Patrick had a French woman's foot in his mouth. Well, not physically, but the wine residue coating his tongue had at one point been grapes beneath a callused heel. This fact had bothered him much more when the nearly empty wine bottle on the table had been full.

The whole endeavor had started innocently enough. Patrick was trying to educate himself about wine tasting. The upper echelons did love their exclusive vintages as well as their little social tests. The ability to detect subtle notes in the beverage might one day make the difference between being hired for a prestigious case and being laughed out of a gentlemen's club. It all came down to his ability to learn and adapt.

It was like the cane he'd chosen while he'd recovered from his gunshot. He wasn't ashamed of his heritage, but it did not define him. Being a survivor defined him. His ability to adjust to his environment was how he'd achieved the success he had. Eliza may have questioned his choice, but given the mail he'd recently received, she could stand a healthy dose of his philosophy. His eyes drifted to the paper that had him gulping his alcoholic beverage, rather than sipping.

"A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor." It spoke to the amount of wine Patrick had consumed that the sight of his dead brother didn't even make him blink. Intellectually it should have. He'd visited no less than three London physicians, under false names obviously, and not one could find a single thing physically wrong with him. Yet here Michael was, resting comfortably in the leather armchair across from him. This left Patrick with one concerning conclusion.

"Is there something wrong with my head, Michael?" '

Michael's mustache twitched in repressed amusement, quite possibly at the irony of Patrick posing the question to his own hallucination.

"Apart from it being unusually hard, no. Why do you ask?"

Patrick shrugged and took another swallow of wine.

"My semi-regular conversations with a dead man."

"Yer not mad, Patrick. At least, more so than you ever were."

The denial eased Patrick's mind somewhat. Perhaps it was foolish, but even in this incarnation, he trusted his brother to be honest with him.

"So what is it this time? Is it because I'm langered?"

The Irish slang slipped out of his mouth without much thought. It had occurred to him after their last encounter that the sight of Patrick tended to bring about certain linguistic shifts. Words and phrases he hadn't used in years were suddenly on the tip of tongue. His brogue returned with a vengeance. Inconvenient when you considered how hard Patrick worked to suppress it most of the time.

"Perhaps. Might I ask WHY you are drinking so heavily this evening?" Michael tilted his head at the empty bottle.

"I got another letter." Clarence had been sending him dismal progress reports for months now. Each time Patrick put off doing anything about it. He could blame it on his focus setting up the new branch, but that wasn't the truth. The truth was he didn't know what to do yet. For once in his life he was indecisive.

"Surely not the men again. I would have thought your replies made your position abundantly clear.

Patrick groaned and reached for his glass again. The first wave of letters arrived a week after his departure, informing him, in no uncertain terms, they wouldn't be taking orders from some "shrewish spinster." He had expected this reaction from a few of the men, but not half.

Still, he'd taken it in stride. He'd been so offended at their dismissal of both of Eliza's skills and of his wishes, he'd been less than diplomatic in his reply. He'd informed them that collectively their value to his business was minuscule compared to Eliza's. Mediocre male investigators were thick on the ground. There was only one lady detective.

He'd thought that would be an end to the matter, but it hadn't been. Eventually he'd received notices from every member of his investigative staff, including three that had been dismissed by Eliza, rather than quit of their own volition.

"Clarence. The agency is still solvent, but only just. The ship does not appear to be righting itself." According to his bookkeeper, things were 'picking up.' However Patrick struggled to see much evidence to support that. The caseload was enough to cover rent and salary, but only just.

He did notice this letter contained far more compliments to Eliza's intellect and hardwork and far fewer references to her stubbornness and recklessness. She had clearly managed to make peace with his accountant, and that was something. It just wasn't enough.

"Did you really expect it to, with your former staff poisoning the waters with all of your regular clients?"

Patrick massaged his temples. After the letters from his ex-employees stopped arriving, his client letters had started. All referenced a "change in management" as their justification for dropping his agency. There was only one possible source of that information. Miserable vindictive sods.

