Page 38 of An Honorable Deception
Because she had them—things to add. Things the other Imposters hadn’t noted. A perspective they hadn’t taken. Things that could perhaps lead men who were supposedly noble and good to murder.
Like her mother.
Praise God her friendsdidn’thave that perspective.
She could have gone a thousand different directions, but the tie pin always centered her again. That was her focus—the Empire House. She started a fresh sheet of notes, writing down every mention she came across, though there were only a half dozen, but also anyone with a direct connection to those mentions.
At some point, it grew dim enough that she detoured to the light knob and blinked in surprise at the plate of food sitting on the desk. Had she missed dinner? She hadn’t meant to—Alethia had been planning to join them for the first time. But the plate meant she had, and the fact that she was alone in the room and felt as though she had been for ages said that Marigold and Yates had left long ago. She had only a vague recollection of insistent words in familiar voices that she’d waved away.
She couldn’t remember the last time anything had pulled her in so deeply, and she wasn’t about to give it up. She wasn’teven hungry, so she ignored the food and went back to work, her pulse kicking up as much as it did in the gymnasium.
Her neck had started aching, though, and her hand had cramped several times. She was shaking it out again, staring once more at that gold pin, when she became aware of someone crouched beside her on the floor.
“You could have used the desk, at least.”
“Not big enough.” She looked down to make sure Yates wasn’t standing on anything vital. She’d tried to tidy up as she went. For a while, at least.
“Vin—”
“Do you mind? You’re blocking the light.”
He didn’t shift. “Vinny, it’s after midnight.”
That would account for why her eyes felt tired and were starting to blur. She’d stayed up late reading countless times during her years of illness, though she’d never admit it to her parents. They reacted with horror the one time they’d caught her at it, as if that alone was going to keep her from recovering. As if sleep didn’t evade her more often than not at night—thanks, she was sure, to resting too much during the day.
She blinked to clear her eyes now and searched for the line she’d been on a moment ago.
“Staying up all night won’t get you out of your exercise routine in the morning, you know.”
There—she’d been on the note added in Gemma’s hand. Those were always interesting. Gemma, often posing as staff, they’d said, saw things that Marigold and Yates weren’t given the opportunity to see.
In fact, Lavinia ought to find the archives she knew very well they had of theLondon Ladies Journal. Lavinia read Gemma’s column in every one—she’d always felt rather special to know who the nom de plume of G. M. Parker really belonged to—but she could use a refresher. And she did littlemore than flip through the rest of the magazine some weeks. They regularly featured charities their readers could consider supporting, though. They could have something about the Empire House in an issue somewhere.
“Lavinia.” His hand rested on her shoulder but then slid down her back, rubbing a circle. “Would you please look at me?”
He wasn’t going to go away this time, it seemed, so she sighed and turned her face toward his. A frown creased his brow, pulled down the corners of his mouth, but it wasn’t his usual frown, bold and challenging. It was a private frown, for no one but her to see. He rubbed another circle on her back. “Are you all right?”
She flashed a smile and then rolled her head to try and loosen her neck. “I’m wonderful. If I’d had any idea this work could be so invigorating, I’d have found you out and made you recruit me years ago.”
His frown went amused, at least. “You find sifting through these filesinvigorating?”
“Well of course!”
He shook his head, that downturn flipping up. “You must be touched in the head. And I must not know you half so well as I thought I did.”
She smirked back. “As well as anyone. This is my best-kept secret, you know.” Except it wasn’t. Her best-kept secret was her mother’s treachery, but he already knew that. He knew everything else, really.
Lavinia gave her hand one more shake and picked up her pen again.
Yates plucked it back out of her fingers. “No. You need sleep. Marigold says you’ve been working hard in the gymnasium, and you have to give your body time to recover, or itwon’tstrengthen you. It’ll drain you.”
She reached for the pen, but he held it out of her range. A huff spilled from her lips. “You’restill up.”
“Iam not at the start of a new, taxing routine.” He tossed the pen to the desk. “The files will be here in the morning, Vin.”
But the clue that would unlock everything could be in the next one she pulled. Or in one of the magazines she had to find. It was like the thickest, most puzzling detective story she’d ever read. And unlike so many of Conan Doyle’s, the clues were there, laid out and waiting for her to find them.
Turned outbeingHolmes was far more entertaining than reading about him.
