by Anna Elliott
“Thank you, sir.” Jack said something else—I thought—but the words deconstructed into a meaningless jumble as a roaring filled my ears.
Through the darkening tunnel of my vision, I saw Holmes’s eyes widen in entirely uncharacteristic alarm. “Catch her! She’s going to faint!”
I drew myself up—or tried to. My muscles refused to obey. “That is ridiculous. I never faint—”
I did not get any further, though. A great wave of darkness seemed to rise up, swallowing me whole.
Jack’s face was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes.
He was sitting on a hard wooden chair beside my bed, and we appeared to be … back in Baker Street.
That’s right. I tried to push my hair back before wincing as I remembered my injured arm.
I had a vague memory of the journey back here from the museum. Mrs. Hudson’s shocked, frightened face when we appeared on her doorstep. Uncle John, examining and bandaging my arm.
“I’m going to have to come up with a new name for you,” Jack said.
Weak morning sunlight filtered through the curtains. He was smiling faintly, but I could still see the lingering signs of worry in his dark eyes. “I think you’ve moved past Trouble right on into Mad as a Hatter.”
I struggled to sit up, finally accepting the hand that Jack offered. “I’m eminently sensible!”
“You dove straight towards a loaded weapon.”
“True. But everything worked out all right in the end.”
“Except for the part where you got shot.”
“Not very badly. If we are competing for heroic injuries received in the line of duty, you’re still ahead of me. You were shot. Mine was only a graze.”
Uncle John had studied the wound and proclaimed it not even the sort of injury that could be stitched. My arm was heavily bandaged from my shoulder down to my elbow—and it throbbed sourly at the moment—but it would heal in a few weeks’ time.
I touched the bandages, mentally calculating how close my upper arm was to my heart. “It could have been much worse.”
“Trust me, I know.”
Jack leaned forward, taking my hand. The touch seemed to run all through me, sparking through my veins.
Jack’s eyes fell to our joined fingers, then he seemed to drag his gaze back to mine. “Lucy, I—”
The door behind him swung open, admitting my father.
Holmes still wore the waiter’s jacket, but he had at least discarded the ginger wig. He looked at Jack. “You are due at New Scotland Yard in half an hour. Watson has summoned you a cab.”
“Thank you, sir.” Jack straightened quickly, returning to his place on the chair.
“Scotland Yard!” I looked from Holmes to Jack. “You’re not being arrested after all, are you?”
“No, Commissioner Bradford’s taken care of all that. They just want me to make a formal statement.”
I exhaled with relief. “Good.”
“Is it all right if Becky stays here for the morning, sir? I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”
Holmes’s face relaxed into what for him was practically a smile. “The child shows a high degree of promise as a critical thinker. Some of her answers to the puzzles I have set her are decidedly original, even.”
I smiled. Knowing Becky, that did not surprise me at all.
Jack looked down at me, seeming to hesitate. But then he stood up, moving away from the bed. “See you soon, Batty.”
I made a face. “That’s even worse than Trouble.”
Jack winked at me. The earnest, intent look in his gaze—if it had ever been there at all—was gone now. “How about Crazy?”
Holmes stood scowling down at me until Jack had gone out.
“Would you like some … what is the proper thing to offer in these circumstances? Some calves’ foot jelly?”
“Ugh.” I made a face. “No thank you. And I think you’re mixing up remedies for gunshots with recipes for invalids.”
“Perhaps.” Holmes continued to frown. “You at least ought to rest.”
“I’ve just slept all night!” I raised my eyebrows. “Is this your notion of parental guidance?”
“Perhaps.” Holmes grimaced. “Although it is not an attitude that appears to come easily to me. I am at the least having serious doubts as to whether you should continue to be involved in this investigation.”
“Dr. Everett and Ferrars are already in custody, though.”
“For now. At least the case against them is far more likely to stick, with the police commissioner serving as witness for the prosecution. Even traitors amongst the police force can hardly ignore or combat his testimony. Still—”
A muscle ticked in Holmes’s jawline as he looked down at me, and his gaze moved to my bandaged arm.
“My rational mind is at war with my emotional responses—a circumstance which I have spent much of my life taking great pains to avoid. As much of an asset as you undoubtedly are to my investigations—”
“An asset?”
Holmes’s choice of words touched me almost as much as his concern. I was—almost—no longer sorry that he had come in and interrupted whatever Jack had been about to say.
“Really?”
Holmes’s eyebrows climbed. “Was that ever in question? I realize that I am not given to effusions. But yes. You are quick-witted, insightful, courageous, and observant. In short, you are—exactly the daughter I would have wished for.”
For a second, I could scarcely see my father, through the shimmering of tears that filled my vision. “Thank you.”
“Yes—hmmm. However, the fact remains—”
“If you’re going to question my involvement, I’m involved in the investigation already,” I said quietly.
The memory of those minutes in the museum basement came back to me.
“Ferrars said your father, to me—meaning you. Your father’s not the only one who can put on a wig. He knows that we are related. He knows how we are related. Which means that the rest of his organization clearly does, too.”
I studied Holmes’s face as I finished speaking. “You’re not surprised.” His expression was grim, but not in the least shocked.
“No. I am afraid that I suspected that such might be the case.”
“Why?”
Holmes did not answer at once, but his eyes flicked just briefly upwards, towards the upper floor where Uncle John had his room. Then he looked down at me. “Perhaps we ought to postpone this discussion until you are feeling more restored.”
