Page 41 of The Number of Love
Even so. Her brother may see their mother in her, but only because he wanted to. She handed the photo back and forced her tone to go light. “Does that mean you won’t disown me?”
His smile was crooked. “I did not disown you the other times, did I?”
“No. But I was a child.”
“You were never a child.” Chuckling, he put the photograph back into his wallet, that back into his pocket, and then stepped closer to fold her into his arms. “But you are still my baby sister.”
He said no more. But he didn’t have to. She knew all the things he didn’t voice.
After a moment, she pulled away with a muted smile. “I’d better get home. It’s getting late.”
“You do not...”Have to.But he didn’t say that again either. Just sighed and nodded. “Be careful. It is dark already.”
He was coming a long way, this brother of hers. It used to be that he wouldn’t think of allowing her to travel the distance home alone. But as that had proven impossible to keep to, given their very different hours with his concert schedule and her work, he’d settled for making sure she could defend herself against any attacker. Willa and Barclay had taught her all she needed to know.
She said good-bye to the other girls and soon slipped out into the night. The November air was cold but welcome, chasing a few bits of residual clutter from her mind. She buried her hands in her pockets and strode along, from gaslight to gaslight, from Kensington back toward her flat in Chelsea.
Fog had crept in from the Thames at some point while she was inside. It would protect them tonight from biplanes and zeppelins. She watched it swirl in front of the nearest light, moving so slowly that it nearly looked immobile. But it wasn’t. Nothing ever was, it seemed.
At the corner, she paused. Looked toward the park, cold and dark. She didn’t have to see to know where Mrs. Rourke usually sat with her crocheting. Where the stranger had taken up residence at the wrought-iron table instead of Gregory, playing no one at Go.
He wasn’t there now, of course. Even from here she could see the silhouette of the empty chair. But why was he ever?Whowas he? And where had he come by that game?
“Have you any spare change, miss?”
She didn’t jump, but she did jerk her head toward the voice more quickly than if she’d noted the figure before his words snuck through the fog toward her. There, someone shuffling toward the light.
Male. Twenty-two to twenty-five, were she to guess. Five feet eleven inches, if he’d been standing up straight, which he wasn’t. He was hunched against the chill and hobbling with that distinct gait that suggested a missing limb. Hair of an indeterminate color in the dim light. A cap pulled low against the cold. A scarf that was more holes than knit—Maman would have been appalled.
He didn’t come any closer. Whether the distance was out of respect or because he knew he’d get nothing from her if he scared her, she could only guess. But she opened her handbag. The journal that the duchess had given her still protruded from the top, but she reached in around it and pulled out her change purse. She never carried much on her, not unless she was going to the shops. But she counted out what she had and held it all out in her palm. “Here.”
The man hesitated, edged a bit closer, and then took a single florin. “I won’t take all you have, miss. You’ve no doubt a husband and little ones at home.”
“No, I haven’t. Take it all.” She followed his hand and spilled the coins into it. Maman would have given more conservatively, always mindful of the house in Brussels that would need repair and the accounts that might be drained when they were no longer frozen.
But Margot’s equation was different.
The man’s fingers closed around the offering. “I don’t—I mean, thank you. I hate to have asked. To havehadto ask.”
He must be new to such hard times.
“I’ll work for it. If I can. That is...” He edged back half a step. No expression of pain accompanied the awkward movement, so perhaps the injury wasn’t as new as the low circumstances. “There’s not much I can do these days.”
And she had nothing that needed done, regardless.
Or did she? “I do have one small task that you can accomplish. Not now, but sometime this week.” She pointed to the park, and tothe empty table and chair. “Sometimes there is a man there, playing a board game with white and black stones. He’ll tell no one his name. But if you could determine who he is, I would very much appreciate it.”
The stranger frowned. “All right. May I ask why?”
“Because I don’t like unknowns. Everyxin an equation ought to be solved for.”
“Then you’ll want to knowmyname as well.” He stuck out a hand. “I’m called Redvers—Red, for short. Red Holmes.”
She shook rather than holding her hand out, wrist limp, for him to bow over. “Any relation to Sherlock?”
He laughed, making her glad she’d emptied her change purse for him. “Not that I’ve yet discovered. So once I’ve found out who that other bloke is, how am I to let you know?”
Well, that was a good question. She could only imagine Lukas’s outrage if she told him where she lived. “If you’re in this neighborhood often, you could simply make it a point to be on this corner around five-thirty. That’s when I usually walk by.” When she walked this way, which she typically only did if coming from her brother’s, or if she fancied a turn through the park. But she’d take the long way until he reported back. And then he wouldn’t know her actual path, in case he was less savory than he seemed.
