A Talent for Trickery

by Alissa Johnson

  “I did.” She looked to Owen, took in his shocked expression, and thought back to the scene in his bedroom. She’d been angry, and heartbroken, and not thinking with perfect clarity. Oh, dear. “Or perhaps not.”

  “Tell me that your father stole the Strale diamonds?” Owen’s tone was cool and very, very annoyed. “No. You did not.”

  “Right. Well. It had been my intention.” Like intending to call for him when she’d seen the stables on fire, she felt that ought to count for something.

  “Why don’t you tell me now,” he suggested.

  She didn’t care for the layer of extreme patience he’d added to the annoyance, but she couldn’t blame him for it. “Very well. Father—”

  Esther laid a hand on her arm. “No. It’s for me to tell.” She looked at each of the men separately and then straightened her shoulders and said, “I helped our father steal the Strale diamonds.” Her eyes flicked to the table and back again. “Evidently.”

  Over the next few minutes, Esther related her story in a flat, concise manner. She showed no emotion, offered no apologies, asked no philosophical questions about their father’s love or motivations. By all appearances, she was a woman detached from the telling, rather as if it were a dull play she’d learned by rote.

  But Lottie saw the way her sister’s fingers dug into her skirts and the way she held herself so stiffly it seemed as if she might shatter at any moment. Esther wasn’t detached. She was humiliated and doing everything she could to hide it.

  “He must have made a switch,” Esther said at length. “He must have had replicas made. He gave the fakes to the Ferret and kept the real ones for himself.”

  “You should have told us.” Samuel didn’t spit the words at Esther, but it was a near thing.

  “She has,” Lottie responded in a clipped tone. Silently, she recognized that Samuel was owed an apology. They were all owed an apology. But he would not obtain it by shaming Esther in front of everyone. “It’s done. Now, you may stay here and help us figure out what is next to be done, or you may join Peter for a sulk.”

  Samuel’s eyes narrowed, and he opened his mouth, but whether he meant to argue or simply snarl at her, Lottie would never know. He glanced at Esther, his gaze falling on her hands, and the anger seemed to drain out of him.

  “Fair enough,” he muttered, and then he turned to Owen. “I thought the diamonds were recovered with Lady Strale.”

  “They were.”

  “Did you see them for yourself?” Lottie asked.

  “Not well.” He reached for the velvet pouch. “They were in something like this. We glanced inside and then set it aside. They were delivered to Strale within a few hours.”

  Samuel nodded. “We had casualties. And prisoners. The diamonds weren’t a priority.”

  “They must have been replicas,” Gabriel mused and then shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. We may not have noticed, but someone would have, eventually.”

  “One would think,” Owen agreed. “But the Strale diamonds haven’t been on display since the night of that ball.”

  “Could Strale have known?” Lottie asked him. “But why keep it a secret? Embarrassment?”

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps the diamonds were immediately put away after their recovery and not taken out since.” Owen tossed the bag back onto the table. “Strale was exceedingly fond of his wife. He may not have cared for a reminder of her kidnapping.”

  “Strale died four months ago,” Samuel said.

  “True, but I doubt Lady Strale is eager to put the jewels on and make herself a target again. Kidnapping makes for a good story, but it’s not an experience one wants to relive.”

  Esther ran a finger over a piece of the tiara. “Father would have needed help for this. Beyond Gage and his men. Someone who knew the diamonds well enough to commission a convincing set of fakes.”

  “Not necessarily,” Gabriel replied. “The Strale family jewels have been famous for over a century. There have been countless descriptions, sketches, paintings. There’s likely a photograph or two about. Copies could have been made from any one of them.”

  “And Father needed only to fool his accomplice for the time it took to pass off the jewels,” Lottie murmured. “And run away.”

  “And run away,” Esther agreed softly. She picked up the broken bit of tiara and frowned at it. “He did this so it would fit behind the narrow frame.”

  That was Lottie’s suspicion, as well. “Yes.”

  “He would have broken them all eventually. He would have removed the stones and melted down the metal so he could sell it all in bits and pieces. The artistry meant nothing to him.” She looked to Owen. “I’d like to have it repaired, if possible, before you return it to the family.” She waited for his nod and then set the piece of tiara down with care and scrubbed her hand against her skirts as if to clean it off. “Thank you. If you will excuse me.”

  * * *

  Samuel and Gabriel made their own excuses shortly after Esther’s departure, leaving Lottie and Owen to stare at the jewels in silence.

  Lottie brushed her fingers over the elaborate necklace. “It isn’t revenge the man in the woods wants.” She took the necklace by the clasp and held it up. “It’s these.”

  Owen’s hand came to rest on her back. “Yes, I suspect he does.”

  Nodding, she set the necklace atop the velvet bag. “The attacks have been sporadic. A clumsy burglary attempt, random shootings, the fire. He doesn’t seek to do us bodily harm, necessarily—”

  “Samuel might take exception to that.”

