Chapter Ten
An Unexpected Delivery – For Mycroft's Sake – We Go There – The Last Battle – Bandit Panda – Back On the Horse – The Gift of Paris.
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Though the evening was deepening, it was by no means dark and she could easily see beyond the man standing in her doorway. The first thing she noticed over his shoulder was that instead of the medium-sized van which had brought the first delivery, the vehicle parked in front of the farmhouse was a small private ambulance. Why would an ambulance be needed to deliver a box of painkillers?
The man saw her gaze and followed it, chuckling when he realised what must be confusing the woman, the same one he'd brought down from Nevers only the previous afternoon and despite the terrible bruising, she was looking different now; better, somehow.
"I work part-time for the pharmacy and the rest of the time I drive people around between hospitals," he smiled. "I have some pain-relief for you, that's what you wanted, yes?"
"It is exactly what I wanted," she agreed, looking for the man's electronic pad for her signature. There was nothing in either of his hands. She looked into his face, a wrinkle of confusion between her eyes.
"Oh, sorry, yes," he smiled again, pulling a small white box from his pocket. "I nearly forgot. Here you are," he offered her the tiny container.
That it wasn't a commercial pack of analgesics with instructions on dosage seemed odd. Opening the package, all she could see was an even smaller plastic bag containing two white tablets. She would not be taking these, not without some knowledge of their contents. Closing the box back up, she met his gaze, shaking her head and smiling.
"There's clearly been some sort of mistake," she said, handing the tiny carton back. "I wanted a much larger supply than two tablets. I don't think two will last me quite long enough."
"I can bring you more out in the morning," the driver replaced the box in her fingers. "Take these tonight and I'll have more for you in the morning."
"Thank you, no," she smiled, handing the package back. "I'm not in that big a rush. I'll get myself some tomorrow. Thank you for coming all the way out here, but this is really not what I wanted at all. I'll pay for them if necessary, but I don't want them."
"But you clearly need them, Madame," the driver insisted. "Take these now and you'll feel much better very soon."
"No thank you," she felt her smile cool. "I think that will be everything for tonight, good evening," stepping back, she went to close the door in the face of the man's unwanted insistence, when to her astonishment, he followed her through, pushing into the hallway.
"I think you will take these tonight, Madame," he asserted, almost driving her backwards and a little off-balance. He reached out to grab her shoulder.
Bracing herself against the wall with her left hand, the spike of shock sent a pulse of adrenaline through her entire body and she felt herself come alive in the oddest of ways, as if everything had suddenly switched to a higher plane of responsiveness, as if she were floating, barely able to keep herself connected to the ground. Her mind flashed suddenly with myriad fleeting images ... faces, voices ... childrens voices...
In an instant, she had dodged beneath his outstretched hand and, despite the sudden sharp pang of her cracked ribs; she flew through the back of the house. She couldn't remember if the office had a working lock on it, but it was her first idea at this stage.
Her unexpected sprint took the driver off-guard; he hesitated for a moment before deciding to give chase.
In seconds, she had reached the office, registered there was no serviceable locking mechanism on the door, and continued her dash into the last room in this part of the house; the studio. Running down the length of the room, she paused at one of the windows sliding open the old sash-cord mechanism. Grabbing a plastic container from a shelf, she scrabbled under the end of the solid central table, ducking down behind the narrower of its ends and hiding behind the thick wooden legs. She silenced her breathing. If he couldn't find her, maybe he might think she'd gone in a different direction.
"I know you're in here, Madame," the man laughed softly as his quiet footsteps strayed carefully through the door. "Everyone has seen the film where the false trail is laid by opening a window, and I am not so stupid as to think you are yet able to climb through such a small window so fast with only one arm," he paused, looking around the room. "I know you're in here," he said again, playfully. "Where are you?"
Covering her mouth with her good hand, she forced herself to remain utterly silent and still. The intruder was correct in one thing; she was hampered by her right arm and could not hope to win any form of physical struggle. Her only option was to hide and wait. Perhaps he would give up and leave, allowing her to call the police.
She had no idea what else she could do.
###
Charles Pohlest's silver Renault was already well on its way down the Route d'Hauterive towards Jacinthe, when Sherlock's phone rang.
