Page 95 of The Hollow of Fear
Livia was proud of herself.Downright, heart-poundingly proud.
She had taken advantage of Mrs. Newell’s general distress about the bomb to refuse the offer of her maid for the way home. “You need her more than I do. I have traveled this route more times than I can count. There has never been any trouble in the ladies’ compartments. Don’t worry. My parents won’t know a thing.”
And she had prevailed, for once.
But as her hired trap drew abreast of Moreton Close, her warm self-confidence began to turn into something less sustaining. The garden had faded since her previous visit and little resembled the sunny, trim place she remembered. All the windows were shuttered—in the middle of the day! And not a bit of light seeped out from around the edges of the shutters, the way it would have if candles and lamps had been lit, as they must have been on this cold, gray day, if anyone at all were inside.
No one answered her summons. She pulled the bell cord again and again and made enough of a ruckus to rouse even Sleeping Beauty.
`Still no one came.
Remembering the path that led to the wrought iron gate, she ran down that way, pushed open the gate, and knocked on the door of a cottage. At last someone answered, a woman with flour-covered hands.
“Afternoon, miss,” she said tentatively.
“Good afternoon. Can you tell me where all the people in the house went, Missus... ?”
“Garnet. Everyone went to the south of France for the winter.”
The south of France, which Livia had always wished to visit. For a moment she was terribly envious of Bernadine, until she asked herself how likely was it that for the pittance her parents paid, Bernadine would receive trips abroad, above and beyond the already miraculous bargain of Moreton Close.
“All the ladies who can’t look after themselves went to the south of France?”
Mrs. Garnet looked confused. “There’s only one lady in the house and she looks after herself just fine.”
“Only one lady?”
“There are her husband and her sons, but she’s the only lady.”
Livia’s ears rang. “But I was here last week and I saw with my own eyes a houseful of ladies.”
“Last week the mister and I went to see our grandbaby. Maybe miss went to a different house?”
Mrs. Garnet’s tone was sympathetic, but that only made Livia’s voice rise faster. “It was this house!”
“Well,” said Mrs. Garnet apologetically, “the family went two weeks ago. I don’t know how the house could have been full of ladies last week. I really don’t know.”
Charlotte alitin front of the bijou house in St. John’s Wood where she’d met Mrs. Farr the evening before and stayed the night. She waved good-bye to Mrs. Watson, now headed to her own destination.
Inside the house she took off both her hat and her wig—a woman’s wig, this time—and sat down in front of the vanity table to massage her scalp. In the mirror she seemed thinner. Was she already down to only one point two chins?
Another face appeared in the mirror. “Counting your chins?”
“Me? How dare you accuse me of such rampant self-absorption!”
Lord Ingram smiled. “How was your meeting with the police?”
“It went as you would expect.” She turned around. He was very close to her, her favorite place for him to be. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know.”
She exhaled. “Tell me what has happened since I left—I assume you didn’t come just to sleep with me.”
He stepped even closer. “And you would be wrong about that.”
“I’m stillunsettled to find myself in bed with you,” said Lord Ingram.
“I just find it strange that I’m abed in the middle of the day,” answered Holmes. “But I don’t mind.”
