Miss Moriarty, I Presume? by Sherry Thomas

Author:Sherry Thomas [Thomas, Sherry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Back at their cottage, Charlotte put water to boil and changed out of her wet clothes. Most of the water went into the hot water bottles, but Mrs. Watson also made tea. She gave Charlotte a cup as Charlotte pulled on her gloves.

“Should I come with you?” asked Mrs. Watson a third time. “I won’t be able to sleep anyway.”

Charlotte had the opposite problem. She would have been able to sleep soundly, but the events of the night were such that she could not permit herself to go back to bed yet. “I don’t have an extra hot water bottle for you, ma’am, and it’s too cold a night to remain out for long without any heat source. Rest if you can. If not, keep an eye on what you can see of the Garden.”

She took a sip of the tea and gave Mrs. Watson a quick hug. “And thank you for shielding me from Mrs. Crosby.”

How fortunate she was, to have come into this remarkable woman’s orbit.

At least the cold air outside, cutting across her face, made her feel more awake and alert. She found Lord Ingram near the meditation cabin, where he’d been watching Miss Baxter’s lodge.

She handed him a hot water bottle, a canteen of hot tea, and a flask of whisky. “Has Dr. Robinson left?”

“I don’t believe so. Careful.”

A ray of light shone down from the eastern wall and zigzagged along the carriage path. Then it swept toward Miss Baxter’s lodge and missed them by only a few feet.

Charlotte would have preferred to take another look at the woodpile, but even without the light beaming down from the wall, it would have been no easy feat for her to approach Miss Baxter’s lodge. But she’d prepared an alternative: She could try to get into the homes of Mrs. Crosby, Mr. Peters, and Dr. Robinson.

Of those three, Dr. Robinson’s cottage was her first choice: Mrs. Crosby and Mr. Peters both lived near Miss Baxter, but the physician’s place was in a different corner of the Garden, in the same huddle as Miss Fairchild and Miss Ellery’s lodge. For that reason she had asked Lord Ingram to keep an eye on Dr. Robinson’s whereabouts.

“The light coming down from the walls is passing too close to this spot. I need to move,” said Lord Ingram.

Theoretically they were free to stroll through the Garden, but still, as nighttime observers, it was better to remain unseen. And Charlotte had come up with a barely plausible excuse if they were caught by a Mr. Peters or a Miss Stoppard: They would claim to be looking for other spent firework shells, to eliminate the fire hazard they posed.

“Be careful, Holmes,” continued her lover. “And go back inside soon. Both of us don’t need to be out here.”

“You be careful, too,” she said.

He pulled her close, kissed her on the lips, and disappeared into the night.

She set out in the opposite direction, toward Dr. Robinson’s accommodations. Earlier, in the middle of the fireworks fiasco, houses had been lit and lanterns had swung about freely.

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