Page 96 of A Deadly Scandal
The wedding was to take place just before Christmas holiday, which was not far away. However, Linnie had indicated that they might prefer a simple appearance before a local magistrate. I was not about to step into that argument.
As for Brodie, he had been unusually subdued of late in spite of our recent ‘resolution’ of that very difficult situation between us that had me taking myself off on safari with my great-aunt and Lily. There did seem to be something bothering him.
I had arrived at the office on the Strand after spending the morning listening to my sister and our great-aunt discussing—bickering would be a better word for it—‘the wedding.’ I had finally abandoned them and fled—yes that was the correct word—to the relative sanity of crime and inquiry cases.
Brodie had looked up as I entered the office, that same preoccupied expression of the past week on his face. I might have thought it was some point of disagreement between us, except for the fact that I had spent most of the past week at Sussex Square with Lily, hiding out in the Sword Room.
There had certainly been no difficulty between us when I returned at the end of day and we shared supper, and other things.
It was then I suggested that we return to Old Lodge in the north of Scotland, distancing ourselves from Sir Avery and his suggestions of the work he wanted Brodie to take on next, wedding planning, and the frenzy my sister had worked herself into.
He had looked up then, and I thought there was almost a sadness there.
“Old Lodge?” he repeated, then took my hand. “Aye.”
So here we were, having made the long train trip, mostly in silence with Brodie staring out the window of the compartment, while I made notes for my next novel with Emma Fortescue stumbling upon stolen artifacts and a particularly handsome dark-eyed man.
I retrieved the bottle of whisky as he put another log on the fire in the hearth in the great room. I poured us each a dram, and then returned to the large sofa with down cushions that wrapped around one when they sat before the fire.
“There is something…” Brodie started to say, then stopped as he poked at the fire with the poker, sending sparks up thechimney in the large room with those large timbers overhead on the second floor.
I had always reminded me of some medieval hunting lodge, which it had been for at least a couple hundred years. Now it included that very lucrative whisky distillery in the adjacent long building.
“I want to tell ye…” He stood then and leaned against the timber mantel, staring down at the fireplace opening.
“About Rory.”
I set my glass down on the side table.
Rory had been the young boy orphaned with the murder of his mother in that previous inquiry case. It had been a tragic affair, all the more so that it connected back to the ten-year-old murder of the young man she had an affair with. There was more however.
Brodie and the young woman had been together for a time before Stephen Matthews was found dead and the young woman accused of his murder. Brodie was certain she was not the murderer. With connections made over his time with the MET, he arranged for her to leave London to a place of safety.
Yet, when she returned all these years later, her life was in danger from that old case, and she had a child to protect.
When she was killed, Brodie had taken the boy, Rory, from the scene of the murder and, as he had ten years earlier, sent him to safety, to give him time to find the actual murderer.
It had been a most complicated inquiry case, made all the more so with Brodie’s certainty that Rory might very well be his own son.
He never had a family, with the death of his own mother in Edinburgh when he was a child, and he was determined that Rory would have the family that he himself had lost.
Stephen Matthews’ own mother, still grieving the loss of her son all those years before, had taken Rory into her homeand cared deeply for him. In the time since that case, Brodie had been a presence in the boy’s life, with Adelaide Matthews’ blessing.
It was as if it was a chance to make a difference in the boy’s life, rather than see him cast out to the streets as he had been and left to survive on his own.
Now, it seemed this is what had him preoccupied the previous week, gone much of the time which I understood, then finally returning with that strange, almost sad expression in those dark eyes.
I had not attempted to interfere or persuade him to speak of whatever it was that obviously bothered him. That was not my way, as it was with some women I knew. Instead, knowing him quite well by now, I waited for him to share whatever it was that had created a new distance between us.
He was, after all, a Scot, and I had learned that no amount of prodding or persuasion would move him to speak of something until he chose to speak of it.
And now…
“I told ye that Ellie Sutton and I were together for a while,” he began in a hesitant manner.
I nodded but said nothing. I sensed this was not a conversation.
“Ye knew there was a chance that I might be his father,” he continued.
Once again, I said nothing as he struggled with whatever it was that he needed to say.
“The past months I was able to spend a good amount of time with him...Ah, lass, he is such a fine boy and he’s been through so verra much.”
He picked up his glass and took a long drink.
“Ye know what I feel for the lad.”
I did, and I would have expected no less.
“I know yer heart, the kindness in ye along with the stubbornness and that temper of yers. And God knows yer intelligent and brave. It’s what the boy needs after what he’s been through. And I know ye said it didna matter to you that his mother and I were together before I knew ye. Yet, it’s the reason I need to tell ye now…”
