“I can do better than that.” She released Gabriel’s hand, yet the connection still simmered, the warmth of his touch refusing to fade. Reaching into her reticule, she withdrew a small scroll. “I wrote it out yesterday and made a copy. We spent the evening dissecting every line.”
And sipping wine. Enjoying conversation. But no touches. No kissing. No teasing glances that might be misconstrued.
As Mr Daventry studied the verse, she wondered which lines captured his interest, and what he might see that they had missed.
“And you joined the ladies at The Burnished Jade because of the words in this poem?” he clarified.
“Yes, and because I longed for company of an evening. I feel as if I’ve been alone most of my life.” Those nights at the countess’s club had been among her happiest. It was where she’d first seen Gabriel, aloof and unreadable, yet under his gaze she’d never felt so alive.
“You had a maid,” Gabriel said.
“Not when I first came to London.” She had been more than capable of dressing herself and stoking the fire. “But a man followed me home when I lived in Clerkenwell. He spent an hour skulking in the doorway across the street.”
After that, she’d hired a maid for protection, not propriety.
Mr Daventry glanced up from the poem. “That was before the burglary, when the intruder stole your mother’s jewellery box?”
“Yes, but the box didn’t belong to my mother. I bought it for five shillings at the pawnbroker’s, along with the paste brooch, comb and earrings, a distraction for a would-be thief. The man who attacked me at the mausoleum was the same one who broke into my home and stole the box.”
“The same dead man found in the cottage,” Gabriel stated.
Mr Daventry took up his notebook and pencil and copied several lines of the poem. “Where did you hire the maid?”
“The Servants’ Registry in Bishopsgate.”
“Near The Burnished Jade?”
“Yes.” When Mr Daventry glanced at the poem again, she knew what he was thinking. “You believe my attacker knew I would visit The Jade?”
It was Gabriel who answered. “London is too vast for it to be a coincidence. The person expected you to visit the countess. Probably because Justin Lovelace was involved.”
There were so manyprobablys, how were they ever to learn the truth? “The clues must be in the poem. That’s what led me here. And something in the valise holds the answers we need.”
“Or something in the mausoleum,” Mr Daventry said. “The key was meant to lead you to the right place.” He went on to recite a few lines of verse to prove his point.
This crypt, built to entomb the dead,
Is now a prison for a living thought.
A secret buried with a future dread,
“It’s poor prose,” she said, “but the message is clear.”
“I shall have an agent investigate those who are buried there.”
She sensed Gabriel’s frustration before he spoke. “We’ll not sit idle. I suggest we question Mrs Hodge. She discovered the body and may have witnessed something important.”
Mr Daventry consulted his notes. “She claims she worked for Sir Randall Ferguson. You should verify her account.”
“I planned to call on him this afternoon.”
Mr Daventry asked her to explain again what she’d witnessed while living at home with her father.
“So your mother died in the fire, but her body was never recovered,” he said, making a brief notation. Then he stole the air from her lungs with a final question. “Might she have left, or been taken by this fraternity?”
Olivia sat with her thoughts, recalling the day with morbid clarity. If she’d known it was the last time she’d see her mother, she would have stayed longer. Said all the things that mattered. “My father called my absence a fortunate twist of fate.” The lump in her throat made it hard to swallow. But lately, she’d begun to wonder. “What if it wasn’t luck? What if it happened by design?”
“You were sent away,” Mr Daventry stated, sounding certain.
