Archive of Our Own

Chapter 1: February 9th

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock Holmes or any character there in. Arthur Conan Doyle had that most glorious privilege. And apparently so does Warner Brothers and Village Road Show.

Author's note (I know, I usually put those at the bottom of the page): Building the Tower Bridge over the Thames began in 1886 and took eight years to complete. The date on the news paper at the beginning of the movie looked like it ended in a zero. Since the bridge's construction looked to be nearly complete but not entirely I am thus making the year 1891. This story is set after the events of the movie.

Mycroft's estate is just outside Chichester. To suit my story the town is a fair sized village with some farm land in the area.

Character drama. Not a case.

The character's name is Naoi. Not Naomi. Please do not assume I'm spelling it wrong. Her name is spelled correctly.

For updates on other stories and/or old ones please visit my Author's page to view my twitter account. This story occurs BEFORE the second movie and does not take the second movie into account.

February 9, 1891

The carriage hit another bump or hole – I can never tell the two apart – in the ground bouncing me out of my seat once more. I grabbed at the seat with gloved fingers attempting to hold on for dear life. My fiancé, my husband-to-be, is barely moved by the jostling. Perhaps it is his weight that gives him the ability to remain stationary through the pock marked streets of London. Mycroft is a portly man, wide around the middle with a drawn face and dark brown eyes that while quick, remain bored unless they are stationed on me.

Which they are. He watched me with amusement, mouth quirked at one corner, "You were the one that wanted to meet him."

I glowered at him because he was right. This is my own fault.

I am the one that insisted that I meet his brother before we married. Said brother had not, or would not reply to the ten or so letters and telegrams that Mycroft sent over the two months that we had been engaged. Out of the blue my husband-to-be informed me that we would be sojourning to London to seek out his younger brother so that I might meet the man. While the train ride from Chichester had been pleasant enough, this carriage ride from the train station was nothing more than torture.

My bottom would be bruised and sore for days upon days at this rate. I wanted to ask the driver once again how far it would be but the last time I had asked the man had afforded me a baleful glance. Instead I settled for adjusting the burnished copper curls that had escaped from the wonderful hat Mycroft had insisted on giving me as a present. I wondered if it was a gift that would impress upon my fiancé's brother the true fondness he had for me. Or if it was to give Mycroft's brother the impression that I came from money.

Which I did not.

It had taken Mycroft a very long time to convince me that I was not an idle fancy of his before I agreed to marry him. I was the daughter of a farmer whose land bordered that of Mycroft's. As my future husband told me he had known my father and my mother for years but he had only known of me. I was the wild creature that rode horses near his land and fished in the stream that bordered his estate and my parent's farm. He had seen me from afar but never, until the day we were engaged, had he seen me up close.

I would not say that I loved Mycroft. He was a polite man (at least to me) but one that was easily lazy and grew bored quickly. I was the only person – save his younger brother – that seemed to amuse him for longer than a few moments. When he had proposed to marry me my parents had readily accepted on my behalf. What they saw was a government official who owned a large country estate. Who had enough money to take care of their child for the rest of my life. What I saw was a man more than twenty years my senior who could not ride a horse let alone be bothered to leave his home.

As I said it took Mycroft a number of months to bring me around to the knowledge that he did indeed have honorable intentions toward me. While we had been engaged to be married since the previous fall, I consented to marry him just after the New Year began. I could not hope to make a better match than this. He was agreeable enough and despite the fact that I did not love him, I had grown fond of Mycroft despite his lazy attitude and dreary demeanor.

The carriage bounced once more sending me up. Gravity pulled me back down violently. The skirts I was forced to wear as a proper lady did nothing to cushion the blow. My bottom smarted as a fresh bruise was compounded with a heavy thump. I winced and reminded myself not to rub anywhere inappropriate.

I glared at my smirking fiancé. "Oh yes mock my pain."

Mycroft removed his gloves to fold them and place them in his lap, "Do you remember what I told you on the train?"

There were a number of things that we had spoken of on the train. How was I to know which subject he meant? "Tell me again," I requested.

"My brother, Sherlock has an…" he pressed his lips together, "an abrasive personality. He is a detective. Professionally. He may question you."

Oh. Yes. I did remember being told that. "I should not let it upset me."

Nodding once, "He enjoys putting people on the spot."

So did my youngest brother. He enjoyed seeing people squirm like trapped bugs. How much worse could this detective be? The carriage bounced once more and this time when I came down it hurt. I gave a muffled cry of pain and gripped the seat tightly.

He cast his gaze out the window to his left, my right. "We are almost there. Don't worry."

I didn't. I kept the knowledge that we still had to go from his brother's home to a hotel later to myself. My mother had been quite instructive when it came to her advice on men. Never contradict. Bite your tongue if you must. Any and all comments should remain polite and respectful. Men had soft egos.

I cast a careful glance at Mycroft. I had no desire to put my mother's…other advice…to the test. I only held the knowledge that I should wait until after the marriage to exercise those specific instructions. I did not wish to engage in those actions with this man any sooner than I absolutely had to. The very idea made my stomach roil and my throat fill with bile. I breathed in through my nose and shoved those thoughts to the back of my mind.

There was only so much my mind and body would collectively be able to take today. I will not push myself further than need be.

The carriage came to a full stop and every fiber of my being cried out in absolute joy. Another mile and I might have gone absolutely, stark raving mad. A moment later the carriage's side door opened and Mycroft exited. He did not wait for me. Not that I had expected him to. He never had before. I held the door and the side of the carriage and climbed down the two steps to the pavement and dirt. Mycroft was already at the door.

I took in my surroundings. The dirty once white and red bricked building. Large windows. Wrought iron gating. Women in clothing my like my own with similar hats passed by. It was somewhat comforting in this foreign environment to find myself not sticking out like the single black sheep. The noise however bothered my ears. Everywhere there were people talking, horses and carriages moving, news boys hawking their papers, and the bustle of life.

I missed my parent's farm desperately. I enjoyed the quiet.

The woman that Mycroft had been speaking with ushered him in. I gathered my skirts quickly and followed before she could close the door.

"My fiancé," Mycroft said to the woman, "Naoi Edric."

I curtsied politely, "Pleased to meet you mum." The older woman gave me what I have recently labeled 'the look'. The one that judges me and assumes I am only marrying Mycroft for his money, status and nothing more. I have grown tired of that single look.

People that did not know my circumstances had no right to judge.

At six and twenty I was a burden on my parents. While I had received offers of marriage when I was much younger, I had not taken any of them seriously. After my twenty fifth year the offers dwindled to none at all. I was happy enough on the farm with books, my horses and several dogs to keep me company. I had no aversion to hard work. Having eight older brothers had given me a healthy taste for fishing and fighting. I could sing a little, dance a little, draw and paint well enough. My father had attempted to teach me to use a fiddle years ago although I could not consider myself completely well versed in the instrument. I learned to play a piano in school to be outwardly passable. All things considered I could have been considered a most desirable companion.

Perhaps that is why Mycroft wanted me instead of the numerous other girls that littered the small town a few miles from where the farm and his estate resided. I had known a few of the girls. My brothers had each in turn courted several of them.

Living alone in his country estate the man had always struck me as tragically secluded.

Several loud bangs came from somewhere upstairs. I ducked my head automatically. Gun shots. I would know them anywhere. My father had taught us all the worth of a gun at one time or another. They kept the wild foxes at bay.

The acrid curl of gun powder scented the air.

"I won't go up there," the older woman, a maid or the house keep I suspect, stated adamantly.

Mycroft's hand squeezed my upper arm in what I can only assume was an attempt at comfort. "I'll go. Wait here." My portly husband-to-be started up the steps. I could hear his heavy breathing from the base of the stairs before he ever reached the top of the first landing.

At least I knew that if I ever ran away from him, he could not catch me.

He knocked upon the door at the very top of the second set of stairs and there was a distinct answer though it was muffled. A few moments after the door opened a wall of the strongest tobacco smoke that I had ever encountered hit me head on. While normally the scent was as familiar as the day was long, there was the underlying acrid stench of gunpowder. Not quite as familiar but absolutely nothing I hadn't known before.

If I had been expecting a joyful brotherly reunion I would have been sorely disappointed. The two men exchanged pleasantries and so forth before Mycroft beckoned his brother down to meet me. I heard a near vehement and distinctive 'no' followed by low indistinct mutterings. The door closed with a solid slam.

I met the gaze of the housekeeper. She looked somewhat relieved.

"Do you know Mycroft's brother well?" I asked her.

Her back stiffened slightly and her shoulders straightened. Clearly she had gone back to remembering who and what she thought I was. "Mister Holmes has rented a room from me for a number of years."

So this was not his house? Strange. I gave her a polite nod and the briefest of smiles, "Might I impose on you for a cup of tea?"

That seemed to relax her a bit. The woman told me to follow her. I half expected her to lead me into the kitchens and not the parlor. That was the farmer's daughter in me. I had to recall every moment of my brief years in that ridiculous finishing school my great aunt had sent me to when the housekeeper sat me at the table. I opened my mouth to thank her only to realize Mycroft had never given me her name.

"Might I inquire your name ma'am? It is terribly impolite of me not to have asked before."

That seemed to take her off guard. For a moment the mild accusation in her gaze shifted, "Missus Hudson." Then she was gone. Without asking me what kind of tea.

Leaving me to my own devices has never been a very good idea. My parents learned that early on. Eventually my husband-to-be would learn that. The last time he left me alone I managed to reorder his library. To say that Mycroft had not been pleased was a complete and utter understatement. I'm sure that if Mycroft wasn't so lazy he might have changed everything back to his previous filing system. He was, however, lazy enough to simply learn the new one rather than actually work at putting things back.

If I had a list of things that irritated me about Mycroft I believe it would be a mile long.

At the same time as the door upstairs opened and two sets of footsteps started on the stairs, the housekeeper Missus Hudson came bustling through the door tea service in hand. I turned to her rather than face the oncoming men. I smiled at her thanking her and then asked:

"What kind of dog is it that you have here?"

There was a surprised kind of dead silence broken by the footsteps on the stairs.

I kept the smile polite as she blinked at me for a moment.

"An English bulldog." She cast a wary glance over me, "How did you know there was a dog here?"

I picked up a chocolate biscuit taking a delicate bite, "There are white dog hairs on the hem of your dress." The woman continued to look at me curiously. Didn't everyone that had ever owned a dog know that their clothes would forever carry dog hair? Or was that simply an assumption I made from having owned enough dogs to warrant sweeping the floors every day?

I felt an instant sharp pang of homesickness. I set the biscuit down without a second bite.

Missus Hudson poured the tea while I stood to greet both men. My fiancé, Mycroft was a tall but portly man of approximately nine and forty years. He had carefully cropped mouse brown hair that was always meticulously set into place. His flat non-descript brown eyes expressed boredom almost constantly. Mycroft's face was rounded but drawn and accented by a sharp aquiline nose that did not seem to fit him. His skin was pale, the kind that burned when it received too much exposure to the sun. He was always neatly dressed.

I had been expecting his brother too look much the same. I was sorely mistaken. Briefly I wondered if the two had separate fathers. Or separate mothers. It was not unheard of. It would at least explain how two men who claimed to be brothers were so very different.

No. Different was not the right word. Opposite would be me appropriate.

This man was nearly the opposite of Mycroft in every way.

He was notably shorter at by at least half of a foot and lean despite his shabby appearance. His hair was darker, nearly black with waves and a distinct curl at the ends. Not neatly combed or brushed. His dark hair stuck out at angles, errant and unruly. The shadow of grown stubble decorated his chin and cheeks as well as a small portion of his neck. Almost rugged in appearance. His face is drawn as well while his nose is less aquiline than his brother's. Warm skin that would no doubt brown once exposed to the summer sun. His clothes imply that he has never heard the word 'neat' let alone 'presentable'. The robe he wore is shabby to the point of fraying. The shirt underneath it is crumpled with enough wrinkles to warrant a good washing and pressing.

None of that seemed to matter when our gazes met.

Dark soulful, deep and stirring brown eyes, the likes of which I had never seen before stunned me beyond words. For that moment, that very instant when his dark eyes met my plain blue grey, the world fell away and there was nothing but he and I left. Then, as if that moment had never happened, the world came crashing back with a jolting solidity. Quickly I broke eye contact with him casting my gaze elsewhere. Anywhere but at him.

Mycroft extended his hand to motion to the dark haired man that had stolen my world for just a moment. "Naoi, this is my brother, Sherlock Holmes." His attention shifted to that of his brother, "Sherlock, my bride to be, Naoi Edric." There was just a little pride there when he said that.

I curtsied politely as I had been taught to nodding at the man that was soon to be my brother-in-law though I could not meet his gaze. Instead kept my eyes pointedly on his stubbled chin, "Pleased to meet you."

Sherlock Holmes inclined his head to me without a word and then dropped into a seat that allowed me to see him in profile. It was then that I realized I had seen him before. The man had pointedly told me not to fish on land that was not mine when I was a child. My response had been…rude. To say the very least.

Another man entered into the parlor behind Mycroft's brother. The man following them was introduced as Doctor John Watson. He had pleasant eyes, a limp which he made up for with a cane and a mustache. The corners of his mouth curled in a partial smile when we were introduced. He as well inclined his head, "Madam."

I smiled at the blue eyed man and curtsied once more, "A pleasure sir." Gentlemen did not sit until a lady was seated. It took me a second longer to remember that than it should have. Somewhat embarrassed for keeping my fiancé and the doctor standing, if only for a few seconds, heated my face. I settled myself back into my previous seat and cast my gaze downward.

Nothing of what I learned in school had been practical on the farm.

"Your name," Sherlock Holmes said. A statement, not a question. "Spelled N-a-o-i correct?"

So we were to begin the line of questioning immediately. I lifted my gaze from the tea tray and it's intricate gold and flower pattern. "Yes. That's right."

"Irish Gaelic is it not?"

I nodded once more, "It is."

"Meaning nine. You do not pronounce it correctly however. It should be 'nay', the oh remaining silent." A quick flash of something through his dark eyes, "Nor is it a name in the first place but a number. You are your parent's ninth child."

Alright. I will admit it. That was somewhat impressive. Somewhat. I placed the teacup down. "That I am."

"And yet you are British."

Clearly. As I had before, I nodded in reply. Where on earth was he going with this?

"It is not common for an Irish man to marry a British woman. The religious differences alone could destroy a marriage. I do not however see a cross on your neck."

The cross Aunt Ida had forced on me off the moment I boarded the ferry back to England met its fate when I cast it overboard. Currently it resided somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. "Perhaps I am simply adverse to jewelry."

"And yet you wear your engagement ring."

It was a near automatic response to rub my finger over the heavy gold band that adorned my finger. Only when I was conscious of it did I remember it. Otherwise it was simply there. A statement of a man's intentions toward me. I wore it because I had to, not because I liked it. Pompous ass. "It would be improper not to. I am engaged. To your brother." That sounded more like an excuse than an answer. No doubt he thought the same.

"Holmes," Doctor Watson began and for a moment I thought that might reign in his friend.

The smaller, darker man held up his hand, two fingers in the universal signal for 'just a moment'. "You confess to not enjoying jewelry. Which leads me to believe that-"

"Sherlock," Mycroft's voice boomed silencing his brother. "Do shut up."

Holding back my sigh of relief was a test of my self control. Mycroft's intervention on my behalf began a bout of brotherly bickering that turned into a conversation between the three men about inventions and so forth. I scraped the chocolate off the biscuit I had previously bitten. The chocolate was too sweet. Too much milk and sugar in the mix. I never enjoyed sweet things. They made my teeth ache.

Dogs on the other hand enjoy treats though chocolate is poisonous to them.

While my fiancé, his brother and the doctor spoke I scratched my nails lightly on the underside of the table. The rough wood accented the sound. It was soft but a dog would hear it. There was a distinct bark followed by a woof. A large English bulldog, white with brown spots barreled into the room nearly as soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

The doctor looked at me, "How did you get his attention?"

"I made him think there was a strange small animal in the house," I said while feeding the handsome creature a broken piece of biscuit. I repeated the soft scratching sound. The dog barked, his stubby tail and hind quarters moving in excitement. "Good boy." For that I gave him another treat.

"Recently I have been attempting to invent a device that suppresses the sound of a gunshot." Sherlock Holmes continued, dominating the conversation once more. He scrubbed one of his hands over his face. "Unfortunately I seem to be missing some key material."

I held the last bit scraped biscuit out to the dog under the table, "Did you try fine powder?"

Several sets of eyes turned on me. I blinked back at them. Had I said something inappropriate? Thinking back over my words I didn't think I had said anything wrong. "My father used fine power to muffle the sound of his rifle when the foxes set on the chickens." I elaborated in case I had been misunderstood. "The clicking of the chamber always gave him away. Fine powder, muffled the sound and still allowed the rifle to fire properly. Ashes from the fireplace work just as well provided there are no lumps of wood."

Without a word Mycroft's brother pushed out of his chair, exited the room, went up the stairs and presumably returned to his room. A door slammed upstairs. Approximately a minute after that there was a distinct pop followed by a hard thump but no sound of gunfire.

Under the table I scratched behind the dog's ears.

"He'll start a new project now," Doctor Watson said. "About time. Missus Hudson had already lost a maid because of that invention."

"He needs another case," Mycroft replied. "My brother has never been one for stagnation. Have you tried giving him puzzles? Our mother drew up word puzzles for him every few days. They would keep him occupied for a few hours. Riddles as well."

Riddles. I liked riddles. Not that I would tell anyone here that.

Another thump, followed by yet one more. It seems to me that men enjoy their brand new toys just as much as little boys. I sipped my cooling tea while the doctor and Mycroft discussed the mad man upstairs.

That would be my anger talking. Or would it be my annoyance? Albeit the problem was not entirely of his making. My temper has been stewing for quite some time now. Currently I stood at the edge of a significantly deep well of negative emotions. Anger and madness are quite a bit like gravity. All it takes is a little push.

"My fear is that he will return to morphine or cocaine without a project to work on," The Doctor told Mycroft in hushed tones. "The black mood that takes him when the euphoria ends makes him the most irritable man in the empire."

I almost told the good doctor that he had yet to meet my brother Simon but I thought better of it. The chances that Simon should meet anyone but Mycroft were nearly nonexistent. I held my tongue politely as my mother (and Aunt Ida come to think of it) had instructed me to do.

The door upstairs opened, footsteps on the stairs. A moment later Sherlock Holmes reentered the parlor and seated himself once more in his chair. Without thanking me. If looks could kill he might have withered on the spot.

"You do not remember me," I afforded my fiancé's brother half of a smile, "do you Mister Holmes?"

Dark inquisitive eyes narrowed on me, his head cocking slightly. Clearly he was searching for an idea of who I might be. Curious for a detective who was clearly supposed to be brilliant. Truth be told my hair had darkened significantly over the past twelve years. My skin is somewhat lighter after spending several years in a finishing school. I have grown at least four and a half if not five inches in height. There were artificial curls in my hair. And, at the time of his rebuke I had been dressed like a boy.

I held my hand a little above me where I sat. "I was approximately this high at fourteen. I think that I told you to take a flying leap when you caught me fishing on Mycroft's land."

"I believe the exact phrase you used was: Jump off a cliff and see if I could fly." He amended flatly though the spark of recognition was there. Dark eyes trailed over me in the briefest of movements.

I felt a warm blush stain my cheeks. "I am glad to see you did not take my advice." No. I was not. I think it might amuse me greatly if he flung himself off of a cliff.

I saw the corner of his mouth quirk for just a moment before his mouth straightened out, "As am I. It would have been detrimental to my health." He moved his hand airily, finger tips directing soundless music. "Mycroft, I suppose the fish in the stream on your estate are delectable enough to warrant a wedding just to obtain them."

The good humor that had begun to brew soured quickly. "You think yourself extremely witty Mister Holmes."

"Witty I find is far better than foolish madam."

Foolish! He called me foolish. I will not be cross. I will not be cross. I will…smug bastard. Sod it. "Better a witty fool than a foolish wit, sir." The fall of his smugness was satisfaction in itself.

Doctor Watson half coughed and half choked on his biscuit.

I really must remember to write a thank you letter to Aunt Ida one of these days. Truly. Her tutelage has actually served me well. I smiled as sweetly as possible at my husband-to-be. One of his hands covered his mouth though I had a distinct impression from the color and rise of his round cheeks that he was attempting to smother laughter. "Mycroft we should check into The Grand should we not?"

As heavy as Mycroft was I had not expected him to be swift or spry. And yet he sprung out of his seat quickly. "That we should. I had almost forgotten."

I'm sure. I politely told the good doctor that it was pleasant to meet him. Pointedly ignoring Mycroft's brother I asked Doctor Watson to thank Missus Hudson for the lovely tea and biscuits. I scratched the dog behind the ears and exited the house of a misanthropic mad man turned lunatic detective.

Later, in the carriage on the way to the hotel I told Mycroft through clenched teeth, "I dislike your brother immensely."

One corner of Mycroft's mouth curled upward in a smirk as he looked at me, "Funny that. He seemed to like you."

Chapter 2: February 10th

February 10, 1891

The strangeness of the day began with Mycroft early in the morning while we took breakfast in his room. I noticed him watching me from behind his paper as I nibbled at my meal of eggs and toast.

"I had hoped you might come to me last night," Mycroft told me without folding down his paper to look at me directly.

The egg which I had so painstakingly placed upon my toast without breaking the yolk wobbled with my hand and fell with a flop to the plate. There was the sound of the news paper crinkling as it folded neatly to the side allowing Mycroft a full view of my face. I did not dare look at him. Instead I kept my eyes on my toast and the scraping of butter on it.

Face aflame from sheer horror rather than shame, "I…" my throat went dry. My heartbeat fluttered in my chest while my insides churned and roiled in sheer bloody panic. He had hoped that I would…swallowing thickly around the bile in my throat. My body was letting it's protest be known. "Forgive me," I said with a watery, contrived smile that I am fairly sure never reached my eyes, "I am still very tired from the traveling."

Mycroft afforded me a short nod and a patient turn up at the corners of his mouth. "It's understandable my dear. You haven't left the village in several years."

The very smell of the toast became rank in my nose. The tea soured in my mouth. I set both the porcelain cup and the bit of toast on the table and plate as gently as possible. "Mycroft, I know that as your fiancé and wife to be that I have certain…" the words felt thick and foreign in my mouth. "Responsibilities toward you. I hope that you can understand that I was raised to wait until the wedding night to…" please let him believe this. Please. "Indulge in those acts."

The answer seemed to placate if not disappoint him. Good. Let him believe his wife is frigid it will save me wasted time and discomfort later. The idea was terrible enough to upset my stomach to the point of sickness. Truth be told it was not necessarily the act itself that sickened me. I knew logically that men and women had been joining together like that for centuries.

A short glance to my husband-to-be. No. It was not the act that made my insides roil in protest. My one hope is that he finds a mistress at some point.

Before he gets a child inside me.

After Mycroft left to discuss business with some parliament official or another the day took another strange turn. I was invited formally for tea to not one but four different houses all at the same time for the same hour set for the next four days. A quarter of an hour later I received a letter from a family I had never met inviting Mycroft and I to dinner Saturday evening. An hour after that another set of requests for dinner and spring ball set months in advance followed.

I had not thought that Mycroft's name was that well known.

An uncomfortably powerful sense of terror began to stir in the pit of my stomach between receiving the first invitations and the last for the ball arrived. For one terrible moment I felt the walls of the beautiful hotel room close in around me. The world seemed to narrow and for one single breath I had a horrible, nightmarish vision of my life as it would be with Mycroft. A world of polite conversation, duty, of children with flat brown eyes and hair that would never look like mine. A life with a man I did not love. An absentee husband who preferred his books to his wife.

I vomited into a waste basket until my stomach could produce no more.

While I lay pressed against a wall, my hand holding my head, the wastebasket near enough should my stomach rebelled again, I had the daunting realization that this was not the life I wanted to live. And I could do nothing about it.

The air and open streets of London were nowhere near as suffocating as the walls and closed door of the hotel. That was a relief beyond measure. Being in a foreign city so far from home was not quite as freeing as I hoped it would be. I missed the farm. I missed my parents. I missed my brother Paul and his pretty wife Elizabeth.

I was beginning to reach the point where I would have given anything for either of my horses and enough money to run away with. No. Stow the bloody money. Give me both of my horses and enough food and water to get by on for a month. Damn my honor, damn my word, and while I'm at it damn being a proper lady.

Which would be throwing everything my family has ever done for me back in their faces.

Guilt, all consuming guilt began to cloy at my insides for even thinking such things. So many people had sacrificed so that I might make a better life for myself than the one that my parents led. I knew exactly how my mother pleaded with her estranged cousin to take me under her wing. Nearly seven years of groveling to a woman that had disowned my mother for marrying a man outside her religion.

Where neither my father nor mother could read or write worth a damn, I could. I spoke both Italian and French. My parents and brothers spoke in rough broken English. They had parted with me for nearly seven years when they desperately needed help on the farm.

I pressed my hand to my stomach, pressing through my corset to calm the gnawing remorse.

What a horrid child I am.

With my temper held solidly in check by self-reproach I managed to walk a few more blocks. A bookstore with a red and white banner outside caught my attention. I happened to enjoy reading quite a bit. It passed away the time in a fair fashion. Romance novels were pleasant enough if I was in the mood. Fantasy novels could be entertaining once in a while. Detective novels bored me. I usually guessed who had done it by the middle of the story. I've read the works of the Bronte sisters as well as that of Charles Dickens. Wuthering Heights and Nicolas Nickleby being two of my favorite books.

I do have a particular soft spot for Jules Verne though the English translations from the original French were most horrifying. I had made the sad mistake of buying one once thinking that it was the same. An absolute disaster that was. Truly. Either the translator's French had been atrociously fragmented or the publishing company had taken to butchering Verne's work for comical purposes.

The bell on the door jingled gaily as I entered. Here is where I might note that third and fourth peculiar occurrences took place inside the store though neither happened together. Rather they happened consecutively.

The third happened after looking through the section where two other women were busily whispering about some book or another. I do not know what possessed me to approach the shop keeper. I think perhaps it was because I had not seen Around the World in Eighty Days (a book that I had a certain personal attachment to) on the shelves.

"Kin I help ye miss?" The elderly gentlemen behind the counter asked me with a crooked smile. Several of his teeth were missing, the others yellowed and twisted.

The bell of the door opening dinged as another person entered the store. The shop keeper turned his head and nodded at the gentleman then turned his attention back to me expectantly.

I attempted to smile back, "I was wondering sir if you would happen to know where I could obtain a French copy of Jules Verne's work."

His broken smile widened. "I 'appen to 'ave one 'er two 'ere miss." He motioned behind him and to the left. "Were ye lookin' fer one of those?"

A pure thrill of elation had me smiling wider than I had ever thought possible. There on the shelf was exactly what I was looking for. The red, gold and black bindings stood out as if yell at me 'Here I am!' My heart swelled a little in my chest. "Yes, Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours." I told the man. "I would like to buy it."

"Ye'll be givin' it t' yer father then?" The shopkeeper asked writing out the bill.

It did not strike me until after I told him, "No. It is for me." That I should have said yes.

The elderly man stopped writing the bill to stare at me for several long moments. Then his brow drew together in what I assume was anger. He ripped the paper with the bill from the pad he had been writing on, crumpled it and threw it on the floor. "I'm not sellin' it t' ye."

Dumbfounded for an instant, "Why not?"

"It be in French."

"I am aware of that," still unsure of why exactly he was refusing to sell me the novel.

He glared at me and snapped, "No. It's not for sale."

The beginnings of frustration began. My face heated, skin flushing with the all too familiar sickly warmth of embarrassment and irritation. Did he think I was destitute? Did he think me daft? "I have money. I am will pay you."

The store keeper sneered at me openly, "No. There are English translations. Ye'll be wanting that section there." He pointed one withered, spindly finger at a part of the store behind me. "Fiction 'n the like."

Here I had thought that Mycroft's brother was an insufferable man. "I am aware that there are English translations of Verne's work sir. I do not wish to buy the English translation. I want to buy that copy you have there." I pointed at the book with red leather and gold bindings

"It's in French!" The elderly shop keeper snapped at me in a thick cockney. "I'll sell ye the English."

Pinching the bridge of my nose to stave off the beginnings of a head ache, "For the love of…" I bit my tongue. "I am well aware that it is in French. That is what I want. I want to read it in French." My original French copy of Around the World in Eighty Days met with a sad end at the hands of my young nephew shortly after I returned home a few years ago. I had been heartbroken at the time. There were no words to express my elation at finding another copy, nearly identical save for a few small scratches in the gold print on the side.

"No." The shop keeper spat. He pointed once more to the fiction section of the store and turned his back on me to dust.

Thwarted yet again by my gender. If it was not such a common occurrence I might be angry. One might think the year was 1791 and not 1891. I turned away from the counter and the impudent lunatic behind it. The two women perusing the fiction section of the store giggled to one another when I faced them. Over me no doubt. I'm sure their tastes ran toward the fanciful and overtly romantic. Twits.

My head began a dull throb in response to my frustration and annoyance. The fourth strange occurrence took place not a moment later.