"I expected Eliza to rectify the situation. I have never seen her face a challenge she could not meet." He'd seen her lose battles before, but she'd always won the war. It was what had inspired him to extend his offer in the first place. She overcame obstacles that would have defeated anyone else. She was the only person he trusted enough to run his business, and thus far the only place she'd run it was into the ground.

If she were anyone else he might believe she's done it on purpose. It wasn't a terrible plan, to sabotage one of her chief competitors then re-open her own agency. However Eliza wasn't someone else. She was one of the few people in the world whose integrity he never questioned.

"You have also never seen her try to manage a group of men who have every reason to resent her."

Patrick blinked. Resent Eliza? Why? Several of them were responsible for putting together her dossier. How could anyone fail to be impressed with all she'd accomplished? They should feel lucky to have such a skilled investigator in charge of them. After all, HE'D managed to follow her lead on the Jewel of the North investigation, along with Moses and Inspector Wellington. It had all worked out splendidly.

"Because she is female and their boss? Several of those men are married, so I can't imagine the experience is that new to them."

Michael raised both eyebrows at Patrick, as though he hadn't grown up in the same household as Patrick had. Thomas Nash had been a generous man with a large smile and wicked sense of humor. All their neighbors had loved and respected him. Still, within the four walls of the Nash household, it had been their mother who reigned supreme.

"That doesn't mean they enjoy it. There is also that fact that you made her their superior before she'd earned their respect as a colleague."

Patrick's arms crossed his chest before he could stop himself. He didn't like the implication that this debacle was his fault.

"Why should it matter if she'd earned their respect? I've damned well have! They should have trusted my judgment. Do you know what some of them accused me of? Why they said I hired her?"

This was perhaps the most disturbing part of the affair. The insinuations they aimed in his direction simply because Eliza was young, female, and pretty.

"Yes." Michael certainly wasn't smiling now. It was good to know he found the remarks as offensive as Patrick did.

"To say that I'd been so blinded by "feminine charms" that I'd left my business in the hands of a dilettante…I can't remember when I've ever been so insulted." Some of those men had been with him for years. They knew the blood and sweat he'd put into Nash & Sons. What would possess them to claim something so preposterous?

"Miss Scarlet likely could." Patrick gut twisted mildly as he remembered his own early speculations on the relationship between Eliza and Inspector Wellington. He was fairly certain he'd been at least partially correct, but that did mean he should have bandied his theories about the office? No, he'd been in the wrong there, and perhaps in doing so contributed to the present situation.

"You don't think they said anything to her, do you?" His fist involuntary clenched at the thought. However impolitic she may have been, she shouldn't have needed to put up with their baseless charges.

"It's possible."

Patrick reached for his glass one more. Could that be why she hasn't written to him? It had been months. After pondering the thought for a moment, he rejected it. Eliza was no coward. If she thought his intentions were dishonorable, she would have confronted him. No, there was another reason behind her lack of communication.

"Why hasn't she contacted me? Why do I have to hear it from Clarence, instead of her? Doesn't she think I have a right to know my agency is on the verge of collapse?" When he'd offered the job, he'd used the word "WITH" for a reason. They were meant to be partners. Senior and junior partners, granted, but partners nonetheless. Eliza had not treated him like one.

"Would you be eager to share with your employer that things had taken such a dramatic downturn on your watch?"

Patrick scowled into his wine glass. Damn Michael and his empathic reasoning.

"She had a responsibility to alert me! It's my name on the door!" He was in the right here, and no amount of justification was going to change that. Nash & Sons was in peril and Eliza hadn't done him the courtesy of notifying him herself.

"Perhaps she didn't realize you'd take the news so well."

Patrick chose to ignore the sarcasm in Michael's words. In truth he WOULD have taken the news much better, if she'd confided in him. They were meant to be a team. They could have come up with solutions together. The fact she hadn't written told him one of two things, neither of them good. Either 1) She believed her pride was more important than his business or 2) She didn't trust him enough not to dismiss her at the first spot of difficulty.

"Did I make a mistake hiring Eliza as a manager?"

