CHAPTER 8
There was no chance in heaven, much less on earth, that Penelope, Violet, and Griselda could possibly wait until the next day before visiting the establishment of Myrtle Hook.
As it happened, Miss Hook’s shop was located in New Road in Camden Town, not all that far from Griselda’s house in St. John’s Wood. Given they were headed in that general direction, the ladies paused in Albemarle Street to take up Megan, who Griselda had left playing with Oliver in his nursery, watched over by Hettie.
But when Hettie came down the stairs, Megan on one hip and Oliver balanced on the other, both children’s faces lit at the sight of their mothers, and Penelope, reaching for Oliver, was struck by an idea.
When, minutes later, the carriage rumbled north, it carried Penelope, Violet, and Griselda, and also Megan, Hettie, and Oliver.
The children were delighted with the outing; sitting on their mothers’ laps, they pressed their faces to the windows and watched the houses, carriages, horses, and people, and pointed and laughed.
Pushing her spectacles up again—Oliver had a habit of pulling them down so he could stare directly into her eyes—Penelope was curious to see how her latest idea would play out. The excursion was entirely safe; there could be no danger in a shop open to the public on a busy street—and regardless, her three guards were present, Phelps and Conner having been joined by James, who acted as footman. And not only were she and Griselda spending extra time with their children, Penelope had also noted that said children proved a potent distraction for other adults, especially women.
Both Oliver and Megan could be counted on to smile and chortle and generally act sweetly; if some female needed to be won over or distracted, the children were the perfect accomplices.
They reached New Road and located the shop. Hook’s Shoe Emporium appeared quietly prosperous.
“As it should,” Penelope remarked to Violet and Griselda as they gathered on the pavement. “I can only imagine how much Lady Latimer is paying for those shoes.”
“If they successfully work as Cinderella shoes, then I’m sure her ladyship considers them to be well worth the price,” Griselda said.
Recalling all she’d heard about the desperation in the marriage mart, Penelope inclined her head. “There is that.”
It was now late afternoon; although workers had started to stream home, all the shops were open and busy. James led the way. A bell tinkled as he opened the emporium’s door. Entering, he held the door for their party, then after shutting the door, he stood to attention beside it, waiting, as a footman should, to carry any parcels back to the carriage.
His presence was a subtle indication that purchases were anticipated.
Griselda had been the last to enter the shop. Halting just inside the door, she took visual stock. The emporium was laid out much as her milliner’s shop, with a counter toward the rear, running across the width of the shop and cutting off the public space from the doorway that led into the back room and the stairs that gave access to the upper floor. The space between the counter and the front door was both display area and salon; racks, shelves, and glass cases lined the area, with shoes and boots of all sizes and styles artfully arranged to best entice, while the central space was given over to an arrangement of chairs, stools, and footstools.
Penelope had taken Oliver to look at some small boys’ shoes. Megan had spotted a ladies’ shoe sporting a fringe, and Hettie had taken her to get a closer look. Violet was strolling down the room, surveying the shoes as she went.
Penelope, seconded by Violet, had suggested that, as owner of a millinery shop, Griselda should be the one to speak with Myrtle Hook. Hoping she could do her friends’ confidence justice, Griselda drew in a breath and advanced on the counter.
One of the young shop girls had left her station to attend to Violet. The remaining girl, a neatly turned out slip of a thing, ventured a small smile. “Can I help you, ma’am?”
Griselda returned the smile. “Indeed, I hope you can. I’m here to see Miss Hook. Please inform her that I have a message from…her most valuable private customer.”
The girl blinked. For an instant, she studied Griselda, confirming that she was both assured and in earnest, then, a frown tangling her fine brows, the girl nodded and stepped back. “I’ll ask. If you’ll wait here, ma’am?’
Griselda assented with a nod and watched the girl disappear behind the curtain that screened the entrance to the back room.
The girl returned within a minute. With a “Miss Hook will be with you momentarily,” the girl left the counter to tend to Penelope and Oliver, who was somewhat inarticulately demanding to try on some boots.
Leaning on the counter, Griselda watched the performance and couldn’t help but grin.
Two minutes later, the curtain was thrust aside and an older woman, a decade or so older than Griselda, stumped out. Myrtle Hook was a heavy woman with a ruddy complexion and wispy red hair, but her eyes were shrewd in a face that bore the stamp of determination, softened by a level of satisfaction. Griselda got the impression that Myrtle Hook had worked hard for what she’d wanted and was now relatively content with her lot.
