Brodie finally set me from him.
“And I presume there’s no talking ye out of going to St. Pancras,” he presumed correctly.
“Not at all,” I finally managed to say. “We will be there and back in short order. Perhaps even before your return from meeting with the Home Secretary.”
He read the note again.
“You might want to dress more formally for your meeting with the Home Secretary,” I suggested.
We had both met Henry Matthews, the present Home Secretary, in a previous inquiry.
He was quite formal in his manner, yet not the sort to look down on those who were not of the peerage, and had highly valued our participation in a particular case at the time. He had left the position of Home Secretary the year before, then was called back to his present term by Mr. Gladstone.
“Aye,” Brodie replied as he retreated to the adjacent room.
When he eventually emerged, he had been transformed into the very striking image of a gentleman, albeit with tie in hand.
“I can never tie the bloody thing,” he grumbled, and would have tossed it aside.
I retrieved it. I felt that dark gaze on me as I very efficiently tied it for him. When I had completed the task and would have stepped back, his hand covered mine and he stopped me.
“Be careful.”
“Of course. After all, who else would tie your tie when you are summoned to the Home Office?” I replied.
“Perhaps a woman on the street corner,” he suggested.
“Who would tolerate that Scots temper?”
The answer was in the half smile at one corner of his mouth. “Aye.”
“You would do well to remember that, sir.”
He held onto my hand a moment longer.
“Whatever ye learn, ye’re to return here and not set off on yer own.”
“Of course, dear.”
“We should leave no later than eleven o’clock because of the weather,” I told Lily after he had gone.
“It’s only a few miles, but that will give us plenty of time with traffic and depending on the road condition.”
She grinned at me. “Of course.”
St. Pancras Old Church was not far as the crow flies, according to that old saying. Less than three miles.
However, the way was often crowded with traffic, routes that changed due to the extension of the rail line, and then there was the weather.
Mr. Cavendish was able to secure the service of Mr. Jarvis once more. He was knowledgeable of most areas of London, and I was confident he would see us safely there.
Lily and I climbed aboard. Rupert the hound immediately followed and grinned up at us as he sat on the floor of the coach between us.
“Mr. Brodie might have mentioned that the hound should accompany you,” Mr. Cavendish commented as he closed the door of the coach.
And pigs fly, I thought.
“It must be comforting to have someone who cares so about you,” Lily commented as we set off.
