Free A Crimson Warning by TASHA ALEXANDER

hair, oiled and combed back in a rather old-fashioned manner, made him look older than his age, as did the heavy creases on his forehead. It was hard to believe he and Mr. Foster had been at school together.
    “What a lovely surprise,” I said, raising my hand to him. “We’ve just been discussing the countless merits of your friend, Mr. Foster.”
    “There’s not a better man in Britain,” Mr. Barnes said. “He should be prime minister someday.”
    “I told him just that a few days ago,” I said. “His response was all modesty.”
    “Bloody bore to be prime minister, I’d think,” Jeremy said. “I say, Barnes, enough of this. I want to hear about your days in the West Indies. Surely you’ve troves of stories of pirates and hidden treasure and I know not what else. Anything, really, that gets us off the topic of Foster.”
    Simon Barnes had spent his childhood in the West Indies, where his grandfather was governor of one of the islands. Barnes’s mother had been her father’s favorite, and he indulged her every whim. Strong-minded and determined, she’d insisted on marrying a local boy from a well-to-do family. Going native was not something of which English society was much fond, but her father did not object. He had no taste for being the instrument of his daughter’s heartbreak. When she died in childbirth a mere eighteen months later, he took her son, Simon, into his house and gave him his name. The boy’s father protested not at all. The islanders accepted mixed marriages as little as the English, and he slunk back to his family to beg forgiveness for his choice of bride. Within a month, he was remarried to someone deemed more acceptable.
    Barnes’s grandfather doted on him, sparing no expense to give him the best. He sent him to England for his education, where the boy excelled academically. Barnes sailed through Cambridge, and had spent the subsequent years working in politics. He’d made himself indispensable to nearly every prominent liberal in the past twenty-odd years, spending all his time in London save a two-year return to the land of his birth when his grandfather died.
    “It’s not so romantic as you think,” Mr. Barnes said. “Unless you’ve a fondness for muggy nights and enormous insects.”
    “I shouldn’t think I’d like it,” Ivy said.
    “It can be hard for a delicate constitution to adjust to the extremes of island weather. England does not well prepare one for heat.” Mr. Barnes’s smile was wide and bright, his voice soft. He didn’t quite look English, but neither did he look like a native West Indian. It was as if the familiar and the foreign lived side by side in him. “I’m sorry to be calling so late, Lady Emily. I’ve no right to intrude in so intimate a gathering.”
    “There’s no need for apology,” I said. “We’re delighted to have you join us.”
    “I confess I was hoping to see your husband,” he said. “This red-paint business is causing quite a political stir. I’d like to speak to him about it.”
    “You don’t think Mr. Gladstone will find his house vandalized, do you?” Ivy asked.
    “No,” Mr. Barnes said. “I think we’re all aware of the prime minister’s quirks and eccentricities. I don’t think there’s much left for him to hide. But to see so many families under the threat of whoever is behind this smear campaign is disturbing. The government are taking it quite seriously. They feel no one in London is safe at the moment.”
    “Safe?” Ivy said.
    “From scandal and rumor,” he said.
    “My husband’s not home at the moment, but I shall tell him you called,” I said. “Will you be at the Fannings’ ball tonight? If so, you’re sure to see him there.”
    “I’ll look for him,” Mr. Barnes said.
    “I worried Mrs. Fanning wouldn’t soldier on,” Ivy said. “Her house was covered with red paint yesterday. Not just the steps and the door, either. The whole front, including the windows, was splashed. She’s a