While Griselda had been studying Myrtle, the shoemaker had been returning the favor. As quick to pick up the telltale signs of class among her customers as Griselda was, after a glance at Penelope, Violet, Hettie, and the children, and James standing to attention by the door, Myrtle was, understandably, a trifle puzzled.
Griselda smiled. “Yes, we are all together.” Myrtle would have heard the shop bell ring only once. Glancing at the others, Griselda said, “While I suspect we are interested in your wares, our primary reason for calling is due to a problem your most valuable customer has encountered that, entirely incidentally, necessitates our looking into the details of the special shoes you make.”
Suspicion filled Myrtle Hook’s eyes. Griselda met her resistance with a gentle smile. “I’m a milliner, Miss Hook. While our professions might be complementary, they are not sufficiently similar that I would have any use for your secrets. As for my friends, they are not connected with trade of any sort, as I’m sure you can tell.” Griselda had been holding Violet’s notebook below the counter, out of sight. Raising it, she opened it to the page containing Lady Latimer’s note. “Your special customer gave us this letter to serve as introduction. It makes her wishes plain.”
Griselda offered Myrtle Hook the notebook. Retrieving a pair of wire-rimmed glasses from the capacious front pocket of the leather apron she wore, the shoemaker took the book and read.
Reaching the end of the note, Myrtle humphed. Then she raised her gaze to Griselda’s face and opened her lips—
The bell tinkled again. Both Myrtle and Griselda glanced toward the door and saw a lady with two girls, both clearly her daughters, come sweeping in.
Myrtle’s gaze fastened on Penelope’s town carriage drawn up outside the shop. Conner, too, was standing on the pavement beside the door, attempting to look unobtrusive but, although not wearing livery, he, James, Phelps, and the carriage screamed of the quality of customers patronizing Myrtle’s emporium. Myrtle grinned. “The longer you and your friends remain, the better the day for me.”
As if to prove the point, the door opened again and two more ladies came in. From the way they looked around, it was plain they had not previously been in the shop.
Myrtle grunted. “It might be as well if you and your friends come through to my office.”
Retrieving the notebook, Griselda nodded. “The children can remain here with the nursemaid, if you like?”
Myrtle considered the toddlers for an instant. “No. You’d better bring them with you. My girls and the customers don’t need the distraction.”
Griselda glided about the shop, gathering the others. Myrtle flipped back the end of the counter and beckoned them through. The others followed Myrtle past the curtain. Griselda brought up the rear, setting the counter to rights, then slipping past the curtain to join the others in the small cubbyhole that served as Myrtle’s office.
It was crowded with all of them in there. Myrtle rummaged in a tin and produced two hard biscuits. She gave one to Oliver and one to Megan; Hettie had balanced both children on the top of an upturned crate in one corner. Thanking Myrtle on behalf of the children, Hettie crouched before the crate and watched over the pair while they ate.
Returning to the chair before the desk pushed against the end wall, Myrtle sat. Griselda had already slipped into the visitor’s chair. Violet and Penelope had elected to stand against the wall at her back.
Myrtle considered the three of them, trying to read their faces, then she focused on Griselda. “So what’s this about?”
Griselda chose her words with care. “A few nights ago, a lady wearing Lady Latimer’s shoes was seen fleeing the scene of a murder. Lady Latimer and her daughters were in the same house at the time, attending a ball. However, there are reasons to suspect that the lady who fled wasn’t Lady Latimer or any of her daughters. Which leads to the question of whether any other lady could have, somehow, gained access to a pair of Lady Latimer’s shoes.”
It took Myrtle a moment to follow the argument, then she scowled. “If you’re saying that I sold someone else—”
“No. We’re not even suggesting that, much less saying it.” Griselda’s tone pulled Myrtle up short. “But this is murder in the ton, the police are investigating, and it’s all quite serious, so, rather than involve the authorities directly, Lady Latimer has asked us to look into all the possible ways that some other lady might have come to have a pair of these shoes.”
“For instance,” Violet said, “you might have been burgled and lost a pair of the shoes through no fault of your own.”
