by Rebecca King
‘Some of the watches your father makes are extremely expensive,’ Luke murmured. ‘Is there a watch your father might have made that might be more valuable or more sought after than the rest?’
‘Well, my father has made a special Tynesdale timepiece. He has only made six of them on account of them costing so much. I think that some of the mechanisms are made of gold; I am not sure. The mechanisms in the special watches are unique, and of course, the engraving on the casings is remarkable.’
‘What are they worth? If I were to purchase one off your father, as a customer, what would he sell it to me for?’
‘About a hundred pounds, if not more. The lesser watches are sold for considerably less, of course, or they wouldn’t be affordable to many,’ Rosemary replied. ‘You really should ask father. I am sure he won’t mind telling you, and even showing you one of the remaining Tynesdales.’
‘Has he not sold all of them?’ Luke asked.
Rosemary shrugged. ‘I know he made them. He took great pains to make sure that they were identical in every way. When it became known amongst his professional associates that he was making six of them, four were purchased immediately. I know he wanted to keep one for himself, but I am not sure what happened to the fifth.’
‘I’ll ask him,’ Luke replied with a smile. ‘It might be that Morton has heard about these watches and intended to try to get one off Thomas. I am not in any way saying that this is what Morton’s intentions are and the reason why all the damage has been done, but it might be. If Morton wants to purchase one of these watches, but they are too expensive, by damaging the Tynesdale name the value of the Tynesdale time pieces would decrease.’
‘And make the watch more affordable. But why? I mean, if he ruined father’s reputation to try to get a timepiece, isn’t he aware that whatever watch he purchases won’t be worth much?’ Rosemary asked.
‘He knows that the only people who can afford time pieces that expensive are aristocracy.’ Luke didn’t want to add that Thomas was already in his mid-sixties. As soon as he died, all his rare and high-specification watches would increase in value because they would become rarities as the years passed. Luke leaned back in his seat and contemplated that for several moments. Now that he no longer had hunger to distract him, he was able to see all sorts of possibilities that he hadn’t stopped to consider before.
Right now, I need to enjoy spending as much time focusing on Rosemary as I can. Times like this are precious.
‘Are you going out again tonight?’ Rosemary felt terribly forthright asking the man what he was going to do. She half expected him to brush her off or tell her that it was none of her business, but Luke shook his head as if she had every right to ask.
‘I am staying here tonight.’ Luke didn’t add that Roger had practically ordered him home.
Luke suspected that it was because Roger, who was the last man to have taken up watch over the house and its occupants, had witnessed the changes Rosemary had made to the house and wanted Luke to see them. Luke made a mental note to thank Roger and stood up, tugging Rosemary with him to the door.
‘It looks nice outside. Would you like to come for a walk with me? It will be getting dark soon so we cannot be gone for too long, but it will be nice to get some fresh air. What do you think?’
When Luke looked at her with that hopeful expression, Rosemary really couldn’t deny him anything. She smiled when everything warned her that getting too close to him wasn’t a wise idea. She gathered her shawl and followed him out of the house when common sense told her to stay inside and suggest to him that he go and speak to her father. Rosemary followed Luke outside, and took the arm he held out to her with a contented smile.
‘We are going for a walk, Thomas. Would you care to join us?’ Luke called through the door when they reached her father’s new workshop.
Thomas peered at them and beamed. ‘No. No. You two go ahead. I have to finish up here.’
‘Father, do you still have the Tynesdale timepiece?’ Rosemary asked.
Thomas blinked at her. ‘Why, yes. I have one left. What of it?’ He smiled at Luke. ‘Would you like to see it?’
Luke nodded. It wasn’t what he had planned but entered the workshop and waited while Thomas unlocked a section of the workbench that Luke hadn’t noticed before. It was secreted under the bench, at the back, and was opened by a tiny key that Thomas had secreted in his waistcoat pocket. Thomas removed the drawer which he placed reverently onto the workbench. Folding back the cloth, he revealed a shiny gold fob-watch with the most elaborately engraved casing Luke had ever seen. It was stunning, and something Luke knew was worth considerably more than a hundred pounds.
‘Good Lord,’ Luke breathed. He watched Thomas lift it out of its velvety storage pouch and hold it out to him. ‘It’s stunning.’ Luke hefted its weight and knew it was made of solid gold.
‘It took so long that I could only make six of them. The workings are made of pure gold,’ Thomas explained before proceeding to detail the intricate timepiece, visible through the glass casing on the back of the fob watch.
‘Do you know something?’ Luke whispered. ‘There is no way in God’s earth that you would bother stealing someone’s elaborately carved watch when you already own something like this. I have never seen anything so exquisite.’
‘It is indeed a remarkable piece,’ Rosemary agreed.
‘And proof that you are no thief.’ Luke shared a smile with Thomas, who beamed with pride.
When Luke held the watch out to Thomas, the master craftsman slid a look at his daughter and shook his head.
‘Keep it,’ Thomas announced softly. ‘You have helped Rosemary and I so much, it is right that the watch should be yours.’
‘I can’t,’ Luke breathed, deeply touched by the generous gesture. He held the watch aloft, but Thomas folded its cloth up and tucked it into his waistcoat.
