Page 32 of A Murder in Bloomsbury

“The poem gives us the shape of the story,” I said, thinking aloud. “A house party. A young woman attacked. A cover-up arranged by a father. An innocent man blamed. And the real culprit still free, still powerful, still—” I tapped the line. “‘The wolf still walks among the pious fold.’ Still hiding behind a mask of respectability.”

“And the notebook?” Miriam asked.

“The notebook might give us a name.” I turned a page, squinting at Lydia’s minuscule script. “If I can decipher it. She used abbreviations, initials, and what I think may be a simple substitution cipher for the most sensitive entries. She was protecting herself—or protecting someone else.”

“Or both.”

“Or both.” I sat back and pressed my fingers to my temples. “We have pieces, Miriam. But not enough. Not yet. The guest list from the dowager’s papers, if it’s there, will tell us who was present that night. I can then try to match the initials in the notebook to actual names. The man who visited Lydia before she died—older, silver-haired, respectable in appearance. If he was at the house party, his name will be on that list. We’ll just have to determine who it is.”

“He might have looked quite different a decade ago, Lark. He might not have been silver-haired at the time. And there may well have been more than one silver-haired gentleman.” And then she asked the question I had been asking myself. “Are we so certain that Lydia was murdered because of what happened at Everthorne Manor?”

I considered this carefully. Miriam never asked idle questions, and this one deserved more than a reflexive answer.

“I think that was the beginning,” I said slowly. “Whatever Lydia witnessed at the Manor—the young woman harmed, the cover-up that followed—it opened her eyes. After she came to London, she saw the same patterns emerging elsewhere. Powerful men who wielded their authority against the vulnerable. Institutions that existed to shelter reputations rather than people. She was planning to identify at least one of them in her poem. He was either the man who abused Emily Driscoll or the one who arranged for nothing to be done about it.”

“Those could be the same man.”

“They might. But I believe they were different men.”

Miriam was quiet for a moment, her gaze resting on the scattered papers with the stillness of a woman weighing risk against duty.

“You need to tell Thorne about the notebook,” she said. “You cannot decipher it alone. He may recognize references you cannot.”

“I know.” The admission cost me more than I cared to show. Holding the notebook back had felt like prudence. Now it was beginning to feel like an obstacle. “But not yet. Not until I’ve done what I can with it first. When I hand it over, I want to know what I’m giving him.”

A headache was beginning to make itself known—the dull, persistent kind that came from hours of squinting at cramped handwriting and trying to make dead women’s secrets speak. It was past time to put it all away. I began gathering the fragments and the notebook when Bexley appeared in the doorway.

“The evening post, my lady.”

He presented the tray with his usual air of dignified neutrality. Two envelopes. The first was addressed in a hand I did not recognize—bold, spare, with the decisiveness of someone accustomed to writing orders rather than correspondence. No flourishes. No wasted strokes. The seal was plain.

I broke it open.

Lady Larkspur:

The dowager’s papers arrive Saturday. I plan to visit Mainwaring tomorrow. We will need to meet again to discuss what I find as well as what you have discovered. Please name the place and time we may do so.

I am at your disposal,

Thorne

I read it twice. The handwriting matched the man—direct, unadorned, and carrying more beneath the surface than the words themselves revealed.

He had signed it Thorne. The name I had given him. I was aware of a small, treacherous warmth at the sight of it, which I suppressed immediately.

“Who is it from?” Miriam asked, not looking up from the fragment she was examining.

“Thorne.” I told her what he’d written.

Miriam set down the fragment and regarded me over her spectacles. “You can’t meet here, Lark.”

“I am aware of that.”

“You are an unmarried woman. He is a marquis with a scandalous reputation. If he is seen calling at your door in the afternoon—or at any hour—it will be noted, discussed, and embroidered into something neither of you can undo.”

“I said I am aware of it, Miriam.”

“Then you will also be aware that your brother requires very little ammunition to make your life considerably more difficult. One report from a neighbor, one whisper from a servant, and Edgar will have precisely the excuse he needs to question your judgement—and by extension, your fitness to have charge of Linnet.”