“Whitely manages a tight department.”
“If it weren’t for that, Francis would tell you to turn in your notice today.”
Peter scoffed. As though he would mind Francis’s orders! Besides, he wanted to do this case right. Idiot Pipperly would seal his own fate, but Peter could write the report in a way that could save Mrs. Pipperly and the other children.
Brennan picked up his own mug and spoke in his normal tone. “You’ve been visiting your—that is, Samuel Derrick.”
Peter did not believe for a moment that Brennan had chosen a word he did not mean. “Part of the Pipperly case.”
Brennan raised his eyebrows. “Naturally.”
While coming up with a brilliant set-down, Peter took another sip of coffee. Made him cough, which pulled the prickly bits into his nose, and then Brennan had to pound him on the back. Less than elegant, that.
“D’you remember Alcott, that chap from university?” Brennan pressed his advantage. “He seems to be hanging about with you, lately.”
It was a warning, but Peter didn’t want to hear it. Besides, he was trying to breathe properly. He took a gulp of coffee—damned bitter.
“For pity’s sake!” Brennan slammed down his own mug. “Don’t order a bloody Turkish coffee if you don’t like them!”
“J’adoreTurkish coffee,” Peter answered, who, as a point of fact, took his tea with three sugars.
He attempted to take another sip to prove the point, but got a mouthful of grounds which made absolute shudders run down his spine. It must have shown on his face, for Brennan’s expression crumbled in a slow smile.
“Fine then.” Peter pushed his mug across the table. Not far. “I adore the little gold pan, and the table full of hot sand, and the gold designs on the cups with the little twiddly handle. The scent! The magic!” He wiggled his fingers, rising like steam. “If you order an English coffee, they give you a boring cup.”
Brennan began to laugh, low and easy, and Peter threw back his head and laughed too. The tension around them crumbled like ice on a pond.
Brennan took a sip of Peter’s coffee. “Have you heard any news about the Thompson ladies?”
“What—”
“Calm down, calm down. Lord Francis has been checking in on them, and there’s nothing new about your girl. You know John Cade is courting her?”
Peter grunted.
“But you wished him the luck of her. I’m not here to argue with you, I wanted to ask you about…”
Brennan made strokes on the table with his index finger. Peter leaned forward to find letters in the scattered sugar. R-O-S-E.
“What about her?”
“Remember the young man? He’d grown up abroad, but came back to finish his training, a mathematician or some such—”
“Engineer?”
“Architect?”
Peter snapped his fingers. “Featherstone. I didn’t meet him myself, but I heard about him.”
“Are they engaged, or are they not?”
Lacking a coffee cup to fiddle with, Peter made patterns in the spilt sugar. “I thought they were. But I can’t recall when—or if—I heard it.”
“It would be a fine time for the fellow to show up and retrieve his bride,” Brennan rumbled.
Peter made an H in the sugar. “He could takeherback with them to Turkey.” He liked the idea of Henrietta being away from the fat wolves, circling a girl with a fine bosom and no dowry.
“You like the idea of their cousin being in England,” Brennan murmured. “Unmarried.”