"Ah! Mister 'olme's," The shop keeper said. "Sorry t' keep ye waiting. Just give me a moment an' I'll get ye yer order."

I froze. Was I that close to Baker Street? I didn't recall walking that far. It was a good distance from The Grand to Mycroft's brother's home. I remember. My bottom was smarting for it. I had bruises. Great big purple ones that ached and pinched when I sat.

What time was it? I'd left the hotel at a little after eleven. What direction had I gone in? North. I had gone north. Quickly. Given that I walked as briskly as my impractical shoes and feet allowed there was the distinct possibility that I had wandered near enough to that misanthrope's home to accidentally run into him. Damn it. I should have been paying attention.

For several breaths it occurred to me that perhaps Holmes was a common enough surname. Like Smith or Jones. Surely I had incurred enough ill will from the world. Wasn't my engagement and loss of self enough of a demand?

"Parle-vous fracaisMademoiselle Edric?" A familiar voice asked behind me though he expressed no emotion. His French was near perfect aside from his English accent.

A stream of curse words that I had never actually said aloud streamed through my mind.

I turned round, bracing myself with a false smile, "Oui Monsieur Holmes. Tres bien."

The mad detective was almost presentable today. His hair combed into place and settled under a black hat that matched his jacket very well. A clean white shirt, no waist coat and a colorful striped cravat. Much better than the garb he had worn the last time we met.

He looked at me over the dark tinted glasses he wore with sharp, dark eyes that once more dissolved the world around the two of us in grey. My heart thundered in my chest and for a single moment I did not breathe.

Something akin to lightning chose that moment to strike me in the chest. Before I had the chance to draw in a breath, let alone gasp, the fire bolt spread out searing through my veins, across my skin and down my spine. Every nerve burst to life in a sudden and acute awareness that sang through my body like the most delicious melody. It was nearly heart-stopping in the sheer intensity.

I broke eye contact to cast my gaze once more to the stubble he had not shaven from his chin. My heart did not bother to calm nor did my pulse feel inclined to slow. I thought perhaps everyone could hear it though no one seemed to. Stunned beyond words, I drew in a deep breath that did nothing to calm my nerves. At the same time a voice that I later dubbed my sense of self-preservation, told me it was probably best to leave lest my body continue with irrational reactions to a man I deplored.

I curtsied quickly and inclined my head to my soon to be brother-in-law. "Pardon me," I said in English. "I was just leaving." The bell on the door echoed past the roar of blood rushing in my ears.

Innumerable unsteady breaths and several blocks from the bookstore the pounding of my heart finally eased. Confusion flooded my being. What was…that? I breathed in another deep breath to calm the storm brewing in my mind. What in the name of heaven and earth had that been?

I pressed my hand to my forehead as I walked; ignoring the odd looks I received from those I passed.

Unfortunately I already knew the answer to that question: I hadn't the foggiest.

Chapter 3: February 11th

I Miss You - Blink182

Fire - Glee Cast Version

Ugly Side - Blue October

February 11, 1891

"Your assumptions do you no justice Mister Holmes." I snapped at the mad man across the table from me, "Not all women are partial to jewelry."

Several sets of eyes, three belonging to men, and one belong to a woman, Missus Mary Watson, turned and settled on me. I, being quite irritated at the time, let my inner rebellion surface for an instant. The satisfaction I had at shocking my husband-to-be, his brother, Doctor Watson and unintentionally Mary, was short lived however. I had not planned past the point of telling the mad man how wrong he was.

Lord but I am an idiot sometimes.

Though I'm getting ahead of myself.

To start at the beginning: The day had begun as the previous day had save Mycroft questions about my joining him in his bed. He more than likely would not push that issue again until after the wedding. Instead I was informed that we were to take tea at the house of Doctor John Watson with his wife Mary. There had been no mention of Sherlock Holmes at the time. Mycroft had an appointment with the doctor for health purposes and chose to impose himself and me on them for tea.

I apologized to Mary the moment we were in a separate room. Whilst she assured me that there was no inconvenience, I still felt guilty. Mary insisted the boy she was a governess to was very ill and his parents had excused her from work for the next three days. She seemed quite pleased.

It was while I was helping her in the kitchen that an unexpected guest arrived.

The same black coat, black hat and darkened spectacles. Dark, intelligent eyes.

One single glance from him had my heart beating against my ribs as if it were trying to free itself. We had no more than exchanged polite if not tense greetings (at least on my part) when both Mycroft and Doctor Watson, (who insisted I call him John) came down the stairs.

"Holmes," John said with what sounded almost like suspicion. "What are you doing here?"

I believe the emphasis should have been on the word 'you' personally.

Wearing an expression that was more condescending than hurt, "Watson, how many times have you insisted I leave the house for my own good?"

The mad man's answer only seemed to add fire the doctor's disbelief. Arms crossed over his chest, blue eyes narrowing, leaning just so on his good leg, "You never listened to me before."

"Perhaps I'm turning over a new leaf."

There was the hint of a smile on the doctor's face, "When pigs fly."And that as they say was that.

The lot of us ended up in the dining room because the parlor was simply too small. I liked the quaint house Doctor Watson and his pretty wife lived in. It was lovely. Mary had a flower box in the kitchen window with violets blooming out of season from the warmth. I liked violets. And lavender. Lilacs. Irises.

The very distinct click of porcelain against porcelain from the other side of the table drew me out of my reverie. Traditionally my fiancé should have been the one sitting across from me. Instead Mycroft was diagonal from my position while I had the misfortune of being seated across from the mad detective.

Consciously I kept my eyes on his chin rather than meet his gaze. I had surmised that while his presence was part of my irrational responses, it was his eyes that caused me real trouble. Hence avoiding his gaze at all cost.

I had been conversing with Mary on recipes my mother had passed along over the years. I would have been happy to continue save for the fact that the next words out of Sherlock Holmes' mouth were beyond insulting.

"Mycroft, when a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most. . ." He motioned to Mary, "A married woman would reach for her child." His hand shifted to motion to me, "An unmarried one reaches for her jewel box."

Which brings us back to the present.

I will admit I let my temper get the better of me. How dare he insinuate that I cared more for pretty stones and metal instead of life! Smug, self-righteous, self-important misbegotten blighter. Through a smile that was more a baring of teeth than anything else, "Your assumptions do you no justice Mister Holmes." I snapped, "Not all women are partial to jewelry."

Keen dark eyes turned on me in a swift turn of his head, expression blank aside from the shift of his gaze to my hand, "You've said that before madam. And yet I see that you continue to wear your engagement ring."

I opened my mouth to defend myself once more.

"Sherlock," came Mycroft reprimand at the same time that John admonished, "Holmes."

This time it seems he would not be deterred. "Since you insist madam, pray tell, what is it that you would return to a burning house for?"

"That would depend on several factors sir," I said, somewhat relieved that he did not question me further about my admitted aversion to jewelry and the contradiction my ring represented. "Do I live alone or with a friend? Exactly how burned is the house? Which rooms has the fire spread to? I am, of course, assuming we are to use me for the subject and not someone older, younger, etcetera."

He leaned forward just slightly. Had I intrigued him or put him off? "You live alone. The fire is only in one room but is spreading rapidly."

"I would leave the house and call for my dog."

His head cocked slightly, "A dog and not a cat?"

"A cat cannot bark to inform you that someone that should not be in your home is there. In any case, if I did have a cat I would still not go back into a burning house for it."

"Might I inquire as to why?"

"Cats," I said, "as I'm sure you know, are self sufficient. They are smart enough to know that where there is smoke there is fire and that they should save their own hides. Dogs on the other hand are loyal to a fault. A dog would willingly follow his or her owner to hell and back. One may have to call a dog to come out of a burning house whereas their cat would already be outside waiting."

The smile that graced his face was on the border between disturbing and sinister. My heart skipped a beat in my chest. With eyes twinkling in an almost devious way his gaze shifted to the only other woman in the room. "And you Mary with the consideration of your current condition?"

Condition? Mary had a condition?

The blonde woman blushed from root to tip. "I would no doubt reach for my child."

Oh. Oh. Oh! The word condition took on a whole new meaning.

"Congratulations," Sherlock Holmes told the happy couple, "by the by."

"Thank you." Mary said.

"We," John said, "had not actually been planning on saying anything about it until next month." He leveled a significant look on his friend the mad detective. "But I suppose the cat is out of the bag now."

Mycroft patted John on the back, "Congratulations."

"Thank you."

Mary smiled almost glowing from the pregnancy no doubt. She turned her happiness on me, "You'll be having children soon as well, won't you?"

I sincerely wish that I had better self control. And that I had not been in the middle of swallowing a mouth full tea. After nearly choking on it and then coughing to right myself I politely excused myself to the wash room. I managed to hold the panic Mary's words had induced off until I closed the door.

An eternity may have passed while I cried my sorrows to myself on the floor of the Waston's washroom. With eyes fresh from a quick rinse of water and several long, deep, calming breaths I returned to the Dining room. Or at least I would have had I not heard two voices, one belonging to my future brother-in-law and the other belonging to the doctor. I stopped near the bottom of the stairs several feet from the door.

"Do you really think Mycroft had an appointment at Parliament?" The doubt in Doctor Watson's tone was hard to miss, even from where I stood outside the room.

"More than likely," Sherlock Holmes' voice filtered out into the hallway, "My brother has always been a terrible liar."

So my fiancé had left me here. I did remember him mentioning a meeting though I had not realized he meant this very afternoon.

"I was sure he left because of Miss Edric's reaction." Doctor Watson continued, "I don't think I've ever actually seen someone turn that exact shade of green before." There was quiet between the two for several breaths. "She doesn't love him."

"I know," the mad detective replied softly enough that I had to strain to hear it.

There was a long deep sigh from the doctor, "Are you going to tell him?"Again another period of silence. This time Doctor Watson had to prompt his friend, "Holmes."

"Yes? What?" The mad man said absently.

Another sigh, this one long suffering, "I said are you going to tell Mycroft?"

"I don't have to." The way he said it. As if it were something he had been pondering for a very long time. "He already knows."

And now so did they.

Given the choice to ride back to the hotel alone or go with Sherlock Holmes I would have chosen to ride back alone. Sadly I was not given that choice. Mycroft had charged his brother with seeing me back to the hotel safely. Thus I sat diagonally across from my future brother-in-law and attempted to ignore his very presence.

Easier said than done.

If I had a list of things that bothered me about him the way he made my entire being react would have been at the top. Intentional or not a raging tempest thundered in my chest. My heart beat sped wildly out of control while tendrils of a white hot nameless emotion played through my veins. As confused as I was exasperated with myself, I settled for pointedly ignoring him. It was easier that way.

Or it would have been had he chosen not to speak to me.

"My thanks to your father," he said into the silence of the cab. "I had not thought to use a softening agent to quiet the blow."

Of course he would assume the idea was my father's. I laughed under my breath, a dark bitter sound even to my ears, "It wasn't his idea, but you're welcome just the same." The vivid memory of the chamber clicking on the rifle seconds before it actually fired was one of the few that stuck out from my childhood. If I closed my eyes I could still see snow falling, the flash of an orange and black tail in the moonlight as the fox darted out of the hen house with bloody white feathers in its mouth. We lost four chickens that winter.

"Your mother then," Sherlock Holmes said, no doubt thinking to correct himself.

Without thinking I shot a glare at him, "Are you quite certain you're a detective?" I should have kept silent. I know that now. Dark brown met my blue-grey. I took in a sharp, hard breath and turned my head away quickly. The thunderstorm in my chest took on a renewed force.

I must have gotten under his skin just a little.

"While I was blessed with powers of deduction madam, I was not blessed with omnipotence." He sounded just the slightest bit cross with my flippant insinuation.

Good.

"As I've already stated," I replied, "you are welcome. Now might we drop this and continue pretending the other does not exist." I sincerely wish I had better self control. Or a leash on my tempter.

"Would that I could madam, but as it is you are to become my sister-in-law." He made a motion that I caught from the corner of my eye but I could not tell what it was. It was enough to get me to shift my vision back to him but he was not looking at me. "Why my brother insists on you of all women I shall never know."

Me? Of all women? Bristling, teeth gritted, tempter flaring, "And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"

If he had an answer he did not decide to share it with me. "It was your idea madam to ignore one another. I am simply granting your fondest wish."

That, as my father would have said, was the final straw. Everything this insufferable man stirred inside me boiled over in a seething mess of anger and frustration. Steeling my back, straightening my shoulders, I glared at my fiancé's brother with as much heat and venom as I could physically muster. "I am fully aware Mister Holmes that you think I am marrying your brother simply for the money. As such you no doubt despise, if not hate me. If I were the kind of woman that would marry a man simply for financial gain then no doubt I would be in complete agreement with the sentiment. However I am not marrying your brother for money or status. The marriage was not of my making. If you wish to find the orchestrator please seek out your brother. While I have on numerous occasions explained to him that I do not love him and am not likely to ever feel more than a fondness for him he insists on going through with the ceremony."

My fingers ached from their clenched positions in my lap. The beginnings of a tension headache throbbed behind my eyes and thrummed through my skull. The edge of my anger abated a bit with the pain, "I resent the implications placed upon me by this arranged marriage. I am not, nor have I ever been a whore. I will not ask that you pretend to like me but-"

"Are you quite done?" He asked cutting me off mid sentence. The man turned his head toward me, dark eyes radiating a kind of mirth that only served to rile my temper further. "Or would you prefer to continue?"

Glowering, hoping some sort of meteor would fall from the sky and crash through the roof of the carriage and crush his over sized head into the ground, I crossed my arms over my torso. "I am finished."

"Good." Still he did not look at me, the goings on outside the window on the opposite side of the carriage seemed to grip his attention tightly. "To clarify I did think, before your arrival that is, that you were simply marrying Mycroft for his money and status."

If looks could kill I would be explaining a dead detective to the police. 'How madam did Mister Holmes end up burnt to a crisp?' I would blink innocently at the officer of the law, plaster on the sweetest of smiles and say quite genuinely, 'I am not quite sure sir. One moment he was talking the next he was…well…that.'

"Upon your arrival I deduced something else entirely," he continued in the same tone of voice he had used the first time he spoke to me. I had the distinct impression that this was the detective talking and not the misanthrope. "You are twenty six, the youngest in your family and the only female child. Your parents as you've said are farmers. While it was simple enough for them to allow you to be raised as a boy, your rambunctious nature did not sit well with the marriage prospects in your village. At some point your family sent you away to a school that taught you etiquette and the talents you would need to become a lady."

I went very, very still. My face began to heat with embarrassment.

"Unfortunately for your parents these talents did not take. Having been gone several years must have impressed several of the marriageable prospects in your village. The offers no doubt came in succession and each were turned away as they came. You, madam, are much too strong willed to be wooed by the weak of heart. I assume that several months ago the proposals stopped. While this was more than likely a respite for you, it caused your parents to worry. When the next offer came they readily agreed on your behalf."

How had he known that? Any of it. All of it. How? I bit my tongue to keep myself in check. I was very proud that my voice did not waver when I spoke next, "All of which you could have learned from Mycroft at any point in time."

He pinned me then, not with hands or feet. Not a single inch of his skin touched mine. Dark eyes, soulful and stunning in their depths penetrated mine and made me gasp. "Is that what you would believe?"

My cheeks aflame, "It is."

"I give you my word madam that my brother has never spoken of you to me until your arrival."

That had to be a lie. It had to be. How else would he have known any of that? "What does your word mean to me sir? You dislike me immensely. What proof have you to back up your assurances?"

The sharp, reproachful glance he sent in my direction might have sliced the skin from my bones. "I do not, nor have I ever disliked you Miss Edric. In fact find you…intriguing."

He found me intriguing? My heart fluttered erratically. A thousand butterflies took up residence in my stomach and a warm flush of some emotion I have never known before rushed over my skin. He found me intriguing. Oh. I drew in a short breath. Oh. I finally understood the fire-bolt that plowed through my chest sending charged tethers of emotion to every nerve ending in my body.

Oh. No. I could not possibly be attracted to this man. I didn't even like him!

Averting my gaze did nothing to slow the pounding of my heart. Traitor that my body was, I did not trust myself now. "I…" I stuttered, "apologize for my assumptions. Forgive me. I was out of line."

"You don't love my brother." That was no observation. "Why must you marry him?" The demand caught me off guard. He sounded almost aggravated by the thought.

Against my better judgment I looked up at him through the fringe of my lashes, "Because I have agreed to. You better than any should know what it means to keep your word."

"Honor and duty are not an excuse to throw your life away with a man you do not love." There again was that tone of voice he used as a detective. No emotion. Simple. Factual.

He was right. I knew that but it wasn't just my word riding on this marriage. "What would you have me do?" I was proud that my voice managed to remain steady despite the shivering his proximity induced. "Would you have me marry someone else?"

If it was at all possible his presence seemed to darken at that idea. "I would not."

The carriage finally came to a stop though it took me a moment to realize that it had. I was still watching him as he watched me in return. "Why should you care about what happens to me let alone the matters of my heart Mister Holmes?" I asked him so softly I could not actually be sure he heard me. I do not know what possessed me to ask but once the words were out of my mouth I found myself anticipating the answer with bated breath.

The door on my side of the carriage opened.

"I shouldn't." Was his terse reply.

I climbed out of and down from the carriage without looking back. I wish that I had.

Chapter 4: February 14th

Thank You - Dido

Come Undone - Duran Duran

Solsbury Hill - Erasure's version

February 14, 1891

For the umpteenth time today Mycroft sneezed into his handkerchief. "It's the bloody flowers Sherlock. From the moment I woke yesterday morning there have been flowers in every room of the hotel. The spores are irritating my nose, my lungs. I cannot catch a bleeding breath without sneezing." He wheezed a chough and sneezed once more and glared at his brother. "Why on earth would there be so many flower merchants today of all days?"

My hands folded neatly in my lap, my gaze cast out the window. "It is Valentine's Day Mycroft. Today is the day one expresses their fondness of to the object of their affection." Perhaps it was the sadness in my voice that silenced my whining fiancé. From the corner of my eye I saw his back stiffen and his gaze shift from me to his brother.

Direly I wished to see the expression written on Sherlock's face but I did not turn to look at either of them. I kept my gaze on the world passing outside the carriage. The colors of the flowers were so beautiful. Hot house grown roses, lilies, daisies, carnations and the like were at every vendor. Store windows brightened with various shades of pink and red. I saw a number of women wearing red or pink to signify their celebration. Men wore red pieces, ties, cravats, even handkerchiefs.

Mycroft sneezed and then coughed. "If you would like dear I will give you the money to buy yourself some roses."

I sighed. I much preferred lilacs. One might think the man that was supposed to be marrying me in a few short months would know that. "No. Thank. You." The words came out far shorter than I planned them to sound. Then again I was cross to begin with. When dressing for dinner I had not been told that there would be three of us at the table. Mycroft informed me ten minutes before we left that Sherlock would be joining us.

Then the man that had both confused me and set my senses spinning arrived at the hotel.

I spent a good deal of the time trying not to avoid him. I felt as if his dark eyes bored into me. Almost like he was touching my very soul without even the graze of his hand. Flustered and nervous had somehow shifted into cross and surly when I realized this dinner had nothing to do with Valentine's Day to begin with. Mycroft had arranged this dinner with his brother several days ago to discuss family matters. The only reason I was going with them was because Mycroft had decided at the last minute that I should join them.

My lovely purple and white pinstripe dress, complete with lavender dyed satin gloves would go to waste now. I had worn it in an attempt to look pretty for my fiancé. Instead it has fallen on blind eyes and a half-mad, misanthrope. If I wasn't so put off I might have been embarrassed.

The carriage came to a stop. Mycroft as always exited first. Sherlock followed after. I as per usual went to grip the door and the side of the opening for balance. A tanned hand that did not belong to my fiancé was held out in front of me. Shocked for a single breath my gaze traveled up the arm the owner. Expectant brown eyes, curious and sharp by nature met mine. Very carefully I placed my hand in his. The sensation that had hummed in the air between us for the past few days intensified tenfold despite my gloves separating our skin. I hissed under my breath and took the shock for what it was. Surprising but not entirely unpleasant.

If Sherlock felt it too he gave no clue. While his eyes remained expressive the rest of his demeanor was near bored. Still he held my hand for a scant few seconds after I had climbed down the steps to the ground. Far longer than his hand should have stayed on mine. The knowledge made me giddy and somewhat light headed.

"You look lovely," he told me so softly I thought I was mistaken for a moment.

My skin flushed in response, my face warming. I bowed my head, "Thank you."

"My brother is an idiot," he murmured though I had no idea if that was for my benefit or simply if it was his opinion. Not that it mattered. I agreed wholeheartedly.

Sherlock stuck out his elbow to me while Mycroft went on ahead of us. For the handful of minutes between arriving and being seated I wondered at what it would be like to be engaged to Sherlock instead of Mycroft. Warmth spread across my body tightening parts of me that I had never done so before. A blush spread across my face. I imagined how the lightning between us might spark if there were not clothes between our skin. The same weak kneed feeling that had taken over me not two days ago came upon me just as we were seated.

It would not, I decided, be a hardship to be engaged to Sherlock Holmes. Even if he was a half-mad, misanthropic, self-righteous smug bastard. Carefully I glanced at him. No. It really was not such a stretch of the imagination.

"The French Symphonic Orchestra is in town," Sherlock said pulling my attention away from the menu a waiter had only just handed me. His eyes were on Mycroft but I had the distinct impression that he was not actually speaking to his brother. "I could procure a couple of tickets should you have any cultural inclinations during your stay."

"That would be lovely," I told him at the same time Mycroft said, "No thank you."

All of my mother's advice when it came to dealing with the fragile egos of men was promptly thrown to the dogs. "While you may be content to sit in the hotel and read all day, Mycroft, I am not. I should like to go." My brothers always told me I had the temper of a harpy.

A dumbfounded expression crossed my fiancé's face. I had never quarreled with him before. I had never so much as raised my voice to him before. If anything I was the picture of the near perfect bride-to-be up until that moment.

Mycroft gave a small sigh of what sounded like resignation, "I suppose you are right my dear."

I was in the middle of a mental celebration when my fiancé said the most unexpected thing. "Sherlock, take Naoi with you to the Orchestra."

I was extremely happy that I had just swallowed my wine or I might have choked on it. I had only just realized my attraction to the half-mad detective. I was not; in any way shape or form, ready to be alone with him again. Not now and certainly nowhere in the impending future!

The speed of my pulse kicked up like a spooked horse. He found me intriguing. I found him attractive. Oh dear.

"If you insist," Sherlock Holmes replied without so much as glancing at me. Though I believe I caught the briefest hint of a smile before he returned to reading through the menu before him.

Stunned and slightly bewildered by this turn of events I gave my meal choice to my fiancé absently. Thoughts spun in my head. Did Sherlock want to be alone with me? The possibility made thousands of nervous butterflies come to life in my chest and stomach. What would he do? What would he say? He didn't strike me as a person that would bite his tongue, nor had he during any of our quarrels. The man had an infuriating way of getting under my skin without the slightest effort.

How did one dislike someone so adamantly and yet remain attracted to them?

That would be a living contradiction, wouldn't it?

While I mulled over the possible explanations for two opposing sentiments taking place at the same time (and the impending problem they both posed), a waiter approached the table.

"A delivery for you madam," the waiter extended the plain brown wrapped package to me.

I blinked at him, then at the package wrapped with nondescript string. I took it from him. There was no note and no inscription on the paper. It didn't feel as if there was a note on the inside of the wrapping. I looked up at the waiter and said, quite bemused, "Thank you."

He nodded once and was gone.

"Well?" Mycroft prompted with curiosity, "Open it."

A thin layer of brown paper packaging stood between me and my prize. Carefully I slipped the string binding it together down and neatly unfolded the paper. Disbelief, nearly tangible in intensity, mixed with astonishment and surprise came upon me all at once. I drew in a sharp breath. Then I looked to my fiancé and said gratefully, "Thank you Mycroft."

He scowled at me, "I didn't buy it."

Then who could have…? Who could possibly have…? I turned the book over to inspect the minimal amount of scratching across the gold and black detailing. It couldn't have been and yet it was. Fine scratches across the binding on the side, a small mark here, an indent there. It was. It actually was. My heart skipped a beat. This was the copy I had tried to buy several days earlier.

There had been one other person present for that. As I looked at him from under the thick fringe of my eyelashes a distinct crash of near overwhelming emotion swept through me. His gaze was elsewhere, anywhere it seemed, but directed at me.

Oh dear.

"How did you know all of that the other day?" I asked Sherlock under my breath while Mycroft's head began to bob in a near sleeping state. The wine had been too much for my fiancé as it seemed. The sounds of snoring began.

"All of what?" Sherlock asked almost as softly.

"That I was the youngest of my siblings? That I am the only girl in my family. How could you possibly have known that the proposals stopped coming once I'd turned twenty five?"

There was nothing but the sound of breathing and light snores for several moments as the carriage rocked. Then, "The Irish are a fertile breed. The average Irish family has no less than five children. As for the marriage proposals, I've found that women in small towns and rural settings do not often marry past the age of twenty five unless their spouse has died."

Both of which were entirely true. At least in my experience.

"And me being the only girl in my family?" I prompted.

"When we met originally you were dressed as a boy."

Accepting that as an answer I nodded. The street lights flashed through the cab as we passed. Sherlock was watching me with hooded eyes that looked obsidian in the darkness. I drew in a sharp, short breath as a maelstrom let loose inside my chest. Powerful bouts of pure sensation threaded down my veins, tethering my every part of me to the pounding of my heart. I broke eye contact with him to cast a careful glance at my sleeping fiancé.

"Mycroft will sleep until the hotel," Sherlock said pulling my attention back to him. "My brother has never had a high tolerance for wine."

I opened my mouth to ask how he could be sure and then I remembered who I was talking to. Not only was he Mycroft's only brother, he was also a world famous detective. I closed my mouth and let the subject go.

"Thank you for the book," I told him softly clutching the red leather in my hands. It meant so much to me to have a copy of it in my possession. There was no way for me to tell him that. I hadn't the words.

Silence reigned for several uncomfortable moments before he said, "Who was he? The boy that gave you the original?"

That almost sounded like…no, it couldn't possibly. I looked at him but only caught flashes of his face in the passing lights. Could he be jealous? No.

"Her name," I corrected him solemnly. Did that ease his mind? "Was Rebecca Dupont. She was my friend at school." If I closed my eyes and thought about her I could still see her brilliant blue eyes and her mane of black hair that reached her waist. Her pretty smile and shy shuffling feet. Becky who loved my red hair so much she demanded that I never cut it off. Her soft sweet voice reading to me from Around the World in 80 Days to help me learn French so the teacher wouldn't slap my wrists with a ruler again. The most vivid memory I had of my one and only friend was of her singing softly in French to me through the worst moments of my homesickness my first year at school.

My chest contracted painfully, and I breathed out a shuddering breath. I had other memories of my friend that were not so warm. They were terrifying in the intensity. I could still see her lifeless face staring out from under carelessly placed branches and fallen leaves. Her icy pale skin under my fingers. The horror of that exact moment squeezed my insides until tears formed in the corners of my eyes.

I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not.

"She was killed in third year." My voice was rough anger and my unshed tears mixing with the terror of my memories into maelstrom that beat inside my head and behind my eyes. "She was abducted, murdered and left to rot in the woods." I did not feel the bounce of the carriage or the pot-holes as it moved.

Becky's lifeless eyes staring up at the sky, paled to the color winter skies and the stench of decay.

I will not cry.

"When her mother came to collect her things she gave me Becky's books. She told me that Becky wrote fondly of me in every letter home." Fighting back a sob I turned my gaze to the window out of the carriage, "They never caught the murderer."

He was silent for what seemed like an eternity. Then he told me in an odd tone of voice, "Perhaps one day someone will."

I doubted that.

Chapter 5: February 16th

Bella Donna - Bond

Kismet - Bond

Hymn - Bond

Victory - Bond

February 16, 1891

I would not recommend curling your own hair to anyone who has never done so before. Find, or pay someone else to do it for you. Otherwise your hair may end up singed or worse. Thankfully I managed only to singe my scalp and not exactly my hair. Though my hair was a mess of half curls and waves of burnished copper that stood out in sharp contrast to the pale blue of my dress. The chamber maid that had clicked a motherly tsk at me then taken pity on me stood behind me carefully running her fingers through the irregular curls to even them out.

"Don't rightly know what you were thinkin' miss." The girl told me as she ran my brush over the fine strands she held in one hand.

Embarrassment warmed my face. Neither did I. I watched her in the mirror of the vanity in my hotel room. Each revolution of the brush brought about a smoother look to the hair I had so vainly disrupted. "I thought I could try it. It didn't seem all that difficult." At least it hadn't when I watched the maids at Mycroft's manor do it. They seemed so sure of themselves. Wrap the hair around the warming stick. How hard could it have been?

The burned spot on my scalp smarted as a few strands were tugged against it. I winced in pain and grit my teeth. Never again. I will never, ever, ever do that again. Not even to learn to do it myself. My hair is naturally straight and therefore I will live with it as such. Stow the curls.

"If you don't mind me sayin' miss, you've got beautiful hair."

