London in the summer draws almost everybody out of doors; whether those doors be in the city itself, or further afield, the thrill of a summer spent amongst the whims and fashions of high society is a prospect passed over by few. There are twice as many people in the streets, and unlike in the winter months, none of them are in any particular hurry. Neither, too, is it as easy to pass unnoticed. London's shadows hide the very best of its secrets, and far better when the shadows are longer, the alleys darker.
For Sherlock Holmes, summer was a seasonal hyperbole, at odds with both his professional curiosity, and personal preference; Holmes was fond of criminals, but not so of the heat.
Hot it certainly was, and the days were slow, the sunlight early and long. It was August; Holmes had spent a rather pleasant Winter being dead, and a yet more pleasurable Spring announcing his apparent resurrection to his nearest and dearest. The months he'd spent in the realm of the departed (in actuality, not so much 'dead' as 'chasing Moriarty's ghost over Europe) had been rather bad for business. Lestrade was not forthcoming with cases. The general public were not forthcoming with letters, at least, with letters that actually piqued Holmes' interest. There were always jewels, or wayward husbands, in need of returning, but Holmes was of the opinion wayward husbands were usually wayward with good reason, and knew better than to attach himself to the horrors from which they'd fled.
In the absence of work, Holmes found himself en route to dinner with his brother, on an evening he would have very much preferred to stay indoors. Reluctant though he was, an invitation from Mycroft was not an opportunity to be passed up. Besides being genuinely fond of his brother, Holmes knew that Mycroft rarely extended an invitation without purpose, and never with that purpose being small talk.
He was, at the least, guaranteed an evening's reprieve from Mrs Hudson's watchful eye, and really, Holmes could think of going to greater lengths to ensure it.
He met Mycroft on the steps leading to his brother's favourite leisure spot: the Diogenes Club, in a corner of Chelsea so exclusive, Holmes had no doubt, it was up for constant debate whether the address existed, at all.
"Sherlie! Your new mattress is treating you well; far better than endless nights asleep in that armchair."
"You lunched at the Savoy, I see," Holmes, who had in fact replaced his mattress only three days prior, replied. "How is their veal shank, now the chef's changed?"
"A little salty. I'm sure his palate will improve, given time." Mycroft Holmes stood a shade or two wider than his younger brother, and there were as many inches between them as years. He pulled a watch from one pocket of his waistcoat, and squinted through the twilight at its face. "I am glad I was able to rouse you without Dr Watson's intervention, this time."
"He was only too happy to help," Holmes reminisced. There were, in fact, a number of words that aptly described how Watson had felt, when called upon to drag Holmes away from the scorched remains of Mrs Hudson's kitchen, but 'happy' was not among them.
"The children are well?"
"All three currently accounted for."
Mycroft hummed, pleased. "I was fortunate enough to meet Mrs Watson last week. On her way to a seminar of sorts; I believe they discuss novellas over afternoon tea."
"Naturally," said Holmes. "Mary's interests are as varied as they mundane."
"You've yet to turn your eye to Dr Watson's opus, concerning your many adventures." As was Mycroft's way, it was not a question.
"Must have slipped my mind."
"I fear the novelty has worn off, since your resurrection," Mycroft said. "Rather less the tragic hero, now you're living once more."
"Yes," Holmes said. "He's still somewhat rankled about that."
They ascended the steps of the Diogenes together, and Mycroft rapped thrice with the handsome knocker. Almost immediately, there appeared a crack in the wood, the face of whoever had answered obscured behind a film, not unlike a priest at confessional. Not a word was spoken, but the silence seemed expectant, as if prompting a response.
Mycroft cleared his throat, and said, with some circumstance: "'Antisthenes.'"
The panel was drawn back into place, and seconds later, the door itself swung open.
"A noble tradition, the gift of silence," Mycroft said, before he stepped over the threshold. "Proceed to the left, brother mine; we'll dine in the Strangers' Room. There is much for us to discuss with our guest of honour."
Holmes' supposition had been correct, then, he mused as he followed Mycroft through the doorway, and into the gilded entryway of the Diogenes. Mycroft's motivations were not a break in their great tradition of unsociability, but a dinner with a purpose, somewhere they were unlikely to be overheard. A case, if a 'guest' was any indication, most likely one of Mycroft's more illustrious acquaintances, and Holmes confessed himself intrigued. For Mycroft to seek him out as such, the circumstances were bound to be extenuating.
