The two of them retraced their steps back to Baker Street.
The wind had turned sharper than on the way out, tossing Charlotte's hair every which way, though she didn't feel particularly cold.
Russell pushed open the door of 221B Baker Street, and the two of them stepped into the warm, cozy house, shutting the cold wind out behind them.
Mrs. Hudson had apparently returned and gone to bed at some point, so Russell and Charlotte, without needing to say a word, kept their footsteps quiet as they headed upstairs.
"Well, I'll head to my room then." Charlotte stood at her door and glanced back at Russell.
"What do you want to eat tomorrow?" Russell asked. Charlotte paused for a moment, as if thinking it over.
"Sandwiches?"
"We just had sandwiches tonight. How about something else?"
"Sandwiches are fine," Charlotte said. "I'm used to them, and I can't think of anything better on short notice."
"All right then," Russell shrugged. "Sandwiches it is."
"Mm." Charlotte nodded, then reached out and opened her door.
"Good night, Russell."
"Good night, Charlotte."
Russell turned and pushed open his own door.
Charlotte closed hers, leaned back against it, and took a deep breath.
The room was dark, no lamp lit — only moonlight spilling through the window, laying a patch of silver-white light across the floor.
Charlotte stood in that patch of moonlight, motionless.
She reached up and touched her own chest — her heart was still racing.
Her cheeks were still hot, so hot that on the whole walk back she hadn't even noticed how cold the London night was.
She straightened, walked over to the side table, poured herself a glass of water, and drank it down in one go.
She'd said it. She'd finally said those words.
Charlotte lay back on the sofa chair, staring at the ceiling, her mind unsettled.
In truth, after actually saying it, her reaction had turned out quite different from what she'd expected.
She'd thought she would feel more stirred, more moved, more sentimental — but instead, once the words were out, an odd sense of calm settled over her.
It felt like finally letting out a breath she'd been holding in for far too long.
The point hadn't been to get any particular response. It had simply been to say it — to let him know, plain and simple.
She'd only wanted to tell Russell: my liking you is my own business, and has nothing to do with you.
In truth, she still didn't quite understand what this feeling called liking someone actually was.
She'd accepted Mycroft's conclusion, but that didn't mean it was necessarily true.
Mycroft himself was a confirmed bachelor — what right did he have to draw conclusions about her from a few offhand remarks? She'd never once seen him bring a woman home, or even mention a woman's name, growing up. If anyone in the family ought to be pressured about marriage, it certainly wasn't her.
Charlotte got up and went back to her own bedroom to lie down.
The bed still carried a faint, familiar scent, since Russell had slept there the night before.
She pulled the blanket over herself without much thought, to keep from catching a chill in the night's low temperature.
Charlotte touched her lips without meaning to, and her mind drifted to what Russell had said on the bridge.
As everyone knew, a cheek-kiss landed on the cheek, and the cheek generally meant somewhere near the side of the face — certainly nowhere near the corner of the mouth.
So, at least on that front, she supposed she'd come out ahead.
"Tch..."
Charlotte clicked her tongue and rolled over in bed.
Her heart sped up again.
The next day.
Russell was jolted awake by the alarm clock, slapping it silent in his half-asleep haze.
He forced his eyes open, yawned, stared up at the ceiling for a good while, and then slowly sat up.
This was the first time in many days he'd actually needed the alarm to wake him — who knew how late he'd stayed up the night before.
He raked a hand through his hair, threw on his clothes, splashed cold water on his face in the washroom, then pushed open the window and let the cold air hit his face.
The early-winter wind struck his face, meeting the droplets of water still clinging to his skin, and it felt like something out of a poem — a fleeting meeting worth more than a thousand ordinary days.
A jolt of cold shot straight through Russell, from head to toe.
Good. Now he was properly awake.
Russell shook his head, shut the window, then turned to throw on his coat and pulled open his bedroom door, ready to head downstairs and make breakfast.
The instant his door opened, the door directly across opened too. Charlotte stood in her doorway, and the two of them froze mid-step, staring at each other.
"Good morning." Charlotte spoke first. Russell took half a beat to catch up before nodding.
"Good morning," he said.
Silence fell over the hallway as they stood there looking at each other, until Russell finally broke the awkwardness.
"Up so early again?"
"Mm, I'm not very sleepy." Charlotte nodded, then her gaze landed on him, and her eyes narrowed as she frowned.
"If you're tired, you can go back to sleep a while longer. We don't have to go to school today, and I'm not very hungry either."
"I'm fine. I'm not that tired either," Russell said.
"If you're not tired, then why wash your face with cold water and open the window to let the wind in?" Charlotte asked. "Do you have some strange habit?
There are still water droplets on your neck and in your hair, and your hair's a mess — not the kind of mess sleep causes, but the kind wind causes.
On top of that, by this hour you're usually already downstairs making breakfast. The fact that you're only just now coming out proves you only woke up when the alarm went off, which doesn't match your usual body clock. That means you slept very deeply, which means you're exhausted."