Offering Eliza the position had been a gamble, but one he'd considered carefully. He now knew Eliza well enough to know being a small cog in a large machine would never be enough for her. Watching her delegate during the train robbery investigation had made him realize she could be more. Someone he could rely on. Someone he could trust.

The issue was that for the relationship to work, Eliza would have to reciprocate. Unlike him, she'd never been in a business partnership, nor had she been in charge of so many full time employees. While she was an excellent investigator, she had no notion how to run an office.

"Doesn't matter what I think. I'm not the current proprietor of Nash & Sons." Typical. Michael was usually full of unsolicited opinions, but when it came to the question that had sent Patrick to the bottom of a wine bottle, he refused to chime in.

Patrick inhaled and exhaled slowly, moving aside his anger and his hurt.

"Eliza is stubborn which is an excellent quality in a detective, but not necessarily an asset as a supervisor. She needs to know when to bend. When to cajole, rather than command. When to use charm, rather than brutal honesty."

Michael nodded thoughtfully at Patrick's summation.

"Sounds like she needs a good teacher. Unless, of course, you think she's incapable of learning?"

Patrick scoffed at the mere suggestion of Eliza having limited aptitude.

"There is nothing Eliza isn't capable of." Not everything came naturally to her, cooking for example, but if Eliza truly wanted to master the art, she could. Why should she, though, when she had so many other more unique useful talents?

He'd been perplexed when she'd offered to make Moses and him lunch while they'd been investigating the Jewel of the North. None of them were under any illusions about her culinary skills. She didn't enjoy cooking. Why then had she insisted on making the attempt? Was a part of "feminine education" that she hadn't managed to ignore, as she had so many others. Or was it something more personal? Was it about the inspector's lady friend?

When last Patrick had heard, Inspector Wellington was seeing an old schoolmate of Eliza's, one Arabella Acaster. The woman was, by his men's accounts quite the looker and in possession of the usual female accomplishments. Ran her own restaurant too. He could see why Eliza might feel more insecure as a result. He knew what it was to feel yourself compared to someone else and found lesser than.

Patrick's feelings on the Inspector's new relationship were mixed. On the one hand, he'd been happy that Wellington had finally realized Eliza didn't fit with his dreams of domestic tranquility. On the other, he didn't like seeing the distress William's defection had caused her.

"Then there's your answer." Patrick shook his head, struggling to , his answer. He needed to return to London and show Eliza how to head an office without causing a mass revolt.

"I'm still angry with her." He felt it was imperative to make this fact clear to Michael, who was looking too smug by half.

"Of course you are. But aren't you also just the smallest bit pleased?"

Patrick shifted in his chair slightly. He liked Paris. Things were freer here. There was snobbery, certainly, but it wasn't the same as in London. Here the locals seem to divide the world into two groups, "Parisian" and "Non-Parisian." No matter how many years he'd lived here, or he'd changed his accent and his clothes, there were some who'd never let him forget he wasn't born in England. Still, he couldn't deny the nagging sense that there was something missing.

"Why should I be?" Patrick would swear his brother's eyes twinkled with mischief.

"You get to see her again. Outside the picture you keep in your desk, I mean." Patrick's gaze involuntarily moved to the ornately carved walnut furniture. By the time he'd swung back to the armchair, Michael had vanished. The man did love getting the last word.

Just as well, Patrick as had no good answer to Michael's parting jab. He'd found the drawing in suitcase while packing by pure coincidence. It was the same bag he'd brought to the hotel St. Marc. That he'd chosen to return it to the bag was a decision he tried not to examine too closely.

He'd wanted the picture with him. When he had a particularly challenging day, he liked to pull it out and speculate what Eliza would say if she were here. He didn't always agree with her imagined responses, but the exercise made him smile. Why it did was a truth he locked away into a corner of his mind, one he'd vowed not to explore yet. He wasn't ready, and he knew Eliza even less so.

Patrick needed to focus on the task right in front of him, not on the great endeavor that waited for him far down the road. Still, he couldn't help but grin. Business problems notwithstanding, he was going home.