Page 2 of A Murder in Bloomsbury

I returned my attention to Miss Gray, intending to press her about this unfinished poem, but she had already gathered her belongings and was making quiet apologies about an appointment. Something in her haste troubled me. But before I could intercept her, Pemberton launched into another tedious speech about the natural order of things.

From the corner of my eye, I saw my youngest sister, Linnet, sitting in her customary spot by the far window. She had been sketching throughout the afternoon, her charcoal pencil moving across paper with quick, sure strokes. She held up her latest creation so only Miriam could see.

Miriam took one look and pressed her handkerchief to her mouth, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. I craned my neck and caught a glimpse of the drawing—Lord Pemberton rendered as a braying donkey, complete with elongated ears and an expression of supreme self-satisfaction.

Linnet’s eyes sparkled with wicked delight. Deaf since birth, she could not hear Pemberton’s pompous speeches. But she had read his lips well enough to capture the essence of a fool.

I should have scolded her, but I was too busy biting the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.

The salon continued for another hour, talk turning to the latest parliamentary debates and whispers of reform. But I found my thoughts drifting back to Miss Gray’s words, to the fear in her eyes, to the rest of the poem she dared not share and would be dangerous to speak aloud.

What could be so dangerous that even among friends, it could not be spoken? What truth had Miss Gray uncovered that frightened her so?

The last of the guests departed at five, leaving behind empty teacups and the lingering scent of candle wax and conversation. As Miriam closed the door behind Pemberton, she turned to me with an expression of profound weariness.

"If that man returns next week, I will not be held responsible for my actions." She did not need to explain who ‘that man’ was.

"You would never act," I said, gathering abandoned pamphlets from the side tables. "You are far too proper."

“Maybe I should give up being proper then,” she suggested tongue in cheek.

I laughed. She would never do so. Propriety was too well ingrained in her. Never mind that very trait kept my brother at bay so I could live the life I had chosen.

Linnet appeared at my elbow, holding out her sketchbook. She had captured the entire afternoon in a series of quick studies—Mrs. Fitzwilliam mid-argument, Anne’s delighted smile, Miss Gray with her eyes downcast over her poem. But it was the final drawing that caught my attention.

In a few deft strokes, Linnet had rendered Miss Gray as she departed, glancing over her shoulder as though expecting pursuit. It was what I had sensed but not quite seen—a fleeting shadow of fear.

I touched my sister’s hand and met her eyes. “Did you see something?” I signed. Linnet and I spoke through fingerspelling and a private language of home signs—gestures she had learned at the Braidwood Academy and we’d refined into something uniquely ours. She was also remarkably skilled at reading lips and the subtlest shifts of expression, although beards and mustaches tended to muddle those messages.

She shook her head, though her expression remained troubled. Linnet’s silence was never emptiness. She missed no detail and saw more than most ever would.

“Come,” Miriam said, ever practical. “We should let the maid put this room to rights, and we must change for supper.”

I followed them up the stairs but paused at the landing to glance back at the drawing room. In the dim glow of the dying fire, the chairs sat empty, the teacups abandoned. It might have been the end of any ordinary salon.

But something felt different. Miss Gray’s fear had been real. And, though I did not yet know what danger she had stumbled upon, I knew with certainty that it would not remain hidden for long.

Secrets, I had learned, have a way of demanding to be told—whether we are ready to hear them or not.

Chapter

Two

A Brother’s Ultimatum

Morning light streamed through the breakfast room windows, gleaming on Linnet's dark hair as she bent over her sketchbook. She was giggling—a rare, breathy sound that made my heart lift. Miriam leaned over her shoulder to see what had inspired such delight.

“Oh, dear Lord,” Miriam said, and then pressed her napkin to her mouth as her shoulders began to shake.

“What is it?” I abandoned my toast and circled the table. “Linnet, what have you⁠—”

The drawing stopped me mid-step. There, rendered in Linnet’s wickedly accurate style, was our brother. Edgar, Earl of Westmere, had been transformed into a mastiff in full fury—jowls flapping, teeth bared, spittle flying. His paws were planted on what appeared to be a doorstep.

“Linnet,” I signed, fighting to keep my demeanor stern. “You cannot draw our brother as a rabid dog.”

She looked up at me, dark eyes dancing with mischief, and signed a single word: “Accurate.”

I lost the battle with my composure and dissolved into laughter. Miriam was no help, wheezing into her napkin while tears streamed down her cheeks.