The Hollow of Fear: Book three in the Lady Sherlock Mystery Series Read online

  She took hold of an almond biscuit, then, remembering herself, set it down and instead picked up the correspondence that had come for Sherlock Holmes.

  The consulting detective had stated in adverts that he would be away from London for some time. As a result, the previous month, Mrs. Watson and Miss Holmes had run themselves into the ground seeing to a torrent of clients motivated by this upcoming scarcity to request a consultation in the here and now.

  But of course, there were always those who didn’t read the adverts carefully. And Mr. Mears, Mrs. Watson’s faithful butler holding down the fort in London, had forwarded a batch of letters that had arrived in Sherlock Holmes’s private box at the General Post Office.

  Miss Holmes quickly opened and scanned all the letters; then she read one letter again and handed it to Mrs. Watson.

  Dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes,

  Sergeant MacDonald at Scotland Yard told me to write you. Do you still help with murders?

  Sincerely,

  Mrs. Winnie Farr

  The handwriting was boxy and all in majuscule letters, done by a dull pencil that had been wielded with enough pressure to cause a cramp in the writing hand. The paper had not been made from any virgin material but of fibers that had been repulped. And the envelope took advantage of the blank side of a handbill for the latest miracle tonic, with the General Post Office as the return address.

  “I’m sure you have deduced that this woman might not have seven shillings on hand for a consultation,” said Mrs. Watson. “I take it you think she wouldn’t have written to us if she didn’t think she had something of value to offer us in lieu of payment?”

  The handwriting, despite its lack of ease and prettiness, had a proud, almost haughty quality.

  “That is, of course, the hope,” said Miss Holmes.

  “And if we should be mistaken in that hope?”

  Miss Holmes planned to remove her sisters from the family home, with payments of one hundred quid a year to their parents. As the only consulting detective in the world, she didn’t lack for clients. But the reasonableness of her fees, and the fact that most of her clients presented problems that, however perplexing, also happened to be minor, meant that even with Mrs. Watson’s ability to raise those fees at the least sign that a client could afford more, they were still fifty pounds short of that goal.

  Not to mention that Miss Holmes, almost as soon as her income had become regular, had insisted on remitting weekly sums for room and board to Mrs. Watson, in addition to the latter’s share in Sherlock Holmes’s proceeds.

  Miss Bernadine Holmes required someone to keep an eye on her. Miss Livia, who required only food and a roof over her head, was ostensibly less expensive. But Mrs. Watson knew that Miss Holmes also wanted to give Miss Livia books and trips abroad. And for Miss Bernadine, not just a harried maid but a nurse with experience and compassion for her care. Altogether, the obligations she planned to take on were fearsome for a young woman who could rely on only her own abilities.

  And however extraordinary those abilities, she didn’t have more hours in the day than anyone else. To give her time to Mrs. Farr could mean forgoing more solvent clients.

  “It isn’t a certainty that we will hear more from Mrs. Farr, or that hers will be a situation for which we can render any aid,” said Miss Holmes.

  “I should write back for more information, then?”

  “If you would, please,” murmured Miss Holmes. “Now, about our plans to visit Stern Hollow, ma’am.”

  Livia clutched at the moonstone as if it were a talisman that could fend off all the evils of the world.

  Or, at least, all the curiosity from the guests who would, just beyond Livia’s hearing, be making endless conjectures about Charlotte and Lord Ingram.

  She knew what conclusion everyone would leap to, as soon as Lady Avery’s news spread—that Charlotte hadn’t disappeared, but had become Lord Ingram’s mistress.

  This would be, of course, profoundly distressing: Charlotte had proved capable of keeping herself; and Lord Ingram would never have demanded such a tawdry exchange for his help. But it shouldn’t be any more distressing than what Livia had already put up with during the Season, with tongues always wagging just beyond—and sometimes just within—her hearing.

  And yet she was almost nauseated by anxiety. The sense of foreboding that had descended when she first read the letter had only grown stronger. Which was ridiculous. The story wasn’t common knowledge yet. And even if it should become so, it would simply be an extra serving of unpleasantness in an already unpleasant world.

