Cat Sebastian

But it turned out that the chauffeur—you know, Cora, I think he might have been a gardener or a groom, not a chauffeur.” “It was always one of those three, when a girl ran away with a servant,” Cora observed. “I do wonder who girls run away with these days.” The women paused, as if observing a moment of silence for modern girls who had to make do in unknown ways.

“How very thrilling,” he said instead of dragging James out of the house and taking him someplace safe.

Over half an hour passed, and still Leo hadn’t returned. James’s first thought, naturally, was that the car had exploded.

James did things a certain way, sometimes without even realizing he was doing so. Something in his mind was soothed by the knowledge that his watches and toothbrushes and cups of tea stayed in their proper places. It was the sort of behavioral tic that in anyone else Leo might have found silly, but he felt fiercely defensive of James’s carefully ordered world. He would cheerfully shoot anyone who mislaid James’s toothbrush, and was only stopped by the consideration that this would displease James and also cause a great deal of annoyance for both of them.

They had spent enough nights together, enough mornings together, that it was no longer practical to count them (it was thirty-two).

Wendy let out a sigh. “No ‘how are you Wendy?’ or ‘how are the piglets, Wendy?’ Rude.” “How are you, Wendy? How are the piglets, Wendy?” “Excellent and not quite fat enough to eat. I’ll leave you to decide which is me and which is the piglets. I hope James won’t mind but I put in a few more garden beds behind his shed.” “It’s February. What can he possibly do with more garden—wait. James doesn’t have a shed.” “Well, he does now,” Wendy said brightly. “Also, there are a few chickens living in it, but they’re on the run from the law.” “Wendy, he’s been gone for less than a day. How did you build a—you know what? I don’t want to know how. It’s either black magic or the black market and it’s better to keep me in the dark.” Wendy had an extremely flexible and communitarian approach to rationing, which involved a steady stream of goods changing hands for what Wendy insisted wasn’t technically money or ration tickets. At this point, Leo was pretty sure that subverting the rationing system was the only thing keeping her from running drugs or arms or taking control of the criminal underworld. “When you get arrested, I shan’t do anything about it,” he lied.

“There’s a fine line between being posh and being a pillock.” “Honestly, not that fine a line,” James said.

I can’t go around putting bullets in people when you look at me like—fuck, like I’m something special. And I can’t very well let other people put bullets in me when all the while I know how you’d feel about that. I’m just developing a strong anti-bullet stance all around, it seems.”