“The letters that Charlotte Mallory received might tell us something,” Brodie commented then. “If she kept them.”
“I will contact her mother in the morning, if she will even agree to meet with me. She seemed most fragile when we met before.”
He had finally eaten supper, or at least some of it. The rest was left for the hound in the morning.
He was most definitely preoccupied with something.
“What of your meeting with Daniel Eddington?”
“As to be expected, the young man is in mourning. He seemed most cooperative, however there was little he could tell me about that day.”
Someone else might have missed it, but I picked up on it.
“Seemed?”
“Aye, something didn’t seem quite right.”
It really was too tempting to ignore.
“Your instincts, of course.”
That dark gaze narrowed as he reached out and grabbed me by the wrist.
“Fear treun,” he replied in Gaelic with that thick Scots accent.
“And what might that mean, Mr. Brodie?” I asked as he pulled me close.
“Ye are a brave one,” he replied with a low growl as he buried his hands in my hair.
Thirteen
We stayedthe night at the office. I returned to Mayfair in the morning in my attempt to meet with Mrs. Mallory, while Brodie hoped to meet with Judge Cameron.
There were still questions as well over the urgency with which Doctor Cameron had left his office that previous evening, along with no mention of the rose that we had found after we returned to his office.
The patient appointment was obviously an excuse to end our meeting with him. What did that mean? And where had he gone after he left? Did it have something to do with our meeting with him?
As of yet, more questions than answers. Still, I was hopeful there might be something to be learned from a meeting with Mrs. Mallory.
However…
“Mrs. Mallory is not receiving telephone calls or visitors at this time,” I was informed in a typically upper-class response from the butler.
I gave him my name, using my formal title, and ended the call.
Mrs. Ryan appeared at the entrance to the front parlor.
“I am on my way to put in the weekly order with the grocer,” she announced. “Will Mr. Brodie be joining us for supper?”
The obvious answer would have been that I couldn’t be certain.
“I will be preparing my Irish stew,” she added.
It was a favorite of Brodie’s, never mind that she was thoroughly Irish and frequently reminded him of it.
“Of course,” I replied. The truth was that if he didn’t take supper at the town house, Rupert the hound would eat quite well afterward.
“Is there anything else in particular, miss?”