I smiled at her in the mirror, "Thank you Molly."

She slid the brush through once more, then, looking very satisfied with her work, "That should do it. Did you need my help with anythin' else miss?"

"No, thank you Molly. You may return to your duties." Didn't I sound proper? Like an actual lady. Perhaps I was beginning to adjust to this kind of life.

My skin went cold. A chill raced down my spine.

What a terrifying thought.

"Are you cold miss?" Molly asked sweetly from somewhere behind and to the left of me. "I'd be happy to light the fire place if you'd like."

I forced a smile, my reflection giving away the sad realization in my blue-grey eyes. They were more grey than blue today. Funny that. I'd chosen the dress I was wearing to offset the blue in my eyes.

"No Molly, I am fine. Really." My hair twisted around the fingers of one hand I reached for the antique pin my mother passed along to me on the day she and my father agreed to Mycroft's proposal. A pale blue glass humming bird encrusted with black and white glass beading that caught and refracted the light. No one will ever accuse me of being fashionable.

Besides, it matched my dress.

The white lace scratched at my neck unpleasantly as I moved. When being fitted for the dress I did try to have the woman making it promise me that she would use the same black satin material that lined the cuffs for the frilly lining at my throat. In the end it seems that the dressmaker did not heed my requests. Instead she employed these lacy torture devices to flutter annoyingly at my throat all night. Legitimately I could have just ripped it out and stitched up whatever mess I made but I am (as my mother told me time and time again) and always will be a failure in the arts of sewing.

I would often reply to her that it was all part of my plan to undermine the idea of the typical woman. She would laugh, and then I would laugh and she would never know how true that statement actually was. I worked very hard to be considered unusual in Madam Kent's School for Young Ladies. Even more so after Rebecca's death. My sincere interest in literature and the basic mechanics of science went far beyond what one normally learned.

I paid for it in ostracism. My class mates and peers were none too happy with me.

If they could see me now.

"If you don't mind me sayin' miss," Molly said, pulling me back from my thoughts to the reality of now. "You look pretty as a picture you do."

"Thank you Molly," the words came from my mouth, an ingrained response. The very first thing and the very last thing I learned in finishing school were to be thankful for the praise I did receive from other women. Years of living around other girls who were prettier, fair and dainty, were more talented, and more accomplished than I taught me a great many things.

A great many things.

It isn't an easy thing trying to deny what seems irresistible. The more time I spent around Sherlock Holmes the further down the rabbit hole I seemed to fall. I wonder if I will be smart enough to take the key with me when I drink the shrinking potion. Casting a wary (yet careful) glance at the man seated not three feet from me; I decided that I probably would forget. Problematic as that seemed to be, I honestly didn't mind.

This strange bundle of emotion and fluttering butterflies they caused was worth it.

Below the private opera box we sat in the music crested with the sweet sharp song of flutes. I began to think on the contrast between that and the deep baritone of cellos that had only just ended. Better than thinking of his proximity and the way the air between us seemed to hum with something I had no name for. Better than the moment I realized we were truly alone with one another, no impending moment of separation on the horizon. Better than breathing his scent of rich pipe tobacco, smoke and everything that comprised him. The distraction, I found, was short lived.

Only moments after I began to focus on the music, the tempo, the pitch, Sherlock's voice cut through my thoughts, "Did you know that you sway to music?"

My eyes, which I did not realize I closed, opened. I turned my face toward him, a blush staining my cheeks, "I apologize. I did not mean to distract you."

"I will take that as a yes then." He said, mouth in a neutral line.

Why was I noticing his mouth? I turned my face away before my blush could deepen, "Yes. I knew."

The first piece of music ended. Clapping ensued down below in the orchestra seating and distantly in the box seats around and across from us. Politely I clapped as well. The conductor announced the next piece in a German's heavily accented English. The of it struck me.

"I suppose the French Symphonic Orchestra couldn't find a proper Frenchman for their conductor." The words were out of my mouth before I realized that I probably should not have said them. Sarcasm and wit, digging me a hole with which to bury myself.

A low chuckle of amusement was not what I expected in response.

The music started up again, harps and violas singing in time with one another. Regrettably this piece sounded almost exactly like the last. Different instruments of course. A horn joined the symphony as the tempo of the music rose. I closed my eyes once more, consciously this time. Years ago, while listening to things I now only half cared to remember, I realized there was a sharpness to a darkened world. Eyes and the power of sight, I found, are taken for granted. When one allows the other senses to take over for just a few moments the world around takes on a new focus. A different form of clarity. I employed this trick when the first vestiges of boredom threaten to take hold. My aunt used to call it my game.

My aunt liked games. She was rather fond of them.

But that is neither here nor there.

A singular piano joined the chorus of instruments below.

There were so many other things I could have been listening to, listening for. The singing of the instruments, the rhythm of the music below. The sounds of my own breathing, the smell of my own perfume. Heavens there were the people below if I needed an honest enough distraction. There were so many, many things that should have kept me…distracted.

Pipe tobacco. Smoke. The faint, acrid curl of gunpowder. The movement of feet softened by the mud left on the soles of his shoes from the wet streets outside. Even breathing. Slightly out of sync with mine. Musk. A human musk. Not entirely unpleasant. Clearly personal hygiene was not at the very top of his list, though it wasn't quite as bad as it could have been.

I've smelled worse.

The calm of something I can only name as an acute alertness seized me. Music fell away. I heard the brush of cloth against cloth and sound of the chair creaking mildly as a body shifted in it. Feet moved with deliberate movements across the carpeting. The sounds stilled for a moment. His breathing changed almost imperceptibly quicker.

Did he realize that I was no longer concentrating on the orchestra below us?

A moment later I had my answer.

There were the sounds of movement, deliberate and careful. I grabbed his wrist mid-reach. My eyes opened dropping to the hand that was no more than four inches from my shoulder. He almost touched me. I shifted my gaze to him. There was a flash of surprise on his face before his dark eyes were hooded and unreadable. I released his wrist and he drew his hand back.

Very slowly, cautiously I asked, "Is there something you want Mister Holmes?" The way he watched me, dark eyes completely solid and devoid of any discernible emotion or thought. The intensity of his gaze made my skin burn with embarrassment and something else I knew nothing about. I swallowed past the lump forming in my throat.

"Yes," his voice was strangely rough, "there is."

My breath caught. A sliver of anxious anticipation wormed its way down my spine.

In the blink of an eye the mood shifted, he leaned back in his chair, watching me with amusement, "What do you know of science Miss Edric?"

"Science?" I asked disbelieving that he actually wanted to speak with me on the subject. Not after what had just transpired. And yet…

Looking the slightest bit annoyed with me, "Yes Miss Edric. Science, what do you know of it?"

He really wanted to know. Disbelieving I felt my brow furrow with my confusion. Alright. Two could play at this game. Should I feign innocence and pretend to know nothing? Or should I… Dark eyes, so focused on me made me throw caution to the wind. "Is knowledge gained through experimentation and observation. Typically based on a hypothesis to prove or disprove a theory."

The silence was deafening.

Below us the music played on. I barely breathed, unable to understand why, why he was looking at me like that. Had I grown another head in the last few minutes? Wetting my lips, "Why do you ask?"

Simply, "Curiosity madam." He leaned forward just enough, dark eyes alight with an emotion I had no name for. "You," he murmured, "are a fascinating, distracting, anomaly."

Kiss me. The words were on my lips, my tongue weighed down with them. Kiss me Sherlock. I want you to. My heart ached with the desire to feel his mouth against mine. I was tempted, so very tempted to lean forward and press my lips to his. Oh. Oh. The swirling realization rallied the maelstrom of emotion that played havoc with my insides.

This wasn't simply a one sided attraction.

Between us the lightning cracked, nearly audible in magnitude.

"How do you do this to me?" I whispered to him, unable to stand not knowing anymore. I had to know. "You turn my senses upside down."

"I have been meaning to ask you the same thing," he replied almost breathlessly. "When you are in my line of sight I cannot begin to think properly." His dark brown eyes dropped to my mouth for half a heartbeat before they returned to meet my gaze.

Insides contracting, heart swelling, hope threatened to swallow me whole. Did he feel it too? This fire bolt that threatened to envelop me with every waking breath? I opened my mouth to ask but he was standing, a hand held out to me. Hesitantly I took it. Sherlock pulled me to my feet. This close to him I realized that he indeed towered over me. Dark eyes trailed over me. I shuddered, blushing. How did he make me feel as if he already knew what I looked like without clothing on?

One more his hand lifted and for a single heartbeat I thought he might cup my chin or neck. Instead he gently held aside the scratchy white lace. Intense brown eyes lowered from my face to the reddened irritated skin at my throat. I sucked in a sharp breath as the calloused pad of his thumb traced over the delicate, sensitive skin. If I had thought that I was exceedingly aware of him before I was sorely mistaken. Nothing compared to this heightened sense of everything that comprised Sherlock Holmes in that moment. I shivered completely unable to resist the way his touch sent delicious shivers across my skin. Parts of me tightened in anticipation. In desire.

I wanted this. I wanted it so badly I could almost-

As if to break the spell set upon us, the orchestra finished the symphony.

His hand dropped from my neck, his eyes left mine and shifted to somewhere over my shoulder. Sherlock drew away from me, one step back then another. The deeply intimate moment shattered by the cold wash of reality. One more step back. He turned away from me.

In my chest my heart seized, squeezing, clenching in anguish. "Don't," the word sounded choked, almost desperate on my lips. One of my hands reached out, halfway between us, "Don't…please." Don't leave me. Don't walk away from me. I want this.

For the space of several breaths both of us remained still. Him with his back to me, shoulders almost rigid. Me, watching, waiting, hoping for something, anything, to happen. I wanted this. I wanted him. All of him. Any of him. Whatever he was willing to give so long as we could… So long as we were…

Frustration, hot and sickly anxiety welled in the pit of my stomach. "Please," I whispered once more. Tried once more. He didn't look at me. Didn't turn around to see how much I wanted this. Him. Wracking my brain to find another way to regain his attention. "Sherlock," I pleaded, "please." Licking my lips, my mouth drying with every passing second, "Please don't walk away from me."

But he did just that. He brushed the curtain aside and walked out of the opera box without so much as looking back at me.

I grabbed hold of the back of the chair I had previously been sitting in to hold myself upright. My legs nearly gave out. Despair the likes of which I had never known before crashed through me. I pressed my other hand to my mouth to stifle the wail of agony that threatened to leave my mouth. I couldn't…no. I wouldn't cry. For several heartbreaking moments I stood there, one hand on the back of the chair the other pressed tightly against my mouth.

I had read about it so many times but never before did I experience it.

The agony of unrequited love.

Chapter 6: February 17th

The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot - Brand New

I Will Not Bow - Breaking Benjamin

Breath - Breaking Benjamin

Jessie's Girl - Glee Cast Version

Burning Up - Glee Cast Version

February 17, 1891

The following day I felt like something had evaporated all of my strength, my willpower and energy. I gave Mycroft an excuse that I barely remembered and took my morning meal in my room without him. All the better to give myself time to mull over the horrible mistake my heart had unconsciously made when it decided Sherlock Holmes was the one it desired above all others. I blamed last night's events on a bout of latent insanity. Or too many books.

Thankfully Sherlock had been nowhere to be found when I finally did exit the opera box. He left me the carriage, which I took back to the hotel. After what seemed like forever and a day I managed to get myself out of my dress, my constricting corset and layers upon layers of petticoats. My night gown never felt so wonderful or comforting as it did last night. Exhaustion took me almost before my head touched the pillow. Thankfully I hadn't dreamed.

I passed the mirror on the vanity for the umpteenth time today. And, for the umpteenth time I took note of how terrible I looked. "Bollocks," I told my reflection with a scowl. My hair remained unkempt, burnished copper gathered in a sloppy bun at the base of my neck, darkened semi-circles under my eyes. My skin looked sallow in the light from the lap and fire place. It wasn't yet night outside, but the sky had been solid with dark clouds when I woke and a storm had begun a downpour on London not ten minutes ago.

The windowpanes of the three great windows in my room shook in threatening as the winds battled with the rain. Lighting lit the curtains. I began to count. Thunder rolled, crashing down on London in an angry scream. Five seconds. The previous one had been seven seconds. Nine before that. The storm was getting closer. I shivered involuntarily and wrapped my arms around myself. I had no fear of storms, nor of rain per say. Thunder and lightning on the other hand were terrors in their own right. We'd lost three sheep once in a massive storm when I was a child. The stench was a memory in itself.

I had a healthy respect for the damage Mother Nature could inflict on the world.

Cautiously I backed away from the windows. My bottom bumped the vanity. There really wasn't anywhere for me to run or feel safe.

No one to hug and hold on to. Least of all my fiancé. He was gone in any case. Another meeting at parliament that required his attendance. I wondered how they managed to fare without him when he wasn't in London. Correspondence via telegraph or post really could not be considered sufficient. Could it?

The windows rattled once more. I swallowed hard and reminded myself of my father's words: The storm would wear itself out eventually. I would simply have to wait it out. Another angry snap of lighting and ear splitting boom of thunder. If I could have plastered myself against the wall I would have.

So much for my wallowing in self-pity.

Shaken I managed to finally work my hair up into a presentable. I had no more than pinned my hair into place when there was a forceful bang! bang! bang! on the door to my room. What could the hotel staff possibly want now? Somewhat annoyed I went to the door, unlocked it and yanked it open ready to give my husband-to-be the tongue lashing of his life. "I told you…" my voice caught in my throat, the words died on my lips.

The dark clothed figure standing in the hallway was not my fiancé. Faltering, a dozen different questions came to my mind. What are you doing here? Why did you leave me last night? Are you insane? Who do you think you are showing up at my door like this? Go away. Shock was the only thing that kept me from speaking. I stared at him standing there in the hallway, soaking wet from the rain outside, his coat dripped rain water on the wooden floor of the hallway.

Finally words passed my lips, "you shouldn't be here."

"No," he said, his voice harder than stone and rougher than porcupine needles. "I should not." They were world weary words, "And yet here I am." He had been standing there, half turned away from me so that I only saw his profile. When he turned toward me fully my heart jumped into my throat. Dark eyes glared out at me past bruises and swelling. Split lip and an angry looking welt on his chin.

Alarmed I was holding his face in my hands before I realized what I was doing. Gently tilting his head to the side to examine the damage. "What happened to you?" The tenderness in my own voice surprised me.

He stiffened instantly when my fingers pressed to his wounds. He didn't stop me, nor did he encourage me. Instead he stared steadfastly down at me, confusion and something else written across his bruised face. "…boxing," he mumbled.

I felt my brow furrow, "Boxing? At this time of the day?"

The way he looked at me told me that no, he had not been boxing today. Last night. He had gone boxing last night. He had taken this beating last night. This…did it…did this mean…

Hope, tenuous and fragile fluttered to life in my chest.

Water dripped from his coat to the toe of my shoe. I stepped back, "Come in, you're soaked through." I had no more than closed the door behind us when another crash of thunder sounded unexpectedly outside. Unprepared I jumped a little, hiccupping in terror.

Sherlock wheeled on me in something that sounded quite a bit like surprise, "You're frightened by the storm."

I looked down and away from him, embarrassment flamed across my face. "I've seen what lightning can do to a sheep." As if on cue another crashing boom roared through the sky. I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. Fingers clenched at my sides. Four seconds in-between. The storm was getting too close for my liking. "I'll be fine," I told him through clenched teeth.

Skeptically he watched me.

"You're mad for walking in that squall," I told him in an attempt to change the subject. "Get out of that before you catch your death of cold."

Surprisingly obedient he sloughed off the drenched black fabric and moved toward the fireplace. He hung the dripping coat on the corner of the fireplace silently. Orange-yellow light licked the dark purple bruises forming on this face.

My heart squeezed painfully. Part of me believed he deserved it. He'd nearly gutted me the previous night and now here he stood. A different part of me wondered if he had punished himself last night for leaving me the way he did. One small voice reminded me that I wanted him to touch me again. I didn't care where. Crushing all thoughts lest they bleed onto my face, "Mycroft isn't here."

A low, incensed chuckle escaped his mouth. It sent delicious sensations down my spine. "I'm not here to see my brother Miss Edric," he said in a rush, the words twining together so that I had to sort them out in my head. "I…" he pressed his lips together, forehead creasing, "Last night…" His gaze shifted away from me for a moment, "I should never have touched you without your permission."

But I wanted you to touch me! The protest was on the tip of my tongue before I had the consciousness to remind myself where telling him those things ended. I didn't think I could take it if he walked away from me again.

I closed my eyes and breathed out tempering my tongue lest it betray me again. That was all I needed. "It's f-" I began but the words died when a bright flash of lightning penetrated the heavy dark curtains, lighting the room for a brief moment. Before the light even faded thunder roared overhead ominous and threatening. I swallowed my assurances and backed up against the door.

Rationality told me that there was no reason to fear the lightning this far inside the hotel room as I was but fear knows no reason. Another loud crash bang, followed by another. There was no space between them now. My heart began to pound in my chest, fine thready tendrils of out-and-out terror found their way through my veins. Rooted to the ground, limbs frozen, shallow breaths.

Vaguely I heard someone call my name but I couldn't seem to tear my gaze from the curtained windows. The wind outside bellowed as yet another bout of raucous thunder resounded. The very walls seemed to vibrate with the power of it.

"Miss Edric," the same someone said.

I closed my eyes, digging my fingers into my palms. I missed my mother and the way she would pull me against her skirts whenever a storm of this magnitude would swarm outside the farm. I missed Rebecca who would murmur in French to me under the covers of my bed while storms would drench Donegal with summer rain. There would be no one to keep me sane now. No one to keep the fear from taking over.

Two hands, warm and larger than mine gripped my shoulders shaking me just enough to make me open my eyes. "Naoi," Sherlock Holmes' dark eyes filled to the brim with concern, searched my face. He stood in front of me his broad chest effectively blocking my view of the windows. "It's only a storm," he assured me quietly. Fingers squeezed my shoulders with the slightest amount of pressure. "Nothing more."

"I know that," my teeth chattered, another shudder rolling through my veins, over my skin. Goose-pimples broke out across my flesh. Baring my teeth at him a near feral snarl, "Don't you think that I know that?" I pushed against his chest with both of my hands, "Not all of us can bury our emotions under logic! Don't you think I know my fear is completely without rationality? I can't help it! I'm human! I-"

His mouth found mine and my outburst died mid-sentence. My fingers fisted in his wet shirt, curling the damp material unable to push him away, knowing that I should. The kiss was gentle, almost reassuring and sweet. Sherlock's hands moved with agonizing slowness over my shoulders, up my neck, one cupped my face while the other released the pin that held my hair up. Fingers delved into my loose hair, massaging my scalp, mouth moving over mine.

My insides felt like melting butter. The spark of hope in my chest burst into a cheery fire that warmed me to my toes. He wanted me. He wanted me. I sighed with joy when he pulled back just enough to allow us both to take in deep breaths.

"You," he murmured, lips barely brushing mine, breath caressing my cheek, "are a most infuriating woman." His mouth came down on mine once more and I gave myself over to the swirling river of sheer need that he seemed to stir inside me. Something inside him called to a corresponding part of me, it beckoned, dared. I gave myself over to the feeling pressing into him, against the lean planes of his body in an urgent need to touch and be touched. To hold and be held. It was as though there was something inside Sherlock that had been missing from me for what seemed like an eternity. And I would do anything to have it back even for a single moment.

The urgency of our kisses intensified to a hungry, devouring need that left us both shaken in its wake. This time when we both pulled away, I was not the only one left panting. We stood there for several very long moments, looking at each other as if it were the very first time we had ever seen one another.

My lips felt pleasantly swollen, my chin slightly irritated from the scruff of his unkempt stubble. "Oh," I said.

"Oh indeed," Sherlock murmured in return.

My heart pounded in my chest, blood rushed in my ears. His hands on me lit every inch of my skin afire. A small voice inside me reminded me that this man was not my intended. I squashed it like an annoying bug. I would not feel guilty for this. I will not feel guilty for finally doing what I want.

With his thumb and index finger Sherlock gently tipped my face upward, his eyes searching mine cautiously, "The storm isn't over."

The double meaning was not lost on me. Gently I reached up and brushed my fingers over the broken, bruised skin just under his left eye, "I know."

Somewhere above the hotel thunder crashed once more, but unlike the last few times it wasn't quite as powerful. Seven seconds passed between that and the next clash. The storm was moving on thankfully. I breathed a sigh of relief and pressed my forehead against his chest.

Just as he had before, Sherlock went stiff, his arms rigid, hands no longer compassionate in their soothing.

Had I done something wrong? I pulled back suddenly fearful that I'd aggravated a wound that I couldn't see. "I'm sorry," I said instantly pressing my hand carefully against the area above his breastbone. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

Sherlock caught my hand against his chest and held it in place with a grip I could have easily broken if I wanted to. A strange emotion entered his eyes as he looked down at me. "You didn't."

"Oh," I whispered, "then why…"

He released me much the way he had last night. Backing away several steps until there was so much air and space between us it felt as if we had not been holding one another only moments ago.

A warm creeping flush of pleasant warmth spread over my skin. Once more parts of me I had never paid any previous attention to tightened in the most delicious way. My heart nearly beat its way out of my chest and my pulse raced so quickly I thought I might pass out. None of those things managed to garner my attention. All of them were overshadowed by one simple thought:

He kissed me. Not once, not twice but several times. Sherlock Holmes kissed me. My lips still tingled from the press of his. Fingers still cool from the dampness of his shirt strayed to my bruised, swollen lips. He kissed me and I kissed him back. A giddy, girlish giggle erupted from the back of my throat. I coughed in an attempt to disrupt it before it ever left my mouth. That was all I needed.

"You have an uncanny ability to make me forget myself," his mild accusation came out in a rough desire laden rasp that sent a thrill of excitement through my body.

I took in a shaky breath, unable to calm the pounding of my heart. Did I have the same effect on him that he had on me? This all powerful, overwhelming storm that swallowed me whole. Did he understand? "I don't mean to," the assurance barely more than a whisper from my mouth. "I don't mean to," I repeated in a stronger voice.

Soulful brown eyes watched me, taking in what I could only imagine a detective might see.

Self-consciously I touched my hair attempting to tame the coppery locks into some semblance of tame. There was nothing I could do about the mild rash his stubble had caused on my skin nor the swelling of my lips. Time would take care of those. My hair stuck to my fingers as I broke away from his gaze to search vainly for the pin he had removed. When I couldn't find it I went to the vanity to retrieve another. Without meaning to I caught my own reflection in the mirror.

I have never considered myself pretty let alone attractive. My nose is slightly wide with a bulb on the tip instead of a point. The sharpness of my cheekbones is only tempered by the overlarge, deep set ovals of my eyes. Long, eyelashes that were a shade or two lighter than my hair. A high-ish forehead that was supposed to boast intelligence. A sharp jaw that drew attention to round cheeks. A lower lip too full that just barely offset the thinner upper lip and the deep cupid's bow. My face, a contradiction in terms.

Though it was not so much my face that drew my attention but the way that I looked. The pupils of my blue-grey eyes – now more blue than grey – were dilated giving me a wide eyed expression. My lips remained full and tingled from his kisses. A delicate blush laced across my cheeks, staining even my pale freckles a warmer brown. The burnished copper halo of my hair glowed in the firelight. I looked…

Wanton. The word came unbidden to my mind. Appropriate though. I looked wanton. Like a mistress might after spending lustful hours in the bed with her lover.

The correlation to my current situation did not pass me by.

The gravity of the situation chose that exact moment to slap me into waking reality. I was alone with a man that was not my intended. A man that I was attracted to, that I longed for with such intensity that it both frightened and excited me. I had been kissing my fiancé's brother. My conscience which had been silent until now screamed at me with venom.

He shouldn't be here!

Guilt cloying at my insides, welling until I swallowed sickly sour regret. The blush of my cheeks became the burn of embarrassment. The tips of my ears heated.

Quickly I grabbed a pin and refastened my hair into a bun at the base of my neck. "You should go," I told him hastily. I didn't want him to leave but reason and self-reproach told me if I didn't this could spill over into a dangerous territory. I could not, would not, begin an illicit relationship with my brother-in-law.

He isn't your brother-in-law yet. A soft, almost too patient part of my mind reminded me.

A frustrated sound erupted from my lips. Even my mind was at odds with itself. One moment telling me to push him away the next to pull him closer and never let go. Glaring at myself in the mirror did nothing but stoke my annoyance.

The lack of movement in the visible area reflected in the vanity though I could see him perfectly. Sherlock had turned his back on me and was instead staring into the orange and yellow glowing warmth of the fire with tense shoulders. Had he been watching my internal struggle? Ridiculous question, of course he did. His inquisitive nature would never have let him ignore it even if I had tried my damnedest to hide it from him.

"Sherlock, you should go," I repeated, speaking to the back of his reflection more than him. I didn't think my resolve to make him leave would last should he turn the full force of those soulful dark eyes on me. If I could keep myself from actually looking at him then mayhap my heart would stop its incessant pounding. Mayhap my insides would settle themselves. My head might stop spinning.

I am, after all, only human.

Paramours. He'd had them, a fair share of them in fact. Forty three years tended to usher all types into one's life. Women, as he had found, had their uses. By far it was the women of the world that turned his attention to some of the most interesting of cases. He would have liked those of the female persuasion much more if only they could hold their emotions in line. Female temperaments tended to hinge on the simple twist of words. The motives of women were multi-layered sentiments built on quicksand.

How did one shift their attitude, their very thinking, on a whim?

He would never know.

Thus there was only one woman whom he respected though he could not trust her. The woman. She was lovely as she was dangerous. Cunning. Beautiful. And above all things, Irene was interesting.

"You should go."

Correction, Sherlock thought mildly, there were two women he did not trust. Though this one frustrated him to the point of madness. She was infuriating. Aggravating. Irritating. Intriguing. To say the very least. He had a list of words that came to mind when he thought of his brother's wife-to-be. And, just when he was sure that she would drive him to the brinks of insanity with shy eyes and careful glances, she surprised him once again.

It wasn't unheard of for women to be terrified of thunderstorm, but to actually see it written on a face he was beginning to grow fond of… What had possessed him to kiss her? Not once but several times. In succession. Sherlock stared at the fire recalling the picture of her still perfect, still potent in his mind's eye. Errant strands of coppery red hair fraying from the air's humidity, working their way away from the pin holding everything together. Lips parted temptingly. Eyes wide, fearful but strangely devoid of tears.

It would have been easy enough to blame his reaction on her tears.

Against the wall she had seemed so very small. Not frail, not slight, but small. Certainly not child like. Perhaps a little bit like a doll with eyes so wide and skin paled until only her freckles and the deep intake of panicked breaths gave hint that she was in fact alive.

He had called her name unsuccessfully several times before resorting to a new tactic to calm her. Shaking her did nothing but serve to make her angry.

The strangest thing, at least in his mind, was that she knew that her fear was completely irrational. She had shouted it at him. She knew there was no logic behind her terror and still it took her mind and body with a sharpened frenzy. Because she was human. Her reasoning, not his.

None of that explained what had possessed him to press his mouth to hers.

He couldn't use lack of sleep as an explanation. Sleep was one of the few things he had been getting regularly. Perhaps too much sleep was the issue. The lack of adequate cases as well. Perhaps his infatuation with a woman he knew legitimately he could not have was simply his mind's attempt at thwarting stagnation. Mild infatuation. Mild.

Mild.

"Sherlock," she murmured softly, slowly, pulling his attention back to her eyes, her face, her copper colored hair that had spilled through his fingers like water. "You should go."

Had any woman, even the woman, ever said his name quite like that? If they had he could not remember it. Though he was sure he would have if he could have. Despite his best attempts at forgetting things that held no real value, he remembered every word this woman had said to him. Remembered ever reaction this woman expressed in his presence. Every nuance, every glance, even if none of them were directed at him.

She was right. He should go but somehow he could not make himself leave. Not when he knew his presence made her breath quicken. Not when he knew that she was as acutely aware of him as he was of her. Not for all the jewels in the Tower of London could he make his feet move toward his hanging coat. Even if he couldn't he was not quite sure that he would. Leaving her the previous night had taken him The Punchbowl and driven him into meaty fists that bruised both his ego and his body.

He wasn't exactly sure why he had come here in any case. He was fairly sure that last night – while dodging several blows from a man nearly twice his height and weight – that he had told himself pointedly not to be alone with this woman ever again. Yet here he was. Once again alone with her. This time having kissed her and found that her lips, her kiss, was nothing short of intoxicating.

She piqued his curiosity more than she should. In his mind the study of all things that comprised Naoi Edric was an appealing subject. One that he intended to explore until he was thoroughly satisfied with whatever knowledge he would obtain.

"Have you seen much of London?" He asked finally, ignoring both of her orders, or were they requests, to leave her.

On the other side of the room she was silent.

Sherlock turned his attention on her. A surge of masculine pride welled inside him when he once more took in the faint flush of her skin, her bruised lips and mussed hair that she vainly attempted to tame with pins.

"I don't suppose that you have," he continued without waiting for her answer. "My brother was never one to venture any further than he is required to." Frankly he was surprised Mycroft ventured out at all. The idea of Mycroft bringing his fiancé from Chichester all the way to London was simply unfathomable.

