Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

London, October 8, 1889

HILLIARD HOUSE

11:17 a.m. Tuesday

“SOMETHING IS WRONG,” Poppy said to her mother. “Imogen looks unhappy.”

They were in her big sister’s room. Lady Bancroft visited every day, usually right before the midday meal, and would sit with a vaguely shocked look on her pale face. Today, though, she looked almost resigned. She hadn’t taken Tobias’s departure well. Nevertheless, what she said next startled Poppy.

“I suppose it is only a matter of time.”

Poppy glanced at her sister, who was beautiful as always. But now a single line of tension faintly creased her brow. It was the first change of expression they’d seen, which both reassured Poppy and made her uneasy. “She doesn’t look sicker, she looks worried.”

Lady Bancroft shot her a glance bright with a mix of grief and indignation. “Really, Poppy. It is quite inappropriate to make up such things now.”

Poppy opened her mouth to reply and then closed it again. There was absolutely no point in trying to explain magic doorways and talking mice to her mother.

“I must go check on luncheon.” Lady Bancroft rose. “Your father’s been keeping early hours lately to accommodate all the work he’s taken on. It’s quite provoking.”

“Are we eating soon?”

“Shortly. Mr. Penner is speaking to your father at the moment.”

That caught Poppy’s interest. “Oh?”

“I can’t imagine why he’s visiting with your father, but I suppose I must ask him to stay. I would appreciate it if you would let me know when he leaves the study.”

Bucky wouldn’t join them for a meal. That would be painful for all concerned, when Lord Bancroft blamed him for luring Imogen to elope—not that anyone ever lured Imogen somewhere she didn’t want to go. But it was true that she had been on her way to join Bucky when Magnus had grabbed her, and Poppy knew Bucky had never forgiven himself. She could see it in the way he walked and heard it in his voice, and it bruised Poppy’s heart.

But Bucky would stop to sit by Imogen’s bed for a while. He was there every few days, keeping a quiet vigil, as unobtrusive as a ghost. Poppy reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand. “He still cares for you,” she said in a whisper.

And with that, she slipped out of the room and down the stairs to her father’s study to watch for Bucky. She walked slowly, wondering what was happening to Imogen, and whether Mouse and Bird had reached her safely. It was too bad she couldn’t have gone through whatever doorway the medium had made, or maybe Bucky should have gone, riding that big black horse of his, like some knight from a storybook. Bucky had always been kind and funny and a terrible prankster. It said a lot about him that instead of making guns like his father, he’d opened a toy factory on Threadneedle Street.

As Poppy reached the landing, the clock made a sickly bong. She turned to glance at it, alarmed. It had never made a sound like that before—and then it spat out a card. Poppy eyed the clock suspiciously, remembering how the cook’s cat yowled before it spat up a hairball. She gave the clock a pat, hoping it would be all right, and bent to pick up the card before continuing down the stairs. As she folded it and put it into her pocket, she remembered with some satisfaction that Mr. Holmes had sent her the key to the cipher, as well as a copy of his monograph on the subject.

She arrived at the study door and listened a moment, trying to figure out if the conversation sounded like it was winding down. She caught the words “coal” and “airship,” but not much else before it broke off into the usual good-bye noises. Then a chair scraped and she backed away, careful not to look as if she had been listening at the keyhole.

The door to the study opened and Bucky emerged. “Mr. Penner,” she said, giving a polite curtsy.

“Miss Penelope,” he replied, bowing very correctly, but with a spark of his old mischief in his brown eyes. He’d glued her shoes together once when she’d fallen asleep, and then laughed as she tripped and fell on her nose. Mind you, that was a great many years ago, before he’d fallen in love with her sister. That seemed to have improved him all around.

“My mother wishes to speak to you,” Poppy said very correctly. “She is in the small dining room.” There was no need to tell Bucky where that was. As Tobias’s school friend, he’d stayed at Hilliard House many a holiday, especially since his own family lived all the way up in Yorkshire.

“Thank you, Poppy.” Bucky bowed again, letting a little of the formality drop. “How are you?”

“Well, thank you,” she said in a not-very-convincing tone. “And you?”

“I’ve learned to fly small dirigibles,” he said. “It’s bound to come in useful, if only for scaring pigeons.”

She bit her lip. “Do you know Tobias is gone?”

“I know he left, yes.” His expression grew serious.

Bucky was Tobias’s best friend and was utterly trustworthy. The next words tumbled out before Poppy could stop them. “I miss him. He didn’t even say good-bye and that worries me. I think something horrible happened.”

Bucky leaned very close, speaking softly into her ear. “He’s safe. He’s at the toy factory. Don’t tell anyone . His life may depend on it.”

Poppy caught her breath, relieved and surprised, but she was getting used to knowing life-and-death secrets and she gathered herself quickly. She gave a solemn nod. “Thank you.”

Bucky’s mouth quirked, almost smiling. “I’ll go find your mother,” he said with a final squeeze of her hand.

As he left, Poppy peered around the corner of her father’s doorway. Lord Bancroft was bent over his desk, his head in one hand, reading a piece of correspondence. He didn’t look happy about it.

Poppy waited while he finished reading the page, glancing up at the stuffed tiger’s head above his desk. The tiger and her father had a certain resemblance—down one fang, but still feisty enough to put on a good snarl. Her father stuffed the page into a file folder. She noticed an unusual decoration on the page that looked like dragons. “Yes?” he snapped. “Whatever it is, Poppy, it will have to wait.”

“The meal is almost ready,” she said quickly, and then made herself scarce before he could snap at her. She ran back up the stairs to her bedroom to tidy up before she had to present herself in the dining room.

But of course, the moment she pulled the card out of her pocket, she had to have another look at Mr. Holmes’s letter, which meant opening the monograph to the page on this kind of cipher, which meant pulling out some notepaper to work on and spreading it all out on her bed so that she could look at it all properly. Poppy flopped onto her stomach, chewing the end of her pencil and not even noticing how badly she was crushing the skirts of her dress. Even with the key, the puzzle of the cipher was intriguing—it made her brain tingle like something minty was being poured through the top of her head. It was far, far better than any of the stupid problems her schoolteachers had made her do.

She barely noticed when Dora, the upstairs maid, began pounding on the door. “I’ll be down in a moment,” she called through the door, figuring out the last three letters of the message.

Then she bounced off the bed, hardly believing what she was reading. She gathered up the papers, burst out of her room, and ran down the hall to Imogen’s bedchamber.

As she had hoped, Bucky was there, one of the other maids sitting quietly in the corner for the sake of propriety. Even so, it was unusual for a man to visit the sickroom of any female who was not a close relation, but Bucky was an old friend of the family and he had been her fiancé.