The Ambitious Orphan Page 9

  When she stole a glance she didn't think he'd notice, he realised how badly she was managing it. Maybe he did need her around to remind him to be more human. But in keeping her close he'd only hurt her more in the long run.

  As he stepped out of the plane, Mycroft pushed thoughts of Amelia's feelings from his mind. He had a task to do, and it was imperative he focused. After showing disdain for others letting their emotions cloud their thoughts for so many years, he could hardly allow the same to happen to himself.

  It was only eleven in the evening local time, but they would feel as if they were four hours ahead of that. There was a risk it would adversely affect their performance on the second night, but he wanted to get this mission done in the smallest window possible. One night and day was enough time to confirm the information they'd been given and make sure their plan would work.

  The airport was a few miles north-east of St John's, where Krylov's yacht was meant to be moored. A very eager taxi driver took them to the hotel Mycroft's secretary had arranged for them in very little time. Although he intended on doing very little sleeping, she'd booked them a large family suite with two bedrooms.

  Not even Amelia reacted outwardly when the receptionist asked her which of the two men with her was her husband, but Sherlock beat them to a response.

  “Oh, I'm just the brother-in-law. These two are the couple.” The younger Holmes grinned and flicked Amelia a wink the receptionist didn't see.

  “Enjoy your stay,” she chirped despite the late hour, and then all three of them were making their way to the lifts.

  Only two minutes later they stood in the living area of their room. It was a little worse for wear and decorated far too garishly for Mycroft's tastes, but he planned on spending so little time in it he doubted it would matter. As he placed his laptop on the table, Sherlock opened the nearest bedroom door and glanced in.

  “Ah, the master bedroom. I'll allow you two to keep our cover up by sharing that one,” he said as he moved onto the next one.

  Mycroft rolled his eyes, despite having his back to his brother and Amelia. If it wasn't the most logical way to appear when on some kind of mission, he would have his secretary reprimanded for the booking, but even he knew it was the most inconspicuous way for a mixed group to travel.

  “I can sleep on the sofa, if you wish,” Amelia said quietly as she came up and started laying out the equipment she would need beside his. With his younger brother out of the way in his own room, Mycroft allowed himself a moment to show a little care towards Amelia.

  “No, take the bed. What little opportunity we'll have for sleep, you will find you need.”

  “I take it that means even if you do decide to share it with me, I won't get to enjoy it as much as I'd like. Shame, really.” She walked away, swinging her hips just a little more than usual.

  As she reached the bedroom door she glanced over her shoulder and slowly lowered her eyes. It was text book allure, and not the sort of thing Mycroft usually found enticing at all, but the grin that flicked across her face let him know she was aware of that. She was teasing him as much as his brother did. Only, in her case, he didn't find he was irritated.

  After taking half a second to consider what might make a good lesson, he picked up the small bag containing his own clothes and followed her into the master bedroom. The soft click of him closing the door alerted her to his presence and a brief look of surprise crossed her features.

  Wanting to see how she'd respond, he walked right up to her, slid an arm around her torso and pulled her up onto her toes so he could passionately kiss her. She didn't put up even the slightest bit of a fight, but didn't come back for more when he stopped and lowered her back onto her feet. Inch by inch, he pulled her tighter again, seeing if she'd be totally willing or think through what was happening.

  After a few seconds she placed a hand against his chest and pushed back. It was a feeble gesture at best, but it grew stronger when she broke their gaze.

  “I didn't mean it... At least not right now. We've got work to do, right?” There was little confidence in her voice and she searched his face for his reaction, but he hid everything again, showing her nothing and letting her go.

  “Good. I hope your head will be clear of other ideas from now on.”

  Hanging her head, she nodded. Satisfied, he walked away until she spoke again, not even trying to suppress the grin on her face.

  “But... Uh... after, when this is done, if you want to make use of this bed too, I'm more than willing.”

  He didn't satisfy her with a response even if he might actually take her up on the offer. The last thing he wanted to do was encourage her teasing him in a similar manner to Sherlock.

  As his younger brother emerged from the second bedroom, Mycroft gave him a nod and picked up his torch and jacket. It was time to get started.

  Chapter 12

  Despite being in the Caribbean, a shiver rippled through Amelia's torso. At night time it wasn't as warm as she'd expected, and she'd left the hotel inadequately dressed. Neither Holmes brother had much more on, but they never seemed to show signs of feeling anything.

  She found herself wondering if it was somehow related to their immortality, but snapped herself back to the present before she could fully explore the thought. Now wasn't the time.

  “Come,” Myron whispered for the third time in an hour. Doing as she was bid, she followed him as he walked silently down the next branch of the pontoon. When they reached the end they both crouched again, and he once more pulled out the night-vision goggles.

  After holding them up to his face and looking for several minutes, he stopped and handed them to her.

  “Tell me if you see the right yacht,” he said for the second time, not letting her know if he'd spotted it himself this time. It was part of her training, even if it had slowed them a little. She pictured the yacht she'd seen in the photo and then looked through the goggles.

