Page 91 of The Art of Theft
She exhaled. They had better leave. Lord Ingram had been in worse situations than this, she was sure. He would find his way out and back to them.
“Shall we—”
Footsteps, running. Lots of footsteps. Had they been discovered? Why now?
She loosened her mantle, grabbed Lieutenant Atwood by his necktie, and yanked him toward her. “Quick! Pretend you’re my paramour!”
He stilled, not so much with shock as with unwillingness—or so it felt. But once he complied, his motion was swift and decisive. With one hand behind her, he maneuvered them so that she lay on the seat with him half above her. She pushed down her décolletage, exposing the top of her corset.
The carriage door yanked open. She shrieked as she sat up. And shrieked again as two burly men shone a bright lantern into her eyes. Pulling up her bodice ineffectually with one hand, while shielding her bosom equally ineffectually with her other hand, she stared at the intruders, gasping.
“Are you my husband’s men? Please, please, it’s not what you think it is. He—he told me that he can tell me things that will benefit Monsieur de Rochefoucault’s business. He did. I’m only here for my husband’s sake. You must believe me.”
The man in front looked past her still-masked face to stare at her bounteous breasts.
“She’s lying!” exclaimed Lieutenant Atwood. “She lured me out here. Please—please don’t beat me. I would never have anything to do with a married woman. She told me she was a widow!”
She almost laughed at Lieutenant Atwood’s fear and panicked regret.
The other man pulled at his companion. “Enough with these aristocratic degenerates. Let’s go.”
As they slammed the door closed, Charlotte screamed at Lieutenant Atwood, even as she pulled her mantle back up around herself, “Who are you calling a liar?”
He didn’t answer, but she thought she heard muffled laughter.
She waited for her heart to stop pounding—and for the men to be out of sight. “Do you think they are far away enough now that we can go?”
The door was again yanked open.
Her surprised squeal was genuine this time as she threw herself across the carriage into Lieutenant Atwood’s arms. “Please, Monsieur, you must save me from my husband. He will lock me in the attic and tell the world I’ve died.”
“And here I thought you didn’t even likeJane Eyre,” said Lord Ingram, closing the door behind himself and taking a seat next to Lieutenant Atwood. He was breathing hard.
She gazed at him. There was a strange sensation in her chest, as if her heart just fell back into place. “It was a terrible plot twist but still a sensational one,” she said, returning to her own seat. “Did you find Lady Ingram?”
“No.” He knocked against the roof of the carriage, which pulled out of its spot and turned onto the dirt lane. “I came to my senses instead. I don’t need to do everything for everyone, and I would do Lady Ingram a bigger favor by looking after her children.”
Well, sometimes they do learn.
Charlotte adjusted her mantle—and smiled to herself. “In that case, I think we can term it a productive evening.”
Nineteen
Lieutenant Atwood alit a few streets away from Hôtel Papillon—he would approach on foot and get in from a service entrance. When Charlotte and Lord Ingram reached the house, Livia, Mrs. Watson, the maharani, and Mr. Marbleton were in the foyer, waiting. Mrs. Watson rushed to the door and embraced Lord Ingram. Even Livia, usually a much more reticent person, took him by the hands and told him how glad she was to see his safe return.
His throat moved as he thanked them. Charlotte sighed inwardly. For someone who did so much for others, he was always surprised when anyone returned the care in equal measure.
She asked everyone to go to bed. But when they had done so, she joined Lord Ingram and Lieutenant Atwood, once again back in Forêt’s shoes—and clothes—not in the library, which had a number of entrances, but in the much smaller but similarly book-lined study, to sort through the loot.
It didn’t take her too long to locate letters from the maharani’s son. To be on the safe side, in case Moriarty’s subordinates had taken pictures of them, she picked up a few boxes of photographic plates and headed for the portable darkroom that Lieutenant Atwood had set up to develop images taken by Mr. Marbleton’s detective camera.
“The pictures, perhaps—perhaps—” Lord Ingram stopped when Charlotte looked up. He took a sip of coffee, which he’d made to help them stay awake. “What am I saying? If there is to be disturbing content, then you should be the one looking through them, since you are the one least likely to be disturbed.”
She inclined her head graciously. “I believe you are correct, sir.”
He came with her, carrying the rest of the boxes of plates, and put on the safelight for her. The plates weighed at least a stone. She opened the first box and saw that the size of the plates was two and three quarters inches by three and a quarter inches, instead of five and half inches by six and half inches as she’d supposed: they were stored in stacks of ten and four stacks to a box.
There were eight such boxes. She would be looking at more than three hundred images.
