A Rip Through Time(44)

“Would it be more right if I gave him something in return for those trinkets and baubles?”

Simon’s face turns serious again as he meets my eye. “In truth, it would, Cat. At least then it would be an honest exchange. ’Tis a poor trick to play on a man who does not deserve it, and I’ll not change my mind on that. If you want to come visit me in the stables, you cannot be leading him on anymore.”

I stop myself before saying I’m no longer leading Findlay on. True, but nor do I want to be “visiting Simon in the stables.”

Then I rewind our conversation and pause. “You said I sell whatever gifts he gives me.”

“Do not pretend otherwise, Cat. You bragged about it a fortnight ago.”

“Yes, but where do I sell them?”

He frowns. “At a pawnshop.”

“Do you know which one? Have I ever said?”

“No, why—?” He gives a short laugh. “Ah, having lost some of your memories, you forget where to pawn your pretties. I cannot help you there.”

“Cannot? Or will not?”

“Both.” He slaps the stack of papers. “Take these up to Dr. Gray and leave poor Findlay be.”

I nod, and he shakes his head and tromps out, leaving dirt in his wake.



* * *



Okay, so I’m starting to get a picture of Catriona’s love life.

She seems to be casually involved with Simon. I suspect their relationship was more chaste than the twenty-first-century version of “friends with benefits.” Oh, I’m sure there was plenty of sex happening between unmarried teens. But I’m also sure we predate reliable birth control, and Simon’s smiles felt more flirtatious than lascivious.

Meanwhile, she’s been flirting with Constable Findlay, who’s showering her with gifts when she has no intention of doing more than batting her eyelashes at him. Or does she? Could Catriona have had plans that she didn’t share with Simon? Did she intend to win the young officer as a husband? That would be a step up, wouldn’t it?

From the way McCreadie dresses, detectives make a decent wage. Not exorbitant. He’s unmarried with no obvious dependents, and so he can afford to spend a little extra on his tailoring bill, in the same way I could afford a condo—albeit a tiny one—in Canada’s most expensive city.

Catriona accepts Findlay’s wooing gifts and accepts his wooing, while playing the shy maiden who won’t do more than hold his hand before the wedding day. She certainly isn’t going to tell Simon that. They might be casual, but no guy wants to hear that a girl is only with him while she makes a play for someone else.

What happened between Catriona and Findlay? Something for sure, considering the cold shoulder he’s giving her. Did she tell him to put a ring on it, and he backed off, not being in the market for a wife? Or did he make a pass that she rebuffed?

None of this should matter. I’m not Catriona, and I have no interest in either young man, both being roughly two-thirds my age. It’s like watching a soap-opera romance. Except the friend-with-benefits is a co-worker and the suitor-without-benefits is McCreadie’s assistant, which means I can’t avoid either guy. I’ll need to keep both at arm’s length, which shouldn’t be difficult, considering they’re both unhappy with Miss Catriona.

I resist the urge to read the papers before I run them upstairs to Gray. There are several newspapers plus a few single flyers and pamphlets that I mistake for advertising until I see they’re about Archie Evans’s murder. Huh. I skim one “flyer” as I climb the stairs. It’s a large single sheet that details the crime from the report of “an intimate observer.” According to the sheet, Evans had been brutally murdered, his limbs “gruesomely fashioned” into a bird’s wings and limbs in a “manner this writer dares not describe, so great the horror.” Uh, they’d been tied in place.

The story has been poorly printed on cheap paper. There’s a byline, though, one that proclaims the author “Edinburgh’s Foremost Reporter of Criminal Activities.” The other sheet is a similarly fictionalized account of the murder. It’s as if I said to the writers, “Hey, some guy was murdered and made to look like a bird,” and their imaginations filled in the rest. Imaginations that produced a picture far bloodier and more lurid than the actual murder.

I’m reading through the second account when Gray’s door opens. I’m standing there, sheet in one hand, the other raised for a knock that I have yet to give.

“I believe those are mine,” Gray says.

“Uh, yes. Apologies, sir.”

He waves me inside. “Put them on my desk, please, Catriona. You may keep that one and finish reading it, if you like. I presume you would like that?”

His lips twitch in a way that rankles a little. It’s kind but indulgent, too, as if I’m a child. Then I catch a glimpse of myself in his mirror and see a teenager who looks like a milkmaid, all rosy-pink cheeks and honey-blond curls and cream-fed curves.

In this world, there are two options for a man of thirty with a nineteen-year-old female assistant. Either I’m a delectable morsel, his for the taking, or I’m a clever girl he’s encouraging to explore higher educational interests. Gray is thankfully embracing option two. He’s treating me like a child, because to him, that’s what I am.