Her heart squeezed. She didn’t remember much of her mother, but she did remember the love. Their family had been happy.
Mary frowned. “There was that odd business with Sir Thomas Miles. Because of your mother’s death, it wasn’t commented on overmuch. The breach between the two men seemed a trifle compared to your father’s loss.”
“Sir Thomas…” Juliana chewed her bottom lip. She had a vague memory of sitting on a Sir Thomas’s knee, pretending to be riding a horse as he bounced her up and down. He even made neighing sounds, much to her smaller self’s delight. “I remember him. He and my father were friends. What happened?”
“I think it was an investment that went bad.” Mary tilted her head. “Your father encouraged Sir Thomas to put money in something or other? Perhaps it was the other way about.” She shrugged. “No matter. It wasn’t a scandal of any sort. No large row, not that I can recollect. They simply ended their friendship.”
And it had been seventeen years since her mother died. Holding a grudge for this long seemed improbable, if not impossible.
“Now,” Mary said, placing a blue-veined hand on Juliana’s knee, “what’s this about?”
“Hmm? About?” Rats. She should have come up with some sort of story why she was asking questions. She didn’t want it known she suspected an acquaintance of her father’swas trying to murder him. She somehow didn’t think people would be as willing to speak to her if that was the case. “Nothing in particular. I did lose my mother so early that I suppose I just want to know everything about myfather’s life I can.”
Mary arched an eyebrow. “And knowing his enemies will fill out the family history, will it?”
Her stomach sank. “Something like that.”
“And this has nothing to do with the handsome yet imposing man glaring down at you?”
Juliana looked up and yelped. Brogan stood not three feet away, arms crossed over his chest, looking like he wanted nothing more than to thrash her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. For such a large man he sure could move softly. How he’d crossed that room without her noticing, she didn’t know.
“My job.” He held his hand out to her. “I’d like to speak with you. In the hall.”
She looked at his hand, looked at the curious glances they were garnering, and hurriedly slipped her own palm over his. “I’d like to speak with you, as well.” She had many things to say to this man. Many, many things. First on her list was how unprofessional it was to abandon her simply because they’d had a disagreement.
With a flick of his wrist, he jerked her to standing. “I’m glad we’ve reached a consensus of opinion on one thing at least.’
As she was pulled from the room, she heard Mary chuckle. “This salon meeting is becoming more interesting by the minute.”
***
Brogan tried to rein in his temper. The day had started off poorly and only gotten worse. The note from his father had thwarted his investigation that morn, and when he tried to get it back on course, he found Lady Juliana not only not safe in the apartments, but traipsing about with their suspects.
He pulled her through the door and out of hearing from those in the sitting room. “Explain.”
She tugged her hand free and shrugged. “Explain what exactly?”
He gritted his teeth. “Why you’re here instead of at the apartment letting me investigate.”
She shrugged again. “I’m a member of this salon, too.”
“You aren’t investigating?”
“I didn’t say that.”
He looked at the ceiling. God give him patience with this woman. “You’ve hired me to do a job. Let me do it.”
“I thought we were to work together.” She poked him in the chest, a move of hers that brought up too many memories of intertwined tongues and heated bodies. “You agreed. Then you run off this morning without me. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop investigating.”
Damn, whyhadhe thought she’d sit meekly at home while he worked? Nothing in their past history should have suggested that. But she’d riled him up last night when he prided himself on staying emotionless at work. Made him so frustrated he hadn’t been thinking straight.
“Why areyouat this meeting?” She cocked her head to the side. “Do you think the perpetrator could be one of my father’s acquaintances here, too?”
Brogan scraped his palm across his jaw. All he wanted was to go home, eat enough to make up for the luncheon he’d skipped, and go to bed. Not worry about whether Lady Juliana would interfere with his investigation. Not worry about the trouble his sister was getting into. Not continue down the path of what he was becoming more and more convinced was a wild goose chase. By all accounts, her father was a quiet, gentle sort of man, not someone to target for death.
“Your father’s acquaintances in London are few.” His friends anywhere were few. The man led a simple life in the country most of the year. “I won’t leave any avenue of inquiry unexplored. But is it true he hasn’t attended any salon in over a year?”
