A Study In Seduction(10)

Sincerely,

C


Jane grinned. She’d been rather proud of herself for solving that last riddle so quickly. She slipped the letter behind the second page and studied the latest riddle.


My first is in tea but not in leaf.

My second is in teapot and also in teeth.

My third is in caddy but not in cozy.

My fourth is in cup but not in rosy.

My fifth is in herbal and also in health.

My sixth is in peppermint and always in wealth.

My last is in drink, so what can I be?

I’m there in a classroom. Do you listen to me?


“Jane, have you seen my notebook?”

Jane fumbled at the sound of Lydia’s voice, tucking the letter under her arm. She glanced at her sister to see if she had noticed the clumsy movement, but Lydia was looking distractedly around the room.

“Your notebook? You’ve lost it?”

“I’ve misplaced it,” Lydia corrected.

Jane glanced out the window to see if pigs were flying, because surely the universe had gone mad if Lydia Kellaway had misplaced her notebook. “When did you have it last?”

“Oh… last night.” Lydia bit her lip, an odd distress appearing in her eyes. “Well, no need to worry now. I’m certain it will turn up.” She gave Jane a smile. “Mrs. Driscoll says there will be Savoy biscuits for tea.”

“That will be nice.” Jane injected a note of enthusiasm into her voice. She liked Savoy biscuits, but tea was dreadfully boring—even more so since Papa was no longer here to play Chinese tangrams.

“Perhaps we can even persuade her to let us have some of her precious strawberry jam.” Lydia smiled again, though the tension remained in her expression—likely because of the lost notebook, but also because it was just always there.

Jane remembered a lesson in geology during which they’d studied rock veins—lines of quartz or salt that split through the middle of a rock. She thought her sister contained a vein like that, except with Lydia it wasn’t shimmering and shiny. The vein running through Lydia was made of something hard and brittle, a material that appeared on the surface only in unguarded moments.

Jane still didn’t know its cause—never had—but she suspected it had something to do with their mother.

“Did you water the fern?” Lydia asked.

Still clutching the letter underneath her arm, Jane went to the small bell glass on a table beside the window. A scraggly fern, the edges of the fronds turning brown, grew from a bed of rocks and soil. She removed the glass and poured a few drops of water around the base.

“It’s a bit pitiful, isn’t it?” Jane remarked, plucking a few dead fronds.

Lydia joined her to peer at the plant. “Perhaps we ought to move it somewhere else? Or does it need more air or a different soil? I must say, Jane, I’ve never quite understood how ferns are expected to thrive while encased in glass.”

Jane pushed open the window a crack to let the breeze in. She and Lydia studied the fern for a few moments.

“I suspect we need to do more research,” Lydia said. “I’m going to the library tomorrow, so I’ll see if they have any books about fern cultivation. Now shall we continue our work on long division?”

Lydia began spreading a workbook and papers out on the table that dominated the tiny room first set aside for use as Jane’s nursery and then as the schoolroom.

While Lydia was distracted, Jane picked up a book and tucked the letter between the pages, then pushed the book onto a shelf between two encyclopedias.

She was struck with the sudden urge to tell Lydia about the other letters that lay folded and hidden on the bookshelf, but the purposeful way her sister was moving about the room made her lose courage.

Besides, she didn’t want to disobey the sender’s instructions about secrecy—these anonymous letters and the accompanying riddles had been a welcome distraction after Papa’s death, and she didn’t want them to end.

She went to join Lydia at the table. “Is everything all right?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You seem a bit upset.”

“I’m not upset. Now come and sit. We’ll review dividends and divisors.”

Jane sat and picked up a pencil. “Is it Grandmama?”

“Jane, honestly, nothing is the matter.”

But Jane saw the irritation rise in Lydia’s eyes. She didn’t know what Lydia wished their grandmother would or wouldn’t do, but she wished everyone would stop being so stern and start to enjoy things a bit more.