The God of the Hive - Laurie R. King [68]
I thought that the trio’s relative dishevelment and the sequence of their appearance suggested that the family was away and the servants were bored silly. And indeed, once the housekeeper was freed to speak by the removal of Goodman’s stifling finger, her rush of words included a lament that the family had left for a wedding in Ireland, and would not return for a fortnight.
Goodman swayed, then walked off a few steps. After a minute, he cleared his throat, then vaguely suggested the provision of rooms and the concealment of our motorcar.
But his voice—that strangled deliberation had gone, leaving his speech as light and humorous as it had been before his home was invaded, before he had been forced out into the world, before he had made the decision to lead us to a family that clearly overwhelmed him with an unbearable apprehension. I wished I had figured it out before this: I might have saved him a day of great distress.
The servants scurried to obey, even the boot-boy. Their boredom, it would seem, was acute.
Although it was well into the dinner hour, tea was hastily summoned to a room glowing with the day’s last sunshine, its furniture hastily cleared of sheets and its French doors flung open to the terrace. Loath to spend more time in the sitting position, we carried our cups out of doors, watching Estelle solemnly explore the sculpture garden in the company of the boy while we stood and sipped and waited for our ears to stop ringing.
“I’ll go into Town first thing in the morning,” I told my two companions.
“I’ll come with you,” they chorused.
I scowled at my cup. Why were men so woefully infected with the urge to chivalry? If I weren’t very firm about this, I would find the entire cohort stuck to me like sap to the shoe, forcing me to march to war in the company of a crippled daredevil, a fey three-year-old, and Puck himself.
And towards war I was going, I could feel it in my bones. Before our woodland idyll had been invaded, even before reading of Mycroft’s death, events had been pressing in on me, a creeping sensation that all was not right in the country I loved.
In the three and a half weeks I had been back—the last two of which, admittedly, spent on the run—English life had struck me as oddly loud and fast. At first, I had thought it was the sharp contrast between London and our peaceful South Downs retreat. Then I told myself that travelling out of the country for eight months had made me forget what England was truly like. And, of course, the Brothers case had been guaranteed to fill me with unease—not only for itself, but for the awareness that throughout history, religious mania had gone hand in hand with dangerous political and social turmoil.
Were five armed men another symptom of unrest?
Or was this simply what modern life would be, a place where a homicidal charlatan is embraced as wise, where children can be shot out of the sky, where a Good Samaritan can be driven from his home by armed intruders?
I wished I had Holmes to talk with about this.
I did not know the face of the enemy. I could not see how a sniper or a group of armed men in the Lake District could be connected with Thomas Brothers. I did not know why Mycroft had died, or at whose hand. I had no way of knowing if Damian and Holmes were still safe. I did not want to abandon Damian’s daughter to her own devices, and I emphatically did not wish to place her in the path of danger; however, she seemed as happy with Javitz, the housekeeper, and the boy as she was with me, and three times now—with a sniper’s bullet, a ’plane crash, and armed men in a motorcar too small for hostages—keeping her at my side had nearly been the death of her.
I prayed this time I might walk away from her without fear. If a child could not be kept safe in a private house, then no place