Or her laughter at his rare ribald comments.
The door of the study stood open. Through it wafted Mr. Marbleton and Mrs. Watson’s animated conversation from down the hall. But he thought he heard her breaths more clearly, and the slide of her hair against the high collar of her dress as she turned her face toward the window.
It took what seemed forever before he could lift a pen from the stand, and twice as long before he warmed up with some lines and squiggles across the page.
“The imitation doesn’t need to be top-notch,” she said. “My mother wouldn’t think to check it against other instances of Mrs. Marbleton’s writing in her possession, even if she remembered where she keeps them.”
He nodded, pulled out his multipurpose pocketknife, and used the three-inch-long ruler to measure the heights of the a’s, e’s, and o’s, the typical length of the ascenders and descenders, and the width of the gaps Mrs. Marbleton left between words and between letters of the same word.
The size and spacing of a person’s handwriting were as characteristic of it as the specific look of each individual letter. Even if his work here wasn’t required to be top-notch, it still needed to be good.
Incorporating the measurements, he drew faint lines on a piece of paper as guides to practice writing letters that resembled Mrs. Marbleton’s. They had used to do this, he and Holmes, she sitting somewhere in the vicinity while he worked. But that hadn’t happened in years; not since he’d met Lady Ingram, at the very least.
The familiarity of it was both comforting and unsettling.
At the end of their brief “affair”—it still shocked him that they’d been lovers—she’d asked him whether, in some indeterminate future, they and those they loved couldn’t together go on a long trip abroad. He had answered emphatically in the affirmative.
Yes, I would like that.
But to what, exactly, had he said yes? And what was he to do with her—and himself—between now and that golden but distant tomorrow?
He hadn’t the slightest idea. And for once, he suspected that she didn’t either.
Holmes being Holmes, she remained silent and still until he’d made three copies of the letter. He pushed them across the desk to her. “What do you think?”
She examined all three, studied the sample, then examined his imitations again. “She also used a feigned script, did she not?”
“A good thing.” The slight hesitancy of Mrs. Marbleton’s script was echoed in his, making it a better facsimile than he’d have otherwise been able to achieve, given the short notice.
“I think this is the best,” Holmes said, tapping at his third attempt.
“I agree, but we’ll leave the final choice to Mr. Marbleton.”
He returned the pen to its stand, put the blotting paper in the wastebasket, and began to tidy the loose papers on the desk.
“What brought you to London, Ash?” she asked suddenly.
He stilled, then arranged the papers into a neat stack.
You.
“The children wanted to come. London was where they last saw their mother—and they harbor hopes of seeing her again.”
She didn’t say anything.
He had wanted marriage, children, and an upstanding life. He still had the children, thank God, but a man who had salvaged his greatest treasures from the smoldering ruins of his home remained in the middle of smoldering ruins.
Down the hall, Mr. Marbleton and Mrs. Watson at last fell silent. Were they—or Mrs. Watson, at least—wondering whether too much time had passed since he and Holmes had left together?
Holmes rose. “Let’s go and show these to Mr. Marbleton.”
They did, walking into the afternoon parlor as Mrs. Watson was pouring a fresh cup of tea for Mr. Marbleton.
“Back so soon?” said Mrs. Watson, sounding almost disappointed. “I thought it would take you much longer.”
Ah, what could he have been thinking? Of course Mrs. Watson would wish to sequester him with Holmes for as long as possible.
Mr. Marbleton made his selection from the forged letters—the same one Lord Ingram and Holmes had favored.
“Will you also address an envelope for us, my lord?” asked Holmes. “Once we have that we can post the letter for it to arrive tomorrow evening at my parents’ house.”
“And when do you expect to hear back?” asked Mr. Marbleton.
“The day after that. Or two days later, at the very most. At which point, Mrs. Watson, will you kindly go and fetch my sister?”
Lord Ingram expected an immediate assent from Mrs. Watson. Instead the latter was silent for a few beats, then said, smiling widely, “My dear Miss Charlotte, I believe I have a better idea.”
Three
Livia had done her calculations. If Mr. Marbleton, upon arriving in London yesterday, immediately posted her letter, it would have reached Charlotte by evening. And if Charlotte worked fast and had a letter ready to post this morning, then it might arrive late today.
How much time her parents would take to debate the matter was unpredictable. Lady Holmes might react by being either deliriously thrilled or extremely suspicious. And Sir Henry would contradict his wife’s wishes, out of sheer habit and ill humor.
Of course they wouldn’t consult Livia on the matter, but would argue between themselves and list each other’s inadequacies, long, long catalogues compiled from thirty-some years of resentful partnership.
All of which meant that, even if Livia expected that their desire to marry her off would eventually prevail over other concerns, she could not begin packing. Not yet. No matter how much she wished to.
She glanced out of the window of the breakfast parlor. A fog roiled, thick and all-encompassing. The doorbell rang. She started. It was a quarter after nine, a bit early for callers.
She heard footsteps going upstairs to inform her parents. After two minutes, a maid came into the breakfast parlor. “Miss, a Mrs. Collins here to see you. She says she’s Mrs. Openshaw’s companion and has a message from her.”
Livia stood up so fast she almost knocked over her chair. “Show her to the drawing room.”
The woman in widow’s weeds who walked into the drawing room was extremely respectable-looking, with salt-and-pepper hair and the somewhat papery skin of a well-preserved sixty-year-old.
“You must be Miss Holmes,” she said, her accent cultured, as befitting someone who had spent significant time in the household of a duke.
Mrs. Watson.
Still, it took Livia a moment to be completely sure she was looking at the same person. Mrs. Watson, as herself, a beautiful woman of a certain age, would have been of great interest to Sir Henry. Mrs. Watson, in this role, received only a cursory glance as the latter walked in, immediately dismissed as both too old and too prim.