A Conspiracy in Belgravia

by Sherry Thomas

  At this, Lord Bancroft downed another cup of tea.

  Lord Ingram was tight-lipped and meticulous. But his wife, however estranged, lived in the same household. He kept a diary, which, even if written entirely in code and with everyone important referred to by aliases at all times . . . Well, codes were made to be broken and codes suitable for frequent usage even more so. And should he be away and the diary out of the house, he still wrote his children frequently and the envelopes would give his wife a good idea as to the locations where he carried out assignments.

  When he stopped trusting her with his affections, he had believed that would be enough to keep him safe.

  Charlotte stirred her tea. “I visited my father’s solicitor a second time to find out when exactly Lady Ingram went to see him. And the answer was three weeks before she came to see me. In Mr. Finch’s old village, a man had come asking for his news at about the same time. I could make the argument that she passed on the information to Moriarty and he had sent the man. But that would be only speculation.

  “I mulled a plan to speak to ladies Avery and Somersby, to check the age of the rumor that Lady Ingram had once fancied someone unsuitable. But even if I found out, and the rumor turned out to have been recent, it would only give me more circumstantial evidence.

  “There was, however, one way to test whether she worked for Moriarty: If she did, she would know how to decode a message from him.

  “I spoke to Lord Ingram. He was, needless to say, highly displeased with me, from the first revelation that I’d tried to help Lady Ingram track down her erstwhile beau, to my final suggestion that he do what he could to find out whether she had pledged her allegiance to someone the crown considers an enemy and a threat.”

  Little wonder. The last time he’d put his wife to the test, he’d found out that she’d married him only for his money.

  Charlotte reached for the muffin again. “And the rest you know.”

  Lord Bancroft’s lips curled humorlessly. “Did it not occur to you, Miss Holmes, to give me this information last we met?”

  Charlotte met his gaze squarely. “I owed Lord Ingram an immense debt of gratitude. I do not believe he would have appreciated what you would have done to the mother of his children.”

  “The mother of his children is now a threat to us all.”

  “I’m sure he took that into consideration.”

  At this Lord Bancroft rose, went to the sideboard, and served himself a healthy draught of Sherlock Holmes’s best whisky. “I do not know all the rest. I do not know, for example, Mr. Finch’s current whereabouts.”

  Charlotte took a ladylike sip of her tea. “Of that I haven’t the slightest idea either.”

  Lord Ingram had always said that she was the greatest liar he had ever met, a once-in-a-generation talent. Perhaps all the untruths she had ever disseminated had been in preparation for this moment.

  “But I can tell you this. I believe Moriarty has already regained his missing dossier. Remember the look on the dead man’s face? That’s the expression of a man who was told his life would be spared if he’d but give them what they were looking for—only to be strangled for his trouble anyway.

  “Not to mention that the last time I saw Lady Ingram, she had changed her mind about finding Mr. Finch—and this from someone who had been nearly frantic before. Which tells me that Moriarty’s interest in Mr. Finch had lessened. Mr. Finch might still have a target on his back, but now that Moriarty has his dossier back, he’s no longer in such an unholy hurry to find and punish a traitor.”

  Lies, of course. Lady Ingram had seen the back of the dead man’s picture, on which was written the location and the date of the murder, when she had taken that second look. She would have realized who the man was. And that deliberately or unwittingly, Charlotte had linked together Mr. Finch and Moriarty. That was why she had a sudden about-face, renouncing all further interest in Mr. Finch.

  And the dead man’s expression could just as well be that of a man who had told what Charlotte knew to be the real truth, that his friend was the one who had the dossier, and was then eliminated anyway.

  Lord Bancroft studied her for a long moment. Charlotte held his gaze, praying her usual expression of sweet blankness held.

  “Sometimes a man must make sacrifices for his country,” said Lord Bancroft finally. “My brother did his part—I can scarcely do any less.”

  She raised a brow.

  “Per our agreement, if I reiterated my proposal of marriage today, you were to be obliged to answer in the affirmative. But you are too valuable a woman to waste on matrimony. I would not have Lady Bancroft be concerned with the matters that come before me—but you, you I need in that capacity. You may consider my proposal withdrawn, Miss Holmes.”

  He took his leave. When she was alone in the room, she sighed. Saved from marriage with Lord Bancroft because he couldn’t envision a world in which his wife saved him from a traitor in their midst.

  Or because he realized that she had absolutely no compunction about lying to his face while looking him in the eye.

  It had been more than twelve hours and Inspector Treadles still didn’t know how he felt about the Richard Hayward murder case having been declared closed from above.

  On the one hand, damned interference. On the other hand, now he no longer needed to find out whether he was a craven weasel who would lie to make himself look good.

  On the third hand—clocks possessed three hands, didn’t they?—had Sherlock Holmes had something to do with this? He hadn’t seen Miss Holmes except that once in Hounslow. Nor had he heard from Lord Ingram. Yet for some reason, it had ever been a niggling doubt at the edge of his mind that as he trudged through the case, his nose to the ground, they had been investigating it on a far higher plane.