Mary, and to some extent Watson, assure him that love tended to bring out the best in a man. From what Sherlock had garnered about Mycroft's impending marriage neither participant loved the other. Mycroft had stated plainly that he was going to be fifty years of age. It was time he took a wife. It made sense to marry his neighbor's eldest daughter and the dowry of two able bodied horses added to the deal.

"No," she said finally, her voice unsure, eyes unreadable as she watched him warily. "I haven't." Her mouth opened slightly then closed biting back words. A question if he guessed correctly. Her brow had drawn together just the moment before. Indicators of a question. Whatever that came to her mind was swallowed back. Her blue-gray eyes shifting away from him then back again. "Why?"

Why should he care? He shouldn't. But that was neither here nor there. "I know of a number of places throughout the city that you might enjoy visiting."

The sharp, reproachful look she gave him did not shock him quite as much as her next set of words, "Your bedroom being one of those places I suppose."

"Of course not," Sherlock replied while attempting to, and failing at, hiding his amusement. "Though if your greatest desire is to look on sofas and animal skin rugs I might be persuaded to shepherd you toward a used furniture store."

The corners of her mouth quirked upward at the same time her eyes brightened. "Somehow I honestly believe that." The rigidity of her shoulders released slightly while a slow smile crept its way across her lips. "Where did you have in mind Mister Holmes?"

"Tell me," he said as he retrieved his more or less dried coat, "have you ever been to a circus?"

Chapter 7: February 18th

Saviour - Rise Against

Careless Whisper - Seether

Lips of an Angle - Hinder

Better than Me - Hinder

February 18, 1891

The inner workings of Sherlock's mind must reflect the upkeep of his room.

Organized chaos were the first words that came to mind. After being warned that everything was in the place it should be and that I should not touch anything I was left to stand in the middle of the room, my hat and coat in my hands. There were several things that struck me at once.

One that he had cluttered nearly every flat surface and then some.

Two the room smelled wonderfully like him, tobacco, liquor, paper, and something that was entirely him.

Three there was no bed.

Certainly there were furnishings; two chairs, a sofa and a large animal rug, several tables, bookcases and the like. Still. It struck me as ever so odd. There was no bed. He hadn't lied. He had no bed on which to sleep. Of course he had never actually stated that he had no bed, he had simply implied the idea. I would put money on the notion that he slept on the rug and not the sofa.

Having slept on the floor more than once in my life made my back ache in sympathy.

"You're early," he told me grumpily around a mouth full of food.

"It's eleven in the morning," I replied while attempting to remind myself that he was not quite as patient as I. Or as much of a morning person. After a cup of tea and a decent breakfast I can attempt to be civil. Most mornings anyway. Biting back a sigh, "You told me that you wanted to show me something."

The annoyed expression he wore evaporated. He bit into a piece of toast from the tray. "I hadn't expected the day to start so early." At least it wasn't a denial.

Men. I sighed and put my hat on once more, "I will come back in an hour then. Perhaps you'll be in a better mood." I was about three feet from the door when he gripped my wrist and tugged me backward. I landed with my back to his chest. It must have been my imagination, but his heart seemed to race as quickly as mine.

The maelstrom his presence induced came to life in my chest the very instant he touched me. My heart began to kick against my rips, delicious flames of emotion and desire licking through my veins. I breathed in sharply, a thrill of anticipation washing over me. I fought back a shiver and failed miserably. Hands, warm and the slightest bit rough trailed up my arms whispering against the cotton sleeves of my dress. I all but closed my eyes and gave in when a creaking upon the floor boards elsewhere shook me back to reality.

The door to his room stood open as it had when I entered. "Sherlock…," I whispered, my voice throaty, "the door."

Instantly he let go of me and stepped back as if my touch burned him.

His reactions were very much the same since yesterday. Since he kissed me and I kissed him back. We were treading a thin line between illicit affair and whatever an illicit affair's mundane equivalent might be. The very moment I became sure the line was about to be blurred out completely was the same moment one of us or both of us came to our senses. Teetering back and forth would begin to get us into trouble sooner or later.

More likely sooner rather than later.

For now though I could be content enough to examine his chaotic room instead of paying further attention to the mild frustration left in the wake of another spoiled moment. The raging tempest in my chest refused to subside however. Awoken by his presence it would not be dismissed, instead choosing to simmer, almost quietly with the barest flicker every now and again.

Seeking a distraction, any distraction, I began to take in my surroundings.

Organized chaos.

He had a great many papers, I would give him that, and a number of maps, some marked some unmarked. Paintings adorned the wall and a strangely shattered bust of what looked like Napoleon Bonaparte sat on the desk next to a window. A great many books lay piled or shelved, dusty with worn spines. An oversized book with pictures of faces open on a stand with bold blackened writing that labeled each page. A bronze weighing scale hanging from the ceiling. A gold snuffbox that looked somewhat tarnished. An area half curtained off with a table inside. No doubt a bed should have gone there. It didn't however. Instead there was table that looked to hold more books, more papers, and a large globe of the world. Another bookcase. A music stand with music sheets. A violin.

"You play the violin," I said unable to hold in the curiosity the object sparked. My father taught me to play a fiddle decently enough though I would admit I sounded better with my brothers and father playing alongside.

"A Stradivarius," he said absently around a mouth full of toast, while eyeing a letter. "Yes." He turned the letter over muttering something unintelligible under his breath before setting it down.

"A case?" I asked nodding at the letter.

However he wasn't looking at me and clearly misinterpreted, "No it doesn't have a case."

I hid my smile, "I meant the letter."

That seemed to catch his full attention. Dark eyes, contemplative and curious turned upward. After searching my face for two or three heartbeats, "Does it matter?"

No. Not really. "Are you the only one allowed to be curious? Am I not permitted to satisfy mine?"

The smirk that curved at the corners of his mouth, adorable, flirtatious and suggestive all at the same time. It made my heart skip a beat. I dragged in a shuttering breath, one that sent the other corner of his mouth upward quickly. Dark eyes alight with an enticingly dangerous promise narrowed in on my parted lips before returning to my face.

Silently he held out the letter to me.

Grateful to drop his gaze I took the blue paper with loopy black lettering. Reading over the contents I found that a Mister Jasper Greenwood of Liverpool seemed to have lost his daughter, Patricia. The seventeen year old girl had been gone six days by this point and the police had found nothing. Mister and Missus Greenwood were at their wits end and they were willing to pay double for Sherlock to take the case.

"No need to worry for the girl Miss Edric," Sherlock told me. "The young Miss Greenwood ran away with her music instructor."

I cast a careful glance at him, "How can you be sure?"

He flipped the letter over in my hands and directed my gaze to the line that read, "Patricia had been practicing the cello with her instructor until he took his leave for Paris several days ago." Sherlock tapped the same area of the paper twice with his index finger, "I've no doubt the young Miss Greenwood will return to her parents with a wedding ring and a husband in a few days if she has not already."

I handed him back the letter while he attempted to straighten out his twisted suspenders. He was failing miserably at it. "Oh will you stop that," I glowered at him while he failed to unwind his suspenders. Patiently I took the red material and unwound it soundly before letting go, "Here now. Better?" Allowing myself a small, self-satisfied smile I added, "Paris is an awfully long way to run just to elope.

"The city of lights and love," Sherlock replied pinning me with his soulful dark eyes once more. "What city would be more appropriate for an elopement?"

Swallowing thickly I turned my head away. The thunderous storm of emotions roared back to life in my chest. A flush of excitement and embarrassment colored my skin, heating my face, "I suppose you are right."

In an effort to calm my racing heart I redoubled my effort to examine his room. I shouldn't have. To say that the desk nearest the tea table was cluttered would have been a grievous understatement. However none of the items upon it held my attention quite the way the red velvet photo case and the picture inside it did. I picked up the photograph gingerly, holding it almost as if it were a snake that might bite me. "She's very pretty."

Sherlock, who had been in the middle of tying a cravat around his throat, stopped moving. He spun on his heel faster than I might have thought he could move. He said nothing; his mouth formed a thin, flat line. He moved closer to me and took the photograph from my hands without a word. For a single breath he looked at the picture, sharp, inquisitive eyes tracing the lines of the woman's face. Then he set the frame back down on the desk where it had been before.

Inside my chest my heart wrenched painfully. Why did I feel like crying? I forced myself to turn my head away. I haven't cried in years, I would not start now over such a trivial thing. I would not. It was perfectly commonplace for him to have had other women in his life before me and no doubt there will be women after me. I am no more a permanent fixture in his life than he will be in mine.

A sour churn of my stomach had me turning away from him yet again. My eyes fell on another controversial object. One that worried me enough to make me look at him once more. He was only just buttoning up his waist coat.

Feigning stupidity, or was it naiveté? "What is the purpose of that?"

Sherlock looked up as he finished with the last button. "A cocaine needle," he replied in the least interested way possible. He fished his coat off the back of one chair and donned it, "But you knew that."

My face reddened with embarrassment and just a little guilt. "How did you know?"

"You wouldn't have asked otherwise." The simplest answer in the world. "I haven't taken a single dose of morphine or cocaine since we've met." He told me quietly. Softly. Reverently.

I turned a startled, almost disbelieving expression on him.

Sherlock's mouth tilted with half a smile, "A single argument with you madam is far better than a thousand doses of any drug."

Blushing from head to toe, unable to stop the stupidly contented grin that crossed my face, "Where is this place you said we were going again?"

"A short walk from here." He stuck out his elbow to me, finally meeting my eyes with his own darkly mischievous brown ones, "shall we?"

The weather had warmed since our trip to Piccadilly Circus yesterday. That had been more of a walk, with the ground wet from the storm and people venturing back out once the skies had cleared. Yesterday I had walked with my hands tucked into a warmer as we went. Today they were gloved and wrapped around his forearm. A much appreciated improvement.

"No giraffes?" I asked in a continuing attempt to discern where it was we were going.

"None." He replied thwarting yet another guess. "We're almost there."

A squawk from a crow caught my attention. I paused, casting my gaze upward at the black birds flying overhead.

Beside me Sherlock stopped as well, "What is it?"

"Birds," I told him. I turned my head toward him and smiled, "I was wondering what it feels like to fly." I spread my arms out, hands instantly cold without his warmth to keep them. "Can you imagine it? The wind beneath your wings, soaring high as you'd like as fast as you would like? The rush of the air against your skin?"

The corners of his mouth curled upward, not a smile but close enough as he watched me.

I blushed ducking my head. "My imagination runs away with me occasionally."

"I've no objection to it." Sherlock held out his elbow to me once again. "Though I would like to get underway. The longer we wait the more crowded our destination will become."

I took his arm squeezing it just a little. "Are you going to tell me where we are going?"

"You'll see," he told me with a quirk of his lips.

Another few blocks and we stopped. I looked up at the sign over the wide dark wood doorway and curtained bay windows. "Madame Tussauds?" Surely he hadn't brought me to a brothel of all places. No. That was silly. A house of ill repute would not have a ticket master outside. Would it?

I cast about for an idea of where exactly we were. Marylebone Road. Large white brick house. Busy street.

Sherlock paid the man standing at the podium without answering me, "Two."

"Ye kin join the tour formin' just there if ye like, or go in on yer own." The man told Sherlock while handing him change.

A tour. He was taking me on a tour of this house. "What is this place?" I asked as we went up the stairway and through the heavy wooden double doors. He said nothing. Instead he led me through the gas lit hallway in front of us. The first thing that struck me was that this house was cold. More so than the February air outside. I shivered, leaning closer to him for warmth. "It's freezing in here."

"They have to keep it cold," Sherlock told me with a crooked sort of smile on his face. "The models would melt otherwise."

Models? We turned a corner and understanding struck me. I let go of his arm to get a better look at the life like statues lining the wall on the right. Flesh colored paint, glass eyes, hair that was no doubt a horse's at some point or another, standing almost naturally in period clothing. I turned back to Sherlock. "A wax work?"

Looking extremely pleased with himself, "I thought you might like it."

For someone who had only met me scant days ago he certainly knew me well enough. I did not know whether I should find that alarming or endearing. "I do." And I truly did.

Each room was a different period. I stood next to a rather gruesome reenactment of a beheading in France and marveled at the detail of each wax figure in the 'Chamber of Horrors.' The guillotine picked up the gas lights, shining ominously. The fear written on the face of the man face down, head over a basket as the hooded executioner locked the wooden frame felt all too real. I shivered, morbidly curious and infinitely saddened.

We moved on.

"How did you hear of this museum?" I asked as we passed from the Tudor era with life sized depictions of King Henry the Eighth, his wives and mistresses to the Elizabethan era. An ornate, massive throne with an almost larger than life Queen Elizabeth the First dominated the room. I would pay a great deal of money to be able to understand how precisely the former queen had moved in that dress. It looked as if it weighed more than she did. Perhaps that was what all of those attendants were for.

"It was located on Baker Street until the end of 1884." Sherlock told me as he studied one of the many Lords that stood on a short platform behind a velvet rope. "They have a certain technique to the molding. Extremely accurate recreation of bone structure."

Various rooms held a photographer who offered to take our picture together for a fee. Sherlock declined unceremoniously and without asking if I'd like one. Not that I would have. I gave him a questioning look, silently asking 'why not?'

"I avoid taking pictures," Sherlock murmured to me as we ascended the stairs to the area labeled 'Current Era.'

"That makes sense." I said, because it did. At least to me. "It's much harder to identify someone if you don't have a proper picture of them."

He stopped at the top of the stairs, staring down at me as if I had two heads and naught but a nose on either. Dark eyes searched my face, once, twice, three times before his brow creased. With confusion or deep thought I wouldn't know.

I blinked up at him, "Is something wrong?"

"…nothing," he told me softly, very softly, "nothing."

We turned into one room and found we that had caught up with the tour. Or the tour had caught up with us. Sherlock lead me near the fair sized grouping while the tour guide explained the scene before us. A man in black, dark hair, glass eyes standing on a podium, forever frozen as another man placed a noose around his neck.

"Lord Blackwood was originally executed in the beginning of November in front of a trial of his peers," The tour guide told the group. "Later it was believed he rose from his grave to commit three more murders. As was discovered by Detective Lestrade of Scotland Yard with the aide of Sherlock Holmes and his associates, the original execution was a ruse. Lord Blackwood eventually died approximately a week later. Hanged from the Tower Bridge."

Sherlock leaned down to whisper near my ear, "Misrepresentation of facts."

I opened my mouth to ask what exactly did he mean by 'misrepresentation' when the tour's Guide continued. "The two empty spots here and there," he pointed to two empty areas just to the left of the wax work depiction of Lord Blackwood. "Are reserved for London's most famous detective. We have sent multiple requests to him to stand for a cast and sculpting. Unfortunately the detective is busy helping those less fortunate. Moving on."

A giggle escaped my mouth. I pressed a few fingers to my lips attempting to stifle any more should they come. He turned a raised eyebrow to me. I couldn't help it. A fresh batch of giggles bubbled to life in my chest barely smothered by the clamp of my lips and the press of my hand against my mouth. The corner of Sherlock's lips quirked upward at one corner with private amusement. We stayed much after the tour moved on to the next room. How Sherlock managed a stoic demeanor while I was forced to bury my face in his shoulder to keep from cackling like a mad woman I will never know.

"I won't stand for a photograph," he told me softly once my laughter had quieted, "what makes them think I would stand to have a wax model made?"

We paused in front of the empty spot so that I could read and reread the sign. The reserved label on the wooden stand read: Sherlock Holmes.

I was able to keep a straight face until the count or five and then I couldn't help it. I began to laugh again. "Not everyone is quite as brilliant as you are," I told him through chuckles. The way he looked at me then, the bright shine of his internal laughter mixed with what looked like awe and…oh… My heart began to pound out a beat that felt like a thousand horses thundering inside my chest.

A tanned hand, blunt dexterous fingers tucking a stray tuft of copper hair behind one of my ears. "Why do you fascinate me?" He murmured softly, almost absently.

"I do not know," I told him honestly as I turned my head to plant a chaste kiss on his palm. In response he touched my cheek gently, his fingertips tracing delicate, mindless patterns. "How do you send my senses reeling the way you do?"

His smile returned, genuine delight shining through for a single moment before he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to mine in a slow burning kiss that seared my very soul. He tasted spicy like bourbon and tobacco and something underneath that encompassed everything that was Sherlock. The scrape of his stubble sent shivers of anticipation over my skin and down my spine. Hands found my waist, fingers burning through the tight corset as he pulled me scandalously closer until my body fit up against his. Teeth nipped gently at my lower lip, tugging insistently.

Obliging I opened my mouth unsure of what he wanted. The flick of his tongue against mine sent the tempest in my chest spiraling to new heights. My arms wound around his neck of their own accord to pull him closer, as close as he could possibly get. Delicious glowing warmth heated and pooled in the lower parts of my body. I moaned against his lips unable to contain the desires spawned by his mouth on mine.

Sherlock groaned in response his tongue circled mine coaxing me into a wickedly sensual dance that left me breathless and quaking when we finally broke for air. His forehead pressed against mine, fingers flexing against my hips once, twice, three times. His breath caressed my cheeks as he raggedly whispered, "Naoi."

My heart fluttered at the sound of it. If I had only been half in love with him before I was certain to fully lose my heart now. I slid my fingers into his messy dark hair, "Sherlock."

For the space of a dozen heartbeats he said nothing, only held me tightly.

"I am boxing tonight," he told me, pressing another kiss to my lips.

"Can I come and watch?" I asked hopefully wishing he would say yes.

His eyes opened, he pulled back just slightly, pinning me with hooded dark eyes, "Would you like to?"

A sudden feeling of shyness overtook me. I retracted my arms awkwardly though I didn't break his grip on my waist. "I like boxing," I told him honestly. I did. After having nine brothers I had a fair taste for fighting. I liked a good brawl as much as the next person. "But if you would prefer I didn't…"

An emotion I couldn't name flitted across his face for half an instant. It was gone before he spoke again. His hands extracted themselves from my waist. Sherlock's stoic, almost bored demeanor returned once more. "We should move on to the next display."

Slightly confused, somewhat angry and annoyed on several different levels I followed the half-mad detective on to the next room in the waxwork museum. My heart's folly was going to cost me dearly at some point or another. Of that I had no doubt.

Chapter 8: February 18th& Morning February 19th

Complicated - Avril Lavigne

Losing Grip - Avril Lavigne

Gravity - AudioVent

The Energy - AudioVent

February 18, 1891

I did not understand this man in the slightest. In public he was outwardly cold with nearly intolerable mannerisms. Between friends and his family he was full of sarcasm, dry humor and an awkward approach to his relationships. In private with me he showed barely restrained passion. Sherlock Holmes was a deep well of emotions hidden beneath and behind layers of his thorny personality.

And I was falling completely, totally and irrevocably in love with each and every part of him.

If that made me a wicked woman then so be it. I am wicked.

Curling my arm around his we walked through rising yellow fog that turned the streetlamps hazy and gave the moon an unnaturally dull hue. Sherlock insisted that he knew exactly where we were going despite the length of time it was taking to get there and that I should be patient or else. I asked what exactly it was that he meant by 'or else.' Before the words ever finished coming out of my mouth I ended up against a cold slab of brick wall with an overzealous mouth moving over mine and a rash on my chin from his stubble.

Despite the frigid February air I felt warm. The tips of my nose and ears were pink by the time Sherlock lead me into The Punchbowl. I raised my eyebrows at the name of the establishment. He gave me a knowing, cocky grin in return.

A wall of heat the likes of which I thought could only be achieved during the summer months hit me the moment the door opened. A moment later the smell of blood, sweat, body odor, stale beer and I didn't want to guess what else hit me square on the nose. Raucous laughter of others, the clink of bottles and glasses as the barmaids went about the work. The bookie taking bets. Flies buzzing lazily through the stale air. Sherlock advised me to breathe through my mouth if the stink began to get to me as he lead the way through the jeering throng of men and women.

Sherlock placed a bet with a man in a tan bowler hat and matching coat.

A large man that smelled heavily of liquor and stale beer attempted to throw his arms around me. I shoved him back, "Bloody hell get off me!"

He grinned sloppily at me muttering in a rough, slurred cockney, "Give us a kiss darlin'."

My brothers taught me well. I jabbed the man in the nose with my right fist. The drunken bloke fell back grabbing his face. I glared at him and straightened my dress. A moment later the mad detective pulled me away laughing his head off. I shot a mean look at him as well. "I have survived living with several brothers. Do not tempt me."

Sherlock flashed me a look that near sent my knickers on fire. "Wouldn't dream of it."

Finally we reached the wall of the ring, wooden, peeling whitewash paint with two men inside a gravel filled ring promptly beating the living daylights out of one another. Approximately three seconds later a large burly half naked man slammed into the wall. A pink tinged gob of sweat, saliva, blood and I didn't want to wonder at what else flew scant inches past my dress. I took a very cautious step backward.

"No need to be afraid Miss Edric," Sherlock yelled to me over the din.

I stepped closer to him using him as a partial shield. "It isn't fear," I yelled back at him. "I don't want to ruin a good dress."

"I am sure my brother can afford another one."

I scowled at him darkly, annoyed at the mention of my portly, lazy fiancé. "I am here with you, not him. Please do me the courtesy of not mentioning…stop laughing at me!" Incensed, I crossed my arms over my chest while glaring at him. If only looks could kill.

Sherlock leaned toward me and murmured roughly in my ear, "Did you know that when you grow angry your cheekbones and neck turn an endearing shade of red?"

Embarrassment and something akin to happiness fluttered through me. My skin flushed in response, heating my face, my neck and the top of my breasts. Not that he could see the latter. The collar of my dress settled at the base of my neck. There wasn't much of my skin for him to see beyond face, neck and hands. Not that he seemed at all bothered by this.

The burly man that had hit the wall downed the smaller blonde he had been fighting. The blonde man on the ground had to be helped up and carried out. He bled profusely from either his lips or his nose. His right cheek looked smashed beyond recognition and I'm fairly sure that his right eye was swollen shut.

I was also aware that this should have seemed barbaric to me. It was not. "There look to be no rules in this match," I said once the clamor eased enough so that I didn't have to yell.

"Correct madam," Sherlock told me as he began to peel off his clothing one article at a time, "There are none."

Oh. Dear. Lord. Oh. Oh.

I will admit that I have seen a man shirtless before. Each man, however, was a family member. A brother or my father. And just now those two men in the ring beating each other to mushy pulps. Not a man I was remotely involved with. Never a man that I was romantically inclined to desire the way I desired Sherlock Holmes. I had approximately ten seconds to decide if I should turn my head or watch. I chose a bit of both. Not that he seemed to mind that either. Lean muscle both distinctive and visually stunning held my gaze as each cluster bunched and flexed through his movements. For a man of three and forty, he was a near perfect male specimen.

He foisted each piece of clothing at me as it was removed, seeming increasingly amused as my previously pink tinged face grew increasingly red with embarrassment.

"Miss Edric?" I was in no way imagining the laughter that tainted his voice.

"Forgive me. I'm not used to this level of," a crashing bang so thunderous I thought the heavens had fallen for one moment sounded somewhere nearby thus supporting my fib. "Noise," I finished after the sound was gone though the echoes of it made my teeth clench. It really wasn't so much of a lie by that point.

"I see," Sherlock said this time far less amused than previously. "Might I ask something of you Miss Edric?"

I peeked at him from the corner of my eye, "Of course Mister Holmes."

"Do not be alarmed." With that he vaulted over the side of the wooden ring and stood in all his half naked glory as a man at least twice Sherlock's height entered the ring as well.

Do not be alarmed! He'll be killed!

I cast about for someone, anyone to talk some sense into the mad-man my heart was set on loving. Of course there was no one. Each person I saw had a ticket stub and they were either cheering, jeering or drinking. It wasn't until after the first punch that I realized something very important that my escort had forgotten to mention. Those bruises he had been adorned with a few days ago were clearly out of the ordinary.

Sherlock, it seemed, was adept at boxing.

February 19, 1891 (Just after midnight)

The water in the bowl grew unpleasantly pink with every turn the towel took being dipped and wrung before returning to pressing to Sherlock's cuts and bruises. Gently dabbing at a spot just under his right collar bone, "Are you saying that you purposely allowed him to hit you in order to beat him?"

He grunted a noncommittal sound and took another swig of his foul smelling beer.

Rolling my eyes at him seemed only to give me a mild head ache. I refrained, instead choosing to pinch just above a small bleeding cut. As expected his gaze shifted from the peeling white wash painted walls of his room above the Punchbowl to me.

"Yes," he said without offering any more of an explanation.

That, as they say, was the final straw. I yanked the towel away from his bloodied skin and dropped into his lap. "You say I am infuriating? You! You run hot and cold! One moment you kiss me and I think that you honestly want me. The way you look at me sometimes, the things you say…" Made me think that he did want to be with me just as much as I wanted to be with him.

He wore that half smile, looking for the entire world like an adorably mischievous, pleased little boy. "The things I say?" He prompted, one eye brow cocked.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek reminding myself that I had been angry just a moment ago. Fighting a smile, "You find me intriguing."

"That I do madam," Sherlock told me his voice dropping just enough to spawn shivers that danced down my spine like chorus dancers.

"And I am," I paused remembering the way he had said it, the way he had looked when he said it, "a fascinating, distracting, anomaly."

His smile turned warmer beginning to lift at the other side as well, "That you are Miss Edric."

My heart skipped a beat as he stood but somehow I could not stop myself, "When I am in your line of sight you have trouble thinking properly."

Dark eyes, soulful and filled to the brim with a heat that both scared and excited me, "True. What else?"

I licked my lips, my heart jumping when his eyes dipped to watch before returning my gaze. I took a very cautious step back suddenly feeling like I was far too close to him for comfort despite the two or three feet separating us. "You find me infuriating."

His mouth curled at both corners as he took a step forward, "That you are madam."

My knees went weak. The pure waves of heat and lighting that bounced between us became far more intense with our bodies in such close proximity. I took another step back as he took another forward, "Arguing with me is ten times better than any drug."

Discarding the towel, "I believe I said a thousand times better."

Oh. Oh. I swallowed hard and took a cautious step back. My bottom bumped the only other table in the room causing it to scrape against the wooden floor. I took a sharp, quick breath and then he was in front of me, arms planted on either side of me effectively preventing my escape. My heart thundered in my chest, blood rushed in my ears as I realized how alone we really were. A room he owned in a part of London where no one was going to be bothered by noise. Oh.

Sherlock's mouth came down on mine, his tongue running along the seam of my lips begging for entrance. One of his hands reached for the pin holding my hair up and tugged it down just as opened my mouth and allowed him into my mouth. He tasted of alcohol and the three shots of bourbon that he had downstairs. His body shifted the heat of his skin radiating against my clothing, soaking through until I was sure my body would burn from the sheer intensity of it. My breath flowed out in a shudder. My body trembled of its own volition.

This was madness and yet my heart beat thundered with excitement in my ears. Madness, as I found, was quite a bit like gravity. All it took was a little push.

"Naoi," he murmured against my mouth as his other hand gripped my waist. In a flash he lifted me and settled me on the table, my knees wide, stretching my dress as he pressed scandalously between my thighs.

I threw my arms around his neck, gripping at his dark hair, "Sherlock." My breasts ached painfully with a foreign need. Liquid heat began to pool between my legs demanding attention be paid. I leaned into him, nipping at his chin as he began to tug free the buttons in the front of my dress. My body began a chant of yes, yes, yes while my hands busied themselves learning the planes of his chest, stomach and back. He was solid, and oh so very warm. A thready almost desperate feeling began to spread its way through my veins.

"Please," I whispered against his mouth though I had no idea of what I was asking. "Please."

The final button popped open baring the skin of my shoulders, arms and the tops of my breasts to his ministrations. Sherlock didn't waste a moment. He broke from our kiss to nip at the skin between my neck and shoulder. I locked my fingers in his hair in an attempt to keep him there. He would not be held. His hands trailed up my arms in feather light strokes that left my skin tingling. His mouth followed down, kissing, biting, licking along my neck, shoulder and collar bone until he reached my breasts.

"Freckles," he murmured with a pleased little smile before slipping one hand between my corset and my skin to cup one of my breasts.

A throaty moan ripped its way out of my throat. I yanked at his hair until he came back up. Soundly I kissed him, a thrill of primal female satisfaction taking me when my hazy mind managed to realize that I was the reason his dark eyes were filled with desire and need. I couldn't help the smile, "I think that I may love you Mister Holmes."

He pulled back almost instantly as if I had struck him. Cold reality seemed to douse the heat of the moment, the embers burning out when he drew away from me. I could not put a name to the flicker of emotion that passed behind his eyes. It moved to quickly and was gone in nearly an instant. He said nothing to me. His lips formed a thin, flat line just before he turned away.

February 19, 1891 (Around 9 in the morning)

Ten days. That was all it took for me to fall in love with a man I couldn't have. Ten days to give him my heart and to have it broken in return. Why do I feel so cold? The train is warm enough with body heat from the other passengers and the bright sunshine streaming through the windows onto my face. Outside the world is growing greener. Spring is barely a month away.

