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"Really?" I asked, bemused "He’s helpful?" My father was excitable, irresponsible, a little touched in the head I had soenius

Leander raised an eyebrow "Do you really think I would involve hiht back My father ht just be the audience for Leander’s ic show With Holmeses, you never really knehere you stood

Next toup her biscuit "Yes, but the bruises And the kissing"

"Deep cover," her uncle said in a dramatic voice "Deep, deep cover"

She wrinkled her nose "Then why are you here, in England? Not that I’athered our plates "Because your father has contacts I can’t gain access to through ood look at Jamie, here, since the two of you are now attached at the hip Morning and night, apparently"

Holed, her shoulders thin under her shirt, and she brought a sliver of biscuit to her mouth I watched her, the line of her arht before Or was I i it in because I needed to make it a story, to see cause and effect where there wasn’t any?

She’d al was fine

"If itup his sleeves, "I approve"

Holmes smiled at him, and I smiled at him, because neither of us knehat to say

It was like the night before existed in some other universe A lone hour in a sea of aardness where we could talk to each other the e used to, and now that it was over, ere adrift again

THE NEXT FEW DAYS PASSED SLOWLY, AS MOST PUNISHMENTS do During the day, I read the Faulkner novel I’d brought in a sunny alcove off the servants’ quarters Those rooms stoodfound Which was a relief I’d run out of things to say to Holmes’s parents fairly quickly Even if I found her , I didn’t hate her She was ill and worried about her daughter

Then Alistair told us that Edirections to nursing staff as they hauled a hospital bed in through the front door

"I thought she had fibroia doesn’t require a live-in teaed not to jues of whatever roo an excuse and running away So I didn’t say anything, didn’t try to corimace as the orderly crashed the bed into the doorframe