Chapter Four
A Difficult Situation – An Act of Treason – Stories – Enlightenment – Handy for All Manner of Things – Fear.
###
Blythe frowned. "Why not?"
Mycroft shook his head. "I'm not able to give you a reason you would consider sufficient at this time, but which is, needless to say, of major consequence," his eyes held hers, hoping for a sign of acquiescence. "But, on the same grounds, I don't want you entering into any kind of personal relationship with this young man, nor do I want you being seen to be a confident or in any way someone with whom he is intimate," he added, holding up the fingers of his right hand as he saw her incipient protest. "I'm sorry, but you are going to have to accept that I have very good reasons for saying these things, no matter how much we both might wish it was otherwise."
"Not only do you not want to meet Landry, but you also expect me to have nothing to do with him at school? To avoid him? Ignore him?" Blythe was half-breathless with something that might have been anger or disbelief. "You expect me to walk away from my friend without any explanation, without ..." she waved her hands in the air, for once, lost for words. Her jaw set tightly. "I can't do that."
"It's crucial that you do, Darling," Mycroft leaned closer, his eyes searching her expression for any indication that she could read between his statements. "I don't want you having any contact with him; no private conversations, and certainly no situation where he's alone with you."
"You don't trust me?" Blythe found her voice had turned husky with anger. "You imagine I'd have such little self-respect that I'd ... that Landry and I would ..." her words failed again and she shook her head, her face a window to an inner conflict. "You're the cleverest person I'll ever know and yet you still think that because I'm only fourteen, that I'll be silly and stupid and go off and risk everything because I can't be trusted?"
"It's not a bit like that, my love, but you have to understand that ..."
"Then what is it like?" Blythe jumped to her feet, her face flushed and outraged, her eyes burning with unusual ferocity that her father expected her to understand his decision without explanation, yet wasn't willing to trust her enough to let her handle the situation in her own way. "What is it like, Daddy?"
There was a stifling pause between them, before Blythe turned and flew from his presence, not even slamming the door on her way out, but by the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs, running directly up to her room.
Groaning under his breath, Mycroft leaned his head against the fingers of one hand, sighing heavily. This was not at all how he had envisaged the discussion would go, but of all the boys with whom his daughter could possibly have formed an attachment ...
"What on earth have you done to upset Blythe?" Cate stood in the doorway, one hand resting on the doorframe, the other gesturing back down the passage towards the staircase. "She went storming upstairs with a face like fury ..." she paused, taking in his gloomy expression and the downward curve of his mouth. "Oh," Cate sagged wearily against the woodwork. "You didn't say something terrible about the boy she's sweet on, did you?" she watched the slight flinch at the corner of his eyes. "Tell me you didn't upset our fourteen-year-old daughter by disapproving of her having found a beau?"
Mycroft leaned his head harder against his fingers and briefly closed his eyes.
"Oh, Mycroft," Cate took the chair Blythe had so recently vacated. "You are such a useless arse when you try and handle these things."
"Blythe cannot have anything to do with the Banister boy," Mycroft felt he was on firmer ground with his wife. "There are ... reasons why I say this, which have nothing to do with our daughter's age or trustworthiness, or anything about her; it's nothing to do with Blythe, in fact."
"Then is it the boy?" Cate pressed for some sort of coherent answer. "Is it him? Is there something you know about him that you can't say?"
Flattening his lips, Mycroft gazed at Cate in exasperation. "Darling, if I can't tell Blythe, what makes you imagine I can say anything to you?"
"Well, of course you can tell me," Cate sat back, a frown gathering on her forehead. "Apart from anything else, I need to know why you'd rather have our daughter angry than informed; you know she almost never loses her temper these days, so whatever it was you said, you need to tell me why in order that I can put some perspective on the situation for her."
Mycroft looked tormented. "I can't tell you anything," he rubbed his forehead. "Which is precisely what I said to Blythe, but she inferred that I ..."
"You mean you are choosing not to tell me, not that you can't," Cate sat up straight, a cool note arriving in her voice. "Even though you know, without the slightest doubt, that I am the safest audience you will ever have, bar none, are you possibly suggesting that I cannot be trusted either?"
Mycroft realised he was exactly one step away from alienating exactly half his family. He reached for her hand.
"Darling, you know I trust everyone here, and most especially you, with my life, but this thing is ... more important."
