Fifty-FourAlex de Vile could hardly contain his rising excitement as he strode to Sir John and Lady Russell’s front door. After five days of ‘enforced’ holiday — that’s how it felt — with his father in San Francisco, he finally had the opportunity he’d been waiting for, the chance to show Lady Russell the old pictures he’d mentioned to her when they so fortuitously bumped into one another in town nearly a week ago.
He’d planned to come much sooner, but his father had suddenly appeared in his rooms at the Holbrooke, falling over himself to retract his high dudgeon and start talking again. Hex never apologized, but he did the next best thing in his own mind — he insisted on taking Alex on a five-day jaunt to San Francisco. His father rarely did anything without a personal agenda: Alex could
