Page 81 of The Wallflower Manifesto
She hesitated for only a moment before she took it, closing her fingers over his to pull it from his grasp. She backed away two steps, smoothing out the paper and staring at it, reading the words over and over and over.
At least, he hoped her focus was on the words, because if anything was worse than his handwriting, it was that attempt he’d made to draw flowers—the flowers that she’d chosen that day to have stamped into the leather of her new journal.
He had drafted out a new sign for the door on that paper. He had done it thinking he’d have a better one to show her later.
It was a silly, simple thing. A wooden sign with a vine weaving along the bottom and two trumpet-shaped blooms punctuating either side of the words.
The sign itself was scrawled in his crowded, unpolished hand.
It read:Morning Glory Investigations. Post ? Abraham & Millicent Murphy.
Some hours later,after they’d rolled around in his sheets and a few errant scraps of paper for a while, Abe lingered on the bed, watching her put her clothes back on with nothing on his mind but removing them all over again.
Sadly, the chime of the doorbell called him away from that plot.
“Oh, goodness,” she had fretted, leaning down to pat her hair in the mirror. “Do you think that’s a client?”
“Could be,” said Abe, hoisting himself off the bed. “Or it could be your father and brothers come to kill me.”
“They wouldn’t kill you like that, Abe,” she said with a little quirk of her lips. “Not in person. They would litigate you to death.”
Abe gave a dramatic shiver. “Do you think Silas would protect me? Cain v. Yardley?”
“I don’t think he would, no.” She had laughed and followed him back down the stairs, lingering at the bannister as he opened the door.
He found a gentleman standing there, already poised to ring a second time as though it infuriated him he should have to lower himself to pull the string again.
“Ah,” said the man, straightening. “You’re Murphy?”
“I am,” said Abe, taking a step backward to allow entry. “How may I help?”
“Got work for you,” said the man, stepping into the entryway with an impatient grunt. “Discreet. I hear you’re good for that.”
“Of course.”
“Need two things, but they’re related,” the man continued, looking around for where to put his hat. “I’ve a wayward daughter who needs to be brought home, corrupted by a wicked little wench who I want to see punished. Harshly, Murphy. I want her to suffer.”
Abe hesitated, pinpricks starting to erupt over his skin. “I see?”
“Well, don’t you have a proper office in this place?” the man said impatiently. “You’ve not even offered me a place to sit.”
“That is because you will not be staying, Mr. Waters,” came Millie’s voice, closer than the bannister.
Abe wasn’t certain when she had started to walk toward them, to reveal herself in all the risk and impropriety of being here alone, but there she was in a sudden soft footfall and swish of silk, coming up to his side like she belonged there.
Waters looked at her with a little dry huff of a chuckle. “Madam,” he said with a flick of her hand, “the men are speaking. I will have a tea, however. Pip pip.”
Whatever came next was impossible to say. Abe only knew that suddenly the house was empty again, that his front door was open, and that he was standing in its frame, his hand aching with the force he’d apparently used to eject the other man, now lying in a sprawl on the cobbles by the doorstep.
He turned to close it, vaguely aware of a bluster of screamed threats erupting from that pile of fine clothes at his doorstep but not enough to actually hear them. He threw the lock behind him.
“Your knuckles are bleeding,” Millie observed casually, tilting her head.
“Ah,” he grunted, glancing down at the thin line of red that graced the back of his hand. “Not as much as I’d like them to be.”
She tutted and grabbed his hand, walking him back through the house, past his office, and into the kitchen. Every step sent the ranting at their door into a deeper muffle.
“He would have charged you if you’d stayed long enough to let him get back up,” she told him, shoving him toward the chairs and moving toward the cabinets in search of a soft cloth. “That’s what he did at our townhouse. One of our footmen had a nasty bruise on his face for weeks after.”
