Sherlock strolled into his brother's favorite room in the Diogenes only to encounter the strange site of Mycroft pacing in front of a dying hearth. The younger Holmes stopped just shy of taking a seat and glanced around. There was nary a biscuit or pastry to be found atop any of the fine tables. He didn't know if he should be relieved or concerned. Whatever bothered his brother was enough to deny him an appetite. The thought cuased Sherlock some inexplicable discomfort. Mycroft paused and glimpsed at him over his shoulder. Sherlock bobbed his head, flicked open the buttons on his suit jacket and finally settled into a seat opposite his brother's preferred chair.

"Have you nowhere else to bring your disquiet, Sherlock?" Mycroft asked in a fatigued rasp as he paused to lean on the mantel.

Sherlock steepled his fingers together under his nose. He bit back his instinctive caustic response and decided he should attempt to be diplomatic. Even though barely a day had passed, Mycroft had a gaunt look about him. His brown suit with its burgundy waistcoat appeared even looser than the previous night's ensemble.

"Never fear, Brother, it will not become a habit. In any event, I think we will be seeing more than enough of one another in the next while."

Mycroft snorted a humorless laugh and tapped his fingers on the mantel. "Yes . . . dreadful, this wedding nonsense."

Sherlock shrugged. Mycroft turned again, his eyes constricted. A perplexed wrinkle set in between his eyes.

"Dear me, you do not find it dreadful at all, do you?"

Sherlock drew in a long breath and drifted off for a few moments. Mycroft was correct in that marriage did not seem so loathsome an idea as it once had. Sherlock thought about the tiny, soon-to-be-doctor who was to become his wife. A smile tweaked the corner of his lips. In fact, it was not at all unpleasant to imagine them working together in the lab he planned to set up for her at Baker Street or having a vigorous debate about the cause of death in one of his cases. Truth be told, even before Watson had married and left his home, Sherlock had felt it lacked something and only recently had he begun to appreciate what that might be.

"Uhg, heavens, your face," Mycroft muttered, "it is enough to make one nauseous."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed as his head snapped up. His poorer nature got the better of him.

"Jealous?"

"Hardly!"

Sherlock sat back in his seat and crossed his legs. "My, you seem a bit tetchy. What ails you? Has your Miss Salisbury cried off or something?"

Mycroft gripped the edge of the mantel. His chin dropped for a split second. Sherlock sat up in his chair. He had not expected that reaction.

"Has she?" he prodded.

"As always, your aperture is perfectly focused," Mycroft's voice was unusually low, "yes, she informed me of . . . of her wish to be released from our understanding this morning."

Sherlock felt the skin on his forehead tighten into a frown. Several scenarios played out in his thoughts but none of them made sense. Why would Miss Salisbury, who was so obviously smitten with his brother, call a halt to their nuptials? She had all but forced his hand through her behavior. He could not reconcile her change of heart. He lifted a brow.

"Did she give a reason?"

Mycroft sniffed and raised his head. "No."

"Yet-"

"Rrraah!" Mycroft lashed out and swept a rack of decorative pipes to the floor. "For God's sake, Sherlock, it is not complicated. Look at me! Sh-She just came to her senses."

Sherlock shifted in his seat. He had suspected that his brother had developed feelings for Miss Salisbury but he hadn't realized their depth before that very moment. Suddenly, the effects of Miss Salisbury's rejection on his brother were stunningly clear. Mycroft's fingers shook, his skin was sallow, and every breath he inhaled appeared measured. In fact, his brother was consciously forcing himself to breathe. Sherlock marveled at the sight. Mycroft was heartbroken.

Sherlock pushed up from his chair. The feckless Miss Salisbury begged a visit.

Mycroft spun in his direction. "Where are you going?"

Sherlock carefully buttoned his jacket and straightened the cuffs. "I am just leaving you with your thoughts."

"Stop," Mycroft grumbled, "you came here for something. What was it?"

He straightened and stretched his neck. However, his shoulders remained tense.

Sherlock's brows twitched together. "I have questions about Robert Clairmont but they can wait."

His brother's brow arched up. "Still? Have you not determined the killer yet? It seems rather elementary, does it not?"

The detective in him rolled his eyes. "Does it now?"

Mycroft pulled a face and twitched his shoulders. "Well, I am not the detective but these kinds of things can almost always be laid at the feet of family."

Sherlock blew a huff of air out his nose. He pivoted and then his feet began to move. It was his turn to pace.

"Believe me," he waved his hand, "this seems the most logical conclusion to me as well. Even more so now that Mrs. Clairmont has run off to the country with her daughters. However, I have yet to determine a motive nor the identity of the young man who was murdered in their home prior to its Master. He is as much of a ghost as our bride."

Sherlock glanced up to see Mycroft rock back on his heels.

"Do you need a motive to prove family involvement in either of these crimes?" his brother asked.

