Page 68 of A Conspiracy in Belgravia
“Or it could embroil the entire organization in upheaval and reprisals.” He looked at her. “I’m an opportunist, Miss Holmes. I must be prepared for any and all opportunities.”
Such as a time when a woman who had previously turned him down found herself no longer in a position to do so? “Naturally,” she replied.
“And opportunist that I am, I must seize the occasion to invite you to remain for luncheon.”
Charlotte consulted her watch. Itwasalmost time for luncheon, yet another point in his favor for not neglecting his—or her—stomach. “Thank you. I’ll be glad to join you.”
She must still eat, even on the day she found out that she had most likely met her brother as a dead man.
Luncheon was the afterthought among meals. Breakfast was a necessity, dinner had its swagger, tea everyone was fond of, but luncheon usually limped by with a few leftover cuts from the night before, a bit of bread and cheese thrown in.
Lord Bancroft’s luncheon, however, featured thin, crispy chicken cutlets, an excellent veal-and-ham pie, an even better cold plum pudding, and an abundance of summer berries to enjoy in a manner Charlotte had never been exposed to before, dipped into a small dish of condensed milk.
She understood condensed milk to be very popular in America, resulting from its ubiquity as rations for soldiers during the Civil War. But here in Britain, condensed milk had something of a dubious reputation. And yet she couldn’t argue that a strawberry with just a tiny dot of sweetened condensed milk was utterly delightful.
“I didn’t know condensed milk could be put to uses other than feeding infants deprived of mother’s milk,” she said.
“At home my cook has found an even better use for it,” said Lord Bancroft. He looked completely at ease in a dining room that was as gaudy as the drawing room, one step up—or down, she had no way of knowing—from what she imagined a brothel with some aspirations must look like. “Condensed milk, heated gently for a few hours in simmering water, will turn into a kind of milk jam, with a taste rather like very soft caramel.”
“Oh, my.”
“My reaction precisely.” Lord Bancroft studied Charlotte. “I hope this news further tilts you in favor of my proposal?”
“It does,” Charlotte had to admit.
Charlotte believed that romantic love was a perishable item, at its freshest and most delicious for a limited amount of time before turning stale, if not outright putrescent. As a woman who put no stock in the primacy of love, she ought to be perfectly amenable to his offer.
Alas, there was the little matter of preference: She infinitely preferred being on her own to being Lord Bancroft’s wife. The only question was, at a moment like this, how much importance should she give her own decided preference?
“Good,” said he. “Perhaps you, Mrs. Watson, and Miss Redmayne will consider dinner at my house one of these days? It would be my honor to host the three of you.”
When he had said that he would not object to her further association with Mrs. Watson, she had assumed that he meant he would not forbid her from slipping out and calling on Mrs. Watson, as if she were conducting an illicit rendezvous. She had no idea he was open to receiving either Mrs. Watson or Miss Redmayne in his own home. “I’ll be delighted to convey your invitation.”
She was almost afraid to ask whether he had changed his mind about her taking clients as Sherlock Holmes.
Lord Bancroft inclined his head. “And your sisters, are they well?”
Ah, he knew exactly where to press his advantage. This, she approved of. They were, after all, grown-ups in something approaching a negotiation. He was free to remind her, using every means at hand, that she really was in no position to negotiate at all.
Before she could answer, a servant announced, “Lord Ingram to see you, my lord.”
Lord Ingram entered, dressed in a grey lounge suit, cut loosely and of very modest material—someone who didn’t know better might mistake him for a bicycle messenger. His boots and trouser legs had the telltale splashes, too—too muddy to have originated in London, though, what with the roads and functional sewage system the great metropolis currently enjoyed.
Country mud, then, no more than two hours old.
The papers might be able to tell her which places, within two hours by rail, had the right kind of weather. The papers might even provide clues on why he had rushed back to London to speak to Bancroft in person, instead of using a coded telegraph.
Unlike Livia, Charlotte found the papers wonderfully illuminating. But one had to know where to look—it was often in piecesthat didn’t grace the front page or sentences outside the first twenty paragraphs of an article that the true significance of the matter accidentally shone through.
Lord Ingram reacted to her presence at his brother’s table as she had expected him to, his surprise—and was that a trace of alarm?—quickly and thoroughly contained. “Miss Holmes, how do you do? Bancroft, a word with you.”
Lord Bancroft excused himself. The brothers left the room. A few minutes later, Lord Ingram returned by himself and sat down. “Bancroft sends his regrets, Holmes. Pressing matters, et cetera.”
It shouldn’t have come as such a relief to hear him address her as Holmes, but it did.Holmesmeant they were on good terms. Or, at least, normal terms. “Of course. And how do you do, my lord?”
They had not seen each other since the day they discovered the significance of the house in Hounslow. In the meanwhile, his hair had been cut shorter—but the difference was most pronounced in how much more she noticed the bone structure of his face.
“I’ve been well enough. You?”
