A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock, #2)

by Sherry Thomas

Charlotte had not been to church since she ran away from home. God likely wouldn’t mind if she stepped inside His house—Jesus voluntarily associated with women of less-than-pristine repute—but His followers tended to be less magnanimous.

Livia viewed everything through a lens of complications, real and imaginary. From where to sit at a tea party, to whether she ought to say something to the hostess if her table setting was missing a fork, her lugubrious and plentiful imagination always supplied scenarios in which she committed a fatal misstep that destroyed any chance she had at a happy, secure life. For her, every choice was agony, every week seven days of quicksand and quagmire.

There’s nothing like the pleasure of a book that pulls you in by the lapels and doesn’t let go until The End. God gives us only one life. But with good books, we can live a hundred, even a thousand lives in the time we are allotted on this earth.”

Livia, on the other hand, actively preferred literary characters to real-life acquaintances: Tom Sawyer stayed forever young, Viola always retained her spunk, and Mr. Darcy could never turn out to be a hypocrite who was also disappointing in bed.

Events were easy to deal with. Emotional responses, less so. They were not crisp or factual. They mutated at will. They expanded to fill all available space in one’s consciousness and left no room for anything else.

“Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.”

Her aunt would be appalled at her forwardness. But Penelope had long ago decided that while the meek might inherit the earth, the nonmeek enjoyed far more interesting conversations—to say the least.

She understood the charges of profligacy and shallowness pelted at the Upper Ten Thousand, at those whose entire lives revolved around endless arrays of entertainment. But she also knew that for those on the inside, it was the only way they had been taught to live. Few, in the end, ever truly defied the way they were taught to live.

Miss Holmes rose. “I would have liked to have another muffin before leaving this table, but then again, I always feel the same no matter how many muffins I eat.”

She could only conclude that even for those who are no longer so young, old age remained an alien land, its residents regarded with both pity and suspicion.

Good. He didn’t dismiss her theory out of hand. Instead, he challenged it on reasonable grounds and left it up to her to justify her assertions. It was a sad comment on the state of humanity that his willingness to take her seriously counted as a very large point in his favor, when really it should be considered a bare minimum in civil discourse.

“And you, Mrs. Burns, I don’t mean to be forward, but you’re a beautiful woman. Has there ever been trouble for you in service?” Mrs. Burns shrugged. “Frankly, I don’t think it matters whether a woman is all that good-looking when it comes to these things. A man doesn’t suddenly decide, in front of a beautiful woman, that it’s his due to have his hand up her skirt. If he’s that kind, maybe he’s more likely to do it when the woman is pretty. But even if she weren’t, he’d have done it anyway to please himself.”