Tasha Alexander - A Crimson Warning

Each drawer was stuffed full of letters, most of them from amorous gentlemen eager to express their admiration for Lady Glover. It horrified me to see the names signed on the bottoms of some of them. Was there a man in London immune to her charms?

“I’m almost afraid to keep looking,” I said, “lest we find a name we don’t want to see. Let’s sift through the correspondence, but not read it. It’s unlikely she would have hidden her evidence in a love letter. Unless…”

“What?” Ivy asked.

I passed her the contents of the next drawer. “Search for anything from Mr. Harris.”

“Mr. Harris!” Ivy’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “You can’t possibly think—”

“Oh, yes, I can,” I said. I didn’t add that if I were married to Mrs. Harris, I, too, might seek affection elsewhere.

A quarter of an hour had gone by before either of us spoke again. Then Ivy threw back her head. “I stand corrected,” she said, and handed me a bundle of letters. Lady Glover kept each of her lovers’ notes separate. Mr. Harris’s missives were tied with a wide, red ribbon. Ivy had identified him from the first in the pile.

“We don’t need to read them,” I said. “Just check to see if there’s anything hidden amongst them or in the envelopes.” I gave half the stack back to her. Halfway to the bottom of those I’d kept, I found a bank receipt for £200, with the words For Mrs. Harris and her evil purposes written across the top. Attached to the receipt were two rather shocking photographs of a young Lady Glover in an extreme state of undress and a scrap of paper that read, I have more.

Ivy nearly fell over when I showed her. “I didn’t know things like that … I … I … What is one to think when confronted with such an image?”

“I don’t believe it’s meant to inspire thinking,” I said. “Come now, we’ve got what we need.”

We put everything else back in its place, thanked the butler for his assistance, and continued on our way, reaching the Harrises’ house just as the rain started to slow. Winifred received us in her private sitting room, near her bedroom. “It’s so early!” she said, embracing Ivy and cringing when she saw me. “Whatever can you be thinking?”

“Forgive me, Mrs. Harris,” I said. “I begged Ivy to bring me to you. I realize that we haven’t got off to a good start, and I wanted to try to remedy that.”

“You’d better serve your cause by trying at a reasonable time of day,” she said. “Morning is reserved for the calls of only the closest friends.”

“I’m well aware of it,” I said. “But I chose the time deliberately because I couldn’t risk coming to you when anyone else was here. Not given what I plan to show you.”

“You know I wouldn’t have agreed to bring her at this hour if it weren’t urgent, Winifred,” Ivy said. Any nervousness that she’d felt before we’d set off seemed to have evaporated. She was poised and composed, but I could tell she wasn’t enjoying herself the way she had in the park.

“I admit I’ve been opposed to your judgmental views. Offended by them, even. And I don’t agree with many of your actions,” I said. “But there are some things so extreme that decent people must rise up against them. When I realized what you’d done—and that you were about to be named as the villain in the story—well, I couldn’t stay quiet any longer.”

“You have my attention, Lady Emily,” Winifred said. “What is going on?”

“You’ve seen these atrocious pictures?” I held up one of them for her. She shielded her eyes and looked away.

“More than I want to,” she said. “Where did you find them?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “What does matter is that Lady Glover is bent on destroying you over it.”

“Lady Glover?” She laughed. “She’s the one who’ll be destroyed.”

“I’m afraid not,” I said. “She’s filed charges against you—accusing you of extortion. I only know this because my husband is privy to certain information at Scotland Yard. They’re nearly finished with their preliminary investigations and are likely to put you under arrest by the end of the day tomorrow.”

Winifred turned bright red and stood up, slamming her fist down hard on the table next to her. “This is outrageous!” she said. “All I was trying to do was keep that woman from further corrupting those around her. Our husbands are at risk, Lady Emily.”

I felt just the slightest twinge of sympathy for her. “I know they are, Mrs. Harris.”

“Thank you for alerting me to the problem,” she said. “But I don’t understand one thing. Hasn’t Lady Glover been kidnapped?”

“She’d already spoken to the police when she disappeared,” I said. “Because of the rest of what they’re having to deal with, it took a little while before they were able to look into her claims.”

“I see.”

“I just hope…” I let my voice fade.

“What?” Mrs. Harris asked.

“If anything were to happen to Lady Glover now—like what happened to Cordelia Dalton—the police would suspect you at once. We have to pray that whoever has her doesn’t lay a hand on her.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Mrs. Harris said, her face going pale.

“Is there anything I can do to help you, Winifred?” Ivy asked. “I hope you know you’ll always have my support.”

“I shall count on it, Ivy,” she said. “But for the moment, I have things well in hand. Lady Glover will live to regret this action. She should have left well enough alone.”

Ivy was trembling when we climbed back into her carriage, proving once again her skills as an actress. I’d truly believed she wasn’t struggling during her scene with Winifred. The rain had come back in earnest, and there was no sign of it slowing again soon. She pulled her mantle tight around her as she sat down.

“I don’t feel good about this at all,” Ivy said. “I’m betraying a friend. Even if she is a bad one.”

“You’ve done the right thing,” I said. “We need to find out just how far her vindictive judgment has gone.”

“I want to believe you,” she said. “I do, in fact. But why do I feel so awful?”

I leaned forward and squeezed her knee. “Because you’re such a decent person, Ivy. Try not to think about it. Even if she’s not guilty of murder, she is guilty of extortion, and we can’t let that go unpunished.”

“Do you mean she’ll really be arrested?”

“Not at the moment, no,” I said. “But we’ll be in a position to persuade her to return Lady Glover’s money and stop her from behaving like this ever again. We must continue to be careful, though, in case she has kidnapped Lady Glover. We don’t want to incite her to violence.”

“But we wouldn’t have to involve the police?”

“No, we wouldn’t have to right now.” I thought about this, and wondered if I was treating Winifred the same way Colin was Mr. Foster, protecting her from public censure. The situations were different, of course, but if I was going to argue that justice was black and white, I could hardly keep Scotland Yard in the dark about what she’d done.

Now was not the time to worry about such things. I would get Ivy home and settled and then finish with my plans for Mr. Foster. The rest could be dealt with later.

Mr. Foster’s butler opened the door the moment I knocked. His master, however, was not at home. He’d gone to Westminster first thing in the morning, and wasn’t expected back until late. I returned to the carriage (Ivy had insisted I keep hers rather than going home for mine) and directed the driver to take me to Parliament. The bottom six inches of my skirt were drenched just from walking the distance to the building’s entrance.