Page 103 of A Ruse of Shadows
He moved so that he sat immediately next to her, their dresses touching. “I thought you’d never ask, dear Livia. Yes, I will disappear for a while. But I will return to your side as soon as possible—I always will.”
Thirty-eight
Livia found Charlotte on the veranda of Mrs. Watson’s house, clad in a dress of white-and-gold stripes, watching the Seine flow by.
Livia pulled her baby sister to her feet and hugged her fiercely. “Thank you! Thank you, Charlotte!”
“I enjoy being thanked,” said Charlotte after she was let go, “but what does this particular bout of gratitude concern?”
The enormous white-and-gold bow on her bodice had been crushed by the hug. Livia fluffed it up again. “I saw Mr. Marbleton at thejardintoday.”
“How did he look?”
Livia thought for a moment. “Quite pretty. His dress was more fashionable than mine.”
This made her laugh. Charlotte smiled, looking at her.
Livia ambled around the veranda and prattled happily for a while about the all-too-brief encounter, and then said, “I can’t thank you enough, Charlotte. I know you didn’t do it for me—the Marbletons are important in the campaign against Moriarty and—”
Charlotte leaned against the balustrade. “You’re wrong.”
Livia was taken aback. The Marbletonsweren’timportant?
“The Marbletons are crucial allies, and I consider Mr. Marbletona friend. But throughout the planning and the execution of our entire strategy, you were always foremost in my thoughts, Livia. So yes, I did do it for you.”
“But that is—that is—Mr. Marbleton and I might not have a future together.”
“No one knows about the future. His freedom has made you happier in the present, and that’s good enough for me.”
Livia could not speak.
Charlotte came forward and linked their arms together. “Madame Gascoigne reports that there is a little place nearby that does the most magnificent sole meunière. Miss Redmayne is keen to try it and we were only waiting for you to come back.”
“Oh, Charlotte!” Livia finally found her voice.
Her sister held her close. “You are the most consequential person in my life, Livia. I would have moved mountains for you. What was a few hundred cubic yards of clay?”
?Lord Ingram dutifully played the invalid at Stern Hollow for a few days. Then, with a great big plaster cast on his “fractured” limb, he traveled with his children and the Treadleses to the Isles of Scilly, and there played the invalid for another week but enjoyed himself much better.
When Holmes visited him in Bordeaux, at the vineyard he’d inherited from his godfather, another two weeks had passed and he had at last tossed aside all casts and crutches.
When he had collected her from the railway station and brought her to the estate, she surprised him by suggesting a ride around the property—in all the years he’d known her, he’d seen her atop a horse no more than three times. But then again, he had mentioned that he longed to ride, and Holmes remembered everything.
The harvest was in progress.Vendangeurs, crouched low, cut grapes from the vines row by row. He led her to a clearing atop a gentle slope, where a picnic had been laid out.
They ate bread and cheese, and drank the vineyard’s own wine. It was best known for a heady claret, but it also made a few bottles of crisp white wines that went well with the local cheese.
Afterward, they lay on the picnic blanket and watched clouds drift across a deep blue sky.
“I heard from Miss Longstead a few days ago,” declared Holmes. “She and her friend Miss Yates just returned from two weeks in the Highlands. I relayed your invitation to Bordeaux, and she has promised to lay waste to the vineyard’s cellar by summer of next year.”
“She is welcome to it.” He thought of the vineyard’s vast cellar, laughed, and set his hands under his head. “All the money has been wired, by the way.”
He had been in Bruges. Before Mrs. Claiborne left England, she passed on the key she’d received from Mr. Underwood the last time they had seen each other, the remaining key he had been safeguarding for Bancroft. Key in hand, Lord Ingram had claimed the contents of Bancroft’s safe-deposit box, the one containing the latter’s ill-begotten gains.
With Remington’s permission, Mrs. Claiborne and Mrs. Farr had each received decent compensation, and Holmes, a finder’s fee of three thousand pounds.
“Are you all right?” asked Holmes.
