Murder on Cold Street (Lady Sherlock #5) - Sherry Thomas Page 0,15

of the blue. “Well enough,” he said. It hadn’t been long since they last saw each other. Only days. And those had been peaceful days, spent in the company of his children. “You?”

“Very well. Girding myself for the onslaught of Christmas baking Madame Gascoigne is about to unleash.”

He smiled a little. She had recently fended off an aggressive approach of Maximum Tolerable Chins, a natural consequence of her typically robust appetite, and must find it vexing to have to practice self-control again so soon.

As if in rebellion against that, she placed another slice of holiday cake onto her plate. “By the way, Ash, did you come to see me about something?”

His heart stuttered.

He; Mrs. Watson; Holmes; her sister, Miss Olivia Holmes; and Miss Olivia’s beau, Mr. Stephen Marbleton, had lately returned from a fortnight in France, during which they’d burgled a tightly guarded château of some of its most closely held secrets. Much had happened that night. He’d always had the presentiment that repercussions would be felt far into the future, but for Mr. Marbleton the consequences had already been unkind.

Lord Ingram had learned of the younger man’s forced departure this morning, as he’d been about to travel with his children to the Derbyshire countryside. Their original plan would have seen them change trains in London and continue on their journey, but the news had careened into him like a runaway carriage.

Mr. Marbleton had been so full of hopes and hopeful plans. Come spring he’d wanted all of them to go on another trip together, this time to warm, sunny Andalusia, a holiday that would have been delightful for everyone involved, but especially so for Miss Olivia, who loved warm, sunny places almost as much as she loved her rare bouts of freedom, away from her neglectful yet limiting parents.

And now, in the blink of an eye, Mr. Marbleton had become a prisoner, not behind bars, but fettered and held captive all the same.

Lord Ingram understood the chaos and unpredictability of life. But this time, faced with a fresh reminder that disruption was the very nature of the universe, his thoughts had instantly turned to Holmes.

She already knew that he loved her—he’d never said so to her, but she’d been seated beside him when he’d made that confession to a pair of policemen. And she already knew, too, that in some distant, hypothetical future, with all obstacles and complexities magically removed from their lives, he would be happy for them to . . . spend more time together?

They’d been too oblique. They’d spoken of going together to Andalusia and other southerly, beautiful places, perhaps all the way to the fabled hill stations of the subcontinent, but they’d never specified exactly what they’d meant.

Perhaps the oblique and unspecified had been all that they’d needed.

Perhaps that had been all that they’d been capable of.

But this morning as he’d read her letter about Mr. Marbleton again and again, growing more chilled with every paragraph, he had been filled with an urgent need to see her—and to turn all the lovely, insubstantial metaphors into something concrete.

“Yes, I did come to see you,” he said in answer to her question.

She looked at him expectantly, her eyes at once limpid and fathomless. She must know what he had come to say, and yet, he found that he did not.

Not exactly.

It was not the first time he’d placed himself before a woman, his heart on his sleeve. The previous time, when he’d offered his hand in marriage to the then Miss Alexandra Greville, though his fervor had been sincere and his idealism real, he had nevertheless seen his love as a gift, a great and precious blessing upon his penniless future wife.

Who had instead experienced it as a great and unwanted yoke.

He would not do the same to Holmes, to blanket her, even if it was with love, when she preferred to be without encumbrances. Was there not something she desired that he could give her?

Ah, but from the very beginning, she’d always been clear about what she wanted from him.

Which he had been too proud—and too afraid—to give. Because . . . what if it was the only thing she would ever want from him?

But today, under her steady blue gaze—today he wasn’t so proud. Or so afraid.

So today he set down his whisky, rose from his chair, and went to her. Today he braced a hand on the back of her chair and set his other hand against her soft, full cheek. And today, he