by Lynn Kurland
“We’re quite a pair,” he managed.
“You startled me,” she said. She looked at him critically. “At least your eyes aren’t crossed any longer.”
“A fact for which I am enormously grateful.” He moved to lean against the dresser. “What are you up to there?”
She took a deep breath. “Nothing yet.”
“I pulled you out of your happy place, perhaps.”
“Nope,” she said with a shrug. “I didn’t have any inspiration. Actually, I don’t have any talent, I’m afraid.”
He regarded her steadily. “And who told you that?”
“No one had to,” she said with a light, careless laugh. “I have two good eyes.”
“Maybe you should silence your inner critic before he destroys all your pleasure in something you might be very good at.”
She struggled to mask her surprise. “Aren’t you supportive today,” she said.
“I’m not fond of critics,” he said mildly. “And if you’re willing to turn your back on everything you’ve done to this point in favor of art, it’s likely very important to you.”
She let her mouth fall open as it wanted so desperately to. “How did you know I was turning my back on things?”
“You introduced yourself as an artist, not an historian. If that’s the case, it’s fairly logical to assume you don’t want to be associated with your past.” He tilted his head slightly. “Is that about right?”
“Who are you?”
“A student of the species,” he said wryly. He shoved his hands in his pockets, only wincing slightly. “Am I right or have I completely misread you? Well, past that initial misreading, of course.”
She shrugged helplessly. “Honestly, at this point I don’t have any idea who I am or what I want to do. I don’t even know what to do with the rest of the day, much less my life.”
“Well, let’s deal with today,” he suggested, “and go make an old man very happy. The rest will sort itself with enough time.”
She couldn’t say she had that much faith in the ability of time to right things, but she was willing to at least go listen to his plans. She made herself comfortable on the sofa, then watched him rub his shoulder gingerly after he’d sat down as well.
“Hurt?”
“Healing,” he clarified, “which is less painful than it is annoying. But I’m grateful.” He sat back and looked at her. “So, now we have to decide what we’re going to do.”
“We?” she echoed.
“We,” he said. “Until the general word is out that we have the lace back in our possession, I don’t think you’re safe.”
“And just how am I going to fix that?” She was appalled to find that her mouth was so dry, she could hardly swallow.
“We are going to fix that with a couple of well-thought-out phone calls to the less savory types, then a trip north to deliver the lace back to Lord Epworth.” He looked at her seriously. “The main problem I see is the lads who are following you—all four of them. I don’t know who hired them, or why there would be two pairs, but I have to assume it has to do with the lace.”
“That seems reasonable,” she agreed faintly.
“We can hope. I think the best way to proceed is to have Oliver deliver that Victorian rubbish for you and see who comes to observe that little handoff—”
“But that’s too dangerous for him,” she said quickly. “I couldn’t ask him to do that.”
Derrick shook his head. “You’re not; he’s offering. Insisting, actually.” He smiled. “Oliver has a rather interesting background. This is the sort of thing he lives for, so I don’t like to disappoint him when these kinds of deliveries crop up. He’ll be just fine, mostly because he won’t be alone.”
She didn’t want to ask who would be going with him. She could only assume that person wouldn’t be Derrick.
“And immediately after he lets us know the package is off,” Derrick continued, “you’ll give Lydia a little text and let her know your new friend from Scotland Yard saw to that delivery but only after he found something odd inside the wrapping. Because he’s such a stellar soul, he promised he would return that something odd to its owner. As for you, your plans for the summer have changed. You’re sorry, but that’s how it goes.”
“I’m a bit of a flake, apparently.”
He shrugged. “Oliver trotting through a less desirable part of London is one thing,” he said. “You going back to Newcastle and spending even three minutes in Lydia Cooke’s house to explain things is quite another.”
“Then what about the lace?”
“We’ll head to Castle Hammond and hand it back to His Lordship.”
She looked at him, surprised. “You’re not going to call the cops about this?”
“I think that this might be better if we keep it just in the family, if you know what I mean.”
“No press conference?”
He smiled briefly. “No press conference. Word getting back to the Cookes will probably be publicity enough.” He considered for a moment, then shifted to face her a bit more. “I have the feeling that once Lydia hears the lace is in the tender care of Scotland Yard, you’ll be off the radar. And I suspect—and I’ve been thinking about this for a bit, so it’s less a guess than it is something I’m fairly certain about—I suspect that when the Cookes understand the situation, they’ll feign ignorance of the whole thing. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if they send someone to check to see if our little scrap of textile has been returned to Castle Hammond. Case closed.”
She supposed so, but she almost didn’t dare hope that she would be free of the whole situation so easily. Then again, if those thugs were after the lace and everyone knew she didn’t have it any longer, maybe freedom was more attainable than she dared hope.
