A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock #2)

His eyes had been closed—and he had smiled at the overcast sky. At what he believed to be a benevolent universe.

“Hullo, Holmes,” he said, his shoulders relaxed, his eyes still closed, and a trace of smile still on his lips. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I knew it was you?”

“You’d tell me because no one else would stand here without saying anything.”

He laughed and opened his eyes. “It’s you all right, Holmes.” He took a drag on the cigarette. “You look different. Have you lost weight?”

She had. “No,” she said. “You look happy. Marriage must agree with you.”

“It does indeed.” He was magnanimous in his happiness, refraining from reminding her that she had warned him against this particular match. “You should give it a try.”

He and his wife had come back only a few days ago from their honeymoon, their return more than a fortnight late. They had arrived at the house party in the afternoon but had not made an appearance at dinner. Lady Ingram was said to be a little under the weather.

Charlotte felt as if she had been harpooned. “You’re going to be a father, aren’t you?”

Present-day Charlotte turned away from the window.

It was the most joyous she had ever seen him. She’d never trusted that joy, but to look back, knowing exactly how false its foundation had been, how ephemeral its soap-bubble brightness . . .

She marched back to the desk and reimmersed herself, almost gratefully, in the mind-pulverizing tedium of the Vigenère cipher.





Six





MONDAY

Livia didn’t mind music. But she would enjoy a soiree musicale much better if she could dance—or read. Dancing, however, was not to be had, and reading would be profoundly frowned upon. So she had no choice but to listen, bored, irritated, and worried—her usual state of mind—as the soprano warbled on.

When the broad Italian woman hit another glass-scratching high note, Livia simply had to get out. She had taken care to sit in the back of the drawing room, at the edge of a row of chairs. Her mother glared at her as she rose. Livia headed toward the cloakroom—she didn’t need to use it, but Lady Holmes would be less likely to follow if she believed Livia had gone to answer a call of nature.

When she was far enough from the drawing room, she leaned against a half pillar in the passage. Whose house was she in? Oh, what did it matter? The Season was drawing to a close. Soon London would empty, and Livia would take part in the exodus.

Usually, by this point in July, despite the disappointment of having once again failed to secure a husband, she would be more than ready to return to the country, so as not to be obliged to constantly smile, nod, and make pleasant conversation, in a futile quest to prove herself worthy of that holy grail, matrimony.

But this time Charlotte would not be coming with her. This time she would truly be all alone.

At the sound of approaching footsteps, she straightened hastily. A woman turned the corner from the direction of the cloakroom. Lady Ingram. She had arrived late to the soiree, after the first piano recital had already begun. But the hostess had been overjoyed to see her and had hovered about her for an indecent length of time.

Lady Ingram appeared equally startled to run into Livia. “Miss Holmes.”

“Lady Ingram.”

They had rarely spoken to each other before. Lady Ingram surrounded herself with women who were as cool and sophisticated as she. And the power of their combined beauty and influence was such that Livia was afraid to go near. She was invisible enough as it was without placing herself in the shadows cast by such luminosity. And she was also proud enough not to want to be seen as a hanger-on, someone who would never be accepted into the group but was allowed to exist at its periphery, a barnacle on an otherwise sleek ocean liner.

There was a moment of awkward silence. Then Lady Ingram said, with a small smile, “I don’t know about you, Miss Holmes, but I, too, prefer singing that doesn’t threaten to pierce my eardrums.”

Livia was astonished. This woman was almost . . . approachable. Who was she? “And here I thought I gave a convincing impression of someone who needed to visit the cloakroom.”

Lady Ingram laughed softly, not with ridicule but with understanding. For some reason Livia couldn’t shake the impression that there was something else to her expression. A weariness, perhaps.

Fatigue.

“Are you well, Miss Holmes?”

The question arrived so unexpectedly; Livia felt almost . . . ambushed. “Ah, I am—tolerably well. You, my lady?”

“Also tolerably well, I suppose.” Was that an ironic curve to Lady Ingram’s lips? “And Miss Charlotte, have you any news of her?”

Since Charlotte had run away, other than ladies Avery and Somersby, Society’s leading gossips, no one had brought her up in front of Livia. Her parents might argue about Charlotte with each other, but they didn’t involve Livia in those discussions. Even Lord Ingram, Charlotte’s most trusted friend, had refrained from speaking her name, the one time he had called on Livia, shortly after Charlotte had made her escape. Livia had been the one to do so, feeling as if she’d broken a cardinal law.

But now Lady Ingram asked about Charlotte. Without malice. And conversationally, as if Charlotte had gone on a trip to Amazonia, rather than fallen through the floor of ignominy.

Lady Ingram, of all people.

Charlotte, being Charlotte, had no particular feelings toward Lady Ingram. Lady Ingram, on the other hand, had always been less than friendly to Charlotte. It was Livia’s belief that in the days of antiquity, Lord Ingram had rather relished those displays of frostiness on the part of his future wife. But Lady Ingram had never warmed up to Charlotte, not after she had secured Lord Ingram’s hand in marriage, not even after their estrangement. In fact, her coolness toward Charlotte had become even more pronounced after everyone learned that she had married her husband solely for his inheritance. This Livia had never understood: Why this antagonism toward his friend when she didn’t even want his love?

Perhaps Lady Ingram had at last realized that Charlotte had never been a threat to her position. Perhaps that Charlotte had been ruined by a different man gave her a better sense of Lord Ingram’s propriety of conduct all these years. Or perhaps Charlotte’s downfall had been so extreme, her fate so unknown—at least to the general public—that even Lady Ingram was moved to a measure of pity and concern.

“I’m—I’m afraid not,” said Livia, belatedly realizing she still hadn’t answered. “We’ve had no news of her.”

“And that’s the worst, isn’t it, the waiting?”

Livia was taken aback to see Lady Ingram’s throat move, as if she weren’t merely being polite, but was recalling—or even experiencing—her own agony at the disappearance of a loved one. At being left behind to drown in uncertainty and despair.

“You are right about that, ma’am.”