A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock #2)

“Fifteen, twenty feet, thereabout.”

Charlotte closed her notebook. Nobody said anything for a moment. Then Charlotte blew out the pocket lantern and murmured, “A difficult couple of days for you?”

The gentleness of her voice . . . Livia wanted to burst into tears. Oh, you have no idea!

She had elided over her encounter with Mr. Finch as much as possible. In reality, he hadn’t immediately confessed that he was her brother—she hadn’t wanted to begin their conversation with all the serious questions. Instead, they had spoken for a good quarter of an hour in great animation, laughing together more often than not, and she had been walking six inches off the ground.

Or perhaps it had been six miles. For the crash to earth had shattered everything.

“It was shocking, that was all,” Livia managed, grateful for the darkness that followed the extinction of the lantern’s small flicker.

She reached for the door. Charlotte put a hand on her sleeve but didn’t say anything.

After a moment, she let go.





Thirteen





WEDNESDAY

It was already raining by the time Charlotte reached Kensington Gardens, the sky heavy, the gust cold—another English summer day. Charlotte, in Mrs. Watson’s first-rate mackintosh and rubber boots, felt as water-repellent as a duck, marching past those trying to hold open their umbrellas against a wind that changed direction every two seconds.

She arrived at a Round Pond that was largely empty, except for a nanny as well equipped as she and a boy who looked to be the sort to regard a day stuck inside as divine punishment.

Up close, Round Pond possessed the shape of an ovoid mirror with a somewhat ornate frame. At the eastern end, a straight edge roughly one third of the width of the pond met the grassy avenue that gave onto Long Water, a quarter mile away. A bench sat at either end of this straight edge, where the banks of the pond began to curve again.

Charlotte placed herself behind the bench to the north, where Mr. Finch had sat. Farther away there were trees, but the pond was situated in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by manicured lawns that did not in the least impede the view.

Given the distances Livia had described, it was extremely difficult to imagine how Lady Ingram and Mr. Finch had not seen each other. Mr. Finch would have been looking south toward Livia, and Lady Ingram would have been headed northeast and—

Unless their line of sight had been blocked by Livia, Lady Avery, and Lady Somersby and their parasols?

Unlikely, but not impossible. And Mr. Finch wouldn’t have been staring in Livia’s direction all the time, as he wouldn’t have wanted her to think of him as rude or potentially dangerous.

Not impossible, but at some point, the likelihood of a scenario approached so close to zero that it merited no further consideration.

They had seen each other.

Then what? They were in public. Lady Ingram had her children and their governess with her. And even if she could order the governess to take the children home, she couldn’t possibly have approached Mr. Finch then and there, not with the two most infamous Society gossips standing nearby.

Was that what had motivated her subsequent note, practically begging for his address? Because the sight of him had sent her into an inward frenzy and those chaotic emotions would not stop wreaking havoc until they had a proper face-to-face?

And Mr. Finch, what had been his reaction? It seemed not to have affected his encounter with Livia. But the next evening he had left town abruptly. Could his departure have been a result of his seeing Lady Ingram? A guilty conscience after all?

What about Lord Ingram? Where had he been? Sunday afternoons he was usually the one taking the children out for small expeditions. Was he still away on the crown’s business, risking life and limb for queen and country while his wife accidentally encountered the only man she’d ever loved?

She must stop bringing Lord Ingram into her deliberations, Charlotte thought. Her reasoning was still valid. What could he do even if he knew? Forbid civilized contact between Lady Ingram and a friend of long standing?

He could despise you, pointed out the part of her that did, from time to time, take human emotions into consideration.

And that, in essence, was her problem.



After leaving the Round Pond, Charlotte stopped by the newspaper office. She had a note that she wanted to place in the papers, or at least, in the one to which her parents subscribed.


CDAQKHUHAAQDYNTVDKKJSGHMJNEYNT

It was a simple cipher that she and Livia had devised together when they were little girls, which consisted of replacing the letter B with the letter X and pushing all the other letters down a place. They called it the Cdaq Khuha, for Dear Livia.


DEARLIVIAAREYOUWELLITHINKOFYOU

Livia had not been well the night before. She had been on the edge of hysteria, clutching white-knuckled on to her composure. Public gatherings tried her. Under the current circumstances, they tried her even more. But that she was at a ball where she was having no fun wasn’t enough to account for her jagged distress.

Even an encounter with their illegitimate brother ought not have affected her that much.

“There you go, miss.” The clerk came back with a receipt. “Your message will be in the papers tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” said Charlotte. “And can you tell me, if I wish to put a notice in the paper without coming in person, how that can be achieved?”

“You can write or cable us with your message, the dates you want it to run, and send a postal order with the correct fee. As simple as that.”

“If I wish to put a different notice every day, should I write daily then?”

“I wouldn’t advise it. Then every day you’d need to pay poundage on a different postal order, wouldn’t you? Better to send in all your messages at once.”

“But what if I don’t know what I wish to say ahead of time?”

The clerk regarded her quizzically. “Then you must do as you see fit, miss.”

“Is there anyone who does that in practice? Send in a different notice daily?”

“No.” The clerk shook his head decisively.

She supposed submitting notices in batches made sense in Lady Ingram’s case. She wouldn’t miss the pennies for extra poundage, but it would be easier for her to manage the deployment of messages if she did so once or twice a week, instead of every day.

Charlotte pulled out her pocket watch, a man’s watch; watches made for women, though prettier, tended not to keep very good time. A quarter past nine. A lady made or received calls in the afternoon. During the Season there were also plenty of other functions—at-home teas, rowing parties, drives in the park—to keep her post meridiem hours scheduled to the minute.