“Or one of your workers might have been tempted and sold on a pair without your knowledge.” Penelope met Myrtle’s gaze. “Lady Latimer wanted us to assure you that any such accident outside your control would not be seen by her as a violation of your agreement.”
Myrtle studied Penelope for a moment, then blew out a breath. “All right. I understand—at least why you’re asking. But all I can tell you is that we haven’t lost any of our pairs of those shoes. Her ladyship and I—we were that careful when we set up the system, the ordering, the way we send the shoes to her, and so on. None have gone missing. And as for any of my workers stealing a pair, that’s nonsense. They’re all relatives of sorts, so that would be like stealing from themselves. And on top of all that, we run a very tight process on those shoes. There are never more than two pairs being made at any time, so it’s impossible for any to go missing without us noticing.” Turning to her desk, Myrtle pulled out a slim ledger. “This is the Latimer account. Those shoes are difficult to make, the materials are expensive, and the construction is time-consuming, so they end very costly. Against that, her ladyship pays me well. But because of the cost, we keep everything written down, you see.” Myrtle showed them a page of the ledger. “Every hour, every skein of thread, every last crystal.”
Violet had stepped forward to peer at the ledger. Straightening, she said, “With that degree of oversight, you would know instantly if anything went missing.”
“Exactly. That’s what I’ve been trying to say.” Myrtle closed the ledger. “If some other lady was wearing shoes like the ones we make, they didn’t come from here.”
“Hmm.” Penelope digested that; she had hoped that Myrtle’s shop would prove to be the source of the lady-on-the-terrace’s shoes. She frowned. “If those shoes didn’t come from here, then we’re looking for some other shoemaker.” She refocused on Myrtle. “You haven’t heard of any competitor, perchance?”
Myrtle snorted. “They’ve all been sweating in their shops trying to copy my shoes, but, so far, I haven’t heard of any succeeding—and I’m sure they would crow if they did.” She paused, then pulled a face. “I’m sure that, at some point, someone will succeed, but as far as I know, no one has yet.”
Penelope considered, then asked, “Would it be possible for us—the three of us—to see how you make the shoes? If we knew the details, there might be some way to check if anyone else has started duplicating them. I take it that there are critical points in the construction that are not common. Anything uncommon would give us a possible avenue to follow.”
Myrtle’s resistance showed in her face, but, no doubt recalling Lady Latimer’s instructions that she was to give the three ladies who called on her every possible assistance, she debated, then, eyes narrowing, said, “As none of you are shoemakers…if you will each swear on your mother’s grave that you will never divulge anything of what I show you to anyone so that it becomes common knowledge or is passed on to some other shoemaker, then, yes. I’ll show you.”
Griselda and Violet immediately put their hands over their hearts and swore the required oath.
Penelope frowned. “My mother’s not dead.”
“Your father, then,” Griselda said.
Frown evaporating, Penelope complied, rattling off her father’s title in the process, which made Myrtle’s eyes grow round.
But Myrtle duly nodded and heaved her bulk out of her chair. “Leave the little ones here—they’ll be safer.”
Hettie was happy to remain with the children.
Griselda, Violet, and Penelope all rather eagerly followed Myrtle from the room.
She preceded them down a short corridor, opened the door at its end, and led them through. The room beyond was a workshop, with a long, wide central table plus benches all around the walls. Several girls and women, and two lads, were working at various stations, some hammering, stretching, and shaping shoes, some cutting out soles, others carving heels on lathes. Penelope was fascinated but didn’t dare dally as Myrtle led them to one side of the room.
“This is where we make those shoes.” Myrtle stopped before the bench along the side wall. At one end, by a narrow window, a girl sat on a stool embroidering midnight-blue satin with heavy gold thread, while in the middle of the bench, an older woman was fixing satin of the palest pink heavily embroidered with silver thread to a plain ballroom pump.
Myrtle pointed to the blue satin. “That’s for her ladyship, for her second daughter’s engagement ball. And that”—Myrtle pointed to the pale pink—“is for the youngest daughter, for her come-out ball.”
Griselda was peering at the gold embroidery. “That’s awfully heavy.”
“Yes, but it’s necessary.” When Griselda looked at her questioningly, Myrtle paused, clearly wrestling with her reluctance, then grudgingly volunteered, “Without a heavy surround of what is essentially metal, the crystals won’t stay on.”