"Cate may be at a place called Narcisse," his brother's voice was urgent. "Do you know it?"
"Yes," Sherlock turned to Pohlest. "Narcisse, hurry," he said, returning to the phone. "Heading there now; sending you the location," he rapidly texted the memorised co-ordinates as the Sûreté detective switched on the car's siren and floored the accelerator.
"There are no bridges before Saint-Yorre," Pohlest declared, navigating between a suddenly slowing BMW and a long-bed truck carrying steel pipes. "To reach Narcisse, we have to use the Saint-Yorre crossing and then go up the Rue de la Riviere until we reach the bend in the Allier," the Frenchman's attention was now focused on a yellow Mazda which seemed unable to leave second-gear. "Get out of the way!" he shouted at the driver, hand flat against the Renault's horn as he overtook on the inside lane.
"How long before we can get there?" in the back of the car, John was hanging on for dear life.
"Ten minutes," Pohlest gunned the accelerator again; his face a mask of concentration as the car wove and dodged between the relatively scant traffic on this quiet French road. "Maybe less if we get a clear run from the bridge."
Sherlock felt his hands clench. Let Cate be safe. For Mycroft's sake.
###
"Airport!" Mycroft had barely grasped the seatbelt when the Mercedes erupted away from the kerb, its five-litre engine screaming at the driver pushed the performance vehicle to its limits.
The growing darkness of the early evening sky grew suddenly much darker as they left the town lights behind them, roaring along the road to Fourchambault, ignoring traffic signs and speed limits as if they were old Christmas decorations. The last roundabout before the airport turn-off didn't even exist as the powerful car simply shot straight across the paved top, levelling like an arrow until it screeched to a juddering sideways stop next to the PUMA.
"My thanks!" Mycroft leaped from the car and had the co-ordinates on the screen of his Blackberry and under the pilot's nose in a second. "We go there," he directed. "Now."
###
The man's slow footsteps echoed as he made his way down the length of the long room; there were not many places anyone could hide here. He would find her in a few moments and then he would have a little fun.
Feeling him coming closer by the vibration of his steps on the wooden boards, she realised there was no chance she could stay hidden much longer. Better to reveal herself by choice than be dragged out like an animal.
Taking a deep breath, she slid out from behind the table end and stood, backing away from him as he turned to face her, a disagreeable smile growing on his face.
"What do you want?" she asked, backing away even more as he turned his steps in her direction. "I have no money here, I don't even have a computer," she kept watching his eyes ... for some reason she felt it was important to watch the man's eyes.
"I am not here for money or computers, Madame," his smile became mocking. "Nor am I after your virtue," he almost giggled. "But there is something you can do for me," he paused, standing clear of the table, staring at her.
It was as if all the clocks in the world had stopped; she stood, just a handful of meters away from the man, and she knew, in that second, without any doubt, that he was here to kill her and she had no idea why. The bright clarity of the moment felt like a shining light inside her head, as the grey swirls of cloud were sliced apart, and she saw ... and she remembered ... and she knew what she could do...
"Then do what you have come for," she stood straighter, rising slowly on her toes, as if to run again.
But there would be no more running.
His smile growing wider by increments, the driver stepped towards her, a slight swagger in his movements as he realised she had given up trying to run away. She was making this too easy for him. He laughed, not more than two meters from her, lifting his hand, he beckoned. "Come and take your medicine," he grinned, holding out the small white box.
One-and-a-half meters. One meter. The package resting on his open palm was in her reach.
As was he.
With a jerk, she threw the contents of the now-opened plastic container into his face and a choking cloud of dark blue pigment filled his eyes and his grinning mouth. For a second he couldn't breathe, couldn't move at the shock of the unexpected attack, his fingers clawing at the skin of his face, at his eyes, as he howled, enraged by such perfidy.
In the moment the man looked away from her, intent only upon restoring his sight, she pivoted nimbly up on the ball of her right foot and slashed her left out and down in a low sweeping curve, catching the temporarily-blinded man on the side of his ankles, the force and speed of the blow entirely sufficient to heave him off-balance.
