One
SUSSEX SQUARE
It was one of those magnificent spring days when London had not yet given way to the sweltering heat of July, and my great-aunt, Lady Antonia Montgomery, had planned a family luncheon.
The guest list included me, minus Brodie who was off on some matter about a stolen shipment that no one was supposed to know about. One of those clandestine affairs that it did seem he was being tasked with more and more frequently by Sir Avery Stanton at the Agency.
I suppose the translation might be—the things no one else knew about, except Sir Stanton and the Queen.
Brodie and I disagreed on his work for Sir Stanton—very much so. I had my reasons, that had everything to do with Sir Stanton and a certain habit of being not completely forthcoming about certain risks during a previous inquiry, that could have gotten Brodie killed.
He saw it somewhat differently, one of the few points we disagreed upon. Merely ‘the risks of the business,’ as he called it. Our private inquiry business that allowed him to investigate a matter outside the usual constraints of law enforcement.
In other words, areas that were often dangerous and subject to ‘plausible deniability on the part of the usual government agencies,’ as Sir Stanton called it.
Plausible deniability. There had been more than one conversation regarding that.
“It means that the Agency can simply deny a situation if something goes wrong, and you are at the mercy of some criminal sort!” I had pointed out, somewhat forcefully.
“It means there are aspects that I can assist with that might otherwise add to a far more serious situation!” Brodie had replied, equally forceful. “And there are other reasons.”
“What reasons?” I had demanded.
He refused to explain that part of it, only that it could very well involve someone of very high position in the government. Someone who was in a position that might involve foreign governments.
I call the inquiry business ‘ours, ’ as I had been known to contribute from time to time after that first case that involved my sister’s disappearance. Afterward, there were things I was able to contribute from time to time to his cases.
Brodie had described my involvement as a most unusual curiosity for crime. I have to admit that I did find it most fascinating. A new adventure, as it were.
I had previously taken myself off on a series of adventures after completing my education in France. That had included travels to the Far East, Egypt, Budapest, Portugal, and Spain, and encounters with interesting people.
There was that Greek situation on the Isle of Crete, of course. The young guide had been most ... engaging. Admittedly, there was a great deal of ouzo involved.
If not for the unexpected encounter of someone else, I might have stayed on Crete. For a little while, at least, until my next adventure beckoned.
I had gone on to write about my adventures in my novels through the character of Miss Emma Fortescue.
That had brought me into my working relationship with my publisher, James Warren, now my brother-in-law, to great success that allowed me to live independent of my great-aunt’s generosities, or a man.
Then there was Brodie, in the middle of all my well-laid plans. There was absolutely no logical explanation for that particular aspect of my life.
He was not at all what anyone would have expected for a young woman of my ‘ station .’ He was a former inspector with the Metropolitan Police of London who had managed to survive on the streets of Edinburgh as a young boy.
He was not formally educated. He was self-taught, as they say, with an education that did include some ‘questionable talents,’ as I called them—survival on the streets, certain insights into criminal sorts—and certain details of his early life that he refused to discuss.
I could only assume a somewhat criminal past.
There was another aspect that my great-aunt had assured me was quite important—he could be trusted. I might have called it stubbornness. He was, after all, a Scot, and they were particularly known for that quality.
Yet, I had discovered that she spoke with some authority on the matter, even though the circumstances of precisely how she originally came to be acquainted with him were somewhat mysterious.
She had also insisted there was one more thing that was vitally important, which I had discovered for myself—he made my toes curl, in the most unnerving, fascinating way.
I concede that it might have to do with the dark hair that was forever in need of a trim, that equally dark beard that made him look more than a little dangerous.
But most definitely it had to do with the way he looked at me at the most unexpected moments.
That dark gaze fastened on me, then the way it softened in that way that seemed to see inside me, past the walls I had built around myself brick by brick. And what was a woman to do?
So here we are, I thought, on a magnificent June day with my sister, her husband James Warren, and their two-month-old daughter Catherine, named for our mother.
