Page 5 of Miss Moriarty, I Presume?
In the end, she had arrived at her decision as she had arrived at the decision to meet Moriarty’s representative: by relying on both the coldest logic and a rather shocking amount of intuition. It was the same problem, and needed precisely the same calculation of how much danger they faced at this specific moment in time.
And now, the fate of those who mattered the most to her rested on the accuracy of her assessment.
“It will be all right,” she said as they stopped before their destination.
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Watson a little too fast, almost as if she’d been holding her breath, waiting for this exact reassurance.
The stucco exterior of 18 Upper Baker Street had been mended and cleaned, the front door given a new coat of black lacquer. The renovation had been Mrs. Watson’s idea: If the ladies were seen outside directing masons and painters, then they must not be thinking of running away from Moriarty.
Charlotte had no way of knowing whether their act of feathering the nest convinced anyone of anything, but the door itself, freshly lacquered, certainly gleamed. The lunette window above the door was lit, as were the parlor on the next floor where Charlotte and Mrs. Watson received their clients and the adjacent room that served as Sherlock Holmes’s “convalescent” chamber.
Her heart beat a little faster. Ash. They hadn’t seen each other since Christmas. She wished she had worn something better. Her grey jacket-and-skirt set was perfectly serviceable, but hardly had the impact of the velvet day dress she’d had made recently, in a similarly overpowering pink as her tea gown.
The next moment she had her hand on Mrs. Watson’s sleeve. “Don’t look anymore, ma’am.”
She’d never prohibited Mrs. Watson from paying attention to either of the flats taken by Moriarty’s minions, but she did not want the dear lady to betray too much agitation. Their attitude toward this “unearned” surveillance should be one of bemusement and disapproval, not trembling fear.
Mrs. Watson barely took her eyes off the Upper Baker Street flat today, and just now she was again about to turn around and look.
“Right, right,” muttered her partner, her key scratching the lock a few times before she managed to open the front door.
“Is that you, Holmes?” came the question immediately—from the direction of the basement.
“Yes, and Mrs. Watson, too,” answered Charlotte.
Footsteps. Soon Lord Ingram, in his shirtsleeves and gold-flecked waistcoat, emerged from the door that led to the domestic offices belowstairs.
He looked... healthy. He looked like exactly who he was, a country squire who rode and walked daily, rain or shine. She could almost smell the fresh Derbyshire air still clinging to his skin and hair, this lithe, strapping young man striding toward her, the lupine grace of his gait made more lethal by the fact that he was still rolling down his sleeves over his shapely forearms.
Mrs. Watson threw herself at him. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here!”
He stilled in surprise before wrapping his arms around her, too, enfolding her in his embrace. “Of course I’m here. Where else would I be?”
He spoke to Mrs. Watson, but looked at Charlotte. The letter from de Lacey must have struck him hard; the concern in his eyes, however, was not for himself, but for her.
She inclined her head. She was not fearful by nature and the threat of Moriarty was not a new one. Moreover, short of fleeing, they had already made every preparation. Mrs. Watson still agonized over all the dire possibilities that they had not anticipated, but Charlotte’s mind was focused on the upcoming meeting.
De Lacey might be sent to interrogate her, but in speaking to him Charlotte would also gain valuable intelligence to guide her next step.
She said to Lord Ingram only, “What were you doing in the basement, my lord?”
“Washing my hands.”
Mrs. Watson stepped aside so he could offer his hand to Charlotte to shake. Charlotte slid her still-gloved thumb across the back of his hand. He turned their joined hands so that her palm faced down. She wasn’t sure how he did it, but as he let go, this man who had protested so vociferously at her onlysomewhaterotic missive, his fingertips brushed the inside of her wrist, that sliver of skin just above the cuff of her glove, concealed by the belling of her sleeve.
The water with which he’d washed must have been glacial melt, for his fingertips were ice-cold. And yet she felt only heat at their contact, as if sparks from the grate had landed directly on her skin.
“But surely we have washbasins upstairs,” puzzled Mrs. Watson. “And are you not cold, my dear, without your jacket?”
Charlotte had already noticed the slight sheen of perspiration near his hairline. “I imagine Lord Ingram took off his jacket because he was warm.”
No fires had been lit in the house earlier, as Charlotte and Mrs. Watson had been out all day—Mrs. Watson, having come from modest beginnings, did not believe in wasting coal in unoccupied rooms. Lord Ingram, who saw to his own comfort very well, would have laid fires after his arrival. But it seemed unlikely for him to have built such blazes that he needed to remove his jacket.
“Were you at some physical exertion?” asked Mrs. Watson.
“You could say so,” he answered lightly.
“There’s a dark spot on your elbow,” Charlotte pointed out. “It looks to be a grease stain. Lubricating oil?”