He went down to the hard boards with a gratifyingly hard thump. A foot, flat and hard to his solar-plexus drove the wind from his lungs; the man's frantic wheezing suggesting he wasn't going to be a problem for the next few minutes.
Running out of the room, she reached for the phone in the office, only to be distracted by the sound of the front-door being opened.
Jesus Christ ... there was another of them? What did these people want from her?
Dropping the phone, she dashed back into the studio; perhaps she could make it through the window this time, only to see the driver already up onto his knees, his face livid with anger and blue paint as he struggled to his feet.
"I will kill you with my bare hands, you bitch!" he shouted, staggering in her direction. She reached out across the table and grabbed a half-empty bottle of linseed oil, something, anything to throw at him if she had to.
As he came almost within grabbing distance, instead of sweeping his legs this time, she backed close inside his reach, an elbow jabbing sharply beneath his ribs as he snatched at her right arm. A striking jolt of white-hot pain almost had her fainting but there was sufficient momentum left to bring up the back of her left fist and strike the man hard under the oesophagus.
He choked, unable to catch his breath nor yet able to draw it into his lungs, staggering back against the table, gasping and gulping for air; all other thoughts gone as he struggled dreadfully to breathe.
But she was done. The white-hot agony of her injured arm and shoulder was now such that each breath had knives in it, she sobbed for breath as she crumpled to the floor and tried to curl into a ball. Maybe if it hurt enough, she would pass out and would know nothing of whatever was going to happen next.
There was the sound of multiple footfalls entering the room. She heard shouting and the sound of a scuffle, running footsteps and more shouting as a strong form dropped down onto the floor beside her. She felt herself carefully and gently rolled into an embrace that held her from the floor, resting against a strong chest and arm.
"Hello, Cate," the voice came from above her head, low and uncertain.
It was a voice she hadn't heard before and yet it was instantly recognisable. It reached deep inside her fog of memory and swirled up a turmoil of half-seen images that made little sense. She felt herself go dizzy with it, eyes blurring even more and her body falling numb with the shock.
The bottle of oil slipped from her nerveless fingers to the floor where it flowed unchecked, mixing with the dusting of blue power. She turned to see him as best she could, her heart racing, her throat as dry as the dusty floor.
A tall man knelt beside her; thin, with dark, dishevelled curls. His skin was pale but it was his eyes that drew her. An intense blue-grey gaze which reached into her mind and laid it open. It left her with an odd physical sensation as if bits of her were peeling away like roof tiles in a high wind. A stranger was holding her in his arms and yet she felt no panic. If anything, she felt the opposite.
"Who are you?" she husked, her throat as dry as the powder on the floor. "I don't know you but I know your voice. How can I know your voice?" she paused. "Why do you call me Cate?"
The man's face tightened with first a frown and then a narrowing of his eyes. He looked at her assessingly. "Cate is your name," he said, his voice softening, not moving from the doorway. "Catherine Adin-Holmes, British citizen," his stare was almost palpable.
She blinked wearily. "You have that wrong, Monsieur," she swallowed to ease her throat, trying to turn a little further, stopping as the pain rose again and the room spun. "I am Tallis Varon and I am French. I live here," she flicked her eyes to the room around her.
"You are Cate Holmes and you were in a train accident outside Nevers several days ago," the tall man nodded at the slender white lattice that held her right arm. "You are hurt; a comminuted fracture of the right ulna requiring surgery; dislocation of the right shoulder, at least three compression fractures of your right ribs," he paused, tilting his head slightly and stepping forward as he continued to appraise her. "Likely complications to the right lung and severe bruising to the face, throat and sternum," he lifted his steely gaze to her face, his eyes flickering from one side to the other. "Broken nose and possible hairline fracture to the right zygomatic field," his voice was almost a caress. "Concussion, undoubtedly and also..." his voice faded to nothingness. "Trauma-induced amnesia," he fell silent. "You were badly hurt, Cate, but you're going to be fine."
A wave of familiarity swept through her at his voice, his words. She knew him. But how did she know him?
"How do I know you?" she felt as if she were falling from a very great height. Her dizziness increasing almost to the point of faintness as the clouds swirled inside her head. "Who are you? I know you, but how?"
