Page 38 of A Murder in Bloomsbury

"This way, my lord. Quietly, if you please."

I followed her through a narrow passage and said nothing, which seemed the safest course of action available to me.

The drawing room was smaller than I had imagined. I had pictured something grander for the woman whose literary salons were spoken of in every corner of London—or at least every corner that troubled itself with poetry and radical opinions. But the room was intimate, lined with books and furnished for comfort rather than display. A fire burned low in the grate. Two armchairs had been drawn close to it, and between them a small table bore a decanter of what appeared to be brandy and two glasses.

Two glasses. Not three.

Lady Larkspur stood near the mantelpiece. She wore a dark teal gown, high-collared, with no ornament save a brooch of jet at her throat. Her black hair was loosely pinned, as though she had begun to prepare for bed and then thought better of it. The effect was—I set that thought aside.

“Good evening, Lord Everthorne.” Her voice carried the same composure I remembered from our previous encounters, but there was an alertness about it tonight.

“Lady Larkspur.” I inclined my head.

“You’ve met my cousin, Mrs. Selwyn.” She gestured to the lady.

I turned to her relative. “I have.”

“She will be joining us this evening, for propriety’s sake.” She didn’t appear entirely happy with that statement. “With your approval, of course.”

I had rehearsed how I would say what needed saying, how much to reveal. What I hadn’t planned for was a chaperone, although in retrospect I should have. Regardless, we needed solitude for the conversation we were about to have. “What I have come to discuss,” I said, “is of a private nature. I would prefer that it remain between the two of us.”

Mrs. Selwyn’s expression hardened. “My lord, you must understand that I cannot in good conscience⁠—”

“Are you planning to ravish me tonight, Thorne?” Lady Larkspur interrupted.

Fighting back a smile, I said, “No. Not tonight at any rate.”

Something changed in Lady Larkspur’s expression. Her lips pressed together, and for a moment I thought she might laugh. Whatever she had expected—gravity, perhaps, or scandalized deflection—it was not what I said.

Mrs. Selwyn, on the other hand, was not amused. “Really, Lark.”

Lady Larkspur turned to her cousin. “Miriam, would you be so kind as to wait just outside? The door will remain unlocked.”

Mrs. Selwyn rose with the dignity of a woman making clear that her compliance was not the same as her approval. She paused beside me, looked up—she barely reached my shoulder—and said, “I shall be immediately outside that door, my lord. Immediately.”

“I would expect nothing less, Mrs. Selwyn.”

When the door had closed behind her, I became acutely aware it was midnight and Lady Larkspur and I were quite alone. Never mind a brandy decanter and two glasses rested on a nearby table, and her hair was charmingly disarranged. And I was about to share with her the most shameful secret my family possessed.

"Please," she said, gesturing to one of the armchairs near the hearth. "Sit."

As I did so, she poured brandy into one of the glasses and handed it to me. And then she settled into her own chair and waited for me to speak.

I set my glass down untouched and withdrew my grandmother's journal from my coat.

It was a small thing—bound in green morocco, the leather cracked and darkened with age. My grandmother's hand had been elegant once, but had grown uncertain in her later years, the letters listing like ships in heavy weather.

"This belonged to my grandmother," I said. "The Dowager Marchioness." I paused. "It was among the items my estate manager sent to me. It covers the weekend gathering at Everthorne, the autumn of 1847.”

Lady Larkspur's gaze sharpened at the mention of the journal, but she said nothing.

“My father had invited several families of consequence. My brother invited several of his Oxford friends. Among the guests was a young woman named Emily Driscoll."

“Go on.”

“This journal does not begin with that weekend. It begins earlier. In it, my grandmother wrote about my brother, William.” The name felt like a stone in my mouth. "She had observed him for years. His behavior with the housemaids. His way of finding one alone in a corridor, a stairwell, a linen closet. My grandmother intervened where she could, but William was the heir, and the heir's conduct was not her province to govern. Not according to my father."

“And you knew nothing of this?”