your maid?” he said again. He couldn’t believe it. The girl looked flustered and anxious and hardly older than his sister Anne. She was, apparently, incapable of managing a household.
“I will be hiring servants.” She made an impatient gesture. “Mr. Wycliffe and I could have dealt with this matter. I don’t know why he bothered you…”
“He was obliged to tell me as executor of my uncle’s will. And how would you have done that, exactly?”
“What?”
“How do you intend to ‘deal with’ a burglary?”
“I… I…”
Of course she had no idea. Very few people, in Alec’s experience, were capable of decisive, intelligent action. “This is a serious matter.”
“I know that! I am the one who was here, and might have been murdered in my bed!”
And so, people substituted emotional outbursts for clear reasoning. The ploy was all too familiar to Alec. “You will come and stay with my sisters.”
“No, I won’t.”
“You propose to remain here alone?” He could see in her face that she didn’t want to; she was sensible in that, at least. He waited for her to suggest a plausible alternative. She merely sulked. “I brought my carriage. Have your maid pack up your things. I will speak to Wycliffe.” She started to protest, clenched her fists, then her jaw. Her visible struggle was oddly affecting. Torn, she was perhaps trying to be sensible. What had she said at their first encounter? Alec had a vague impression that she’d had more than her share of difficulties lately. But he had no time.
“What is your plan?” she blurted out as he turned away.
“I shall place a couple of men in the house to watch over it, and to catch the thief if he returns. They will put in a much more effective lock, of course. And I shall notify the watch and the magistrate…”
“I would have done that! Notifying, I mean.”
Alec waited. She said no more. “Pack your things,” he repeated, and went downstairs to consult with Wycliffe about hiring an investigator to look into this incident.
An hour later, he was relieved to find Charlotte and her maid with filled valises, ready to depart. Checking another task off his list, his mind returned to the letters on his desk and the seemingly inevitable tragedy unfolding in the countryside. As they drove from his uncle’s utterly unfashionable neighborhood to more familiar districts, Alec didn’t notice the looks exchanged by his two passengers, or the deepening anxiety in Charlotte’s hazel eyes.
Five
Stepping down from the carriage before a town house that made Henry’s—hers—look pinched and mean, Charlotte was acutely conscious of her appearance. In Hampshire she’d had only the dressmaker who sewed for her mother, with very outmoded ideas of fashion. She’d turned to her for mourning gowns when her father died, partly out of foolish sentiment, she supposed, but mostly because Henry had been so beastly about anything she needed. She had no doubt that her clothes would be despised in such a modish house. Sir Alexander obviously despised her already. Not that she cared. Straightening her spine, she stepped up from the pavement. It was just that she had been mocked and belittled for so long she really didn’t think she could bear any more. As they passed through the front door, held for them by a smart young footman, she was near tears.
Something small and mottled black hurtled down the beautiful curving stair, trailing shreds of white. Footsteps pounded above. A housemaid emerged on the landing, followed by a superior manservant who roused unwelcome memories of Holcombe. “That… that creature is possessed by the devil!” the manservant exclaimed.
The black thing turned out to be a large calico cat. It crouched in the back corner of the hall guarding what looked like the mangled remains of a neckcloth.
“It attacked me as I came up the back stairs,” the man added. He held up a bleeding hand. “It was lying in wait! Six freshly pressed neckcloths spoiled and one”—he pointed a shaking finger at the cat—“destroyed.”
The footman took a reluctant step toward the cat. A pretty brunette girl of perhaps twelve came running down the steps. “Lizzy!” said Sir Alexander. Charlotte waited for her to cringe at the annoyance in his voice, but the girl merely disentangled the cat and scooped it up into her arms. The animal’s ferocity vanished at her touch. It lolled in the girl’s arms. “I told you that beast was to be confined…”
“Frances left the schoolroom door open. I told her not to.”