Despite what I had told Holmes about having slept, I was feeling tired. My eyelids seemed to have been weighted with lead.
“Will you at least tell me about Éire go Brách?” I asked. “Do you think the organization we are tracking has something to do with Ireland and not Germany after all?”
“Not necessarily. I merely believe the situation more complicated—and that there are more organizations than just the Kaiser’s who would revel in Britain’s downfall and ruin.”
I try not to let my eyes slide shut.
Holmes’s expression softened. “I am hardly one to preach, given how often Watson has lectured me on the importance of proper rest. But I do admit that it has its place in restoring both mind and body after an injury. Sleep, and we can discuss all of this at further length later on.”
I let myself drop back onto the pillows. I shut my eyes, feeling myself start to drift off.
A sudden realization flashed across my mind—the nagging memory that I had searched for in vain before.
My eyes snapped open again. “You told him!”
Holmes had moved to the door, his hand on the knob. He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Jack. When we were talking before—at the start of all of this—you said that Jack might find it hard to voice his feelings, knowing that I had once been courted by Johnny Rockefeller. But how would Jack have known that? I never said anything! You must have told him.”
I sat up straighter, my fatigue all b
ut gone. “That’s the only way that you could have known about Jack’s knowing. You must have spoken to Jack in private, sometime when I wasn’t there, and—”
I stopped, staring at Holmes as another memory seemed to slot into place in my mind.
“Last night—at the museum. All of that rubbish about believing me to be safe in Jack’s presence. You weren’t being overprotective. You said it deliberately, as some sort of test, or—”
Holmes’s face was the oddest mixture of culpability and pride that I had ever seen. He turned more fully around, releasing his hold on the door.
“I find myself even less prepared to cope with the possibility of a son-in-law than I was with a daughter. However, having observed you with Constable Kelly, I found myself once again prey to an almost overwhelming emotional impulse. In this case, to ensure that the young man was worthy of you.”
“You saw …”
“My dear Lucy. Just because I do not myself partake in affairs of the heart does not mean that I am blind to them. I have seen how the young man looks at you—particularly when he does not believe that he is being observed. As you and Watson know, I deplore poetic descriptions. However, I believe it would be accurate to say that Constable Kelly looks at you as though you were the sunrise on a dark winter morning.”
I blinked again—this time against a fresh shimmer of tears.
“However, emotional infatuation is a notoriously unreliable foundation for marital happiness. I wished to ensure that Constable Kelly had the courage to overcome what he might see as a disparity in your relative stations. Hence my mention of the Rockefeller boy. Also, given your proclivities for ploughing headlong into danger with utter disregard for your personal safety—”
Holmes cleared his throat. “Yes, well. Given all of that, I doubt that you would find happiness with a man who insists on keeping his wife safely at home, out of harm’s way. I wished there to be no doubt in my own mind that Constable Kelly could accept you for who you are—a free and independent agent, capable of making decisions and looking after yourself.”
I wiped my cheek. Without my realizing it, a tear had slipped out from the corner of my eye.
Holmes was silent a moment. Then he smiled.
“I must say that the young man has so far not only passed every test I have set him but exceeded my expectations. All save one: I believe he still hesitates to speak, believing his station and family background make a marriage between you unthinkable. As of course, in the eyes of society at large, it does.”
“Maybe I’ll have to ask him to marry me instead.”
Holmes’s smile deepened. “As I say, I never thought to have a daughter, much less a son-in-law. Nor, I know, is it my place to influence your choosing, given the lack of a role I have played in your life to date. However, if Constable Kelly is your choice, then should you wish it—and only should you wish it—you have what I suppose one may term my blessing.”
I stopped crying. I had been waiting to say these words a long while, and I was not going to spoil them with tears.
I smiled, looking up into the keen gray eyes of Sherlock Holmes.
Thank you, Father.
In my mind, the words were clear and resonant.
But what I heard myself say was, “Thank you, Mr. Holmes.”
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My first round of thanks goes to my father, Charles Veley, for reading me Sherlock Holmes books as bedtime stories before I could read them—or anything else of that level, for that matter—for myself. Also thank you to my mother for letting him read murder mysteries to a seven year old. Secondly, I must thank my father again for creating the wonderful character of Lucy James and then being gracious enough to hand her over to me; I couldn’t love writing her more. Thank you to my husband, Nathan, for all the constant support and for being every bit as brilliantly intelligent as Sherlock Holmes. Thank you to my daughters, for being my real-life inspiration for Becky’s character; anyone who doubts the realism of Becky’s spunkiness should meet my girls. To my son who … well, honestly at three years old, you’re not a tremendous help with the writing, but that’s okay, you’re still the literal cutest. Thanks also to Laurence Bouvard and Edward Petherbridge for their wonderful audiobook performances in the Audible version of Remember Remember. I must confess that I am a lifelong fan of Mr. Petherbridge, and that hearing his voice reading my words is more or less a ridiculously over-the-top dream come true. Lastly, to Holmes fans everywhere: thank you for your continued love of the Sherlock Holmes character that allows authors like myself the chance to write books like Remember, Remember, and imagine ourselves for a short while into Holmes’s world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anna Elliott is the author of the Twilight of Avalon trilogy, and The Pride and Prejudice Chronicles. She was delighted to lend a hand in giving the character of Lucy James her own voice, firstly because she loves Sherlock Holmes as much as her father, Charles Veley, and second because it almost never happens that someone with a dilemma shouts, “Quick, we need an author of historical fiction!” She lives in Maryland with her husband and three children.