‘I am not entirely sure that I like this gentry-business after all,’ she said with a frown.
‘You’ll get used to it.’ Konrad smiled, and began to laugh as she shot him a poisonous glare.
‘I feel like a perambulating couch,’ she muttered, and Konrad laughed even harder.
Mr. Ruslan Kanadin was at home, to Konrad’s relief. If ever there was an unassailable reason to be ‘not at home’ to visitors, a recent bereavement would certainly qualify. But the maid who opened the door conducted them straight upstairs to Mr. Kanadin’s exquisitely furnished drawing-room, and the master of the house arrived mere moments later. Kanadin was a man of moderate height and unprepossessing appearance, with light brown hair, a thin moustache and a lean frame. He was exquisitely dressed, as always, and his manner