Charlotte said.
"Go back to sleep a little longer. I mean it."
"No need," Russell shook his head. "I'd have rather heard that the moment I woke up. It's a bit too late for it now."
He went ahead down the stairs, moved familiarly into the kitchen, lit the stove, heated the pan, and started on breakfast.
"I'll go get the morning paper," Charlotte said. Russell gave an acknowledging grunt from the kitchen, and she headed out. Five minutes later she came back, a freshly printed copy of The Times in hand.
By then Russell had just finished frying the bacon and was about to start on the eggs.
"What's the news today?" he asked idly, as if looking for something to talk about, so the morning wouldn't feel so awkward.
"Still Moriarty," Charlotte said.
"He's shown up again?" Russell raised an eyebrow. Charlotte lifted her coffee cup and took a sip, glancing at the figure busy in the kitchen.
"No," she said. "It's that whole mess with the Douglas household. Someone named Agnes came forward to The Times as an informant. She used to work as a maid there, apparently.
She's given an account of what she witnessed while working in the Douglas household, and on top of that, she's reported a factory for mistreating its workers."
"Agnes?" Russell's hand paused mid-motion over the frying eggs. Then he remembered, and said nothing more. Charlotte didn't press either.
Breakfast was ready.
The two of them ate, chatting about nothing in particular, until the sky outside grew brighter and brighter, and London properly woke up.
The atmosphere at the table was a little awkward... or rather, somewhat different from what Russell had expected.
He'd thought that after what happened the night before, the way he and Charlotte interacted today might shift somehow, but as it turned out, nothing had changed.
Charlotte kept exactly the same manner as always — no more affectionate, no more distant.
It was as if everything that happened last night had just been some unusually vivid dream Russell had while half-asleep.
"What are you planning to do today?" Charlotte suddenly asked.
Russell's chewing paused for a moment, then he fell into thought.
He had nothing in particular to do today. If there was anything he could or should be doing, it would probably just be studying, but even that fell into the category of optional, since there was still plenty of time before finals.
"Haven't decided," Russell said, shaking his head. "What about you?"
He tossed the question back to her. "If there's something you need to do, I could come along."
At that, Charlotte paused, then lifted the coffee at her elbow and took a sip.
"I don't have anything planned," Charlotte said. "Usually after breakfast I go back and sleep a while, then wake up and pick up some book to pass the day with."
She paused, then suddenly thought of something and looked at Russell.
"Of course, if you don't mind, I do have some materials, and we could—"
"What kind of materials?" "Chemical materials."
"That proposal is vetoed. Unanimously," Russell said flatly.
At that, Charlotte's face showed no particular expression, as though she wasn't at all surprised the idea got shot down.
"Then what do you suggest?" she asked, tossing the question straight back to him.
Russell thought about it, and for a moment genuinely couldn't come up with anything suitable.
This era didn't offer much in the way of entertainment. For ordinary people, the options amounted to a stroll in the park, a book at the library, or sitting in a café all day.
If one had money, it was a different story — musicals, salons, horse races, hunting trips.
But for someone like Russell, turning into the Phantom Thief and stealing things was practically his only real hobby. He could hardly say to Charlotte, "Charlotte, let's go steal something together."
If he said that, her suspecting he was Moriarty would be the least of it — she might well start wondering if something was wrong with his head.
"If neither of you knows what to do, how about I make a suggestion?"
Just as the two of them were stuck for ideas, Mrs. Hudson's voice sounded from behind Charlotte.
She seemed to have just woken up — or perhaps she'd been up a while already — and there was a smile on her face.
"Good morning, Mrs. Hudson," Russell and Charlotte greeted her at the same time.
"Good morning, Russell, and Charlotte." Mrs. Hudson pulled out a chair and sat down.
"I couldn't help but overhear — you two were discussing what to do for fun today?"
"More precisely, what to do today," Charlotte said. "Do you have a suggestion?"
"Of course." Mrs. Hudson nodded, then set two tickets on the table.
"A friend gave them to me yesterday when I went to see her. I meant to give them to you two last night, but you weren't home when I got back."
At that, Russell and Charlotte both looked over — they were two theater tickets.
"The theater?" Russell picked up the tickets and examined them.
The tickets were printed with an elegant pattern, gilt lettering announcing tonight's performance — Dorothy.
Below, in smaller print: the Royal Opera House, seven-thirty in the evening.
"What's Dorothy about?" Russell asked.
"A classic comic love story," Mrs. Hudson said.
"A ne'er-do-well from London flees to the countryside to escape his debts, and there meets Dorothy, a wealthy heiress disguised as a country girl. They fall in love almost instantly.
The two exchange rings as a token of their engagement, but a mix-up over their identities sets off a whole string of comic mishaps."
As she spoke, a wistful look crossed her face.
"I saw it a few times myself when I was young."
