“That’s why …?” Sophie prompted.

“That’s why so many of his schemes have a theatrical element,” David replied lamely. “Braddon is happiest when he puts on a great cloak and a fake mustache.”

“What happened with Mr. Woolton?”

David shuddered. “Braddon went down to High Street and bought an absurd cloak. I can’t think whom it was originally designed for. It was black with a red satin stripe around the bottom—quite the most gaudy piece of clothing you can imagine. But Braddon said this was what an explorer would wear. And he stuck a quantity of fake hair all over his face.”

“Yes?”

“It was a disaster, of course. Woolton undoubtedly saw through him from the first moment, although Braddon maintains that Woolton politely offered him some coffee and the scheme fell apart only when he asked where Braddon had bought that cloak, and Braddon said it was the gift of the Tringelloo tribe in the upper reaches of the Alps.”

Sophie turned her head and gave Braddon a long, speculative look. He was chewing busily, waving his fork as he talked to Miss Barbara Lewnstown, who sat on his right.

“It’s hard to believe,” she said finally, turning back to David. “Frankly, I shouldn’t have thought that Braddon had the imagination.”

“Oh, he didn’t think up the details,” David admitted. “Those were all Patrick’s, of course. He was the one with imagination. Patrick made up loads of tales about incredible events that had supposedly happened in the depths of Africa and in the Alps, and Braddon was supposed to tell them to Woolton … but it all came to naught, because it turned out that the master’s sister had a shop in the High Street and she had actually sold Braddon the cloak! And Woolton had seen it there, probably hankered after it himself, the lobcock, and so he caught Braddon out. He didn’t take it nicely, either. He put Braddon on notice for three weeks afterwards.”

“My goodness,” Sophie said. “Your schooling sounds much more exciting than mine.”

“Not Eton.” David thought about it for a moment. “School was tedious, but Braddon always had a scheme, and Patrick—Patrick is a regular devil, you know—he egged Braddon into the worst of ‘em, and so between them they livened things up.”

Sophie risked another peek down the table. To her horror, Patrick was looking at her, and his eyes met hers with such an air of warm amusement that she colored and turned her head sharply back to David.

“I can certainly see Patrick Foakes indulging himself in falsehoods,” she said tartly. Why, oh why couldn’t she remember that Patrick was the worst of all rakes and exactly what she had sworn to avoid?

“Not falsehoods,” David explained. “He’s actually quite a stickler when it comes to honesty, Patrick is. I remember he would endlessly wrangle with his brother over the ethics of social fibs. Patrick hates lies. He would get enraged if Alex told the smallest sort of fib, even to get out of a music lesson.”