Page 65 of Miss Moriarty, I Presume?

Clarissa Cockerill, Marble Hill House

Alfred Barr, 41 Eden Grove

Charles Bird, 8 St. Marys Road

Victoria Rowland, 15 Park Lane

William Korley, 13 College Place, Camden

No, she did not knowanyof these people and she did not know anyone who lived at these addresses.

Except... something skittered across the surface of her mind. What was it?

“You don’t need to renew your ticket yet, Mrs. Watson,” continued the attendant, interrupting her train of thought. “You’ve still two weeks left.”

She nearly tore off the page in her frustration.

But wait, it was the name Elliot Hartford that had plucked at the edges of her memory.

Elliot Hartford.

She sucked in a breath and looked into the attendant’s baffled face.

She remembered now. Last summer Miss Marbleton, Mr. Marbleton’s sister, had gone by the name Ellie Hartford. It might be a coincidence. Or it might not be.

She stared down at the address again, imprinting it on her memory.

And then she said to the attendant, her heart still pounding, “Oh, I don’t need to renew my ticket now? Very well, then, thank you and good day.”

Lord Ingram awakeneda little past ten, groggy and hungry. He found the note the ladies had left, as well as slices of buttered toast they had made for him.

Those were good, but not enough. He visited the kitchen and asked for some more bread and butter, which Mrs. Brown, the cook, readily dispensed, alongside a jar of raspberry jam, a jar of potted chicken, half a dozen boiled eggs, and two sausages. When she heard that he planned to heat water for the ladies’ bath, she even sent the kitchen maid to bring him a few extra buckets.

When Mrs. Watson and Holmes returned, he’d already placed a pan of hot coals in the bath and heated enough water for two people. The ladies both expressed great gratitude and great interest in a wash, but Holmes had, as he’d thought, a more pressing need for food.

After Mrs. Watson left for her ablutions, Holmes, spreading butter and potted chicken on her toast, glanced up and said, “So you have found favor with Mrs. Brown.”

“Have I?” he murmured, his face heating a little.

She took a bite. “I approve. You should make it your mission to find favor with every cook we come across.”

His face heated more. “I could have bought all these for you at the village, without finding favor with anyone.”

She took another bite. “But I prefer that she gave this feast to you because she likes the way you look. God took His time to make you striking, Ash. Don’t let His effort go to waste.”

“And I will have squandered His effort if I don’t charm every cook for your sake?”

She smiled very slightly. “Yes, indeed.”

He poured tea for her. “Very well, you continue to write your erotic tale and I will inveigle unsuspecting cooks into offering me additional breakfast dainties.”

She stopped eating—he’d managed to astound her. “Youwantmore epistolary prurience?”

“I’ve come to enjoy the feeling of... outrage.”

She resumed chewing, looking him up and down. Then she took two sips of tea, looked him over some more, and licked her lips in a gesture of provocation.

One second passed. Two seconds. Three seconds.