And yet…I feel cold. Like my insides are wrapped in layer upon layer of ice.

I thought heart break was supposed to be painful. Instead I feel nothing. Nothing. I'm numb from the inside out. Shouldn't this bother me? Shouldn't…

I closed my eyes against the bright sunlight shining in through the windows. Dwelling on my emotions or current lack thereof was completely pointless. At least at that moment. The train was already two hours outside London. Two more and Mycroft and I would be back in Chichester. Twenty minutes after that we would be back on the grounds of Mycroft's manor. An hour after that I could break into a thousand pieces – if my icy interior decided to thaw by then – in the privacy of my own room.

Pressing my forehead against the window in an attempt to absorb the warmth the sun should have been giving me only served to cool my skin. The glass pressed back, cold from the pass of wind as the train moved through the countryside. My mouth twisted into an approximation of a dour smile of its own volition. At least some part of me understood the grim situation as it stood.

Given the chance I would go back and stop myself. Refrain from ever going with him to his boxing match last night. No. More than that. Further back than that. I would refrain from even asking Mycroft to bring me to London to meet his reclusive mad as a hatter brother. The beauty of hind sight. I laughed bitterly under my breath and leaned back into my seat, eyes closed once more as I went over the various ways I could have prevented this mess.

My heart heaved a little sigh of resignation in its icy bindings.

A smaller part of me did pipe up in order to inform me that Mycroft knew nothing so in effect there wasn't really a problem. That realization only made me feel guilty. Better than being numb. Anything was better than being numb.

Why had I done it? There was no rational, logical, valid or otherwise sound reasoning behind opening my mouth and uttering those three destructive little words. I love you. No matter that they were preceded by the words 'I think' thus making the sentence a personal observation not an absolute declaration. I felt as if I should bang my head upon the window until either my skull or the glass cracked.

And the way he looked at me afterwards. Eyes that made my heartbeat skip beats turning so very indifferent. So very cold. The silence, thunderous silence that enveloped that room. The words from his mouth that cut deeper than any knife could possibly achieve. I couldn't bear to think of what he said to me in return. I couldn't…

With a raw, soul rendering throb the ice around my heart and everything else, shattered.

Chapter 9: April 3rd

Ghosts - Lady Tron

Walk Away - Five Finger Death Punch

Three Libras - A Perfect Circle

Rest in Pieces - Saliva

April 3, 1891

Silk, silk, and more bloody silk. Never ending rolls of silk. And lace. Fine bone china. Flowers to be picked out. A seating chart for family and visiting dignitaries and the like. Doilies. Bleeding lace doilies for every bleeding table setting. Fittings for this, fittings for that. Would my veil be gauzy delicate lace or sheer silk? Hair up or down? My mother and sister-in-law Gemma tisked and tutted over me and my lack of planning for my up and coming nuptials. Personally I thought it was good enough for me to have gotten the invitations out at the end of February thank you very bloody much.

With all this fussing I was beginning to lose my temper.

My mother held up one of the bolts of bone colored silks, "What do you think Naoi? Wouldn't this be lovely with your hair and skin?"

Before I managed to bite out a snappish 'no' my brother's wife, held up another bolt that was slightly blue-ish in color, "No, no this one to go with her eyes and offset her hair."

My mother clucked her tongue and said in her faded Irish brogue, "I suppose. Naoi, do you think your shoes might be refitted to for that color?"

Another fitting? My head began to ache in earnest. "I do not know mother."

The woman made another sound at me, a cross between a tsk, tut and cluck. "Young lady," she chided me as if I were ten years old again and she were telling me to stop wearing my brother's clothing. "You are getting married in a month and three days! You do not have time to know these things. Send one of the servants to inquire." My mother gave me the most infuriating of smiles, "You will be the lady of the house soon you know."

Oh I knew. I knew very, very well. All the 'yes mum' and the 'no mum' answers I received from the servants before we left for London had miraculously turned into 'yes missus' and 'no missus' after our return. Baxter, the butler, had begun slipping and calling me 'Missus Holmes' already. The first time I heard it my blood ran colder than ice. It had taken a good three hours riding my horse Beckett to calm my frazzled nerves.

Every time I felt the world becoming just this side of cumbersome I drop everything and run to the stables. My horses and I were getting a good work out from it. And I got to keep my sanity intact.

"I wish that I had a May wedding," my mother told me as she clucked her tongue once more. "You are a very lucky young woman Naoi."

I cannot even fathom counting how many times I have been told that over the past two months. I swear if I hear it one more bleeding time. Just one. I am going to go stark raving mad and run screaming from the room while tearing out my hair with both hands. One. More. Bleeding. Time.

Another bolt of silk, this one pinkish in hue that came with sample slippers encrusted with little glass beads that caught the light and glinted was discovered underneath several sample wedding veils.

"Naoi," Gemma sighed with what sounded like admiration as she lifted the shoes up to the light so that she could examine the detailing, "you really are very-"

I shoved out of the lounge chair so quickly and so hard that the wooden frame audibly groaned. "I am late for my afternoon ride," I snapped at both women before darting out of the room as quickly as physically possible. I took the stairs down to the first floor at a nearly break neck speed only stopping to avoid crashing into one of the maids carrying up a tray full of tea and biscuits for my mother, my sister-in-law and myself.

"Oh, missus! Are ye' not taking tea with your mother?"

I forced a smile, "I will be right back Martha. Take the tea in." Another few minutes later and I was in the stable saddling Beckett myself while the stable boy brushed Buttercup down. I gave her my assurances that I would take her out tomorrow and led Beckett out of the stables. While in school I read once that horses have a sense just like a dog or cat may to tell when there is something wrong. It is true. Both of the horses, my horses, know exactly when something is wrong with me. Beckett nickered at me softly, nosing at my shoulder. I patted him gently whispering my assurances in one pointed ear before climbing atop him to ride.

They were both my horses before my parents used them to pay Mycroft as part of a meager dowry. He gave them back to me when I moved into his manor along with stables that hadn't been used to kept in years and a stable boy who thought me just another wealthy woman that bought them for sport.

I fixed him right quick.

Yet the people in town were beginning to take on a similar attitude. The baker and butcher in town who had known me since child hood now called me 'mum' or 'missus' like the servants at the manor. The bookstore owner, quaint missus and mister Offgood, were overly cautious when I entered their store. They offered me tea and made polite conversation about the weather and the rainfall during March.

In fact the only person that seemed to be treating me the same as she always had was my eldest brother's wife Elizabeth. She had out and out refused to play a part in my wedding or the preparations for it. Instead she stayed home on the farm and tended to her growing belly and the animals around the house.

As I had many days in a row I ended up riding Beckett to my eldest brother Peter's farm house. Elizabeth stood on the front porch waiting for me with an apple for Beckett. Her pregnant belly looked as if it grew larger and larger with every passing day. She smiled at me, hugged me and let me unload all of my irritation onto her as we walked from the smaller house she shared with my brother to the main house where my parents lived. The only person in the world that knew what transpired between myself and the mad detective in London and the only advocate for me to leave Mycroft and come home damn the consequences.

"The kitchen magic is always right." Elizabeth told me as we entered the house, "I knew! I knew the day I read your palm. I told your parents. I told your brother. An' they wouldn't let me tell you for fear of endin' the engagement. I told them all and none of them listened and now look what's happened." Elizabeth sniffed, straitening her back and gathering as much majesty as she could muster with a belly full of my brother's child, "Sure no one listens. Half-gypsy an' half-mad Scotch."

Of course no one had allowed her to tell me of her predictions. Of course they wouldn't. I was the only one who had ever believed her when she shared her clan's knowledge with the family. A sprig of Nightshade could ward off enchantments. A butterfly landing on you would bring good luck. Honey, tobacco and a bit of saliva to ease a bee sting. Amethyst to see the unseen. Moonstone washed in rain water under your bed for a month for fertility. Elizabeth left milk and bread at the backdoor for fairies and goblins. She steered away from toadstool rings and clearings with more than one great oak. Her mother, a gypsy, taught her a great many things before leaving her with her father in Chichester at the age of ten. In turn she has taught me, and her two daughters, a great many things about the world most people never took interest in.

I couldn't help the tear that flowed from my eyes. One moment she was clear as day the next water clouded my vision and Elizabeth was nothing but a blur. Elizabeth's arms wrapped around me. "It will be alright Naoi. You will see." She pulled me close, her lips against my hair as I wept bitter, bitter tears of heart ache. "You will see."

A black carriage sat outside the manor upon my return later that afternoon. I remember thinking it a rather ominous sign, both in color and the fact that people were delivering wedding gifts early. Did I not have enough work and frustration with all of the preparations I already had to make? Honestly, I did not want (or need for that matter) another reason to rip my hair out. Leaving Beckett to the stable boy, Jeremiah, I returned to the house smelling of horse and the apple pie Elizabeth put me to work with to distract me.

The distraction worked for a while. Until I remembered that I eventually had to return to a fiancé that has yet to notice my constant absences. To servants that called me missus and a life I had no desire to keep. Sullen and depressed beyond words I made my way into the house through the entrance near the kitchens. The cooks broke off their chattering to offer me food or drink, both of which I refused.

I met the butler, Baxter, just outside the door that led from the kitchens into the hall that linked to both the parlor and the dining room. He bowed his head, "A Mister John Watson and Missus Mary Watson, to see Mister Holmes and yourself madam."

"All the way from London?" Should I be happy, or alarmed?

Baxter nodded his assent, "Pertaining to Mister Holmes' brother I believe madam. Shall I show you in?"

A nervous fear flooded my insides, my heartbeat quickening. Were they here because they knew? Were they telling Mycroft right now? If he knew he would break off the engagement. My honor infringed upon, that I could live with. It might even give me cause to move back to Ireland to live with Aunt Ida. "No, Baxter," I told the older man with a quick smile, "thank you."

He nodded once more and passed into the kitchen. To retrieve some tea and other such niceties for our guests.

The nervous fear turned into a form of morbidly giddy excitement. Oh please, please let them be ruining this farce of an engagement. I will be eternally grateful. I may even return to church service on Sunday. Please. Please. Wiping the hopeful cheer from my face took more effort than I thought it would and thus I arrived in the parlor much later than I expected to. I entered as Doctor Watson said:

"His morphine and cocaine use has doubled in the last month alone."

What? Every ounce of joyful hope left me in that instant. I stood inside the door momentarily dumbstruck by the doctor's words. My broken heart gave a deep, painful throb that nearly choked me. I sucked in a breath through my nose, steeled my back and swallowed down the bile that rose in my throat with a sudden, sharp worry for the man that had broken my heart.

"Ah," Mycroft said turning his head toward me, "there you are Naoi. I assume you remember the Doctor and his wife Mary."

I forced a smile nodding at them both, "Of course, lovely to see you again. Though I assume this is not a social visit?"

"No. It is not." Mycroft assured me. He turned his attention back to the doctor. "Of course I would be willing to keep him here John," Mycroft finished with a grim flattening of his mouth.

"Thank you Mycroft," John said with what sounded like a deep relief. The doctor's shoulders relaxed as if a heavy weight had been removed. "I have tried keeping him in our home but you know him."

As long as I did not have to be alone with him that should work out. Shouldn't it? "What is wrong with him Doctor Watson?" Sherlock had looked like death warmed over.

"I haven't a clue." John sighed and turned halfway toward me. For a moment I was taken aback by his appearance. There were dark, bruise like purple and blue circles under his eyes. The stubble upon his chin was at least two or three days old. His normally neat appearance held the hint of disarray. Whatever had happened to his friend and compatriot was clearly serious enough to interrupt the Doctor's life.

"Holmes recently taken cases I doubt he might have taken had he not been under the influence. He is adamant that each one is to pay the bills but…" He shook his head slowly. "I just do not know where this is coming from."

Guilty conscience perhaps? Not that I said it. Not that I believed it.

Sherlock Holmes was not that kind of man.

I plastered on a false, sympathetic smile. "If you give me a list of things you will need Doctor Watson I will see to it that the maids bring everything you need to," I caught myself before I said his name, "the room." I gave him and Mary the briefest of smiles, "Will you be needing a room as well?"

"For a few days," Mary told me, "If it isn't too much trouble."

"None at all," Mycroft assured them both.

Brilliant. Absolutely bloody brilliant. The man that had ripped out my heart and thrown it to the wolves was now under the same roof as I for an indefinite time period. Not only that but there were wedding preparations to worry about, daily work about the house that required my attentions and oh, yes, my mother and my overbearing, barmy, sister-in-law visiting daily. Bugger all. If I could wash my hands of this weirdness I would.

I had no more than ushered Doctor Watson and Mary up the stairs to the second floor living quarters and into the ever patient graces of Baxter when there was a resounding crash-bang from another room. A frightened maid, Madeline the youngest of the staff, ran out of the room at the far end of the hall. The girl crossed herself quickly, gathered her skirts and scurried toward the stairs, and me. She curtsied politely, though her eyes showed a great deal of fear, "Beggin' yer forgiveness missus but I ain't goin' back in there. 'e's barkin' mad 'e is."

I had not been aware that my fiancé and the good doctor had already moved Sherlock into one of the guest rooms. Wasn't that lovely? I gave the girl – she had to be at least ten years younger than I, no more than a child really – what I felt was look of complete and total understanding. "It's fine. Really. Go about your duties."

She curtsied once more, gave me a quite, "Yes mum," and all but ran down the stairs.

Why did I have the feeling this was going to end badly?

Doctor Watson, John as he insisted I call him, took that moment exit the room that Baxter had shown the couple into.

There was another loud crash followed by a bark of, "Watson!"

I was close enough to hear the doctor give one deep sigh of resignation. Calmly, almost with a tiredness I could sympathize with, "Here Holmes."

It was only then that I realized I should have taken the chance to leave. The door to the room at the end of the hall still remained open. A disheveled, vehemently angry, mad detective strode out into the hallway and yelled in the most disbelieving, almost menacing way at his friend. "You drugged me!"

"I hardly think you're one to complain about that," John deadpanned.

"You've abducted me," Sherlock persisted.

"Shall I list the number of times that you have abducted me?" The doctor shot back.

The two men glared at each other so long I feared they might become permanent fixtures.

I knew better than to think that Sherlock didn't know I was there. He knew. He had no doubt seen me when he started his tirade. Whether he cared or not remained to be seen. "John," I pulled the doctor's attention away, "please tell Mary that dinner will be at eight. I believe cook has put duck on the menu tonight."

He gave me a grateful smile, "Thank you Naoi."

I smiled in return, hoping it came off relaxed instead of tense, "You are most welcome." Then I turned my gaze at my soon to be brother-in-law, the man that shattered my heart. His dark eyes were unreadable.

Wildly the tempest raged through my insides threatening to drown me in the raging storm. My smile bled away. "If you are well enough Mister Holmes join us for dinner. If not I will have a maid bring you your meal." I gave both men the briefest of nods before leaving to hide myself among the silks and swatches my mother and sister-in-law left strewn across the third floor sitting room.

Dinner would have been a somber affair had it been attended by Sherlock. Thankfully it was not. I asked Martha to take up a plate or two of food with water and milk as soon as the first course was set out. Better not to tempt the mad man out of his den of insanity. The sooner he was given food the less likely it would be for him to leave his room.

"Perhaps Mary," Mycroft said, "you might be willing to help Naoi and her mother finish with the wedding arrangements during your stay?"

"Of course," the blonde woman gave me a bright, tired at the corners, smile. "We received the invitation and response card in the beginning of March. They were lovely. The designs, they were beautiful. Tell me," she asked, "who was the artist?"

My heart swelled a little with pride. "My brother James. He is a local artist in town. Works for the printer. His wife Gemma is helping my mother and I with the wedding preparations."

Her sweetly bright smile widened, "Your brother? Really?"

I nodded my assent, "James is extremely talented. The printer apprenticed my brother to work for him while James was still very young. People in town still commission him to paint for them frequently. He is quite popular."

"Has he ever showcased his work?" Doctor Watson, John, asked while his wine glass was refilled by one of the servants. He sounded honestly interested.

"No, no." I shook my head to as emphasis. "James is very shy. You'll see if you are still here in a few days. He is coming by to touch up several of the older furnishings before the wedding." The only reason he married Gemma was because she perused him. Seven months and eight days after the wedding their daughter Emily arrived. Gemma's mother had been scandalized to the point that the woman refused to leave her house for a month.

The subject invariably changed to the handful of cases that Sherlock and thereby John and Mary had been involved in over the past two months. I tuned the discussion out around the second course while I picked at the duck. Not that it didn't appeal to me. I happened to love duck usually. When I don't have things like my mad-as-a-hatter brother-in-law frightening away servants. When I didn't have to plan a wedding that I didn't even want to be part of.

"…on our way to Ireland almost the day after you and Naoi returned to Chichester."

My head whipped round so quickly a loose strand of my hair smacked me rather harshly in the face. I was sure my eyes were huge, "I'm sorry, what?"

Three faces and the eyes of at least two servants turned toward me.

"Naoi was schooled in Ireland," Mycroft said though I couldn't have cared less about what he had to say at that moment.

I set the fork down forcing my hand not to shake as it did so. Forcing a smile despite how false and nervous it felt, "I would be," morbidly curious, "quite interested in knowing the story if you wouldn't mind sharing it."

Doctor Watson's brow drew together, "We were in Donegal for a week investigating a decade old murder of a young girl. In fact," the doctor went on though I had no idea how I heard him past the roaring rush of blood in my ears, "there were three other murders in the town with the same signature."

I swallowed past the thickening lump in my throat. Sherlock hadn't, had he? Surely not. He couldn't possibly have remembered. He told me he did his very best to forget things that had no relevance to science or logic.

"The strangest thing is that he wasn't being paid for this case. No one had written to him. I don't know how Holmes heard about it," John continued shaking his head. "I asked him how he'd known of it and he would not answer me. Sometimes I just do not understand him."

Swells of joyful hope and unerring gratitude rose in my chest. Cautiously schooling my face and voice into polite interest, "Did you catch the murderer?"

John's nose wrinkled in what I can only assume was disgust. "Oh yes. It was the local blacksmith, though he was no doubt a young man ten years ago." He took a long sip of wine. I almost shouted at him to get on with the story. I had to grip my seat until my fingers went white and bloodless to keep from speaking. Finally, finally after what seemed like forever and a day, "He had made romantic advances toward the four girls. They refused him. He hung himself in the jail before he was ever put on trial."

A sense of overwhelming relief washed over me. I closed my eyes and breathed out a breath I never realized I'd been holding. I felt almost as though I held it nearly ten years. The spot on my cheek where Becky had kissed me repeatedly over the three short years we'd know each other was strangely warm. I pressed my hand to it and smiled to myself while those around me continued to talk. In my mind's eye I saw Becky, bright and happy and smiling in the spring sun shine. Her lips moved silently. For a moment I didn't know what she said and then her voice finally whispered to me: Merci ma chère.

Chapter 10: April 4th & April 5th

Comatose - Skillet

Walk Away - Five Finger Death Punch

Hero - Skillet

Bad Romance - Glee Cast Version

Do You Know What it Feels Like - Enrique Iglesias

April 4, 1891

"I do not expect to be served by the lady of the house," Sherlock said the word 'lady' with a fairly cynical intonation. Not that he had the right to be angry. He, not I, was the one that ended our tryst before either of us had the chance to explore it further.

"Nor would you be," I told him flatly, my jaw set tightly as I placed the silver tray down on the sitting room table. "If you had not terrified all of the maids I would not be here." This was his fault and the sooner he learned the better. I had no need to carry the tray to and from the kitchen. I had no desire to do so either. If Mycroft had not asked me to I would never have done it. Apparently Sherlock said something to Baxter that almost resulted in the butler tendering his resignation.

Knowing this man was a walking contradiction made it no less extraordinary.

I felt dark soulful, pointedly hooded, eyes watch me as I went about tidying up the room. Being here less than a two full days in no way hindered him from being a complete and utter slob. In some inexplicable way Sherlock managed to collect several pieces of silverware, a pen from Mycroft's personal study, two books from the library and one of the pale blue swatches from the sitting room containing my wedding materials.

I shot him a glare as I gathered the swatch that Gemma picked out yesterday insisting it matched my eyes. His eyes were purposely elsewhere. Bastard.

And yet I couldn't genuinely be angry with him today.

"I don't recall telling you the name of the school Becky and I went to," I told him as I tucked the swatch of cloth into the pocket on my skirt.

The tea cup he held hit the table with a quick click! "I have no idea what you're talking about madam."

Liar. Heat rose to my face, my anger beginning a slow burn fueled by the raging tempest this man's presence seemed to ignite inside me. I turned my head away from him to pluck the two books off the fireplace mantle. My books. Jules Verne's A Journey to the Centere of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Both in French. "I'm sure you don't," I couldn't help but snap the words at him, "and that is the problem."

"I thought Watson believed my addiction to cocaine and morphine was the issue." He shot back sounding far too pleased with himself for my boiling temper.

"Funny that," I sneered at him. I dropped the books on the table in front of him, "funny that you should read my books. The only two French copies Jules Verne's work in Mycroft's entire library." I snatched them off the table again when he reached to take them. "Funny Mister Holmes that you should have been into the sitting room where my wedding supplies are." I waved the pale blue swatch of silk in his face. "That you should steal the silk being used for my wedding dress."

If my anger got to him he didn't show it. Brown eyes that I had loved looking into watched me with the utmost curiosity. Was that a curl of a smile in the corners of his mouth? Smug bastard. Did he really think I was going to play along and let him enjoy this? He had another thing coming.

My anger turned to a cold fire wrapping around my insides like a coiled snake. Pure venom heated my veins. What was the saying again? "Funny sir," I leaned toward him, hissing under my breath, "that you should double your dose of narcotics after turning away the woman who you claimed was worth a thousand doses of any drug."

Ah. Yes. No fury like a woman scorned. And I am scorned.

That sobered him quickly. He had presence of mind enough to scowl at me. "Out of context."

Liar! I would have hit him if it wouldn't have forced me to touch him. I didn't trust my reaction to touching him. I didn't trust my hands, my mouth, my body. I didn't trust that he wouldn't catch my hand or my wrist and pull me to him. No. I didn't trust myself at all.

Besides, he had been goading me into fighting with him to make himself feel better. I knew it. I knew it and I would not, will not be used in that capacity again. He had no right. He had given me up. Turned me away from him with harsh words. He ripped out my fragile heart and danced a jig on it until it was an unrecognizable mess.

I stacked the books on the tray and jammed the swatch back into my skirt pocket. I sincerely did not care if he hadn't finished the breakfast cook sent up for him. Let him starve. He would deserve it after the way he's treated me.

Pushing back my icy fury I gave him a flat, uncaring look. "Frankly Mister Holmes there a great many things wrong with you. Your lack of human emotion and drug addiction aren't even the top of the list."

He said nothing while I exited the room. I wouldn't think about the broken, almost crestfallen look that crossed his face. I wouldn't.

Upon inspection of the library on the third floor I found that another two of my books missing. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There were gone from their spots on the second shelf near the window seat. Two books that in recent months had come to mean quite a bit to me missing the day after a mad-man that knew me all too well for my own comfort shows up. Coincidence? I think not. However there was absolutely no way that I would venture back up into his room for a single minute. I would not.

At least not while he was in the room. Once he left it all bets were off.

Of course Mycroft's books on society, sciences and government went completely unscathed.

Barely even tea time and my temper lost twice already.

Thankfully he didn't find the copy of Around the World in Eighty Days that he had bought me. I feared he would take it back. Or worse, destroy it like he had my budding love for him. I didn't think I could bear it if he did. He would have to go to my room and look under my pillow to find it. Something I doubted Sherlock would do.

What was it he had said about lacking that sort of emotion toward me?

A good month and a half and my brain had blocked out our fight that night at the Punchbowl. My heart throbbed painfully in response. One part of me remembered even if my mind didn't. Better this way I suppose. I remembered agonizing over those words for days. I remembered crying my eyes out and wishing my heart to stop breaking over and over again. The raw, unadulterated agony of being in love with a man who claimed he didn't love me in the slightest.

Wait.

That's right. He didn't love me. He said he didn't love me. That he never would.

I was a…an…

The words wouldn't come and yet I felt them there. Just beyond my memories. On the tip of my tongue. They wouldn't come to me though. My chest swelled excruciatingly with an ache that had nothing to do with physical wounds. Perhaps self preservation kept what Sherlock had said to me that night at bay. I didn't think I could handle my current stress, what made me think I could handle remembering what he put me through?

Flopping down on the padded window seat so that I could watch the goings on out on the back lawn and to some extent the stables, did nothing for my state of mind. I doubted it might in the first place but this had always been a favorite quiet place of mine. At least in this home. I watched as Jeremiah lead Buttercup around the lawns, Mary seated on the back of my paint horse. She smiled at and said something to someone just out of my peripheral vision. John or Mycroft more than likely.

The clock on the mantle of the unused fireplace chimed. Noon.

Mary made no move to come inside. Was cook serving luncheon outside today?

My stomach rumbled in response. I hadn't eaten much since last night. Too worried about how I might react to Sherlock when I delivered him breakfast this morning. There would be no repeat at lunch. He could starve for all I cared. It might save us all the trouble.

With the books returned to their place on the bookshelf I ventured outside.

Mary waved at me from atop Buttercup. "Your horse is simply wonderful," she patted Buttercup's brown and white spotted neck.

A small stab of jealousy went through me. I am the only one that had ever ridden Buttercup. "Thank you," I told her through a false smile. I settled in a chair, nodding at John who sat reading a newspaper.

He folded back one corner to look at me, "I was told you spoke with Holmes this morning."

If you can call it that. "He is as infuriating as ever."

The doctor's mouth turned into a short frown, "If he is still managing to annoy then I am afraid the narcotics haven't begun to work their way out of his system yet." He folded the paper down again so that it left whichever article he was reading facing up as he set it on the table. "I have told Mycroft this, but I should tell you as well Naoi." Mouth formed in a thin, grim line, "When Holmes' body begins to realize that there aren't any more narcotics to be had he is going to go through what we call medically as 'withdrawal.' I will not be able to give him sedatives or medications for the nausea."

For a moment worry blossomed to life in my chest. Part of me wanted to be there, to take care of Sherlock. The other part wanted him to suffer. I silenced both parts with a quick, deep, breath in and out again. "How bad will it get doctor?"

For once he didn't correct me to call him by his name. "Define bad."

Oh. No.

"The vomiting and irritability aside, he may hallucinate. He will have flashes of cold or imagine extreme heat. An escape attempt or violence is inevitable." The doctor sighed, a world weary sound that I knew all too well. "It will depend on his level of addiction at this point."

"At least you are here," I told him. "You are his oldest friend. Surely he will listen to you."

Watson shook his head slowly, "I am afraid my presence will only add to his ire. Holmes has been terribly moody for the last month and a half. Beside that he barely listens to me in the first place."

Why did I suddenly have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach? Worry and fear began to claw at my insides. Alright, I did not want him to suffer that much. Not really. Just enough for him to understand the kind of pain he put me through. Perhaps a little suffering.

Did he really deserve all of that?

No, perhaps not. But it was too late now.

April 5, 1891 (around five in the morning)

The detoxification process began later that night. During dinner. Sherlock had gone from the usual of mildly irritating to scathingly obstinate. The lash of his tongue brought tears to Mary's eyes over a comment on her parenting ability. Even I could not blame the tears on her pregnancy and the sensitive emotional condition she was in. When I rose from my seat to follow after her, comfort her, Sherlock turned his sharp tongue on me despite the warnings from both John and Mycroft.

My hand still stung from the cracking slap I'd given him.

Now I lay in my bed on the third floor, straining to listen for the sounds below. Earlier there had been the terrible sounds of retching. Before that muffled quarreling between Mycroft, Sherlock and Watson. The word 'restrained' was the only one I had been able to clearly make out. It sounded quite a bit like a threat. I had offered to help but was turned away at the door by my future husband and the doctor. They would handle this.

In the early morning the sounds of shouting, retching, and every other horrible occurrence finally died off. Unable to sleep I remained in my bed until the predawn light began to peek its way through my window. There had been no sounds of waking yet. I doubted there would be. Everyone else was probably exhausted.

I, on the other hand, could not contain my fear that something terrible had happened to Sherlock. I knew from what I had heard that last night had not been pleasant. I threw off the covers and slipped into a bathrobe before exiting my room and going to the floor below.

Quietly I tiptoed into the guest room given to Sherlock. The windows were open behind the curtains allowing air to flow through the room and take the stench of sickness out. He lay asleep in the bed, worn and pale looking but peaceful in slumber. Deep even breathing told me he slept. I took a step toward the bed needing to assess the damage with my own eyes. How bad had it gotten last night?

He groaned, eyes opening slightly, half lidded and watching me.

I froze in place. If luck were with me he would not see me.

"Go away phantom," he muttered, his voice deep, sleep roughened. "Go away."

Phantom? He thought me a ghost? A figment of his imagination come to what? Torture him further? Unable to stop myself I stepped closer to the bed, carefully watching him for any sign that he should wake further. Instead his eyes closed again, his breathing deepening once more. Gently I swept a few strands of dark, unruly hair from his forehead.

"Naoi," he murmured in his sleep. I stilled once more. He called my name again, softer this time, "Naoi."