They proceeded in silence down the left-hand corridor. The Diogenes Club was, for the most part, devoid of windows, and natural light was as absent as the sound of voices. Mounted oil lamps lit their way some twenty yards towards a black door, behind which lay the only area of the Club where conversation was permitted. Holmes himself had been in the Strangers' Room only once, but he remembered the layout well: twin armchairs, either side of a grate that had not, on his last visit, been lit.
Neither was it lit this time; what had changed, however, was the quantity of armchairs. Three now sat within the room, and as Mycroft pushed open the door, Holmes saw that one of them was already occupied.
He was not remotely prepared for who occupied it.
After an almost dramatic pause, Holmes tore his gaze from Mycroft's 'guest of honour', and addressed his brother directly.
"Your standards are slipping, Mykie; I was not aware you admitted the fairer sex, or for that matter, criminals, or ghosts."
"Half your front bench is out there, not-talking," Irene Adler replied. If she herself was shocked by Holmes' appearance, she was not showing it. "Whichever of those categories you want to fit them into."
"Certain principles occasionally benefit from a bending." Mycroft closed the door behind them, and smiled convivially between his guests. He had the air of a showman, and one who was rather pleased with his great reveal. He pulled smartly on a woven cord by the door, alerting the kitchen, no doubt, to their arrival. "Now, if you would care to join me at the table? The partridge is particularly good, this time of year."
—
Not for the first time, where Irene Adler was concerned, Holmes found himself somewhat at a loss. Dinner had been most beguiling; the partridge was, as Mycroft had promised, exemplary, but Holmes had not tasted a mouthful. He'd watched Irene the entire time, taken in every extremity of the woman he'd believed dead for almost a year; the woman who'd procured from him a myriad of emotions he'd once considered unimportant, among them fury, lust, affection, and most paralysing of all, grief he'd not known how to summarise.
Irene and Mycroft passed the meal in pleasant, if largely meaningless, conversation. Holmes stayed wholly silent. He did not speak to Irene, and she made no attempt to address him. Mycroft watched them both watch each other the way a puppet master observes his audience, playing off every reaction and response, in constant search of his next move.
Still Holmes had not reasoned as to why she might be there. Mycroft was too idle an auteur by far to facilitate a matchmaking, that was, if he was even informed of his brother's continuous involvement with Irene Adler. The questions multiplied within him, and remained stubbornly without answers.
Business, as usual, then, where Miss Adler was concerned.
At length, once the knives and forks had been set down, and a silent aide had arrived in pursuit of the empty plates, Irene smiled genially around the table, before getting to her feet.
"If you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I must powder my nose."
"Of course, my dear," Mycroft replied, heartily. He was always at his best, Holmes knew, after a good meal. His brother took his pleasures luxuriantly, and with rather more care than Holmes-the-younger had ever found in a pipe, or a boxing ring. "Across the entrance hall, and to your right."
Irene made her exit with a nod of thanks, leaving the brothers to their own devices. Holmes glanced sidelong at Mycroft, counted to ten as slowly as he could bear.
"Excuse me, Mykie. I've something to attend to."
And Holmes fled the room, only stumbling slightly on the rug on his way out.
He burst once more into the dim corridor, and cast his gaze urgently to either side, in time to see a hint of sage cloth vanish around the edge of the wall to his right. Holmes set off at a dash, spilling from out of the narrow hallway and into the entrance plaza in time to see the back of Irene as she stepped through a door on the opposite side, and shut it firmly behind her.
Crossing the hall and preparing to chase once more after Irene's retreating figure, Holmes was taken by surprise when he tore open the door, and ran directly into her back.
They stumbled a few steps forward into a box room, and Irene, who had been engaged before a large mirror, pinning a loose curl back to her head, was forced to throw out her arms and catch herself on the vanity table. Water slopped from the jug, splashing the floor and the front of Irene's dress, but before it could hit the ground and smash, Holmes reached a hand around irene's back, and caught it, halfway to the floor.
A pregnant pause followed, during which each realised they were within an almost indecent proximity, for the first time in over a year. Irene turned enough that she could look up into Holmes' face, and by no means for the first time, Holmes found he had no wish to look away.
"Nice catch," said Irene. "You're pretty agile, for a corpse."
"And you are most verbose," Holmes replied, "for a dead woman."
"Your brother's quite the conversationalist."
"And do you 'converse' often?"
