Page 37 of Miss Moriarty, I Presume?
“Oh, but I’m glad you’ve come, ladies. I’ve been feeling so uneasy that I didn’t want to go into the Garden no more. Mr. Baxter’s man said I must carry on as usual. But how do I do that when I’m worried sick about Miss Baxter?”
These words were whispered to Charlotte and Mrs. Watson as Mrs. Felton led them to a shiny, lacquered dogcart trimmed in green.
“Nice conveyance,” said Mrs. Watson, taking the hand Mrs. Felton held out to help her up to the driver’s box. “Is it the Garden’s?”
“No, it’s me own,” said Mrs. Felton proudly. She handed a carriage blanket to Charlotte, who had taken the rear-facing seat, then got up on the driver’s box herself and sat down next to Mrs. Watson. “The horse is me own. And I’ve me own house, too.”
As women who cleaned for a living didn’t usually receive much compensation, it stood to reason that de Lacey paid generously.
The road climbed up and out of the inlet. Fields and pasture rolled away before them, their grassy scent mingled with that of the tang of saltwater. The sun dipped near the horizon, its pale yellow light elongating the carriage’s shadow toward the now-choppier sea.
The dogcart was the only vehicle on a lane that was merely two parallel lines of shorter grass, worn down by regular but sparse traffic. Mrs. Watson cleared her throat. “Now that we are at last away from potential eavesdroppers, Mrs. Felton, will you give us a full account of everything?”
Lord Ingramand Miss Olivia returned to London early in the afternoon. They visited two newspaper archives and Snowham was barely mentioned in any indexes as a locale, let alone as anything else. Afterward, Miss Olivia expressed a desire to consult another archive and Lord Ingram took his leave of her: He had someone to see before he left London, his second-eldest brother, Lord Bancroft Ashburton.
Bancroft had once looked after the Crown’s more clandestine concerns. But he had betrayed both the Crown and Lord Ingram and was now under confinement, though in surroundings that most prisoners would consider luxurious: two rooms to himself in a house with mahogany wainscoting and cream-and-rose toile wallpaper, books and newspapers at his disposal, and a view of a garden outside his—albeit barred—windows.
Lord Ingram had not visited him since the previous autumn, when Bancroft was first stripped of his office and his freedom. A betrayer had this power: He had held the trust of the betrayed, while never extending the same. To see Bancroft again was to feel the same vulnerability, the same anger against both Bancroft and himself.
“What brings you here, Ash?” asked Bancroft, a trace of suspicion to his otherwise colorless tone. “And how goes the divorce?”
“It will be granted soon, thank you.”
“A good thing. One should keep one’s friends close and enemies closer—but not under the same roof, if at all possible.”
Bancroft, of course, knew all his soft spots. Lord Ingram made no answer.
After a while, Bancroft said, “And thank you for the wine and pastry at Christmas. Alas, they were finished far too soon.”
Lord Ingram smiled slightly. Good. He had sent the wine and pastry not out of the goodness of his heart, but because they’d be finished far too soon—and remind Bancroft of everything he now had to do without.
He wasn’t sure whether himself of yesteryear would have done such a thing, but some of Holmes’s ruthlessness was rubbing off on him. And when he’d written to her about his malicious gift, she’d responded with full-fledged approval.Well done, Ash. That is the only way to treat a man who framed you for murder.
“I’ve brought you more. A bottle of Sauternes and a pear tart.”
Bancroft sniffed. “For a pear tart, I would have preferred Riesling, but Sauternes would do.”
The wine had been decanted into an old-fashioned wine bag, and the pear tart, in its pasteboard box, had already been cut into small pieces to eliminate the need for knife or fork.
With an eagerness that his former self would have scorned, Bancroft tucked into the pear tart, only to look up a few seconds later. “This isn’t made by the woman on your estate.”
“No, it’s from the Reform Club.”
Bancroft sniffed again. “Lesser, but still acceptable.”
He luxuriated in a few more morsels of the pear tart. “You still haven’t said why you’ve come. I assume you didn’t simply wish to see me dine well.”
“No indeed. I’ve come to ask you about a certain someone.”
“Who?”
“We first spoke of him last summer. And you told me then, in no uncertain terms, never to be personally embroiled with him.”
Moriarty.
Bancroft frowned. “I believe I know of whom you speak. What happened? Did you go against my advice?”
“One could easily contend that I have been personally and inextricably enmeshed with that particular character ever since he subverted Lady Ingram against the Crown’s interests, but no, I have refrained from putting myself into his orbit. However, it often turns out that his reach is far greater than we anticipated. Perhaps you’ve read in the papers of my friend’s investigation last December?”