My heart thundered in my chest. Should I answer him? Did he know it was me? Was he dreaming of me? Hope fluttered to life in my chest though I knew I was asking for trouble. This man was trouble. I leaned in, whispering next to his ear, "What do you want from me Mister Holmes?"

Dark brown eyes fluttered once more though they did not open at all this time. "I…" the word fell from his lips, drawn out by a long breath. Dark, soulful brown eyes opened slowly stealing my breath away.

How could I think I didn't love this man when he looked at me like that? My heart gave a sharp throb in my chest. Gently, ever so gently, I placed a kiss on his forehead. Salt. His hair had felt stiff and slick at the same time. He was no doubt covered in sickness still. Later I would have a tub and hot water brought up. For now I gave him the softest smile I could manage, "Go to sleep Sherlock."

"…real?" The question was barely audible. So strange that a man like him should be reduced to this. A barely coherent state after a night of horror I didn't want to think about.

"I'm real," I assured him. Reaching down I squeezed his hand. "And I will be here when you wake."

That seemed to be enough assurance. His eyes drifted closed again.

I wondered if he would remember this at all when he woke next.

I doubted it.

The first time Sherlock opened his eyes he thought that he might still be dreaming. There stood a phantom, much like the one he had seen months ago of Lord Blackwood. Only this one did not taunt him with words and hidden meanings. She stood a creature of beauty near his bed, watching him with eyes more grey than blue in the low light of the candle by his bedside. His delirious mind conjuring up the image of the one thing he had missed these past weeks.

Then he bid her leave him and cease wearing the face of a woman he wanted but couldn't have. He closed his eyes and tried to let sleep take him again. His body ached painfully and exhaustion clouded his mind. And yet, when he opened his eyes again there she remained, her grey-blue eyes so filled with concern. For him?

She shushed him to sleep.

He slept.

The second time he opened his eyes he felt as if he were inside a baking oven and someone had shut the door. A cloth, soft and thankfully a much lower temperature than his currently overheated state was placed on his forehead while the duvet was quickly pulled away. A gentle voice whispered nonsensical words. Exhaustion dragged him back into unconsciousness.

The third time Sherlock opened his eyes daylight glared past the heavy curtains. It had to be past noon. He shielded his eyes moments before someone closed the curtains with two rough yanks that left the rings jangling. His head ached wildly, a beating throb in his skull that wouldn't let up. His throat raw from things his addled brain only half remembered. Sherlock muttered out oaths that might have made even the most seasoned sailor blush and held his head in his hands.

"Here," a disembodied voice said while sun warmed hands thrust a glass of water into his hands. "Tea and toast when you're ready."

He took the cup gratefully and downed the clear liquid in a few quick swallows. The cool water eased the roughened feel of his throat. Feeling every bit like death warmed over he called the first name that came to mind. That of his doctor and friend.

"Watson."

The voice, now clearer through the lessening throb of his head told him, "Has gone back to London to see about a patient of his." The same disembodied hand reappeared to take the glass from him. "John left you in our care while he and Mary are gone."

It took him several moments (ones he would never admit to spending) attempting to remember exactly where it was he had woken up. Abducted from Baker Street. Mycroft's manor. Ah. Yes. His future sister-in-law waited rather patiently at the tea table that had not been in the room before.

"They should be back some time later this week." Naoi told him without actually looking at him. Instead she poured him tea that smelled wonderfully like Earl Greyer then went about buttering toast. "I am to write progress reports and monitor your habits for the next few days. Or," she said with deceptive sweetness, "Should I say that your brother and I are supposed to write progress reports and monitor your habits."

Warily Sherlock picked up his teacup and sniffed it.

"What on earth are you doing?" The red haired siren asked him.

Ah. Yes. That was what he had been calling her silently since her impromptu departure from his life. It was an accurate name as far as he was concerned. Siren that is. She had done something to him. That was the only explanation that came to mind when he went about recalling the time spent in her company. There was no logical reason why he found this unassuming creature absolutely entrancing. No valid answer to any of the questions he posed to himself the day after she and his brother left London.

Aside from red hair and freckles nothing separated this woman from every other woman. And yet when Naoi Edric found her way into his line of sight it was difficult to tear his gaze from her. He did name her accurately. Siren. A fascinating, distracting, irritating anomaly.

Without so much as a shrug to excuse his actions, "A woman scorned." Then he sipped his tea.

"Were I that kind of woman I might understand," the siren snapped at him with a scowl that contorted her pink lips and brought a faint blush to her gloriously freckled cheeks. "I am not however and I do not appreciate the implication."

He was fairly sure that he heard her mutter the word idiot at him under hear breath.

Once he had downed a good deal of the tea and no less than three pieces of perfectly browned toast the siren insisted he take a bath. Because she insisted he smelled to high heaven.

"I am having a tub brought up," she told him as she retrieved a pile of clean clothes from a chair in the far corner of the room. "Do you think you will be able to wash yourself?"

Unable to stop himself from smiling just the slightest bit. He had a fantasy that went something like this. A large bathtub, warm soapy water, the scented vanilla oils she used instead of expensive Parisian perfume and the red haired siren before him. Save her clothing. And that ridiculous ring his brother gave her. That he would have gladly dropped into the deepest abyss.

Despite what Watson insisted, Sherlock did have quite a vivid imagination.

"If I say no?"

Was it wrong to find the incredulous, yet somehow amused expression she wore completely alluring? He didn't think so.

"I'm sure Baxter would be willing to put aside your previous insults to help you wash."

He almost choked on a mouthful of tea. Once he drew in a breath and righted which way air went down and the way food and drink went down with his body he shot her a dark look. Which only seemed to amuse the siren more. "I will be fine on my own madam."

She smiled brilliantly at him, "Good."

Either her timing was impeccable or the servants were waiting on her cue. The siren opened the door to the room and there they were. Baxter, the somewhat elderly gentleman that Sherlock was sure fancied young men and another man carried in a fair sized copper tub into the room. Behind them came yet another man carrying two steaming buckets of water. Behind that was yet one more servant, female this time with one more steaming bucket, soap and washcloth.

"If I am needed I will be upstairs in my sitting room," the siren told the room collectively. "And Martha," Naoi said to the woman who set down the heavy looking bucket of hot water. "Could you please bring Mister Holmes something to shave with. He is growing brambles on his face."

Holmes smiled to himself. She missed him.

Fed, bathed, freshly shaved and now with renewed purpose Sherlock left the guestroom in search of the red haired siren. Granted he should probably not have been out of bed after last night's exhausting events but, as Watson would attest to, Sherlock was never good with doing as he was told. Instead he left in search of…her. She had said she would be in the sitting room but the way she had said it. Sherlock doubted that she was in the sitting room upstairs where he had stealthily procured a bit of blue silk the day before.

Her mother – he assumed it was her mother, they had the same red hair and shape of nose and mouth – insisted that Naoi's dress would be the talk of the town. Elegant yet simple. Demure. Unique. How many other women wore the palest blue silk to their weddings?

Eavesdropping was ever so informative.

After the two women were gone he took his time walking about the room. Examining. Assessing. Inspecting. There were a great many things about marriage and weddings that he did not know despite having already participated in one. Sherlock did not assume that one wedding was like the next. That would be folly.

The shoe samples were so small. Were her feet that tiny? Gloves the purest snow white silk sat atop lace and gauzy veils of various persuasions. He found the swatch of blue silk next to a larger cut of bone colored cloth. He took it. There was no rhyme or reason behind the action – not one he was willing to admit to anyway. Sherlock picked up the swatch, folded it neatly until it was small enough not to be noticed and then promptly stuffed it into his pocket.

The library. That was where he ventured next.

Two of the four books he had obtained the day before were settled back on the shelf spines out, titles printed in gold on worn red leather. Old copies. Well used. The spines no longer creaked when opened. Pages bearing the crease of bending. Finger print smudges on some of the pages. Carroll's work bore similar marking though notably more recent. The spine of Alice in Wonderland still creaked in certain places.

"Naoi!" A woman (approximately five foot four, perhaps five foot five, tiny scar over her eyebrow and another smaller jagged one on her chin – slight limp, possibly from a broken leg during childhood), dark haired (with honey color streaks – from the sun no doubt) with startlingly large gold flecked hazel eyes nearly knocked him down as he went up the stairs. She blinked at him, "Oh excuse me!" Then, "Have you seen Naoi? We need her to make a decision on some of the wedding plans and I can't find her anywhere."

Not in the sitting room. As he expected. "No, I'm afraid not." He moved past her up the stairs to the third story of the manor. "I'll tell her you're looking for her shall I?"

"Thank you!" The woman called to him as she continued down the stairs.

The door to the sitting room was left open, Naoi's mother (red hair, pale skin that would no doubt burn in the sun and a clear northern Irish brogue) and another woman (wheat colored blonde, long nose, brown eyes, skin a hue lighter than his own) with their heads close together as they talked. The door to the third floor library was closed but not locked. He turned the handle on the door quietly. He heard the barely audible click as it opened.

Sherlock stepped in, closing the white painted oak behind him just as carefully.

"Of course," her voice, a weary sigh from the far window seat. "You would be the one to find me."

"One of your many sister-in-laws happens to be in search of you," he told her while coming around the corner of the bookshelf blocking the view of the door from the far window. Her face remained turned toward the window allowing him a chance to take in the full view before him. Jade green skirt, long and voluminous meeting at the tops of well worn black boots that bore an intricate eyelet design. A warm, cream colored blouse that picked up the sunlight streaming in through the large bay windows. He had been right. Her hair, once adorned by natural light shown like the rose gold of sunset.

"Shall I tell her where you are?" Sherlock asked, remembering all too well how primal and gratifying, it was to yank out those pins holding her hair in place. He curled his hands into fists to stop the itching of his fingertips.

Her chuckle retained that weary quality, "blackmail Mister Holmes?"

He fought to keep the scowl off his face. "Of course not Miss Edric. Far be it from me to spoil your self-imposed solitude."

She turned her face to him then, skin much warmer than it had been when she left London in February. The freckles he never made mention of liking were faded, not quite a pronounced as they had been. A twinge of something he would rather not dwell on took him by surprise.

One red-gold eyebrow rose, "And yet you are still here."

Yes. That he was. Hands behind his back, Sherlock turned to examine the titles on the shelf directly to his left. Mycroft's books. He had looked at them while in here after procuring the four books that belonged to the red haired siren sitting on his immediate right. "You never corrected me."

From the corner of his eye he watched her sit up slightly.

"What?" She asked with a careful sort of tone.

"Your mother," he supplied. "During our initial meeting I inferred that your father not your mother was Irish." He shifted his gaze to her, watching her reaction with the utmost care. Her jaw worked in a slight tick. Not tightening per say. A small fluttering movement followed by a faint curl at one corner of her lips.

"And?" That sounded quite a bit like swallowed laughter.

"Typically," he pressed on, "the child is christened into the religion of the mother."

"Typically you would be correct."

"Yet you, madam, are British and Protestant."

The shine of private amusement in her eyes, "I never said I was Protestant Mister Holmes. I believe I said I am adverse to jewelry."

His gaze dropped to the ornate diamond on her finger, "And yet you wear your engagement ring."

The book in her lap snapped closed while the laughter drained from her face. "That is the third time you've said that to me."

Really? He thought it was the fourth.

"And I still have no idea what on earth you are getting at." That was anger speaking. "I explained to you, more than once might I add, that I must wear this ring. Just as I must marry your brother and I must go through with this farce of a wedding and I must-"

His mouth cut off her furious tirade. Sherlock swallowed the small cry of surprise that escaped her lips. Distracted as she was with her inflamed temper it was simple enough to close the few steps between them and silence her pretty mouth with his own. Was it wrong to appreciate how enticing he found her while she was cross? He didn't think so.

Naoi shoved her hands against his chest attempting to dislodge him after her initial shock wore off. He caught her wrists with one hand, pinning them in place while his other did what it had been itching to do. It yanked out those horrid pins that kept the feathery softness of her long red-gold tresses from his touch. His mouth moved over hers coaxing, nipping, gently teasing with the tip of his tongue.

She began to wiggle, to push and pull in an effort to get away. "No," she breathed heavily, pulling back, "you don't get to do this. You don't-"

He cut her off again because clearly he wasn't doing this right if she could think enough to protest. The hand in her hair cupped the back of her neck, fingertips massaging her scalp as he gently eased the tension there. He licked her lower lip once, twice, rewarded on the third time when her mouth opened under his. Her struggling stilled allowing him to release her wrists in favor of wrapping one arm around her waist. Drawing her nearer, pressing in. Her arms went around his neck, soft hands delving into his still damp hair, twining around the dark strands in handfuls.

A hair's breadth before he had the first button of her blouse open an insistent knock on the library's door stilled them both. "Naoi?" Her mother's Irish brogue called, "Are you in there girl?"

Her bosom heaving, breasts straining against the material of her corset and blouse in the most delicious and satisfying way. She watched him warily, one hand planted on his chest to keep him at bay though he stood no more than a few inches from her. "Yes mother," a pink, dexterous tongue darted out to wet her bruised lips, "I'll be out in a moment."

The sound of feet moving away down the hall followed after a wary affirmation from her mother. Naoi's blue-grey eyes, more stormy grey than blue at the moment narrowed on him. "Do not," she shoved at his chest with both hands, putting enough strength into it to move him backward a step. "Do. Not. Ever. Do. That. To. Me. Again."

There were a thousand different rebuttals he could have made. At least the same number of reasons he should do exactly that to her again. And again. And again.

Instead he let her leave the library without argument.

She missed him, he knew it. He read it in her mannerisms, reactions and responses. In the way she kissed him back with such fervor. Sherlock pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes to give himself a form of mental distance from the situation. Because, unfortunately for him, Naoi was also exceptionally cross with him.

Chapter 11: April 8th

Airplanes (Feat. Hayley Williams of Paramore) - B.o.B

Last Christmas - Glee Cast Version

To Sir With Love - Glee Cast Version

Beth - Glee Cast Version

April 8, 1891

Ate healthy portion of porridge this morning with a side of toast and tea.

Took recommended walk around the grounds this morning after breakfast.

I tapped the pen against the small notebook Doctor Watson had provided for me. Keeping a journal of Sherlock Holmes' day to day activities proved to be more bothersome than necessary. Due in fact to his agitating determination to be completely complacent with the directions left for me in regards to the mad-man. If I told Sherlock to finish his breakfast, he did so without argument. If I told him he needed a bath or to shave, he did so. Quickly. This morning I told him he could do with some color and exercise. The infuriating man took a walk around the property and now sat outside on the veranda, lounging in the spring sun.

I would not be so bothered if it were not completely out of character for him! His actions or lack thereof are exasperating to say the very least. I cannot even take argument with anything he has done because he has done everything that I have asked.

Including refraining from kissing me again. Which, to my own horror, I lamented with every fiber of my being. The kiss he forced on me in the library was not altogether unwanted. I admit to wanting it so badly I might have thrown myself at him in another day or so if he hadn't gone ahead and done it.

My body missed his touch. No, I missed his touch. I missed his kiss and the scrape of his stubble across my skin. I missed the tug of his teeth on my lower lip and the slip of his tongue in my mouth. The caress of his hands on my neck and shoulders. The burn of his fingertips as they-

"Naoi, girl, for heaven's sake," my mother's exasperated tone drew me from my reverie.

I blinked looking up at her from the small notebook and the pencil that had gone lax in my hand. "Sorry, what?" I will never admit to my mother that I purposely tuned out her ramblings. There is a correlation between Irish women, red hair and short tempers.

She harrumphed at me, clearly disgruntled. "As I was saying," she gathered the last set of favors for the table settings and set them in the large wooden box by the windowsill. "Your Aunt Ida wrote me."

That was surprising. Aunt Ida had disowned my mother for marrying a Protestant. Completely cut her out of the old woman's will. I sat up a little straighter trying to give my mother the impression that I was listening and interested. Instead of just listening. "What did it say?"

"It said she wants you to visit Pennyworth Manor after the wedding." My mother smacked her hand against a cushion in what I could only assume was an attempt to fluff it. "You are to bring your new husband."

At least here was something I could let my temper fume over. Wasn't it bad enough that every month I had to give Aunt Ida an accounting of my life in order to remain in her good graces? Was it not enough to waste a few hours every month writing out six or seven pages with which to satisfy the old biddy's gossip mongering?

"She hasn't seen me in years; surely she will settle for a visit after the honeymoon." To give me an excuse not to share a bed with my husband any more than I have to.

My mother sat herself down, "She has forgiven me for marrying your father."

I nearly dropped the pencil. I blinked at her once, twice, attempting to digest the words left hanging in the air between us. Aunt Ida had forgiven my mother? After thirty some odd years of absolute silence? I set the pencil and notebook down. "What's wrong with her?"

"Nothing that she mentioned in her letter," my mother told me. "She said that as the years have passed she has missed me very much. She would like to know more about our family, your brothers and their wives and children."

What? I shook my head a little to clear it. What did she say?

There were a great many things Aunt Ida told me in the years that I alternated between attending school and living in Pennyworth Manor's drafty, unfriendly halls. The first of which that she was punishing my mother for disobeying her outright. The second of which that she held no interest in my family beside me. The third being that I could quite possibly redeem my mother's sins by working toward a proper education, being a good Catholic and marrying well. While my devotion to my mother and aunt's religion remained questionable at best (I had never been into a Catholic church before age fourteen), I did garner the education and my current match most assuredly would guarantee marrying well. Exceedingly well.

Had my self-sacrifice redeemed my mother's folly in my aunt's eyes?

Or was the old biddy going senile enough to allow her to forget her anger?

"That is good news mother," I told her though I doubted it really was. My aunt could be a manipulative woman when it served her purposes well enough. I wouldn't trust the old biddy further than I could throw her. "Have you responded yet?"

"I did. I sent out a parcel this thick," she made a space between her thumb and forefinger of her right hand and held it up to me, "with news. We used a little of the money left over from…" A flash of guilt crossed her face. "We had a little money left over. I used it to have a photograph taken in town. I sent the photo off with the parcel."

I felt a mild twinge of satisfaction at my mother's guilt. This predicament I currently lived with was entirely my parent's fault. If they had not borrowed so much against the farm they would never have gone into debt. Had they never gone into debt my father would not have gone knocking on Mycroft's door looking for aide in paying the bank. The deal would never have been struck. I would not be marrying a man I don't love. Though in that scenario my parents lost their farm and I would be homeless at the moment.

Mycroft never lorded the fact that he technically owned my parent's farm over me. He never even spoke of it. If he had it would have made it easy to hate him. The very fact that he didn't mention it combined with his attempts at winning me over made it very hard to hate him. As I had months ago, before our trip to London, I felt a mild form of fondness. A little more than tolerance but not so much affection. The word 'friendship' came to mind though he was less interested in me than he was in his books and his work.

My mother was twittering on about her hope of being reinstated into Aunt Ida's will. How she had serious doubts that Aunt Ida had even removed her from it. In my mother's head it was all a stall tactic, a threat more than anything to get her to do as my aunt wanted.

I on the other hand knew better. Still, I nodded politely and let my mother carry on with her speculations. If they made her feel better who was I to spoil her mood?

A careful knock at the door broke my mother's line of thought. Despite the door being left open – something to save my sanity not for a care about privacy – he still knocked. Good lord had the withdrawal from his narcotics alter his personality? Or was he simply playing a game I have yet to learn the rules to?

My mother turned her head to the sound of knocking, "Oh. Who are you?"

"Mycroft's brother, Sherlock Holmes," I told her when he opened his mouth to answer. "I told you he was here mother."

The sharp square of her shoulders relaxed with the crease in her brow. "So you did. Good morning Mister Holmes." Then her eyes go round and large. I can see the wheels working behind her eyes as she connects everything based around the single detail of a name. She looks to me then to him and back again. "Holmes? As in…" her hand flutters as her voice trails off. "Oh! Oh!"

Dear lord. Here we go. I leaned back in my seat, hands folded around the little notebook and prepare myself for the foolish nature of my mother. She has never been a particularly brilliant person.

"Forgive me Mister Holmes! You must think me a fool." No but I certainly do. "I thought it a common enough name," the fluttering of her hand continues like a wild, trapped bird. Is it wrong to find such amusement in your own mother's barmy nature? I think not.

She prattles on, inviting him in, insisting he sit down, asking him inane questions which he answers ever so politely. I keep expecting him to do something, say something that will give me enough reason to kick him out of the sitting room. Anything to allow be to become the taciturn harpy my brothers have accused me of being time and time again. Much to my disappointment he is alarmingly pleasant. Martha brings tea at a quarter past three while my mother goes over the newest replies for the guest list.

"Tell me Mister Holmes, are you married?" The mad woman that birthed me asked him much too cheerfully.

I sincerely wish I had better self control. I really do. But, I didn't. I nearly spat out a mouth full of tea onto a pile of lace doilies. "Mother!"

The mad-woman blinks her large, surprised grey eyes at me, "Naoi."

And I know I'm being completely ridiculous. I know it. Sufficiently subdued I drop my eyes to my lap and pretend to be engrossed in the design on the china. I felt the color rising on my cheeks. Not entirely because I was embarrassed, no. Because I only just realized that I never asked Sherlock the same question. It was not unheard of to marry someone and live separately from them.

The image of the pretty woman in the photograph reared its head in my mind's eye. Were they married and living separately? Had I…oh… The tea suddenly was not sitting well in my stomach. So utterly self involved was I that I missed all of my mother's incessant twittering. I missed his answer.

"Why after your brother so kindly gave my husband a loan enough to pay our creditors on the farm…" My mother told him as if it were something he already knew. Strange that she should show me how guilty she felt over promising Mycroft my hand in marriage while she showed Sherlock none of the same. In fact she seemed quite proud of herself for brokering a deal for my freedom to a man nearly twice my age.

There was a distinct click of china on china as my mother prattled on. Though it did not come from her direction. Venturing a glance at him yielded a kind of despondent sadness within me I hadn't felt for nearly ten years. It was almost like finding Becky's broken body covered by leaves and haphazardly thrown branches. Except he wore nothing on his face save triumph. He finally knew why I had to wear his brother's ring and why I was going through with this farce of a wedding. Why I could love him and want him but never, ever have him.

I pushed my cup and saucer away. "Forgive me, I feel ill." With that I left.

Because I just did not have it in me to cry in front of him.

Little did I know that Sherlock Holmes could be quite charming to those he desired information from. My own mother admonished me while speaking her praises to his personality while I helped her clean up the mess the third floor sitting room had become. I listened to her with lips pressed tightly together, aggravation beginning to simmer in the back of my mind as she spoke. Her hands flitted as she moved. Occasionally waving at me, pointing at me, fluttering toward the door. Apparently I had been very rude in excusing myself earlier. My departure had disappointed him.

Imagine that. My departure had upset him.

"He must have already known," my mother insisted. She picked up a basket from the floor and placed it near one of the windows. "I am sure that Mycroft would have shared his financial investments with his brother of all people." She sounded so much like she was trying to convince herself of the idea. Her mouth turned up at the corners as she gently tugged at the gauzy material keeping the contents of the basket together.

I said nothing in response. Instead I kept on neatly folding the ribbons that would eventually be tied around the flower arrangements. I did not nod my head in agreement or make any sound of assent. My focus remained steadfastly on the work before me. Pick up, fold in half, fold in half again, and set down in the pile. Pick it up. Fold it. Fold it again. Set it down. Up. Fold. Fold. Down.

"Naoi!" My mother's shrill exclamation drew my attention.

Praying to keep my patience in check, "yes?"

"Honestly," her fists settled on ample hips, "I do not know what has gotten into you these days."

For one breath I thought about confiding in her. An overwhelming desire to share it all with her. To tell my mother everything starting with the day they told Mycroft I would be his wife. I felt my lips part, air passing through my lips, words forming on my tongue.

"He is your brother-in-law," she continued, either ignoring my reaction or too self involved to notice. "Or at least he will be. You should make the effort to get to know him. He knew so little about you." She huffed a deep sigh, "he is attempting to learn about you Naoi. I think you should do the same."

My lips clamped shut. Jaw tightened to the point that the bone and my teeth ached. All thoughts of confiding the truth of the last several months in the woman that birthed me faded faster than anything I could have imagined. I questioned how sympathetic she would be toward Sherlock if she knew that he had once had his hand on my naked breast. That he had often kissed me within an inch of scandal. That I knew exactly how it felt to have his body against mine.

The idea of flinging my disloyalty to my fiancé as well as to her and my father in her face sent a thrill of dark, sadistic humor through me. I smiled grimly at her and said through clenched teeth, "I shall endeavor to do as you wish mother."

Placated she went on talking.

I didn't listen. I didn't care. I returned to the short pile of lose ribbons. Up. Fold. Fold. Down.

Chapter 12: April 10th

Jessie's Girl - Glee Cast Version

Like a Prayer - Glee Cast Version

My Life Would Suck Without You - Glee Cast Version

Mercy - Glee Cast Version

Dream a Little Dream of Me - Glee Cast version

April 10, 1891

Dark eyes went over the neatly penned script of Doctor John Watson for the third time. Watson would not be returning to Chichester at any point in the near future. The good doctor wrote to inform Mycroft that he thought it safe enough in London for Sherlock to return to Baker Street. There were, according to Watson at least (though Sherlock doubted his compatriot had actually found all of the morphine the detective had acquired in the last two months) no more narcotics to be found in any of Sherlock's rooms on Baker Street. Watson had also taken it upon himself to pay the month's rent for Sherlock, with the detective's own money of course. The doctor had also taken it upon himself to select several potential cases and set them aside with copies of the news papers for the last few weeks. He sounded confident that would entice his friend back to work.

Sherlock thought himself fairly masochistic as he folded the intercepted letter over and over before tucking it into a pocket for safe keeping. Returning to London and to his work and his life, while appealing as the notion might have been, it would not serve his current purposes. And he had many, many things still to accomplish before he returned home. Things left to learn. A wedding to break up. An engagement to end.

A woman to seduce.

Not all necessarily in that order. Seducing said woman would no doubt end the engagement and thereby the wedding but one could never actually be sure. Women had terrible tendencies to keep their word despite other circumstances. This woman in particular remained steadfast and frustratingly noble in her promises and intentions despite her lack of enthusiasm for her intended. She had a particular knack for avoiding him like the plague. Something to be admired considering the size of the manor and the limited number of places one could hide one's self in.

Playing the only proverbial card he had at the moment Sherlock went about setting the first of his plans into motion. Or at least he would have. If he had not be stunned into silence. Initially the detective intended to do as he had no more than two days before and drop in unexpectedly on the women going about wedding plans in the third floor sitting room. He did knock politely - because with Naoi's mother respect and a tongue held in check earned him knowledge – and was told to enter as long as he was not the groom. It wouldn't do to have the surprise ruined the voice of Naoi's mother told him. He no more than pushed the door open when his throat decided not to cooperate with his brain and then shortly afterward both went on holiday without the rest of him.

He had an appreciation for classic art, statues, marble likenesses of women labeled goddesses (and men labeled gods) who would stand forever frozen beautiful for all time. When he opened the door the very small part of his mind that still found some ability to continue working told him to fall to his knees and worship. He might have too if he had not been such a rational, logical man. Instead, for several heartbeats Sherlock stood in stunned silence staring at the figure standing on a short stool while people spoke to one another as if they were not in the presence of sheer perfection.

His first rational thought was: They were fitting Naoi for her wedding dress.

He couldn't fully see her, her back was to him. He watched her reflection in the mirror that faced the doorway. The peaceful grace written in every line of her body, the calm patience on her face…

The sky blue creation that was her wedding dress would have been something to look at if he had not been previously distracted by the woman in the mirror. Red hair the color of wheat in dying sunlight draped ever so carefully over one shoulder giving full view of enticing skin from bodice to neck. Bare flesh, alabaster and smooth peppered with freckles the color of warm ginger and ground cinnamon. His fingers itched with the memory of her, smooth, supple and so wonderfully warm. The bow of her mouth and the yielding pressure of her lips when he asked entrance with his tongue. The slow burning heat that stirred in his gut whenever she looked up at him through the thick fringe of her lashes.

Those little sighing moans that had him harder than a rock.

She had an uncanny way of making him forget himself.

"Mister Holmes," Gemma Edric one of Naoi's many sister-in-laws addressed him with a proud smile that could have outshone the sun at that very moment, "wouldn't you agree that your brother is going to be the luckiest man in England next month?"

Across the room the skin between Naoi's shoulders pinched, her shoulders went stiff for a single breath. Sadness disrupted her serene stillness. He read it in every line of her posture the moment Gemma Edric mentioned Mycroft. Blue-grey eyes full to the brim with silent misery and raw anguish met his in the mirror. Those eyes seemed to beg forgiveness at the same time they begged him to save her. To take her away, anywhere else but here. Her lips parted for half an instant. Sharp eyes caught the glaze of tears before her gaze broke from his. Her mouth closed without uttering a single syllable. Downcast blue-grey eyes shut in what he could only guess was pain…or resignation.