He held her closer, close enough for her to catch a faint air of his cologne; a subtle fragrance, expensive.
"Remember me, Cate," she was relaxed enough to let him touch her now, and he did, lifting the hair away from her eyes; delicate fingertips to her forehead, to the dip of her hairline where purple bruises peppered her skin. "Remember me," his voice was deep and hypnotic and she felt herself relaxing ... drifting...
That voice. His voice. She knew his voice. It reminded her ... of another. So similar, so much the same and so different. Why was it so hard to remember?
She stared up into those unknown but entirely familiar eyes and felt herself lost in their nearness. The grey fog spun in violent eddies and she felt herself sway forward in slow-motion as the vertigo finally overcame her control. She was falling, falling down into a whirling darkness.
The man's arms held her closer as she rested her head against him, his arms positioned carefully to avoid undue pressure on her right side.
"Stay still, Cate," his voice was still soft, but with a note of urgency. "John's here too, I'll go and get him and ..."
"John?" her head was swimming and fuzzy; flashing images of peoples and places; voices. The voices of children … she had difficulty shaping the words in French. She tried it in English. "John's here?"
"Yes," she felt the man's arms tighten around her fractionally as she spoke in English for the first time, his deep voice vibrating next to her ear. "You remember John; nice chap, short, army doctor, drinks tea. John's here and I'll go and get him for you..."
"Don't leave..." she whispered, her eyes closing as the fog whirled, thinned, as his voice connected to a name. "Stay with me Sherlock, don't leave me alone, please, I can't be alone now, please..." her words ended in a moan.
"I'll stay," he whispered softly. "I won't leave you," she felt his arms tighten in a reassuring fashion. There was a faint sound of a door banging open in the distance. More voices. Voices she knew.
Urgent footsteps moved swiftly through the building, growing louder until they halted abruptly at the threshold of the studio. There was a high-pitched stifled groan of someone trying hard not to make a much louder sound.
"She's very upset," he warned, the reverberation of Sherlock's words sensed in her bones as much as heard. But he wasn't speaking to her; there was someone else in the room with them. John?
Sherlock's arms loosened slightly, even as her fingers moved to hold him close. "Don't go," she whispered.
"I leave you in safe hands," Cate heard the smile in his voice as he leaned back to move away.
There was barely time to register the approaching footsteps before another body, another strong male form of incredible comfort and familiarity, threw himself down beside her on the paint-stained floor, sweeping her into an all-encompassing embrace that made her ribs protest.
Held intimately close, she felt the man shake as his ragged breathing battled with sounds that might have been laughter or weeping, his arms an unmistakable shelter, his hands enfolding her like a child. He held her as something fragile, pressing senseless inarticulate murmurs into her hair.
No words had yet been spoken and all she could do was drift in the intensity of the moment, in the sensation of his arms around her, a hand supporting her head like a baby, his fingers piercing the veil of her hair.
Turning her head fractionally, she managed to see his face, his mouth ... his eyes.
The bluest of eyes. Eyes that she knew as well as her own.
The fingers of her left hand rose hesitantly to stroke his cheek, leaving a smudge of oily blue paint. "I know you," she whispered. "How can I know you?"
"Your poor face," the blue eyes scanned her features, her pain reflected in his expression. "Hush now, don't try to move or say anything; there's a stretcher coming and we'll be home very shortly. Just lay still, Cate my love, lie still."
Overwhelmed by the knowledge that she was safe, that she was found, tears she had been unable to shed came now as she cried within the fortress of his embrace. All the fear and loneliness and anxiety of the last several days brimmed over and she wept in the arms of a man she almost remembered.
The fog in her head swirled its last, giving up one final name. "Mycroft."
"My love, my love," his voice cracked. "I have you now," his arms enclosed her marginally tighter as his face rested in her hair. "It's all over now, everything's going to be alright."
"The children?"
"Are fine and are looking after Nora as we speak," his voice was all over the place as it attempted to find an appropriate emotion. "They will be waiting for you."
"I didn't know who I was ..." Cate closed her eyes and felt the hot sting of tears rise again. "I thought I was alone."
"Catie," Mycroft groaned, easing her closer to his chest. "It's all right now, darling, hush now and rest."