"More important than Blyth? More important than your relationship with me?" Cate fixed him with a steady gaze.
He squeezed her hand and looked wretched. "Yes."
He felt Cate's slow inhale all the way down through her fingers, even as they were being withdrawn from his grasp.
"Then I wish you well of it," she said quietly, leaving his office and closing the door softly behind her.
Slamming the side of his fist hard down on the top of his desk, Mycroft welcomed the pain. It reminded him that things could indeed become worse, though at the present moment, he wasn't sure quite how.
###
"I'm fairly certain it's an arrestable offence to even contemplate doing this, Sherlock," John hissed as he held the torch beam steady on the third of the security locks that adorned the basement access door into Number Two, Carlton Gardens, SW1.
The two patrol police officers, normally stationed by the main entrance at pavement level had been drawn into a heated argument that had begun – coincidentally – not forty feet away, just over the other side of the small roundabout outside the building. Two young men who had – apparently – decided that now was the perfect time to reconcile their differences through means of fisticuffs and a general scuffle. By the time the police waded in, loud words that had previously hinted only of mild irritation, was now – conveniently – much louder, with overtones of global conflict and incipient Armageddon. Both officers were nicely distracted.
Given the encroaching darkness, the act of leaving the pavement and slipping down the single flight of iron-railed steps in order to reach the secured basement door was child's play. The first two locks had been complex enough, though Sherlock's experience picking countless other government locks was undoubtedly an advantage, but the third one was more than usually tricky.
"The lock's wired, John," Sherlock hissed back. "If I get a single turn wrong here, the alarm will go off and we'll be sitting ducks."
"Then make your mind up whether you can do it or let's go," John tried to force more of his body into the overhang of the lower-floor doorway. "Those two guards will be back at their positions any second now, so if you can't do this, then let's get out of here and find another way, or ..."
"Got it," as the final lock clicked open without alarming anyone, Sherlock's grin was little more than a flash of white teeth in the gloom, but it was enough. Opening the door very cautiously, they stepped into what had clearly been part of the huge old kitchens back when the house, and the six others like it, had been built by John Nash for London's most eminent nineteenth-century politicians and Statesmen. There were only two of the houses left now, the others unable to resist the demand for high-rise development. The house next door was the official home of the Foreign Secretary, but this one, Number Two, Carlton Gardens, was where Her Majesty's Privy Council held office and where, hopefully, Her Majesty kept her private correspondence.
"We need to find the Council Clerk's office," Sherlock flashed his own torch around the barely-lit space, now a staff room of some sort, with a small kitchen in one corner, several large vending machines and a scattering of round tables and chairs across the ubiquitous vinyl-covered floor.
"I'd have thought the Queen's correspondence merited a bit more security that simply being stuffed into some clerk's filing cabinet," John muttered, heading towards a set of double-doors in one corner, peering through the upper glass panels before trying the handle. The door opened smoothly and without sound.
"The Clerk of the Privy Council is the head of the office," Sherlock spoke softly. "Usually a very senior Civil Servant indeed and frequently a Sir," he added. "The job's considered quite an honour in itself. The current incumbent is one Giles Cole and his private office is on the second floor."
There were the steel doors of two small lifts directly in front of them and a staircase to the right.
"Best not take the lift," John was already on the third stair. "Bit of a security giveaway if everyone else has gone home."
The large building was silent and seemingly empty so that even the soft brush of their rubber-soled shoes on the pristine floor reverberated in the still air. The wide and generous staircase wound in a pleasing curve up and through the centre of the Nash design. In minutes only, Sherlock and John were standing in the middle of a wide, carpeted passageway.
"Which way?" John looked left and right. There was a line of identical doors stretching off in both directions, the entire length of the passage illuminated by small downlights embedded in the ceiling.
"No idea; better split up."
Heading off to the right, John wasn't completely sure what he was looking for, but suspected he'd know it once found. It seemed that all the rooms on this floor opened off this one central corridor. There were large, potted palms standing against the walls at regimented intervals, their graceful sweeping fronds adding a gentler touch to the Regency lines so beloved by the architects of the period.
