A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock #2)

Lord Ingram smiled, amused by her question. “No. I’ve danced half the night, but never all night.”

They were in the nursery, back from church, and about to have their Sunday dinner together. Carlisle, his younger child, was playing intently with a boxful of wooden blocks. Lucinda enjoyed the blocks as much as Carlisle did, but for the moment she was not yet done with her plants.

Small terra-cotta pots crowded the sills of the nursery’s three windows, holding a dozen different seedlings. Lucinda had been observing them for the past week, measuring their height, counting the number of leaves, and making drawings in her notebook to help her better recognize the plants at different stages of growth.

She wrote down the numbers of leaves for a sunflower seedling. “Why haven’t you danced all night?”

“Because dances and balls usually don’t last that long. By three o’clock in the morning most people want to be in bed, even those who love dancing.”

Lucinda counted leaves on another sunflower seedling, the last of her experimental subjects. “I want to try dancing all night. Miss Yarmouth said I could once I’m married—she said I could do anything I wanted once I’m married—but Mamma said it was all nonsense.”

It had been a long time since Lord Ingram asked his wife what she thought of marriage, either in general or in specific. “You’ll be able to do more of what you want when you are older, whether you are married or not.”

“Miss Yarmouth said I can be married at sixteen. Mamma said she won’t let me. She said she’ll have a word with Miss Yarmouth.” Lucinda looked up, worried. “Is she going to dismiss Miss Yarmouth?”

Lord Ingram watered the last seedling—that was his task as her “prime assistant,” as she’d dubbed him. “I shouldn’t think so. But Miss Yarmouth’s idea of marriage . . . I don’t know anyone else who thinks of marriage as unlimited freedom.”

“Mamma said I might hate it. And I won’t be able to unmarry.”

Who recoiled more from the state of their marriage, Lord or Lady Ingram? Until this moment, Lord Ingram had never been able to decide on an answer. Now he knew it was his wife, by a hair.

“It definitely isn’t easy to unmarry.”

An annulment would render his children illegitimate. And even if he’d had grounds for a divorce, it was a breathtakingly scandalous—and damaging—process.

Lucinda closed her notebook. “Why do Mamma and Miss Yarmouth think so differently about the same thing?”

“It’s like asparagus. You can’t get enough of it; Carlisle hardly ever touches his. Nothing is for everyone.”

“What about you? What do you think about it?”

He’d been expecting the question—this was where the conversation had been inexorably headed. Still he flinched inwardly.

He set aside the watering can, sank down to one knee, and placed his hands on his daughter’s shoulders. “I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. Do you know why?”

She shook her head.

“Because it brought me you—and your brother.” He kissed her forehead. “Now let’s eat. I hear we’ll have asparagus again.”



“Something has come up,” said Miss Holmes as she served herself a generous portion from the trifle bowl at the center of the table.

They had been talking about Penelope’s friends from medical school who were shortly to arrive in London. Penelope was intent on organizing a tour of the Scottish Highlands. Mrs. Watson, in between listening to her ideas, pondered whether she ought not to make some changes to the house’s public rooms. They were so very somber, full of deep blues and joyless browns. Practical to be sure—the soot in London would turn everything dark and grimy in time. But perhaps a new wallpaper with leafy designs on a stone-hued background might serve as a compromise?

Miss Holmes’s announcement yanked her out of this pleasant reverie of colors and patterns. “What is it?”

Miss Holmes spooned a whipped-cream-cocooned blueberry into her mouth. “At four o’clock a new client will be calling. She knows me. I have a sneaking suspicion that she might also know Mrs. Watson by sight, even if they have never been formally introduced. So Miss Redmayne, provided she can keep a secret, must take on the part of Sherlock Holmes’s sister.”

Penelope’s dessert spoon hovered above her own serving of trifle. She glanced at Mrs. Watson. They had come to a stalemate concerning the role Penelope would or wouldn’t take with regard to Sherlock Holmes. Miss Holmes’s request broke the deadlock.

Mrs. Watson grew alarmed—Miss Holmes would not give up her neutrality unless something extraordinary had happened. “I thought we had no appointments for the day. Who is this client?”

“Lady Ingram,” said Miss Holmes.

Placidly.

Mrs. Watson exchanged another look with Penelope, now slack-jawed in astonishment.

Three years ago, during intermission at the Savoy Theater, Lord Ingram had come to Mrs. Watson’s box to pay his respects. As he was about to leave, her eyes happened to alight on Miss Holmes in the auditorium, headed for her own seat.

Oh, look at that young woman in rose moiré, Mrs. Watson had exclaimed. She must be the most darling girl in attendance tonight.

Lord Ingram glanced down. That’s Charlotte Holmes, the greatest eccentric in attendance tonight.

Mrs. Watson had been incredulous. That sweet young thing? Are you sure, sir?

Her friend had smiled slightly. I’m quite certain, madam.

The theater’s electric lights dimmed—the next act was about to begin. Lord Ingram took his leave. But Mrs. Watson remembered that smile, a fond smile that said, The stories I could tell. No doubt the stories would have been delightful—yet Mrs. Watson had felt strangely dejected for the rest of the evening.

It was only the next day that she had been able to articulate why she had been so affected: In that smile had been a wistfulness that encroached on regret.

Mrs. Watson had not brought up Miss Charlotte Holmes again. Neither had Lord Ingram, until he came to see her the evening of Miss Holmes’s unfortunate “incident,” and asked for her help.

Mrs. Watson knew then that her instincts had been correct all those years ago. She had no doubt that Miss Holmes reciprocated Lord Ingram’s sentiments: When these two young people had been alone in the same room, despite their reserve—or perhaps because of it—the tension had been palpable. Mrs. Watson, sitting in the next room and pretending to look after the nonexistent Sherlock Holmes, had departed hastily, her own face flushed from the latent heat of their unacted-upon desires.

How then, did Miss Holmes manage to utter Lady Ingram’s name with such ease—such casualness, almost? Even Mrs. Watson, who considered herself not ungenerous of spirit, could not speak or even think of that woman without a swell of hostility.

But this was not the question she posed to Miss Holmes. “Lady Ingram does not realize that you are Sherlock Holmes?”

“It would appear not.”

“Did she say why she wished for a meeting in her letter?”