“Damn woman!” he swore and then tossed aside the cold wrap and came at me.
“Ye try a man’s soul, Mikaela Forsythe! I should be well rid of ye, but God help us both…!”
I have perfected a fairly accurate ability to assess a person’s demeanor, in particular, Brodie’s. However, considering his anger, misplaced as I considered it to be at the moment, he caught me quite unaware.
He kissed me!
Not the sort of kiss one might have expected after not seeing one another for almost two weeks, but one that was far different.
This was Brodie. Bloody stubborn Scot! Unpredictable, forceful, not one I could easily maneuver my way around. He could be so very aggravating.
However there was that scent of orange and cinnamon about him that I had missed most dreadfully…
“Why would a man as educated and accomplished as Dr. Bennett set up an office in the basement of that tenement in Aldgate?” I asked the question that had been lurking at the back of my thoughts since the previous evening as I stood before the chalkboard where I had made my notes.
“That is the question.”
I waited for Brodie’s usual response when we approached an inquiry case together.
I had shared what I knew about the Bennett case, but he had shared little beyond the fact that I knew he was making inquiries for the Agency.
Instead of a comment or imparting some information about that, there was a curse from the adjoining room.
Brodie appeared in a fresh shirt, a tie hanging loose about his neck, wool trousers and boots, dressed this morning somewhat more refined than hisstalking attireas I called it.
He had obviously attempted to tie the tie and now glared at me from one eye, the other one somewhat bruised and quite colorful from the blow I’d landed the previous evening.
I pushed his hands aside and proceeded to tie the typical four-in-hand style that he preferred when forced to wear one.
It did give him a somewhat dashing appearance, which I had commented on previously. I suspected it had something to do with the contrast of the refined clothes of a gentleman with his overlong dark hair and beard.
At the time, he had made a typically Scottish sound that described precisely what he thought of that.
However, a clean shirt and tie could mean only one thing. He was to meet with Sir Avery at the Tower, something I was quite determined to be part of particularly after the events of the previous evening as I seized both ends of the tie and refused to be intimidated by that dark glare.
“Where did ye learn such a thing as to tie the damned things?”
I suspected there was more behind the question, possibly an unasked question about the man in particular who taught me?
I let him think on that for a moment more before replying.
“Mr. Symons, my aunt’s head butler.”
He had taught me as a child when I had made quite a nuisance of myself over the matter. He had indulged me in the fascinating art of tying a man’s tie.
“As odd as that sounds, it makes perfect sense considerin’ yer ways.”
I smiled as I felt that dark gaze on me. I crossed the two ends of the gray silk tie one over the other, then once more around, created the loop, tucked the one through, then smoothed the wide knot I had created.
“Ye have gentle hands,” Brodie commented, apparently somewhat mollified. “I noticed that about ye from the verra beginning.”
Ah, possibly at our first, quite memorable encounter?
Of all the things he had said about me over almost two years, and then when in Scotland during that most unexpected proposal, this was something quite different.
He laid his hand over mine, much as he had the night before when the anger had spent itself and we had finally retired for the night to that adjacent room. His hand had covered mine very much the same way then, those long strong fingers wrapping around mine as I lay against him.
“Shehad gentle hands that could ease a hurt or the anger. Ye’re like that— most of the time,” he added.
