His eyes were focused on Eliza, but she didn’t think he was really seeing her.
“When was this?” Bramstone asked.
“The last time I saw Fenella was at the tea shop we always met at. I had a gift for her and was?—”
“A necklace?” Lord Seddon demanded. “A flower?”
“Aye, a Scottish primrose.”
Lord Seddon stared at the Scotsman. “I’ve been trying to find a necklace for days, Mungo, and fighting the urge to locate it. Now it seems I must.”
Clairvoyants.Eliza remembered again what they’d told her earlier. Also that Lord Seddon had asked about the necklace when they’d been at the rotunda.
“I don’t understand why you are asking about a necklace.What does this have to do with my daughter?” Mr. Fraser demanded.
“Don’t raise your voice to him,” Mungo snapped.
“I did not raise my voice, brother, I asked a question.”
The word “brother” struck the air like a blow. Eliza saw it land and watched Mungo brace against it. His shoulders went rigid, his jaw clenched, and something flickered behind his eyes. Pain. Anger. Old wounds.
“I will not have you speak to any of these people who have become my family with anything but respect,” Mungo said, softer but more dangerous now.
Calder stared back at him, the polite mask he’d arrived with now cracking at the edges. “I am not here to quarrel with you, Mungo. God knows we’ve had enough of that in our past.”
Mungo laughed, a hard, humorless sound. “Aye. Fighting’s always been the one thing we did well together.”
His accent had thickened with emotion, roughened and raw. The room shifted, everyone instinctively pulling back, giving them space as if the air between them was about to ignite.
“That is not fair,” Calder said quietly. “We were brothers in every way once.”
“Fair?” Mungo’s brows shot up. “You want fair now? After all this time?”
Eliza felt her stomach tighten. She shouldn’t be here for this. None of them should. But no one moved.
Calder looked away first, clasping his hands behind his back, and the fury in Mungo’s face shifted into something else as he studied his brother and saw how he suffered. Saw the pain of a father who couldn’t find his child.
“Now is not the time for what lays between you to be bared. Later you can talk, but now we must find Fenella,” Detective Fletcher said, his voice calm and yetcommanding, qualities she was sure he needed in his occupation.
“Agreed,” Bramstone said. “You’ll both sit, and we’ll discuss this rationally, as well as what is to be done. Leave the rest for later.”
Both Frasers gave a single nod but added nothing further. However, Eliza could feel the tension between them in every corner of the room. Knew they chafed at the wait to get out there and walk the streets to find Fenella. She prayed the girl was all right.
“We’re clairvoyants,” Lord Seddon said suddenly. “Sorry if that shocks you, Calder, but there is no time for anything but the truth now.”
Calder Fraser did not appear shocked as his eyes moved around the room, stopping on every person he met. In fact, he looked relieved, which Eliza found odd.
“We have something in common, then,” he said.
“No,” Mungo said. The brothers stared at each other for long heated minutes and then Calder nodded.
“In common?” Detective Fletcher asked.
“’Tis nothing,” Mungo said.
“Oh, there is definitely something,” Lord Seddon added.
“It matters not. What matters is finding my daughter,” Calder Fraser said as he fell into a seat as if his legs could no longer hold him upright. “I cannot sit here and drink tea while she is God knows where.”