Sherlock's brow arched. Mycroft blinked in contemplation then nodded and sighed.

"Yes, I suppose you do," he answered his own question, "I cannot imagine any conviction would be forthcoming with the unanswered questions about an un-dead phantom. She is a clever distraction, this ghost of Mrs Emilia Ricoletti."

Sherlock scratched his brow. "Mm hmm, especially with Sally Donovan's involvement which has added another layer of complexity to this mess and muddies the waters. Then there is Inspector Lestrade-"

Mycroft sniffed. "Lestrade? What does he have to do with any of this?"

The younger Holmes rubbed his hands over his face. "Never mind. Forget I mentioned him."

Mycroft sighed again. "Yes, I think I would prefer to remain ignorant of his shenanigans lest I be morally obligated to do something about them."

Sherlock snorted. "Morally obligated? Well, you still do have some humor I see . . ."

Mycroft shook his head and finally made his way to his favorite chair. He settled into it with a deep groan of relief. Sherlock held his tongue. It was not so easy to mock his brother and his ill health anymore, not when he was making such an effort to correct it.

"Alright, let us hash this out now. What do you want to know about Robert Clairmont, Sherlock?"

Sherlock ran his tongue over his teeth. He wandered to the hearth and leaned against the mantle. He suppressed an ironic chuckle at the reversal of their positions.

"His past," he narrowed his eyes at the dying embers, "we all have a past, Mycroft; ghosts. They are the shadows that define our every sunny day."

Sally clasped her hands together tightly to mask the quivering of her fingers. She tucked her feet back under her chair. She glanced up again and met the quizzical gaze of Inspector Gregory Lestrade sitting across from her in the small, yet elegant parlor. She still could not believe she had allowed herself to be persuaded into hiding out at his mother's home.

"Are you alright, Miss Donovan?" he asked with a hint of concern.

She nodded quickly and cleared her throat. "I am quite well, thank you."

Sally averted her eyes when her face flushed. In the passing of a single day, she had turned into a complete ninny and all because this gentleman had called her bluff.

The previous afternoon inside the shop of Dolma Shilog . . .

"No, indeed, I think you want to join me," Sally challenged.

She let a smile curve her lips. She held her breath as the officer's gaze flicked down to her mouth and back up again. He did that several times before his eyes momentarily constricted. A mild frown upset his even features.

"Miss Donovan," he murmured, his perplexed expression remained, "you do not need to play the seductress with me."

Her heart sped up. "Oh? Do I frighten you?"

He shook his head. "No, but it is quite plain by the look on your face that you are the one who is afraid of me . . . and you need not be."

Her chin retracted. "I-I am not afraid."

His head tilted and she suddenly felt as transparent as glass.

"You are a fine actress, Miss Donovan," he murmured, "but you are acting. Give me some credit, will you? I am ten to fifteen years your senior and have been married before. I know when I am being manipulated."

Inspector Lestrade leaned back against the shop counter and folded his arms. Sally retreated a step, uncertain of her next move. A cold fear crept up her spine. All she had was her façade. Stripped of that, she felt naked.

"Who says I am manipulating you, Inspector?" she batted her eyes at him in hopes of regaining the upper hand.

Her brow wrinkled as she watched a smile break out across his face.

"Oy, yes, I see it now. I am irresistible, hmm?"

Sally rubbed a hand across her collar. She arched a brow and gave him her best coquettish smirk. Almost as quickly, the smirk fell from her lips when she saw that he found her humorous. Lestrade's chest shook with laughter.

"Miss Donovan, I have known temptresses and the kind of woman you are trying to portray. However, you cannot convince me that you are . . . ahem, well, . . . that you are bad in the way you would have me believe."

She spun away from him then. Her face was patchy splotches of hot and cold. Damn him!

"You do not know anything about me or what I have had to do to survive, Inspector," she spat, "and it would be a grave mistake for you to assume that I am any kind of lady."

At her back, she heard a great inhalation of breath and then a long sigh.

"Perhaps. Yes, perhaps I will come to regret believing that there is more to you than what you present," his voice was barely audible, "but it would not be a mistake for me to treat you like a lady."

Back at the present . . .

" . . . it would not be a mistake for me to treat you like a lady."

Sally peeked at the officer again. With just those few words, Inspector Gregory Lestrade had proved himself utterly endearing. She blinked at him as she tried to sort him out. Was he really as altruistic as he led on? She kept waiting for a shift, for him to needle at her for information or otherwise demand reciprocation for his help. Yet, any expectations he might have of her did not seem to be forthcoming.

She bit the inside of her lip. The more she studied him the more attractive he became with his silvery-blonde hair and open, guileless expression. He looked youthful for his years. It was true that he was at least forty-two to forty four and she was just twenty-nine, but the gulf between them did not seem so large. She'd had to grow up very quickly in her youth and felt much advanced of her years.

