Page 90 of A Murder in Bloomsbury

“You are to be cunning,” Miriam corrected. “It has always suited you far better than patience.”

Before I could decide whether that was a compliment, Bexley appeared at the door.

“Lord Peregrine, my lady. And a gentleman who declined to give his name.”

Peregrine came in with his usual ease. Behind him came Mr. Quennell, The Quill and Crown editor. His restless gaze went at once to the windows, to the door he had just come through, and back to the windows. Clearly, he was in fear of being followed.

I rose to greet them. “Lord Peregrine, Mr. Quennell. How pleasant to see you. May I offer you coffee—or something stronger, perhaps?”

“Coffee will do for us both,” Peregrine answered, settling into a chair. Quennell dropped on the edge of another as though it might be withdrawn.

After Bexley left to carry out his request, Peregrine wasted no time. “I apologize for descending on you before the sun is properly up. Last night we heard about Linnet.”

“To use a young woman so.” Quennell pressed a handkerchief briefly to his mouth. “To carry her off in such a fashion. I have not slept, Lady Larkspur. I confess it freely. I have not slept.”

I was not certain how to receive this. “You are very kind to be so troubled on her behalf, Mr. Quennell.”

“Troubled. Troubled.” He turned to Peregrine. “Was I not in tears last night? You saw me.”

“He was,” Peregrine confirmed in a wry tone. “I can vouch for the tears.”

Bexley returned with the coffee, and I poured cups for both men. Peregrine took his with the ease of a man never hurried by anything. Quennell accepted his, did not drink, and then seemed to forget he held it at all.

“And so,” Quennell said, mastering himself with a small, brave sniff, “I came to a decision. Lady Larkspur—Miss Gray’s poem must be published.”

I did not move. “‘The Mask of Virtue’?”

“The very same.”

“But the poem was lost in the fire.”

“Ah. Yes. As to that. A small untruth, my lady.” The man had the grace to color. “Forgivable, I hope, in a man whose premises had just been burned. The original is quite safe. It has never left my keeping.” He leaned toward me. For the first time, the fluttering went out of him, and something steadier showed beneath. “I am a coward in most instances, Lady Larkspur. I will admit that without a blush. But I am the editor of a literary journal, and there is one thing even a coward in my trade will not do, and that is let a thing burn that ought to be read.”

Across the room, Miriam set down her cup with the soft, satisfied click of a woman watching a chess piece move into place. “Edgar will not like that, Lark.”

And there it was—the whole shape of Thorne’s strategy, walking in through my own front door before I had so much as drunk my coffee. We must be clever, and we must be loud. Edgar wanted Linnet’s case conducted in silence, soberly, attracting no notice whatever. A poem in The Quill and Crown, with all of literary London already whispering about the deaf girl shut away by her own brother, was the precise opposite of silence.

“You were Lydia Gray’s friend,” Quennell said. “And you and Lord Everthorne mean to see justice done for her.” He drew a breath, and something firmed in him. “It goes to press tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.

The word went through me like cold water. Every part of me that had wanted to march on Westmere House an hour ago rose up at once and wanted this—wanted it in every coffee house by noon.

But then I heard Thorne, as plainly as if he stood at my shoulder. You fire it once, Lark. And you fire it when it cannot miss.

“No,” I said. “Not tomorrow.”

Quennell blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“The publication must be delayed.” I chose the words with care, aware of how much sat beneath each one and could not be said aloud. Not to two men who would carry it out of this room in perfect innocence and let it slip at a club, a supper, a printing house. “I am going to ask you to trust me a little further than is comfortable, and to forgive me for not laying out every reason.”

Peregrine went still in his chair, watching me the way he watched everyone—idly, and missing nothing.

“My brother means to have Linnet committed,” I said. “To an asylum. The papers are nearly drawn. A physician is expected to examine her within days. We cannot prevent the thing itself. But once it is done, we mean to challenge it. How we mean to do that, I must ask you not to press me on. There is a strategy to it, which I cannot share. I will say only this.” I laid my hand flat upon the table. “The poem names what is to be done to her, and why, and by whom—set down in Miss Gray’s own hand, before any of it comes to pass.”

Understanding moved across Quennell’s narrow face, and behind it, dismay. “Then surely the sooner London reads it⁠—”

“The sooner London reads it, the sooner my brother does.” I held his gaze. “And he is not a man who suffers being made a spectacle. If this appears tomorrow, he will not stand and take it. He will move Linnet where I cannot follow and finish his business in the country. Lydia’s poem will have an effect, I grant you, if you publish it now—but it will not point to Edgar. Let him do it. Let there be a committal, papers, names. Then the poem will point all of London straight at him. We will make sure of that. If you publish too soon, you’ve spent our one shot without hitting what we need.”