A Question of Holmes (Charlotte Holmes #4)(11)

But he didn’t give her any response, so there was nothing more for me to go on. I watched Rupert twirl his spaghetti. Watched Anwen flag down the waiter to order another glass of wine. Watched Theo pick a white thread out of her hair, shaking his head, saying, “I always find string there. Where on earth does it come from?” As Anwen laughed, Rupert darted his eyes over to Theo, then to me, then back to his plate, so fast I wouldn’t have seen it if I wasn’t looking.

“I’m auditioning as well,” I told them. “For Ophelia.”

Watson ran a finger down his water glass. “She’s a terrific actress. Totally transforms herself into someone else. It’s like she disappears.”

Theo said lightly, “It’s a relief, sometimes, isn’t it?”

“To disappear, or be the one watching?”

“Both,” Rupert said, to my surprise. As far as I knew, he wasn’t someone who had issues with being seen. “But—” He glanced at Anwen, then back at me. “Have you heard at all about what happened last summer, in the theater department?”

Aha.

“They’re just stories,” Theo said.

Rupert fidgeted. “The orchids—”

“Were someone’s idea of a sick joke. An expensive sick joke. Do you know how much those things cost?” Theo rolled his eyes. “Someone just wanted to scare us, that’s all.”

“What was it?” Watson said, as if on cue. I admired him, then: he’d established himself earlier as the sort of boy to ask the brash question, and then did so. “Everyone keeps talking about something that happened last year—what was it?”

“Just . . . just some accidents.” Anwen grimaced. “They weren’t . . . they weren’t terrible, you know? But they weren’t nothing, either.”

Rupert’s eyes widened. “Matilda isn’t here. All right? Matilda didn’t come back, she’s gone—”

“She’s not dead,” Anwen said. “She’s just not, you know, here—”

“Theo, you of all people should be upset—”

“I am upset. And now we’re done talking about it,” Theo said. He stood. “I haven’t seen the waiter in, like, a year. I’m going to go get the bill.”

Anwen tossed a handful of cash on the table, and followed him.

Rupert watched her go. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “But it’s important that you know, if you’re thinking of doing this year’s play. They never found out who was behind it.”

Watson nodded. “Thanks for the warning. We’ll think about it.”

“‘We’ll’?” Rupert asked, with some interest. “Are you auditioning too?”

The light outside was fading, and as Watson sat, deliberating his answer, the young hostess walked around, touching the tea lights on each table with a match. A stroke, a light, the brief smell of sulfur. And then all the candles lit, like small stars in a dark night.

“I might be,” he said finally, as Theo and Anwen returned. Together, I noticed. He had waited for her at the restroom. To have a tête-à-tête away from prying eyes?

It came to me then. One of those moments I spent months chasing, through calculus or pills or a list of deductions so swift I arrived at the answer before I’d begun to articulate the question.

We’re going deep here, I texted Watson under the table. Do you trust me?

He met my eyes. Mouthed yes.

“Well,” I said to them, “thanks for inviting us out. Honestly, we were both a bit nervous coming along.”

“Oh, don’t be,” Anwen said, and she reached out to touch Theo’s arm. Any excuse to do so, it seemed. “The academics aren’t that hard, right, Teddy? I mean, they are hard, but—”

There really was little I hated more than someone condescending to me for show. Still, I fixed a smile on my face, one that showcased my incisors. “Oh, not that. That’ll be fine. No—just socially, I mean. Jamie and I have been dating now for a few years, and I think we both get a bit nervous that we won’t meet anyone because of it. We can be a little bit reclusive.”

A glance between Anwen and Theo, whisper-quick, and that was it, the nudge I needed to cast my wager.

I dropped Rupert’s eyes. Then I slowly, deliberately ran my foot up his leg under the table.

He didn’t blush, or look down; he didn’t even look surprised. He had exactly the reaction I knew he would.

He smiled.





Five


“I KNEW WE WERE DATING. BUT I DIDN’T KNOW THAT YOU were cheating on me.”

Watson had worked himself into a state, standing in his sock feet in the middle of my bedroom. He was furious at me, and also he was trying very hard not to laugh, and it was something of a personal failure on my part that this was how I found Watson most appealing.

“That does seem to be accurate,” I admitted.

He ran a hand over his face. “Holmes—”

“Yes?”

“We’re dating and you’re cheating on me,” he said, his voice going higher in pitch. “You’re the kind of cheater who plays footsie with country squires while I sit there eating ladyfingers across the table.”

I frowned. “It’s the twenty-first century. They aren’t country squires anymore. Rupert is a gentleman sheep-farmer-in-training.”