The Invisible Amateur (4 page)

“I missed
something?” she asked. Mycroft nodded. “Tell me, please?”

Amelia looked up
at him through her eyelashes, and he had no doubt that the glance
normally charmed men into giving her what she wanted. He rolled his
eyes and she chuckled.

“You missed the
small item of clothing hiding in his pocket. He didn't go home last
night.” Mycroft saw the surprise on her face and felt a small
thrill of delight when she whipped her head around to see what he
meant. She gasped and looked back to him. He nodded.

“Practice,”
Mycroft said and got up. The meeting had gone on long enough and
she'd drawn more attention to both of them than he felt comfortable
with. “And keep it discreet.”

“What about my
question?” she asked as he walked away. He smirked but kept going.
If she improved, he'd let her ask him another time.

After walking out
of the hotel, Mycroft continued down the block and then around the
corner into Portland Square, where his car and Daniels waited.

“Home, sir?” the
chauffeur asked. Mycroft nodded, deep in his own thoughts. Amelia
had done as she predicted and amused him. She'd been slow and
infuriating at first, but somehow she'd managed to break through
his anger and impress him.

It reminded him of
how he'd taught his brother to see the world when they were
children. There was a time when Sherlock had been learning from him
in the same way she had, and the same way John Watson had learnt
from Sherlock all those years ago. Today he'd caught a glimpse of
what had existed between John and his brother. The admiration, the
desire to learn and understand, and then finally the delight at
making progress. She'd bared all her emotions for him to see and it
had pleased him.

On top of that,
her appearance had relaxed him. He'd never before seen a woman who
would have looked at home in his house. Natural, graceful and with
the air of someone who belonged in a time long forgotten, but still
here and still very much alive. He knew it didn't mean he loved
her. Those sorts of emotions were far from him, and he didn't
intend to let them in. He wasn't even sure he respected her; after
all, she was still female and prone to emotional irrationality. But
his opinion of her had been different this afternoon. There was
metal on the inside of her, and with the right persuasion it might
be moulded into something he could appreciate.

Amelia exhaled
once Myron had left the terrace area. That hadn't been what she'd
expected from the man. He was almost impossible to read unless he
was angry with her, and that was far too frequent for her liking.
No matter how much she tried to be endearing and make the most of
the charms and personality she had, he seemed to rebuff her. His
interest really did seem fixed on only one thing. Although she
hoped her intelligence was up to the task of impressing him, she
was starting to wonder if it was. She'd never thought it possible
for a human brain to process and remember so much.

A few of the times
she had been with Sebastian, she'd seen him do what Myron had just
tried to get her to do, but Myron himself was on another level
above. He'd seen information about these people that she wasn't
sure Sebastian would even notice, and she'd had the opportunity to
have him explain it as well. The whole experience had sent wave
after wave of exhilaration and adrenaline through her, even with
Myron's evident disgust at her first assessment.

It hadn't given
her an answer to her worried assumption that she was in danger, and
the knives nestled against the small of her back had gone entirely
unmentioned, but she couldn't be disappointed. They'd had afternoon
tea together and she'd had another lesson. It was progress, even if
it wasn't as fast as she'd have liked. Being an amateur at anything
was always an unpleasant feeling.

Now that her heart
rate was calming down, she realised she had barely touched her
drink. After sipping the tea she grimaced. It was cold.

“Would you like me
to bring you a fresh tea?” the waiter asked, noticing her plight.
She nodded gratefully and allowed him to take her discarded
one.

It didn't take him
long to reappear and place a steaming cup down in front of her.

“Thank you. Do I
pay you here or can you put it on my room bill?” she asked, not
sure if Myron would have paid already for the other two.

“Mr Holmes has
taken care of that. One of the perks of owning the hotel.”

“He owns this
hotel?” She sipped her tea and tried not to look too surprised by
the information.

“Yes, although he
doesn't like too many people to know. His great-grandfather
invested in a few, I believe. Mr Holmes is almost identical to the
man.”

“How do you know?”
Her curiosity was piqued, especially as she'd found no pictures of
either Holmes boy or any of their family on the internet. They were
difficult to track down, and what little research she had managed
to do had turned up little but some old fictional stories about a
man called Sherlock Holmes who might or might not have also been a
person alive at the time they were written.

By the time she'd
left Sebastian's care, gone home and finished her own novel, she'd
forgotten the name of the club Myron had been in and the name of
the person who'd founded it. Searching for a club founded in London
by a Holmes also turned up nothing.

“There's a picture
over the mantelpiece in the main office.”

“Could I see it?”
she asked, not hesitating. It could be the clue she needed.

“I'm sorry, miss.
It's not somewhere I can take a guest.”

“That's all right.
I'm sure I can ask him myself sometime. What's his
great-grandfather's name?”

“Sir Mycroft
Holmes,” he said and moved off to serve other customers.

With a smug grin,
she finished her drink. That was the name of the man who'd founded
the club. She shouldn't have forgotten it, given how similar it was
to Myron.

Amelia didn't know
whether to hope Myron was Mycroft and something out of a fiction
novel was happening or it was just a good likeness and she'd
mistaken the supernatural healing power of both of them. On one
hand, having a superhero mentor her made the arrangement even more
amazing, but it wasn't an easy scenario to believe. This was the
real world, and so far superheroes were only in the realm of
fiction.

Not that this bend
of reality had stopped her from thinking about the possibility.
Myron having such a secret was something she'd thought long and
hard about. She would have to tread carefully with one as large as
being immortal. And if he found out she was digging, he could have
her disposed of to protect his secret. She had to decide if she
wanted to know what was going on or if it was safer to stay in the
dark.