Penelope and Violet shifted nearer to look at the embroidery on the pink shoe.
After a moment of inspection, Penelope said, “So one of the critical points in the process is to do the right sort of embroidery.”
Myrtle nodded. “It has to be thick enough, and it has to be high-quality metal thread. Most shoemakers never use real gold or silver thread—they use all sorts of substitutes that look like gold or silver but are much cheaper, reasoning that, on shoes, no one can tell the difference. And in general, they’re right. But for these shoes, the thread has to be high-content base metal, and there has to be enough of it surrounding each crystal or the crystals won’t stick.”
“So,” Penelope said, “we could trace the users of high-content gold and silver threads—” She broke off as Griselda and Myrtle shook their heads.
“I use high-content gold and silver threads,” Griselda explained. “All milliners do, most often on gloves.”
“And jewelers and dressmakers, too,” Myrtle said. “Not on everything, obviously, but it’s common enough on goods for the nobs.”
Penelope grimaced.
Myrtle looked at Griselda. “The glue is also not a common shoemaker’s glue. I got it from my grandmother—she was a milliner. She worked up her own recipe and used her glue to stick everything on anything. That said, not even that glue will work to hold crystals on shoes for any length of time, not unless you also have the right metal thread embroidery, and the right crystals.”
Griselda looked up and down the bench. “Where are the crystals?”
Myrtle waved them back and opened a cupboard under the bench. A heavy iron safe sat on the floor; it had been mortared in place. Myrtle spun the dial, then opened the door and reached in. She pulled out a covered tray, set it on the bench, and lifted the lid.
Fire blazed out of the black-lined tray. Even in the dull light of the workshop, the crystals all but exploded with light.
Penelope blinked. Several times. “No wonder they were so easily seen, even in moonlight.”
“In any light, no matter how weak.” Myrtle picked up a handful of crystals and let them fall from her palm in a living river of coruscating light. “They’re high-lead-content crystal, specially cut to maximize brilliance, which is why they work so well on the shoes.”
Penelope all but held her breath as she asked, “Are they rare?”
Myrtle started to nod, then stopped. “Not rare so much as expensive. They’re imported from Slovakia, but because of the cost, they’re not used that much, at least not that I know of.”
Griselda was shaking her head. “I haven’t seen them used anywhere—and I would have noticed.”
Penelope shut her lips on the thoughts churning through her head. She glanced at Griselda and saw realization abruptly bloom in her eyes.
Violet, too, was deep in thought. Myrtle closed the tray and bent to put it back in the safe. As she did, Violet asked, “Are there other types of crystals that would work?”
Busy closing the safe, Myrtle shook her head. “Only this brand. No others have both the lead content and the brilliant cut.”
Before any of them asked anything more and inadvertently jarred Myrtle from her helpful mood, Penelope smiled as the shoemaker straightened. “Thank you for showing us. I believe we’ve seen all we need to see.” She turned and started for the door to the shop. “You mentioned that other shoemakers have been trying to copy these shoes. Tell me—have you heard or seen anything that would lead you to suppose that anyone has guessed that it’s you”—Penelope gestured at the workshop—“and here, that makes them?”
Myrtle had followed Penelope; Griselda and Violet had fallen in behind.
“No,” Myrtle said. “And I assure you that if any of the others in the guild had guessed that those shoes came from here, we would have been burgled. No doubt about that.” Joining Penelope by the door, Myrtle met her gaze. “As you might expect, given the huge sums other ladies are offering for such shoes, the competition has been fierce, but as yet, no one else has discovered the secret of making crystal-covered shoes.”
Penelope smiled and led the way from the workshop.
* * *
“Regardless of what Myrtle believes,” Penelope said, “I will wager any sum you like that some other shoemaker has finally found a way to duplicate her shoes.” She paused, then amended with a shrug, “It’s that, or her ledger system failed, and one of her employees has succeeded in smuggling out a pair or in making a separate pair that Myrtle doesn’t know about. We only need one loose pair, after all.”
They were back in the carriage and rolling around the northern border of Regent’s Park on their way to Griselda’s house. Hettie and the now-drowsy children were on the seat alongside Penelope, while Griselda and Violet occupied the seat opposite.
Griselda regarded Penelope with amused affection. “You seem to have accepted that the lady on the terrace wasn’t any of the Latimers, even though we’ve yet to check their alibis and Cynthia’s, at least, has a rather large gap in it.”
