“And I need to make notes from our visit with the Mallorys, and then I should go to Sussex Square. I promised Lily that I would let her know what we’ve learned. If I don’t, I fully expect her to return here and demand an update. She can be most insistent.”
He gave me an amused look. “Verra much like someone else I know.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I replied.
He rose from behind the desk and leaned over where I sat.
“Ye are a cheeky lass.”
Oh, that wicked smile.
“When is your meeting with Daniel Eddington?” I asked as a diversion.
“He’s to return by two o’clock this afternoon,” Brodie replied, not the leastdivertedas he brushed my cheek with his fingers.
“It is the middle of the day,” I reminded him.
“Aye, it is.” Which was immediately followed by a curse as the bell on the landing sounded insistently.
“Food!” I enthusiastically announced, as Mr. Cavendish had departed for the Public House just after we returned.
“I need to have a word with the man,” Brodie grumbled.
“You may have a word with him after we’ve eaten,” I replied. “For all the good it will do you.”
“He does seem to have a fondness for ye,” he added as he went to the door of the office.
Lunch indeed! Potatoes with tender cooked meat—I was not a fan of fish. And there was cobbler, almost as good as Mrs. Ryan’s.
“Oh!” I exclaimed as I opened the brown paper sack. “Bread that is still warm from the oven.”
“I dinna know the reason ye are not the size of one of yer aunt’s coach horses,” Brodie remarked as I divided the luncheon then handed him a bannock.
“I believe it might be hereditary,” I commented as I enthusiastically ate. “My mother was quite slender. And our great-aunt is most slender as well, for a woman her age, and she still has a hearty appetite.”
He sat across from me at the desk.
“I may need to increase our rates to clients in order to feed ye.”
“Dinna fash, Mr. Brodie. I am quite capable of providing food for both of us.”
“Aye.”
I heard that faint grumble, a complaint, if I wasn’t mistaken.
He had been most vocal in the past about providing for both of us, with no need for my money unless it was something I particularly wanted.
It was, of course, something most men took quite seriously—their ability to be the provider of the family. And a Scot, even more so. I handed him another bannock.
“I can afford food for the both of us,” he insisted. “Along with Mr. Cavendish. I draw the line at the hound.”
“You may draw the line wherever you wish,” I replied with a smile.
Brodie left afterward to keep his appointment with Daniel Eddington.
I remained to add notes to the chalkboard, then departed for Sussex Square.
Lily had taken Charlotte Mallory’s death very hard. Charlotte had been the first friend she had since arriving in London. True friends were few and far between, as I knew all too well.