  It took him some time to realize that his wife was not next to him in bed. They used to sleep snuggled together, like two kittens in a basket. But for some days now, he’d slept facing away from her, citing a persistently blocked nose that wouldn’t let him breathe if he lay in the other direction.

  He sat up at the same time she came into the room, fully dressed, her hat already on, her face somber.

  “Barnaby died in the night. I’m on my way to see Eleanor. And then I’ll have to stop for some mourning clothes.”

  He stared at her, unwilling to understand what he had heard. “Does that mean—does that mean—Cousins Manufacturing—”

  “Yes, it’ll come to me. But I can’t think of business now—there’s so much to do.” She leaned down and kissed him on his cheek. “Good day, Inspector. I’ll see you in the evening.”

  He remained frozen in place for a long time, then he dropped his head into his hands. She had what she’d always wanted—and he had never felt smaller or more lonely.

  Lord Ingram was not at all surprised to see Charlotte Holmes walking up the drive to his cottage on the Devon Coast. The children, who had been playing in the garden, happily greeted her. She patted them rather awkwardly and seemed relieved when they took the sweets she offered and scampered off to enjoy them in their own secret corners.

  “I’m afraid all I can offer for your tea is buttered toast,” he told her.

  “At one point this summer, buttered toast would have been the height of luxury, if I could have afforded any,” she said cheerfully. “I’m always happy to have buttered toast.”

  He excused himself to speak with the cottage’s caretaker. When he returned, she stood at the edge of the garden, her hands on the rails, admiring the view of the Hangman cliffs.

  “Beautiful panorama.”

  “It is.”

  She glanced at him. “How are the children?”

  “They seem all right—for now.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “That she fell ill and the doctors recommended that she be immediately admitted to a sanatorium in S
witzerland.”

  “Did they ask if they could go see her?”

  “They did. But so far they have accepted that for their own safety, they shouldn’t be near her—risks of infection, et cetera.”

  She nodded.

  The sea soughed at the foot of the cliffs. Gulls cawed and wheeled overhead. A breeze blew, filling his senses with smells of salt, fresh grass, and wildflowers. On the far side of the small bay, sheep meandered across green headlands, tiny balls of white fluff.

  She glanced at him again. “And you?”

  He half shook his head. “I don’t know. Sometimes I’m glad all the deception has ended. Sometimes I wish I could have remained ignorant forever. But then I think of how she must be faring this minute . . .” He closed his eyes for a moment, as if that could shut away the turbulence. The guilt. “I still have my children, my brothers, my friends, all the comforts in life—I’ve lost nothing except perhaps the last of my delusions about her. But she, she had to give up everything to retain her freedom. And who can say what kind of freedom it will be, serving a man like Moriarty.”

  “A woman who has nothing left to lose can prove dangerous.”

  “I’m on my guard—it’s a virtual certainty she’ll come for the children.”

  She took his hand and squeezed it. But when she would have let go, he held on. “You know what I meant, don’t you, when I said that I wished I’d never met you?”

  “I think so. I was the harbinger of the worst news in your life. The one who informed you that your children would lose their mother.”

  She was too kind to mention that she was also the one to make him see that his wife had been responsible for the betrayal of esteemed colleagues. That in marrying her, he had committed a far greater error than he could ever have imagined.

  “I apologize,” he said.

  “Apology accepted.”

  He let go of her hand—the caretaker was on his way with tea and buttered toast.

  “Thank you for listening to me, by the way,” she said, “when you didn’t wish to hear a single word.”

  He would always listen, when she had something to say. That he did not voice aloud, because she already knew.

  Tea was laid out under the dappled shade of a large whitebeam. A casual observer would have remarked on the rustic prettiness of the scene. A gingham tablecloth over an old picnic table; the chubby, unadorned tea service; a vase of wildflowers, purple, white, and the palest pink.

  He wished he could enjoy the setting. He wished he hadn’t been so blind. He wished he could wake up tomorrow and his only problem would be a cold, quietly hostile marriage.

  He poured for Holmes and asked, because he’d rather think about something other than the shambles his life had become, “Would you really have said yes to Bancroft’s proposal, because he gave you the example you needed?”

  “It was a gamble. I wagered that I would prove to be right and rid Bancroft of a great danger to his organization. In which case he would owe me and be in no position to enforce a ridiculous bargain.”

  Her voice was calm and uninflected, but he had the sensation that she hadn’t been nearly so sure. That he heard a relief equal to that of a mountain climber who had been saved from the ravine by her rope, and who was even now still breathing hard.

  “But that’s all moot,” she went on. “Bancroft has withdrawn his suit.”

  “He has?” This was news to him. “Why?”

  “Apparently I’m too valuable to waste on matrimony—and I thought I had terrible opinions on marriage.” She selected a slice of buttered toast. “Now let me ask you something. Were you the one who recommended to Bancroft that he propose to me again?”