A part of him, the part that wanted her more than it wanted another case or another mystery to solve, rebelled with every fiber of his being. He found the word 'no' on his lips half a second before he actually said it. Instead he swallowed the word. "Luck," he said in a carefully neutral tone, "is when preparation meets opportunity." He took the chance that someone, anyone, had taught her the classic Roman philosophers. Sherlock found he was not to be disappointed. The underlying meaning to his words bypassed everyone. Everyone but the woman standing still as a statue in front of the long mirror.

"I'm glad you agree," Gemma told him with her cheery smile that only served to grate on his nerves.

He did not agree and the desire to snap that at such a nosey simple minded woman boiled up inside him. He opened his mouth to say something pointedly insulting, a summary of her mental powers (or rather the lack thereof) when the siren that had stolen his common sense (or lack thereof) spoke.

"Is there something you needed Sherlock?" The words were weary and devoid of anything he had grown to associate with her. Something that bothered him to no extent. The closer the days grew to the pending wedding the more her spirit seemed to wither and die. Her quick witted replies were so few and far between now. Her curiosity which he admitted could rival his own in some ways had not appeared in several days now.

"The boutineers," he finally said coming back to his original plan upon entering the room. He stepped in and closed the door behind him.

Naoi's mother and sister-in-law looked at him.

"There are none," he prompted. This was a wedding. Were there not supposed to be flowers? He was sure there had been flowers aplenty during Watson's wedding. He distinctly remembered wearing one pinned to his lapel.

"Mycroft is allergic to the pollen," Naoi told him quite simply without even meeting his gaze in the mirror. Instead she inspected something on her dress.

Well aware that he was about to tread dangerous territory and risk the affair being aired in the open, "but I am not." He never was one to back down from a challenge. The two other women continued to stare at him. The tailor and the tailor's assistant continued with their work pinning the blue satin of the wedding dress in the places it needed to be taken in. "Family members traditionally identify themselves with flowers in their lapel, do they not?"

He was rewarded not by the siren shifting her gaze back to the mirror so that she could look at him, but turning her head just enough to glance at him in profile.

Naoi's mother coughed into the uncomfortable silence and none too politely said, "Mister Holmes if you wear a flower on your lapel and your brother does not it would be unseemly."

Sherlock had guessed that. He knew very little of the traditional proceedings to a wedding, he after all had never been married and the first wedding he had been to was that of Watson and Mary's in January. He had surmised from what he learned that should he wear a boutineer while his brother the groom did not, that would imply Sherlock to be the groom and Mycroft to be just another guest.

The thought didn't alarm him quite as much as he thought it might.

Not that he planned to marry Naoi Edric should he manage to complete his current plans. His lifestyle, bohemian as it was, would not be conducive to marriage. He had no qualms about living with a woman however. And if said woman were to be the red haired siren before him, he would not be completely opposed to that idea. As long as she occupied separate rooms from his and she managed to keep her hands off his things. Most of his things. There were specific things he did want her hands on.

There were specific parts of her he wanted to put his hands on.

Right now.

Someone cleared their throat.

Ah. Yes. Back to the plan. His plan. The plan. Yes.

Naoi's head had turned back. She did not watch him in the mirror.

"Perhaps that is something you would like to take up with your brother and not my daughter Mister Holmes," the Irish brogue of the elder Edric woman admonished with sharp irritation.

That actually did come next in his plan to end this engagement. Now that the seed of doubt had been strategically planted in the occupants off this room and his veiled insinuations not lost on the bride Sherlock excused himself and left.

"The nerve of him," Naoi's mother muttered in anger under her breath.

Gemma giggled a girlish, child-like sound, "I think he fancies you Naoi. Shame you can't marry him instead. He looks like he would make an interesting match."

In the mirror Naoi's mouth curled upward at the corners.

Chapter 13: April 12th

Rattlesnake Smile - Kane

Airplanes - B.o.B

April 12, 1891

By Sunday it all came crashing down on me. I had nothing left to give and there was so much left to be done. To happen. I tried desperately for days to hold it back, to keep going by telling myself that if I kept on one day everything would be better. One day it would all get better but all it took was a single implication. The idea, the idea that I would no longer be me, I would be the proper Victorian wife. Who did as she was told, did what she was told. A woman that gave over her entire being, her mind, her body her very soul to a man she did not love. Would never love.

A cold feeling came flooding over me, freezing the growing black hollowness inside of me.

My parent so happy to be joining their lower class family of farmers to the Holmes family. A government official and world famous detective. My parents smiled at each other sincerely happy. My father told my mother how grateful he was for her sharp thinking. My mother smiled at him in such a sickening way that my stomach lurched with violent nausea. She told him that none of it would have been possible without him.

My insides contracted, twisting painfully, brutally until I felt like one more breath would snap my spine and send my body convulsing. I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat and fought my body on the most basic level.

"A government official at that," my father continued. "Couldn't have done better with an engagement to a minor lord."

I felt the bite of fingernails in my skin and found that they were not my own. Elizabeth gripped my hand so tightly, her nails white and bloodless. Minutely her head moved back and forth saying without words, no. No. I sucked in air through my nose and listened to the ones that birthed me, raised me, and worked to make my life better than theirs talk about how well they had done for themselves.

"To Naoi," my mother lifted her half empty glass of raspberry cordial, "and Mycroft."

I don't know what it was. The toast, my parents congratulating themselves on brokering my freedom for their financial or everything that had been weighing on me since the previous fall. Perhaps it was just selfishness. Or could it be called self-preservation? I honestly do not know, I doubt I ever would.

"I don't love him."

The words slipped from my lips so soft no one but Elizabeth beside me heard me say it. She loosed a soft sigh of sympathy. We both knew where this would go. She warned me this day would come. I thought her mad until that very moment. Perhaps being half gypsy really did give her insight into the heart and minds of others. Her hand gently squeezed my white knuckled fist.

My parents continued their self-praise.

"I do not love Mycroft," I said much louder, cutting through their cheerful twittering.

My mother paused to give me the barest of glances, "love grows dear." A pause, one punctuated by a sickeningly patronizing curl at the corners of her mouth. "Eventually you will love Mycroft."

No. I wouldn't. I felt the surge of heat in my face. Eventually? I would love Mycroft eventually? I bit back the angry retort and gave them the one argument they couldn't refute. "You married for love. Every one of my brothers has married for love. But I," I held my hand against my breast in a tightly clenched, near bloodless fist, "your only daughter must marry to raise your status and, dear lord of all things, money?"

"Naoi," my father began so very cautiously while a vein in my mother's temple jumped and began to pulse in time with my anger, "it isn't just for the money. Your happiness and security is ensured, you will never want for anything. You will always be provided for."

"Perhaps I wished to provide for myself." I said, "perhaps I want to love and live on my own terms."

"Naoi!" My mother sounded almost scandalized as she lost her composure. I caught her so often practicing being the mother of a well off young woman that it had begun to bleed into her everyday persona. Her Irish brogue so carefully enunciated before now spun with harsh tones, "do ye know what we sacrificed for ye? Do ye?"

I could imagine. "Seven years of your only daughter's love and aide on the farm while your batty aunt kept me prisoner in a school and the draftiest old mansion in existence?"

My brother and Elizabeth began gathering up their children, quietly excusing themselves to avoid this conflict. None of my brothers had been keen on sending me away from home, least of all Peter. I had been his shadow for years before our parents sent me away to live with Aunt Ida. The day Aunt Ida arrived in her black carriage was the first and last time I had ever seen Peter cry. Was I imagining things or was my eldest brother gripping his new born daughter just a bit tighter?

The tenor of my mother's voice rose fraction by fraction until she was shouting loud enough for half the county to hear. She went on and on about sacrifice, how they had needed an extra hand on the farm after three of my brothers took off to parts unknown and how difficult it had been for her and my father to lose me. How much they missed me but it was all for my own good. For the bettering of my life.

"My own good?" I snapped at her. "My own good? I have been spoon fed that line for twelve years, save me the indignation mother. I was happy here and you sent me to hell for seven years. You had me live with a mad old viper that couldn't stand children. She berated me for your wrongs, I went to a school where they picked and prodded at me for my strangeness, my low birth. Do you have any conception of what your imagining of 'my own good' did to me?" How many times had I bathed my bruised knuckles after a teacher had rapped them with a cane? How many time had my finger bled from playing the piano endlessly? I will never forget my utter surprise that I did not have whip marks on my behind after my first year in Madame Kent's School. Long, lonely nights where I cried for my parents, my sibling until the tears no longer came and my heart hardened just enough to make me cold.

So tremendously happy the day I finally returned home to my parent's farm and to my beloved England. I wanted nothing more than to live on my own will and whims. Yet they pushed me to take the offers of marriage that came on bended knee from the eligible marriage prospects of Chichester and the surrounding area. Mayhap I should be grateful it took them five years before they promised me to someone.

My father reached out to quiet my mother, a hand on her forearm, a hand on the opposite shoulder. I could see the seething anger in every line on her face and the rigid poise of her stance. "Ungrateful, willful!"

"You married for love!" I yelled back at her. My chair scraped against the hard wooden floor when I stood too quickly, my hands stung from slamming them down on the table. "You both married for love and then you deny me that privilege because you are more worried about how I will live than how I want to live!"

I saw it coming a breath before her hand connected with my cheek. The resounding cracking slap landing with such force my head whipped to the side. "Get out of my home," my mother hissed at me between clenched teeth, "and do not dare come back here until you're ready to apologize to your father and I."

I felt as if the left side of my face had exploded and left nothing but sharpened glass in its wake. Holding my cheek told me that no, there was no bloodied flesh and yes, the skin was still there. I looked at my mother then, met her eye to eye. My heart hardened just a little bit more. "I will not."

Her eyes grew a fraction wider then narrowed, "I won't stand for this Naoi. This is my home, you are my child and you will do as you are told."

"I have always done as I was told mother," I spat in return. "I have done everything asked of me and then some. No more. I won't do it anymore."

"Get out!" The bellow shifted the fine red-gold hairs that had fallen from my carefully done hair.

"Naoi," my father stepped between us, stern voiced but cautious, "go. Give your mother a few days to cool her temper."

I walked back from the farm that night cold from the inside out.

All the way back to the manor I told myself that I could do this. I could be this person. I could survive on my own. Find work somewhere, anywhere. A servant. A house maid. A cook. I am a very good cook. I could write. I have always had a fondness for the written word. There are women who are writers aren't there? I could work at a book shop. All that mattered now was saving myself from what I was becoming. This person that swallowed duty for breakfast, luncheon and dinner. My parents no doubt would disown me. And on that note so would Aunt Ida once she caught wind. I would become an outcast. A lost cause.

It was a humbling feeling.

It was late, so much later than when I planned on returning and the house was quiet. The maids and servants were no doubt retiring for the night and consequently there would be no one awake to feed my rumbling stomach. I hadn't been able to eat during dinner at my parent's home. Furiously sickened by their self praise I let my meal sit and grow cold. The very smell of it churned my insides.

Now my stomach grumbled for food.

I should never have taken the long way home but I needed time to think. To come to a decision. One that would completely alter my life as it and as it would be for the rest of my life. Because I am dying. A little bit every day. Ever moment, every step closer to May sixteenth was another inch, another bit of me that was swallowed up by the placating simpleton I was becoming. The one that said yes and did as she was told. When she was told.

While the delicate fingers of the youngest housemaid Madeline worked through the process of undoing my corset she talked about the day I had missed at the manor. I listened half-heartedly to her words as she went on about who said this and who said that. She had me in front of the vanity while she worked my long hair into one long plait, "an' the younger Mister Holmes 'as been arguin' with Mister Holmes 'bout the weddin'."

My attention narrowed to her reflection in the mirror, "what? Did he say why?"

Her voice dropped a fraction, she leaned in to whisper, "don't right know what or why miss, I heard them durrin' dinner. The younger Mister Holmes said he thought Mister Holmes to be an idiot an' a fool. Said marrying you, miss, would be a terrible mistake."

I doubted Sherlock actually said 'terrible mistake' but I hadn't the tact to hide the hopeful excitement that bloomed to life in my chest. I stopped breathing for a moment in a wasted attempt to calm myself, "a mistake?"

She nodded vigorously, "oh yes miss. He said marrying conveniently never did anyone any good." Madeline tied off my hair with a ribbon. "He kept talkin' about how he thought you were losing your spirit an' the like." She frowned at my hair, hands on her hips and paused for a moment, "an' then I started thinkin' about it miss…an'…" she met my gaze in the mirror.

I had to grab hold of the vanity to keep myself from shouting at her to spit it out.

"An', 'scuse me for sayin' this, but I've been noticing something 'bout the younger Mister Holmes." She leaned in once again, in a conspiratorial whisper, "I've been noticing that he watches you a bit more than would be proper. When you're not looking miss, he's always watching you."

I sat still, so very still and tried not to breathe. "Thank you Madeline," the words left my mouth sounding so empty, absolutely devoid of emotion because I cannot fathom what I should feel. What I should have thought. I couldn't manage it for fear that my emotions would overwhelm me once I let everything wash over me.

She wished me a pleasant night, curtsied and was gone.

Chapter 14: April 13th

Burning Up - Glee Version

Hem of your Garment - Cake

The Sex is Good - Saving Able

Porn Star Dancing - My Darkest Days

April 13, 1891 (A little after one in the morning)

I felt his mouth on mine, fingers in my hair and the warm press of his body against me. Stubble scraped my chin, hands roamed across bare flesh and a pleasant ache began to throb between my legs. My heart raced in my chest and the world tilted on axis. His hands slid down my sides, around my waist, fingers tugging at the tightly tied laces of my corset. I wanted out of it, out of my many layers of clothing and I wanted it now. I wanted to feel his skin on mine and the press of his body as he pushed me down against the table.

I wouldn't tell him I loved him this time.

I wouldn't.

I poured every ounce of needy desire into touching him. Kissing him. And in return I felt the hardened evidence of his passion pressing against the inside of my right thigh.

And even though I didn't want to say it, I truly didn't, the words I knew were coming still passed from my lips into the air around us. "I think I may love you Mister Holmes."

He pulled back instantly.

My house of cards came crashing down.

His lips thinned in a grimace. He didn't speak when he turned away. When he walked away.

"Sherlock?" But he did not turn around. He stepped further away, closer to the fireplace.

A terrible daunting chill sent my skin prickling with gooseflesh. I shivered despite the warmth of the room because I knew what was coming. I knew all too well. I knew because I lived it and relived it over and over in some ghastly attempt for my mind (or perhaps my sanity) to come to terms with the idea that the very first man I loved could never love me in return.

He was so horribly silent.

Finally, after what felt like forever and a day, "I believe you to be under an illusion of sentiment." The banal indifference in his tone…it cut like slivers of glass against flesh.

Bile, sour and burning rose in my throat. "What?" He couldn't possibly have meant that? "What," and my voice so tiny, so terribly small, "what do you mean by an illusion of sentiment?" My shoulders shook and my lower lip trembled. Tears, uncomfortably hot, burned at the corners of my eyes.

"Madam, you are nothing more to me than a momentary distraction." His lips quirked in cruel amusement at the expense of my heart. "A temporary, entertaining diversion. Nothing more. I would be remiss if I did not tell you that I lack the necessary desires and emotions toward you Miss Edric. nor would I develop them in time."

My throat contracted painfully and my insides suddenly felt so dreadfully hollow. A hole ragged and raw around the edges, a gaping wound where my heart used to be. Pain so sharp in sheer intensity froze my vocal chords into place. Shock kept the words from forming but not the thoughts. Not the thoughts. Those came so very fast, unbidden and unwanted and so excruciating that they scored my very soul. He didn't love me. He didn't want me. Just another mystery to explore.

And he'd gotten what he wanted.

I woke with a rough thickness caught in my throat. A vice grip took hold of my heart and was squeezing the life out of me one tick at a time. Tears burned in my eyes, my throat tightened and for a moment I couldn't handle the pain. It was too much. Too big. The raw, ragged and shredded hole Sherlock Holmes had managed to punch through my chest into my very soul throbbed with every intake of breath. I curled myself up into a ball on the bed and forced my lungs to breathe through until this bleeding agony stopped. It took all I had to shove it all back down into that blackened hollow space that I created to hide my pain these past months.

I lay awake in bed for several moments just breathing, eyes focusing in the darkness. What was it that woke me? It wasn't day yet. Madeline or Martha would have come to open the curtains if it were. It felt late, much too early in the morning for me to be awake. So what was it that woke me?

My answer came with a sharp resounding crack and earsplitting boom that felt as if it shook the whole manor. Terror welled up, choking the scream that wanted to rip its way out of me. The first of the spring storms had been pitiful excuses for weather with raindrops so small they barely tickled the grass. This, this monstrosity that echoed outside the manor seemed so loud and powerful that I feared it before the sound of great fat, heavy raindrops even began to splatter on the windows of my room.

I swallowed down the panicked fear that threatened to overwhelm my rationality and told myself to be steady. I was inside of a large enough building. The windows were closed and the heavy curtains drawn. I was in bed. Another cracking boom had my hands shaking while I tried to light my bedside candle and failed at it miserably. A cold sweat broke out on my skin as the panic set in.

I couldn't light the damn candle and the storm sounded as if it sat right atop the manor.

The quaking of my hands spread until my whole body tremorred. My teeth chattered. Gooseflesh had me shivering in the cool air of the room. Far too late in spring to have a fire going and much too early to open the windows to let the air in. Glaring at the general area where the candle should have been and wishing it would light did nothing for me in the slightest. I settled for burying myself under the blankets, curled into a tight, shivering ball.

The storm would end soon. It had to. Nothing that powerful could possibly last forever. With my eyes squeezed tightly shut I tried to focus on breathing and forgetting the squall that thundered outside. It would pass. It had to.

It just had to.

With a sigh that attested to how tired he actually was Sherlock took another shot of his brother's best brandy. Tired because his body managed to acclimate itself (without his consent) to sleeping regularly and getting into bed at what everyone else seemed to think passed for a decent hour. For someone used to being up at all hours of the night the feeling of being this tired at two o'clock was a foreign, somewhat disconcerting feeling.

The pitter patter of rain began just as he tipped the glass canter over his glass.

As he had many times before, Sherlock sat mulling over a subject that caused his a great deal of annoyance. Perhaps musing was a better word for it. Brooding? Contemplating? Pondering? Considering. Yes. Considering. Because he was not one to brood. Or muse. Certainly he did contemplate and often, yes he did ponder. Another shot of brandy burned its way down his throat.

His attempts at breaking up his brother's wedding were going about as well as seducing the bride to be. Which, to say was not going well at all. As of late the red haired siren refused to be in the same room with him unless absolutely necessary. And when she was the infuriating creature ignored him. Ignored him. Him. Of all the women in the world he could have…developed a vague tolerance to…it had to be her. A woman that drove him to distraction.

If he had not been so irritated he might have found this occurrence utterly fascinating.

The detective turned yet another page of Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. "There's no use trying," Sherlock murmured, speaking Alice's words as if they would lend him some clarity should he hear them, "one can't believe impossible things." A statement he agreed with wholeheartedly. Because, by his logic, once that which is impossible is excluded what is left, however improbable must be the truth.

He looked down at the page again. Some people, he found, often left notes to themselves in their books. Either on slips of paper or written on the empty spaces provided by the margins. Often those notes led to questions the book's owner needed or answers to or observations that held correlations to the life of the book owner. Unfortunately for him Naoi was not such a person. The siren took excellent care of her books aside from dog-earing pages here and there. There was no distinct pattern to the order in which the pages had been turned down, nor were there any particularly worn pages to draw his attention. Previous to meeting this woman Sherlock maintained that obvious facts were the most elusive. Now he knew otherwise. There was nothing more elusive than a woman who was most certainly the most distracting (frustrating) creature in the known world.

He closed the book with an audible snap. What better way to obtain answers than to go directly to the source of the questions?

"Have you gone mad?" She hissed at him in the semi-darkness of the hallway. The light from his candle lit the worried lines on her forehead and the object horror (or was it terror from the storm?) that filled her blue-grey eyes. Naoi cast a wary glance down the hall, "Mycroft is sleeping not two rooms away!"

Sherlock snorted and pushed past her into the utter darkness of her bedroom. "My brother sleeps like the dead." He lit the candle by her bedside and then another that he found on the mantel over the fireplace. Then he set down the book he had been pondering with its spine flat against the painted wood. It fell open to the very page he had been reading just as it had the first time he attempted to discern what exactly it was about this book that held Naoi's attention. "Explain to me if you will why you find this page fascinating."

He turned expecting her to yell at him, hit him, any sign of her volatile personality and instead all he received in return was a curled up ball of fright and terror yanking the covers of the bed of her head. By the dark purple circles under her eyes and the wan coloring of her skin he had deduced within mere moments of her opening her bedroom door that it was the storm not his knocking that woke her. He did not, however, fully comprehend how scared she actually was until that very moment. Frustrating as it was he would get no answers until she was calm and from the count between the crashing of thunder the storm would not be dissipating at any point in the near future.

"Woman," the exasperated detective went to the bed and began to pull at the covers, yanking them back even as she clutched them for dear life. "You are safe within the confines of the house. No bolt of lightning will…" the words died in his throat when he pulled back the final sheet. The impossibly tiny ball she had managed to curl herself into combined with the innocently white nightgown, her long loose hair and pale bare feet made her seem almost childlike in the glow from the candle. And as much as her irrational behavior should have annoyed his logical mind, it did quite the opposite. Wordlessly he blew out the candles, rearranged the sheet, blanket and quilt, shed his robe and slippers and slipped into bed beside her. Sherlock set his arms around her waist, pulling her up into his embrace, pressed his chin into the crook of her neck and curled himself to fit against her.

Agonizing minutes passed as she shivered against him. Her skin felt as if she had been standing in an ice locker in mid-winter without a scrap of cloth to shield her from the cold. "You are safe," he whispered gently against her ear. He used one hand to brush back the red-gold hair he loved to muss so that he could peer down at her face in the darkness. "Naoi," he said her name to draw her back from whatever terrified meanderings her mind could come up with. Gently he squeezed her, "Naoi you are safe." For several breaths she did not respond and a slight panic began to fire itself up in his gut. Then the shivering stopped and her breathing which until that point had been much too quick, evened out.

Tentative, icy fingers sought his and willingly he laced his fingers with hers. He had no idea how long they stayed like that, safe to say that he could not seem to bring himself to care. Sherlock, who was indeed a rational, objective and admittedly analytical man found himself contented to lie beside this nonsensical, infuriating, beautiful woman. In the darkness he heard her draw in a breath to speak and then he heard her pause. She leaned into him, and somehow he knew it was coming despite not wanting to hear it. He knew it and he didn't stop her. Didn't turn her head to cover her mouth with his and still the words before they could ever leave her lips.

Maybe Watson was right. At heart, Sherlock may very well have been a masochist.

"I didn't lie," she whispered to him. "I do love you."

He opened his mouth to reply but nothing came to him. He, Sherlock Holmes, was at a loss for words. He…liked her. He liked having her near. She distracted him, intrigued him, she could be so utterly fascinating sometimes. And she understood him. For the most part. There were things about him that perhaps she might never understand but the same could be said for him about her. He would never fully comprehend why this unearthly creature could allow her heart to choose him of all people to devote itself to. His mind would never allow his heart to do the same.

So that was the answer he gave her. Because that was the only one he had.

"My head," Sherlock told her softly, "has always ruled my heart."

Silence reigned after his whispered confession. Her fingers tightened around his.

Sleep claimed them both.

A few hours later Sherlock opened his eyes, uncertain of what it was that had woken him. In the darkness he found that the bellowing storm outside had long since ceased and the world had quieted to the soft breathing of the woman beside him. Slivers of moonlight slipped through the break between curtains to inform him that yes it was still night and no, he would not have to leave her bed just yet. Unlike in London the sounds of the night dropped off here until quiet darkness surrounded them both. He took note then that at some point during their sleep Naoi had rearranged her body so that she faced him. Their legs had long since become entwined and he felt no immediate need to rectify the situation. He closed his eyes to breathe in the scent of her, vanilla and the sweetness of almonds and strangely enough the faint hint of apples combined with cinnamon. It stirred the desire to pull her closer so that he might bury his face in her neck where the scent would be strongest.

Strands of golden-sunset fell across her forehead and with a gentleness he wasn't aware he possessed until that very moment, Sherlock brushed them back, tucking them behind her ear. Her breathing changed almost the instant his fingers ghosted across her skin. Blue-grey eyes more grey than blue in the darkness opened sleepily. He was rewarded with a sleepy smile that spoke volumes. One of her hands moved to his face, the backs of her fingers playing like feathers over the stubble of his chin before delving into the hair at the nape of his neck. Then Naoi tugged him forward drawing his face closer to hers.

Never before had she initiated in their tryst and Sherlock, brilliant as he was, felt dumbfounded as this woman pressed her mouth to his. The kiss was tentative at first as if she were afraid he might push her away. When he didn't her tongue flicked his lips in a move that he recognized as something he taught her. A powerful heady swell of masculine pride went through Sherlock. His hands found purchase at the small of her back though they were not content to remain there as the instance of her kisses increase in fervor. Daring that she might stop him his hands began to roam, carefully at first, down over the lush curve of her bottom to the swell of her thighs and up again. He squeezed and she moved her hips to press against his.

In the darkness Sherlock moaned out a sound that fell somewhere between an oath and a prayer. Unable to sit back and allow Naoi the reigns to this moment he pushed her back against the sheets with an urgency that bordered on madness. His mouth took hers, tongue plundering the sweetness of her mouth, fingers unable to stay still as they explored through the cotton cloth of her nightgown. He cupped the bottom of one breast, thumb barely touching the nipple through the cotton and was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath from the woman beneath him.

Her pupils dilated with desire for him and he smelled the faint musk of wetness stirring between her legs. Daring he eased her legs apart. Her nightgown rode up to just above her knees. Naoi made no move to stop him. Her hands clutched at his shirt, pushing and pulling at it until it came untucked and unbuttoned. His suspenders slipped off down his arms while tentatively curious fingers ghosted their way across the planes of his stomach. Sherlock groaned into her mouth, the muscles of his lower torso fluttering in response to her innocent explorations.

For a breath he pulled back, whether to draw out the moment or to steady himself before falling into this well of insanity he wasn't quite sure. Blue-grey eyes, pupils dilated and hazy looked up at him. Her breath came in puffs and despite the warmth of the room and the proximity of his body to hers Naoi shivered in his arms. It occurred to him at that moment that he could take her here and now and she wouldn't stop him. She would call his name. She would give all of herself to him and the knowledge made a possessive part of him demand he stop stalling and get to the main event.

The part of him that was still (despite a near gargantuan effort) a gentleman rolled off her to fix their positions before she could protest. He would not defile her honor. His depravity did know its boundaries and ruining a woman before her wedding was not on the list of things he planned to do before he died. Naoi made sounds of protest because while he saw the folly in him taking her right there and then she did not. With a rough jerk he stopped her from turning over to face him and instead pulled her rump against the painful hardness between his legs. Her protests stopped mid-breath. Satisfied that he quieted her, Sherlock began a torturous exploration of all the parts of Naoi he had never allowed himself to touch before.

Her hips which were soft, ample and yet not quite as bony as her frame implied, yielded to his hands. His hands followed down her thighs, carefully taking note of the lines or lack thereof in her frame. She was softness and curves which delighted him to no extent. Just as his fingers came into contact with the frilly edges of her nightgown he pulled back. Temptation to lift her skirt and take what he wanted had his mind teetering on edge already. He settled for hooking one of her ankles with his and parting her legs so that he could touch the insides of her thighs through the cloth. The heat from her core increased with the soft panting of her breath. Sherlock buried his face in the crook of her neck and ignored the overwhelming need to explore that moist patch of red-gold curls. His hands found her hips again this time moving over her lower stomach. The muscles fluttered under his ministrations, tightening and releasing in pleasure and anticipation no doubt. Carefully he caressed her sides, stroking down then up to just under her breasts then down once more. He found the middle of her stomach and drew a lazy line up to her breast bone.

A pleasured sigh fell from her lips followed by a softly spoken, "Sherlock…"

Refraining from cupping the fullness of her breasts was an exercise in self restraint, one he was proud to win out on. Sun darkened fingers glided up to tease the sensitized skin of her bared neck. He scraped his stubble jaw against the erogenous zone he had long ago located between where her shoulder joined her neck. Naoi shivered in his arms, her own hands reaching out to seek anything to grab onto. One of her hands found his thigh. The other clutched desperately at the sheets. The confines of his trousers bordered on unbearable. Sherlock once thought he knew all there was to know about torture but in this instance he found he knew absolutely nothing. This was a taste of heaven in the depths of hell. And he only had further to fall.

Gingerly, so that she could stop him if she wanted, he lowered the straps of her nightgown to glide over her shoulders. Her fingernails dug into his thigh, her breathing sped up and for a heartbeat he was sure he felt her muscles tremor in excitement. Or panic.

With deliberate slowness he eased the bodice of her nightgown down while his other hand hiked the skirt upward so that it bunched at her waist. Naoi turned her head into the pillows but Sherlock would have none of that. She had no reason to be ashamed and he would not let her feign innocence now. They were too far gone for that.

