She whirled and began to march blindly down the street. His smooth laughter followed her, and then his hand latched onto her arm and steered her around some would-be obstacle.
“Oh, Olive, you are a delight.” He patted her hand. “I was only teasing.”
Of course he was. It would be foolish to think otherwise. Emil might tease her, but he didn’t mean anything by it. He might stir feelings in her she’d never had before, but they weren’t reciprocated. He was a flirt who was used to having a good time, whether working a case or not. And she just happened to be the only woman around.
He was not her knight.
Not now, not ever.
“Where to now?” He asked after a while, much more somberly than before.
“Another temperance speech,” she said sourly, and her increasingly bad mood was only slightly mollified by his muttered curse.
Just then, they neared what sounded like a group of children. Young boys, perhaps a girl or two, laugh-singing their way through a bawdy tune. Olive stopped in her tracks. Even blindfolded, she knew one of those voices—Robbie. She ripped off her veil, eyes stinging at the sudden brightness, and scoured the block.
“We’re done with disguises now?”
“Be quiet,” she snapped.
Emil’s jaw dropped, but she ignored him. Her attention was trained on the truant attempting to hide behind a garbage can.
“You.”
Robbie stood up slowly, his expression somewhere between defiance and guilt. “It was only for a few minutes,” he whined.
“I don’t want to hear it.” She turned to the other children, most of whom she recognized. “All of you. Go back to school.” When they didn’t move, she clapped her hands three times. “Scram!” They bolted like startled alley cats, shooting daggers at her the whole while.
“Ollie, you’re embarrassing me.”
She whirled to face her brother, hands on her hips. “And you’re infuriating me! I’m taking you right back to school, mister.”
“I’m never going back.” Then he plopped down in the middle of the sidewalk, planting both arms over his chest with a mutinous glare.
Olive stared him down, not letting up when a young woman exited the butcher shop behind him and was forced to juggle her packages and sidestep the boy. Not when the butcher came to the door at the disturbance and clucked his tongue with disapproval. Not even when Emil leaned against the gate beside them and watched with interest. Robbie caved first, chin wobbling, the anger crowded out by the effort to hold back tears. Unfortunately, that could only mean one thing.
“Was it reading practice?” He nodded miserably, and Olive expelled a breath. Her poor brother. “Come sit with me on the steps.” He allowed her to move him to the short steps of an apartment building adjacent to the butcher shop, then sat with his forehead on his knees. “What happened?”
“They called me an idiot.”
The misery coating his muffled voice filled her with helpless rage. It was not the first time it had happened, but what she would give to make it the last.
“Who did?” Emil asked, his tone mild, curious. The casual way he stood with one foot on the stairs, his forearm braced on his knee, was at odds with the concern in his narrowed gaze.
“The little barbarians in his class.”
“Ah.”
“This is Mr. Anderson. He’s a—a friend,” she told Robbie. “But what did Mr. Turner say? Did he stop them?”
“One time he did. But they didn’t listen.”
All ire melted away as Olive wrapped her arm around his back. If only she could help him. Shield him from the burden of self-doubt that seemed to afflict all the Beckets.
“I hated school, too,” Emil said. “Math was my mortal enemy.”
Robbie lifted his head. “Reading is mine. And handwriting.”
“That’s very grave, indeed. So how do you strike back?”