"It seemed rude to turn down the invitation."
"It's preferable to not showing up at all," Holmes told her. "If you recall, we had dinner plans, oh.." He glanced at his wrist, as to an imaginary watch. ".. thirteen months ago? Give or take."
"Has it been that long?" She had still not broken his gaze. The woman looked up at Holmes like she had yet to decide whether she'd rather kiss him, or kick him, hard, somewhere singularly painful.
In the end, the solution was somewhat less excruciating.
The force of the kiss nearly knocked Holmes off-balance, would have, if not for the hard plane of wood behind them, as the door slammed shut in their wake. He recovered quickly, fingers threading with such speed into Irene's hair, he almost appeared ready to tear at it. The curl she'd been trying to pin fell irretrievably loose, and neither one cared to notice.
Holmes turned her by the waist, pressing Irene's hips against the door and burying his nose and mouth against the pale slip of her neck. She shuddered a breath as the kiss broke, tore in a pleased gasp as he turned his lips instead to her neck, her throat, the spot behind her left ear.
Holmes registered, vaguely, that her hands were busy, but did not guess why until his belt was entirely unsheathed. It was to be like that, then, with little preamble; the thought of having her like this, after so long, was enough to coax a hungry sound from his throat, brought his lips to hers again, not to stifle the sound, but amplify it, in symphony with several of her own.
Irene found the hard length of him with one hand, and with the other, tugged hard on his hair, exposing his throat to her mouth. She bit down to the tune of a growl, a rumble from within his chest Holmes had no hope of stifling. He shifted her against the wall with a purpose, pulling up from her hips so she stood on tiptoe, and the curve of her breasts pressed firmly against his own chest.
He met her eye once more, watched the pupils already blown wide with arousal, for the permission he ached for.
Irene jerked down the remainder of his underclothes with an impatient sound, threw back her head as he clasped her wrists to the wall above, with a whispered litany of "Yes, yes—"
It was what Holmes had been longing to hear. He lifted her skirts, and Irene lifted her leg, with desperate ease, around his waist. Holmes palmed her thigh, fingers slipping just so beneath the band of her stocking, and then higher, seeking where she was already warm and wet with anticipation.
Irene urged him on, hips shuddering forwards against his hand as he slicked his fingers with her, and stroked up and over the front of her undergarments. French lace, Holmes thought; how characteristic.
He'd missed her far more than he was prepared to admit.
Holmes held her skirts, the crinoline bunching beneath his fingers. She shifted against him, with real purpose this time, and Holmes breathed out harshly, eyes falling closed as he tightened his grip. He turned his face to her neck, lifting just enough against the slant of Irene's hips to find the right angle, and finally, finally, push into her.
Irene's resultant gasp was far more of a cry; Holmes himself was taken enough that he stilled completely, commanding every ounce of control he could muster to belay him, to enjoy every moment of this for the very few, he was sure, they would have.
Irene was not nearly so adept at patience. She steered his gaze with another tug at his hair, cheeks flushed, and lips parted around a singular command:
"Move."
Holmes did so. He used his grip on Irene's thigh to pull her hips flush in a sharp thrust against his own, and at her insistent reciprocal pace, they found their rhythm.
She spread above him and around him, thigh trembling beneath his grip, and as Holmes hit his stride, he grew lost in the noises she made. Higher and higher, more desperate with every thrust; Holmes had never known vulnerability look so good on anyone but Irene Adler, or grow more powerful with it. She flourished brighter and more beautiful the further in she took him, and when Holmes mustered the wherewithal to reach around her thigh, and rub decisively against her with a thumb, she climbed higher still.
Nearing his peak now, Holmes was relieved to feel Irene not far behind. The little cries she'd been emitting had become words, and he redoubled his efforts with his thumb, coaxing her closer and closer still.
"I missed you — God, oh God, I missed —"
She began to shudder against him; Holmes himself was blind to all but the feeling of Irene's release as it took her, tightening impossibly around him, hot and slick and good, so good—
A handful of strokes later, and Holmes let Irene's leg drop, stifling his own sharp gasp against her throat, and then they were supporting each other against the door of the small room, with something far bigger opened up around them.
Holmes let go of her skirts, kissed her neck once more as good sense returned. Irene's hair was a mess, queue and curls in disarray, and a violent blush standing out on both cheeks. It occurred to Holmes, as it often had, since India, that he would like to kiss her again, very much.