  “No doubt,” she agreed with a wince. “But Samuel was shot by chance. The drapes were closed. One cannot aim through closed drapes. Do you suppose his intention has been to threaten? To scare us away? That would make sense,” she continued without waiting for a reply. “If he assumed we knew of the diamonds, then he would assume we would not leave the house without them. And it would be easier to overtake a carriage than invade a house, as you’ve said. Particularly if he has help watching the roads.”

  “A reasonable theory. It is also possible he believes you remain unaware of the diamonds, and he simply wants the house vacated so he might search for them himself.”

  “Or search for my father’s journals. My father never lived in this house. The man in the woods might assume the diamonds are hidden elsewhere, and the clues to their location are hidden in the journals.”

  “Also a reasonable theory.” He drew his hand down her back in a careless caress that felt like a balm against raw nerves. “We’ve no shortage of them, it seems.”

  “And now we’ve a new one,” she murmured. “My father didn’t go into Gage’s building for the diamonds. Or for the reward. He had what he wanted right here.” She rubbed a thumb over the smooth surface of the brooch. “He really did go in for Lady Strale.”

  Owen was quiet for a long moment. “It would appear he did.”

  “That is something. That counts for something.”

  “It does,” he agreed, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “More, I think, than I would have imagined possible. Perhaps some part of him wished for redemption after all.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t all bad,” she whispered.

  Owen didn’t reply, and she didn’t expect him to. They would likely never know for certain what her father’s intentions had been. She would never know if he had truly tried, or even wished, to be a better man. Maybe would have to be enough.

  Slowly, she began to replace the jewels in their pouch and tried not to think of how much they had cost them, how much had been lost.

  “Ouch.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s nothing. Brooch pricked me, that’s all.” She turned her hand over to reveal a small bead of blood on her thumb. “Only a scratch.”

  “Here.” Owen held out a handkerchief, and she acc
epted it absently.

  “A scratch,” she mumbled to herself as a new idea began to form. “Kitten.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “He used Tulip for me, Kitten for Esther. What if…” Suddenly excited, she jumped up from her seat. “Wait here. Wait right here.”

  In a thrice, Lottie had darted to her room, gathered the letters and her supplies, and brought them back to the library.

  “What are you doing?” Owen inquired over her shoulder as she got to work at the table.

  “With any luck, deciphering the rest of these blasted letters. If we operate under the assumption that Ferret used a code created by my father for the purpose of leading you, and by extension him, to the Walkers, then it stands to reason that the code he used is the very same they employed during the theft of the Strale diamonds.” She double-checked a piece of her work before continuing. “The keyword Father used to encrypt the whereabouts of the diamonds was Tulip. Why? I had no connection to the theft.” She stopped briefly to shake her pen at him. “But Esther did. Maybe he used my nickname to hide the diamonds, because he used Esther’s to steal them.”

  “Kitten.” Owen reached for one of her papers and scowled at her when she slapped his hand away. “It’s a guess.”

  “It’s a good one,” she replied, and she went back to work. “It’s a simple keyword. Easy for Gage and Ferret to remember and put to use. And a less-than-subtle reminder of Esther’s skills.” She paused in her frantic scribbling and took in the initial results. “It works. I can’t believe it. It really works. It’s the keyword.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Very little, so far.” A few words, yet, nothing more. “Give me a few minutes.”

  He gave her twenty, pacing back and forth behind her chair, before impatience got the better of him. “Why use the original code to encrypt the body of the letter and another for the dates?”

  “Hmm? Oh, to hedge his bet, I should think. Without the keyword, you could never decipher these letters. That was a real possibility. But you could still recognize it as my father’s work, or wonder if it was his work, at the very least. He was a master of encryption, after all.”

  “And the dates were included to ensure I did more than wonder. They ensured my cooperation in leading him to Willowbend.”

  “Yes, threats will do that. Also”—she stopped to read through what she’d managed to decipher so far—“he is most assuredly mad.”

  “Why? What does it say?”

  “It’s just gibberish.” She waved her hands over the paper in front of her. “Threats and insults and nonsensical ramblings. Listen to this… ‘I will win by force what he took by deception. I am the fox and the snare. A man will forget more easily the death of his father than the loss of his patrimony.’ It’s nonsense.”

  “Let me see.” He took the seat next to her, scooted close, and bent his head over her notes. “It’s Machiavelli.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “He’s quoting, or mangling, rather, several quotes from Machiavelli. Taken them out of context and cobbled them together like patchwork.”

  “Has he?” She frowned at the letter. “I’ve never read anything by Machiavelli.” She gave him an appraising look. “You’re quite a man of literature, aren’t you?”

  “My father was an admirer. He made me read several of his works.”

  “Oh. Pity. I rather like the image of you sitting in an enormous library surrounded by a sea of books.” She grinned at the mental picture. “All those little pages folded down at the corners so adorably.”

  “Yes, well”—his head jerked up—“adorably? You said you found it intriguing.”

  She shrugged, enjoying the moment of silliness. “One can be intrigued by adorableness.”

  He grumbled something unintelligible.

  “A grown man pouting is somewhat less adorable,” she informed him.

  “Good.”

  She laughed softly and then stopped abruptly as a new realization dawned. “Oh, that’s it! That is it.”