Frowning slightly, Penelope rubbed her nose. “I know. I’m not sure why, but by the sum of all things—all my impressions and everything I’ve heard—I just can’t see any of the Latimer girls, and definitely not Cynthia, shoving a cannonball at their Aunt Marjorie. And it couldn’t have been Lady Latimer—such an action would have torn her apart. She’s torn now, but that would have destroyed her. And I know none of that is logical, but there you are.”
When neither Violet nor Griselda argued but just smiled at her in unvoiced agreement, Penelope leaned her head back against the squabs and asked, “So where do we stand? What about these crystals?”
“Given they’re imported,” Violet said, “and expensive and not much used, we might be able to trace whoever is using them via the suppliers.”
Griselda wrinkled her nose. “I was tempted to ask Myrtle who her supplier was, but not only would that have put her in an invidious position—she’d given up all her other secrets, and that’s the one that’s most critical of all, yet she had been instructed to tell us all, regardless of whether that might ruin her business…as I said, invidious. But aside from that, she most likely knows of only one supplier—the one she uses.” Griselda glanced at Violet. “With such things, there’s usually any number of importers—well, at least a handful and very likely more—who will have contacts in Slovakia and be able to bring in the crystals.”
“There’s a difference,” Violet said, “between being able to and actually doing. We only need to check with the firms who are currently importing those particular crystals.”
“True.” Tipping her head back, Griselda thought, then said, “I wonder if we can get a list of the firms importing the crystals.”
“I rather suspect,” Violet replied, “that we might need to ask for firms importing goods from Slovakia—it’s not a major trading nation, after all.”
“No, but…” Griselda shrugged lightly. “I really have no idea how many firms we might find on such a list.”
“Heathcote might know—or, at least, Mr. Slocum might be able to find out for me.” Violet, too, shrugged. “I can ask and see what they turn up. It might give us a place to start.”
Griselda nodded. “And I can inquire from my contacts—the brokers who can usually find me anything I need for my hats and gloves.” With rising enthusiasm, she went on, “And then perhaps we can compare our lists—yours of firms importing goods from Slovakia, and mine of those companies known to supply crystals and such for the appropriate trades.”
Griselda and Violet exchanged smiles. “Yes, let’s,” Violet said. “That sounds like a viable path forward.”
The carriage slowed and turned into the familiar surrounds of Greenbury Street. Realizing Penelope had been strangely silent, both Violet and Griselda looked at her.
She was staring absentmindedly out of the window, but as the carriage slowed outside Griselda’s house, Penelope turned her head and met their gazes. “There’s something we’ve overlooked.” She frowned. “Let’s postulate that some other lady has, indeed, found some enterprising shoemaker who has succeeded in duplicating Lady Latimer’s shoes. If so, why haven’t I—or Myrtle, Lady Latimer, or anyone in the ton—heard of it? This lady wore the shoes to the Fairchilds’ ball, but made no effort at all to show them off, even before she followed Lady Galbraith outside.” Penelope shook her head. “That makes no sense…” Her frown deepened. “Unless…”
The carriage had rocked to a halt; James appeared and opened the door.
Penelope sat staring, unseeing, at the opposite side of the carriage as James helped Hettie and the children down to the pavement, then handed Violet and Griselda down.
At last, Penelope stirred and followed the others out of the carriage.
The instant James had shut the door and Penelope had resettled her skirts, both Griselda and Violet demanded, “Unless what?”
Suddenly entirely sober, Penelope met their gazes. “It just occurred to me. If you were a shoemaker who had finally succeeded in duplicating Lady Latimer’s shoes—and having worked to do so suggests that said shoemaker is aware of the ton’s intense interest in those shoes, and that in turn means he would almost certainly have heard of the feud—then who in all the ton is this shoemaker most likely to contact to sell his version of Lady Latimer’s shoes?”
Both Griselda’s and Violet’s expressions grew as sober and as serious as Penelope’s.
All three looked at each other, but none of them put the obvious answer to that question into words.
Penelope nodded. “Just so.” She raised her brows. “I wonder how we can meaningfully inquire at the Galbraiths’ house.”
* * *
Late that night, Hartley Galbraith climbed through an open window into the conservatory at the rear of Latimer House. The house slumbered; there were no lights burning anywhere, not even in the conservatory.