The PUMA's two flight-crew were waiting to put her into the reinforced steel-cradled stretcher before she could be safely loaded into the 'copter for transit.
"She's in great pain," Mycroft stared up at them. "I don't want it to get any worse for her before she gets to hospital. What can you give her?"
Kneeling down beside them both, the man in the yellow flight-suit flipped open the medical box and unlocked a small section which folded out to reveal two rows of small plastic ampules and the same number of elongated silver packets.
"I have morphine or fentanyl," he said. "Given her size and condition, I recommend the fentanyl," he nodded, reaching for a silver packet.
There was the sound of running footsteps.
"Oh, Christ," John was breathless as he came to a halt beside the little group, but knelt all the same. "Hospital here or London?" he asked.
"I don't need to go to hospital," Cate felt exhausted and in pain, but she wasn't dying. She was still slightly high from the rush of returning memory. "Give me something for this bloody arm and I'll be fine. I don't want to go to any hospital."
Looking between the two doctors, Mycroft's expression was rueful but pragmatic. "London, I think," he raised an eyebrow.
Opening the packet, the flight-medic extracted a small white lozenge on a stick. "Just put this inside your cheek and let it dissolve," he smiled at Cate's woebegone face. "I promise the pain will start to go in five minutes or less."
Unbuckling the several straps across the wheeled stretcher, the medics reached down to lift her only to stop when they met Mycroft's glare. "I'll do it," he growled, finding better purchase beneath her body and Cate felt herself being gently and carefully lifted into the cushioned container. The safety straps were replaced and she had a vague realisation of being moved through the house.
"Turn the lights out and put the front door key under the doormat," she croaked, closing her eyes and allowing herself to float as the pain-relief kicked in.
Even configured as a medivac transport, the Eurocopter was easily large enough for the small group.
Charles Pohlest was to remain in Saint-Yorre until daylight enabled a search of the river for a suspected drowning victim.
"As soon as he saw us come through the door of the studio, he went out the window," John shook his head as he spoke quietly with his flatmate. "He was obviously in the process of attacking Cate, but we still have no clue why," he added. "After I followed him out the window and Pohlest came around from the front, the guy took off and headed into the garden. I don't think he realised the river was so close, but he was in it before we had any chance to stop him," John shrugged. "He was already around the bend of the river before either of us could get close enough to think about pulling him out."
"Then for his sake, I hope he's dead," Sherlock mused, his gaze turning towards Mycroft who was seated on the opposite side of the cabin holding his wife's hand, his forearms resting against the aluminium rail of the stretcher. "I would not wish to be alive and in his shoes when my brother recovers his faculties."
"But you've got an idea, don't you?" John watched the elder Holmes touch delicate fingertips to Cate's cheek. "You already know what happened."
"I am of the belief that Cate's attacker was an agent sent by Thibert," he said. "The doctor was the only one in all this who might have the slightest desire to have her permanently silenced," he paused. "And my brother believes it too," he added, sagely. "I don't think Thibert will be practicing medicine anymore," he paused again. "Scalpels aren't the kind of knives they use where he's going."
###
The private hospital in Kensington was discreet and low-key. Cate lay back in the unusually-wide hospital bed and fretted. She had been here two days because Mycroft had made it perfectly clear she could not be anywhere else; it was simply not a topic up for discussion or negotiation.
"When you add an MD to your PhD, I shall be sure to accord your prognoses their appropriate merit," he said, wide-eyed and straight-faced as he stared her down.
Upon offering the opinion that she was perfectly well enough to recover at home, he had smiled brightly, kissed her tenderly and taken a seat in a comfortable armchair from which vantage-point he had simply observed every one of the x-rays and tests and scans and talks with various therapists, saying little but absorbing everything.
Every time she had looked at him and frowned, he raised his eyebrows and smiled. When all the medical staff had left, Mycroft sat on the edge of her bed and lifted Cate's good hand to his lips. "I will not risk you again so soon," he said, quietly. The look in his eyes was much more eloquent. She shut up.
But today, she had been left pretty much to herself. Her pain was being properly managed and she really was feeling a great deal better, although she still looked something of a fright. She had been allowed to shower and a hairdresser had come in and done her hair properly for the first time since the accident; it was impossible to style hair with only one hand. And so she felt fresh, relaxed and pain-free when Mycroft returned.