  Lord Ingram’s estate was nearby, was it not? If she sent him a note, he would call on her, wouldn’t he, and assure her that whatever Lady Avery could unleash would only be a passing nuisance, soon dismissed and soon forgotten?

  As if the universe heard her plea, Lord Ingram descended the front step of Mrs. Newell’s manor just as Livia’s carriage pulled up.

  He wasn’t classically handsome but turned heads anyway, the kind of man who sent a jolt of electricity through a crowd by doing nothing more than stepping into the room. When he remained still, he made her think of a cobra about to uncoil. In motion he put her in mind of a large panther, stalking silently through the jungle.

  He handed her down from the carriage. “Miss Holmes. I’m glad to see you.”

  Usually she found him intimidating, but today his aura of assurance was exactly what she needed. Already she felt a little less panicked. “That sentiment is most certainly reciprocated, my lord. How do you do?”

  “I am well. Mrs. Newell informed me that she is expecting you.”

  “She has been most kind to extend an invitation. And Lady Ingram, I hope she is much improved?”

  His wife’s decampment to a Swiss sanatorium would have been a much bigger topic of gossip had it not happened so close to the end of Season. When she hadn’t received the ladies who had called on her, as was customary after a ball, it was assumed that her bad back must be bothering her again. It took will and effort for her to appear graceful in movement, and an entire summer of such pretense exacted a severe toll.

  It wasn’t until Society had dispersed to Cowes, Scotland, and hundreds of country houses all over the land that her friends received letters informing them that her health had deteriorated suddenly and it had been deemed prudent that she remove herself to the Alps where she could be properly looked after by a team of German and Swiss physicians.

  Livia, like everyone else, hadn’t learned of this development until after she had left London. She had written Charlotte about it, in the course of their surreptitious correspondence, since Charlotte had, earlier in the summer, asked Livia out of the blue what the latter thought of Lady Ingram’s romantic past, and had even tasked Livia to extract what ladies Avery and Somersby knew of that particular topic.

  At the time, distracted by what she had believed to be catastrophic romantic leanings on her own part, Livia had not paid particular attention to Charlotte’s inquiry. But in light of Lady Ingram’s departure, Livia asked Charlotte in her letter, was it not likely that Charlotte had been correct and Lady Ingram had at last decided to run away with her erstwhile sweetheart?

  Charlotte had replied that they ought not to speculate. Livia, however, grew only more convinced over time. And to think, she had begun to thaw a little toward that woman. How abominably she had treated her husband.

  “Her physicians assure me that her condition has stabilized,” said Lord Ingram, in response to her question about his wife’s health, “but she is still in need of their expertise.”

  Did that mean she truly wasn’t coming back?

  “I am glad to hear that,” Livia said. “I hope she continues to improve.”

  “Thank you, Miss Holmes. I’m sure she appreciates your kind thoughts.” For a moment she feared he was about to wish her good day and take his leave. But he glanced to his left and asked, “By the way, have you seen Mrs. Newell’s new fountains?”

  Thank goodness. It wou
ldn’t do for them to hold a conversation standing on Mrs. Newell’s front steps. Nor could they disappear into some cranny in the house or on the grounds. The fountains were perfectly visible from both the house and the drive and would give their conversation every appearance of propriety, without letting the actual exchange be overheard.

  “A glimpse and only a glimpse, I’m afraid,” she said. “Do let us study them in some detail.”

  As soon as they were out of earshot, Livia went to the crux of the matter. “I received a detestable letter from Lady Avery. I don’t suppose you were so fortunate as to be spared a similar missive.”

  He smiled wryly. “I wasn’t.”

  “I have no idea how I ought to respond. I was going to write you as soon as I’d settled in here. Have you replied?”

  “I have—and told Lady Avery that it had been a chance encounter.”

  Livia had learned from Charlotte that she and Lord Ingram had been in contact—of course Charlotte wouldn’t have left him in suspense as to her fate—but Livia hadn’t expected them to be out in public. “So you did meet at the time and place Lady Avery specified?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  And now Lady Avery had his confirmation in writing. “People will draw all kinds of unsavory conclusions!”