  “What is what?”

  “Esther said Ferret had neither a sharp mind nor an education. How, then, did he write these letters? A man of little education is unlikely to quote, however inaccurately, a seventeenth-century Italian philosopher.”

  “Late fifteenth, early sixteenth.”

  “Only proves my point. But it’s more than that.” She pushed the paper closer to him. “Look at the deciphered text. You said the letters had been tidied by the person charged with creating the copies, but the code itself was wholly unchanged.”

  Owen scanned the contents. “It’s madness, as you said.” His eyes narrowed. “But rather well constructed.”

  “Yes.” She beamed at him, delighted by how quickly he spotted the pattern. “There is but one spelling error, that I can find, in almost an entire page of encryption employed by a man of little sense and education.”

  Owen glanced up, and a look of understanding passed between them. “He didn’t write them.”

  “No. They’re from someone else.”

  Another enemy, she thought. Another threat to her family. Another threat to Owen. Suddenly, the excitement that came from finally deciphering the letters drained away, and the deep chill of fear settled in her bones.

  Owen slid his hand over hers. “I’ll catch them, Lottie.” He drew her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her palm. “I’m close. I swear it.”

  Twenty-three

  He was close.

  Owen stayed low and kept to the shadows afforded by the thick brush and dying light of day as he picked his way over twigs and fallen leaves.

  He could see the man now, thirty yards due east. His face was turned up to the rapidly clearing sky. Rethinking his decision to remain so close to the house, no doubt. But it was too late. The mistake had been made.

  Owen closed half the distance between them and then stopped and weighed his options. He was tempted, sorely tempted, to put his gun away and go in with fists. He longed to feel the bastard’s nose break against his knuckles. But he was a man of the law, or at least a man only one or two degrees removed from the law. He wasn’t a damned vigilante, in either case. He held himself, and his men, to a higher standard.

  Also, they needed answers, and individuals with broken noses were invariably difficult to understand.

  He waited until the man turned his back and crouched down in front of a small stack of wood and then he moved forward, quickly but quietly, and raised his gun.

  “Good evening.”

  His prey jumped and then went dead still. “Hell.”

  “Soon enough,” Owen promised. “Drop the wood. Stand up, hands out. Turn about slowly. Let’s have a look at you, then.”

  Grumbling, the man obeyed. It was the Ferret, without question. The pinched face and beady eyes were just as Esther described, only they were weighted by exhaustion. His face was drawn, his eyes deeply shadowed. No simple matter, Owen thought, for a man of the city to survive in the woods.

  “Had a rough time of it, have you?”

  The man curled his lip. “Not half so rough as you, eh?”

  Owen considered the man, the sneer, and all the events that had led up to this moment. Then let his fist fly.

  * * *

  “Hello, Kitten. Bring your claws?”

  Ferret grinned at Esther through a bloodied lip. He was, Lottie could not help but notice, rather cheerful for a man tied to a chair in her front parlor. His smile broadened at Esther’s silence, exposing a set of rotting teeth. “What, has Walker’s guard dog gone lame? Always figured you for a proper bitch without a proper bite.”

  Lottie tensed, ready to haul her sister back from responding to the insult with force, but it was Samuel who stepped forward and delivered a smart slap to the side of their captive’s head. “Mind your tongue,” he growled.
>
  The Ferret shook off the blow with a chuckle. “Fair enough. Fair enough. Just a bit of fun between old friends.”

  “Old friends, is it?” Esther replied sweetly. “Well then, you won’t mind reminding me of your name. I seem to have forgotten it.”

  The Ferret puckered his swollen lips and squinted in mock concentration. “Joseph. Aye, Joseph. Always did want a biblical name.”

  “The Ferret it is,” Samuel decided.

  The Ferret wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Here now. No need for that. We can be civilized, you and me.”

  “You shot me.”

  The man had the gall to laugh. “An accident. God’s truth. I weren’t aiming for you. I don’t shoot a man what don’t needs it. Generally speaking.”

  Lottie fought back a wave of revulsion. “But you would trap a helpless animal in a burning stable.”

  The Ferret shook his head. “Took no pleasure in it. No pleasure. Needed you to see reason, is all. Needed you to leave the bloody house.” He shot an exasperated look at Owen. “What sort of gentleman don’t see the ladies to safety, I ask you?”

  “The sort who understands that a stone house is easier to protect than several carriages traveling over an open road or an easily tracked train,” Owen replied.

  The Ferret’s beady eyes shifted back and forth as he worked through the logic.

  “Ah,” he said at last and began bobbing his head in understanding. “You thought I meant to follow.” He shrugged in the limited fashion allowed by his bindings. “Weren’t planning on it.”

  “That is of particular use to us now,” Gabriel drawled. “Thank you.”

  The Ferret continued on as if he’d not heard. “I figured, if a pair of you took the ladies off, the boy would follow and most of the staff. That would leave a groom or two, maybe a footman, guarding the house. And just one of you. I could handle one of you.”

  “Do you think?” Gabriel asked softly.

  Another abbreviated shrug. “It’s what I figured.”