Chapter 4

Chapter Four

W e’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 for that rabble 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 meeting Charles 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 something meaningful .

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.

“Miss Mitchell has many opinions,” Gray says. “On many topics.”

“So I see.” Dickens inclines his head my way. “Thank you. That is very insightful and very satisfying to hear.”

“Your stories will provide insight and entertainment for generations to come,” I say. “Long after some of your contemporaries are relegated to the dust bin—or to required reading for higher learning—people will continue to read and enjoy your work. I am certain of it.”

He smiles. “From your lips to God’s ear.”

When I fall silent, not wanting to speechify, Gray murmurs, “Miss Mitchell has a book she would like you to sign, if we could impose.”

“Certainly.” Dickens reaches out, and I hand it to him. When he sees which one it is, his brows rise. “You enjoyed this?”

I manage to find my smile. “It is my favorite. I know, I just spoke of the lives of the poor, and this is not that sort of book, but it has my favorite female character of yours.”

“Bella Wilfer?”

“Yes. Also, the story is a mystery, and I am overly fond of mysteries.”

His smile grows. “One can never be too fond of mysteries. That is what my next novel will be. An unabashed mystery.”

He takes the book to a side table with a pen and ink. “Inscribed to Miss Mitchell?”

“Mallory Mitchell, please.” I shift closer. “About your next book. My friend—Dr. Gray’s sister—was dearly hoping you’d discuss it during the performance. She will be devastated to have missed meeting you. Is there any chance I might take her a hint or two about the next book, in recompense?”

“Certainly.” He finishes signing and leaves the book open to dry. “Beware, though, that I may tell more than you wish to know. No project is as exciting to an author as the one they are currently working on. It is bright and shiny, and no critic has read it to tell them where it is dull and tarnished.”

I laugh softly. “I will take whatever you care to provide, Mr. Dickens.”

“Then may I offer you both a drink?”

He lifts a bottle of what looks like imported Italian wine. We both accept, and Dickens begins to pour.

“My next book is, as I said, a mystery,” he begins. “It tells the tale of a man who disappears, an orphan named...”

I know the answer before he gives it, and with that name, my heart thuds into my boots.

“Edwin Drood.”

I spend the next hour talking to a dead man.

I know it is wrong to say that, to even think it, but I can’t help myself. When Dickens tells me what he’s writing, I know what it means.

That within a year, he will be dead.

I said I was no good with dates, and here’s the proof. My focus was always on Dickens’s work rather than the man himself. If asked, I’d have guessed he died when he was elderly. Certainly not in his fifties. Certainly not after I just saw him tearing up the stage in that performance.

I recall that he dies of a stroke. That is all. And dying of a stroke means it’s not as if I could say, “Beware the Ides of March... and back-clapping friends.” He will die, and there’s nothing I can do about that.

I spend an hour listening to Dickens discuss The Mystery of Edwin Drood . A book he will never finish. A story the world has been trying to finish for him ever since.

I don’t sit there in stunned silence. That would be unforgivably rude. I have a chance to listen to Charles Dickens talk about his work, not from a stage, but in person. Once I am past the shock and those premature stabs of grief, I am the best audience he could want. That is what I can give him... and so I do.

The next day, Gray and I set off to lunch at Lady Inglis’s house. I’m wearing my day dress—much simpler than my gown the night before but still a “going out” dress. To accommodate the winter weather, I have fur-lined boots, a fur-lined muff, a fur-lined hat, and fur-lined gloves. I don’t even want to calculate the number of tiny creatures that died to keep me warm. In my world, I’d never have worn any of this, but synthetics aren’t a thing, so my options are fur or “wrap my feet in newspaper before putting them in my boots.” To be honest, I did try that, and it’s as uncomfortable as it sounds, but I might have continued doing it if Gray and Isla hadn’t been horrified and tried to buy me velvet to wrap my feet instead. And so this was another point where I had to concede my twenty-first-century ethics really only worked for the twenty-first century. My concession is that all my outerwear is second-hand. The critters were already dead, and I’m extending their afterlife.

For my jacket... Well, I don’t have one. I have a cloak. While I have seen a few women in winter coats, cloaks work better over dresses, especially now that the bustle is coming into style. And, yes, the cloak has fur, damn it.

