He was not the only fine male specimen of her acquaintance. Roger Shrewsbury, for one, was considered handsomer and more stylish. But Lord Ingram possessed something else, a vitality with a jolt of sensuality and an undercurrent of hostility to the world at large, which made for a masculinity magnetic to both men and women.
When he was younger, that hostility had been more evident. But at some point, the troublemaker reformed and became thoroughly integrated with the rest of the Upper Ten Thousand. He was a member at all the expected clubs, friends with all the right people, and of course his polo matches featured as some of the more notable highlights of any given Season.
Another ten years and he’d be called a pillar of Society.
But . . .
Somewhere beneath all the respectability and sociability still lurked the boy who preferred long, solitary hours among relics to almost anything else. And he remained the only person she had ever met who did not mind her tendency toward silence. Sometimes she even thought he was at ease with it, though it was possible he was simply relieved that when she didn’t speak, she couldn’t make discomfiting observations about his private life.
She remembered Mrs. Watson again. For her sake, the silence ought not to stretch much longer. “I didn’t explain to Inspector Treadles what I thought to be the significance of the discrepancy concerning the curtains.”
“I noticed.”
“But you understood?”
He hesitated briefly, then nodded.
It was Charlotte’s estimation that when Inspector Treadles married a woman from a family far wealthier than his own, he consented to have his clothes made at one of the best tailors’ in London to honor and respect his in-laws, so as to not appear as if he didn’t belong. It was also her estimation that Mrs. Treadles, who married down, would have opted to run a simple household, leaving behind the more luxurious style she’d known, to honor and respect the man to whom she had made the commitment of a lifetime.
Charlotte didn’t believe Inspector Treadles’s maid came into his bedchamber in the morning on a regular basis and his inexperience in the matter caused him to miss the clue in Mrs. Meek’s description of the events.
“I called on your sister this afternoon, by the way,” said Lord Ingram.
Her fingers tightened around the half-eaten madeleine in her hand. “How is she?”
“Doing her best to hold herself together.”
Oh, Livia. “She knows about our father’s quarrel with Lady Amelia?”
“Everybody knows.”
Was there a more terrifying phrase in the English language than “unintended consequences”?
“Did you see him?”
“He wasn’t at home. And your mother was not receiving visitors.”
Meaning she had taken to her bed—after another hefty dose of laudanum, no doubt.
“But Miss Livia did ask me to tell you, should I run into you, that she is grateful for what you have done. She emphasized that you couldn’t possibly have foreseen that—”
“That by connecting the deaths of Lady Amelia, Lady Shrewsbury, and Mr. Sackville, I would double the number of Holmeses suspected of homicide?”
“Inspector Treadles will find something tomorrow.”
She almost dropped the madeleine in her surprise. He was consoling her—and he’d never consoled her in all the years they’d known each other. “You don’t believe it.”
“I often question your actions, but rarely your reasoning. And this isn’t one of those rare instances.”
She took a deep breath: She had fallen so far that he of all people felt the need to comfort her. “Thank you. Very kind of you.”
Mrs. Watson stuck her head out from the bedroom. “Beg your pardon, miss, but Mr. Holmes, he’s fast asleep. Do you still need me to keep an eye on him?”
“That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Hudson. Thank you.”
Mrs. Watson bobbed a curtsy and left, galumphing down the stairs. When the house was quiet again, Lord Ingram asked, “Is that the actress who took you in?”
His voice was carefully neutral, but nothing could disguise disapproval of this magnitude, so she pretended not to have heard it. “She’s very convincing, isn’t she? And she’s the one who identified the inspector’s origin by his accent. I must have her train me to better hear the differences in regional accents.”
“I don’t like this arrangement. You know nothing about her.”
At least now he was sounding more himself. “I happen to think I know a great deal about her.”
“That you can deduce someone’s circumstances doesn’t mean you can read all their thoughts and intentions. Ask yourself, if this had happened to someone else, to Miss Livia, for example, wouldn’t you point out that she is enjoying an unlikely amount of luck?”
“Sometimes luck is just luck.”
“And most of the time, what seems too good to be true generally is.”
Disagreement, their usual state of affairs. A bittersweet sensation, this familiarity. Sometimes it was more sweet than bitter, but not tonight.
She rose and walked to the desk at the back of the parlor. “What would you have me do? Leave my benefactress?”
“Yes.”