run up and down the stairs. But I’ve been sleeping wonderfully. No coughing. And I feel stronger. He said Charlotte’s potion is a wonder, and he intends to recommend it to his other patients.”
Alec hardly dared believe it, but Anne did look better. Some color had returned to her cheeks. She no longer had that frightening languid air, as if the least effort was beyond her.
“I like her.”
“Who?”
“Charlotte, silly!”
“Oh, yes.” He took the chair on the other side of the hearth and continued his scrutiny of his sister. He’d been worried about her for so many weeks; it was difficult to trust the improvement.
“She has actually gotten Lizzy interested in maps and exotic places on the globe. Lizzy has decided to become an intrepid explorer. I warn you, she wishes to purchase a sword stick.”
“What?”
Anne gave him a look. “You are not listening to me.”
“Yes, I am. Lizzy… Lizzy is learning geography?”
“Charlotte has been teaching her.”
“She needn’t do that. She is a guest here.”
“They both seem to be enjoying it.”
“Really?” He couldn’t picture his boisterous sister enjoying any type of study. “I’m still in Lizzy’s bad books, I suppose?”
Anne shrugged. “Until you release the cat from ‘prison.’”
“The storeroom is not…”
“I was teasing, Alec. You’re not really going to get rid of Callie, are you?”
He grimaced. “Anyone would think I’d threatened to drown the animal. I wager it would actually be happier if I sent it down to the country. If you could see the reproachful looks I get if I happen to pass the kitchen.”
“I heard that Callie managed to ingratiate herself with Cook. I can’t imagine how.”
“She caught a mouse in the scullery. And presented it to Mrs. Dunne with due ceremony. Devious creature. She has the instincts of a Russian diplomat. She’s turning the whole household against me.”
Anne laughed. “But Alec, you’ll let her out eventually?”
“If Lizzy promises… Oh, what am I saying? Lizzy will promise, and then she will ‘forget’ or imagine that some situation requires that she break her word.” Frances had been right about that much. Alec felt a rising sense of unease. He had never had to oversee his willful little sister here in town, where she was surrounded by strangers and pitfalls she knew nothing about. And Anne, whom he’d always trusted to prevent Lizzy’s most distempered freaks, was in no condition to do so.
“She doesn’t mean…” Anne began.
He had to move; he really could not sit still any longer. “Do not overdo and exhaust yourself,” he said over his shoulder. He shut the door upon the concern in her face, and tried to do the same with his own. In fact, he knew just how to divert his mind from his own problems. He went to his study and immersed himself in correspondence.
By luncheon, the mood had passed, and when Charlotte answered his summons at three o’clock, Alec had recovered his equanimity. “The Bow Street Runner is due, and he has asked that you be present,” he told her as she entered the study. For some reason, she frowned. “If you do not wish to speak to him…”
“Of course I wish to speak to him,” she answered snappishly.
Alec wondered if trying to teach Lizzy was irritating her nerves. A knock on the study door put the thought from his mind, however. Ethan opened it and said, “Your caller, sir.” He ushered the fellow in and closed the door behind him.
Alec faced an odd little man, unremarkable in every way. Mid-sized, with mouse brown hair, gray-blue eyes, and forgettable features, he wore a long gray coat that would pass unnoticed in most parts of London. Not outside this house, perhaps, but in a wide variety of other neighborhoods. “Good afternoon, Mr…?” Why hadn’t Ethan announced the fellow’s name? Or taken his coat, for that matter?
“Jem Hanks, sir, lady.” As if in answer to Alec’s thought, he added. “I don’t tell me name to just anyone, ye ken.”
The words came with a darting observant glance—sharp, evaluative, some might have said impudent. It was strange. The Runner came from the servant class, but he was nothing like a servant. He was, in fact, unique in Alec’s experience.
He pulled a notepad and stubby pencil from his coat pocket. “I talked to Mr. Wycliffe a time or two already. And looked about a bit. I had a few questions for the lady.”
“Of course,” said Charlotte. She sat on the small sofa under the window. Alec returned to his desk chair. “Do sit down, Mr…”
“I prefer to stand,