He lifted her chin with every intention of doing so, but found himself thwarted. Irene turned her face so subtly it might even have passed as an accident, but returned her hand to his hair to brush it from his brow. Holmes was left with the vague impression he'd just been patted on the head in thanks.
"Well."
"Very well."
Holmes bit down on the smile that threatened. There was the Irene he knew, almost as if she'd never gone away.
It occurred to him that there was something owing, some words or other, that might bridge the gap they'd forged between what understanding they'd formed in India, and wherever on Earth they were now.
It was not the time. Irene straightened her skirts, patted his cheek almost as if she wanted to let her hand linger.
"Don't leave it so long next time."
And with a whisper of fabric, and the scent of her perfume hanging like so much between them, she was gone from the room, and Holmes was left, trousers at his knees, wondering what, precisely, had just occurred.
—
"Miss Adler was sorry she couldn't stay," said Mycroft, as he spooned his way through a rather magnificent treacle tart. "Some business or other to attend to."
"She's never been fond of desserts," Holmes remarked. "'Just', or otherwise."
Whatever amusement passed over his brother's face at that, Holmes couldn't rightly say.
"Still, it gives us ample time to discuss your movements for the next fortnight." Mycroft folded his napkin with a pleased smacking of his lips. "Wine?"
"Something stronger?"
"Brandy, then." Mycroft hummed approvingly, and bade his younger brother cross to the cabinet, where stood a handsome bottle of Armagnac, alongside two glasses. Holmes poured a healthy measure for Mycroft, and returned to his own seat with the rest of the bottle in-hand.
"You'll be familiar, I'm sure, with the name of a colleague of mine; patron of the Diogenes, by the name of Crispin Hooper?"
"Commons, or Lords?"
"Lords, as it happens. He's missing an heirloom of some considerable value: a bracelet, belonging once to his late wife." Mycroft took a long sip of his brandy. "I was hoping you might see fit to assist."
"Petty thievery a matter for the police," said Holmes, dismissively. "That is, assuming the bracelet is of a size and value that even Lestrade couldn't hope to miss it."
"And I would never waste your precious time on such trivialities," said Mycroft, crisply. "You know better, little brother, than to jump to conclusions."
Suitably chastised, Holmes waited.
"The bracelet was interred in a family vault, requiring Hooper's own permission to withdraw," Mycroft continued. "At length, a close family member may have stood a chance, but as such, it is an unlikely conclusion."
"Why so?"
"Hooper has no close family remaining," Mycroft replied. "Neither he, nor his wife, had siblings; they themselves had two children, both of whom he is considering exempt from investigation."
"That may well be his first mistake of many."
"I thought so too," said Mycroft, "if not for the strength of their respective alibis; the same alibi, in fact," he went on. "Both of Hooper's children are dead."
Holmes mulled it over. That was the thing with the cases that seemed mundane: the slightest detail could brighten one's entire outlook. "Intriguing."
"The objective, therefore, is one I'm sure you have already concluded?"
"To uncover which of the dear, departed children robbed Daddy from beyond the grave."
"Precisely." Mycroft hummed, satisfactorily, around the rim of his glass. "As a man with some experience in post-mortem shenanigans, I thought this might pique your interest."
"So it has," Holmes said. "How, precisely, did his children die?"
"His daughter some ten years' past" Mycroft replied. "The son, not six months ago, following a revolt in the North African colony to which he was stationed." He peered into the jug of custard beside his plate, and with a pleased noise, helped himself to what remained. "I'm sure Hooper himself could shed more light upon the details, that is, if you agree to take the case?"
Holmes had his own ideas, concerning the theft of an invaluable bracelet, and the coincidental presence of a certain practiced jewellery thief at his brother's dinner table. His musings, however, did not alter his answer, in either direction.
"Have our secretaries draw up a meeting."
"I'll have someone contact Dr Watson in the morning," Mycroft replied, glibly.
Holmes nodded, and found his feet, taking a final swig from the brandy bottle as he did so. "Adieu, then, brother?"
"Bon chance," said Mycroft, waving him off. "Oh, but Sherlie?"
Holmes paused in the doorway.
"This room in which we stand is the only one of its kind in the building. The others are not nearly so adept at keeping noise locked within."
There followed a long and heavily-implied pause.
"Happy Thursday, Mykie."
"And to you, brother mine."
And Holmes left the Diogenes Club for what, he suspected, would be the final time he'd be welcome within its walls.