I lifted the lid on the teapot and drank in its malty aroma, sighing happily. I’d been craving tea and cake ever since our unexpected meeting with Linda Crosby at the Blackfriars. Hamish, who was a breakfast regular there, had commandeered a large table at the bustling Piccadilly restaurant for the entire morning and proceeded to treat the space—and the staff—as though they were his office. Thus far he’d taken a dozen phone calls, made several lunch engagements (three of them for the same day next week, I noted with alarm), and read every London daily in its entirety. He had also, bless him, wheedled my cake out of the pastry chef hours before it was normally served, citing my condition as justification. The speed with which the request was met was either an additional indication of Hamish’s importance or a sign that the young man who wielded the whisks and rolling pins understood the special relationship between pregnant women and sugar. “This is taking forever,”