  Until tonight, Amelia had never used anything like them, and she would have been the first to admit that they took some getting used to, but Myron seemed to think she should be good enough to spot the right yacht anyway. She only hoped he was right.

  Trying to stick to the instructions he'd given her, she found the boat she'd last seen on her left and, moving her focus up and down, she worked from left to right. There were a lot of large boats in the harbour, several of them moored farther out, as Krylov's was meant to be, but she could easily discount the first few she saw for having the wrong number of masts.

  A little over half way, Amelia stopped at a boat that looked promising. It appeared to be rigged in a similar manner, had the right number of masts, and the right overall shape.

  “Is that it?” she asked as she pointed.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. It is. We'll confirm it in the morning if we can, but we can't be sure he won't sail out to sea during the daylight hours for privacy.”

  “Right,” she replied, knowing he was only saying this for her benefit.

  “Come.” He took the goggles off her, pocketed them, and then walked quickly but quietly back the way they'd come.

  As she followed him back, she realised her stomach felt a little strange. It felt like it was sloshing in time with the water lapping at the edges of all the boats and the sway of the pontoon.

  Trying not to show that she wasn't feeling so great, Amelia kept pace with Myron anyway but she couldn't quite stifle her sigh of relief in time, once she stood on solid ground again. Myron glanced her way so she smiled and looked as if she was eager for her next instruction. She could only hope it was convincing enough.

  Before he could command her, Sebastian came around the corner of some kind of shed. She jumped and stifled a gasp with her hand. He gave Myron a brief nod but neither of them spoke. If they hadn't been out in the open she'd have asked what it meant. Instead, she waited and watched.

  “Back to the hotel,” Myron said a few seconds later. No one
argued, and ten minutes later they were stood in a group underneath the rope they'd let down from the third-floor balcony.

  As Amelia looked up it, she fought back her nerves and concentrated on her breathing. It hadn't seemed so high on the way down. Now she had to climb back up.

  Sebastian motioned for her to go first, so she grabbed the rope with both hands. After taking a deep breath, she jumped and pulled up with her hands, moving them one over the other as she tried to grip the rope below and push up with her feet.

  By the time she passed the window on the next floor her shoulders and arms were starting to burn. To keep going, she focused on the rope only a foot above her and moved hand over hand.

  The next window came into view, and Amelia knew she couldn't manage the climb in one go. She wrapped the rope around one leg and put her weight on it, wincing as it dug into her flesh through the thin material of her trousers. Maybe she'd not picked the best clothes when she'd woken, but when she'd gone to see Myron to ask where the situation stood, she'd not foreseen such an activity in her future.

  It didn't take long before one of the men below her tugged on the rope to encourage her to continue. She obeyed the gesture and took her weight on her arms again to haul herself the rest of the way. A few minutes later, she grabbed the balcony railing with her arm and used her feet to walk herself the last little bit up the wall.

  When she tumbled over and landed ungracefully on the ground, she silently thanked the world that she'd gone first and the men hadn't seen that. She then thanked Tom for all the training he'd done with her. Several months earlier she'd never have managed the climb at all. As it was, as she lifted an arm to wiggle the rope and let them know she was done, it shook with over exertion.

  Sebastian came next, taking less than half the time she had.

  “He'll take a little longer,” Sebastian said referring to his brother, as he pushed past her and went inside. For a few seconds she waited on the balcony, but the breeze blowing on her and sticking the sweat-soaked top to her skin made her change her mind.

  The younger Holmes was nowhere to be seen, so she went through to her bedroom and yanked the already smelling garment off over her head. She was rooting around in her suitcase for the spare top she'd brought with her when the door opened behind her.

  “Oh,” Sebastian said, not taking his eyes off her semi-naked torso. Before Amelia could grab something to cover herself with Myron appeared behind him, puffing a little with the effort of climbing.

  “I can see why you like her.” Sebastian gave her a wink and walked away, leaving her alone with the elder Holmes.

  “Your brother doesn't seem to know how to knock,” she said, wondering if she needed to clarify. A moment later she thought she saw Myron visibly relax his shoulders a fraction, but she couldn't be sure.

  Without replying, he shut the door on her. Feeling heat in her cheeks, Amelia fetched fresh clothes and changed quickly. So far, this mission wasn't going very well. Not only did she feel like she was a spare wheel in what would normally be a well-oiled operation, but she was also making an embarrassment of herself on a semi-regular basis.

  Decent again, she left the room and avoided looking at Sebastian as she went over to the table. On it Myron had already spread out a map of the harbour.

  While she stood beside him, he marked on it the mooring position of Krylov's boat that night. He then marked where they would swim from.

  It occurred to her that it might be easier to just hire a boat and get closer when she realised it was going to be farther than the distance she'd swam back to shore on her very first adventure with Myron. Before she could voice the thought she realised the idea had probably already occurred to the Holmes brothers. She followed the logic with several reasons why they might have rejected it. For starters, it would be noisier, and it also meant someone might remember they'd hired the boat. This way, they could come and go unseen.

  By the time Myron had marked all the details on the map, Sebastian stood on his other side and all three of them were studying it.

