Page 103 of The Hollow of Fear
She couldn’t help smiling a little. With everything spinning out of control, at least his defense of his virtue was a familiar refrain, even if this time it was uttered with a hint of mockery rather than as an outright refusal.
He set aside his tea cup. “That said, I still don’t think you have told me everything. Far from it.”
He sat sprawled in his chair, one shoulder lower than the other—she rarely saw him with less-than-perfect posture. Fatigue was writ deep across his features. Dread, too. A desirenotto know radiated from him. He must hate these serious conversations with her—they had never held one that didn’t strain their friendship or, far more unhappily, upend his life.
“You are right,” she said reluctantly. “I have not told you everything. I have not told you whom I suspect to be behind all this.”
He straightened, his expression incredulous, almost disbelieving. “Someone other than Moriarty?”
“When I made arrangements to remove Bernadine from my parents’ house, I wasn’t thinking of Moriarty.”
“Then who?”
“When Mr. Finch left Moriarty’s service, why do you suppose he didn’t turn to agents of the Crown?”
“He must have known that there was at least one informant among our ranks.”
“He could have gone straight to the top, bypassing the ranks.”
Now he only looked confused. “You aren’t implying thatBancroftis working for Moriarty?”
“No, not that. Bancroft would never put himself in the hands of someone like Moriarty. I would even posit that he despises the existence of Moriarty’s organization: It isn’t affiliated with or dependent on any sovereign nation, but forms mercenary alliances as it sees fit. In an already complicated landscape of competing powers and loyalties, it is an agent of chaos.”
Lord Ingram exhaled, his relief palpable.
But a man did not need to work for or with Moriarty to have done something reprehensible. She bit the inside of her cheek. “However, it’s possible—in fact, I would put it as probable—that what Mr. Finch stole from Moriarty concerns Lord Bancroft and that Lord Bancroft knows it.”
He braced his hands against the edge of the table. “I’m willing to cede that as a possibility. Bancroft doesn’t have the cleanest hands. And if worse comes to worst, I can believe that he might have slept with someone unsuitable, an agent for a foreign government—or from Moriarty’s organization.
“But Bancroft wouldn’t have passed along secrets to women he dallied with. And empires are not built with clean hands. I fail to see how Mr. Finch’s illicit knowledge could possibly damage Bancroft to such an extent that they would fear each other.”
She considered what she was about to say. “What did you think when you received Lady Avery’s letter, the one that detailed our meeting at the tea shop in Hounslow?”
“I thought it was a remarkable piece of bad luck that someone who served us in a random tea shop should also serve, in a random hotel counties away, the one woman who would listen, take note, then broadcast this all...”
His voice trailed away—he was beginning to see.
“Indeed, an extraordinary coincidence. Which begs the question. What if it hadn’t been a coincidence? What if someone deliberately wished Lady Avery to know about our encounter? Besides the two of us, who else knew that we were there that day?”
“I know you want me to say Bancroft, since he sent his man Underwood to fetch us. But why couldn’t Moriarty also know?”
As soon as he said it he grimaced.
She knew exactly what he remembered. “Moriarty wouldn’t know because we shook off his minions when we set out that day. I’m certain you were vigilant even afterward, making sure no one else followed us—I know I was. Not to mention that, on the night Mr. Finch was almost caught, it wasn’t Moriarty’s men who stopped my carriage. It was Mr. Underwood, Lord Bancroft’s man.”
Granted, she had then run into Mr. Crispin Marbleton, Moriarty’s brother. But that had been an amicable meeting, focused more on Mr. Marbleton’s concern for his son Stephen—and Charlotte’s for Livia. The worries of two parties who weren’t ready to become in-laws yet—who feared that the unexpected attraction between their loved ones could lead to dangerous complications.
She didn’t burden Lord Ingram with this particular development—they had more pressing problems.
He frowned. “But you know Bancroft was also looking for Mr. Finch at the time. That it was Mr. Underwood who tried to nab him doesn’t mean anything.”
“But since it wasn’t Moriarty that night, Moriarty couldn’t have any idea that I knew, however briefly, where to find Mr. Finch. He wouldn’t have had any reason to pressure anyone else in my orbit to get to me.”
He gripped his teacup, as if needing to extract what remained of its warmth. “Still, what could Bancroft possibly have done that he would need to orchestrate such a diabolical trap, to get the evidence from Mr. Finch?”
She finally took a bite of the charlotte russe. It was beautiful, cool and velvety on the tongue—but her stomach convulsed in protest.
She waited for the spasm to pass. “Who made this?”
