Page 64 of A Murder in Bloomsbury

“Fair enough.”

I rose. My leg, having remained too long in one position, made its customary grinding objection, and I leaned more heavily upon the stick than I cared to. Will observed the movement without comment. He had been watching the leg since our first meeting, I noticed, with the quiet concentration of a country boy studying a creature not yet identified.

“I shall send word to Mr. Wells. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning, if that suits.”

“Aye.”

“And once I have spoken with the tutor, I shall send for you.”

Will nodded.

I walked toward the door. Ajax, with the sigh of a dog whose retirement had been unfairly interrupted, made as though to follow me.

“Stay,” I told him.

He looked at me. Then at Will. Then lowered himself once more with his great head across the boy’s foot and closed his eyes.

I shut the door softly behind me and remained for a moment in the corridor.

The boy had outmaneuvered me at every stage of the engagement. He had refused the tailor, rejected the clothes and manners alike, negotiated the matter of the tutor, and extracted from me both the loan of my dog and the promise of one of his own—all without raising his voice or losing his composure.

I ought, perhaps, to have been annoyed.

Instead, I found myself aware of an unfamiliar and faintly ridiculous sensation that took me several moments to identify.

Respect.

He was an Ashcombe. Whatever else he might be, he was that.

But he was also, I reflected as I descended the stairs, the only Ashcombe in three generations who had asked for a dog rather than something of worldly value.

There was hope for him.

And perhaps, though I scarcely knew what to make of the thought, there might still be some for me as well.

Chapter

Twenty-Five

A Brother's Fury

The day after the fire, the smell of it still clung to Bloomsbury—a faint, bitter ghost in the morning air that no amount of open windows could quite dispel.

I was at breakfast, pretending to read a letter from Mrs. Wilmot regarding the lending library, when in truth I was thinking of Thorne.

I had not seen him since he handed me down from the hansom cab the day before, in full view of half the square. We had parted with the understanding that we would wait until he received the report from his solicitors. We would take no further action until then.

Across the table, Linnet bent over her sketchbook, the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth in concentration. Miriam read the Times, searching for further news about the conflagration that destroyed The Quill and Crown.

"There is nothing in here," she announced, “about the fire. The only things they note are three deaths from influenza and a deeply tedious debate on the drainage of the Thames. I begin to wonder why I bother."

It was the last easy moment of the morning. Bexley appeared in the doorway, his face arranged in the blank civility he reserved for guests he wished he could turn away at the door.

"The Earl of Westmere, my lady."

I had time only to set down my cup before Edgar swept past him into the room.

"Larkspur." He did not look at Miriam. He did not look at Linnet. "I must speak with you."