Precisely, I thought.
Mr. Jarvis was there, the coach silhouetted against a dark grey sky as snow began to fall once more. And somewhere on the church grounds I heard the sound of a hound baying quite furiously.
Lily gave a sharp whistle, then another.
Rupert eventually appeared, though reluctantly as he stopped more than once at full attention in the direction he had come.
Lily whistled once more, and he returned to the coach.
We quickly climbed inside, and I asked Jarvis to take us to Sussex Square.
“Sussex Square?” Lily said. “We should return to the office so that we can let Brodie know what we learned.”
“It would be best if you return to Sussex Square,” I replied. Where she would be safe. Munro would be there.
She was not pleased.
“Why are ye sending me back?” she demanded. “Haven’t I shown ye that I can be helpful. I found the information about Reverend Chastain being sent to St. Mary’s in Hendon.”
The Scots accent slipped through again as I had noticed before when she was in a temper.
“Mr. Brodie said…”
“He would not want you to pursue this now,” I interjected. “We don’t yet know what this is all about.”
I thought of those cryptic notes that had been left on the bodies and the additional ones sent to His Highness.
“Three young men have been murdered. There may very well will be another attempt.”
“I don’t need yer protection,” she argued as we continued toward Sussex Square. “I’m not a child. I can take care of myself. Ye are not my mother!”
She stopped herself and stared at me across the darkened interior of the coach, her expression quite different now.
“I didn’t mean that…I apologize.”
“I have never thought of you as a child,” I replied. “But that does not mean that I do not care what happens to you.”
I was very aware that I could not prevent her choosing her own path. “I ask that you trust me in this.”
She eventually nodded, however she was silent for the rest of the trip to Sussex Square and then once again after we arrived.
Brodie came out of the office as Mr. Jarvis delivered the hound and I safely back to The Strand.
He took one look at me and frowned as he came down the stairs, then paid Mr. Jarvis.
“Aye, dinna stand there in the cold.” He took my hand.
Twenty-One
Brodie calledit my woman’s intuition.
It appeared that I was far more correct than I would have liked in my conversation with Lily.
An attempt had been made upon the Duke of York, the son of His Highness, and his young wife as they returned the previous evening to their apartments at St. James’s Palace.
The attack had come on the street as they returned from a reception at Buckingham Palace, an incredibly bold attempt, not unlike the attack on the son of Lord Salisbery as he had departed White’s Club.
It explained the urgent meeting that Brodie was called to earlier.