She looked at Derrick. “And the Cookes? What will happen to them?”
“I’m not entirely sure, actually,” he said. “They don’t have a history of theft, as far as we can tell.”
“How far can you tell?” she asked.
He hesitated, then smiled faintly. “We have access to a few databases with interesting facts.”
“Hacker,” she chided.
“And that’s nothing I’ll ever admit to,” he said promptly. “I don’t know if they’ve been pinching little stuff all along and this is their first attempt at something big, or if this is the first thing they’ve ever attempted to steal.”
“How are you going to tell?”
He sighed deeply. “Well, the circles I run in are rather small. Word tends to get round fairly quickly about thefts and thieves. I haven’t heard anything about the Cookes to this point, but that may change.”
“And you don’t think the cops should know?”
He shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? If I let the Cookes go unpunished and they poach something else, where does that leave me? Yet on the other hand, I have a man with an impeccable reputation who would shudder at the thought of the bobbies tramping through his private sanctuary.”
“Which is why he called you in the first place, I supposed.”
“I am discreet,” he agreed. “It’s part of our charm.”
And keeping an old man from being stressed was likely the other part. She studied him for a moment or two.
“Do you know anyone in Scotland Yard?”
“Someone,” he said enigmatically.
“Does he have a secure phone line?”
“Assuredly, and the lovely ability to keep a few things to himself,” Derrick agreed. “We’ll see what happens over the next couple of months.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know how I got mixed up in all this.”
“Well, the first item of business is to get you out of it,” Derrick said. “Oliver’s on his way, I’ve texted your contact, and that should be done this afternoon. I think we can safely head north in the morning and take care of everything else.” He considered. “I assume you left gear in Newcastle?”
“How much money?”
“Two hundred and sixty-seven pounds.” She paused. “And twenty pence.”
“I think we can replace that.” He smiled, then his smile faded. “Thank you, Samantha. You have put up with far more than should have been required.”
She had no idea what to say about that, so she decided that saying nothing was the best plan.
“I’ll also get you a new plane ticket.”
She looked at him in surprise. “That’s very generous, but you don’t have to.”
“Least I can do.” He paused. “Unless you’d rather stay in England for the summer.”
She caught her breath at the sudden longing for exactly that. The thought of roaming over moors, sketching lakes, wandering along the endless miles of coast . . .
It took her a moment or two before she trusted herself to speak. “Oh,” she managed, “I don’t think I could.” That killed her, right there. She had to take a deep breath to get the rest out. “Got to get home, and all that. Things to do.”
“What sorts of things?”
She looked at him, sitting there on an obscenely expensive reproduction sofa, and wished things were different. She wished she were different. She wished that for once, she had the time and means to do what she wanted to instead of what her parents wanted her to do. She wished she had saved every penny she had ever earned instead of just seventy-five percent of them. That extra twenty-five surely would have been enough to let her stay in England for the summer.
But eventually the piper would have to be paid. She could either blow her money on what would amount to only a couple of months of freedom, or she could get back home, buckle down, and carve out a future for herself. Dull, but responsible. And given what she’d just been through, responsible seemed so . . . responsible.
It took her another moment or two before she could speak. She looked at Derrick.
“I know it was just for a short time,” she managed, “but when one travels to Elizabethan England, nothing’s quite the same afterward.”
He smiled seriously. “Nay, it isn’t.”
“I don’t think I can go home again,” she admitted, “but I think I probably should.”
“I would offer you a job as resident expert on Elizabethan textiles, but that isn’t really what you want, is it?”
“Nope,” she said without hesitation, ignoring what that cost her to sound so convinced. “Don’t want anything to do with anything that isn’t art. I’m officially out of the historian arena.”
Or she would be, just as soon as she went home and saved up enough money to never have to identify another lace pattern.
“I honestly can’t blame you.” He paused. “But perhaps before you go, you could come with me to Castle Hammond. His Lordship might even give us the private tour once he stops weeping.”
“Attached to his antiquities, is he?”
“Very.”
She considered, then hesitated. “I should probably text Gavin.”
“Tell him you’re coming with me to have a private tour of Lord Epworth’s collection. We’ll hear his head exploding from here.”
She laughed a little in spite of herself. “All right.” She paused, then looked at him. “Think the embroidery is stolen, too?”
“Given who the recipient is, I would say yes. But whoever is willing to pay for it deserves what they get for buying rubbish. We’ll let Oliver deliver it, then I’ll snoop a bit on my end and see what turns up.”
“Is that legal?”
“You probably shouldn’t ask.”
“What if the Cookes are famous international jewel thieves and this was just a trial run?”
He smiled, apparently amused. “Then we’ll let the bobbies handle it, I suppose.”
“Unless it’s one of your clients getting stolen from.”