Especially not in the conservatory.
He and Cynthia didn’t need light; they could find each other through any darkness, or so it seemed.
She appeared, an angelic phantom gliding out of the shadows to greet him. With a soft smile, she walked into his arms, her arms rising to wind about his neck as she stretched up, and he bent his head, and their lips met.
The kiss…embodied the promise that had kept him going through the days and nights since his mother had been killed. The comfort, the support—all Cynthia so unrestrainedly offered.
He deepened the kiss, wanting more, wanting to touch, to taste, to sample the scintillating passion that, wonder of wonders, had so steadily grown between them. She murmured through the kiss and pressed closer; in wordless communion, she urged him on. Joined with him in waltzing this waltz of the senses that neither had ever shared with anyone else.
And for moments, those moments, they stepped away from the here and now, from the horror and sorrow and tensions of their lives, and they danced.
For each other, with each other.
Their lips fused, and their tongues tangled, stroked, and caressed in a duel of delight. Her fingers speared through his hair and gripped his skull as he drew her flush against him, molding her lithe body to his, easing his hardness with her supple curves, the fullness of her breasts cushioning the contours of his chest, the soft tautness of her belly cradling his erection.
They both wanted so much more.
Both knew they couldn’t have it, not yet.
Not while the here and now hovered so close, and so strongly, so insistently, tugged at their hearts.
Now was not the time.
Dragging in a breath, he steeled himself and drew back from the kiss. She matched his resolve, and his reluctance, as she lowered her heels to the floor and looked into his face.
Studied it in the weak light.
He had no idea what she could see, but he grimaced. “I really don’t like this.” His arms still wrapped around her—unwilling to lose her warmth—he glanced about them. “Meeting here like this.” Returning his gaze to her face, he went on, “It’s bad enough that we have to meet clandestinely, but meeting here is even worse. I feel as if I’m trespassing in some unforgivable way on your parents’ goodwill.”
They hadn’t previously used the conservatory for their assignations, but after their last meeting in the church porch, Hartley had swallowed his dislike of trysting in her parents’ house; better she remain safe indoors than have her court the risks of the streets at night, even with her maid and the undergardener, who was little more than a boy.
Cynthia arched a brow. “You’re here at my invitation, but if we’re to speak of not liking things…I have to tell you that we—Mama especially, but me and my sisters, too—have started encountering more definite whispers and suspicious looks.”
Hartley swore beneath his breath. Lowering his arms, he grasped one of Cynthia’s hands and drew her to a wrought-iron seat set beneath one wall of glass panes. She sat, and still holding her hand, he sat beside her. “Tell me the truth—how bad is it?”
They’d moved into an area washed by moonlight; the stronger illumination allowed Cynthia to see just how drawn, how haggard, Hartley was. She swallowed the more colorful description that had leapt to her tongue, and instead said, “It’s not yet bad enough that we can’t simply ignore it. We’re none of us wilting flowers, as you know. For the moment, we’re managing.” She paused, then added, “But what we can’t know is how long the uncertainty will last, and how much society’s reactions will escalate before the murderer is caught. And in pursuit of that—the murderer being caught—I persuaded Mama, and the others, too, that calling in Mrs. Adair would be a sensible thing to do. Mama went to see her this morning, and Mrs. Adair and her friends called on us in the afternoon.”
Cynthia paused, remembering. “She strikes me as being rather acute, and her friends aren’t just hangers-on, either. I got the impression that we were being assessed by three different pairs of eyes and ears.” Cynthia continued, describing the interview and the concession her mother had finally been persuaded to make. “So Mrs. Adair and her cronies are hunting for some evidence that some other lady has, somehow, obtained a pair of Lady Latimer’s shoes—namely the pair that we saw on the lady fleeing the terrace.”
Silence ensued as the words conjured up the vision in both their minds. Cynthia shivered and leaned against Hartley. He put his arm around her and drew her closer.
“So,” she said, glancing at his face and seeing the lines shock and grief had drawn there, “how are your family—the girls, your father? How is the household faring?”
