“I want to speak with Sir Laughton regarding the possibility of a trust that Simon Harris had set up, with the manager still paid after all these years.”
It was possible that my great-aunt’s attorney knew the man and might be able to explain how such a thing as a trust might work. It could explain a great deal. But there again, what did it mean if he had set up a trust?
“Ye have that theater performance tonight?” Brodie asked.
“We’re to leave from Sussex Square at eight o’clock for the nine o’clock performance.”
He nodded as he came around the desk
“It will give ye the chance to dress in yer finery for a change.”
My finery?
“I prefer my walking skirts and boots. They are far more practical.”
“A lady who prefers woolens and leather to silks and satins.” He slipped his arms about me.
“Yes, please,” I replied.
“Do ye miss fancysoirees,as her ladyship describes them, supper parties with champagne, and the companionship ye find there?”
He had become most serious.
“I have never been one for fancy soirees or supper parties with all of that gossip and pretentiousness. And you know well enough that I prefer my great-aunt’s whisky to champagne.” I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“As for companionship,” I teased.
A dark brow angled sharply.
“I prefer the intrigue of an adventure.”
“Adventure?”
I smiled. “Always, Mr. Brodie.”
Seventeen
We sharedthe midday meal at the Public House, then Brodie was off to find the fire brigade captain he had spoken of in the hope that the man might be able to tell him something about that charred ‘paper weight,’ as I referred to it.
I put through a call to Sir Laughton’s office. He was able to meet with me later in the day, which would give me enough time afterward to return to the town house, change clothes, and then meet Lily and my great-aunt, along with Munro, for the cabaret that evening.
Sir Laughton’s offices were on Fleet Street, very near the Chancery House and the Royal Courts of Justice.
Highly experienced in matters of law, he had overseen my great-aunt’s legal affairs for as long as I could remember, and had guided her through the somewhat chaotic process of formally adopting both me and my sister to protect us from our father’s losses and ruin.
If she held any animosity toward our father—he was after all quite dead by that time—she had kept it to herself until we were much older, and then only to myself.
“One’s deeds do catch up on one.”
And then her somewhat infamous ‘get on with it’ speech.“I never liked him. He had a weak chin. However, your mother, poor lamb, was quite taken with him. Or I should say, taken in.”
I was of much the same opinion, and for several years while gaining my maturity, I found myself constantly checking my chin, much to Aunt Antonia’s bemusement.
“No weak chin there, my dear. You must simply refuse to have it.”
As it turned out, neither Linnie nor I had that character aspect.
I arrived now at Sir Laughton’s offices with my well-developed chin, and gave my name to Mrs. Abernathy, the woman who managed the front of his office, including his appointments.
