Page 26 of A Ruse of Shadows
He made a show of looking them over carefully. “Thank you, miss, but these are not mine.”
“Oh.” She made her best crestfallen face. “I will leave them at the reception then.”
“I wish you a good evening, miss.” He inclined his head and left without a moment’s hesitation.
Always playing hard to get, her lover.
It was too late for tea and too early for dinner. So Charlotte, back in her hotel suite, rang for both.
She had just changed into a home dress when a knock came.
Taking advantage of Society’s exit from London, Charlotte andher friends had booked three side-by-side suites at the hotel, each with a private entrance. Between Lord Ingram’s suite and the one occupied by the ladies was an even larger one, the only one at the hotel that connected to the suites on both sides, meant to host a very large family or dignitaries who simply demanded more space.
This suite was currently taken by none other than Lawson, who played the part of a Manchester man of business. But as Lawson preferred his own lodgings behind Mrs. Watson’s house near Regent’s Park, this very nice suite mostly served as a corridor between Lord Ingram’s and the ladies’ quarters.
“Do excuse me, miss,” said an elderly voice on the other side of the connecting door. “I hope I am not too previous in calling on you. But perhaps I should take one more look at the glasses you found. You haven’t placed them with the reception yet, I take it?”
Charlotte sauntered to the door, unlatched it, and admitted her lover. “My, what a proper old gentleman you are.”
He snorted, an incongruous sound coming from such an ancient paragon. “Would you prefer if I were the sort of old man who leered at young women? No, never mind that, I remember now: You prefer great beauties such as Mr. Gregory.”
Mr. Gregory, a fellow traveler on the RMSProvence, had indeed been a great beauty. Charlotte batted her eyelashes. “Do I detect a note of jealousy, my lord?”
“A note?” He scoffed. “I have composed an entire symphony of jealousy. This is merely the overture. In fact, this might be only the orchestra tuning up.”
She held back a smile. She was not the liveliest or most responsive woman, but he moved her to mirth rather easily. “Oh my. How wrong you are. I am not interested in the loverly Mr. Gregorys of the world. It has always been the prim, repressed Lord Ingrams of the world for me.”
“Huh,” he said, walking to the sideboard to pour himself a glass of water from a carafe.
“However, that old gentleman in Paris that I encountered in acarriage…I am fascinated by him, too. I wonder if Monsieur Lord and Master secretly enjoys being tied up in bed.”
Lord Ingram spat out his water. Then he thought for a moment. “He might. That could be why he’s so grumpy. He’s always felt as if something has been missing in his life, but didn’t know what. And his lady wife, instead of understanding him better than he understands himself—and sourcing the best silken cords in Paris—is too busy ogling Footman Pierre of the ham-sized biceps.”
The smile that had been threatening to erupt upon Charlotte’s face did so at last. “I see the orchestra has finished tuning up and now we are in the opening bars ofLa Grande Symphonie de la Jalousie.”
He set down his glass, closed the distance between them, and embraced her. “Are you all right, Holmes?”
She hugged him back. “I would prefer a case in which I had no personal stake—the little conundrum from Inspector Treadles, for instance. But I’m all right. How can I not be, in the company of handsome old men?”
“Huh,” he said again, at her use of the plural noun, and kissed her.
?“My dear, I’m back!” Mrs. Watson called out.
She pushed open the door to the parlor only to see Miss Holmes step back from the embrace of an older gentleman.
A choked sound emerged from Mrs. Watson’s throat. Before she could comprehend what was happening, the older gentleman half bowed and said, “Good afternoon, ma’am.”
He spoke in Lord Ingram’s voice. Mrs. Watson gasped again. She rushed forward, took him by the shoulders, and peered at his face.
The previous autumn, in experimenting with various makeup techniques that would result in a better disguise, she’d discovered that bits of crumpled tissue paper could be used to simulate wrinkles, when brushed over with a formulation made by Miss Longstead.
Miss Longstead, not resting on her laurels, made further modifications and came up with a new solution that could be layered ontothe face in sufficient thickness to alter the shape of the nose or the height of the cheekbones. Which was what Lord Ingram had done, in addition to a sharp-tipped beard that suggested a different jaw structure from his own.
“My goodness, I couldn’t tell that it was you!” Mrs. Watson marveled.
Lord Ingram kissed her on both cheeks. “You should have seen me in Paris,” he said wryly. “My disguise there was exceptional.”
The food Miss Charlotte ordered came, and they sat down around the tea table. Mrs. Watson had little idea what she was eating. She barely even kicked herself for walking in on the young lovers. As soon as Lord Ingram had received an account of the meetings with Lord Bancroft and Mrs. Claiborne, she set down her silverware.
