Possibly the curse that was part of the gift, that Elizabeth Cheney had spoken of. Things I saw and knew, and other things that seemed to appear almost every day. As if a door had finally opened and refused to be closed again.
“Mrs. Hutton was worrit when ye didna return, although she was certain no harm would come to ye out here by yerself. There will be more snow by nightfall.”
“Not for a few more hours yet,” I replied with that way of knowing things that had grown stronger since arriving.
It was the most conversation we’d shared the past few days.
My coat, that had replaced the one Elizabeth had provided me, hung over his arm, along with the wool scarf I had purchased at the Grassmarket just before that encounter with the man we now knew as Mr. Elias.
When I left the lodge, I hadn’t intended to be overlong, just a walk about as I had almost every day. I had worn only a pair of Mr. Hutton’s old work pants belted tight about my waist to prevent them falling to my feet, a wool jumper, and a pair of rubber boots from an earlier visit.
Munro held the coat for me. I slipped my arms into the sleeves. He wrapped the scarf about my neck, his fingers lightly brushing my cheek.
“The bruise is almost gone,” he commented, his fingers warm and gentle.
“There’s only a wee bit of yellow left.”
He was thoughtful. “Mrs. Hutton told me about wot ye saw just before evening last night. A white stag?" he was thoughtful.
“I’ve heard the stories about them. Still, I never knew anyone who saw one. I thought it an old superstition. But she believes in the old ways,” he continued. “It’s said there’s power in those who see the white stag.”
He seemed to be searching for something more to say. His shoulder shifted against the cold as he thrust his hands into the pockets of his long coat.
“I know the pain of losing someone ye cared about, but ye canna change wot happened. Or the choice yer friend made to help ye.”
I had met Munro years before when Mikaela Forsythe brought me to London. He was always stoic, closed into himself, going about quietly while managing Lady Antonia’s business affairs. Yet always with that way he had that seemed to see and know everything.
There were stories among the servants at Sussex Square that none dared cross him, that he had a dark past I had glimpsed more than once while working with Mr. Brodie and Mikaela on one of their inquiry cases.
Uncompromisingwas a word that came to mind, dangerous, cold, someone who had no feelings for another. And then the ‘stories’ the servants whispered about. One that he had killed a man when he was just a lad.
How was it then that he seemed to understand wot I was feeling now? The loss of someone who had protected and cared about me? And the guilt that I had been the cause of her death?
I was grateful for the cold as I blinked back tears at those simple words he shared. Impossible as it seemed, I knew he was right. Dory had made her own decision to help me. But that didn’t take away the pain over her death.
I would always miss her, and yet I thought of that strange encounter when it seemed that she appeared to me, as real as if she was still alive. I would always carry that with me.
“Wot do ye want to do now?” Munro asked, his breath forming a cloud in the cold air.
I smiled to myself. There was a time when he would not have bothered to ask what I wanted, but would simply have ordered me about.
I had given that a lot of thought. It should have been enough that I had helped find the one responsible for Dory’s murder.
“I want to find the man who hired Mr. Elias,” I replied.
“Ye should go back to London. Ye would be safe there. Ye would have work with Brodie and Miss Mikaela.”
I looked over at him, that intense blue gaze watching me. One final attempt to persuade me to do wothethought best?
“I am not a child,” I replied. “I make my own decisions. Sir McQuarrie has offered me a position as an assistant. I can take care of myself.”
He nodded and let out a long sigh.
“Aye, it appears that ye can.”
There was no argument.
It had started to snow once more, the flakes coming down light at first, then thicker.
