“And Lord Remington, he didn’t sail all the way from India just to make sure you were all right?”
“No.” And thank goodness for that. The last thing he wanted was for an older brother to come halfway across the world because he had been incapable of managing his own life. “He left Calcutta before... everything happened.”
“I still can’t believe that you sent your children off with him. That you let them out of your sight.”
Had it been Mrs. Watson making the statement,I still can’t believewould have been a figure of speech. But this was Holmes. Andshe, by those words, meant exactly that. She didn’t believe it.
He chose to answer as if she were Mrs. Watson. “Remington has always been the pied piper. Children adore him and never want to let him go. When he asked if they would like to go with him to the seaside, they jumped at the opportunity.”
“Which seaside?”
“My cottage on the Devon coast. But they have departed for Scotland. Remington has plans to see Cape Wrath. Perhaps even the Orkney Islands. He assured me the weather should still be tolerable this time of the year.”
She knew that Remington was his favorite brother. She knew that they were close despite the difference in their ages and Remington’s long years abroad. Yet as they made their way past plots of artichokes, cauliflowers, and vegetable marrows, her incredulity was evident—at least to him, long accustomed to scrutinizing her face.
Next to the cold frames at the northwest corner of the garden she asked, “With the children away, why haven’t you gone on a dig yet?”
He almost always went on digs in autumn—arranged for them well before the beginning of the Season. After Lady Ingram’s sudden disappearance, with the children now his sole responsibilities, he had given up his earlier plans.
“I haven’t made new arrangements. And frankly, at the moment, I don’t wish to. See that hexagonal structure?”
The walled garden sloped toward the south, so that everything within benefited from maximum sunshine. From their vantage point, they had a clear view of the lavender house, which had never been used for making dried flowers in his tenure, or even his godfather’s.
Several of his menservants were coming out of the lavender house, one holding a broom and a dustpan, two pulling a large handcart. They locked the door and walked away.
“I’d ordered some more expedition equipment, but when they came today I didn’t even want to look at them. They are being stowed as is, in their crates.”
She allowed that answer to stand, which could mean she believed him. Or that she didn’t but already knew everything she wished to know.
He let silence take over. They walked along the walls of the garden now, for her to inspect the espaliered fruit trees that had taken her fancy. After a minute or so, he glanced at her. Sometimes he could read her silence as well as he could a newspaper. Right now her thoughts were not about him. It was possible they did not even involve the whereabouts of his children: Her silence wasn’t simply distracted; there was something unnerving about it.
He felt as if he stood on the prow of a ship, watching the captain scan the horizon for signs of impending disaster only the latter could recognize.
Then the sensations of ill omen dissipated into the ether, like so many coils of cigarette smoke. His breaths quickened. He was well acquainted withthisparticular strain of silence—the heat, the hunger, the coercive need to touch.
“You mentioned earlier that you’d like to see me remain longer in the country,” she murmured. “You could bribe me to that end.”
“Oh?” he heard himself say, “how much per extra day?”
“We could discuss that. Or you could pay me a call one of those days, when Mrs. Watson takes her afternoon nap.”
Yes. Would tomorrow do?
He clasped his hands behind his back. “You did not write for three months and you think I would be amenable to perform such services at your beck and call?”
She scoffed. “Youdid not write for three months.And you think I would be mollified with anything less than such services at my beck and call?”
He couldn’t help but smile.
Mrs. Watson came into the walled garden then—she had probably run out of questions to ask the head gardener—and exclaimed at the extent and vibrancy of the place, this late in the season. He showed her the glass houses and, when she asked how those were heated in the coldest months, explained in some detail about the boiler room just beyond the north wall, where all winter long one of two boilers, sunk deep underground, would provide heat via hot water forced through a network of pipes.
The ladies took their leave not long after that. For discretion’s sake, he did not accompany them to the front of the house, where their pony cart was parked, but bade them good-bye just outside the walls of the kitchen garden. Mrs. Watson extended a warm invitation for him to call early and often at their hired cottage.
“We will be most delighted to see you”—she turned to Holmes—“won’t we, Miss Holmes?”
“Of course,” she said, all limpid-eyed innocence, as if she hadn’t propositioned him again. “We will await your arrival with bated breath.”
He watched her walk away and felt, for the first time in a very long time, something like happiness.
