Cooper Isabel - Legend Of The Highland Dragon

Professor Carter made a reproving noise. “I’ve become an object of interest for more than a few people. Antiquities have caught the popular eye, you know. Miss Seymour does an admirable job of keeping the peace. And I daresay she’d have been more amenable if I’d known you were going to call.”

“ I didn’t know I was going to call,” said MacAlasdair, and now his voice was grim. “Not until I read the news. I take it you’ve seen the same piece.”

“I—yes—” said the professor. They were climbing the stairs now, and their footsteps drowned out most of the conversation. Mina caught one name, though: Moore.

She stood very still for a second.

She’d read the paper too.

Colonel James Edward Moore, age sixty-three, had been found dead in his flat two days before. The Times said that “signs”—they wouldn’t be more specific, and Mina was glad—pointed to assault with a heavy weapon. Scotland Yard was investigating but had named no subjects.

Apparently the professor had known Moore. Well, that might have explained his mood over the last day and a half. MacAlasdair had known him too. On the stairs, though, they hadn’t sounded like they were discussing a brutal and mysterious crime. They’d sounded as if they might know what was behind Moore’s death, and fear it.

Mina sat down again and resumed her typing. But she kept listening for noises from upstairs, and she kept one eye on the clock.

She knew, therefore, that half an hour had passed when MacAlasdair stormed down the staircase, slammed the back door open, and stalked through the office and out into the street. He didn’t so much as look in Mina’s direction on the way, and she found herself rather glad of that.

As soon as she’d closed the door behind MacAlasdair, Mina started toward the stairs, moving at a fairly rapid clip herself, and ran into her employer as a result. Her “Sorry, sir!” had a distinct note of relief to it.

Mina didn’t think that Professor Carter noticed. He barely seemed to notice the collision. “Miss Seymour.”

“Are you all right, Professor?”

“Yes, quite.” Except that his face was at least a few shades paler than usual, and his eyes did not see her at all. He thrust a hand forward almost blindly, clutching a haphazardly assembled sheaf of papers. “Here are my notes from this morning. The section on Abyssinian relics might be a bit tricky. Let me know if you have difficulties. I’ll be upstairs.”

With the motion, the cuff of his jacket fell back a little, revealing a wide silver band around his wrist. Mina glimpsed strange, angular shapes running down the middle. Then, as Mina took the papers, the professor dropped his hand, somewhat hurriedly, and cloth fell over the bracelet again.

He’d never been a man for much adornment. Not as long as Mina had known him. And she thought she would have remembered the bracelet. “Sir,” she asked, “what’s troubling you?”

The urge to speak showed itself plainly on his face for a moment, as bright and wide as the bracelet—and as swiftly concealed. “An abundance of questions,” he said gruffly, then cleared his throat and patted her shoulder. “You mustn’t concern yourself about me, Miss Seymour. I’ve weathered more storms in my life than you’ve, er, typed notes on Abyssinia.”

Mina smiled, as the professor clearly wanted her to, but shook her head. “If there’s anything I can do—”

“Nothing anyone can do just now, much less a young lady.” He was back to gruff. “Get on with your work, Miss Seymour. The day grows late.”

Before she could reply, the professor turned away. The door closed behind him with a neat click, leaving Mina with unanswered questions and a pile of paper.

At least she could do something about the latter.

Sunday dinners were always a jolt these days. Scrubbed and starched, still with the better part of a week’s pay in her purse, Mina squeezed into her old place at the parlor table on the Sunday after MacAlasdair had entered the office. With Florrie’s gold curls to one side and Bert’s tousled brown mop on her other, she ate beef and Yorkshire pudding under the gaze of her mother, her father, and, from the mantel, a much younger Queen.

It was a world away from either Professor Carter’s book-lined office in Gordon Square or Mina’s own whitewashed, bare-floored room on Bulstrode Street. It was also a world she entered back into easily after the first few moments, all the more rewarding now because she knew things could be different.

At least, her return was usually easy.

Mina ate with as good an appetite as ever. She laughed at her father’s jokes and Bert’s stories, and listened as her mother read a letter from George, whose ship had docked in Shanghai a month ago. It was Sunday, Mina was with her family, and these both were excellent things. Still, the memory of Professor Carter’s troubles weighed on her mind, and so did Lord MacAlasdair’s contribution to those troubles, whatever it might have been.

When the conversation settled for a moment, Mina looked across the table at Alice, another of the Seymour daughters who only came home on Sundays. Alice was a housemaid up in Mayfair and frequently brought home stories that the other servants told, circulating the tales in a web of gossip that reached from one great house to another.

Someone like Lord MacAlasdair would certainly have servants.

“There was a gentleman throwing his weight around in the office the other day,” Mina began, “and I was wondering if you’d heard anything about him. MacAlasdair?”

Alice put down her fork and considered the question. Only for a moment, though. Then she grinned, and her green eyes lit up with the joy of knowing Something Interesting. “The Scottish bloke? New?”

“I don’t know how new. But Scottish, yes.”

“Well, if he’s the same one, he took a house in Mayfair a month ago. Came with just a valet and a housekeeper.” Alice leaned forward. “And do you know what?”

Mina grinned back at her sister. “Yes,” she said, as she’d been saying on these occasions for twenty-three years, ever since she’d started talking well enough to tease her sister, “which is why I asked you. I love hearing answers I already know.”

Alice stuck out her tongue and went on. Around them, the family was listening. Gossip from the city was always interesting.

“Ethel”—another of Lady Wrentham’s housemaids—“walks out with a policeman who knows the cook at MacAlasdair’s.”

“I thought he didn’t have a cook,” said Bert.

“He’d have hired one after he came, wouldn’t he?” Florrie shot back, leaning across Mina to do so. “Stupid.”

“I’m not—” Bert was beginning to raise his voice when a glance from Mr. Seymour stopped the incipient fight. Mina, whose best dress would have been much the worse for intercepting flung peas, sent her father a grateful smile.

“Go on, Alice,” said Mrs. Seymour. “Does he still need servants? Your Aunt Rose knows a girl who’s looking for a place in a kitchen.”

Alice shook her head. “No. Well, maybe. He has already hired maids, though, and”—a significant pause—“Mrs. Hennings, the cook, she says he gives all of them two hours off every night!”

Few Drury Lane actresses could have given a statement more dramatic flair than Alice did with her announcement, and the Seymours, at least, were an appreciative audience. Even Bert, who knew little of domestic service but had heard stories from his sister, whistled—and got a glare from his mother for it.

“Any two hours?” Mrs. Seymour asked, her son’s table manners safely corrected.

“No, just at dusk.” Alice lowered her voice again. “He doesn’t want any of them in the house then. Only he lets Mrs. Hennings stay in the kitchen, as she’s got rheumatism, and any who want can stay there with her. But they’re not to go into the house proper.”