Miss Charlotte took another bite of her pie. “Let’s disregard Miss Baxter for a moment. Do you believe that Moriarty sent us to the Garden of Hermopolis solely for Miss Baxter’s sake?”
Lord Ingram shook his head. Mrs. Watson, feeling a chill between her shoulder blades, slowly shook her head too.
“So we agree that he also has a purpose with regard to us. Do you suppose he has accomplished his purpose?”
The chill between Mrs. Watson’s shoulder blades crept downward and wrapped itself around her spine. “No,” she made herself say.
Miss Charlotte took a sip of water from her canteen. “Then no matter what we hope for, and no matter how logical our hopes appear, Moriarty isn’t done with us yet.”
* * *
The morning after his second night at 18 Upper Baker Street, Lord Ingram woke up with Holmes’s hand draped over his chest.
He turned his head.
Their first night in this bedroom, they’d stayed up far too late and in the morning had been jolted upright at the same time by the insistent drilling of the alarm clock. So this would be the first time he saw her asleep.
It was still early, and she had most of her face buried in her pillow. He could just make out the shape of one ear amidst her tousled hair, barely long enough to hold a curl.
He placed his hand upon hers. She had him in a very loose hold, her body not quite touching his. But he was happy. When he was younger, he did not know how to love except to hold on tightly, so very, very tightly. But with Holmes, he was beginning to see that perhaps space did not always translate into distance.
That her hand upon his chest might convey as much attachment as someone else with all her limbs wrapped around him.
Of course, this might be wishful thinking on his part. Holmes’s heart remained ever mysterious, like those parts of the ocean too fathomless even for the fictional Nautilus.
Or the great depths of her heart could simply be filled with longing for cake.
He smiled, kissed her on her exposed ear, and got up, untangling one fuchsia stocking from around himself. He had better not recall the sight of those stockings on her . . .
Reaching down to the nightstand for his watch, he instead picked up a ring-like object. Holmes, better prepared last night, had brought not only the stockings, but a small silk bag full contraceptive devices. As they’d lain panting, about to drift off to sleep, she’d reached into the bag, took out the ring, and said, “Oh, I forgot to have you try this on.”
In his drowsiness, it had taken him two seconds to recognize the object for what it was. He might very well have mistaken it for a ring that fell off a set of harness, were it not for her words and the circumstances under which it had been presented.
“Oh, it’s too small,” he said.
“Is it?” Her words were slowing, but still conveyed her surprise.
“Probably not,” he answered, grinning sleepily. “But I just wanted to say that.”
He grinned again at the recollection, put the prurient object back in the small silk bag, finished dressing, and left the room.
They had arrived in London to two notes, one from Miss Olivia, needing to see Holmes, the other a message from Ellen Bailey, the maid who had worked at the Snowham inn where Mr. Marbleton had stayed, and whom they had not been able to speak to earlier because she had followed her new mistress to London. But now Ellen Bailey had returned to Snowham, as her mistress had concluded her business in town.
Holmes would remain in London to meet with Moriarty’s representative and Miss Olivia; Lord Ingram would head out once more to Snowham, this time accompanied by Mrs. Watson.
On his way to the domestic offices in the basement of 18 Upper Baker Street, where a darkroom had been set up, he saw that various letters and circulars had come through the mail slot and landed inside the front door. Among them was a letter that did not have a stamp—it had been hand-delivered.
From A. de Lacey.
He checked on the negatives that had developed overnight in the basement darkroom and went back upstairs with de Lacey’s missive. With her eyes closed, Holmes opened the envelope, and then, with one eye half open, scanned the note, handed it to him, and burrowed under the blanket again. He read the note and saw that she could indeed sleep some more. With a small laugh, he set the alarm clock for her, placed the note under the alarm clock, kissed her one more time, and left.
Over breakfast at Mrs. Watson’s, the dear lady kept winking at him. He could be shameless with Holmes, but couldn’t be as brazen before Mrs. Watson. So he kept his face lowered, his gaze on his plate—and ate with an unusually robust appetite.
It wasn’t until they were in the carriage, where servants could not stumble upon private conversation, that she said, “I know we spoke of potential pitfalls, my dear. Still, I must say being in love agrees with you.”
“I rather like it myself.”
It made him shy to have his emotional state commented upon. But what wouldn’t he give for the biggest topic on this day to be his heated affair with Holmes.
Mrs. Watson teased him some more, but eventually fell quiet. She watched the streets pass by outside—shops were opening, greengrocers inspected vegetables that had just arrived from the countryside, cooks and kitchen maids darted in and out of bakeries, butchers’, and cheesemongers’.
Then she looked at him and sighed, a heavy sound. “I will not lie. Last night I lay in bed and wondered whether Miss Charlotte and I shouldn’t have gone directly to Southampton and booked a passage overseas.”
Lord Ingram felt himself grow tenser. “The same thought occurred to Holmes, I believe. Last night she asked me what the weather in Andalusia is like this time of the year.”
More than once they had talked about a long trip abroad, he and Holmes. But the discussion had always been in vague terms, the voyage more a metaphor for the future than an undertaking for which one sketched out an itinerary and packed one’s steamer trunks.
Perhaps the time for that trip had come.
Mrs. Watson wrapped her arms around her reticule. “I believe I would like to see Andalusia, too,” she murmured.
“We should prepare,” he said. “We may not be able to leave today or tomorrow but we should prepare.”
* * *
Charlotte adjusted her scarlet turban, which did not match her dress of blue-and-yellow plaid, but nevertheless looked very nice on her head. In fact, all of her seemed to look very nice. So much so that she twirled before the looking glass, nodding with approval.
Excellent lovemaking did put one in an excellent mood, even if she’d forgotten about the ring until it was too late. Not to mention that in the morning, Mrs. Watson, being the kind and wonderful person that she was, had sent Polly Banning over to 18 Upper Baker Street with a basket of proper breakfast—eggs, bacon, and buttered toast.
Charlotte had, with her second cup of tea, snuck in one of the jam tarts Lord Ingram had bought for her the night before, which had further improved her outlook on the day.
All the same, when the doorbell rang, as she was swirling around a second time before the mirror, she stopped abruptly, her entire person tensing so much that her neck ached.
Correspondingly, upon opening the door and seeing that only de Lacey had come, her smile became that much more brilliant.
De Lacey, on the other hand, did not appear as pleased to see her. “Miss Holmes, you are back so soon.”