  “The exact opposite—I advised against it.” The memory made him smile slightly. “When Bancroft told me he wished to try his luck again, I said he should court you without asking for your hand.”

  “Why not?” she asked, spreading jam on the toast.

  “No one who asks you to marry him will ever be successful. When you’re ready to marry, you’ll tap the fellow on the shoulder and make the request yourself.”

  Her jam spoon stilled. “I understand a little better now how people become unnerved to be known so precisely.” The breeze lifted a loose tendril of her hair and pulled it across her lips. She brushed away the offending lock. “But I’m glad someone knows me to this extent.”

  He raised a brow. “Someone?”

  She looked toward the sea, shining and almost as blue as the sky, before her eyes met his. “All right. I’m glad you know me to this extent.”

  Livia couldn’t stop talking about her story. “And Sherlock Holmes—my Sherlock Holmes—he’s taken on a life of his own. I don’t think he eats. I don’t think he sleeps. He’s quite the rude, superior fellow. And for the life of me, I can’t get enough of writing him telling other people they’re idiots.”

  “I know someone who would love to tell a great many people that they’re idiots,” said Charlotte.

  “Me?” Livia resisted the urge to giggle, but she couldn’t stop the giddy feeling spreading over her. “Goodness, I think you’re right.”

  In the light of the carriage lanterns, Charlotte smiled. “And you aren’t particularly enamored of either food or sleep.”

  It was Livia’s last night in London. Somehow she’d finagled permission from her parents to attend an evening lecture. The lecture wasn’t the point. The point was to meet Charlotte there and say good-bye to her beloved sister.

  They’d sat in a tea shop that was open late until they could no longer reasonably pretend that the lecture hadn’t ended yet. And now they were being driven home by Mott. Livia was too bashful—and fearful, and overjoyed—to mention the not-brother who had sent her the beautiful bookmark, so she asked, “Are you sure it’s safe for you to be so close to the house?”

  “Ah, I see now I haven’t told you about my encounter with Father at Mr. Gillespie’s office.”

  As Charlotte recounted what had happened, Livia alternated between gasping and cackling. “So, all that training with canne de combat, and you end up using a derringer.”

  “One must be adaptable.”

  “And what exactly are you trying to extract from Father with your hundred quid a year?”

  “You, of course,” said Charlotte softly. “You and Bernadine.”

  And just like that, Livia’s eyes filled. She wrapped her arms around Charlotte. “I’m sorry. I know it makes you antsy to be hugged too long. But I’ll miss you badly. And I so want your plan to succeed—and I’m so afraid of wanting it too much!”

  Charlotte patted her a few times on the back. “It’ll be all right. We’ll find a way.”

  Livia forced herself to let go. The carriage came to a stop. She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and took Charlotte’s hands in her own. “I believe you. I believe we’ll find a way.”

  Charlotte had told Livia that Mott would take her home. Mott, however, proceeded directly to the mews, opened the doors of the carriage house, lit the lamps, and drove the brougham inside.

  Exactly as she’d instructed him in the note she’d pressed into his hand, when he’d helped her up into the carriage.

  The carriage house doors were closed and bolted. Mott pulled off his gloves and opened the door of the town coach. “Miss Charlotte.”

  She allowed him to help her down and studied him as if seeing him for the first time. “Hello, brother.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Kerry Donovan, Roxanne Jones, Sara-Jayne Poletti, the art department, and everyone else at Berkley for their top-notch work.

  Kristin Nelson, who handles everything with aplomb.

  Janine Ballard, the best critique partner under the sun.

  Jeff Lord, who generously shared his knowledge of historical martial arts.

  My husband, who tells everyone he mee
ts about the Lady Sherlock books.

  Everyone who has been so enthusiastic about A Study in Scarlet Women.

  And you, if you are reading this, thank you. Thank you for everything.

  Don’t miss the first Lady Sherlock mystery, which is available now!

  A Study in Scarlet Women

  With her inquisitive mind, Charlotte Holmes has never felt comfortable with the demureness expected of the fairer sex in upper-class society. But she never thought that she would become a social pariah, an outcast fending for herself on the mean streets of London.

  When the city is struck by a trio of unexpected deaths and suspicion falls on her sister and her father, Charlotte is desperate to find the true culprits and clear the family name. She’ll have help from friends new and old—a kindhearted widow, a police inspector, and a man who has long loved her. But in the end, it will be up to Charlotte, under the assumed name Sherlock Holmes, to challenge society’s expectations and match wits against an unseen mastermind.

  Photo by Jennifer Sparks Harriman

  USA Today bestselling author Sherry Thomas is one of the most acclaimed historical fiction authors writing today, having won the RITA® Award two years running and appeared on innumerable “Best of the Year” lists, including those of Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, Dear Author, and All About Romance. Her novels include A Study in Scarlet Women, first in the Lady Sherlock series; My Beautiful Enemy; and The Luckiest Lady in London.

  She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and sons. Visit her website at sherrythomas.com.

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