A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock #2)

“Are you all right, Livia?” Charlotte asked quietly.

Tears, out of nowhere, prickled the back of Livia’s eyes. She wasn’t all right. She hadn’t been all right. And she didn’t know if she would ever be all right for any sustained period of time.

“I manage,” she said. No point elaborating—Charlotte already knew the truth.

“And Bernadine, has she been like that since I left?”

“Some days.”

Livia wasn’t lying. Some days she couldn’t bring herself to go into Bernadine’s room.

Charlotte nodded—and did not immediately say anything else.

Her silence. How Livia missed the companionship of that soft, calm silence. And perhaps this was where she reciprocated Charlotte’s acceptance: She never demanded that Charlotte speak but always waited for it, trusting that when Charlotte had something to say, she would.

Which she did, presently. “You haven’t written since we saw each other on Saturday.”

“I’ve been reading—to study how other people write stories with plots involving strange and mysterious events.”

Charlotte nodded again, walked to the window, and looked out.

Livia’s alarm returned. “Anyone coming back?”

“Not yet.” Charlotte turned around. “I take it you don’t wish to tell me about the man.”

Every muscle in Livia’s body seized, yet she felt as if her arms and legs were flopping wildly, uncontrollably. “I haven’t been introduced to any man.”

Which was God’s truth, even if it was far from the whole truth.

“No, you haven’t,” said Charlotte.

Silence again, but not such a soft, calm silence anymore. Livia had no idea what to do. Should she lie? Should she confess? Or should she continue to stare at Charlotte, saying nothing?

Charlotte sat down on the windowsill, the same one she had occupied the night of her scandal, immediately before she told Livia that she would be running away from home. “Actually, I came to ask you for a favor.”

“Wh—I mean, of course. Anything.”

Anything to get the subject away from the man to whom Livia had not been introduced.

“It’s about Lady Ingram.”

“Wouldn’t you know it, I met her last night at the soiree musicale Mamma dragged me to. I couldn’t believe it, but she was very decent to me—said she understood exactly how much I wanted to escape all that yodeling. She even asked about you.”

Was this effusive enough an answer for Charlotte to forget what they were talking about before?

“She did?”

Charlotte didn’t raise a brow or the volume of her voice, but Livia thought she heard a note of surprise.

“Yes, rather nonchalantly, too. None of that look-all-around-then-lean-in-and-whisper business.”

Charlotte didn’t speak for a minute, as if needing time to digest this unexpected nugget of intelligence. “What do you think of Lady Ingram?”

Livia shook her head. “Women of her kind make me nervous—they are so sure of themselves. I don’t know that I ever think about them so much as I pray they don’t think badly of me.”

It took only a passing glance from someone like Lady Ingram for Livia to be acutely conscious of her shortcomings. Or it could be said that she was already acutely conscious of her shortcomings and that a whiff of disdain from any quarter, real or imagined, heated that general anxiety to a froth of self-scorn.

“What I meant was, do you believe she ever loved Lord Ingram?”

What an odd question from Charlotte, who had never commented on that marriage. Had rarely brought up Lord Ingram in conversation, in fact, despite their long-standing friendship. Sometimes Livia wondered about the two, but it was usually to speculate on whether Lord Ingram might be secretly in love with Charlotte: She was fully prepared to accept that Charlotte had never felt the slightest twinge of romance in her twenty-five years on earth.

“I don’t know that Lady Ingram ever loved her husband, but I do remember thinking that she seemed awfully pleased with the match. Not to an unseemly degree, mind you, but still. I envied her that happiness.”

“Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.”

“Oh, I’m not entirely sure about that. Her happiness lasted a good long while—at least it seemed so to me.”

Charlotte cocked her head to one side. “What if it was all a pretense?”

“It was, wasn’t it? She only married him for his inheritance.”

“No, I mean, what if that happiness was all a pretense? What if she’d never been happy to marry him, even in the beginning?”

“Why are you interested in Lady Ingram, all of a sudden?”

Charlotte glanced out of the window again. “I’m going to tell you something that I learned recently, but you can’t say anything to anyone else.”

“You know I have no bosom bows eager to receive gossip from me. But very well, I won’t tell anyone. What is it?”

“I have heard that before she made her debut, Lady Ingram had been in love with someone else. Someone unsuitable.”

Livia sucked in a breath—and was almost sad she didn’t have a group of lady friends before whom she could dangle this juicy tidbit. “How unsuitable?”

“As unsuitable as our brother would have been.”

“We don’t have a—” They did have a brother. Charlotte had found that out. But it was one of those things that Livia tried to forget: She knew the kind of man her father was, but before such tangible evidence, she still felt as if she’d been punched in the kidney. “Who told you that?”

“I’m not at liberty to reveal that right now. I understand that ladies Avery and Somersby still seek you out to ask for my news. If you see them again, will you please ask whether they know anything of Lady Ingram’s romantic past? Subtly, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.” Charlotte came forward and squeezed Livia’s hand. “I must leave now. But don’t forget, I’ll look after you—and Bernadine.”

After she was gone, Livia stared at the door for a good long while.

She wanted to believe that Charlotte could fulfill that promise, but everything stood in the way.

Everything.



Charlotte had seen the burned letter the moment she walked into Livia’s room.

The problem with her parents treating their servants with scant respect or consideration was that the servants returned the favor by doing as little work as possible. In better households, even during warmer months, when no fires were laid, the grates would be swept out daily. But not so in the Holmes residence.

And so the carbonized remains of Livia’s letter had stayed in place, the original curled mass having since crumbled from gravity, small ash-edged bits blown about the grate from the daily airing of the room.

What had she written about? Their parents? Bernadine? Charlotte failed to see any reason why concerns about either should give Livia such pause as to destroy the letter altogether. And Livia’s despondency had felt both newer and keener than her usual gloom.