A monk might live like this, in chambers crammed with books that overflowed the cases into stacks on tables and floors. A writing table, all but barricaded into a corner of the sitting room, held a heap of papers. Padua made her way to it and examined those pages. Few words had been written. Most of them carried numbers and mathematical notations. Her father had long been in search of impossible proofs. He would not be the first man to spend his life in such pursuits, only to fail.
She looked around, wondering where all this counterfeit money had been stored. From what she could tell, there was no room for it. She wandered into the bedchamber. There she found a conspicuous void near one wall. It appeared a trunk once stood there but no longer did. Its outline could be traced on the floorboards by the absence of any other items.
She had hoped to find proof no large stash of money had been here, so the conspicuous void disheartened her. Her father clearly lived here, but why? If he had inherited property, why would he not live there?
Unfortunately she suspected she knew the answer to that. He had probably sold that property long ago. She would not be surprised if someone had cheated him by paying too little, or even not at all. It would be just like her father to sign over the deed and forget to collect the payment for it.
Discouraged, she returned to the sitting room, and began choosing books to be delivered to the prison. She had withdrawn two, when a small volume bound in red caught her eye. She pulled it out. It was one of the schoolbooks she had used as a girl. It touched her that Papa had saved it.
She flipped it open to see if her childish signature still marked its first page. A banknote fell out and fluttered to the floor. Twenty pounds. She picked it up, then fanned the pages. No more money.
Her gaze went to the books, searching. She spied another thin red binding. She checked that book, and found another ten pounds. Excited, she looked again, and saw a third book.
She pushed the piles of journals and pamphlets off a table, in order to make room for her schoolbooks. Her excavations revealed a wooden box beneath one pile that distracted her. She remembered it from her childhood. Her mother had kept this box in her dressing room. Seeing it again called forth memories and feelings, all of them warm and nostalgic.
Back then it stored gloves. It did not store gloves now. Instead a stack of letters filled it. The letters carried her mother’s scent, she was sure, and their mere existenceentranced her. She set the schoolbooks down, to be dealt with later, and stuffed the banknotes in her bodice, to get them out of the way too. She dumped books off a chair and sat.
The letters were mostly in her mother’s hand, but her father had written a few. The dates indicated these were old, from before Padua’s birth. Her heart trembled while she looked at her mother’s handwriting. Finally, she unfolded one of the letters and read it.
***
Lance agreeing to quit town for Merrywood was not the same as Lance actually getting in the coach and leaving. Ives visited for breakfast, dawdled in conversation up in Lance’s dressing room, and generally remained underfoot until Lance, with annoyance, told his valet to pack.
“I expect I will see you next week,” Lance said just as the coach began to roll.
“Damnation, don’t you dare come back that quickly.”
“Not here. In Merrywood.” The vehicle jostled forward.
Ives had no intention of spending the last part of his precious respite entertaining Lance in the country. “Do not count on it,” he called after the coach.
Lance stuck his head out the window and looked back. “A fine brother you are. Gareth brings his bride home from their travels and you do not bother to come down to greet them.”
Ives called for the coach to stop. He paced to thatwindow and peered in. “Gareth is returning next week?”
“Did I neglect to tell you that?”
“You did.”
“I received a letter two or three days ago. Maybe four.” He pondered the detail as if it mattered.
So much for week two of unencumbered freedom. “I will be there, of course.”
“We will go hunting.”
“Wonderful.” He tapped the coach, to signal the driver to continue. The coach rolled.
A head appeared at the window again. “Did I also neglect to mention she is with child? Eva, that is.”
The coach turned onto the street. The head disappeared. Ives wondered just how drunk Lance had been the last fortnight.
***
It was past three o’clock before Ives made his way to Wigmore Street. He tied his horse near the crossroads and approached Belvoir’s building on foot.
He noticed two things as he walked. The first was a fellow dawdling several doors down from Belvoir’s. He managed to appear busy without actually doing anything. Ives thought it likely a watch had been set on Belvoir’s abode. That was not something that a magistrate had the resources to do, which would mean the Home Office had involved itself far more than Strickland would ever admit.
He then saw an unexpected face from the past. Awoman with an elaborate style to her brassy hair sat in the window on the first storey. When she looked out as he approached, Ives recognized her.