  They’d walked twice around one fountain; Lord Ingram guided her to the other. “That cannot be helped. Fortunately, their conjectures cannot materially injure Miss Charlotte.”

  True. As a fallen woman, Charlotte’s reputation couldn’t be besmirched any further. “What about you, my lord?”

  “Me?” There was a trace of amusement in his voice. Or was it irony? “For what it’s worth, I will not be barred from Society for having met with Miss Charlotte in broad daylight.”

  This Livia knew. He could have done far worse and not be punished in remotely the same way. Roger Shrewsbury, the man who had compromised Charlotte, was still accepted everywhere he went. “All the same, I hope it won’t prove a nuisance.”

  He touched her lightly on the elbow. “It will be a nuisance, but you mustn’t worry, Miss Holmes. It’ll be forgotten by Christmas. And life will go on, for both Miss Charlotte and myself.”

  His attentiveness, his confidence, his matter-of-fact approach to the upcoming brouhaha—Livia could not have hoped for a kinder or more fortifying reception. Basking in his presence, she felt downright silly about her undue agitation, making a Matterhorn out of a molehill. Indeed, by the time he took his leave, she was smiling.

  But the moment he disappeared from sight, uncertainty came rushing back, accompanied by a cold, hard dread. It will not end well, said a voice in her head.

  It cannot possibly end well.

  3

  Mrs. Watson approved wholeheartedly of Lord Ingram’s estate.

  To be sure, she was inclined to approve wholeheartedly of his every deed and utterance. But when it came to Stern Hollow, she couldn’t help but believe that her opinion must be shared by everyone who had ever laid eyes on this blessed expanse.

  The entrance was unassuming, the scenery at first no different from that of the surrounding countryside: verdant pasture, groves of beech and poplar, crofter’s cottages surrounded by well-tended land.

  But as the drive meandered, Mrs. Watson caught glimpses of delightful vistas. Here, a pair of swans framed in the arch of a small stone bridge; there, a statue of Artemis next to a footpath, her hand on her bow; and in the distance, a white, slender Greek folly, perched above a waterfall that splashed into a sunlit stream.

  They crested a ridge. In the shallow, sheltered valley below rose an immaculately proportioned Palladian house, nestled in acres of gardens and fronted by a spectacular reflecting pool that shone in the afternoon light.

  Mrs. Watson placed her hand over her heart and sighed.

  Miss Holmes, however, displayed no sign that she was feeling remotely similar to Miss Elizabeth Bennet at Pemberley: superbly impressed and duly regretful that she had let go of this man instead of fighting for him tooth and nail when she’d had the chance.

  But Mrs. Watson did not fail to notice that Miss Holmes’s blue-and-heather-gray promenade dress sported an enormous and entirely superfluous bow in the back, a downright flirtatious feature, in Mrs. Watson’s judgment.

  Presently Miss Holmes glanced at the map of the estate they had been given at the gatehouse. Mrs. Watson stopped talking and allowed her young friend to concentrate on driving. But as they came down into the valley and skirted the first herbaceous borders, she couldn’t help exclaim, “Are the gardens not marvelous?”

  Any halfway decent gardener could make his plot flower riotously in spring—it was the nature of the season. But to present an autumnal tableau worthy of a sonnet, that took talent, planning, and meticulous execution. Here, Japanese maples formed a backdrop of rich golds and vibrant reds, against which a profusion of dahlias and chrysanthemums still bloomed.

  “It is pleasing to view, but a marvel it isn’t. With the amount of money, expertise, and manpower that must have been expended, Lord Ingram ought to be dissatisfied with anything less.”

  Trust Miss Holmes to strip the romance from any scenario and see only the brute, barebones facts underneath.

  “Well, he can’t possibly be dissatisfied with this—with perfection.”

  Miss Holmes glanced about. “Yes, I suppose this is perfection.”

  The reluctant compliment gratified Mrs. Watson, until she realized that it was no compliment at all, but an indictment.

