“Good night, Kate,” Julia called as her maid closed the door.
But Julia wasn’t sleepy. She sat at her window seat, drawing her woolen wrap around her.Sergeant O’Malley… Why not? The man deserved a good wife, and there was none better than Kate.Matchmaking.Julia smiled wryly. Aunt Caroline would tell her to stick to one heart at a time.Starting with my own.
In June, when she’d packed a bag and shown up at Richard’s house in Kent, she never really intended to spend the night alone in a Dover hotel. But over the months of separation …Cold feet?She looked down at her slippers and smiled.They feel warmer now.
Julia parted the starched white curtains. A full moon lit the circular sweep of Finsbury Circus, the bare trees black silhouettes against the paler sky. She sat, leaning on her elbow.Is Kate right about the sparkle in my eye?
Julia threw off the covers each morning, happier than she’d been for months, eager for the day. But her nights … most nights felt longer and lonelier. Her grandfather nodded off most evenings, retiring early, leaving empty hours until bedtime. She’d look up from a book, listening, hoping for a late knock, disappointed when the ticking clock and the whoosh of falling fireplace ash were the only sounds.
Julia roused herself when a bank of thin clouds drifted, veiling the moon. She removed the warmer from between the sheets, tipped the hot embers from the pan, and leaned the long handle against the fireplace. Julia turned back the blanket and looked down at the bed. She hovered her hand, feeling the rising heat against her palm. A smile played on her lips. She wondered,What would it be like? To share a bed with someone who warmed the sheets.
On Monday morning, Tennant’s day at the Yard began with a report from Liverpool: confirmation that McGrath had takena steamer from Cork, landed, and moved on to London. But there, the trail ended. He smiled when the knock that interrupted him was Julia’s.
“Just the person I wanted to see,” Tennant said, rounding his desk and pulling out a chair.
“That’s always pleasant to hear.” She sat, peeling off her gloves.
“I’m eager for your summary about our corpses.”
“Hmm … not so delightful.” Julia handed him her report. “There’s no doubt a single killer is at work. Any rational person—”
“Rational. That’s the rub. Well, the colonel will believe what he will, but this will convince the commissioner.”
Tennant brought her up to date on the recent developments.
“So, you have servants stealing from the queen,” Julia said, “using royal service to cover up a smuggling enterprise. Is it your theory that Lizzie stumbled on the scheme?”
“It seems reasonable …”
“But?”
“Brigid Dowling’s murder doesn’t fit. Our gentlemen suspects, not the servants, knew about her travels. And they had the leisure and means to move around, not Bolger, the Osborne House steward.”
“There’s what’s his name,” Julia said. “The valet to the Prince of Wales in London.”
“Stanley Hackett’s a low-level crook and a scared rabbit,” Tennant said. “No, first things first, Julia. How often I’ve gotten it wrong by losing track of that simple principle.”
“Meaning?”
“It starts with the murder of Lizzy Dowling. For some reason, she had to die. Why?”
“I have something for you on that score. It’s the second reason I’m here.” Julia extracted a sheet of paper from her medical bag. “Faithfully transcribed by Lady Styles from Princess Alice’s letter, sparing you pages of royal family news.”
“About time,” Tennant said, scanning the paper. “Well, it clears up part of a mystery—how Lizzie got to Osborne House. Still, an intriguing question mark remains about Lady Middlebury’s interest in the girl.”
“And Princess Alice names a location for you. A village near Kilcullen.”
“Kilcullen?” O’Malley said, entering the room. “’Tis wild country thereabouts.”
The inspector rummaged in his drawer, found a map of Ireland, and unfolded it across his desk. O’Malley pointed to a spot.
“Hmm … only a scattering of villages,” Tennant said. “Most of the area seems taken up by the great plain of the Curragh and the British army base.”
O’Malley said, “More soldiers and sheep than locals.”
Julia looked at the sergeant. “What do they think about a British military base in their midst?”
O’Malley smoothed his mustache, considering. “’Tis a bit of a mix. Not much love lost, but plenty of Irishmen ‘take the queen’s shilling’ and serve in the army.”
