Chapter One #4
“Was that what I wrote in my note? No, I have come to see you, Miss Holmes.”
The evening before, in delivering Lord Bancroft’s message, Lord Ingram had said, half jokingly, I was always afraid this day would come.
That Bancroft would discover you for your mind.
Charlotte, on the other hand, had not been as sanguine.
Lord Bancroft was accustomed to solving his own problems. He had vastly more resources than Inspector Treadles.
And most likely he rarely thought of women as useful outside their biological functions.
His tone, a peculiar mix of pushiness and hesitation, further solidified her suspicions. But she only folded her hands in her lap. “Oh?”
“We were all dismayed when you left home,” he began. “It was reassuring to learn that you had landed on your feet.”
He looked at her; she poured him a cup of tea. “You take it black, if I recall correctly.”
“Yes.”
She added cream and sugar to her own tea while gazing at him with her usual lack of facial expression, which was almost always misinterpreted as a look of sweet hopefulness.
He took a sip. “But of course the situation is still highly irregular.”
She remained silent, stirring her tea.
“Ash tells me that you have been to the house near Portman Square.”
Ash was what Lord Ingram’s intimates called him. Recently, when 18 Upper Baker Street had suffered from a bout of housebreaking, they had met, along with Inspector Treadles, at the house Lord Bancroft referred to.
“Yes, I have.”
“He also tells me you had a positive impression of it.”
The place had boasted the most . . . exuberant interior she had ever come across, a combination of color blindness and willful abandon—and she would have liked it just fine if its excesses had been pared back by a half dozen or so orange-and-blue cushions.
“There was much to admire about the decor.”
It was a gaudy zoo, and she enjoyed gaudy zoos.
“I had once hoped we would dwell there as husband and wife.”
And so it begins. He would now propose that they dwell there as man and mistress.
“I still entertain the same hope,” he said.
Her teacup paused on its way to her lips. In fact, she had to set it down altogether. Had she heard him correctly? “My lord, I am no longer eligible.”
“You are no longer welcome in Society, but as you are of sound mind the Church can have no cause to consider you ineligible for matrimony.”
Matrimony. It wasn’t easy to surprise Charlotte, but Lord Bancroft was coming dangerously close to flabbergasting her. “You are most kind. Nevertheless, I remain ill-suited to marriage.”
“But you are not ill-suited to me. I would be happy to never be invited anywhere again—you would serve as a good excuse. I would be happy to never indulge in small talk again—I have a feeling you share that sentiment. And I will be busy and away from home a great deal—not something most brides look for in a groom, but for you it would count as an added attraction, no doubt.”
Whatever his faults, he was an intelligent and honest man.
“I am not a rich man, but I can provide comfortably for a wife. By marrying me, you will not rehabilitate your reputation completely. But at least you will be received by your family again. That must count for something.”
She didn’t believe in being grateful for marriage proposals—men did not pledge their hands out of the goodness of their hearts. Even so, she found herself inclined to consider this particular union, at this moment in time, on sentimental rather than rational grounds.
With a small shake of her head, she pulled herself back to reality. “I am honored by your gesture, sir. But I take it you would require me to give up my friendship with Mrs. Watson, as well as my practice as Sherlock Holmes.”
“It will not be necessary to cut Mrs. Watson. She was an acquaintance of our father’s.
Ash is on excellent terms with her and even I have crossed paths with her on occasion.
She strikes me as a sensible woman, not one to exploit your position to promote her own.
I do not see why you shouldn’t be able to call on each other in the future, provided it is done discreetly.
“As for the business with Sherlock Holmes, I understand Mrs. Watson has invested in the venture. If you feel that she has not received a sufficient return against that initial outlay, I will be more than happy to compensate her as a part of our marriage settlement.”
In other words, she was to discontinue as Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective. “I thank you most warmly, my lord, for the honor of—”
He raised a finger, forestalling the no, thank you part of her answer. “However, given that mental exertion gives you pleasure, I shall be happy to supply the necessary exercises. After all, I come across them on a regular basis.”
He opened a leather portfolio he had brought, extracted a slender dossier, and set it before her. “These are but a small sprinkling of items that make their way to my desk. Do please examine them at your leisure.”
And with that, he rose and saw himself out.