  While Mrs. Watson wandered in the gardens, Charlotte made her way to the back of the house.

  A proper country house did not reign in isolation. Behind the formal grandeur of the manor existed a collection of lesser buildings: the kitchen, of course, a complex of its own; the stables, usually some distance away; miscellanies such as the dovecote, the hen house, and the kennel; not to mention a number of greenhouses, the precise number depending on whether the master of the house required his own supply of strawberries at Christmas and pineapples in January.

  Lord Ingram’s godfather had been one of the wealthiest men in the realm. And one of the shrewdest: In correctly forecasting that the difficulty of keeping young people in service would only increase, he had chosen not to acquire for himself too extravagant a country property.

  But that he had not bought the equivalent of a Blenheim Palace or a Chatsworth House didn’t mean his seat was modest. Mrs. Watson no doubt yearned to see the inside of the house. But Charlotte was far more interested in the ancillary structures, where the work of the estate went on.

  “Charlotte Holmes—I thought I might see you here.”

  The voice belonged to Lord Ingram, but slightly raspy, as if he were under the weather—or recovering from a night of hard drinking.

  She turned around slowly. “Hullo, Ash.”

  A complicated pleasure, this man. In fact, it was their sometimes fraught friendship that had taught her the meaning of complicated pleasure, a gladness pockmarked by not only irreversible choices but also staggering incompatibilities.

  All the same, such a sharp, sharp, almost painful pleasure.

  They shook hands. She couldn’t be sure whether he held her hand a fraction of a second too long, or she his. When they let go, abruptly and at the exact same moment, despite the glove she still wore, her fingertips tingled.

  “You are well?” he asked, as they walked toward the gardens.

  “Well enough.” Most of the time they were regular correspondents. But he had not written since they’d last met in person, months ago. And she, not sure whether he hadn’t wished to hear from her, or if he needed something that she didn’t know how to give, had also refrained. “You, on the other hand, look as if you haven’t slept properly for a few days.”

  He was in tweeds, and boots that had seen plenty of service—the very image of the quintessential English country squire. If the latter had stayed up late then got up at the crack of dawn, that is.

  “I met your sister at Mrs.
Newell’s earlier today,” he said, making no comments on her observation.

  “How is she?”

  “Worried about you getting into trouble.”

  “I prefer to think of them as adventures. The adventures of Charlotte Holmes, consulting detective.”

  “What is this I hear about trouble and adventures?” said Mrs. Watson.

  She and Lord Ingram greeted each other warmly. The last time the three of them had been together in the same place, Mrs. Watson had been in disguise as Mrs. Hudson, a member of Sherlock Holmes’s household, and Lord Ingram had been full of disapproval over Charlotte’s choice to take up with a former actress.

  Today they were themselves, longtime friends and allies.

  Mrs. Watson praised the gardens. Lord Ingram related his head gardener’s struggle to secure epic quantities of Peruvian bat guano. Mrs. Watson laughed; even Charlotte’s lips twitched a little.

  In recent years their private interactions were often silent and tense; sometimes she forgot this other side of him. But he was a man who had no difficulty being charming and amiable in public, who could appear as outwardly perfect as his painstakingly maintained estate.

  As they exhausted the more inconsequential subjects, however, his expression turned sober. “Unfortunately, I do have some actual trouble to report.”

  “Most vexing!” Mrs. Watson exclaimed, after he had recounted the contents of Lady Avery’s letter and his reply.

  “Given that I have, on more than one occasion, consulted their encyclopedic knowledge and been glad of it, I can scarcely be outraged simply because their attention has turned to me,” replied Lord Ingram. “That said, most vexing.”

  Charlotte had not expected this particular wrinkle. The meeting in question had taken place months ago, well outside spheres frequented by members of Society. “Is my sister disturbed?”

  “Yes.” He glanced at her. “You, on the other hand, aren’t remotely discomfited by this news—not for yourself, in any case.”

  “That is the benefit of infamy,” she said with some semblance of modesty. “One of them, at least.”