A Study in Scarlet Women (Lady Sherlock #1)(3)

“I hope your family is well,” he said.

“They are, thank you. I’m obliged to pay a call on short notice, that is all.” Lord Ingram’s words were calm, yet there was a hollowness to his tone. “I trust we shall have the pleasure of a more leisurely meeting in the not too distant future.”

“Certainly, my lord.”

Inspector Treadles did not mean to delay his friend, but at that moment he remembered his other purpose for being at Burlington House this evening. “If it isn’t too much trouble, sir, may I ask you to convey a note to Holmes? I’m most grateful for his assistance on the Arkwright case and wrote a few lines to that effect.”

“I am afraid that would be impossible.”

Inspector Treadles almost took a step back at his friend’s expression: a flare of anger that bordered on wrath.

“I understand that you are engaged this evening, my lord,” Treadles explained hesitantly. “My note requires no haste and needs be relayed only at your lordship’s convenience.”

“I didn’t make myself clear,” said Lord Ingram. All hints of rage had left his countenance. His eyes were blank, the set of his jaw hard. “I can’t—nor can anyone else—convey any notes to Holmes. Not anymore.”

“I—I don’t—that is—” Treadles stuttered. “Has something terrible happened?”

Lord Ingram’s jaw worked. “Yes, something terrible.”

“When?”

“Today.”

Inspector Treadles blinked. “Is . . . is Holmes still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Thank goodness. Then we haven’t lost him completely.”

“But we have,” said Lord Ingram, slowly, inexorably. “Holmes may be alive, but the fact remains that Holmes is now completely beyond my reach.”

Treadles’s confusion burgeoned further, but he understood that no more details would be forthcoming. “I’m exceedingly sorry to hear that.”

“As am I, to be the bearer of such news.” Lord Ingram’s voice was low, almost inaudible.

Treadles left Burlington House in a daze, hounded by dozens of unhappy conjectures. Had Holmes leaped from a perilous height armed with nothing but an unreliable parachute? Had he been conducting explosive experiments at home? Or had his brilliant but restless mind driven him to seduce the wrong woman, culminating in an illegal duel and a bullet lodged somewhere debilitating but not instantly lethal?

What had happened to the elusive and extraordinary Sherlock Holmes?

Such a tragedy.

Such a waste.

Such a shame.





Two





“The shame. Oh, the shame!” Lady Holmes screeched.

From her crouched position before the parlor door keyhole, Livia Holmes glared at the young maid peeking around the corner. Back to your duties, she mouthed.

The girl fled, but not before giggling audibly.

Did no one understand the concept of privacy anymore? If there was any spying to be done in the midst of a reputation-melting scandal, it ought to be left to a member of the family.

Livia returned her attention to the sturm und drang in the parlor. Her view through the keyhole was blocked by her mother’s skirt, a ghastly mound of heliotrope silk that shook with Lady Holmes’s outrage.

“How many times have I told you, Sir Henry, that your indulgence of the girl would prove to be her undoing? How many times have I said that she ought to have been wed years ago? Did you listen? No! No one heeded me when I warned that letting her reject perfectly suitable gentlemen one after another would only serve to make her unfit for marriage and motherhood.”

Her mighty bustle oscillated from side to side as she lurched forward. She lifted her arm and brought down her hand. An explosive thwack reverberated. Livia flinched.

She and Charlotte, the recipient of this resounding slap, had once discussed their mother’s talents, or lack thereof. Livia was of the view that a segment of the population was inherently middling. Charlotte, of a more charitable bent of mind, believed that even those who appeared incurably undistinguished must possess some hidden skills or aptitudes.

Livia, not convinced, had brought up Lady Holmes as an example of utter mediocrity, a person who was unremarkable in every observable trait. Charlotte had countered, “But she has an extraordinary technique at slapping, the backhand especially.”

Now Lady Holmes produced just that, a dramatic backhand the force of which wobbled the lace trimmings on her skirt. “The worst has happened. No one will marry her and she can never show her face in Society again.”

It was the eleventh time she had spat out these lines this evening. Livia’s neck hurt from the strain of crouching so long before the keyhole. How many more iterations before Charlotte would be allowed to escape to her own room?

“You haven’t only caused your own ruin, Charlotte. You have also made us laughingstocks the rest of our lives.” Lady Holmes was still plowing through the remainder of her tirade, though her voice was becoming hoarse. “You have perpetrated a crime against Livia’s chances at a decent marriage. If Henrietta hadn’t already secured her Mr. Cumberland we would have nothing but a passel of spinster daughters.”

The contempt in Lady Holmes’s voice—spinster daughters might as well be thieving whores. Livia lived with that scorn daily, a woman of twenty-seven, eight Seasons under her belt and no marital prospects whatsoever. Still she winced.