The butler realises he’ll get nowhere berating the boy. ‘When was this?’
But the carriage man has no pocket watch and little sense of time. ‘We went from the boarding house on North St David Street to Parliament Square and thence to Holyrood,’ he reasons. ‘We weren’t there long before he turned up. He knocked me out cold. I can’t say how long for. His name is Mr Harry Thom.’
Brodie calls Douglas and instructs him to the magistrate, Mr Neill, on Heriot Row, with a mandate to report the mistress being taken by force in her own carriage. Then the butler grabs his hat and greatcoat. He should have been more insistent, he thinks. He should have protected the mistress and Saoirse too.
‘I’ve a cab waiting, sir,’ Davey says.
‘Good lad. You’d better come with me.’ Brodie is already making for the door. ‘You’ll answer my questions on the way.’
By the time they get to St Andrew Square, Davey has told Brodie what he knows. The butler pays the cab man and sends the boy to Mr McGhie’s to make what he terms ‘discreet enquiries’ of the shop boy. ‘If the mistress is there, fetch me immediately.’
‘Where will you be, sir?’ Davey asks.
Brodie tips his chin to indicate North St David Street. ‘Mistress Campbell’s,’ he says.
Despite the urgency he cannot help but pause before knocking. It’s the work of seconds to lift his hat and draw a hand over his hair. Bella answers, and when Brodie introduces himself as theMcKenzies’ butler, she sees him up to Sister Winifred’s room. ‘Someone to see you.’
Winifred has been asleep. She comes to slower than usual. It’s a moment before she feels the pain in her rib. Then she sees Brodie. Time stops. She stares. It’s almost impossible to take in that he’s here. She curses herself for blushing. She puts her hands over her face. There’s a whiff of dried lavender from the nightstand. Her palms are icy. Her side aches. Between her fingers, she can’t look him in the eye. ‘Get out!’ she calls. ‘Dear God.’
Brodie thinks how nice it is to see her again, like this, in a colourful nightgown. How little she’s changed.
‘Sister,’ he manages, stifling the urge to call her Saoirse. ‘It’s Mrs Moore. She’s been taken.’
Winifred peers round her raised palms. ‘Was it Thom?’
Brodie nods. ‘The lady went to Parliament Square and met the librarian from the Faculty of Advocates. Then she had the coachman take her to...’ here he pauses because it’s so inadvisable. ‘Holyrood. The Chapel Royal.’
Winifred’s hands return to her lap. ‘She found the eleventh. Clever girl.’
Brodie doesn’t ask what Winifred means. ‘The coachman says Mrs Moore fired her gun into a plaque – a grave perhaps. He heard more than one shot. If she was armed, I don’t understand why she didn’t fire on Thom when he attacked her? Do you have any idea where she may have been taken?’
Winifred takes a breath. ‘I don’t know, but there’s a connection with St Giles, Cillian,’ she admits. ‘I went through Thom’s things.’
Brodie’s eyes light at the sound of his name in her mouth. He smiles. It’s been so long. He wants to take her hand, but he doesn’t. ‘I’ve never intruded on your business,’ he says, ‘but I’m not sure how to help if I don’t understand what’s going on.’
‘If there’s one thing my devotions have taught me, it’s that we don’t always need to understand to follow instruction,’ Winifred responds crisply. Her gaze falls to her lap. ‘I can’t get up,’ she adds. ‘I can’t do anything.’
Brodie takes this in. ‘I’ll be your hands. Your legs,’ he says. ‘Your eyes. I can lift you if you’d like.’
Winifred feels her heart skip. Silently she curses that he’s still so handsome. Then she recalls why she left Glenfinlas Street. Brodie belonged to Eilidh first. The betrayal still twists.
‘No,’ she says baldly.
Brodie, however, ventures ahead. ‘I hoped you might come to the funeral,’ he says, restraining himself once more from using the name he knew her by when they were lovers. ‘I’ve missed you.’
Winifred will not have that. ‘The cheek,’ she gets out. ‘Of course I didn’t go to my sister’s internment. Thom was already in Edinburgh. I sought to protect both myself and my great niece. She’s quite extraordinary, Brodie. She reminds me...’ her voice trails, unable to put words to exactly what Araminta has reminded her of. Hope, perhaps. Family. Trust. Duty.
‘Please, let me bring you home,’ Brodie says. ‘Cook’s broth is as good as a rest cure.’ This, he recalls, is something one of the McKenzie sisters said a long time ago.
Winifred shakes her head. ‘I need you to find Araminta,’ she says. There’s no time for this dilly-dally.
‘I’ve sent Davey to make enquiries and Douglas to the magistrate.’
‘Will you enquire at St Giles’?’ Winifred pushes. ‘There’s a connection there. This man’s order bears the name.’
‘He’s a monk, you think?’
‘Not as we think of a brother,’ Winifred says. ‘More dangerous.’
