Lucinda looked up from her pansies. “Can we go to London, Papa? Mamma might be in London.”
He blinked and almost demanded to know where his daughter had got that idea from. Then he remembered that last time they’d been taken to London, they had, much to their surprise and delight, met their mother.
Lady Ingram had been about to go on the run again, not from the Crown, which had promised to no longer pursue her for past misdeeds against its agents, but from Moriarty, a shadowy figure of power she had openly accused of serious crimes. Lord Ingram did not know where she had gone, but he doubted that she was waiting in London to see her children.
Carlisle’s eyes lit. “Can we, Papa? Can we please?”
Once again he was intensely aware of Miss Yarmouth. Thank God she wasn’t looking at him with pity, but it was almost as bad that she regarded him in admiration.
“I don’t think Mamma is in London. She has gone abroad, far away.”
“But if she came back, she’d be in London first,” said Lucinda, most reasonably.
“And I can give her this feather!” said Carlisle, waving the feather in the air.
“If you’d like, my lord, I can take the children back to the house,” said Miss Yarmouth diffidently, trying to help.
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary, Miss Yarmouth. I am going to take them to Story Cottage. You may see to your other duties.”
“Yes, my lord.” Her reply sounded reluctant, but she went.
“Are you children ready for a nice long walk?”
They were. They were sturdy walkers who didn’t mind a little cold. And they loved Story Cottage, which he had rehabilitated from a derelict hut to something out of the pages of a fairy tale, a tiny, immaculate house in the midst of a tiny, immaculate garden.
They stopped by the manor for a supply of foodstuffs, then set out for the long hike to Story Cottage, at the other end of the estate. Halfway there, Lucinda asked, “So when are we going to London?”
He hadn’t thought she’d forgotten, not this child. “Tomorrow.”
The children exclaimed, “Tomorrow?”
“Yes, tomorrow. We are anyway expected at your aunt and uncle’s place in a few days. And London is on our way. So we might as well stay a short while in London, until it’s time to head to Eastleigh Park.”
The children jumped up and down and hugged him tight. He buried his face in Carlisle’s downy hair and did not remind them that their mother would not be there. In time they would learn that seeing her again would be an infrequent and improbable event.
And he had reasons of his own for wanting to be in London.
* * *
The next day, Miss Charlotte Holmes, who made her living as oracle to her fictional brother Sherlock, was regretting the fact that she was a far more inept oracle where her real-life sister Bernadine was concerned.
Sir Henry and Lady Holmes had four daughters. Bernadine, the second eldest, had been born closed off to the world. She was not mad or violent, but she could not look after herself, nor be made presentable in public. And because of that, her existence had been all but erased.
Charlotte, who had run away from home this past summer, had concocted a ruse and removed Bernadine from their parents’ home as soon as she’d saved up enough funds from helping clients as Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective. Her small enterprise flourished thanks to Mrs. Watson, her partner and benefactress.
Charlotte also lodged with Mrs. Watson, and Bernadine seemed to like the room that had been prepared for her—it contained an entire rack of gears and spools on rods, and she loved nothing more than spinning objects. But she still wasn’t feeding herself, and Charlotte could not get her to eat more than half of a small bowl of porridge.
She tried to tempt Bernadine with a slice of cake. Charlotte very much wanted to consume it herself. But alas, she must refrain from such blatant gourmandise only an hour after lunch. And even more unfortunately, this moist, buttery morsel with the gravitational pull of a major planet—to Charlotte, at least—somehow managed to repel Bernadine, who spun another spool and turned her face resolutely away.
Charlotte exhaled—and wished that she had Bernadine’s distaste for cake. Not always, of course, but for brief and intense spells that made it easier to give up extra servings in times of impending Maximum Tolerable Chins.
Charlotte preferred to indulge herself perennially. Alas, her love of cake and other sweet confections sometimes conflicted with her vanity: at around 1.5 chins the shape of her face changed. But Maximum Tolerable Chins wasn’t merely a matter of features; it was also the point at which her garments became restricting. And beyond that, uncomfortably tight.
She had a great many uses for her money and didn’t have room in her budget for outgrowing her entire wardrobe.
Charlotte tried one last time to offer the cake to Bernadine. This final overture was also rejected.
“She’s got a mind of her own, our Miss Holmes,” said Rosie Banning, one of Mrs. Watson’s servants, who’d been sitting with Bernadine. “Don’t you think, Miss Charlotte?”
Bernadine was the eldest unmarried Miss Holmes. Since her arrival in this house, her sister had been addressed as Miss Charlotte, as befitting a younger daughter.
“A very firm mind of her own,” answered Charlotte.
But the rest of the world was not privileged to know what was in, or on, Bernadine’s mind. Even Charlotte could only guess ineffectually. She watched for a while as her sister tirelessly spun spool after spool. Then she took out a notebook and shook open a newspaper.
Ever since summer, she’d kept a careful track of the small notices in the papers. Moriarty’s organization had disseminated keys to ciphers via small notices. She and Livia had sent coded messages to each other. She had also communicated with the Marbleton family in this manner.
But at the moment she was waiting for news from a different quarter. The small notices were thick as ants and about as legible. But she’d been at it for so long that she could spot the new ones right away, even among the dozens and dozens of coded personal messages.
There was nothing from Mr. Myron Finch, her half brother, whom she’d last seen at the end of the Season. She’d received two small-notice messages from him, one in early September, the other roughly four weeks later.
The two were identical. After decoding, both read, Dear Caesar, how fares Rome? Here in Italy all is well. 3 N N.
The mention of Italy meant that he was in Britain. The number indicated the level of danger he was in: 3 out of 10 was the best one could hope for, if one had betrayed Moriarty. The first N signaled that he was north of London, in relative position. The second N meant that no, the message would not be followed by a more detailed letter, which Charlotte would call for at the General Post Office under a previously agreed upon alias.