He had walked past several of these when he heard the sound of soft whistling. Turning, about to tell Sherlock to tone it down, John saw the back of a uniformed security guard standing at the top of the stairs, looking down the left branch of the passage; exactly where Sherlock had gone. On one side of the man's belt, there was a baton. On the other, a small Taser. In an instant, John stepped back against the wall behind the nearest palm. It wasn't a perfect cover, but in the darkness, it seemed to do the job as the guard looked to his right, almost exactly where John was hidden, then turned away in the same movement.
Pressed hard up against the smooth painted surface of the wall behind him, John held his breath. If the guard chose to walk down in this direction, there'd be no getting away. He needed to get into one of these rooms; if any of the doors were possibly unlocked ...
Keeping his eyes on the dark-shirted figure still standing at the top of the stairs and checking something on his phone, John allowed an arm to reach out slowly towards the nearest door only eighteen-inches away from his left side. Fumbling for the handle his fingers found cold metal; would it be unlocked? Gripping the long handle more securely, John pressed down deliberately.
Nothing happened. His stomach sank.
He pressed down a little more, feeling a wave of relief on feeling a soft clunk as the door opened under the last bit of pressure. Using his fingertips to push the door inwards and holding his breath in case of squeaky hinges, John made sure the guard wasn't actually looking directly at him as he slid two feet to his left and backwards into the darkened space of the room behind him.
Leaning back against the closed door, he stood for a few seconds just to calm his pulse; the last thing he and Sherlock could afford to risk was discovery. The younger Holmes might joke about being done for treason, but there were still some lines, even now, even after all these years, that John found difficult to cross.
But while he was in one of these room, he felt he might as well have a bit of a look around the place; one never knew what might be found with a little effort.
It was a large room, as all of them on this floor probably were. There were five very tall windows spaced out across the opposite wall overlooking a darkened St James Park, and at least thirty feet between them and the door where he currently stood. Like all the other Regency buildings in London, this one had the same high ceilings and ornate coving; there were even five beautifully-cast ceiling roses spaced out along the length of the room parallel to the windows. There was a great and elaborate red-patterned carpet that filled the centre of the room, exposing polished wooden boards around the edges. The carpet alone could probably have paid the rent on 221b for at least a year. There were four old-fashioned wooden desks occupying the centre of the room, or rather not old, John realised, but antique.
He also realised that this was unlikely to be the office of the top dog in this particular government kennel; this looked more like a lesser administrative or clerical room.
So if the juniors hung out down this end of the corridor, then the top nobs were probably down the other end. Where Sherlock was.
John knew he had to leave the safety of this temporary hide-away and try to make it down to where, even now, Sherlock might be writhing on the floor following a close encounter with a Taser. Anything might have already happened, but he'd not have heard anything as sound would not penetrate the solid walls of this old building. John realised he'd simply have to risk discovery in order to find Sherlock.
Pressing his face to the crack between the door and its frame, he turned the handle downwards, slowly, slowly, until it came free. Pulling it towards him a scant fraction, John was relieved to see there was nobody immediately outside the room in which he'd sought refuge. Nor was there any sound at all.
Especially no whistling.
Deciding this was a moderately positive situation, he pulled the door open a fraction more, just enough for him to stick his head out and look back down the passageway. The faint glow of the downlights was sufficient to show John that not only was there no dark-uniformed body anywhere near his particular door, but the guard was nowhere to be seen. This meant he'd either left the floor entirely, probably on one of his nightly patrols of the building, or ... or he had gone into one of the rooms. But there was really no reason for the guard to have gone into any of these rooms, was there, not unless ...
John was out the door in an instant, jogging silently back towards the main central stairwell when he saw the slant of light further down the passageway where an open door cast a slice of bright red across the shadowed carpeting. His heart sank.
There could be only one reason for this door to be open.
Sherlock had been caught in the very act of doing whatever it was he had decided to do. The guard must have got him red-handed. John listened hard to hear if any police sirens approaching outside. It could only be a matter of minutes at best before the authorities arrived and then there'd be some very real trouble. Apart from the breaking-and-entering and regardless of anything else, by accessing the Monarch's private correspondence, he and Sherlock had actually committed a treasonous act.
And what if his friend had been struck by that nasty little device the guard carried ... the doctor in him pushed his feet forward at speed.
Swinging the partly-open door wide, John's fears were realised.
