“I do, and I did not mean to insinuate anything. I am stating a fact. I am not a detective for hire. I am a scientist who occasionally works with the police in matters regarding murder.”
“Blackmail,” she blurts. Then she quickly glances around and lowers her voice. “I am being blackmailed, Duncan, and it is not a matter I can take to the police. Nor is it one I would take to a stranger. I am a respectable widow, and what I am being threatened with...” She plucks nervously at her cameo choker. “It is very personal.”
Gray’s voice lowers, touched with the first hint of compassion. “I understand, Patricia, but this really is not my area of expertise.”
“Could you at least hear me out?” Her gaze moves to me. “Both of you. I understand Miss Mitchell is your assistant, and she would therefore be involved in any detection you might do.”
I grant her a point for that. She’s making it clear that this isn’t about getting Gray’s attention. Which means she really is being blackmailed.
Gray’s gaze cuts to me.
“Our schedule is not overly occupied, sir,” I murmur.
“We will hear you out,” Gray says to Lady Inglis. “I presume we cannot do that here?”
She shakes her head. “It is very private, as I said. I would invite you both to lunch with me tomorrow if that is amenable.”
“It is,” Gray says. “Now, as for that signature...”
“It’s fine,” I say quickly.
“I can do better than a signature,” Lady Inglis says with a soft smile.
She leads us into a side hall. Partway down it, she stops and knocks.
A man opens the door, but from our angle, I can only hear the voice.
“Patsy!” he says. “I had hoped I might see you while I am in town. I am having dinner with your parents tomorrow.”
“And I shall be there,” she says. “May we step in? I have a young woman who is most eager to meet you.”
Dickens waves us forward, Gray nudges me, and I find myself standing in front of Charles Dickens.
ChapterFour
We’re quickly ushered inside before anyone hears Dickens speaking. Apparently, that reception room isn’t actually a reception. It’s a place for the wealthy attendees to sip port while the rabble clears out. Meanwhile, Dickens is staying in his room waiting forthatrabble to clear out.
Lady Inglis excuses herself with an invitation to join her for lunch the next day. And then I am left standing in front of Charles Dickens, gaping, with Gray tucked in behind, ceding the stage to me.
“Sir,” I say, words jumbling as they spill out. “Mr. Dickens. It is an honor. I... I am a great admirer of your work, and I...”
I babble sentiments he has heard a million times as my brain screams for me to do better. I am meetingCharles Dickens. I have the chance to speak to an author whose work helped shape my literary childhood. An author who died a century before I was born.
Say something, damn it.
Say somethingmeaningful.
I clutch the book to my chest, as if that will steady my nerves. “I appreciate all you have done to tell the stories of those who do not normally get them, the insight you give into the lives of the poor and working classes.”
He blinks. Am I not supposed to say that? I remember that he has been mocked for “plumbing the depths” by contemporaries who only tell the stories of the privileged.
“All lives are worthy of note,” I say. “And the lives of the rich fill enough books.”
He smiles at that. “They do indeed.”
I continue, warming to my subject. “Too often, when we look back, we see only those whom history deemed worthy. When we lose the stories of the majority, we lose history itself. We see our past through such a narrow lens that we cannot truly understand what it was like to live in such a time, and I appreciate what you have done to widen that lens for future readers.”
His gaze goes from Gray to me. Do I sound as if I am parroting Gray’s words? Do I look as if these thoughts cannot possibly be my own? Sadly, yes, I do.
