Startled, Juliana glanced up to see Mr. Hardmeat holding a folder out to her.
“Thank you.” She took it and flipped it open. There wasn’t much. The directions to Mr. Pickens past three residences. A list of previous employers. A letter of recommendation. Nothing that would speak to motive. But she wanted to be thorough. “Can I have pen and paper to copy this down?”
Mr. Hardmeat snapped his fingers at his son. “Boy. Earn your keep. Copy this file for the lady, and be quick about it.”
With a sigh that would have been more appropriate had he been asked to rebuild Hadrian’s Wall rather than write a few pages, the younger Mr. Hardmeat drew paper from his desk and dipped his pen in an inkwell. “Well?” He looked at Juliana expectantly. “I can’t read the contents from here, can I?”
“Right.” She hurried over and placed the file before him. “I really do apprec—”
“Whatever.” He bent his head to his task, but not before his father slapped the back of it.
“How many times have I told you to be polite to the customers?” His father shook his head, despairing, and stomped back into his office, slamming the door.
Juliana rethought her plan to reproduce as the younger Mr. Hardmeat copied the documents. The idea of children seemed all well and good, but the reality of this sullen, petulant being as one’s progeny was enough to give anyone second thoughts.
“Done.” He handed her the newly-copied papers, the ink still wet on the top page.
“Do you have a folder or envelope I can put them in?” She tried her hardest to make her voice as sweet as possible.
He just looked more irritated. “Fine.” He riffled through one of his desk drawers and produced a large envelope. “Good enough for you?”
“Perfect.” Now that she had what she wanted, she felt freer to speak. “A bit of advice, young man. If you want to inherit your father’s business—”
“I don’t.”
“Oh.” She rocked back on her heels. Well, there went that lecture. “What do you want to do?”
He shrugged. “Nothing, really.”
Juliana knew what that sort of indecision felt like. She took his pen and scribbled an address and time on a small piece of paper. She pushed it toward him. “Here. This is a good place to go to help figure out your interests.” And if she wasn’t thrown out of the salon for inflicting this sullen young man on them, she would consider this good deed worth it. “Remember, your life is what you make of it.”
With a nod to the thief-taker, she strode from the building, chin held high.
Life was what she made of it. She’d spent too much time last night crying over Brogan and his ideas on what her life was and should be. She was the one in control of her destiny.
And it was time Mr. Brogan Duffy understood that.
Chapter Twelve
Bertie shifted from foot to foot. “Do you think he’ll be here?”
Blowing out a breath, Juliana glared at her friend from the corner of her eye. He’d asked the same question every five minutes of their carriage ride over to the Voltaire Society’s meeting. Juliana usually didn’t find the conversation of this club as engaging as at the Rose Salon, but this one had meetings every week. Today’s was being held at the home of Lady Mary Cavindish, an older woman who was even more untraditional than Juliana.
“You didn’t have to attend the meeting with me,” she pointed out, shaking her skirts to unwrinkle them from the cab ride. “I know everyone here. There’s no danger.”
He twisted his hat around his left hand. “At tea, you said you thought one of them might be responsible for the attacks on your father. You’re right; no danger here at all,” he said sarcastically.
She squeezed his arm as she led him up the steps of the townhouse. He truly was sweet, but she didn’t know how much assistance Bertie could provide in a threatening situation. But perhaps she was being unfair. When Mr. Pickens had attacked her, Bertie had done a marvelous job of putting his face in the path of Pickens’s fist. It had distracted Pickens from her for a good thirty seconds.
No, Bertie had the heart of a lion but the physical prowess of a mouse. It hadn’t been until Brogan had arrived to detain Mr. Pickens that she had felt safe.
She frowned. She hadn’t heard from the blasted man all day. She’d expected a note at the very least, updating her of his progress, when she’d returned to the agency’s apartments. Not wanting to spend the afternoon staring at the walls, she’d paid a visit on Bertie.
And wished she’d been having tea with her surly investigator instead.
Pushing away that disconcerting thought, she said, “I don’t really believe someone here wants my father dead.” She rapped on the door. “But my father introduced Snow and me to this society, too. They were his friends first. And one of them might know a reason my father has made an enemy.”
A butler opened the door, looking as much the long-suffering servant as a man could look. From her few visits to this house, Juliana knew he liked to put on the appearance of disapproving of his mistress’s radical life-style. The woman had created London’s very first gentlewomen’s club, for heaven’s sake, a wondrous place where the most ungenteel things happened. But the butler’s attentiveness to Lady Cavindish, the light in his eyes when he looked upon her, showed his devotion.
