A Study in Scarlet Women (Lady Sherlock #1)(51)

“It isn’t your disregard of my scandalous recent past that astonishes me, ma’am. Most people tend to want nothing to do with me after I enumerate what I see about them.”

In fact, it had been a singularly effective means to persuade a gentleman to withdraw a proposal of marriage.

Mrs. Watson smiled wryly. “I can see why. It was extraordinarily uncomfortable to be laid so bare. But in my case . . . in my case it was also a tremendous relief.

“I stopped wearing mourning after the regulation period. I had a young girl under my care and I wanted her to see that life went on. That the loss of a man, even if he had been the love of her life, was not the end of a woman’s existence. That such a loss was something she could recover from, with both courage and grace. But now that my niece is away in Paris, now that I have no audience for whom to perform this role of the merry widow, I—”

She pulled out a handkerchief that had been tucked into her sleeve, straightened it, and then tucked it back in. “In any case, I thought, let me try it. Let me try having as a companion someone before whom it is useless to pretend that everything is all right. Let me try living without hiding my grief, because to her that grief would already be plain as day.”

For a minute, neither of them said anything.

Mrs. Watson retook her seat and looked at Charlotte. “Will you take the position, Miss Holmes?”

Would she?

Charlotte left her seat and walked to a window. It gave onto the same street where Miss Hartford’s carriage had been parked, waiting for her return. The carriage was gone, but in its place, a man stood underneath a streetlamp, reading a newspaper.

At first she thought he was the man from the carriage. Instead, she recognized him as the one who had waited out the rain across the street from her earlier in the afternoon.

The one she’d suspected of following her.

She was not alarmed: Whoever had commissioned the man’s service had not done so with the intention of harming her, but to keep an eye on her.

This did not make her happy—she did not care to be closely monitored. She wasn’t angry at the person responsible for this surveillance—in his place she might have done the same. Nevertheless, she wished her secret guardian hadn’t felt compelled to be so positioned as to be able to effect a rescue at any moment.

It implied that such a rescue was not only necessary, but imminent.

That she couldn’t in good conscience—or cold logic—disagree with the assessment made it feel as if the air was slowly leaking from her lungs.

Of course she would have preferred to pull herself out of her difficulties by her own competence alone. That, however, was not the world in which she lived. If accepting the kindness of a stranger would stabilize her situation and give her another chance at ultimately improving not only her own lot but Livia’s, too, then she must set aside her pride and do what was necessary.

She turned around. Mrs. Watson was still working on the same macaroon. She glanced up at Charlotte, her gaze kind but uncertain.

“You are absolutely sure you wish to have me as a companion, ma’am?” Charlotte asked.

Mrs. Watson set down the remainder of the macaroon. “Yes, I am.”

“Then I will accept the position. Gladly and with much gratitude.”




Dearest Livia,

I have a position.

And not just any position, but one that provides good wages, light duties, and excellent accommodation. In fact, I am sitting in my new room, which boasts of a four-poster, silk-draped bed, a painting of a lovely and abrupt seacoast that must surely belong to the Impressionist school of works, and a view of Regent Park outside my window—not that I can see much now, it being late in the evening.

My belongings have been conveyed from the boarding home where I had been staying. They fit perfectly into my new wardrobe. Nothing looks out of place—my brushes on the vanity, my typewriter on the desk, even my magnifying glass on the nightstand. It is as if this room has been waiting for me to arrive and make myself at home.

I am a lady’s companion.

And now that you have gathered yourself from where you had fallen on the floor, allow me to repeat myself. I am a lady’s companion. Not a Society lady, obviously. And most definitely not a matron or rich spinster of the grand bourgeoisie—they care more about respectability than even we do. But a lady of the demimonde, a former stage performer, comfortably off and most amiable.

Please do not worry that I might have been ensnared into some scheme. My new employer is both sensible and kind and I have found not only employment but acceptance. My only worry is that I shall manage to repel her, when I have every intention to the opposite.

For the moment I will not set down my new address. The last thing I want is for this letter to fall into the wrong hands and Mamma to show up at my benefactor’s front door, in a fit of trembling outrage. You know she would, whatever Papa’s orders to the contrary, if she heard that I, in my exile, had taken up with an actress.

I will post this letter first thing in the morning, and hope that by afternoon, when I go to the post office on St. Martin’s Le Grand, I will already have a response from you. God bless the eleven-times-a-day delivery in this great city and may it bring your words to me at the very earliest hour.

Charlotte




Charlotte had, as usual, chosen to paint an optimistic picture for Livia.