Page 25 of Miss Moriarty, I Presume?
Charlotte might find herself with her back against a wall. Lord Ingram might find himself pushed down onto the steps...
“I have my things at number 18,” he said, his tone perfectly unexceptional. “I’ll stay there tonight.”
He only stood there. But with his physicality, remaining still was all he ever needed to do for her to be aware of every detail of his frame, from the gleam of lamplight on his dark hair, his even, open shoulders, to the slight turn in his body that gave the impression of contrapposto—dynamic poise.
She rose. “I’ll walk with you. Moriarty left a volume of Hermetic teachings and it’s still in the parlor at number 18.”
He opened the parlor door. “After you, Holmes.”
Don’t you wish to go up with me via the service stairs? Make a few preposterously libidinous stops along the way and then see me in those pink stockings afterward?
But no, he allowed her no pause on the way down, helped her into her coat with unnecessary efficiency, and then they were out of the back door, wending around the mews toward Upper Baker Street.
It was a bit difficult to bring up those licentious stockings when she felt as if she were being rushed after a departing train.
“Miss Lucinda and Master Carlisle aren’t in London,” she said in the end.
He had not gone to his town house to see them at bedtime, which meant he hadn’t brought them. But she also didn’t think he had left them behind in Derbyshire.
He looked ahead. “No. I’ve taken them somewhere out of the way.”
Upper Baker Street was deserted at this hour. A slight drizzle fell. Rust-colored light from streetlamps pooled in faintly glistening circles on the pavement. Her gaze flicked to the flat that housed Moriarty’s minions. Its windows were as dark all the others; no curtains fluttered, no shadows slithered.
But this did not mean that no one was observing.
“Miss Potter is with the children?” she continued with her questions.
“Yes.”
Miss Potter had been his governess, once upon a time, and had agreed to come out of retirement to look after Miss Lucinda and Master Carlisle.
“And Miss Yarmouth?”
Miss Yarmouth, the children’s previous governess, had, much to Charlotte’s amusement, proposed a marriage of convenience to her employer.
“Miss Yarmouth left for Australia weeks ago,” he said rather archly, “to join her cousin for a delightful future filled with wealthy suitors.”
“Let us wish her good hunting,” she murmured.
He hadn’t said where his children were, but now she wondered... “Lord Bancroft had a few properties here and there, didn’t he?”
Lord Bancroft was Lord Ingram’s disgraced brother, but his disgrace was known only to a few. For fear of alerting the general populace that something was amiss with Lord Bancroft’s retirement from public life, the Crown had not confiscated his properties.
“Correct. Bancroft’s holdings were entrusted to Remington and with his permission, I’ve put the children up at one of them.”
Lord Remington, another one of Lord Ingram’s elder brothers, was abroad most of the time, in charge of the queen’s clandestine services on the Subcontinent.
“Are you sure Moriarty doesn’t know about the place?”
Lady Ingram had spied for Moriarty.
Charlotte opened the door of number 18, and turned a little to look at her not-quite-lover.
Light from the nearest streetlamp threw his profile into sharp relief. He snorted. “Bancroft kept his own secrets better than he kept the Crown’s secrets. Lady Ingram didn’t know about this place, I didn’t, and not even Bancroft’s solicitors did.”
At number 18, on the floor above the parlor and “Sherlock” Holmes’s bedroom, there was another bedroom. Mrs. Watson had outfitted it in silks and florals, befitting Sherlock Holmes’s sister who had done so much for him. Charlotte had never stayed there but Mr. Marbleton had, on occasion. And it would be where Lord Ingram would spend the night.
He did not, however, head there directly, but came with her to the parlor. “I need to disassemble the Maxim gun. It wouldn’t be much use here.”
