Looking around at all the nearly empty shelves and the books on the floor, Brant shook his head and smiled. “Oh, I think you did.”
With Brant’s and Ilar’s help, they had returned nearly all the books to the shelves when the dinner bell was rung. Olympia hurried to her bedchamber to clean the dust and dirt off. As she washed her hands and face, she told herself not to find anything hopeful in how well Brant and Ilar got along. It could simply be because Brant had a skill at talking to a young boy on the cusp of manhood and Ilar was hungry for some male company.
By the time she reached the dining room everyone else was there waiting for her. She took a seat next to Brant and across from her aunt, Tessa, and Ilar. It was a pleasant meal and Olympia enjoyed hearing all of the latest news about various family members but she could not stop thinking about the man the magistrate held.
“Do you think that man meant that your mother will kill them because they failed? That he wants extra guards for the magistrate mostly because he is afraid of someone coming into the magistrate’s and killing him for it?” Olympia truly wanted him to say no.
“Yes, I fear so. Oh, she will not dirty her hands with such a job, but she will know someone who would.”
“We should warn Peter more firmly so that he understands that there is a real threat to him.”
“The man Peter is holding will tell him.”
“I hope so because Peter is a good man.”
“If my mother sends someone to silence that man, she will have it done in such a way that Peter will know nothing about it until he goes down in that cellar to see a body there instead of the man he had brought in.” Brant helped himself to some roast beef, realizing that he liked the way the Wherlockes had no servants standing silently at their backs as they ate. The servants came in, set the food down on the table, and left the sorting and serving of it to the people at the table. It let everyone be at ease while at the table.
“You think she is that good?” Olympia simply could not see Lady Letitia Mallam killing anything.
“I think she knows who to hire who will be that good. If not for Ilar’s gift, those men would have gotten away with him.”
“That is very true,” said Ilar and then stuffed his mouth with some tender roast beef.
Olympia shivered. If she had known how far Lady Mallam’s reach was and how lethal the woman could be, Olympia was not sure she would have been so eager to help young Agatha. A moment later she decided she was fooling herself. No matter what the risks she knew she would not have been able to stand by and watch a young girl be forced to marry a man as filthy and lacking in morals as Lord Sir Horace Minden.
“This mess just keeps getting messier and more complicated,” she muttered and sat back in her chair when Jones Two and two young maids came in to clear away the meal and leave the varied desserts for them to choose from.
“My mother has always been efficient and thorough in every endeavor. She will be an efficient and thorough criminal. I know only one thing for a fact, have no doubt about it, and that is for as long as she has people she can use, she will never dirty her own hands. What she will do when we rob her of all those carefully chosen accomplices, I do not know.”
“She will become very angry,” said Antigone as she spooned some stewed apples into a bowl and poured some thick cream over them.
Brant looked at the older woman with her thick black hair lightly sprinkled with gray and her handsome features, the most striking of which was a pair of bright green eyes. “I suspect so as we will be robbing her of her source of income.”
“Nay, you will be robbing her of her power.”
It was hard but Brant bit back the string of curses that rose to his tongue. The woman was right. His mother would never accept a loss of her power. She had spent her entire adult life gathering that power, something she had always craved.
“Pick a dessert, Brant,” Olympia urged, pulling him free of the anger that was twisting his insides.
He served himself some cake, covered it with some of the stewed apples, and then stared at it for a moment. There was one good thing he could see in all the trouble that now swirled around them. They were very close to breaking his mother. Brant was just not certain how he should prepare himself and the others for that eventuality. This time it seemed he was not only going to fail to keep those close to him safe, but was bringing that trouble right to their door.
Olympia smiled as she relaxed on Ilar’s bed and listened to him read to her from The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare. He had always liked the plays even as a small child. Glancing at him where he sprawled at her side, she could see more of the man in him now than the child he had been.