‘I insist. It’s yours. I feel it was made for you,’ Thomas announced. ‘I have one of my own, the first of its kind I made. The other four have been sold. It is time this went as well. I don’t know of any finer man I would like to see own it. It’s yours, Luke. Please take it with my deepest appreciation for everything you have done to help me and my daughter.’
Luke stared down at the watch in stunned disbelief. He was speechless.
‘Here, do you want to wear it or wrap it back up?’ Rosemary asked quietly.
Luke blinked at her before dropping his gaze back to the timepiece. ‘I must pay you.’
‘Nonsense. What you have done for us is worth far more,’ Thomas insisted. He closed the drawer and repocketed the key before beaming at both Luke and his daughter. ‘Now, that is the end of the matter.’
Luke closed his mouth with a snap and offered his thanks before pocketing the watch. He secured it to his waistcoat before staring down at the sparkling gold chain in disbelief.
‘Now, off with you both, I have work to do,’ Thomas muttered before returning to his work bench.
Rosemary shook her head at him before looking lovingly at Luke, who offered his arm and led her out of the workshop and into the afternoon sunshine with a contented smile.
CHAPTER TEN
Rosemary knew there was something wrong the second they left the trees. Before them lay a huge lake, which glistened like millions of diamonds in the afternoon sunlight. All was still and quiet, but it wasn’t peaceful. An almost oppressive sense of being watched hung over them both and caused Rosemary and Luke to frown at each other.
‘Do you see anything?’ she whispered.
Luke stood closer to her than he ordinarily would and searched the trees. ‘We need to go back.’ He tried to sound unconcerned but there was nothing he could do about the way his gaze flicked around the trees, scouring the shadows and shifting shapes of the branches swaying gently in the breeze.
‘Do you think someone is out there?’ Rosemary asked, clutching the edges of her shawl tighter about her narrow shoulders.
Luke sucked in a breath
. Just in case someone was watching them, he gathered her into his arms. ‘Stand against me,’ he urged softly, watching the shadows behind her just in case someone had followed them. ‘I think we have to be a little frank, here. We are not all that far away from Oakley Bridge. People walk to town right past here.’
‘The locals can reach us even here,’ Rosemary whispered with a shiver.
When Luke saw fear and worry deaden her eyes, and mentally cursed. ‘You are not going to be in any danger as long as you do what I tell you when I tell you, understand? I need you to appear as calm as possible. What I know is that there is absolutely no cause for any of the locals to come near my house. If someone is lurking in the bushes, I will find them. You are under my protection. I will not allow anything to happen to you. But I think it is safe to say that there is definitely someone following and watching us.’
When he had first felt a watchful presence around them, Luke had wondered if Thomas had changed his mind and decided to follow them. But there was no sign of the man. Whoever was following them was making sure that they weren’t visible and that was alarming.
‘We have to go,’ Luke murmured. ‘But make sure that you appear normal, as if you don’t suspect anything. If you listen, you will realise that there are no woodland animals making squeaking noises. Even the birds are silent. That should be enough to warn you that we are not alone in these woods. It is advisable that we stay away from the woods and lake for the time being. I will get Joshua, our tracker, to see if he can pick up a trail.’
‘A tracker?’ Rosemary blinked at him.
‘Yes, Joshua follows trails that people leave behind. He has a strange ability to follow someone’s footsteps even through woodland like this. It is quite remarkable. If someone has been hiding in any of the bushes, even in the woods, Joshua is likely to find the footprints the culprit leaves behind.’ Luke grinned when Rosemary’s mouth fell open. ‘It’s what we do. Or, well, Joshua does.’
‘Good Lord,’ Rosemary breathed.
‘Come on, let’s go back.’ As he guided her back onto the path that would take them home, Luke kept one hand on his gun and didn’t stop checking the path behind them. He thought he saw branches move when they shouldn’t but didn’t stop. Instead, he guided Rosemary home but made himself a mental promise that the next time they ventured on an afternoon walk he would get some time alone with her.
Maybe now is not the best time to court her given everything that is happening around her right now. I don’t want her to feel that she needs to be with me because I can protect her.
Luke was already painfully aware that he already had strong feelings for her. With each day that passed, it was becoming more imperative that she feel the same for him. Was this love? He couldn’t be definite but rather suspected it was.
‘It is starting to come to life,’ Luke murmured with a nod toward the house when they emerged from the trees and saw the property sitting in resplendent glory before them.
The gardens were still a tangled mass of weeds, and the bushes were overgrown and dishevelled, but it wouldn’t take too much to turn them into proper gardens again. Moreover, the house was wonderful inside, but still needed a fresh coat of paint and a few minor repairs before its restoration was complete.
‘I would like to try to weed this lot, if you don’t mind,’ Rosemary murmured, eyeing a tangled rose bush in what should have been the garden’s border.
‘If you want to, but there is no need. When this investigation is over, I can do it,’ Luke replied.
