Chapter 25
Edited by Penulis
Mina's eyes turned from the scared Irish girl to Tom. He seemed to be staring at nothing, which alarmed her. With the dark wood dinning room table hiding her hands, she moved her hand from his knee to rest on his lap, squeezing it in what she hoped was a caring way.
Tom let his eyes snap open - realizing he had wandered off from the present - and looked into Mina's concerned blue ones, giving her a little wink to let her know he was all right.
They shifted their attention back to the girl.
"As Mrs. Harker said, whatever information you give us will only be told to those involved in the case." The girl shifted her body nervously and twisted her fingers on her lap before shakily letting out the first words, "the Count came to visit a little over a month ago..."
Five Weeks earlier….. The young Irish woman, Kelsey, was a happy as can be. She was blessed enough to work as a maid, serving a simple middle class family from the age of 12, and a royal family at the age of 17. They were kind people, the Duke and Duchess Bane-Lyon, they were distant enough to be laid back but close enough to pay their workers well. Most of her pay always went back home to her mother and younger brother in Ireland, since their father abandoned them leaving her sick mother to care for her children until Kelsey was old enough to take the burden as the provider.
She was working on tidying up the parlor for when the Duke came back from a quest. As she straightened a tapestry hanging on the wall, of a medieval knight on a horse with a maiden leaning out of her window kissing the young man, she hears the sounds of horses crunching through the light snow. The welcoming voice of the Irish stable boy, Devon, can be heard chattering to the horses, ignoring the human life in the carriage.
Moments later….. "Kelsey this is Count Solomon," Dutch Lyon enters the parlor with a tall, dark haired, muscular man who greets her with a Scottish accent, "Hello Kelsey."
"Hello!" Echoes in the room from another female voice, Adina, a kitchen maid who had just walked into the parlor with a tray of tea and her eyebrow raises at the handsome count.
"He was quite kind and handsome, but something about his eyes..." Kelsey stops, trying to find the proper word. S he looks at Tom, as if she could subconsciously she read upon his own soul, "Have you ever known the feeling of guilt for something that you had to do, but didn't want to?"
"I know what your talking about," Mina answers back as Tom just stares at her, his face passive, determined not to let his own empathy show.
"Well he had that to him…I have a tendency to pick up on things like that." She shyly said and then moved away from the subject when Tom cut her off.
"You're an empath?" He said it calmly so as not to make Kelsey feel ashamed. Mina looked at him puzzled. As Kelsey nodded Tom went on to explain, "Someone who is very receptive to other peoples emotions."
"Are you one?" Kelsey said in hidden excitement.
"No….hmmm," Tom stops to clear his throat as her started to feel a burning sensation. "Sorry umm no, my mother was." Tom then cleared his throat again and reached carefully inside his coat and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead with.
"Yes, so I knew not to go near him, but Adina...." Kelsey shakes her head; "She always had it for any handsome man coming through for a visit."
"Did she carry on with him?" Mina asks as her hand squeezes Tom's again.
" I am not too sure, I know they got close but he did with Devon as well, tipping as much as he did. There was nothing more that greedy boy loved than money. The last night they were all here they meet up at the carriage house. I remember it well, that was the night we had a so many bats pass by."
Mina and Tom looked at each other, thinking the same thought about their encounter earlier.
"What did Adina look like?" Tom asks.
"That's another long blond hair" Mary picks it off Steed's corpse with tweezers and places it the bag with the others.
"Not even a candle light near Mrs. Harker's dark auburn." Henry commented as he finished measuring the depth and diameter of the puncture wounds, "nor the height."
"Oh let me see," Mary moved right up against him to look at his calculations, causing him to lose concentration as blood began to leave his head. "According to this she would have to be five foot four".
"Yes, 6 inches shorter than Mrs. Harker." Without thought or reason Henry swooshes his lips up to Mary's.
"I'm so sorry about that." He stutters, but Mary places her finger on his lips before kissing him again, "Not now, I have to go take this to Bond and see if I can prove your friend innocent." With that she grabs the paper from Henry's hand and kisses him again. "You just stay here and work on that virus, I'll be back love." With that she grabs the bag of hair and leaves.