And Then She Fell(86)
“So,” James said, “we have Adair and Penelope, Charlie Morwellan and Sarah, Dillon Caxton and Pris, Gerrard Debbington and Jacqueline, your cousins Heather, Eliza, and Angelica, and their husbands, and Charlie Hastings playing the part of the surreptitious watchers.”
They shuffled forward in the line and Henrietta nodded. “Along with Christian and Letitia, Wolverstone and Minerva, and other members of that special club of theirs, as well as some of their army friends, and all their wives.” She glanced up at James. “There’ll be many more watching me than the murderer could possibly guess.”
James fought not to let his inner grimness show. He was supposedly there to enjoy what was widely expected to be the highlight of the Season, with his newly affianced bride-to-be on his arm, but projecting the correct image was proving a difficult task given his preordained role in their drama.
He still didn’t know how he’d come to agree to it—to agree to stage a disagreement with Henrietta of sufficient intensity to support the fiction of them parting, of her storming into the crowd and him turning on his heel and stalking off in the opposite direction.
Facing forward, Henrietta added, “And don’t forget Stokes and his men waiting outside.”
James wasn’t about to forget that the nearest the police could get was the outside of the building. If anything, Stokes liked their plan even less than James did, but, like James, he’d been largely helpless to prevent it being carried out, so had elected to lend his support as best he could. With a small cohort of his junior detectives and several eager constables, Stokes had set up a continual watch on all the exits from the building. If something occurred and the villain attempted to flee, he would run into the waiting arms of the Metropolitan Police.
James glanced at Henrietta. She appeared entirely calm, her attention focused outward, exchanging smiles and nods with others in the crowd.
Only he was near enough to detect the wary watchfulness lurking in her soft eyes; only he could feel, through her hand lying on his sleeve, the tension thrumming through her. She was wound as tight as he.
They reached the head of the reception line, and Sir Thomas greeted them with jocular good cheer. After exchanging the usual brief pleasantries, and receiving Sir Thomas’s congratulations on their engagement, James led Henrietta in Louise, Arthur, and Mary’s wake. All of them looked about them as they walked, tacking around other couples and groups likewise caught in admiration of the elegance of a room reputed to be the finest in all of London.
The gallery, built to house the King’s library, was three hundred feet long; over most of that length, it was thirty feet wide, but the central section, delineated by four spectacular columns of polished Aberdeen granite, was said to be nearly double that width.
“Just look at that ceiling.” Head tipped back, Henrietta stared upward at the ornate plasterwork in creams, pale yellows, and gold. “That must be at least forty feet high.”
“At least.” Grasping her hand, James wound her arm in his and started them on a course separate from her parents and sister. “Those balconies all around will afford an excellent view of the room.”
“Hmm.” Henrietta glanced his way, caught his eye. “Anyone on them, up there above the crowd, will also be in easy view of anyone watching them.”
James’s lips twisted. “Precisely my thought.” He dipped his head to murmur, “Up there would be the perfect place to stage our disagreement. We should keep an eye out for the stairs leading up.”
Henrietta nodded. The balconies in question ran above the bookcases lining the long sides of the room; about halfway up the forty-foot-high walls, the balconies formed narrow walkways that ran over the top of the deep bookcases and in front of the long windows set in the upper halves of the walls. Delicate, gilded, rail-type balustrades gave the balconies an airy appearance, as if they were suspended over the body of the room.
“According to Adair,” James said, “there are only two doors—the one we came in and another at the far end of the room.” They paused beside one of the beautiful polished desks situated along the room. Examining it, then the marble statue beside it, James shook his head. “I can’t believe this room is intended purely for the use of scholars, and the wider public wasn’t supposed to ever get a chance to appreciate it.” He glanced around as they started off again. “I can see why they’ve claimed it’s the finest room in London.”
Still engrossed in drinking in the architectural magnificence, Henrietta nodded, then added, “Which, I suppose, all but guarantees that whoever we’re after, they will be here.”