Luke felt as if his life was starting to blossom as much as the house. He had never felt everything as sharply as he did now. The sun shone brighter in the sky whenever he was with Rosemary. The day was warmer, the future brighter, the life he had was far more content whenever Rosemary was around. Having now seen what she had done to transform his house into a home, Luke knew that his instincts about her had been accurate. Rosemary was gentle, nurturing, a homemaker. He didn’t doubt that she had not hesitated to roll her sleeves up and make the bread, and that she had done the exact same thing when she had been living above the shop with her father. In his eyes, it made her far more approachable than aristocratic women who seemed to do nothing more than sit around all day sipping Ratafia and gossiping about others. He couldn’t bear the thought of sharing his life with someone that vacuous. He needed a woman who was far more down to earth than that. He didn’t want some untouchable wife who expected to be waited on by an army of servants. Luke knew exactly what he wanted.
Rosemary.
It was the truth. Unfortunately, thanks to whoever was hiding in the woods, his time alone with her hadn’t gone as well as he had hoped. However, he wasn’t going to be thwarted so easily, and so began to plot what he was going to do to try to spend more time alone with her, preferably without leaving the house.
‘Did you not follow us?’ Rosemary asked her father when they passed his workshop.
Thomas, deep in crafting another masterpiece, blinked absently at her. ‘What was that, dear?’
‘Nothing,’ Rosemary murmured with a frown.
‘It wasn’t him,’ Luke muttered, shaking his head. ‘Thomas, can you start to lock the door when you are working in here alone, but keep the key out of the door and make sure that a copy of the key is in the house so we can get in if there is a problem?’
Thomas froze. ‘Is there a problem?’
Rosemary told him what had happened by the lake while Luke fetched the bunch of keys for the workshops. He selected the two that fit the door and removed one, which he tucked into his waistcoat pocket. ‘Keep the door locked.’
‘Of course. If you think it is unsafe for me to be out here, I can do this work in my bed chamber in the house if it helps,’ Thomas offered.
Luke studied the bench laden with various tools and equipment and immediately shook his head because he suspected that Thomas was likely to be in and out of the house at all hours of the day and night. Whoever was on watch would then have to follow him to make sure that he was safe while he was venturing outside after dark, and then couldn’t protect the house like they were supposed to.
‘No, for now, keep working in here but stick to daylight hours. As soon as it starts to get dark, finish up and make sure you are in the house before it gets completely dark.’
‘Do you really think we are in danger here?’ Thomas asked quietly.
‘Not really,’ Luke replied ruefully. ‘But it won’t hurt to take extra precautions.’
Thomas, admiring Luke’s protectiveness of his daughter, nodded contentedly.
‘I am sorry for his absent mindedness when he talks to you. He is in his element here,’ Rosemary murmured. ‘It has been a long time since I have seen him so happy. I never realised how miserable we were.’
‘But I thought you said that the problems only started within the last few weeks?’
‘They have, but you have seen the state of the shop. Upstairs is no better. My father has been dedicated to his work practically all his life and hasn’t really paid as much attention to maintaining the shop as he ought. I think the place has gradually deteriorated but because we live there, we haven’t noticed just how bad it has become. Of course, we have discussed moving to bigger, better premises over the years but neither of us have done anything about it. Of late, though, money has been a problem because of the lack of customers.’
Luke squinted at the house they were slowly ambling toward. ‘But hasn’t your father set aside any money for when times get worse?’
‘Yes, but he refuses to use it. He says that I am to use it to get by if anything happens to him.’
‘But it has prevented you from finding somewhere better to live,’ Luke said. It wasn’t a question. ‘Do you see yourself living there again?’ Rosemary’s answer mattered to him more than it ought.
‘If I am honest, no,’ Rosemary replied. ‘Now that I have seen how happy being here has made my father, I have had to be honest with myself. I was unhappy living there as wel
l. Here, there are fields, the garden, the ability to get outside and breathe. Here, we can be ourselves and live without having other people watching us, waiting for us to do something they can take offense at.’
‘You can be you,’ Luke murmured, with a nod of understanding.
‘I don’t suppose you can understand.’
‘Oh? What makes you say that?’
‘Well, you seem so self-assured. I doubt you have ever been made miserable by anything in your life,’ Rosemary snorted only to look at him in dismay. ‘Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to sound critical of you. It is just that you are a man who gets things done. If you are unhappy with something, I don’t doubt you change it immediately, and don’t waffle and dodge the issue like my father and I have when we were living above the shop.’
‘You would be surprised,’ Luke murmured. He squinted at the house because he could think of two situations when he had bitterly regretted the choices that he had made but hadn’t been able to change his decisions. He grinned at her when she looked sceptically at him and admitted: ‘There have been several occasions when I have been so cold that I have felt pains in my feet from the ice I have been standing on. I have been outside, in the middle of the night, when any sane man was safely tucked up in his bed. Moreover, I have been outside, watching other people going about their lives, locked out of worlds that I haven’t been privy to. On those occasions, I have had cause to question my sanity. I have questioned my decisions but my colleagues’ lives and safety has depended upon me staying where I was at the time, and suffering through the exhaustion, sleepless nights, and discomfort from the cold to help them if they needed me. Those have been situations that I have been trapped in.’ He looked at her. ‘As trapped as you felt in that shop.’