31 Baker Street was an unprepossessing two-bay, brown-brick house, with dormant window boxes affixed to each of its six windows. The six windows were evenly divided in number between the three upper stories, in size they became progressively more squat as Lizzy tilted her head back farther.
She took a deep breath and knocked on the front door, the paint of which had faded from black to a darkish gray. Ever since the night of Stuart’s dinner she’d been desperate to see Mr. Marsden in person, but they had no more meetings scheduled, and this—Sunday afternoon, with her father napping and the servants away from the house—was the earliest opportunity she had to visit him.
Five weeks and scant days to her wedding—what an awful time to be thinking that she might have made a grave mistake.
The door opened with surprising speed, and out spilled a muted but still hearty burst of masculine laughter. Lizzy froze—or she might have turned around and fled.
“Good afternoon, miss,” said the small, neat woman who had opened the door, her voice calm and friendly. “Mr. Todd is not home this afternoon. But I will give your card to him if you leave one with me.”
Mr. Todd was the calligraphist who shared the house with Mr. Marsden. And it was from his card that she knew their address. “I’m not here to see Mr. Todd, but Mr. Marsden.”
The woman, presumably the landlady, looked faintly surprised. “Certainly, miss. Mr. Marsden is home. I will take your card to him.”
The landlady went up a set of narrow, squeaky stairs. Lizzy looked about her. She supposed the inside of the house could still be described as respectable, but genteel it wasn’t. The bits of plaster braids on the ceiling showed signs of a diligent and ongoing battle against London’s soot and grime, a battle that promised no eventual victory. The air smelled of linseed oil and boot black. Through a door that had been left ajar, Lizzy had a view into the landlady’s cramped sitting room, where a skinny tabby napped on a rocking chair upholstered in faded pink chintz.
On the next floor the hum of conversation subsided. She felt a bigger knot forming in her belly. She’d come at a bad time, but she must speak to him, and she’d already waited too long.
The landlady reappeared. “Follow me, please.”
She was led into a small but surprisingly bright and cheerful drawing room, cheerful because of the pale cornsilk wallpaper on which floated whimsical balloons and airships. There were three men in the room. Mr. Marsden, pleasure writ plain on his face, immediatley came forward to shake her hand, alleviating her fears of an awkward entry.
“Miss Bessler, what a delight to see you. Allow me to present Mr. Matthew Marsden, my brother, and Mr. Moore, a good friend of ours. Gentlemen, this is Miss Bessler, the most beautiful lady in all of London.”
Matthew Marsden was an inch or so taller than his brother, and would have been startlingly handsome had he been standing next to anyone but Will Marsden. Mr. Moore wasn’t anywhere near as striking as the Marsden brothers, but he had a good-natured face.
“Mr. Marsden, you are too kind,” she protested. “By most accounts, I’m only the third most beautiful woman in London.”
Mr. Marsden laughed. “Well then, ‘most accounts’ must be sensationally misguided. Please, Miss Bessler, have a seat.”
She did, with a surge of renewed anxiety that he would now politely inquire into what had brought her to his house. He did nothing of the sort.
“We have been gossiping, Miss Bessler,” he said. “Or at least trying to. My brother and Mr. Moore are in England after a two-year absence and hungry for all the latest and naughtiest stories. Alas, they have been quite disappointed with my store of knowledge—I no longer move in Society as I used to. Dare we turn to you for a better supply of anecdotes?”
“Well,” she said, relaxing. “I did run into Ladies Avery and Somersby week before last.”
Lady Avery and Lady Somersby were the leading chroniclers of Society’s passions and follies. They would not dream of sharing anything too juicy with an unmarried young woman, but Lizzy had received information on the courtship-in-progress of several gentlemen known to the Marsden brothers and Mr. Moore and for the next half hour they discussed the pursuits of lucre, power, and privilege that occurred along the path to the altar.
“Oh, and I almost forgot, the younger Mr. Fonteyn is courting Lady Barnaby,” added Lizzy.
“Lady Barnaby, as in Sir Evelyn Barnaby’s widow?” cried Mr. Moore. “But she must be twenty years Fonteyn’s senior.”
“And twenty thousand pounds richer too,” said Lizzy. “There is no such thing as a wealthy woman who is too old.”
“I think you would fare far better with Sir Evelyn’s widow than Fonteyn,” said Matthew Marsden to his brother.
“What, and give up poverty?” Mr. Marsden laughed. “Never!”
“Well, there is something to be said about being poor but independent and obliged to no one,” said Mr. Moore.