Chapter 8
It was eleven o’clock at night when Charlotte finished speaking to the last of the indoor staff. She jotted down a few notes from the final interview and looked over the list of men and women to whom she had spoken.
Normally she wouldn’t need notes. But normally she did not meet forty strangers in a row.
A knock came at the door. “Enter,” she said, expecting Mr. Walsh, back to conduct her to her room.
Lord Ingram walked in. He looked drained. But as he saw her, a glimmer of light returned to his eyes.
She leaned back and crossed her arms in front of her chest, her elbows resting comfortably upon the padding that formed Sherrinford Holmes’s paunch. “Hullo, Ash.”
“I thought I heard the sound of cake disappearing from the—” He glanced at the tea tray, back at her, then at the tea tray again. “What is this? Did Mr. Walsh replenish the cake plates recently—or did you not touch anything?”
Sweet things placed before her usually disappeared: Hunger wasn’t necessary; cake tasted just as good accompanied by preoccupation, concern, or even boredom.
The moment she’d read Livia’s letter, however, it was as if her stomach had turned into stone.
The refreshments Mr. Walsh had laid out might as well have been made of wax, for all the interest they stirred in her.
But did she want Lord Ingram to know that—yet?
She covered half of her face. “You must not think, sir, that this is a common occurrence. I . . . I don’t know what happened.
I assure you that the vast, vast majority of the time my appetite is as stiff as a flagpole and just as sizable.
I am as shocked as you are by this inexplicable inability to perform. ”
Different gradients of incredulity flickered across his face, as he no doubt tried to decide whether she truly was comparing her lack of appetite to an instance of impotence.
“Did you have a particularly plentiful tea at home?” he asked after a while.
He was not getting off the subject; she hadn’t thought he would, either. “My sister’s note came just as we sat down to tea. So…no.”
He peered at her, his brow furrowed. When he spoke again, his voice was low and tight. “Don’t tell me you last ate more than eight hours ago. You are scaring me.”
She exhaled. “You should be terrified. I am.”
She had gone into the village to hire a trap at the railway station to ferry her to Stern Hollow. And had stood outside the station for a quarter of an hour, not because there were no carriages to be had but because she needed to pull herself together.
He gripped the back of the chair behind which he stood. Two seconds later he let go. “Come. I told Mr. Walsh I would take you to your rooms. There’s supper waiting, too.”
She rose, rubbing a sore spot on her back, only to remember that her padding went all the way around. “You aren’t as good at feeding me as Lord Bancroft, but in a pinch, you’ll do.”
He gave her a severe look but did not dispute her claim.
Rooms had been assigned to her on the nursery level, as she’d requested—but they were nicer than she’d anticipated.
Usually extra chambers this high up were seldom used and extremely plain, even in the grandest households.
But hers was an apartment, sitting room, bedroom, dressing room, and its own attached bath and water closet.
“I used to stay here, when I came to visit my godfather. It suits Sherrinford Holmes’s purpose, I take it?”
“It does.”
“There’s a safe in the wall. I’ll give you the combination before I leave. And I’ve told Mrs. Sanborn that you hate disturbances in the morning. No maids are to come in to sweep the grate or relight the fire while you’re still sleeping.”
“Thank you.”
She half expected him to leave, but he only stared at her, leaning against the door. As the silence was about to become too taut, the corners of his lips quivered.
“I will have you know that Sherrinford Holmes cuts a dashing figure,” she protested. “Or at least he believes he does. And you will not go around injuring that poor man’s feelings.”
He cleared his throat. “I apologize.”
Immediately his lips quivered again. Then he burst out laughing—and kept laughing.
He had the most attractive laughter.
“Poor Sherry will never forgive you!”
But still he couldn’t stop, until she sighed and ripped off both her mustache and her beard.
He straightened and cleared his throat. “I do apologize.”
“You had better not do that when we are in front of other people.”
“I won’t.” He looked down for a moment. “Thank you.”
“You knew I would come.”
“I meant, thank you for your ridiculous yet sublime disguise. When I understood that I would most likely be accused of Lady Ingram’s murder, I thought I would never smile again, let alone laugh like a loon.”
She hadn’t seen him laugh much even otherwise—these had not been the best years of his life.
He pushed away from the door. “The skin on your face is a bit red.”
She patted tentatively at her cheeks. “Mrs. Watson warned that the glue might be irritating. I’ll have to work fast, so that I don’t do irreparable damage to my otherwise beautiful visage.”
