Page 70 of A Ruse of Shadows
Mrs. Watson was incredulous. “Then who killed him afterwards? Lord Bancroft, to avenge his former mistress?”
Holmes took a sip of water. “My lord Bancroft was quick to declare his former mistress utterly irrelevant when I conveyed news of her demise.”
“Then what? Mrs. Claiborne killed Mr. Underwood, and Lord Bancroft killed her for Mr. Underwood?”
“This is a more believable version. If Lord Bancroft is willing to kidnap my sister to force me to help him locate Mr. Underwood, then presumably he would also be angry enough at whomever killed him to take vengeance.”
“Does he have the manpower to do something like that?” asked Lord Ingram. “It would require him to have had Mrs. Claiborne followed, wouldn’t it? And if he’d already deemed her irrelevant, then why would he squander such resources on her?”
Mrs. Watson rubbed her forehead, then she shot to her feet.
“Good gracious, my lord, do you remember that when Miss Charlotte visited the accountant, she learned that there had been a Mrs. Anderson who had asked about Mr. Underwood?”
She turned to Holmes. “Do you think, Miss Charlotte, that wehaven’t been dealing with Mrs. Claiborne at all but with the other woman?”
?“Ash, are you thinking longingly of spending some time in Stern Hollow, with your ‘broken’ limb propped up, so that you don’t need to do anything at all from sunrise to sunset?”
Supper was finished and Lord Ingram had a rare few hours before he had to head out again. He had chosen to spend the time in bed with Holmes. But much as she had lamented earlier, they lay fully clothed, the sides of their heads touching, both half-asleep.
At her slow, slightly slurred question, he chuckled sleepily. “You’re speaking of yourself, Holmes, with your feet on an ottoman and a plate of cake by your side.Iwould like to do some riding, which alas I cannot at Stern Hollow, not as long as I’m still supposed to be recovering from my ‘accident.’ ”
She chortled and then said, after a moment of silence, “We’re almost done with all our preparations. Can you believe that?”
“No, I cannot believe it. My eyes tell me I’ve crossed off almost every item on my original task list, but every day I come up with more things to check and to do.”
Because he could not accept that they could ever be adequately prepared.
“What if we manage to come out of this in one piece?”
He opened his eyes. “Do you remember the gate at Stern Hollow that gave me so much trouble?”
She turned onto her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows. “The one near the little cottage for your children? The remote wooden one for which you had to replace fifty feet of estate boundary and then design a new wrought iron gate yourself? The gate you never saw that ended up taking three weeks of your time?”
Holmes remembered everything one ever told her—even things one didn’t remember ever telling her. Therefore, she had to recollect that the subject of the gate had come up while he was being treatedas a murder suspect, in answer to a question Chief Inspector Fowler had asked him about whether he enjoyed looking after his estate, acknowledged by all and sundry to be one of the fairest in the land, something worth cherishing.
But his answer, at the time, had been one of disillusionment. Not with Stern Hollow in particular but with his life in general. He had been foundering. The life he’d thought he wanted—and achieved—had turned out to be a mirage. And he had been going through the motions, fulfilling his obligations without knowing what to do next, when what he had thought to be the perfect path had led him straight over a cliff.
“I’ve seen the new gate a few times since, actually, since it’s rather close to the little cottage. And I’ve come to realize that I like it very well. It’s handsome and sturdy, and it opens and closes smoothly—it’s everything a gate ought to be.”
She listened attentively, no longer looking sleepy at all.
“So I’ve been thinking of late that if only troublesome gates were my biggest problems, I would be a very happy man indeed.”
Because he had found out, as she had, that sometimes one discovered a new world beyond the precipice, beyond the plunge. He was relieved to be divorced, relieved not to have to keep up appearances, relieved that he needed never again measure himself against any sort of perceived perfection.
He no longer felt tied down by his estate, because it was never the estate that had tied him down but his own unachievable expectations. Now he looked forward to his daily life—to the peace and quiet of Stern Hollow, the laughter and chatter of his children, and letters from Holmes several times a week, compact, reassuring little envelopes in his breast pocket.
And he looked forward equally to the less quotidian experiences.
“I’m glad you like the gate,” she murmured. “I’ve seen the gate, and it is a worthy gate indeed.”
?Her lover slept soundly, the travel alarm clock on the nightstand set to wake him up in an hour and a half.
Charlotte placed a hand on his sternum and felt the warm cambric of his shirt, the steady rise and fall of his chest with every breath. He had done so much. In the past few days, in addition to all his other tasks, he had searched deep into various archives for her and taken another trip to Torquay to make sure that old Mrs. Calder was still happy as a clam on her seaside holiday.
The man stared at the closing door.
The painting was finished some time ago, and he suspected that she knew it.