The child had managed to postpone her arrival until after my sister and I returned from her art debut in Paris. Although I was not at all certain we would return in time, but dear sweet Catherine had accommodated us, I conceded, as I now wiped the remnants of drool from my shoulder.
Our somewhat unusual family of course included my ward, Lily, whom I had persuaded to come to London after the whorehouse in Edinburgh, where she was employed as a maid, had burned to the ground.
The bargain had included an education, a place to live, and prospects for her beyond those of a house of prostitution.
Orphaned at a young age, with no known family, she knew only too well what awaited an uneducated girl with no other means of supporting herself.
That was two years earlier. To say that the transformation was remarkable was an understatement. The young woman who now sat across from me sipping on a glass of lemonade was far different from that girl I had first met.
“Have you thought of having a child?” she asked. “You and Mr. Brodie?”
That question had been answered years earlier when I came down with a dreadful fever as a child.
The physician my great-aunt had called out informed her that it was doubtful I would be able to have children because of the lingering effects from the fever. So, here we were. And to be honest, I was quite content to let my sister continue the family line.
She was ecstatic with motherhood, although she had asked the same question a bit differently just that very afternoon.
“She is quite taken with you,” she commented about her two-month-old daughter, as the infant’s head bobbed at my shoulder, just prior to anointing me.
“Have you considered ... trying to have a child of your own?” Linnie asked.
I handed Catherine, who fixed me with a lopsided smile in parting, back to her.
“It would seem that Mr. Brodie might want that very much,” she added.
We had spoken of it. Or rather I had informed him when he asked me to marry him, that I very likely would never have children after that childhood illness. He had simply looked at me with that dark gaze that softened.
“ It’s ye I want, lass. Troublesome as ye can be. Tho’ I’m not a man of means. I pay monthly rent on the office, as ye well know, and inquiry cases do not bring regular money. Although I will admit that havin’ ye about has increased the clients who call on us.”
Such romantic words! About clients and rent payments.
It was the first part of it that stopped all my protestations when I could have pointed out all the ways that we were so very different. And what about my independence, my adventures, my novels? I argued with myself.
But it was those few words that stopped me—that he wanted me.
And who could argue with a man who knew my faults and habits and then had quietly announced that it was not enough.
He wanted me as I was, in spite of my stubbornness, taking myself off in situations that admittedly often turned quite dangerous.
Or perhaps it was when he told me that he had no right to ask me to marry him, that he had nothing to give me but himself.
I considered now how best to answer my sister’s question about having a child as I wiped a portion of Catherine’s last meal from the shoulder of my gown.
“I suppose a family would be difficult to manage with your inquiry cases,” Linnie commented now. “Yet there are nannies available, and it is such an extraordinary adventure,” she added as she handed me another cloth.
Not to mention the exorbitant laundry and cleaning bills, I thought, as I noticed the time on the mantel clock.
“I do need to get to the office.” I made my excuses, fascinating as Catherine Antonia Warren was.
“Leaving so soon?” my great-aunt inquired as she returned to the solar.
“I’m to meet Brodie back at the office.”
“Yes, of course, dear,” she replied as she brushed the shoulder of my still-wet blouse.
“Have you spoken with Lily today?” she inquired.
“Yes, briefly.”
“Hmmm.” She hooked her arm through mine, and we walked back into the main hall together. Which, of course, meant there was more conversation on that subject.
“She has spoken of returning to Edinburgh now that she has completed her studies here, rather than finishing in Paris, as you and Lenore did. She seems to think that she may be able to find someone in her family still there,” she added.
“Although I have cautioned her there might be no one. I was hoping she might let the matter lie. Still, she is quite headstrong and independent,” Aunt Antonia pointed out. Then a smile. “It does seem as if the boot is now on the other foot, my dear.”
I caught the look she gave me. “I will speak with her. Perhaps I can convince her to wait until after she finishes in Paris,” I replied.
“I suppose I might accompany her to Paris, if she could be persuaded. It has been some time since I spent any time there.” Aunt Antonia commented, then with a smile. She looked at me.