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“A crown if the response to our proposal is favorable,” she says. “Nothing if it is not.”
“Fine,” Jack says. “I will have an answer by ten tomorrow. I’ll bring it to Robert Street.”
“One last offer,” Elspeth says as I open the door. “A half sovereign per round with a week’s advance notice, so that I may make it a private event.”
“I don’t fight for money,” I say. “And I don’t fight for an audience. Good evening to you both.”
As the door closes, I turn to Isla. “You know I’ve already mentally spent that money you offered, right?”
“Dare I ask on what?”
“Dresses with knife-sized pockets. Also, a pistol. A pocket pistol andpockets I won’t lose the bloody thing in.” I glance over at a pair of students passing around a flask. “One of those, too. Maybe two.”
“Young men?” Simon says with a smile.
“Mmm, that’d probably cost me more than I can afford. I want dresses with knife-sized and pistol-sized secret pockets plus a pistol and a flask for whisky.”
“You have no idea how much anything costs, do you?” Isla says. “After that hit on the head, I mean.”
“I’ll settle for smaller pockets on my existing dresses and a pistol. A teeny-tiny, adorable pistol.”
She shakes her head, and we continue along the street.
TWENTY
We’re back in the house, Simon in the stables, the door closed behind us. Isla peers down the hall and nods at the bottom of the door into the funeral parlor, where light seeps out.
“Duncan is working late,” she says.
“He is always working late,” I say.
“You should go speak to him.”
“About working late? Yeah, that’s not my place. Also, I get the impression it’s notoverworking. If you’re doing things you enjoy, it doesn’t seem like work.” As I talk, I switch my outdoor boots for my indoor ones, which is not a quick process. “The problem comes when all you do is work. Been there, done that. I don’t think Dr. Gray has that problem, does he?”
“No, and I wasn’t suggesting you speak to him about that. I meant speak to him about what happened earlier, with Simon.”
“Mmm, also not my place.”
“Did he not send Simon to watch us both?”
“He sent Simon to watch over you. I just happened to be there.”
“I believe that is a misinterpretation of the situation. However, I do think it is your place to discuss it with him when you were included in his subterfuge. I am also…”
She pops a peppermint from her tin, her personal sign of stress. “I am also asking you to speak to him, Mallory, because if I do, I will handle itpoorly. I will take offense, even if none is intended. I will make him feel bad, when he simply sought to do the right thing. I will fully intend to approach it in a logical manner, and I will not, and thus nothing will be resolved because I will storm out, and he will only be more crafty the next time he sends Simon after me.”
When I don’t answer, she snaps the last button on her indoor boots. “I am putting you in an uncomfortable position. I apologize. You are correct. I need to handle this myself.”
“No, you have a point. I’m just not sure I can make it. You’re not the only one Dr. Gray doesn’t quite see clearly, despite his best intentions. He knows I’m not ‘just the maid,’ but that doesn’t mean I can speak to him on an equal footing.”
“Are you not on equal footing?”
“Oh,Ithink I am.”
“Do you? Has he not asked you to call him by his given name? Yet even when I am the only one around, you refer to him as ‘Dr. Gray.’”
“It’s complicated.”
