“And this is due to yer vast experience with such things? Or are ye picking up on some message from the other side like yer friend Templeton.”
“I do have some experience,” I reminded him. “And you must admit that she has been right on at least three occasions with the information she has provided us.”
“Two occasions,” Brodie replied. “And each could have been no more than a good guess. And the woman claims to talk to a dead man. It’s the reason Munro is no longer keeping company with her.”
I didn’t know that. I simply thought they had perhaps decided on some time apart. After all she had a very busy stage schedule and Munro had the demands of his work for my aunt.
“Ye didna know?”
“How do you know? Perhaps it is simply a mistake or due to her schedule,” I replied. However, I could tell from the expression on Brodie’s face that neither one was the case.
“He said it was due to never bein’ certain who was in her bed… himself or the fellow, Shakespeare.”
“That is preposterous! It isn’t as if she doesn’t know the difference between a man and…”
One that had been dead for over three hundred years? Even as I said it, I did wonder if my friend had taken a step away as they say.
“Preposterous!” I said again. “She is quite taken with Munro, and we both saw that mural at her home in Surrey.”
I made a mental note to speak with her as there had been no opportunity the previous evening as she was telling fortunes for my aunt’s guests. Just as soon as I had spoken again with Mr. Talbot.
I did wonder what he might say if he knew that he had been seen at Hyde Park.
“I’ll have yer word,” Brodie insisted, bringing me back to the moment. “That ye’ll not go off to Talbot’s studio by yerself.”
What was this, I thought? Some sort of domineering male attitude?
“It isn’t as if I cannot take care of myself,” I pointed out. “The man is rail thin and cannot weigh more than Lily.”
“I know ye well enough, Mikaela Forsythe. I’ll not have ye goin’ off and endangerin’ yerself as before.”
As before…?
Before what, his proposal? Was that what this was? Some sort of medieval attitude about what a woman could or could not do?
“Yer word on it,” he insisted.
“Very well.”
“Say it.”
“I give you my word.”
“All of it.”
Oh for heaven’s sake. “I will not endanger myself.”
It was obvious by the expression in that dark gaze that I had not fooled him with my choice of words. It was also obvious that at least for now, he knew that was all he was going to get in the way of a compromise.
“How is Miss Lily?” he asked, changing the direction of the conversation.
“She is… marvelous. I have never seen anyone so excited as she was last night. I doubt she has ever experienced anything like that.”
“Ye’re quite taken with her,” he replied.
“I believe that we all are. My aunt indulges her pitifully, Linnie imagines her to be like me, and the entire household at Sussex Square seems most pleased to have her there.”
Except perhaps for Mr. Symons, my aunt’s head butler. He had been exactly like that when I was Lily’s age. He would eventually come around, however I wasn’t at all certain that what little hair he had left would survive.
