Page 69 of A Conspiracy in Belgravia
She thought of the dust sheet—of herself, with no feelings whatsoever, pulling it back and revealing the body underneath. “Same. I assume I shouldn’t inquire into what you have been doing with yourself since you abruptly deserted me Saturday last.”
“You can inquire but I won’t be able to answer—forgive me. And you, what have you been doing?”
His wife’s frantic letter came to mind, as well as the desperate hope in her eyes, the last time Charlotte saw her in person.No, I’m afraid this is all wrong. You must have found a different Mr. Finch.
And she had been right all along.
“Interestingly enough, I also cannot answer. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
Lord Ingram’s eyes bored into Charlotte. His mind didn’t workin remotely the same fashion as hers: Whereas hers dealt in cold, swift calculations of logic and facts, his relied much more heavily on a finely honed instinct. Good instinct, the way she saw it, was but logic and facts processed by the gut rather than the cerebrum—he might not be able to enumerate each step of the analysis, but that didn’t mean the conclusion he reached was any less sound.
“You have done something,” he stated. “You are not issuing a general apology, as I was. You are askingme, specifically, to forgiveyou.”
She dipped a raspberry into the dish of condensed milk—and left it there. “You are right.”
He leaned back in his chair. “And that is all the answer I am to receive?”
His gaze was on her fingers, still nudging the raspberry around in its milky bath. His arm braced along the back of the next chair, a seemingly relaxed gesture that radiated latent power. Beneath the unassuming brown waistcoat and the humble white shirt, his chest rose and fell evenly, steadily—he was waiting.
She made him wait some more, eating the raspberry with the speed of a tired snail—this time not tasting anything.
He raised a brow.
She sighed inwardly. “Strictly speaking I’ve done nothing wrong. But things are complicated and I’ll probably be held to blame for certain decisions on my part that placed my integrity as an investigator above my loyalty as a friend.”
“Usually you speak with greater clarity and directness.” He lifted his eyes to her face. “Should I understand, from all that verbiage, that you have done something that might be construed as disloyal tome?”
She nodded, distracted for the moment by the motion of his thumb, slowly caressing the crest rail of the adjacent chair.
“In the course of your work as Sherlock Holmes?”
She nodded again, still distracted by the way his fingers grazed the notches and swirls atop the ornate chair.
“Be more specific.”
With some regret, she looked away from his hand. “I can’t. I can’t say anything beyond what I’ve already said.”
“You think this will anger me?”
If nodding could reduce extra chins she would have whittled hers down to only one point two. “But it does not harm you in the not-knowing.”
Their eyes met, his cool and dark. “Are you asking me to trust you?”
“I’m letting you know that I’m in the middle of something that you will not like, if you knew what it was.”
His eyes narrowed. “There are a great many things I don’t like. But losing a polo match, for instance, is not the same as my house burning down.”
She could only repeat herself. “I can’t say anything beyond what I’ve already said.”
He was silent.
“I’m sorry,” she heard herself murmur.
Soundlessly his fingers tapped the crest rail on which they rested, each one by turn. “Years ago, you said something to me. I don’t remember it word for word, but in essence, you told me that men, even otherwise sensible men, fall under the illusion that they will be able to find a perfect woman. That the problem lies not in the search so much as in the definition of perfection, which is a beautiful female who will integrate seamlessly into a man’s life, bringing with her exactly the right amount of intelligence, wit, and interests to align with his, in order to brighten every aspect of his existence.”
She remembered that conversation, one of the most disharmonious they had ever held, on the subject of the future Lady Ingram.
“You warned me against believing in that illusion—and I was highly displeased. I didn’t say so at the time, but as we parted, I thought that you’d certainly never be mistaken for a perfect woman. It was beyond evident you’d never fit readily into any man’s life, and no one could possibly think that the purpose of your life was to be anything other than who you were.
