Generations of respectability, in other words.
She’d always enjoyed the irony. But suddenly she wondered whether the maharani thought the portraits pretentious. She might even believe that Mrs. Watson had acquired them wholesale somewhere.
Mrs. Watson walked in, scarcely able to feel the floor beneath her feet. Her caller stood with her back to the room, looking at the street below. She was dressed in a white, long-sleeved blouse cut close to the body, a white floor-sweeping skirt, and a diaphanous long white shawl that seemed to wrap all the way around her, draping her as if in a nimbus of mist.
Mrs. Watson’s heart pounded wildly. From the back, the maharani looked exactly the same. Exactly.
The woman turned around. Mrs. Watson blinked. Had the maharani sent a terribly severe-looking aunt in her place?
The next moment she recognized those remarkable eyes. But it was as if the same bouquet of flowers was now encased in a block of ice, in which case, it was not the bouquet one noticed, but the ice.
There would be no embrace, no tears of either joy or sorrow.
Mrs. Watson steeled herself and curtsied. “Your Highness.”
The maharani inclined her stately head.
Mr. Mears brought in the tea tray and left. The two women remained standing. How imposing the maharani appeared—and how statue-like. Whereas the young woman Mrs. Watson remembered had been all softness and mobility, her eyes deep wells rather than shuttered windows.
“May I offer you a seat, Your Highness?” said Mrs. Watson.
The maharani sat down. Her motion, too, had a glacial grandeur. “I apologize for not first sending a note. The truth is I had no idea where you resided or whether you were even in London. I happened to pass before this house yesterday and see you enter.”
Mrs. Watson hoped she didn’t look too taken aback. “Were you in the carriage that stopped across the street for a while?”
“Yes, I was. You noticed?”
“I—chanced to look out of the window.”
“And here I thought I was being unobtrusive.”
Was that a note of irony in the maharani’s voice? Mrs. Watson busied herself pouring tea and making offerings of French delicacies. Mr. Marbleton had finished the treats she’d brought back from Paris, but Madame Gascoigne, her cook, had made both madeleines and macarons in honor of Miss Olivia’s visit.
“A very tempting selection,” murmured the maharani. “Have you developed a taste for French baking?”
“It is rather that I have living with me a young woman who has a taste for all baking.”
“Your . . . niece?”
How did she know about Penelope? Had she taken the trouble to find out, or was it merely something she’d overheard?
“Not at the moment. My niece is studying medicine in Paris.”
“How time passes,” murmured the maharani. “I thought her a child still.”
“So do I, but she is nevertheless old enough to live in a different country and pursue a demanding curriculum.” Despite her nerves, Mrs. Watson smiled a little at the thought of dear Penelope. “Your children, how are they?”
A shadow crossed the maharani’s face, but she said calmly, “They are well. And I now have four grandchildren.”
“Many congratulations,” murmured Mrs. Watson, shaking her head a little. “Has it really been so long?
Yes, long enough for her to have spent seven years as the late Duke of Wycliffe’s mistress, borne his child, her darling Penelope, and then married another man and become his widow. Long enough that they had once drunk tea from cups commemorating twenty-five years of the queen’s reign and now the Golden Jubilee was only months away.
The maharani stirred her tea. “Yes, it has been that long. My son rules on his own now.”
Mrs. Watson thought she heard an unhappy note. Because her regency had ended and she was no longer in charge? Once upon a time Mrs. Watson would have asked outright. But now she could only approach the question obliquely.
“You must be less busy now. Have you enjoyed your hours of well-deserved leisure?”
The maharani didn’t answer, but asked, “What about you, Mrs. Watson? Are you also less busy these days, with your niece away?”
“I was for a while. But since then I’ve found some new occupations and the days are again going by rather fast.”
The maharani smiled slightly. “That is fortunate indeed.”
Their conversation went on, polite and stilted, until the maharani took her leave, accompanied out by a deferential Mr. Mears.
From the window Mrs. Watson watched as she climbed into her carriage. The carriage rolled away. Still Mrs. Watson remained, staring at the spot where the carriage had turned and disappeared from view.
* * *
It wasn’t until someone cleared her throat that Mrs. Watson realized that Miss Charlotte had come into the morning parlor—and that she herself had never left her place at the window, even though her caller had departed half an hour ago.
“I understand the Maharani of Ajmer called on you, ma’am,” said Miss Holmes.
Mrs. Watson took a seat and made herself smile. “Yes, she did. She’s an old friend. Remember when I thought someone might be watching the house? That was her. She happened to be driving by and saw me. We hadn’t seen each other for many years and had completely lost touch. But she must have taken that coincidence to be a sign and decided to pay me a formal call.”
Miss Holmes nodded.
In the silence that followed, Mrs. Watson felt obliged to add, “We met so long ago that I was still on the stage. She was in London at the queen’s personal invitation. I think Her Majesty has very great sympathy for young women who lose their husbands, except between the maharani and the late maharaja, it had been less a loverly rapport than one of student and teacher.”
Miss Holmes was quiet for some more time. Then she said, “It was not chance that brought you together again, ma’am. Or at least not blind chance. When the maharani saw you, she had just left Upper Baker Street, where she consulted Sherlock Holmes.”
Mrs. Watson sat up straight. The woman who didn’t engage Sherlock Holmes’s services, the one who needed a cat burglar rather than an armchair detective?
“That was her? But why would she need a thief?”
“I take it then she didn’t confide in you,” Miss Holmes said calmly. “Did she give a purpose for her visit to London?”
“A diplomatic mission that she decided to take part in. I assumed it was because she had become accustomed to the work of ruling and her current idleness did not suit her.”