Page 19 of An Honorable Deception
“All right, let’s see.” He made a show of reading the first question he’d scrawled onto the page in his messy Mr. A handwriting. “Our friend asks that you first go through your visit to the Ayahs’ Home in detail, beginning from whenyou left your home. Did your parents know where you were going? Did anyone accompany you?”
He darted a glance up in time to see the shadows flicker in her eyes. “No, I ... I waited to go until my parents had both left London for a weeklong house party. Neither of them approve of my fondness for Samira.”
He wrote down the bit about deliberately waiting for them to be gone. “No one went with you, then? A lady’s maid? Chaperone?”
She hesitated a moment, glancing at Marigold as if awaiting a scolding. He nearly grinned at that. Their guest was in for a surprise if she expected traditional reactions to expected social practices from his sister.
Marigold offered an encouraging smile. It seemed to bolster Lady Alethia, who admitted, “No. I was alone—but it was a trip I’d made several times before. I took the tube first to the tearoom where I was supposed to meet an acquaintance of mine, but when she failed to show up, I proceeded to Hackney. I had no incidents.”
A lady alone on the tube. He was no overprotective bear, but he had to keep himself from frowning. In a perfect world, that would be perfectly safe. But he was keenly aware of how imperfect their world truly was. Pointing that out was a good way to make her clam up, so instead he said, “This acquaintance . . . Mr. A mentioned that you provided the note she’d sent to you, indicating she had information on Samira?”
The lady nodded. “Victoria Rheams. Her husband is on the board of directors, and she is part of the Ladies Auxiliary, so it made sense to me that she would know something. She’s forever forgetting appointments, though. When she missed our lunch—the third time she’s done that since we met a year ago—I simply continued to the Ayahs’ Home, thinking she may meet me there.”
“And you arrived about what time?”
“Ah.” Her brows creased in a new frown, one born of thought instead of pain. “It was ... around one in the afternoon, I suppose. Give or take a few minutes. Our meeting was to be at noon.”
“Did you note anyone during your walk from the tube station? Or as you approached the house?”
She blinked at him in a way that made him want to smile. “There was no shortage of people, but...”
He tried a soft, encouraging smile of his own. “According to Mr. A, you seemed to recognize the men who attacked you in the church. You shouted ‘You!’ as if you knew exactly who they were. I imagine that’s why he’s wondering if you’d seen someone you recognized at the Ayahs’ Home.”
He could all but see her thoughts ticking backward through her memories, searching them for familiar faces. “No one on the walk, but once I arrived I ... I saw an older woman, an ayah, whom I’d met before—a year or two ago. I paused to greet her. We’d had a conversation that last time, when she’d been humming a lullaby I knew. I asked if she was back again or if she hadn’t yet found a way home to Calcutta. She laughed and said this was the second time she’d been back.”
Yates scribbled that down, careful to keep his hand distinct from the one he’d used earlier for the questions. Just in case she looked at the page at any point. “Do you have this woman’s name?”
“Lakshmi,” she said easily. A few of the shadows left her eyes in favor of a light of hope. “She knows Samira. They’ve been there at the same time. I mentioned I was there to visit her, but she said she hadn’t seen her. She’d only arrived the day before, though, and Samira’s note had come the day before that, so I thought perhaps they simply hadn’t crossed paths. It didn’t alarm me at the time.”
But it gave them a solid window—Samira had vanished from the Ayahs’ Home sometime between August twelfth and thirteenth. A single day. That ought to make it easier to track her movements. “Good. Did you see anyone else you recognized?”
She let out a breath. “Everyone, really. I’m there whenever Samira is in London, and I’ve volunteered a few times as well. I saw a few other familiar ayahs, and the ladies who work there. Several board members were there too—they were leaving as I entered.” Her frown deepened again, so suddenly that Yates paused.
He exchanged a look with Marigold, who had reached for Alethia’s hand. “You look as though you recalled something alarming.”
“Yes, they ... they were escorting a young woman out. Saanvi—she and Samira have managed to travel together several times and are good friends. I’ve met her before. She looked to be ... inebriated, which isn’t tolerated there. I supposed they’d done a surprise inspection, as they do from time to time, and found her in that state. Samira has told me before about how strict they are. She said she’d seen more than one woman tossed to the curb, quite literally, but I hadn’t expected to see such a thing myself at that hour of the day. And certainly not Saanvi! From everything Samira had said about her, she is of the highest moral fiber.”
“A young woman, you say?” Marigold’s frown was as encouraging as her smile had been. “I was under the impression that most ayahs are middle-aged or older.”
“Most, yes.” Alethia’s expression remained taut. “But not all. Samira knew several of the younger ones who frequently made the voyage. I was so alarmed that I marched directly up to the directors and demanded to know what they weredoing with Saanvi, where they were taking her.” Her cheeks flushed. “When Mr. Rheams told me they were tossing her out as she deserved, I was furious. She looked more ill than drunk, and what would happen to her if they threw an ill woman to the streets? I ... scolded him. Said something about what his wife would think about it. He didn’t like that.”
Yates frowned and scribbled the information down as quickly as he could. Gentlemen rarely appreciated it when young ladies rebuked them. In public. And implied that they answered to their wives rather than the other way round. “I don’t imagine. This is the husband of the woman you were supposed to meet at the tearoom?”
Alethia nodded, her color fading again. “She’s a great deal younger than he. I scarcely know him at all; he’s closer to my father’s age. But Victoria is only a decade my elder. She spent several years in India as a girl, too, so we had that connection.”
“And who was the other director?” This from Lavinia, who had a keener look in her eye than he was accustomed to seeing. At least in the last year. He couldn’t honestly remember noting such interest in her eyes, other than when she’d come to them last spring for help in finding out about the man her mother had been corresponding with.
“Oh. Ah, I believe it was Lord Vernon with Mr. Rheams.” She thought for a moment and then nodded. “Yes, I think that’s right. I have only met him once or twice, at fundraisers Mama and I were helping with. All the board of directors were there. There are a dozen.”
He wrote the two names down. “Very good. And to whom did you speak within?”
“Julia Swinton.” This name she said with far more confidence, adding a smile. “A lovely woman. She spent severaldecades in India when she was younger and loves helping the ayahs find their way home again.”
“And when you enquired after Samira?” Marigold leaned closer. “How did she react?”
Lady Alethia pressed a hand to her side, strain on her face. They’d have to finish up soon so she could rest. “She was surprised. She said Samira had been gone when she arrived for her shift, her shelves emptied. Mrs. Swinton assumed she’d simply found an opportunity and had to hurry, but she was as distressed as I was that she’d informed no one of her plans. Shealwayslets Mrs. Swinton know what she’s found—and she certainly wouldn’t send me a note saying to visit her and then leave without another note for me.”
“But her things were gone from her room?”
