Page 73 of A Murder at Kew Gardens

"Go on,” I said in the best even-tempered tone I could manage.

“I told him I did not even know what he looked like." Her chin came up, and there in the middle of it was the ghost of her own dry wit, reporting for duty. "I may have mentioned fishmongers. He found the observation persuasive." One breath. "He took off the mask."

"Tell me."

"Handsome." She said it like a diagnosis. "Early fifties. A face you would trust with your orphans and your funds. I sat three feet from him and watched him wait to be admired. I peeled it off him piece by piece. The stoop. The cough. The cane. Twenty years he never lived." She held my eyes. "It is Harcourt. Not a servant of his, not a creature. The man himself, wearing seventy the way other men wear evening dress. I have seen him in both costumes now, and I will swear to it anywhere you like."

We had known. We had followed the money and the men and the lies until every road ended at Harcourt. But knowing was not proof.

Now Rosalynd had looked beneath the mask.

The ghost had a face, and we had Rosalynd, a witness who would swear to it.

"And then he presumed. He put his hand toward my face and told me there was nothing monstrous in him." Her fingers came apart at last, and she looked down at her right hand as though it belonged to a colleague she was rather proud of. "So I marked him. Three lines, cheekbone to jaw. Bowen opened the door on the blood."

Something rose in me then that was fierce and glad and wholly unsuited to a gentleman. I made no attempt to be ashamed of it.

"Three lines will not close inside a week. He must dine, he must be shaved, he must show his club and his servants a torn face and account for it."

I put the hunting away, because her hands had begun to shake now that the report was delivered. But her face told me the report was not complete.

"What else?"

She came to her feet and faced me.

"Last night I opened the pistol case in Cosmos's study. There was a note in it. On the velvet, where the pistol used to lie. Five words. We will meet again soon. Someone had carried it into my house. Past everyone."

She had not spared herself in the telling.

"I decided not to tell you last night. I had my reasons. He wanted us wasteful. He wanted you spending strength on theater. And you are carrying enough. So I decided to carry it alone. For last night only." Her voice dropped. "I meant to bring it to you this afternoon. I had the speech composed. He arrived before my resolve did."

I clutched the mantel over the hearth because I could not trust my anger to be contained.

Three weeks ago I had stood here and reasoned it out like a man drawing up a schedule of works. The masked man watched her. Therefore he must not see me near her. Therefore I would not go near her. I had given up the only thing I wanted in the world and called it strategy. I had even been proud of what it cost me, as though the price were proof of the wisdom.

And today he had opened her carriage door in a public street and named his terms.

"Steele—"

I whirled back toward her. "A man in your house. A man in your carriage. The streets between here and Belgravia walked twice daily by Finch's men." My voice came out level. It did that when there was nothing holding it but habit. "He did not go round one of those men. He did not need to. He chose a time when he knew you were visiting Claire. And on your way back, he stopped the traffic."

"You could not have⁠—"

"Bowen was two minutes away, Rosalynd. Two minutes. That was all he ever wanted."

I still had the brandy in my hand from before Finch's man arrived. I launched the glass into the hearth. It splintered with a crack. The fire spat, but she did not flinch, which was somehow worse than if she had.

"I have been at that man a month. I have been careful and clever. And today he sat three feet from you with his hand coming toward your face. And the only thing standing between you and him was your fingernails."

"And they were enough."

I turned away from the hearth and crossed to the bookcase. My hand closed around the edge of a shelf. "I planned for your protection. Finch's men watching, guarding you around the clock. And it bought precisely nothing."

She said my name. Only that.

"Do not," I said, "be kind to me now."

"I have no intention of being kind to you." She came to stand directly in front of me. "I am going to be accurate. You did not fail today."