Page 27 of The Art of Theft
“My first assumption was that her letters were sent to an illicit lover—and contain embarrassing, possibly lurid passages. But that is too easy a line of thinking when the person being blackmailed is a beautiful woman. You?”
“I do believe that she is being blackmailed. I do not understand how those letters ended up at Château Vaudrieu. Or why, for that matter, she wasinformedabout their location.”
That was the reason he had wanted to know who was blackmailing her and with what. “I wonder whether the intended target is in fact the Van Dyck piece itself. If the people at Château Vaudrieu have been doing this for a while, they know how to secure their artworks. And if French criminals are unwilling to infiltrate the château, then that means the château has made sure its objets d’artare more trouble than they are worth as stolen goods. But if you find a woman desperate to keep her secrets, then you just might get your Van Dyck for a song.”
She didn’t say anything for a while.
To keep himself from staring at her again, he turned and looked out the window. But he remained conscious both of her nearness and of the perennial distance between them.
“Are you concerned about the theft itself—the moral aspect of it?” she asked suddenly.
“You ascribe more scruples to me than I actually possess. On the other hand, if what the maharani declared is her actual intention, that she wants only the letters, then it would hardly be theft to return them to her. Which doesn’t mean that should we manage the feat, I wouldn’t read them to make sure that they are what she says they are.”
They were silent again. He didn’t know what to make of the silence. In some ways, things had been simpler when he’d been a married man who believed that he’d always be a married man. She’d been an impossibility, no less, no more. But now, with his divorce to be granted by the beginning of summer at the very latest, he had no idea what to do.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
He looked back at her.
“Something is bothering you.”
What could he tell her?My children’s governess specifically mentioned you in her bid to become the next Lady Ingram. Is there anyone under the sun who doesn’t know that I am in love with you? And God help me, but I’m beginning to wonder whether a marriage of convenience isn’t a better idea than I first thought.
Could he and Holmes ever come to an agreement on what they wanted from each other? And if they couldn’t, then ought he not do the best thing for his children and marry Miss Yarmouth to keep her from leaving?
He did not reply.
Silence had long been the usual state of things between them; he was prepared to let this one last until the hackney reached Mrs. Watson’s house. To his surprise, Holmes spoke again.
“I might have some ideas as to what’s in those letters the maharani wants back. But the knowledge could put you in an awkward position.”
?Livia was a good sailor. She hadn’t known it—she’d never been on a steamship before and had expected to do poorly. But the pitching and rolling of the ship, on the infamous English Channel, no less, did not affect her at all and she was jubilant to have been spared.
“I know seasickness is an ordeal. Still, I’ve never seen anyone so happy not to be seasick,” teased Mr. Marbleton, as they took a turn on the deck.
“I’m always looking for hints from the universe to tell me how the future will proceed. If I were ejecting the contents of my stomach right now, I’d take it as an ill omen: Not only shouldn’t I be here, but no one should and everything will turn out badly,” she answered, a broad smile on her face, speaking over the waves striking the prow of the ferry and the steady hum of the engine. “But now that I’m practically dancing across the English Channel? I can’t help but interpret it as an auspicious sign.
“But of course, my happiness will be short-lived. Because I suspect the universe to be full of malice and pranks. Soon I will wonder how I am going to pay for this moment of reckless exuberance. And what grand disenchantment will come my way to reduce me to my usual sullen and downtrodden self.”
Mr. Marbleton tilted his head. “Do you really think of happiness as such a fragile entity?”
“Mine is,” she answered, still smiling. “I don’t know that I’ve ever been properly happy. I simply careen between moments ofintense buoyancy and moments of intense misery. Only my anxiety is constant: When I hope, I’m anxious that my hopes will come to nothing; when I fear, I’m anxious that my fears will all come true.”
He didn’t say anything.
Some of her reckless exuberance faded, as did her smile. “I’m sorry.”
Perhaps she’d been too honest. So few people liked her as she was. That he seemed to make her want tobeherself, fully and unapologetically, without stopping to wonder whether she was meeting some arbitrary standard of normalcy and likability.
“Why?” he said sincerely. “Have your fears ever hurt or even inconvenienced anyone?”
She exhaled in relief—she still hadn’t managed to repel him. “Me, I suppose. How I hate always being so anxious. How is it that you arenot?”
A fresh wave of anxiety struck her. “You aren’t just putting on a brave front, are you?”
He shook his head. “My parents have always told my sister and me that we are living on borrowed time. They said that not to make us live in fear but so that we would rejoice in each day that we have managed to stay ahead of Moriarty. Did you not feel a great joy, running away from home—without your parents being any the wiser?”
“Suchjoy.”