Despite all my dress layers and fur-lined outerwear, we aren’t walking to lunch. Lady Inglis lives outside town in a country estate, one of those places that will someday be a fancy historic house considered part of Edinburgh... if it isn’t sold and torn down for a new housing development.

I can be outraged at the thought of losing such historic homes, but I often wonder whether that’s the New World citizen in me. I grew up in a city where the oldest surviving building only dates back to the decade I currently inhabit. I want to preserve everything . But these old houses don’t have any true historic value. They’re just homes, and there are cities full of them. Also, they weren’t built for twenty-first-century living, and retrofitting them isn’t always an option.

Given Lady Inglis’s title, presumably her late husband was a viscount, baron or some such. Their house reflects that. It’s not the monstrosity Gray’s sister Annis lived in with her earl husband. It’s more like something I’d picture in a Jane Austen novel. A tidy house in the country with a bit of land.

As we approach, I glance at Gray, ramrod straight on the opposite coach seat.

“If you don’t want to do this, we can turn around now,” I say. “She won’t have spotted us.”

“It is fine.”

I sigh. “You’ve been saying that since last night, and it doesn’t get any more convincing with practice. I regret getting that signature?—”

“Nonsense. I am glad you got it, and I am the one who insisted on meeting Mr. Dickens. You tried to demur.”

“But if it feels like you owe her, you don’t. I can handle this on my own. I am your assistant, after all. I can take the meeting and say you were called away on an emergency.”

“An undertaker emergency?”

“Hey, it can happen. Lady Inglis doesn’t need an explanation. I can write down the details, and if I want to investigate, I can. On my own. I’m the professional detective, after all.”

“If I seem out of sorts, it has nothing to do with the possibility of helping Lady Inglis. She is being blackmailed and cannot go to the police, and so she deserves help.”

“Does she?” I meet his gaze. “I’m trying not to pry here, Duncan, but I’ll admit I’ve been hoping you’d give me more on your own. I don’t need details. I just need to know if she...”

If she hurt you. If she did anything that means I don’t want to help her.

“If I need to be wary,” I say.

“Of Patricia?” He stops, and his lips purse, as if he didn’t mean to be so informal. “Not at all. She is a good woman, deserving of our help.”

Which doesn’t really answer my question. Lady Inglis can be a decent person and still have hurt him. Yes, I know he ended the relationship, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t do something to deserve it.

“Fine, I’ll drop it,” I mutter, less graciously than I’d like. The coach has pulled up to the house anyway. Too late to turn back. When it stops, I move toward the door.

“This is very uncomfortable for me,” Gray says.

“Which is why I suggested you stay behind.”

According to the dictates of polite society, Gray should disembark first, to help me down. Sometimes he does, but he’s just as likely to forget, lost in his own thoughts.

Today, when Simon—our groom—opens the door, Gray waves him back to the driver’s seat. Then he pulls the door shut.

“Lady Inglis and I had a... somewhat humiliating misunderstanding,” he says. “When I... am seeing a woman, I expect that I am the only person she is seeing, as she will be the only one I am seeing. I made the mistake of not being explicit about that.”

“Ah.”

“It was not my finest moment,” he says. “The fault was my own, for presuming the relationship was exclusive. I handled it poorly.”

“But she did try to win you back.”

He mumbles something I don’t catch, and my heart sinks even as I curse myself for that. I’d been under the impression that he’d lost interest or decided the relationship wasn’t working. That’s not the case and...

Shit.

I was trying to get past the awkwardness of taking a job from Gray’s former lover, and now I discover that their breakup wasn’t as clear cut as I thought. He hadn’t simply moved on. He’d been hurt and retreated and then been too embarrassed to reconcile. I’m caught in between Gray and a former lover he might very well still be interested in.

“I could go,” I blurt.

He startles and blinks at me. “What?”

“I could leave. Let you handle this. If you’d... prefer.”

His brows knit. “Prefer what?”

“To do this on your own. If it is uncomfortable for you, and you are determined to do it, would it be better if I were not there?”

“No, this is fine,” he says, and climbs out and walks toward the house without another word.