Euch! They must have heard her in Cornwall, the damned opera singer. He would have to import a driver from Scotland if that was all it took to shake an English driver into someone else’s submission.

His mouth was open in unvoiced disapproval, and when Ruth managed to hop in? He rolled his eyes, as though he were still that disgruntled teenager from their youth. Time had changed him, certainly, but some of the fundamental annoyance was still in tact. Flourishing, even.

“My dearest redheaded sister,” Zechariah drawled on back.

She was his only redheaded sister, thankfully.

“Before I had to fetch you, I had been just about to sit down for a nice, romantic dinner-” where he imagined Crane across from him, or perhaps tied up as he hand-fed him dessert, “with the stars and the sky, finally with a peaceful moment to myself.”

He smiled, nostalgically – the kind of smile he would want the reporters to catch rather than one that came unpracticed. No mention of Moneybags von Dowry.

“But it seems you are. I am going to finish my nightly walk.”

Meaning: leave her with the bags. He had not done a nightly walk since Simon was arrested.