It took her less
than a minute of thinking to pull out her phone and look up an
internet café nearby. After going to her room and tidying up her
appearance, she went to find it.

London was a big
city and unfamiliar to her, but she knew she needed to get used to
it. Both Sebastian and Myron were at home in every road and street.
At some point, she knew Myron would want her to learn the place.
Probably even memorise locations and the best way to get there, so
she tried to take in the people around her and the information they
gave off as well as the monuments, tube stations and bus routes she
went past.

Having plenty of
time, she walked, and by the time she reached the internet café her
fingers were so cold she could barely feel the tips. In her haste
at packing she'd forgotten her gloves.

She ordered a hot
drink and sat down at the ageing computer. It took her a few more
minutes to order her thoughts and decide what was best to search.
There was a small chance Myron would watch her movements as well as
what she did here. With that in mind, it wouldn't be good to type
in anything that couldn't be explained as simple curiosity about
his family.

After thinking
about it, she decided to go along the route of the hotel owner and
put in the name of the hotel she was staying at and Mycroft Holmes.
As she scrolled through a few results that didn't tell her much she
spotted a familiar name.

The Diogenes Club
was where she'd interrupted him and it had also been founded by
Mycroft Holmes. It was only a little more information, but after
flicking through several pages of description about the club and
what members had done through the ages, she found an image of the
great man.

She sat back and
stared, wide-eyed. It was a painting and old, but it was so similar
it could have been him. A chill ran through her and made her
shiver. If Myron was Mycroft, then the Holmes brothers had found a
way to make themselves ageless. A thought that her mind struggled
to accept.

The next twenty
minutes were spent in a daze as she tried to search generically
enough that no one would be able to guess what she was looking for,
but specific enough the results gave her more information. Little
more of interest came up. There was no family tree, and Holmes was
a common enough surname that without specifying one of the family
members she was overloaded with irrelevant information.

When her time ran
out, Amelia decided to leave and go back to the hotel. She could
think about what it might mean and how they might have achieved a
supernatural status from somewhere less out in the open. At the
moment, she still didn't know for sure if Myron had summoned her to
London for her safety or to learn from him.

With a sigh she
pulled on her coat, paid her bill and stepped back out into the
cold January air. It was dark now and even colder than before, so
she huddled down into her coat, trying to keep her neck warm.

As she rounded the
next corner she bumped straight into a guy coming the other way.
She bounced off him but he caught her and held her upright until
she was steady again. Only then did she look up.

“Sebastian!” She
immediately tried to think of some way to explain her presence
without giving away her secret arrangement with Myron, but her
brain fogged up in response.

“Amelia, you're in
London. Where are you staying?”

“The Raddison,”
she replied, not willing to volunteer anything else.

“Ah, so brother of
mine has brought you here.”

“You know about
that?” Relief made her exhale and relax the muscles in her
shoulders. Hiding the agreement from one of the most observant men
in the world wasn't an easy task.

“Yes. I talked to
Myron about taking an interest in you a few weeks ago. Do you have
plans this evening? I know a particularly good seafood restaurant
not too far away.”

She confirmed she
had no plans and allowed Sebastian to offer her his arm. A few
seconds later she walked right back past the internet café she'd
been sat in, and she thanked the heavens that she'd left when she
had. It wouldn't have been easy to explain to him what she was
doing in there, and now she was standing beside him and listening
to him talk about a mysterious problem he'd solved, she couldn't
believe what she'd been thinking of. Sebastian and Myron were flesh
and blood, just like her. Eccentric, highly intelligent flesh and
blood, but mortal.

Pleased to have
some company in a new place, Amelia shook off her silly concerns
and laughed at his description of his latest case. There was a very
amusing conversation with the father when Sebastian had figured out
he was hiding the evidence of his family's enforced diet by feeding
the almost empty food wrappers to the dog.

“Was the dog all
right in the end?” she asked, aware he was being a little callous
in his description of the events.

“Yes. It's on a
special diet and being monitored by some vet, but it will live, if
that's what you mean.” Sebastian waved his hands in the air as if
the detail was a fly buzzing around his mind and bothering him.

They walked into
the restaurant and were taken straight to a cosy table in the
packed building. The waiter greeted Sebastian by name, and less
than a minute after they'd sat down the chef came out, shook
Sebastian's hand and promised to cook them anything they wanted to
eat.

Once they'd
ordered and were waiting for food, Sebastian turned his focus on
her again.

“So, have you seen
my brother dearest since you've been in London?” he asked.

“Yes, earlier. He
was trying to teach me to observe situations and people the way you
both do. I'm not very good at it yet. I think I disappointed him,
and I've been instructed to practice.”

“Hmmm. I didn't
realise he was taking that much of an interest in matters.”

“Me neither. After
we argued over the possibility of Guy Thomas being my stalker, I
assumed our arrangement would be over and he wouldn't teach me
anymore, but here I am.” She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. It
was so much easier not having to hide it from him. She'd been on
guard with Sebastian ever since she'd made the offer to Myron.

Sebastian asked
Amelia about her books next, and they talked about plots and
possible scandals she could use from real world cases and
experiences of his for the rest of the meal. Since Myron had
insisted she rewrite her last novel because it used real world
events, she'd made Sebastian promise to tell her if anything he
suggested was inspired by true cases. If it was too sensitive in
nature she wouldn't use it, and she soon noticed her idea of too
sensitive and Sebastian's were a world apart.

It also became
apparent that Sebastian needed little encouragement to talk about
the many cases he'd solved. The more convoluted and impressive the
more it excited him to tell her.

By the time she
pushed her knife and fork together and declared herself full, the
table beside them had finished the last of their drinks and were
leaving. The husband slipped a twenty pound note under the edge of
his beer glass and the couple left.