  “I'm going to sleep until breakfast,” Sebastian said less than a minute later.

  “Good. We'll have it up here.” Myron pushed the map over to be fully in front of her. “Memorise it.”

  She nodded, took a deep breath and focused on the details. There was a lot to take in, but after a few minutes she lifted her gaze to find he'd been watching her the whole time.

  “You need to be able to remember it. Can you guarantee you can?”

  She nodded. Ever since the time she'd almost forgotten the address of the hotel Myron had put her up in, she'd been working on her memorisation techniques. It was unlikely she'd be as good as the Holmes brothers, but she felt confident she'd beat most other people.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I'll remember it.”

  “Good.” He picked up the map, pulled a lighter from his pocket and took it out to the balcony. Once out there he held one corner near the bottom and lit it. It went up quickly and he hissed his breath through his teeth as it caught his fingers.

  A fraction of a second later he let it go and the last remaining fragment blew into the air, engulfed by the last of the flame. Nothing but a few specks of ash remained. If she didn't remember it now she'd be in big trouble.

  “Get some sleep.”

  “What about you?” she asked when he didn't follow her through to the bedroom.

  “There are still a few things to prepare,” he said, not even looking at her, but going back to the table. It really was all business at the moment.

  When she emerged from her room almost four hours later to eat breakfast, Myron was still in the place she'd last seen him, at the table on his laptop. Making sure she didn't cause enough noise to disturb him, she settled herself into one of the other chairs and spent the next few minutes recalling as much of the map as possible.

  For a few seconds she panicked that she'd forgotten a small part of it, but her barely awake brain gave her a rough shape and the rest fell into place in her mind. No sooner had she completed this when there was a knock at the hotel door.

  “Room service,” a muffled voice called. Myron finally looked up from his laptop and met her eyes. It didn't need to be prolonged for her to realise he wanted her to let the waiter in.

  She tipped the helpful man and shut the door behind him when he'd finished laying out their breakfast. Not two seconds after the door was shut, Sebastian appeared from his room, dressed and ready for the day.

  He beat Amelia back to the table, sitting down on the chair she'd just occupied and helping himself to the platter of cooked food. The smell of bacon normally let Amelia's stomach know it was time to eat but instead she felt it roll and flip over, making her pause.

  She covered the feeling by pouring herself a drink of orange juice and sipping on it for a few seconds. By the time she had put the glass back down the younger Holmes was already tucking in and the elder had gone back to whatever he was doing on the laptop.

  Buying herself a little time, she looked to her mentor as if she was waiting for him. When he glanced at her and waved for her to go ahead, she started picking out some bacon, scrambled eggs and mushrooms.

  Before she was done her stomach had flipped over another couple of times and she wondered if she might be sick. If she'd been of the right disposition she'd have thought she might be nervous about the upcoming mission, but it couldn't be that.

  Not wanting to alarm Myron and make him think her unfit to go on their mission, she took another mouthful of her orange juice and decided to offer to plate him up some food. As Sebastian was already almost finished, it might even have a good reason behind it.

  She quickly voiced the offer, knowing what he was likely to choose from the breakfasts she'd had in his home. Myron appeared to have an alternate pattern to what he ate in the mornings.

  Sebastian raised his eyebrows as Myron accepted, and she picked up the third plate, but she ignored the curiosity. By the time she had taken th
e food Myron would want from the central dish he'd finished what he was doing and put the laptop to one side. The younger Holmes was also eyeing up the leftovers.

  “I won't eat any more,” she said, knowing what he could be like when he ate, as well.

  “Fantastic.” Sebastian needed no other encouragement, and it gave Amelia a moment to herself to begin slowly chewing a small piece of bacon. Her stomach accepted it without too much complaint, so she followed it with another.

  Although she ate her breakfast a little slower than usual, by the time she was done her stomach felt far more normal and neither Holmes had appeared to notice. Myron was already back on his laptop and Sebastian was standing out on the balcony watching the people on the beach.

  “What is the plan for today?” Amelia asked when she realised she had nothing to do.

  “Brother?” Myron said, not even looking at her. Sebastian came back inside and waited for the elder Holmes to continue. “Take Amelia down to the harbour and look for Krylov's yacht. Also run through the plan in the daylight with her. Come back and get some sleep in a few hours. Once the maid has had time to come and clean the room.”

  “What are you going to do?” Amelia asked, not liking being ignored.

  “I have other matters to attend to, and I'm sure you can do what's necessary without me.”

  Myron turned back to his laptop, and Amelia knew enough of his nature to leave him alone. Thankfully, Sebastian strode to the door and held it open for her to follow.

  “The yacht's not there,” she said as soon as they were able to see the right area of the harbour.

  “No, but it is likely to be back. Come, we can go past the spot we need to swim from. I'll stop and admire something so you know where it is.”

  She nodded, not entirely sure she needed it pointed out to her so blatantly, but letting him teach her in his own way. Twenty minutes later she stood outside one of the beach shops. They'd done everything Myron had sent them out to do.