Sherlock stood, arms stretched out to either side, his back towards a long bank of filing cabinets covering the length of one wall in this, a much more individualised office. Though significantly smaller than the one John had just left, this space was clearly designed to meet a much grander purpose, with far more elaborate furnishings and window-hangings. Heavily framed and gilded oil portraits adorned the remaining walls, each depicting some stern-faced, magisterial type.
"Sherlock?"
The guard he'd seen earlier, whistling at the head of the stairs, now stood in front of a stationary Holmes, though John noted there was no weapon drawn or indeed, any sign of an angry standoff. This, he had to admit, was a little puzzling. At the sound of his voice, the man started, turning and unholstering the stun-gun in the same movement.
"I'm sure we can give you a very rational explanation for this," John lifted his hands slightly outwards, his palms up and empty. "There's no need for this to get nasty now, is there?"
"John?" Sherlock turned to stare at his accomplice-in-crime. "John, what are you doing?"
"Just reassuring our friend here that there's no need for him to act hastily," John kept his voice low and unthreatening as the guard's hand lifted instinctively towards the unexpected intruder.
"There's absolutely no need for that ..." Sherlock had turned back towards the dark-uniformed man, attempting to deflect the hand now rising up to a horizontal level, the armed Taser clenched in whitened fingers.
"Now, no!" John was already backing away when the weapon was fired low-down at his hip, realising even in that moment that the guard was following his training and attempting not to do too much harm. Twin barbs struck through the heavy denim of his jeans.
And then the pain hit.
John had been tasered once before, on a training course years and years ago which Lestrade had demanded both he and Sherlock attend if they wanted to keep working with the Met. It had seemed such a little thing at the time, although the full shock of the Taser strike had had him on the ground and retching in a split-second.
Knowing there was no way to avoid the gut-seizing white-hot anguish this time, he began to drop to the ground before his legs gave way, as they inevitably would. He hoped he wouldn't disgrace himself too much by howling.
The stinging wrap of searing agony never came.
There was pain, but it was more of the smack with a ruler kind of sting than any bowel-loosening torment that stopped the lungs and shut down the brain.
Lying on the floor, John looked first at the two electrodes piercing the leg of his jeans, his eyes following the curling black wires back up to the now-shaking hand that held the small plastic box of the Taser itself. Clearly, the device hadn't been properly charged.
Collapsing back on the floor, John let out a massive sigh of relief as his body recovered from the adrenalin rush of dread.
"I'm so sorry," the guard had one hand over his mouth, while the other still held onto the black device. He looked as if he were about to faint.
"I'll just take that, I think," Sherlock stepped forward and relieved the man not only of the weapon grasped in his nerveless fingers, but also of the holster that clipped the thing to his belt. Laying both items flat on the desk, Sherlock strode across to his friend, bending down and extending a hand.
"Both barbs made contact, so I assume the battery was low," he said. "It's the only reason you're not thrashing around in agony," the tall, dark-haired man stood back, pulling his shorter friend up with him.
"No need to sound so bloody blasé about it all," John glared long and hard at the stricken guard who seemed, in hindsight, not to be being terribly guard-like about the whole thing.
"Not the real guard, John," Sherlock answered the unasked question as he returned to his earlier spot in front of the bank of cabinets. "This one is called ..." he paused, frowning, his eyes flicking momentarily towards the still visibly shaken man. "Barry ... something; brother of the genuine article and someone I did a little favour for a couple of years back. He actually works here as one of the ordinary clerical underlings and promised to help me whenever he could and look," Sherlock lifted his hand again, waving a tiny square of paper as he smiled brightly. "He is."
"Helping you to do what?" John had unhooked the small metal clasps from his trousers and was now dusting himself off, though truth be told, there was probably more dust on the floor now than on him. This room was immaculate.
"To locate the appropriate cabinet of files," Sherlock waved the small note. "I have clear instructions not to look at anything except this specific collection of files which is housed ..." his words tailed off as he squinted down at the badly-written note, then looked back to Barry for confirmation, then lifting his left hand to count along the rows of cabinets from the centre towards the wall.
"Seven in and third drawer down," his fingers matching his words, pulling on a specific drawer-handle. It was locked, something he was clearly expecting as he brought out a circle of narrow, odd-looking keys.
"But wouldn't everything ... all the letters and correspondence be digitised and electronic by now?" John rubbed his thigh where the undercharged Taser had struck. Even though it had barely been more than a bit of a kick, it still stung.
