A Study in Silks

side, knees tucked to her chest. She had dived for the dark space beneath the dining table, and the forest of chair and table legs made a comforting barricade.

Glass littered the carpet like misplaced chips of ice. Carefully, she rolled to her hands and knees, bumping her head on the table as she went. The cloth had been pulled halfway off the far side of the table, making a tent. It blocked her vision, but she could hear everything. Running feet. Servants’ voices. Lady Bancroft crying. She crawled for the edge of the table, but pierced her hand on a shard of glass. Cursing, she eased out from the lip of the table, rising cautiously.

It was chaos. Lady Bancroft was swooning in a chair, Dora cradling her head while two footmen braced to lift her limp form. Imogen was down on the floor, bending over the dark shape of Sherlock Holmes.

“What happened?” Evelina demanded.

“He’s shot!”

Evelina was around the table in a moment. Imogen looked up, her eyes huge. She was pressing a napkin against his shoulder, staunching the blood. Her hands were slick and red, the skirts of her dinner gown splattered beyond repair. “What do I do?”

Heart hammering, Evelina knelt for a better look. Her hands shook, and not just from the shock of the attack. For all her uncle’s frustrating habits, she genuinely loved him, and not just because he was a genius. He understood her. They never tried to fix each other. They never played games. She couldn’t afford to lose him.

His face was in shadow, but she could see his teeth were clenched against the pain of his wound. No spurting blood, no shards of bone glistening in the lamplight, but it was still serious. She found his good hand and squeezed it. To her surprise, he returned the pressure.

“I’ll send for Dr. Watson,” she said, forcing her voice to sound level.

He gave a barely perceptible sigh of relief. “Preserve the scene. Do it. I’ll survive.”

Exasperated, Evelina swore under her breath. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“Miss Roth can hold my hand, but she cannot investigate. She doesn’t know my methods. You do.”

Evelina wanted to protest, but instead, she nodded. Evidence didn’t seem to matter now, but it would later.

His mouth twitched. “Good.” It was so faint she might have missed it.

A dozen thoughts jammed as the last moments replayed themselves. The bullet had nearly hit her. If she hadn’t stood, would she be dead? Or had the shooter been waiting for her to move? Evelina rose just as Bigelow hurried into the room.

“What is happening, please?” he demanded in the voice of a man whose universe was imploding.

“Send for Dr. Watson,” she said, struggling to recall where the doctor lived now that he was married. The mental exertion helped. She was calmer by the time she remembered the address and wrote it down. “And help Miss Roth to make my uncle comfortable.”

She slipped out the side door of the house, moving as silently as she could. Some of the servants had run into the garden, but none had gone far. There was someone out there shooting people. Without one of the men of the house leading the charge, who would put themselves in harm’s way? Me, apparently. No one else is looking for clues.

The garden was bathed in the eerie glow of a full moon. The gold-tinged gaslights that lined the street didn’t cast their beams that far. Evelina shivered in the cool night. She didn’t see anyone moving in the yard. Were they already gone?

Memories stole over her—of the garden party, of sitting with Imogen looking at the gold and gems in the tiny silk bag. Too much had happened in the last handful of days. People were dead. She prayed her uncle wouldn’t be next, the victim of a fevered wound.

She struggled not to let her thoughts go further than that, but they did. If the father of Grace Child’s baby was Lord Bancroft, that gave him a very close link to the victim. But that wasn’t what bothered her, because plenty of men slept with their maids and then tossed them into the street when they grew round with child. It would play badly during a political campaign, but it was a scandal most men could survive, though it might cause a few cold silences at the dinner table. And no doubt Lord B had appetites like any man.

What bothered her was that Lord Bancroft, as far as she knew, would have been more likely to seek out a sophisticated woman for his pleasures. What would a serving girl, however pretty, have to offer? It was the gold that complicated things. As her uncle had pointed out, Grace had probably been waiting for someone when she had been killed. And Lord Bancroft had fallen asleep in the study. If she was right, he was the one who was to receive the gold.

She had desperately wanted to protect the Roth family. She still did. But what if Lord Bancroft was guilty— maybe not of murder, but of some other crime? Her uncle’s unerring instincts had already ripped the matter open like a surgeon exposing an infected wound. He could be brutal, but he was very rarely wrong. And so someone had shot him.

A shaking deep in her gut found its way to her limbs in a long, horrified shudder. She had been strong inside the dining room, wishing herself to be as steady as Imogen, as cool as her uncle. Now it would be too easy to sit down and wail like a scalded cat.

Which accomplished exactly nothing. She clenched her jaw and forced herself to think rationally, one step at a time. There was a sundial surrounded by a clump of low bushes that sat a stone’s throw from the side of the house. It was the only possible cover. From there, the shooter could have seen straight into the dining room window.

“Evelina.”

She turned to see Tobias coming from the front of the house. “What are you doing out here?”

The moonlight silvered his hair. He’d taken off his tie, so the open collar of his shirt showed the strong muscles of his throat. She felt his heat as he drew closer, tantalizing in the cold air.

He put his hand on her arm. There was no mistaking the affection in his touch. “You’re cold.”

“I came to look for evidence,” she said.

“Oh.” He looked around, as if expecting to see a smoking gun on the grass. He smelled like whisky. “I’m sorry about what father said. I went to try to talk to him. He’s passed out in his study. There’s no point tonight.” His voice was so tight it sounded painful. “But I will. I promise you that.”

“My uncle …”

He leaned close. “I know. Terrible.”

“The police …”

Tobias made a resigned motion, but he sounded strained. “I’ll send word to Inspector Lestrade. I just wish that they didn’t need to see Father this way. It will do his career no good.”

There was a bit of irony, given how Bancroft had tried to conceal Grace’s death. She bit her lip, holding the words back. “I’ve sent for my uncle’s friend Dr. Watson.”

“That makes sense.” Tobias’s tone eased. “But Evelina, forget what Father said about Grace’s baby. Don’t tell anyone, for Mother’s sake. It’s just too hard for her. And don’t tell Lestrade. That would just make things look bad, and it doesn’t prove anything.”

His fingers brushed her cheek, coaxing. She looked away, too confused to answer.

“Please.” Gently, he turned her face back so that she looked into his eyes. “Do this for me. For Imogen.”

“All right,” she said, her heart winning over reason. He brushed his lips to her forehead gently, but she still felt miserable.

The ground had shifted between them. The dizzying happiness had been sullied. She wanted to argue, to rage, to plead the last hours away until they were back to that brief second where everything looked possible. But not even magic could do that.

She tried to gather her wits. “We should check the grounds for clues so I can get back to Uncle Sherlock.” Though she wondered, if she did find traces of the shooter, whether it would be anything she could take to Lestrade.

Tobias studied her for a moment, but then his face relaxed. “Lead the way, my pretty detective.”

Evelina nodded, desperate to trust the affection in his eyes.