Faith was glad of the distraction. Her mind kept veering from the murder of Robert Danvers to what had happened afterward when she and James arrived home. Murder, dreams, nightmares, and a wondrous night of pleasure: it was all too much to get her mind around. Then Aunt Mariah breezed into the house, filling it with her own special energy. After a late luncheon in the garden room, Harriet went off to play while the others sat around the table, drinking tea and coffee. Up to this point, the conversation had revolved around the wedding just past, but when there was a lull in the conversation, James seized the moment and told his family in as few words as possible that Robert Danvers, the son of the banker, had been brutally murdered the night before at a house on the South Bank, and that Faith had discovered the body. The silence that followed these stark words was absolute. They might not have known Danvers Jr., but his father was a well-known figure in the commercial world. As suddenly as the silence had fallen, it shattered as everyone burst into speech.