"Digitise Her Majesty's royal ramblings?" Sherlock sounded amused as he fiddled with the slivers of metal, fitting first one and then another into the Yale lock on the drawer. "Sorry, John, but this is still one of those areas where anything from the pen of the monarch is considered mightier than the database," he paused as the sensation of things moving within the steel lock-mechanism.
"Ah," he smiled, pulling the drawer smoothly and silently towards him, pointing his torch directly into the neatly typed file-labels. He soon found what he wanted, pulling out a thick folder bearing the label 'Honours Committee Nominations'.
"This only covers the nominations for the present year, so the letter we're looking for has to be in here somewhere," Sherlock sat down in the chair behind the desk, oblivious to the barely-concealed gasp of the not-guard Barry.
"Assuming everything has been filed in date-order rather than alphabetically ..." his long fingers dug through the thick wad of paper surprisingly swiftly, stopping and going back one sheet as a name ... the name he'd been searching for, caught his eye. "Well, well," he murmured, scanning the several lines of text above the somewhat florid signature of one Giles Cole.
He had just found out why Mycroft had been recommended to the Queen as the next Baron of Esgair.
###
Cate had already gone to sleep by the time Mycroft had come to bed. She'd spent the latter part of her evening listening to Blythe vent about the vile unfairness of ill-considered parental bias, of the incontrovertible hardships facing teenage daughters and of the heavy-handed blind authority of certain male members of her immediate family.
Listening to her daughter mutter ominous imprecations had lightened Cate's own bad mood. Mycroft might be a lost cause when it came to the finer nuances of relationship-management, but really, he had done a fairly good job over the years. Going completely off-track once in a while was hardly the end of the world.
"Your father is dealing with a problem which may or may not involve Landry Banister," she said, eventually, stroking shining dark hair away from her daughter's gloomy face as Blythe's temper ran itself out. "He can't tell anyone about the details, because the problem is probably horrendously clandestine involving at the very least the security of the Western world," she smiled down into eyes that were so much like Mycroft's. "You know your father would never deliberately want to upset you, he adores you, you silly muffin," Cate rested her face on Blythe's shoulder.
"Then why won't he tell me what the problem is?" Blythe demanded. "I can help, he knows I can."
"Of course he knows, but he also knows how easy it is to land yourself in all sorts of trouble in which you are neither trained nor experienced," Cate leaned back, sighing. "I speak from personal experience."
Blythe heard a world of wisdom in her mother's sigh. "Tell me," she said, resting her chin on her hands.
Cate wondered if fourteen was old enough to hear some of the stories she could tell. The understated but amused expression on Blythe's face convinced her it was.
"Well," she said, getting comfortable. "There was a time, not long after your father and I were married, when I had to go to Spain for a conference ..."
###
Waking up with Mycroft's long arm wrapped over her, Cate smiled. It was rare she could manage to keep an argument going between them. Relaxing back against the warmth of his chest, she sighed sleepily, closing her eyes again in the dimness of their bedroom.
"Am I forgiven?" the low murmur of his words were pressed into the nape of her neck.
"I'm not the one you should be asking," she murmured back. "My peeve was only a little one."
"Ah, God," she felt his groan reverberate through her as Mycroft tightened his arm, pulling her closer. "I am, as my American colleagues so often like to say, between a rock and a hard place," it was his turn to sigh. "If I say anything at all to Blythe, she's going to end up deducing the bulk of the scenario and then extrapolating that information into a series of contingent alternatives, any of which she is more than able to follow up if she puts her mind to it," he buried his face in the softness of Cate's hair.
"If I say nothing, she's going to be angry with me and if I tell her what she wants, then I may be placing her in danger," his words were muffled but clear enough.
"If you don't tell her anything, what are the odds, do you think, that she'll actually do as you directed?"
Cate felt his body tense and she smiled again, turning around under his arm so she could see his face. "Did you sleep through the entirety of your teenage years, or was it just the fourteenth one?" she teased. "You have absolutely no concept at all of the logic of a teenager, have you?" Cate pressed a kiss to his chest.
"Both our children are intelligent, sensible, rational and realistic individuals," he said, eventually. "There is no good reason for Blythe to disobey my request," he added, resting his chin on the top of her head.