"You're feeling better," his eyes noticed everything about her in a single glance.
"I am," Cate agreed. "May I come home now?"
"Not just yet," he smiled. "I've brought visitors for you."
Her heart leaped. Visitors. After speaking with her sister and then Nora on the phone, there were only two she really needed to see.
Walking back to the door, he pulled it open to let Nora usher the twins through.
"Mummy!" two identical squeals raced towards the bed before Mycroft caught them.
"Mummy is poorly and you have to be very gentle," he spoke softly, crouched down on the floor, looking into their eyes. Immediately they nodded, turning to stare at Cate's bruised face.
"Don't I get any cuddles from my favourite children?" Cate felt her voice go wobbly. It had barely been a week since she had seen them but it felt far longer.
Resting both her hands on the edge of the bed, Blythe looked up and raised her eyebrows. "Mummy, we're the only children you have; of course we're your favourite," she said, sounding uncannily like Sherlock.
"Then don't I get a cuddle from my favourite only children?" she was well-versed in Holmes-speak.
Mycroft lifted them both up onto the bed, one on either side, as Cate hugged them to her. They carefully wriggled close.
"Why do you look like a panda, mummy?" Julius was staring at the bruising around her eyes. "Will you always look like a panda?"
"Mummy's not a panda, silly," Blythe also looked intently at Cate's face. "Mummy's a bandit."
"I might be a bandit panda for all you know," she prodded each of them gently, eliciting giggles.
"Or a pandit," Jules kneeled up on the bed and clapped his hands together, an expression of delighted cleverness on his face.
Cate looked at Mycroft then turned back to look at her son. "Do you know what that word means?" she asked, carefully, watching to make sure he didn't fall off the bed.
"It means teacher," Jules paused, looking at his parents in surprise at the question. "Doesn't it?" he asked, warily, his eyebrows raised.
"And do you know where it comes from, Jules?" Mycroft gazed down at the almost-four-year-old.
Nodding solemnly, Jules lifted up two small fingers. "The first place it comes from is called Kashmir," he said, "though I don't know where that is."
"And what's the second place?" Cate was fascinated by his serious expression. "Where else does it come from?"
"Uncle Sherlock," Jules giggled again, hurling himself face down onto the bed, chortling into the bedcovers.
Shaking her head, Cate stroked the dark wavy hair that seemed to grow faster than he did. Her children were nearly four, going on fourteen. It was a little breathtaking.
It also crystallised an idea that had been ticking around in her brain for the last two endless days.
She raised her eyes to Mycroft standing by the bed, and nodded thoughtfully.
He frowned and sighed.
She was planning again.
###
"You really don't have to do this, you know," Cate placed a warm palm against his smoothly-shaven face. "I must, but I don't want you to feel compelled to do anything you'd rather not."
Linking her fingers through his own, Mycroft kissed each individual fingertip and smiled faintly. "As if I'd let you out of my sight in France again," he muttered. "But then I always knew there was a certain madness in your family when you married me," his expression belied his words. He did not appear overly concerned.
They were standing at one of the main departure platforms of Paris' Gare de Lyon, right beside the sleek silver shape of a high-speed TGV train. It was exactly six weeks to the day that she had boarded an identical train with her friend, and she was about to do it again.
"Darling, you know why I have to do this," Cate looked at the steel beast growling beside her in engineered readiness. "If I don't get back on the horse now ..."
"And I understand completely," he nodded, feeling his other hand being tugged excitedly and gazed down at Blythe who was waiting with meagre patience. "Which is why we're all going with you."
"Can we get on now, daddy?" Jules was dancing with enthusiasm. It was the first time he could remember anything as special as this, and they'd already been in a airyplane and both he and Bly had worn the pilot's hat, and now they were all going on a magic train. He was increasingly anxious his parents were about to change their mind.
Blythe wanted to read the fat new comic that was rolled up in mummy's bag. It was in French, but that didn't matter. She was fairly sure she could speak French.
The station speakers advised all passengers to take their seats as the train was due to depart momentarily and without another word, the family Holmes walked into their Premier compartment.