“How fast can you work? Can you clear my name before I head to the gallows?”
“I’m sure Lord Bancroft will arrange for an escape, should your trial go ill.”
All traces of mirth disappeared from his face. “But you think there will be a trial?”
“If you were someone looking at this case from the outside, what conclusions would you draw?”
He crossed the sitting room to where supper had been laid and pulled out a chair for her. “I already know what everyone else will think. But what about the great Sherlock Holmes? What unique light can he shed on the situation?”
“You saw the body. Was it really Lady Ingram?”
“I didn’t go over every inch of her with a magnifying glass, but I’m afraid so.”
Charlotte sighed, sat down, and removed the domed lid from her supper tray. Underneath was a small raised pie and a slice of charlotte russe, with beautifully striated vanilla-and-chocolate layers of Bavarian cream.
She picked up her knife and fork and cut into the raised pie. “Neither Sherlock Holmes nor his brother, Sherrinford Holmes, who is just as brilliant but not inclined to go around solving strangers’ problems, can fathom why Lady Ingram lies dead in the icehouse.”
Lord Ingram sat down opposite. “Even as I stared at her, I couldn’t stop thinking that it was a ruse on her part to have me hanged for her murder so that she could then sweep back in and reclaim the children.”
“Maybe that’s exactly what this is. Maybe that’s her secret twin sister in the icehouse. And the real Lady Ingram is waiting in the wings, cackling with anticipation.”
“If she had a secret sister, whom none of us had ever heard of, I doubt that she is cruel enough to have the poor woman killed so that I could be framed for a crime I didn’t commit.” He raised his chin at her. “And don’t just push food around on your plate. Eat.”
She lifted a forkful of the pie, which had a game filling with a quail egg at its center, to her mouth. “What if the secret sister died of natural causes, and Lady Ingram simply made use of a convenient corpse?”
The game pie was delicious and she did not want another bite.
“Come to think of it, I couldn’t tell how she died. She was fully clothed, and ladies Avery and Somersby wouldn’t let me into the ice well.” He shook his head. “No, we’re speaking nonsense. This had to be Moriarty’s doing.”
“But from his perspective, it makes almost as little sense.”
“Why so little? She was no longer useful to Moriarty. And she was hunted by Bancroft. Moriarty could very well decide to rid himself of such a liability. And then he could decide to make me pay, for disturbing his cozy little arrangement.”
“First, I disagree that Lady Ingram became useless when she could no longer spy on Lord Bancroft. She was beautiful, intelligent, and ruthless. Such a woman would be an asset in many situations.
“Second, while Lord Bancroft is a dangerous man to cross, his reach is finite. Correct me if I’m wrong, but his agents have other missions they must see to, do they not? I imagine that at any given moment, only so many of them can be spared to hunt down Lady Ingram, and perhaps none at all.”
He did not correct her; she went on. “Third, personal enmity exists only between you and Lady Ingram.
I am almost certain Moriarty feels no particular animosity toward you—or Lord Bancroft, for that matter—much in the way that a clever criminal is wary of the law but does not hate every constable he encounters.
“To make you pay, as you say, would require him not only to kill a potentially valuable agent but then to concoct an elaborate scheme to transport her body to your estate just when guests, whom you had not planned on having, would be on hand to stumble onto said body. What does that gain him, professionally?”
“Not much,” admitted Lord Ingram. “I have no interest in hunting down Lady Ingram, so that cannot be a reason for eliminating me. And if Moriarty thinks to injure Bancroft by sending me to the gallows, then he doesn’t know Bancroft at all.”
He reached forward and broke off a piece of the game pie’s hot-water crust.
“You didn’t have dinner?”
He shook his head.
“So I not only brought back your sense of humor, I also restored your appetite.”
“Time restored my appetite. You happen to have food in front of you.”
This made her smile slightly. His gaze lingered on her face a second longer than was entirely appropriate.
She pushed the substantial pie toward him. “Have it. But don’t touch my charlotte russe.”
“I make no promises.”
“Then I had better eat it all before you finish the pie.”
They were silent for some time, he eating steadily, she less so. He must have noticed, for he asked, “Why are you terrified?”
She had swept a dollop of Bavarian cream from the charlotte russe onto the plate and was playing with it. She stopped and looked him in the eye. “Where are your children, Ash?”
“With Remington—you know that.”