A shuffling caught her attention. She snapped out of her reverie the moment Mrs. Lestrade hobbled into the parlor leaning on her crutch. The matriarch was in her twilight years and time had bent her spine into a permanent curve; however, her eyes were quick and bright. They snapped to hers like a the crack of a hackney driver's whip.

"Well, is this your friend then?"

Sally sat up straight. She held her breath. Already, his mother's tone did not instill a great deal of optimism.

"Yes, Mum," Lestrade murmured, "yes, this is Miss Sally Donovan."

Sally dipped her head.

A dark brown eye scanned her critically while the other squinted. "You did not tell me she was a teapot."

The Inspector slapped a hand to his forehead. Sally let the slur sink in. Her shoulders tensed until she could feel a pang up the center of her back.

"Mother! Behave yourself."

The older woman limped to the room's small, dusty settee and melted onto it with a huff.

"Ack, should I call her mulatto? Meh! Cripes, you ain't a fully steeped teapot, are you though? Someone's tipped a bit of cream in y-"

"Mother!" Greg roared as he jumped to his feet.

The elderly Lestrade waved her hand at him. "Sit down, boy! I am interested in my house guest, that is all. Christ, you don't mind, do you, child? I am sure you have heard much worse."

Sally turned her head and heard the pop of her vertebrae shifting in her stiff neck. Heat seeped through her face. She was mortified, but not because of the insults. Indeed, she had been on the receiving end of countless derisive comments in her lifetime. Her humiliation in that moment was enduring her jaded inner voice hooting and crowing about what a fool she had been. She had lulled herself into letting down her defenses and expecting she would be respectfully received. How could such a woman raise someone as noble as Inspector Lestrade, she wondered? Something in her snapped.

"I do mind, mum," Sally retorted in as cool a tone as she could muster, "you liken me to a teapot. You denigrate my existence by comparing me to the undesirable soot upon a kettle. Yes, I am of mixed descent but I am not the product of fractions. I am a whole person; a person as whole and worthy of dignity as you."

For a moment, Sally held eye contact with the older woman as if challenging her to a rebuttal. The effort left her winded. To her surprise, Mrs. Lestrade's face flushed and she cast her eyes away. The dame fiddled with her cane. Sally glanced towards Lestrade with trepidation. She expected to see agitation or disappointment for her dressing down of his mother, but instead, he appeared quite pleased.

He brushed his hands over his trousers and stood.

"Miss Donovan," he held out his arm, "I believe I have made a mistake in bringing you her. Shall we go?"

In that instant, Sally could swear the shell around her heart cracked and a glimmer along its fractured edge warmed her from within at the look on his face. In fact, she was certain she lost a bit more of her heart to Inspector Lestrade.

His mother cleared her throat. "Do sit down, Gregory."

"Mother-"

"Please, my boy, give an old woman an opportunity to apologize for her foolishness."

Sally jerked her head towards his mother. She didn't know how she should react to the matriarch's unexpected proselytization. The only thing that prevented Sally from jumping up with the Inspector and leaving was the Inspector himself. Her face flushed at her own thoughts. She wanted Gregory Lestrade to like her and not the 'her' that was this exotic con-artist, but the Sally Donovan who was the child of an aristocrat's daughter and his house manager. A girl who was raised as 'proper' as any English child in Dominica before her mother died in childbirth, her father killed himself and she was abandoned to struggling relatives who could barely afford their own children let alone an extra mouth to feed. She wanted him to like everything about her from the strong willed, creative survivor to the gentler woman within.

Sally pressed her lips together. A voice that was not her own, her mother's voice, whispered from a simpler time.

"Show them your grace so that they might see what they are lacking."

"Miss Donovan," Mrs. Lestrade began wearily, "I did not mean to cause you distress. I hope you can find it within your heart to forgive me, if not for my sake then for my son who already suffers enough from the embarrassment of having such an ill-mannered mother."

Sally considered her words for only a moment, just enough to make her squirm. Then, she forgave Mrs. Lestrade. In the end, she thought about her mother and her own questionable behavior which rendered her far from a saint. She knew very well her mother would find much to be ashamed of in the way she had conducted herself since her passing. So, Sally chose to give Mrs. Lestrade a second chance. Lord knew, she needed all the second, third and so on chances she could procure.

Also, while she would never admit it, she had nowhere else to go. Word had spread about what she had been up to with the phantom bride and her once stalwart allies were more and more reticent to offer her any support. Her involvement with the Clairmonts and the death of their patriarch had been a line crossed, one in which she could never hope to cross back over. She was a woman marked for death. Perhaps she even deserved to spend her final days in the company of someone who harbored scorn about her existence, she thought pessimistically.

After all, she was responsible for Robert Clairmont's death as surely as if she had stabbed the man himself.