He nipped at her earlobe none too gently and ordered in a voice so rough he barely recognized it as his own, "I want you to watch the way I touch you." In his arms she shuddered, nodding as she turned her gaze back to the exposed flesh of her breasts and the way they filled the palms of his hands. Her skin flushed warm as his fingers teased her nipples, deftly stroking, circling, pinching until her back arched and her head fell back against his shoulder. Blindly she sought his mouth, kissing him with such hungry desperation Sherlock thought he would reach the limits of his endurance right there and then.

"Please…?" Came her quiet request against his mouth. For the life of him Sherlock could not recall any moment before that when anything had sounded more erotic than Naoi pleading for his touch. Who was he to deny her?

Unable to stand having the blasted nightgown shielding his over the shoulder view of her body, Sherlock shifted away from the object of his desire for a moment. Naoi only seemed too eager to aid him in ridding herself of the wrenched cotton creation that had barred his ministrations. No sooner had he dropped the white bundle of cloth off the side of the bed than their bodies pressed back together, her back to his chest, his chin tucked against her shoulder and his hands on her hips. And her pert bottom pressed against the straining hardness in his trousers. In a moment of pure selfishness he slid his fingers between her thighs.

He couldn't resist the soft sighing moan that passed from her lip as he pressed gently in exploration. Soft, whetted skin parted in surrender to Sherlock's questing fingers. The sounds she made drove his actions, stroking slowly here, rubbing a little more quickly there. Then his thumb teased circles around the sensitive nub buried under skin and moist wet curls. Her hips bucked against him and a cry he was sure the whole manor would have heard was only just covered by his mouth over hers. A litany of his name, yes, and oh dear lord fell from her lips. Her fingers kneaded at his thigh and the sheets.

It was only when Naoi whispered a desperate plea for more that he attempted the press of one digit inside of her. He found her slick and hot and wet and it was all the better to ease his finger in and out of her. Her thighs clenched together around his hand, every breath a whispered yes, yes, yes. He dared another finger, receiving a husky wanton moan that threatened to shatter his self restraint. Only moments after beginning to stroke his thumb faster to match the rhythm of his fingers, her body shook in his arms, the walls of her sex convulsing in erratic ripples that gave him little warning. His hand covered her mouth as broken, breathless cries fell from her lips.

They two stayed like that for several moments, both breathing hard, unable or unwilling to remove themselves from one another. Sense eventually returned to Sherlock. It was no doubt close the time when the servants would begin to get up and be about the house. He would have to leave or risk ruining Naoi. As much as he had been for destroying her wedding he would not be the hand that undid her honor publicly.

Sherlock smoothed back the hair on her forehead, now dampened with sweat and kissed her ear, "I must go."

Her reply came in a sleepy murmur of, "No. Stay."

He would have loved to. Truly. But he could not. "Tomorrow."

"Today."

Kissing her ear once more, "later Naoi. Sleep." He stayed long enough to be sure that her breathing evened out, and then he was gone.

Chapter 15: April 13th or The End

Better than Me - Hinder

Lips of an Angel - Hinder

3 Libras - A Perfect Circle

Careless Whisper - Seether

Just Like You - Three Days Grace

Whole Wide World - Wreckless Eric

April 13th, 1891

It felt so very strange to awaken today just as I had every other day for the past few months. Madeline went about opening the curtains of my window all the while asking in her polite way if my sleep had been pleasant and if I would like my hair brushed before or after I dressed. While she saw nothing in me that had changed I felt as if I somehow looked different. I watched her hands in the mirror as she moved the brush through my hair. Couldn't she tell that it had not been sleep that tangled the strands? That my night gown was crumpled from lying on the floor for hours and not because I slept restlessly?

I had woken only a few minutes before Madeline came in. My sense of self preservation took over enough to tell me to put on the nightgown before anyone saw my nudity. Sleeping naked did not become a woman with my standing and the rumor mill would run rampant within a few hours. After last night's events, wonderful as they were, neither I nor Sherlock needed that. Not yet. Not now.

Not until I've had a chance to speak with my fiancé about the decisions I'd come to last night.

Something occurred to me while Madeline did up the laces of my corset. I did not tell Sherlock about breaking off the engagement last night. And still he had… Blushing hotly I bit down on my lower lip. We had… It still felt the memory of his fingers playing over my skin, his roughly whispered words in my ear that sent my body spiraling out of control. He saw the most intimate parts of me and liked what he saw. That in itself made me want him more than anything.

I would have given everything last night if he asked it of me.

I thanked Madeline for her work after she finished the last button on my blouse. "I will be in the library until breakfast."

"Yes miss," the young girl said with a smile and a curtsy.

Much as I would have loved to dwell on last night, there were other things for me to worry about. Namely figuring out how to end this engagement without causing a disaster that would ruin my reputation and that of my family. The children of my brothers would no doubt suffer repercussions for years if I failed to be careful in my diplomacy. Society could be ruthless when upset. I knew that from many, many years of being a good Kent Girl and listening to Aunt Ida gossip with her tea time companions.

So deep in thought was I that I did not notice the dark haired figure lounging in my window seat until he reached out and pulled me to him. "Good morning," he murmured with a curl to his tempting mouth that reminded me of the Cheshire cat. "Did you sleep well?" The way he said the word sleep…my god this man!

Again my skin flushed hotly, "Sherlock!"

Mirth filled those darkly soulful eyes, "Naoi."

I kissed him, whispering against his maddening smile, "You are incorrigible."

His arms went around me, "you, madam, protest too much." Sherlock's hands began to roam and my blush colored from hot to scalding. He squeezed my bottom through my skirt looking at me with an earnest question deep within his gaze. "Did I hurt you last night?"

My heart, which until that point had been quietly minding its own business, clenched with joy. And a little hope. "No," the words were breathless from my lips, "no…I…" My body tightened, liquid slickening between my legs, "no I liked what you did to me. Everything you did to me." The fire I saw in him when the words left my lips. I would have shivered had he not pushed me against a bookcase and began again what he started last night.

"Woman," he growled into my neck as he gathered my skirts, "must you wear this much clothing?"

I helped him tug at the laces of my undergarments, "would you prefer I went about naked as the day I was born?"

His hips thrust against mine once, the evidence of his desire for me, hot, hard and heavy against my lower belly. "Do not tempt me." His artful, dexterous fingers finally, finally slipped past my undergarments to the wettest part of me. Sherlock nipped at my neck, stubbled cheek scraping against my jaw as his fingers, two this time began to press against me. Pain threatened as my body stretched and I tried to distract myself with his kisses to keep from stopping him. "Naoi," he whispered as I felt my body clench around him, "let me in. Relax. I won't hurt you, I swear."

As he had last night his thumb began to circle around a point in me that had my whole body humming like a piece of crystal only moments from shattering. I clutched at his arms, his shoulder and told my body to do as he said. To trust myself to him. I forced muscles I had no idea existed until last night, relax. His index and middle fingers slipped into me and for a moment it did not feel all that terrible. Then he curled them to press against something inside me and I began to see white hot stars of pleasure explode behind my eyes. His mouth crushed to mine in effort to keep my cries of ecstasy from being heard by passerby's. A few artful sweeps of his hands undid my sanity as well as my body. I lost myself in a feeling I had no word for. I felt my insides quiver and quake around his digits, clenching as if to keep him a part of me forever.

I leaned against him in the afterglow barely aware of our surroundings. Slowly my mind came back to me, and the most instant hardness pressing against the swell of my lower belly was the very first thing I became aware of. I pulled back from Sherlock unsure of what I should do. Did he want…would he want me to…I had no experience with that kind of…act.

Sherlock caught my wrist when I reached my hand down in an attempt to make some kind of effort to relieve his needs. "Don't," his voice desire roughened and husky warned. "I am only a man Naoi." From the grimace he gave me those words must have painful to admit. "Even my self control can breech its limits."

A thrill of excitement ran through me. I knew it shouldn't have and yet, I loved it. That I had this kind of power over such a man. A heady feeling indeed.

He kissed me once again, his tongue caressing mine before he stepped away and readjusted his clothing. My skirts once fallen hid any sign that something could possibly have been out of place. It occurred to me that I should not have enjoyed this as much as I did, but the thoughts vanished when he stepped back to me. Perfectly presentable save for the stubble on his jaw and the loose neck of his white shirt.

"I have been attempting to sabotage your wedding," he confessed while he tucked an errant strand of my hair back behind one of my ears. "I have argued with Mycroft about it several times but he is determined to continue on with the ceremony."

For a moment I remained silent. I knew he had been talking to Mycroft about calling off the wedding last night at dinner but I did not know that he spoke to his brother more than once about it. "Do you really want me so much?" I asked instead of telling him that I did not plan on marrying his brother anymore.

The left corner of his mouth curled upward, "while I enjoy an illicit affair as much as the next man," I blushed at his words, my skin flushing hotly. "I think it would be better to end the engagement entirely." Then, "to avoid a scandal." A pause, "for the sake of your reputation."

"Is that why you came to my room last night? To convince me to end it?"

His brow furrowed, "no. I had a question that I required an answer to."

I felt my eyebrows rise in silent questioning.

"Why precisely is it that a raven is like a writing desk?"

I couldn't help it. I laughed. A burst of gleeful girlish giggles that forced me to press a hand to my lips to stop them. He looked so honestly confused by my reaction that I couldn't help but laugh harder. There were the beginnings of tears in my eyes when my giggling subsided. "Sherlock, you are a detective. You should know this."

"I know the common answers. I want yours."

I sighed and pressed up on my toes to kiss him, "because love, Poe wrote on both."

That must have been the correct answer because he kissed me then. Hard. One hand went into my hair to pull out the pins and the other gripped at my waist drawing me as close to him as physically possible. I sighed and threw my arms around his neck. I could enjoy living like this.

During breakfast I mulled over the various ideas I came up with to first explain to Sherlock that I no longer intended to go on with this charade. That I would indeed be ending my engagement to Mycroft as soon as humanly possible. However I still needed a way to explain backing out to Mycroft. The question remained who did I tell first and how would I say it. Just as I contemplated the precise phrasing of the words, I caught movement from the corner of my eye.

"A letter for you madam," Baxter held out a silver platter with a plain looking cream colored envelope with my name and Mycroft's address in careful neatly scripted words in black. I picked it up gingerly turning it over. The return address made my breath hitch for a moment. The Law Offices of Callahan and Warren, County Corcaigh, Ireland. If I hadn't already been sitting my knees might have gone right out from under me. I met my aunt's lawyers twice. The first time when she showed me where my mother had been written out of the will. The second when she wrote me into her will after I graduated from finishing school. She called it a reward. I called it a way to keep her thumb on me. Handling it as if the letter contained a coiled snake I broke the red wax of the seal and slid the letter out. Had the old bat altered her will again? Did she reinstate my mother? My heart sputtered at the thought. It was possible. My aunt had begun to contact my mother again after all these years.

April 8, 1891

Dear Madam,

As I am your great aunt's lawyer it falls to me to be the bearer of bad news. Your aunt Ida Sylvia Marie Timoney fell ill a fortnight ago. Yesterday Mrs. Timoney succumbed to her sickness and died at approximately ten in the evening.

At this moment in time you are the sole beneficiary on Mrs. Timoney's Last Will and Testament. Enclosed is a note from your aunt explaining the details of the transaction. We request your presence in  Corcaigh  for the reading of the will which will take place upon your arrival (as requested by your aunt). Any further instruction is enclosed and will…

I stopped reading. I didn't think I could keep going even if my life depended on it. Everything. The old bat left me everything.

"Naoi," Mycroft said from across the table sounding somewhat concerned, "has something happened?"

I folded the letter with shaking hands as the world threatened to spin on axis. Daring to reread the words that had sent my mind reeling I made sure what I read was not some sort of falsity. The crest on the letterhead was a raised faded green, and completely real. The ink the same shade of green it had always been. My aunt had always been fond of green ink. No. My aunt used to be fond of green ink. I suppose she no longer is. I looked up from the lawyer's letter to meet the gaze of the man I loved. I should have been looking at my fiancé. I knew it and yet…I couldn't make myself care at that moment. I held out the letter to Sherlock. He took it.

"What's happened?" Mycroft asked.

Mild shock crossed Sherlock's face. His eyes shifted to me, "Four hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year?"

Numb, and dumbfounded, I nodded.

He began to scrutinize the letter further. "How large is Pennyworth Manor?"

An approximate estimate? "Including the grounds about twenty acres give or take."

Mycroft, for the fourth time, and sounding very irritated by this point snapped, "Will someone tell me for the love of all that is holy what has happened?"

Lips pressed in a firm line Sherlock handed back the letter from my aunt and the one from her lawyer. "Naoi's aunt has died." Hooded dark brown eyes met mine, "I am not sure whether to congratulate you or give you my sympathies."

Our fingers brushed as I took it back. "Your sympathies are appreciated Sherlock." That eased some of the tension from his shoulders but I still could not completely read his face.

Mycroft cleared his throat.

We were being obvious. I should have felt guilty. I didn't. I clutched the letter in one hand and looked at my fiancé. "My aunt Ida left me everything. Her estate, her lands, and…" I reopened the letter, "an income of four hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year for the rest of my life."

Mycroft, who had been in the middle of swallowing his food, promptly choked. Sherlock beat on his brother's back several times before Mycroft's face returned to a normal shade. Then my fiancé looked at me, watching me with his flat brown eyes. I could see the wheels turning in his mind. My yearly income would be at least two hundred thousand pounds a year less than his. I was suddenly worth considerably more than the dowry he had been paid for me.

I was now independently wealthy.

I looked to Sherlock again. He stared back at me intently.

Here was my out.

Here in my hands solid and tangible was my out.

"Mycroft…" I took a breath; unable to keep my mind from whirling with the idea that now Sherlock and I could be together legitimately. "I…" I've given myself to your brother? I'm not in love with you and now I have the means to leave you? I folded the letter down and gripped it until I my hand hurt with tension. "I," I licked my lips, my throat suddenly parched beyond words. What could I say? What was there to say? I'm in love with your brother and I'm leaving you? I sucked in a breath, steeled my back, squared my shoulders, lifted my chin and met my fiancé's gaze. "I believe we need to discuss this. Might we speak in your study?"

It seemed to take forever and a day to reach the study. Mycroft held the door open for me and then pulled it closed behind him. He rubbed his forehead while he seated himself behind his desk. Mycroft was nodding before I even began, "We will need to delay the wedding until you have a chance to settle your aunt's estate," he began. "I suppose new invitations will have to-"

"No." It was little more than a whisper.

Mycroft went still. "No?"

I shook my head, "No." The ring had left a white band circling my finger. I held the gold ornament out to Mycroft, pinched between my thumb and forefinger. The diamond sparkled in the dwindling sunlight that filtered through the windows. "I am sorry Mycroft but I cannot marry you."

He took the ring gently, eyes a little sad, mouth pressed into a thin line. "My brother will never marry you Naoi. You do realize that, don't you?"

Suspicion confirmed. "How long have you known?"

Mycroft took out his hankie and placed it on the desk. He set the ring into the middle of it and folded the edges over the ring until it was completely covered. He took the small makeshift package and placed it into his inside pocket. "I had suspected for the last two weeks."

I nodded slowly. He was as brilliant as his brother in many ways but I did not love him. "To answer your question yes, I do know that Sherlock will not marry me. Nor do I expect him to. I will not deny my heart because of duty. I do care for you Mycroft but I have never loved you. I love your brother more than words can say." A lump formed in my throat, thick and sore. I swallowed around it and bowed my head to my former fiancé. "I wish you every happiness. Thank you for being so kind to my family and I."

"Keep your things," Mycroft said. "And the clothing I've bought you."

"Thank you Mycroft. As soon as I have my aunt's estate in order I will pay my parent's debt to you. I promise." I curtsied once again and turned on my heel to leave. I caught a movement at the door but there was no one there when I reached it.

I was in the middle of moving my horses back into my parent's stable when my mother came storming out. Her red hair flying loose behind her as she stomped toward me, yelling almost incoherently in her native tongue. I knew very little Gaelic but I was fairly sure she told the cat to eat me so the devil could eat the cat. Seamus, the tortoise shell cat that weighed perhaps twenty pounds, looked at me from his perch on the half wall of the stable with one eye open. I looked back at him. He turned away and went back to sleeping. I suppose he was no more interested in following her orders than I ever was.

"What are ye doing here!" My mother all but screeched at me. "Ah told ye that ye canna come back until yeh be ready to apologize." She looked up at Buttercup, then to me, to Benedict and then back to me. Her eyes grew wide. "What have ye done."

"Nothing," I told her, "but what I planned to do."

"We'll be ruined!" She cried. "Ungrateful child! Yeh've ruined us!"

I rolled my eyes heavenward. "I have not. I will pay Mycroft back the money you owe him."

"An were will yeh get the money pray tell?" She demanded hotly.

Withdrawing the letter from the pocket of my skirt I handed it to her silently. I watched her eyes narrow to slits as she read, her lips moving with the words. I saw her tightened jaw relax, her eyes widen once more and her hands tremble. "She…she…"

"Left me everything." I finished for her. "Yes."

"But, I was still in the will. I was."

I shook my head, "Mother, Aunt Ida wrote you out of the will a very long time ago. She had her lawyers show me the document a few days after I arrived in Ireland."

The stricken look she gave me then, her hands clutched to her chest, tears welling in her eyes. "No."

I shut the door on Buttercup's stall. "Yes."

"But…" her words were little more than whispers. "But then yeh are…"

A feeling of guilt settled into my gut. "The sole heir to Aunt Ida's fortune. Her lands and her estates and her yearly income." Fear shadowed her eyes. "Don't worry mother," I told her even as she wrung her hands. "I will pay off your debt to Mycroft as I said I would. I will pay to house Buttercup and Benedict until I am able to send for them to join me in my new home." Where that would be I had no idea, but she did not deserve to know that. "I will also be giving you and father a stipend of two hundred pounds a year. I think that perhaps that will be enough to make up for any shortage of funds the farm may acquire."

Her head moved in a steady wordless nod, but if she really heard me I would never know.

"I also think that I might give Peter and Elizabeth some money to school their children properly. In this day and age one must have some sort of education to succeed. A thousand pounds should cover all of the expenses for a while, don't you think?"

"Of course," she said softly, her voice rough from either want of crying or want of screaming.

"Please inform father that I will be leaving Chichester on the morrow if he wishes to say goodbye. Tell Elizabeth that I will write once I've settled and that she can have the things of mine I've left at Mycroft Holmes' estate. I've left instructions for the bill for the wedding dress to be left to me and I will pay it once I've cleared up Aunt Ida's remaining expenses. I'm sure the tailor won't mind. He knows our family well enough."

Gently I stroked Buttercup's nose and forehead. Then I reached for Benedict who leaned his face into my hand. "I will come back," I whispered to them both. "I promise."

"Naoi," my mother said, her voice still unsteady. "Will you really leave us with only two hundred pounds a year?"

Money. Why did it always come back to money with her? I felt that little bit of hardness inside me form like granite around my heart. "Yes mother. For parents who were willing to broker their only daughter for money I think you should learn what it means to be indebted to said child."

"Who are you?" She whispered tearfully, honestly sounding a bit frightened. "Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?"

I laughed and it was a bitter angry sound. "That is just it mother. I am your daughter. The one you made when you sacrificed my life for your desires. You made your bed mother." I sneered at her, "Now sleep in it."

I left my bedroom to search the last of my many closets for my favorite shift and the embroidered kerchiefs I had received. When I returned to my bedroom I was not alone. He was playing with the tassels of the curtain in my room while he watched the sun setting through my window. Sherlock did not acknowledge me when I entered but instead turned his head slightly when he heard my feet creek upon the wood. I passed him and placed the last few pieces of clothing on my bed. He continued to look out the window into the now darkened landscape behind the manor. Neither of us said anything while I sorted out my things.

"I am thinking of buying a house." Sherlock said into the quiet shattering the near stillness that had taken over him. "In London," he continued as he watched the servants begin to light the torches along the path to the garden. "I had been planning on it when Watson moved out although I had no motivation to do so. I've managed to save quite a bit of money despite what the good doctor might think."

I nodded once, folding my garments carefully and neatly before placing them in the case. I felt eyes on me. I did not look up. "Where will you go?"

"That," he intoned, "is the problem. I do not wish to move. I was thinking of buying the current property that I rent from. Admittedly there are too many rooms for just me." There was the breath of cloth brushing cloth followed by footsteps. Two legs walked into my line of sight across the bed from my work. "What do you recommend?"

I placed a gray skirt the color of which resembled the sky after a summer storm neatly on top of the pile. "That would depend on Missus Hudson, would it not?"

"Not entirely." Sherlock said in a way that made my heart skip a beat. "No."

I dragged my eyes away from my work to his face. Soulful and serious brown eyes looked back at me, watching for my expression, any sign I might give to turn him and his affections away. Was he asking me what I think he was asking me? I had not hoped for anything more than a handful of words and perhaps another bout of what we had done the night before. I had not expected this.

"Sherlock Holmes," I began my voice soft but clear, my eyes on his. I could not help the slight upward curl of my lips. "Are you asking me to be your mistress?"

The mocking shocked expression answered my question, "Of course not dear lady. I am simply asking if you would be in need of a room should you ever decide to move to London."

I smiled then, unable to school my face properly. Etiquette be damned. "I would much rather be your mistress Mister Holmes."

Dark eyes lit up with something akin to pride mixed with passion. Sherlock's talented mouth turned up at the corner, "People say that I am mad."

"Mmm," I leaned forward whispering conspiratorially, "would those be the same people that you put behind bars?"

"For the most part, yes." He leaned forward as well, fingers caressing the left side of my face. I closed my eyes and leaned into his touch. Sherlock cupped my cheek, thumb brushing over my lips. His dark eyes narrowed, the pupils dilating. "How is it that you fascinate me so?"

I gently nipped at his thumb drawing a sharp intake of breath from him. "I once read a theory that everyone on in the world was once a part of someone else. They were separated on a whim and search for each other through out time." I smiled and kissed the pad of his thumb, "Perhaps I am your perfect match."

He scowled at me, "Impossible."

I laughed, "Sherlock have I never told you that I like to believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast?"

This time he laughed a low chuckle that sent delicious shivers down my spine. His eyes lit with mirth. "From what I understand, madam, there is no use believing impossible things." Then he kissed me.

Impossible Things indeed.

Chapter 16: August 1893 or The Epilouge

*** This is only for those that wanted a little more closure at the end of the story!***

I'm sure the rest of you will read it anyway, but hey, now you can't say I didn't warn you.

Secrets - One Republic

Fireflies - Owl City

Vanilla Twilight - Owl City

Hear You Me - Jimmy Eat World

He sat in his lounge chair quietly observing as he did on those days that he felt no need to tangle with his newest inventions. The pile of letters on the tea table to his left held nothing quite as interesting as the woman he watched across the room. One arm stretched over head with a cloth in hand, the other grasping the window's frame for support as she moved. Side to side then up and down. The steady rhythmic movements might have almost been mesmerizing if he were not somewhat otherwise occupied with contemplating other things. Things he never thought to contemplate before now.

Because now they were clearly coming into his life despite every effort to avoid them.

Sherlock thought of telling her once again to put her four hundred thousand pound income to work by hiring a maid. The words never passed his lips though they sat heavy on his tongue. The woman would only glare at him and tell him once more that she could handle the house work and the cooking. It was only the two of them. It was not as if they had more than a handful of friends or visitors to speak of. She insisted on being more than capable. For the two of them.

That line of thought only brought him round to brooding once more.

The knowledge should have bothered him. He knew it. He knew it the moment that his brain added one and one together. It did not, however, which in turn bothered him more than not being bothered in the first place. A bizarre occurrence. Especially for him.

Sitting there in the lounge chair in what used to be the parlor of Missus Hudson's house (though it legitimately belonged to him for these last two years) his brain mulled over the reality of the situation before him. Dark eyes darted back to the red haired woman with her lovely face set in a deeply determined furrow. She claimed to enjoy the cleaning. He knew she preferred to cook. Baking long ago became a favorite of hers thus lending to the delay in his discovery. Now that he went back through his memories of the last month he felt as if there were large painted signs shouting at him in bold red lettering.

He pressed his fingers to his forehead.

"Sherlock," Naoi's cut through his mental meanderings, "I asked if you'd heard from my brother." She looked at him, one hand on her hip, head slightly cocked, blue-grey eyes so very blue in the dwindling sunlight coming through the window. A wisp of coppery hair fell against her cheek.

Would it be so terrible? The idea struck him seemingly out of nowhere. For two years this woman shared his life, his bed, his home. He gave her use of his name. Her sharp, quick mind had been useful on more than one case. More than one occasion. Her wit made him laugh. She could shush Watson into submission. Would it truly be so terrible to simply open his mouth and ask a question that would keep her with him permanently?

He met the gaze of questioning blue-gray eyes, "No."

People assumed they were married to begin with.

Her head bobbed once in assent, her fingers pulling at the knot of her apron.

His eyes dropped to the slight bulge in her belly revealed only by the loss of that white square of cloth. Two weeks he'd been gone on a case. Two weeks that lent him new eyes when he returned home. If he thought to blame her slight weight gain on her new found love of baking and cooking before, he found no excuse now. Five days of thinking brought him down to several conclusions.

One, that he did not necessarily want back the life he had before Naoi Edric entered it. Two years ago the life of a bachelor suited him. He had no need of anything but the next case, and the occasional shot of cocaine. He remembered those days vividly. He did not mourn them. For a short time the beginning he might have, but now? Not so much.

Two, Naoi never asked anything of him while giving him everything. From the day she returned from Ireland. She was everything he needed and then some. Sounding board and voice of reason.

Three, their child would be a force to be reckoned with. His brain. Her beauty.

Four, Naoi had no idea she happened to be with child.

Five, he should have asked her to marry him a long time ago.

The grandfather clock Naoi shipped from Ireland to England chimed indicating midday. She stopped her cleaning. "I think I may have a few scones left from yesterday. I know we have some jam left." She asked after tossing aside her apron. "Did you want tea?"

"Marry me."

Naoi's head bobbed once as if she heard him answer her question. She made it a handful of steps before stopping in her tracks. He watched her shoulders twitch, her back straighten and then in an almost agonizing slowness, she turned to face him. She looked at him with her brown drawn together in what seemed like confusion mixed with worry. Knowing himself and their previously rocky relationship quite the way he did, lent him a certain appreciation for her apprehension. The woman had every right and reason to think whatever it was she happened to be thinking at the moment.

Whatever her thoughts were she did not voice them. So, in the quiet that filled the space between his question and the current moment, Sherlock decided to argue his point. Lest she begin to voice an argument as to why he must've gone round the bend in the last twenty minutes or so.

"It would make sense," he told her, "everyone we know refers to you as my wife. I've caught Watson and Mary saying as much. The butcher, the baker, the grocer all know you as Missus Holmes. You know my habits intimately, as I know yours. And I-"

Her voice, lower and softer than he'd ever heard it, cut through his ramblings. "Sherlock, did you just ask me to marry you?"

He thought he made that abundantly clear, "yes."

Naoi's head bowed, "is this because you were with Irene for two weeks?"

Now it was his turn to be confused. He did tell Naoi that he would be gone helping Irene figure out the culprit involved in the untimely death of husband number four. Or was this husband number five? He couldn't remember. Not that it mattered. It had been a case, a good one at that and Sherlock distinctly remembered informing Naoi of his plan to leave and the goings on when he came back. Well…not all of the goings on. She didn't need to know that he'd been locked in a coffin for the better part of a day. Nor did she need to know that Irene had attempted to kiss him several times. Attempted being the operative word. Only one kiss happened to hit its mark and he did push Irene away without thought. Not that he felt guilty, there really wasn't anything to feel guilty about. He had not kissed the woman back. Something Irene did not appreciate.

"No," Sherlock told her after a few silent moments. "It isn't."

"Are you taking morphine again?"

An exasperated sound left his mouth, "Woman you would be the first to notice if I began to use stimulants."

Her brow furrowed further, "Then why…?"

"Perhaps it is because I am tired of you being referred to as my wife without actually being my wife. Perhaps I would like your last name to be the same as mine. Perhaps because I want you with me for the rest of our natural lives and damn the consequences!"

A delicate blush graced her pale skin, reminding him just how much he liked the smattering of freckles across her cheeks. "Is that your way of saying that you love me Sherlock?"

He let out another sound of annoyance, "is that what you would like me to say?"

Her shoulders rolled, "I might like to hear it just once. Just to know that you said it."

"Should I be down on one knee as well?"

"Traditionally that is the custom. But we're neither traditional nor customary, so I suppose not." The cheeky smile she gave him with her shy, yet knowing eyes evaporated his irritation quickly.

"Woman you'll be the death of me," Sherlock declared.

"I doubt that very much," Naoi told him, "now say it and I'll give you an answer."

The great detective sighed to himself, and wondered exactly how he had gotten to this point. Then he remembered that he did care for her, quite a bit and yes, it was love. He did love her. So, if it would get him the answer he wanted, why shouldn't he give her what she wanted? "I love you, Naoi Edric."

The smile that lit her face made all of it worthwhile. Naoi dropped into his lap with a laugh and a peck on his stubbled cheek, "Yes, I'll marry you Sherlock Holmes."

He wrapped his arms around her with a smile all his own, "about damn time."