Page 6 of A Murder in Bloomsbury

Miriam thanked him with an approving nod.

As other visitors began to press past, he seemed to recollect himself. He bowed first to Miriam, then to me, and finally to Linnet, his expression gentling as he met her gaze. “Until we meet again,” he said, careful to face her fully.

Then he stepped aside and was carried off with the slow current of the departing crowd.

When we finally stepped back into the sunlight, Linnet’s expression was radiant. She signed one word to me before climbing into the carriage. “Seen.”

For once, I could not disagree. Lord Charles had indeed seen her. And admired what she was.

As the carriage rattled toward home, I watched her through the window reflection—the faint smile that lingered, the color still in her cheeks. I ought to have felt only relief that she had enjoyed herself, yet another feeling crept in, quieter but harder to dismiss. What if this new brightness in her eyes proved fragile? Linnet’s heart was tender. I could shield her from Edgar’s scorn, from society’s unkind stares—but not, I feared, from disappointment.

I turned my gaze outward to the gleaming streets, telling myself it had been nothing more than an afternoon’s pleasant diversion. But I knew, deep in my heart, I was deceiving myself.

Chapter

Four

A Portent of Evil

If success could be measured in noise alone, I would have declared the afternoon a triumph.

My drawing room was full to the edges. Chairs had been borrowed from the dining room, footstools pressed into service, and still two gentlemen stood near the mantel arguing over the Corn Laws with an intensity usually reserved for matters of life and death. The air smelled of beeswax, wool, and the faintest trace of bergamot from someone’s overenthusiastic pomade.

The tea table bore the marks of Cook’s quiet heroism. Seed cake had been reduced to a scattering of crumbs. The currant buns, once symmetrical, had collapsed under enthusiastic handling. A plate of sandwiches stood ravaged, the cucumber slices sliding sideways as though retreating from the discussion on grain tariffs. I made a note to praise Cook later. Revolutions might be born in parlors, but they were sustained by food.

My maid hovered with the teapot, navigating elbows and pamphlets with the agility of a battlefield nurse. Twice I intercepted cups headed toward catastrophe. Hosting, I had learned, was a matter of triage.

I remained near the hearth, smiling, directing, listening with half an ear while taking in the whole.

This was what I had wanted when I first opened Everly House to such gatherings. Not polite calls and harmless poetry, but ideas sparking like flint. Minds meeting without the chaperonage of intellect. Women speaking without apology. Men listening—sometimes even learning.

And today, there was an additional pleasure—Lord Charles Merriton, the gentleman we’d met at the British Institution. He sat next to Linnet, elbows on his knees in a posture of intent observation, as she shaped her hands as deftly as any orator’s tongue. When he occasionally attempted a response of his own, she corrected him gently, her expression wicked with amusement. He bore it with good humor, concentration knitting his brow.

I turned away before I could be caught staring. As her sister, I was allowed to observe but not hover. Happiness, like seedlings, grew best without fingers digging about its roots. Still, hope carried its own fear. A man who saw Linnet clearly was a rare thing. A man brave enough to stand beside her would be rarer still.

A voice rose near the escritoire, and I moved toward the disturbance, disentangling two guests from an argument that threatened to become theological. On my way back, I paused beside Miriam, who stood sentinel near the door, her posture the embodiment of propriety and surveillance.

“Do you know the gentleman near the escritoire?” I asked softly.

Her gaze flicked without turning her head. “The one who came with the solicitor?”

I nodded.

“No,” she said. “But Mrs. Davenport greeted him as though acquainted. Some committee connection, I think.”

I smiled faintly, though unease brushed my thoughts like a passing shadow. No one was allowed entrance to my salon unless they were vouched for by one of our regulars. In his case, the solicitor. Still, his presence gave me pause.

But I could not wonder about him for long. It was time to hear from those who had come to present. I tapped my teaspoon lightly against my cup to gain everyone’s attention.

“Friends, if we might draw the discussion back from grain tariffs to matters slightly less combustible, I believe Mr. Ellsworth has prepared a brief paper on urban sanitation.”

A groan passed through the room. The subject matter was not a favorite of my guests.

Mr. Ellsworth rose and delivered a sober account of cholera outbreaks in overcrowded districts. His figures were dreadful. His delivery worse. Yet the seriousness of his subject steadied the room, and several guests pressed him with practical questions.

Next came Mrs. Davenport on the education of factory girls. Her voice shook with feeling, and twice she had to pause. No one interrupted. Even the loudest gentlemen had sense enough to be quiet when confronted with children who stitched twelve hours a day to the detriment of their learning.

After her, a young barrister attempted to defend the legal system and was gently dismantled by Mrs. Fitzwilliam in under three minutes. I refilled her teacup as reward.