Page 18 of A Ruse of Shadows
She was disguised as an old woman this morning, but not an old woman who bore any resemblance to Mrs. Ramsay, the character she’d played on the RMSProvence. This old woman, with her fully grey hair, her plain black attire, and her hunched posture, would attract little notice but for the headscarf suggesting that she might be an adherent of the Eastern Orthodox church.
She put away the mirror and nibbled, in a most genteel manner, on a cream puff held in an embroidered handkerchief—and started only a little when a knock came at the carriage door.
“C’est moi, madame, votre seigneur et maître,” announced a reedy and somewhat crackly voice.
Charlotte almost choked on her cream puff—and hastened to admit her “lord and master.” A man as old as she must currently appear hooked his walking stick over his arm, grabbed the side of the open door, made a feeble attempt to climb up—and promptly planted himself face-first in the interior of the carriage.
This heavenly creature, clad in fashion from at least three decades ago, his cologne overpowering, his face spotted with age, squinted at her in indignation as he finally managed to raise himself to the seat opposite hers.
“Will you never learn to dress with discretion, woman? Why, every man in Paris would look twice at your headscarf,” he sputtered.
After that huffy commentary, he took a moment to catch his breath before pulling the carriage door shut with a shaky hand.
Catching her gaze on his hand, he pointed an equally shaky finger at her. “This is all your fault, woman. How many times have I told you, at our age, you can’t keep me up at night like that?”
“So…” Charlotte said meekly, “no more games of draughts before bed?”
The man coughed. “And no more waking me up to massage your calves.”
Charlotte sat up straighter. “Does that mean that when my calves cramp up in the future, I can call on our new footman for it? You know, Pierre, the one with biceps the size of hams?”
The man coughed some more. “Well, Pierre must work during the day, too. I’ll buy you a Granville hammer that you can use to percuss your limbs at night.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened. “A vibrator?”
She leaped across the carriage and wrapped her arms around him. “You would buy a vibrator, sir? For me? Oh, my decrepit angel!”
The man burst out laughing. “Vibrator, what a word. Makes those clunky devices sound absolutely deviant.”
He kissed her on the lips. “Hullo, Holmes.”
She drew back a few inches—that perfume indeed overwhelmed. “Hullo, Ash. Thanks for coming to my aid.”
“Speak nothing of it—what’s an English Channel crossing or two between friends?” But his expression sobered. “I’m sorry for what happened, and I’m incensed on Miss Bernadine’s behalf.”
She flattened her lips. “As am I.”
She felt another flare of anger, that unfamiliar emotion, before it was superseded by a stab of fear, a sensation that she was coming to know more than she wished to.
“Don’t worry,” said her lover quietly. “He might laugh now, but he won’t laugh long, not if I have anything to say about it.”
Seven
T his time, when Charlotte arrived at Ravensmere, a woman searched her to make sure that she wasn’t carrying weapons or contraband and then escorted her inside.
The entirety of the estate was enclosed by a high wall. But inside that, another set of walls sealed off a sizable garden. From the gatehouse, the ground sloped down. At the garden wall, it sloped up again toward the manor. As a result, visually, this second wall did not constitute much of an obstruction—a great many of the garden’s geometric parterres remained visible during the approach. Yet up close, the wall formed an effective barrier, seven feet tall, plastered smooth, and topped with shards of glass that glittered in the sun.
Charlotte passed through another gate, this time in a wrought iron fence that isolated the house and a small portion of the grounds from the rest of the garden.
The house featured a limestone exterior and a slate roof. It was handsome enough but not remarkable, certainly not the kind of great house that typically spawned extended acreage of formal French landscaping. But if one considered the barely knee-high patterned hedges as yet another measure of escape prevention—there was nowhere to hide in this very large garden—then everything made more sense.
Charlotte was conducted not into the house but into a side garden delineated by three-foot-high pickets, where Lord Bancroft Ashburton ambled by himself on a smooth stone path.
She almost didn’t recognize him. True, he now sported a scraggly beard and his hair hung lank around his nape, but that was to be expected.
She had not anticipated his new ampleness.
The last time they’d met, he’d been gaunt, almost haggardly, living in fear of his crimes coming to light. Now the worst had already happened; now he had lost his stature, his power, and his prestige. A man who thought strategically would use the time to recuperate, and it was obvious he had.
