“Agnes.” Bloody hell, this woman. It was two mugs and a plate. Rolling my eyes, I turned to her. “Are you ready to be off then? Did you hear from Hilda?”
“Aye. It’s an all-clear from Hilda, so I can head up there?—”
“We’llhead up there,” I corrected, and she sighed. I was just happy to see some color back in her face.
“Fine. We’ll head up there now. Did you get someone for the pub?”
“Aye, that’s sorted.” I had a few people I could call on for an occasional night off here and there from the pub. It was the dead of winter right now, and hardly our high season, so I didn’t suspect that we’d have much in the way of clientele anyway. “Shall we?”
Agnes grabbed her jacket from the hook by the door, then paused.
“Graham?”
“Aye?” I paused from where I was gathering a box into my arms.
“Thank you.” She said it simply, without looking at me. “For not ... for not pushing. Even though I know you want to.”
“I always want to push when it comes to you.” I picked up the first stack of papers. “But I’m learning that you can’t rush Agnes Wright. It appears this absolutely infuriating woman operates on her own timeline.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” Agnes said.
“It is. And it isn’t.” I sighed and met her eyes and held them. “I’m not going anywhere, Agnes. Take whatever time you need. I’ll still be here.”
She didn’t respond, but her expression softened, and that was enough.
For now.
We were halfway down the stairs when Agnes suddenly said, “You need another book.”
“Do I?” This hardly felt like the time for me to pick up another book. I was hoping she’d let me help her research once we were at the archives.
“If you’re going to sit in the archives with me, you’llneed something to do. Otherwise, you’ll fidget and make annoying comments and distract me.”
“I don’t fidget.”
“You absolutely fidget. You can’t sit still for more than ten minutes.”
She wasn’t wrong. I did like keeping myself busy. I supposed that was part of running a pub, there was always something that needed cleaning or stocking or updating.
“Maybe I can read something in the archives.”
“Graham.” The way she said my name, annoyed, made me smile.
“Fine,” I said. “What do you recommend?”
“Quick, let’s just pop in.” Agnes paused at the front door of her shop and unlocked it, and I followed her in and put the box on the counter. Agnes crossed the dimly lit shop, knowing exactly what she was looking for, and came back with a thick book. I laughed.
“This looks like it should take some time. What is it?”
“The Count of Monte Cristo,” she said.
“Och, is it a vampire book?”
She gave me a withering look. “It’s about a man who’s wrongly imprisoned. He escapes after years of captivity and seeks revenge.”
“Revenge. I can get behind revenge.”
“It’s about more than revenge. It’s about justice, and obsession, and whether destroying your enemies is worth destroying yourself in the process.” She paused. “Also, there’s treasure. And a love story.”