Russell looked at the two tickets in his hand, then up at Mrs. Hudson, and finally let his gaze settle on Charlotte.
Charlotte was looking back at him too.
Those grey-blue eyes held nothing in particular — just a calm, steady gaze meeting his, as though waiting for his answer.
"What do you think?" Russell held the tickets out to her. "Want to go?"
Charlotte took the tickets and studied them for a moment.
"Dorothy..." she read out the title, her brow furrowing slightly. "A comic love story?"
"What, do you have something against the genre?" Russell asked with a smile.
"No prejudice," Charlotte said, setting the tickets back on the table.
"I just don't quite understand why people would pay to spend hours watching a group of actors pretend to love each other on a stage."
Mrs. Hudson couldn't help laughing.
"Oh, Charlotte," the old woman said, shaking her head. "Love, sometimes, is a thing you can only see clearly through pretending.
The story on stage might be fake, but what the people in the audience are feeling while they watch it is real enough."
Charlotte fell silent for a few seconds.
"What time does it start?"
"Half past seven," Mrs. Hudson said. "You've got the whole afternoon to get ready."
Charlotte nodded and said nothing more.
At six in the evening, Russell and Charlotte took a carriage to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.
By then, the entrance was already thick with crowds — gentlemen and ladies in evening dress stepping down from their carriages one after another, escorted by attendants into the grand, splendid hall.
Charlotte and Russell arrived at the door dressed in those same outfits Buckingham Palace had so kindly gifted them the last time.
In truth, neither of them had wanted to wear them, but Mrs. Hudson had insisted so firmly, going on about how they mustn't lose face, that they'd given in.
Night had settled over Covent Garden, and the lights of the Royal Opera House lit the whole street as bright as day.
Russell and Charlotte had just stepped down from their rented carriage, and before they'd even had time to straighten their clothes, all eyes were on them.
At first, those looks were merely curious, drawn simply by the two figures' bearing.
But the moment people got a clear look at Russell's and Charlotte's faces, they froze on the spot, eyes widening.
It wasn't just that the two of them stood out even in that glittering, splendid hall — it was that those two faces were, to everyone there, far too familiar.
A few days earlier, a front-page photograph in The Times had made this young pair recognizable to nearly all of London's high society.
"Is that... Miss Holmes?"
"The one from Baker Street? And that's her assistant next to her?"
"Good lord, even they come to see plays?"
Whispers rippled in from every direction like a tide, thick with surprise, curiosity, and gossip.
Russell stood there, expression unchanged, and waited for Charlotte to step down from the carriage before walking side by side with her toward the entrance.
Charlotte walked half a step ahead, in that black evening gown, its hem brushing the ground, the toe of a black satin shoe peeking out with each step.
The neckline sat just right, revealing a stretch of pale throat, and below her collarbone hung a fine silver chain with a small sapphire — a gift Mrs. Hudson had received in her youth, forcibly fastened around Charlotte's neck for the night.
Her hair, rarely styled up, was pinned back with a simple silver hairpin, baring her grey-blue eyes and the faintly cool lines of her brow.
Russell walked half a step behind, in his tailcoat, standing beside her — the two of them made, if he did say so himself, a rather well-matched pair.
His gaze drifted, unbidden, to her profile.
She looked more beautiful than she had at Buckingham Palace, several times over — as if she'd stepped straight out of a painting.
She paid no mind to all those staring eyes, her back straight, gaze level, striding forward in her heels with the bearing of a queen.
"What are you looking at?"
Charlotte suddenly spoke, without turning her head.
Russell blinked, then chuckled.
"Nothing."
"Nothing?" Charlotte tilted her head slightly and glanced at him from the corner of her eye.
"You stared at my profile for six seconds, then dropped your gaze for three seconds, and then went back to my profile. That's not nothing."
"Can you not deduce every single thing, all the time?"
"No," Charlotte said, turning her gaze forward again and continuing on.
Russell rolled his eyes, then stepped up and looped his arm through Charlotte's.
The gesture caught her off guard, and she turned to look at him instinctively.
"What are you doing?"
"When in Rome," Russell shrugged, glancing at the people around them.
"Seems like everyone here does it this way — the man escorting the woman on his arm."
At that, Charlotte's gaze swept around them too, and she found that, indeed, it seemed to be the case.
Some couples went even further, an arm around the waist, or resting on a shoulder.
It made sense, really — the people who came to the opera together to watch a love story were, more often than not, couples, or at the very least close friends.
By comparison, Russell's gesture was rather restrained.
It was just that the feeling left her a little uneasy — not that she minded the touch itself, but the sensation of being watched by so many people made her uncomfortable.
"What's wrong?" Russell noticed her reaction. "If you're not used to it, never mind."
He started to withdraw his arm, but Charlotte quickly reached out with her other hand and caught hold of his arm.
"No."
She said it, her tone a little uneasy, the tips of her ears flushing faintly, though it wasn't very noticeable in the dark of the evening.
"I never said I didn't like it."
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