A Bride For The Asking -- (on hold)

Chapter 12--Trivial Pursuit

“No!  Don’t write them.  That will take too long.  Telegraph them.”

“Telegraph them?”  repeated the lawyer as he stared through his spectacles at Silas like he’d lost his mind.   “Do you have any idea what that will cost?”

“You act like you’re paying the bill,” scoffed Silas, standing up suddenly.  “Do it.  Let me know as soon as you find out anything.  I’ll show myself out.”  With that Silas marched out of the lawyer’s study and slammed the door. 

Alfred sighed with relief when Silas had gone.  He felt like washing his hands and dusting the seat where Silas had sat.  God help Rose if Silas found her.  Alfred found himself saying a short prayer for the girl.  He prayed not only that she would be safe, but that the Pinkerton Agency would refuse to send one of their own on such a trivial pursuit.  Alfred’s back creaked when he stood up. 

“I’m too old for all this malarkey,” he thought, jamming his hat down on his head viciously before heading out the door.  The Telegraph office was at the other end of town.  It was going to be a hot walk.

***

“Yes, Elizabeth?”  asked Alfred a week later when he looked up and saw his wife hovering, undecided, in the open doorway to his study.

“There is someone here to see you, Alfred.”

“Who is it?”  On guard, Alfred tried to interpret the look in his wife’s eye. 

“Did you contact Pinkerton Detective Agency  by any chance?”

“One came after all, did they?” Alfred sighed heavily.  “Show him in, Dear.”

Alfred’s wife stepped back and held out her arm towards the study doorway so that someone, as yet unseen, could enter.  Into the doorway swept a confident, sophisticated young woman who looked hardly old enough to be out of the schoolroom.  She breezed into the room in a flurry of gray-stripped silk that rustled and bounced when she walked.  Alfred sprung out of his seat like someone had gigged him in the backside with a sharp fork.  He looked past her in alarm when he heard the decided click of his wife closing him into his study with this young zephyr.

The young woman didn’t wait for Alfred to speak, as she was quite used to this kind of reaction to her presence.  Rather, she marched across the room towards him with her dainty, gloved hand extended and a dazzling smile spread across her face like a spring daisy blooming in the sunshine.

“You must be Mr. Barnaby,” she said in a tinkling voice that filled the room with a sweet sound that was totally unexpected.  “I am E.L. Rosenthal.  I have been sent by the Pinkerton Detective Agency.  I just so happened to be in Virginia when your telegram was received. Here is my card.  How do you do?” 

Alfred took both her card and her hand automatically.  He looked up when she gripped his hand in a surprisingly firm handshake.  Dove gray eyes that matched the gray stripes in her silk dress met his steady gaze with one to match it.  Her pert nose was perfect for her heart-shaped face.  Black curls peeped out at him from under the brim of a jauntily-cocked confection too ridiculous to be called a hat.  It was decorated with blue flowers and silk ribbons that looked in danger of falling off each time she moved her head.