It was an uneventful journey until they reached Château-Landon, the exact spot where the other train had shivered, and Cate did too, a chill feeling of breathlessness clutching at her chest, until she felt her hands gently grasped by long, warm fingers and her attention drawn from the countryside that flashed passed the window, to her husband's solicitous face. She nodded in response to his unspoken question and smiled, letting a slow sigh ease from her body. Back on the horse.
They reached Nevers minutes later where a dark burgundy BMW awaited their pleasure. It seemed only moments after that, that Cate left the car with a previously arranged bouquet of flowers to speak with a slight, middle-aged woman at the gates of an insignificant cemetery. They spoke for a few moments before the woman took Cate's hand and they walked together into the walled garden to pay respects to Nance Sollan; Cate's savior and the woman's mother.
Waiting for Cate, Mycroft let the twins out of the car to stretch their legs in the small grassy clearing that served as a car park and they passed the time learning how to pronounce the signposts on the road.
Cate returned, smiling. "Well, that's over," she sighed. "I gave her the money, though she didn't want to take it," she shrugged. "Perhaps she'll give it to someone else who needs a little help."
"My love," Mycroft wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "I'm sure she'll put it to good use."
"Shall we all go to Paris and collect our presents?" Cate held out her hands for the twins, the recent surgery on her arm an already-fading pink line.
"We get presents?" Jules' eyes grew round. It was like Christmas all over again. A airyplane, a magic ride on a train and now presents. He grinned.
"Only if you can say it in French," Blythe decided to instigate a new and entirely unilateral rule. She knew she was smarter than her brother and felt he was receiving far too many benefits because of the unfortunate disadvantage he had of being a boy.
"There will be presents for everyone," Cate laughed, pulling them back towards the car and the return train to Paris and to the rest of her life.
#
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# Almost the end #
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They had rebooked the suite at the George Cinq, with the sunken bath and the voluptuous appointments. Jules immediately commandeered the empty tub to play at being the navigator of a battleship, while Blythe found a deep armchair where she made a nest for herself with several cushions and a thick pile of French comics and bandes dessinées. She liked the silly things the characters did and soon there was a quiet stream of zut alors interspersed with giggles.
"My children are being exceptionally well-behaved," Cate listened to her son's call to abandon ship after what had clearly been a pyrrhic engagement with hostile forces. "I can't actually remember them being like this before."
"They never were," Mycroft murmured as he slid both arms around her middle, his mouth finding the sweet place behind her ear. "Only my half were ever this good."
"Meaning my half were hardened scamps, I suppose?" she smiled against his throat as he pulled her closer.
"And what present do you have for me?" his lips were on her skin.
"As if you didn't know," Cate groaned softly as a wave of heat rippled down her body.
"Then when do I get to unwrap it?" Mycroft flicked open a single button of her blouse, sliding his fingers inside and across the prominence of her bones. He pushed a kiss under her jaw, persuasively appreciative.
"When my two good children are fast asleep and unlikely to interrupt the festivities," she laughed, arching against him, feeling his fingers tense and become suddenly warm.
"You remember that I'm still madly in love with you," don't you?" he dipped a hand into his pocket and displayed a small red box. He opened it.
A majestic deep-blue sapphire ring awaited her approval. There was microscopic engraving on the inside.
"What does it say?" she asked, curious.
"This belongs to Mycroft Holmes," he grinned against her, not mentioning the equally microscopic electronic chip embedded now beneath the stone. Inactive. For the moment.
"I love you," he groaned, pulling her tightly against him. "Let me give you Paris."
"I don't need Paris," she laughed again, her arms reaching up around his neck. "I have everything I shall ever want."
"You never let me buy you anything," he said, taking her mouth in a kiss beyond price.
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THE END
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A colossal thank you to everyone who has read, enjoyed and reviewed this story.
Your appreciation is quite lovely.
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After being overwhelmed with requests for more Cate and Mycroft, there will be a
NEW STORY COMING SOON … Ne Plus Ultra, Mycroft Holmes
A romance. Whitehall wolves, witchcraft, Black Widows and The Bank of England.
A Cate and Mycroft story