"You've got a deal, Miss . . ."
"De Havilland. Lydia De Havilland." I grinned. "Mr. Dudley, you're a gentleman and a patriot."
Mr. Dudley, shockingly, grinned back, showing me a mouthful of crooked, nicotine-stained teeth. "Miss De Havilland, will you be by to check on the progress?"
I hesitated. "Uh, absolutely. Of course."
"I will see you then." Again, he smoothed his shirt, licked his palm, and reached up, attempting to tame his wild hair. Well, that was gross. And anyway, it was a useless effort—his hair remained looking like one of those freaky troll dolls. And how I wished he had not just raised his arm higher than his shoulder.
He turned to Brogan who was standing there with a look that was simultaneously baffled and disgusted. "Mr. Ramsay, I'll go inside right now and start setting up the appointments to make the fixes you outlined in your letter. Good day." He nodded to both men, smiled at me again, and closed his door. I heard him whistling from the other side.
I rubbed my hands together, turning from the door and walking back to the stairs. "Are you coming, boys?" I called to Brogan and Fionn. "Or are you both going to stand there looking gammy?" I heard Fionn's deep laughter as I headed down the stairs and grinned to myself.
**********
Happy hour at the bar named The Black Dragon Tavern was already shaping up to be quite the party. Brogan, Fionn, and I snagged one of the last booths, Fionn raising his voice to place our order with the waitress over the hubbub. "I took the liberty of orderin' for ya, Lydia. Ya gotta drink like the true Irishwoman ya are if we're celebratin' ya joinin' our company today."
Brogan nodded. "As an office assistant. Temporary."
"I much prefer working in the field," I insisted.
"Not when the "field" is a rat-filled, asbestos-poisoned slum," Brogan grumbled.
"I don't know, mo chara, I think Lydia proved the field is exactly where her specific talents are needed, shur ya know like."
"We would have achieved the same result eventually," Brogan said.
"Aye, in donkey's years. We were shapin' up to make a balls of it first," Fionn said.
"Would you have preferred to spend money and time on a court case?" I asked. "Sure, you could have crushed him eventually. But Mr. Dudley just needed his ego stroked a bit by a female. You men seem to find that very convincing."
"The lady is right," Fionn said. "Us lads do like to be stroked. I can't deny it." He winked and I rolled my eyes. "Now," he went on, "like Lydia said, we can apply the funds we were plannin' on usin' to convince Mr. Dudley to do the right thing elsewhere, like."
The waitress delivered tall glasses of thick-looking black liquid I assumed was Guinness.
Fionn raised his glass. "To Lydia, and to a bleedin' deadly day in the field. Fair play to ya. Sláinte." He grinned and took a long drink. I followed suit, taking a mouthful of the strong beer, blinking and giving my head a small shake once I'd swallowed it down.
"Well, that'll put hair on your chest," I said, my eyes watering.
"Let's hope not," Brogan muttered. "I like your chest just the way it is." I laughed, nudging him.
Brogan seemed to spot someone at the bar and started to stand. "Hey, I need to go say hi to someone. I'll be right back."
"Oh okay," I said. He got up and I watched as he wove through the crowd, women looking back over their shoulders at him as he moved by. Though I bristled slightly with jealousy, I didn't blame them. And on top of the jealousy, I felt a strong surge of pride. I was going home with him tonight.
I looked at Fionn who was watching me with a small, knowing smile on his face.
"How are ya feelin'?" He glanced at my side where my stitches were. I hadn't even thought of it all day.
"I'm fine." I frowned slightly. "Brogan seems to have taken it harder than he needed to. It's just a scratch, and he solved a situation my brother put me in."
"He blames himself for turnin' your brother down the path of destruction in the first place. Tryin' to convince him otherwise is brutal, like."
"I suppose it was his initial intent." I bit at my lip. "A moral dilemma . . ." I murmured, still not completely sure how to organize it in my mind, especially because I was so close to the subject.
"I daren't say that Brogan knew completely what his initial intent really was, Lydia." Fionn took a long sip of his beer, appearing to use the time to consider his next words. "And aye, a moral dilemma. Brogan ain't that grand with moral dilemmas." He paused. "Brogan is savage with numbers, but when it comes to emotions," he frowned, "he can be fairly feckin' . . . black and white, either, or. It's like with numbers, his brain is nimble and complex, but with emotions, he can be a spanner." A spanner. A person lacking wisdom. He smiled, looking slightly guilty for his wording perhaps. "I don't mean it unkindly, like. He just has a bloody hell of a time seein' shades of gray when it comes to matters of the heart. Eileen says when he was six, he was doin' high school maths, but he'd wallop someone over the head if they mistreated the class pet. He's a man now, but sometimes with emotional subjects, well, he gets there, but it's not always a pretty process."
I smiled softly, nodding. "I do know what you mean. But it's part of what I always loved best about him." I realized the truth in my statement as it came from my lips. "The intensity . . . how fierce he is in his convictions," I murmured. "The degree to which he feels things."