Page 89 of A Murder in Bloomsbury

"And you do not, under any circumstance, attempt to apprehend a murderer."

Will looked frankly insulted. "I wasn't planning to."

"You are ten. I have not the faintest notion what you were planning."

"We'll be careful, my lord," Dawson said, and for once there was no dry edge to it. "I'll keep him close."

"You had better. Both of you." I held his eye a moment longer than the words required. He understood the whole of what I had not said, as he always did.

Will's grin threatened to divide his face in two.

I leveled a finger at him. "This is not a victory."

It was, of course. I had lost it somewhere between the coffee and the kidneys, and every soul at the table—the boy, the manservant, and very probably the dog—knew it perfectly well.

Before I could lose another battle, I came to my feet and made for the door. At least at my solicitors' I would be assured of a victory. Or, at the very least, not a loss.

Chapter

Thirty-Four

The Mask of Virtue

After Thorne left the night before, I had written to Anne and asked Bexley to see the letter delivered in the morning. As it turned out, there was no need. Anne wrote to me. Her note arrived at first light.

After a restless night, I was barely awake when a knock sounded at my chamber door. Bexley, with a salver and a single folded note upon it.

“From Lady Westmere, my lady. The boy was bid to wait, in case there is an answer.”

I broke the seal before he finished speaking.

Linnet was still in London, Anne wrote, kept under supervision. She did not yet know where, but would learn if she could. The certifications were not complete. The night before, a solicitor by the name of Carmody had been closeted with Edgar above an hour. Through the door Anne had caught two words: physician and Thursday. She begged me to do nothing rash, which made me smile despite everything, and signed herself simply A.

I dashed off a reply. A thank-you so she would know her note had reached me and gave it to Bexley. I committed nothing else to paper in case the note fell into the wrong hands.

After dressing for the day, I found Miriam in the morning room, staring into a cup of tea gone cold. She was pale, with shadows beneath her eyes. My looking glass had told me I looked no better. I gave her the substance of Anne’s letter.

“It is the first solid ground beneath my feet since I came home yesterday,” I said.

She set down her cup. “Do not now go leaping off it.”

Which was, of course, precisely what I wished to do. I wished to go to Westmere House and refuse to leave it until Edgar told me where he had put my sister.

“Don’t,” Miriam said.

“I did not speak a word,” I said in my defense.

“You didn’t have to. Your face is already in Edgar’s hall, calling him names.” She folded her hands. “Tell me—what does a confrontation buy you? You have no standing to compel him, and every angry word you utter, he will write down in his head and produce later as proof that his unmarried sister is unsteady. Not to be heeded.”

I said nothing. Because she was not finished. And because she was right.

“You would teach him one thing only,” she went on. “That you know Linnet is still in town. And the moment Edgar knows you know, what does he do?”

It cost me, but I said it. “He moves her.”

“He moves her. Out of London, somewhere Anne cannot follow, and we cannot guess. And then he completes his papers in peace, while we go chasing shadows.” Her voice gentled. “We have one advantage this morning, Lark. He believes we are doing nothing. Do not spend it to feel better for an hour.”

I hated that she was right. “Then we wait,” I said, sinking into the chair across from her, “and let Thorne’s people do their work, and I am to be nothing but patient.” The word sat ill in my mouth.