Cate laughed softly. "As I said, you have no grasp at all of the teenage psyche, have you?"
Mycroft was silent, thinking. "I don't want her consorting with the Banister boy, no matter what."
"Then you must give her some basis to hang that on," Cate sighed again. "She's all but an adult now, they both are. You can't expect either of them to simply obey your orders as if they were minions in your office."
There was a quiet chuckle from above. "Minions?" Mycroft asked, the smile obvious in his tone. "You consider my staff to be minions?"
"I think your staff would be whatever you asked them to be," she grinned. "But your children," she paused, leaning back against the pillows in order to meet his eyes. "And most especially, your wife, require a little more enlightenment, if you don't mind."
"I never mind enlightening my wife," the smile was still in his voice.
"That wasn't quite the nature of enlightenment I had in mind," Cate pushed herself further back. "Besides, I have to get an early start today."
"No time like the present," Mycroft's expression was theatrically villainous.
###
"And what time are you planning on going shopping this morning?" Jack Parrish was back in his long white apron in the kitchen, doing something culinary with eggs and cheese, which he popped into the small oven. Walking over to the far bench, he set the coffee machine glugging away and the delicious scent of fresh roasted coffee beans was soon wafting through the air.
"I need to get a couple of new shirts and a pair of shoes," Jules leaned his elbows on the table, watching a competent cook at work. "I seem to keep growing out of everything far faster than I can be bothered with."
"And I have some books to collect at Waterstones, near the university," Blythe said. "There's no classes at school today as tonight's the parent – teacher evening, so we all have to be there for that," she grumbled, folding her arms. "Is there any toast or shall I make some?" she added. "I don't usually eat anything else at breakfast time."
"Doing toast now. What time are your parents down for breakfast?" Jack turned, checking the wall clock. "Is it usually about now?"
"Daddy's usually down here by now," Jules wrinkled his forehead. "Perhaps they slept in."
"Perhaps," Jack turned back to his culinary endeavours, the faintest of smiles on his mouth.
There was the distant sound of footsteps coming down the stairs.
"Morning, Offspring," Mycroft sniffed the air with a gratified expression. "Different coffee?"
"Trying a slightly darker roast this morning, Mr Holmes," Jack was efficiency itself, pulling out Mycroft's chair and standing back, linen towel across his wrist. "I'll serve breakfast as soon as Mada ... Mrs Holm ... as soon as Cate arrives, sir," he said. "Would you prefer tea or coffee to start?"
There was a large glass jug of chilled grapefruit juice already beading with the cold, right opposite a large brown teapot, one of Cate's favourites, Mycroft noted.
"I'll have tea this morning, Jack," Mycroft leaned back as a white napkin was laid across his lap.
"Blythe and I are going shopping this morning for some new gear and books," Jules sipped some juice while scanning the front page on the morning paper.
"Do you have sufficient funds, or am I to be raided like the Bank of England?" Mycroft asked, liberating the paper from his son's hands and peering across the room at the oven. "It's been made very clear to me since last night that I lack even the most rudimentary understanding of the needs of teenagers and I am hopeful of remedying such a shortcoming," he added, cheerfully.
"I need a new chair for my desk," Cate walked in, dropping a kiss onto the heads of both her children. "If you're feeling in the mood to lash out with the cash," she smiled, pleased as Mycroft caught her hand, pressing his lips briefly to the soft skin of her fingers. Taking her usual seat, she too was given a linen napkin. "Is that fresh-ground coffee I detect?" she asked, hopefully. "And something smells wonderful, what is it?"
"Breakfast this morning is goat's-cheese and Italian parsley soufflé," Jack announced, delivering hot toast direct to the table. "With toast and a selection of preserves," he added, placing individualised soufflés in front of each of the Holmes. "Once breakfast has finished, if you could let me know what your plans are for lunch and dinner – I'm assuming dinner will be relatively early given the need to be at the school by seven?"
Already savouring the steaming cheesy dish, Cate smiled at the wonderful taste. The last time she'd had soufflé for breakfast had been months ago when she'd taken the children to Paris for the weekend.
"Don't worry about lunch for any of us, Jack," she said. "We tend to eat on the run unless it's a holiday or a special occasion. Dinner tonight will need to be earlier, yes; we're all expected at Westminster by seven, and traffic at that time of night is going to be slow, so we'll need to leave by six-thirty. How does a quarter-to-six suit everyone?" she raised her eyebrows and checked for disagreement.
