“Whether Mallory is tricking me is not your concern, ma’am,” he says, adding more jam. “I appreciate the warning. If the only price she asks, though, is this information, then I do not see how it harms you to give it.”
“She’s doing it for your sake,” Davina grumbles. “To shore up her story.”
“Then I applaud her on the complexity of her scheme,” he says. “In the meantime, as she is a very adept assistant, I am happy to enjoy her assistance until she betrays me.”
“The only thing that’s going to betray you is your teeth,” I say, nodding at the ridiculous amount of jam on his scone.
He meets my eyes, puts the scone to his lips, and takes a huge bite, somehow managing not to smear a drop of jam. I roll my eyes.
I look back at Davina. “The Catriona you met. How old was she?”
“Fourteen.”
I try not to flinch. “I take it she had not been on her own for long.”
“A few weeks, she said. Family kicked her out.” Davina takes a bite of bread. “I cannot imagine why. Such a sweet thing.” Sarcasm rolls off the words.
“Do you know why?” I say.
She shrugs. “I know what she told me.”
“Which is . . .”
A slow Cheshire grin. “A story for another day. And if you are not going to eat that scone, kitty-cat . . .”
I pick it up and then drop it onto Gray’s plate, winning a smile from him that makes Davina’s scowl even better.
Chapter Nine
We’re slightly late getting back to Greyfriars, but Annie is still there, as are the children. They’re with her when we come through the gate, and when the children’s eyes go straight to me, it’s obvious that Annie told them I was coming. A red-headed girl of about ten rushes over, clutching a ragged copy of the first The Adventures of the Gray Doctor—the original version of our adventures.
She looks from me to the chapbook opened to a page where I’m standing over a dead body, my hands clapped to my cheeks in shock, my dress cut lower than I ever wear it. In the picture, I’m about to faint, and Gray is at my side, ready to catch me. I faint a lot in those early chronicles . . . when I’m not bending over to examine nonexistent evidence with my ass in the air and my boobs nearly falling out. Women and children might be the primary consumers, but the original writer hadn’t wanted to neglect the hetero-male readership.
The girl looks from me to the picture and back. Then she says matter-of-factly. “You are prettier in real life,” and my cheeks heat. Flattery always feels strange in this body. It’s like being told my dress is beautiful when I stole it from another. I’m slowly getting over that very odd sort of body dysmorphia and reaching the point where my mental picture of myself is becoming Catriona, but even then, it feels a bit like theft.
“Thank you,” I say. “So Mrs. Annie told you we were coming?”
“We?” The girl looks over and sees Gray for what must be the first time. Then her gaze goes up, way up, to his face.
He doffs his top hat and bows his head. “Good day, lass.”
“Oh!” she says. “Oh!” . . . And she races back to the others.
“Was it something I said?” Gray asks.
We continue on to Annie and the kids—two girls and a boy, all between eight and twelve. The girl who’d run to greet us hangs back a few feet away.
“I believe I frightened the child,” Gray says.
Annie shakes her head. “No, sir. She is dazzled, that is all. She is a great admirer of your stories. Found that book in the trash two months ago and has read it a dozen times since. When I told her a pretty young lady detective was looking for Bobby, one who works with a doctor, she was beside herself. Scampered off to get the book and has been waiting in hopes it’s you.”
“She expected me alone,” I say. “Not with Dr. Gray himself.”
“I told her,” the boy pipes up. “I said Dr. Gray might come, and she said no, he would never come for a missing dog. That was a job for his assistant.”
“Any job for my assistant is a job for me,” Gray says. He turns toward the girl, still staying where she is, and calls, “Have you only the first chapbook?”
She stares, now looking horrified.
