“You frighten me, Kat. You truly do.” He lifted my hand to his lips, kissing my palm through the glove. “Promise me you will be careful. Send word to me through my dratted brother, whom you have recruited, it seems.”
“Mr. Fielding has been very helpful.”
“Errol never does anything that won’t benefit him. Please remember this.”
“I have taken his measure, believe me.”
I wished I could stand here on the stairwell for as long as I liked, speaking to Daniel and having him kiss my hand. But people walked by on Mount Street, carriages creaked not far from us, and it was late. I’d have to rise in the morning and prepare breakfast for the household. Working-class women did not have the luxury of lying abed, even after an evening of tragedy.
“Good night,” I said softly. “I must beg you to take care. The men who struck in Dublin were brutal.”
“I know.” Daniel caressed my cheek. “Hence my mission. You are a good woman, Kat Holloway. Sleep well.”
I knew I would not, but I appreciated the sentiment. I kissed his cheek, withdrew from his grasp, and moved around him in the darkness down the stairs to the kitchen door.
* * *
* * *
I slept poorly, as I’d suspected I would. I could not banish the image of Erica’s gray face, nor her weak whisper, Henry. Please look after him for me . . .
“I will,” I said quietly to the darkness. “As soon as I find out who on earth Henry is.”
I rose and washed my face in chilly water, pouring the waste into my slop pail, which I carried with me to the kitchen.
I’d have to discover exactly which foods both Sir Arthur and Erica had consumed, I thought as I trudged down the many flights. Plus what sort of poison it was and how a person would obtain it, let alone add it to the food.
Neither Jonathan nor George had been sick at all, but Jonathan had been very upset that Erica had taken ill. Remorse because he’d not meant the poison for her? Or more tender feelings, as I’d speculated last night? Harriet had eaten only a few nibbles of strawberries, she’d said, but if she’d known which food was tainted, she could have simply avoided it.
I tried to think it through clinically, but the knot of worry in my stomach tightened whenever I realized how easily Cynthia could have been poisoned. If she’d decided to take the train with Lady Covington’s family instead of joining me, she might have enthusiastically partaken of the offerings in the hamper.
Downstairs, Tess, oblivious to the happenings of the night, was her usual cheery self as she kneaded dough for bread. “Did you enjoy the Crystal Palace again, Mrs. H.? Could you understand a thing Mr. Thanos said?”
She was the only one in the kitchen at the moment—Charlie had lit the fire in the stove but was nowhere in sight, and Elsie hadn’t come down yet. I quietly told Tess what had happened.
Tess’s face lost color as she listened. “Oh, Mrs. H. How very awful. What are you going to do?”
“What I have to.” I tied on my apron and approached my table to beat up a batter for crumpets. “Find out who used the poison and stop them.”
“Good for you.” Tess continued her kneading, flour scattering across the table. “What can I do to help?”
I hardly wanted Tess to be in the position, like Cynthia, to be hurt by this poisoner, but I knew she wanted to see things put right. “You could ask Caleb to keep you informed about what he knows about Mrs. Hume’s death. There is sure to be an autopsy and an inquest. I know he is only a beat constable, but he can find out things, can’t he?”
“Oh, Caleb’s a good one for gossip.” Tess finished with the dough, plopped it into a bowl, and covered it with a towel. “I don’t mean he spreads tales or that sort of thing. But he tells me.”
Her confidence in him was touching if naive. “I would not want him to get into any trouble, so he is not to go nosing about.”
“I will explain. Caleb’s good if someone tells him exactly what to do.”
I hid a smile, the first one that had crossed my lips since Erica’s death.
We continued to cook breakfast—boiled eggs and toasted crumpets, plenty of bacon, and leftover meat pies. I poured off cream into a jug that I set in a cold part of the larder to save for an idea for custards based on the flavors of the Lesser Antilles. I’d come across a vendor from Antigua as I wandered the markets a few months ago and tasted a custard flavored with cinnamon, anise, and coconut. I’d long wished to replicate it, and after many notes and a few failures, I thought I’d cracked the formula.
When I was upset, I let myself grow obsessed with cooking and creating recipes. Some part of me found it soothing to focus on exact measurements and techniques, and trying to discern ingredients in a dish I’d never made before solely by tasting it. Chopping, kneading, stirring, basting—all cleared my mind and allowed me to unravel other problems.
I would have to find an excuse to go to Park Lane so I could quiz the cook, Mrs. Gamble, about exactly what had been in the food hamper and through whose hands it had passed before it left the house. I had a tiny idea about where the poison had come from in the first place, but I couldn’t be certain until I returned to Lady Covington’s house.
Mrs. Redfern entered the kitchen as Tess and I finished buttering the last of the crumpets to be sent up for breakfast. Tess licked butter from her fingers and reached for a towel.
“Mrs. Holloway.”
Mrs. Redfern’s quiet tone caught my attention. I paused from my wipe-down of the kitchen table and gazed at her inquiringly.
“I do not like tittle-tattle, as you know, but I must tell you that some has begun about you.”
As I stared at her, Tess burst out, “What sort of tittle-tattle? Mrs. Holloway never done nuffink. Who has been saying so?”
I hushed her. “Please explain, Mrs. Redfern.”
Mrs. Redfern flushed, uncomfortable. Her discomfort rose as Mr. Davis strolled in, newspaper in hand. He’d heard us, because he raised his brows at Mrs. Redfern and said, “Yes, I think you ought to explain.”
“I am only passing on knowledge,” Mrs. Redfern returned with a sniff. “One of Mrs. Bywater’s neighbors came to her early this morning to relay that she’d seen you, Mrs. Holloway, in the arms of a man. On the stairwell outside the kitchen. A scoundrel, she claims, though she could hardly see what sort of man he was in the dark.”
My stomach knotted in dismay. Mrs. Redfern gazed at me sternly while Mr. Davis fell silent, but before I could stammer an explanation, Tess interrupted.
“What neighbor?” she demanded. “I bet it was old Mrs. Beadle, what moved into the house next door. She’s a busybody if I’ve ever seen one. She dismisses maids left and right, after she spies on them.”