Mycroft had paused eating, his fork in the air, a look of considered thoughtfulness on his face.
"Don't think for a second that you're escaping this one," Cate pointed her fork at him with a very specific look. "You've missed the last two and you're still in nobody's good books after last night," she looked sideways at Blythe and blinked fractionally.
Allowing a corner of his mouth to curve upwards, Mycroft looked rueful. "I recognise my good-standing has taken something of a battering and that I am required to do appropriate penance," he smiled to himself as he returned to the soufflé. "Of course I will accompany everyone to the school this evening and yes, my love, please order whatever manner of furniture you desire," he paused, lifting his eyes to meet their mirror image across the table. "And I will offer a full and complete explanation of my actions in the very near future," he said, speaking just for his daughter, who now held his gaze with an unwavering stare. "But in the meantime, please feel free to use the family credit card and extract whatever reparations you deem suitable," he took another mouthful of his appetising breakfast. "Which, naturally, goes for you too, Jules," he added, glancing at his son.
"Unrestricted use of the Holmes account?" Julius grinned mightily. "And me only wanting a couple of shirts."
"I'm sure you'll manage to struggle on and find a few other items," Cate's tone was dry and amused.
Jack coughed politely. "There are actually a few things I'd like to purchase for the kitchen and house, if that's acceptable," he said. "Nothing overly expensive, but some staples I'd prefer to have on hand, if that's okay?"
Her face reflecting deep inner thought, Cate stood and walked over towards a bank of small drawers. Rummaging around in the top one, she eventually drew out a small piece of plastic that she handed to him.
"Order anything you like at their Piccadilly store or online," she said, returning to her breakfast. "There's also a list somewhere of all the other shops with whom we have an account, so if you need anything for the house for the short time you're staying with us, then please feel free to use any of them."
Jack looked down at the duck-egg blue plastic card, complete with the Royal crest and the world-famous name.
"You have an account with Fortnum and Masons?" his voice rose slightly.
"Handy for all manner of things," Mycroft nodded. "If you're going there. You might pick up some more of my shoe polish from the gentleman's department? I seem to be running out of needful items all the time, these days."
"I shall make a list of everything necessary," Jack inhaled forcefully. "Anything you require at all, please let me know; I'd be delighted to organise everything while I'm here."
"And you can make more of these any time, if you like," Blythe made sure she hadn't missed any of the fluffy cheesy stuff. "Though I have no room for toast now. Sorry."
"It'll be my pleasure Miss Blythe," Jack Parrish smiled, his fingers wrapped tightly around the fabled blue card.
###
Consulting the list, Jack found he'd ticked off all but the last three items.
"I need to go to the wine department to order these last few things," he said. "And once that's out of the way, we can go and find some appropriate grown-up shirts and shoes for young Mr Holmes, after which we can call into Gower Street and collect your books, Miss Blythe."
"You've gone all Downton Abbey, you know," Blythe examined the wine labels on the nearest bottles. They were all from Provence and would have a smoky perfume. Though she had no palate yet for wine other than the occasional taste of champagne, Blythe already knew the scent and colour of all the wines her parents favoured. Whether the label proclaimed the contents were from South Africa, South Australia or the South of England, she already held a comprehensive wine-list in her head. It was a silly game she played but it might come in useful one day.
"Have I?" Jack turned, looking around for the display of clarets. "Force of habit, I guess," he said. "Ignore me; I'm sure it'll wear off sooner or later. Anyone seen the pinot noir varietals?"
"Over there," Jules pointed towards a display just inside the entrance to the wine department.
"Over where?" the tall blond followed Jules' pointed finger, turning his eyes towards the entranceway where a policeman was standing in fairly animated conversation with another of Fortnum and Mason's customers.
Blythe had never seen anyone go so pale so rapidly. Even Jack's lips turned ashen.
"I'll be over here for a bit," he muttered, his back suddenly towards the department's entrance as he became very keen on reading the small print on several cases of wine.
Jules and Blythe looked first at one another, then at Jack Parrish's resolutely turned back and then at the uniformed police officer.
Why on earth would their trainee butler be so utterly terrified of the authorities?