Hartley met her eyes, his own heavy and tired. “Not as well as I’d hoped. The pater has rallied, but he’s still not up to much. Geraldine, at least, came downstairs this morning. I think she would have improved further, but we had several visitors, and she and I felt we had to be present to support Papa.” Hartley paused, then said, “The first through the door were Lady Gresham and Mrs. Foley. As you know, they’re connections of sorts, so we couldn’t turn them away, although to give him his due, poor Millwell tried. He didn’t get far—you know Agatha Gresham. She bullied her way past poor Millwell and demoralized him so thoroughly that he let three other groups in before I realized and put a stop to it. By then, Papa was gray, and Geraldine was in tears and struggling not to break down entirely.”
Cynthia hissed in almost ferocious disapproval. “Don’t these people have any feelings?”
“What they had,” Hartley said bitterly, “was rampant curiosity of the worst kind. All of them in one way or another alluded to the feud, and inquired in circuitous ways about what we imagined the Latimers felt over Mama’s death…” Frustration strangled Hartley for an instant, then he ground out, “Agatha even had the gall to ask Papa if he thought your mother had done it.”
“Good God.”
“Indeed. Papa…that nearly sank him, you know. But what’s even worse is that those damned well-wishers have planted seeds in both Papa’s and Geraldine’s minds, and now they don’t know what to feel, much less what to think.” Hartley met Cynthia’s gaze. “This evening, after dinner, which none of the girls came down for, I went up to see how they did. Monica is still lying in her bed and not speaking—she just stares at the wall. But I found Geraldine with Primrose—they were talking about the murder and whether it could possibly be one of your family who had done it.”
Hartley held Cynthia’s gaze for an instant, then softly swore and looked away. “They don’t want to even think it, much less believe it, but they simply don’t know…what to think. What to believe.” He sighed. “It’s eating at them—I can see it.”
He looked into Cynthia’s face. “It’s building—the suspicion, the distrust.”
Cynthia held his gaze, then blew out a breath. “I wasn’t going to tell you—you have troubles enough—but…quite aside from the suspicion of others, which, as I said, we can currently ignore, Mama, my sisters, and I have been worrying about exactly that. About what your family will think—whether they will suspect one of us of that terrible deed—” Cynthia’s voice quavered, and she stopped and looked away. Then she drew in a deep breath and, with more determination, went on. “We—Mama, Papa, and the four of us—discussed coming across the square. Simply walking across and knocking on your door and asking if your family will see us. Mama and Papa feel so strongly that they should be there to support your father through this. They are his oldest friends, and they feel they can’t help.” She glanced at Hartley. “But it would be impossible to visit—to simply call—without someone seeing and spreading the word. And as Mama pointed out, the ton would immediately be abuzz with people saying that we, the Latimers, were taking advantage of your mother’s death to ignore what had patently been her wishes to cut all ties, and that therefore, doesn’t it stand to reason that one of us… Well, you know how it goes. Even though Aunt Marjorie has gone, the feud, it seems, lives on.”
After a moment, Cynthia continued, “Both our families are coming under increasing strain, not just from society but also from within, from our own worries and uncertainties about what each other might have done, or might think.”
“It’s a festering sore.” Hartley’s tone was grim.
“We can see it building, can already see that it’s causing damage to your family and mine—all too soon it’s going to become intolerable.” Cynthia glanced at Hartley, searched his face, then faced forward. After several moments, she said, “Festering sores need to be lanced.”
Hartley looked at Cynthia’s face, at her profile; her jaw had set in a manner he knew well. “I’m not arguing, but what can we do?”
After a moment, she said, “Consider this. If we don’t end this feud, now and forever, the only way you and I are going to be able to get married is if we run off to the Americas. It’ll have to be that, for I warn you, I have no ambition whatsoever to feature in any Romeo-and-Juliet-style tragedy.”
Hartley choked. “I should hope not!”
“Indeed. So if we want to marry, then we need to do something to…lance this boil that the feud has become.” Shifting within his arm, Cynthia faced him. “Neither you nor I care that much for society or its opinion. We care about each other, and we care about our families, both of them.”
Hartley nodded. “As I said before, no argument.”
He waited, watching her face as she thought; she had always been the one to do the planning, while he, as usual, held himself ready to execute whatever scheme she devised.
But when a minute ticked by and she still didn’t speak, his confidence wavered. If she couldn’t think of a way…
Ten seconds later, he quietly asked, “Is there anything we can do?”
Determination hardened her features, then she met his eyes. “I’m not sure yet. Let me think.”