“Well,” he admitted, “yes.”
“Do you have a gun?”
“You probably don’t want to know.”
“I’m not sure I would be surprised,” she said. “I’ve seen you with a sword.”
“It helps to be handy with quite a few things.”
Apparently so. She approved the messages he sent both to the Cookes and her brother, then left him to his conversation with Oliver.
She ordered a late lunch because she had become unfortunately quite familiar with the room service menu. She accepted compliments on her last movie role from the room service girl on the other end of the phone, then hung up and looked at Derrick.
“They think I’m a famous actress.”
“So they do.”
“They think you’re my famous actress self’s equally famous boyfriend.”
“The burden of celebrity,” he said with a light sigh. “We do what we can, I suppose.”
She laughed a little in spite of herself, then looked at him and felt her smile fade. “Thank you for the adventure.”
“Hmmm,” he agreed. “Calling you names, chasing you all over the island, dragging you to places you didn’t want to go. Thrilling, no doubt.”
“It beats being stuck in a musty old museum.”
“Well, if you’re going to put it that way, then you’re welcome.”
She had the most unreasonable wish that it could go on a bit longer. She found herself rather more interested than she should have been in Derrick Cameron. She wondered what his favorite treasure had been, how in the world he had ever gotten involved in the whole antiquities business, how long he intended to keep up the craziness.
She was also tempted to tell him that out of all the colors she’d seen his eyes, she liked green the best.
But that was crazy. She had things to do, her life to get back to. Her trip to England, no matter how brief, had allowed her to test her wings. To her surprise, they were sturdier than she would have thought. But that testing was over for the moment. She would happily accompany Derrick up to York and deliver the lace, but then she was going to have to turn and look life squarely in the eye and get on with it.
She could only hope she might make something of it that would be worthy of a sketchbook.
Chapter 16
Derrick walked up the steps to the castle, wondering how many staff he would have to go through before he encountered the earl himself. At least he was coming in the front door this time instead of picking a lock on one of the side doors, disarming the alarm system, then breaking into Epworth’s inner sanctum. This was, he had to admit, much more pleasant.
He glanced at Samantha walking next to him and suppressed a smile. She definitely needed to get out more. He wasn’t sure she was going to be able to wipe the look of astonishment off her face anytime soon.
“Weren’t you here recently?” he asked politely.
“I was,” she managed, still gaping at the house in front of her. “Not that you’d know.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it was Oliver who followed me.” She looked at him then. “I can’t imagine you own green shoes.”
He started to speak, then laughed a little. “You’re very observant.”
“Occupational hazard.” She looked up at the palatial country house in front of them. “And last time I didn’t get in the house. Just the gardens.”
“Well, if we have time, we’ll do both. I’m sure Lord Epworth will be so pleased, he’ll give us access to anything we want.”
She took a deep breath, then looked at him. He was slightly surprised to find she wasn’t so much gobsmacked as she was uneasy.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Are you sure he won’t throw me in jail?”
“You are directly responsible for rescuing his lace from under a planter,” Derrick said easily. “We’ll just spare him the details of where that planter was or how the lace got under it in the first place. You’re safe.”
She looked up at him. “You don’t really believe in time travel, do you?”
He smile
d and paused in front of the door. “We’re here. Let’s see if they let us in.”
“I think it was all just a big delusion,” she said. “Maybe those mushrooms were giving off hallucinatory vapors we didn’t notice.”
“Believe that, if it makes you feel better,” he said cheerfully, then lifted his hand to knock. Before he could, the door was opened and Lord Epworth’s social secretary stood there.
“Oh, Mr. Cameron,” he said, looking as nervous as if he fully expected the axe to fall on his neck at any moment. “I hope you have news. His Lordship is beside himself.”
“Not to worry, Mr. Stevens,” Derrick said. “I think we have very good news indeed.” He gestured toward Samantha. “This is Miss Samantha Drummond. She is someone I believe His Lordship will be very happy to meet.”
Stevens’s look of unease didn’t abate much, but perhaps at the moment any movement away from a nervous breakdown was a good thing. Derrick ushered Samantha inside before him, then walked into the hall and tried not to sigh. It wasn’t a sign of envy because he had his own spot to land when he finally managed it and it suited him perfectly. He also wasn’t unacquainted with places of grandeur and splendor. But the house they were in was truly exceptional. He might have actually indulged in a bit of envy if he hadn’t known what it cost Cameron in worry to keep his own castle out of the hands of the tax man. He didn’t envy Lord Epworth that worry multiplied by the number of rooms and the prime location.
“Let me see to your things,” Stevens said, motioning for staff to come collect Samantha’s wee suitcase and both their backpacks. “If you’ll follow me?”
Derrick surrendered their gear without worry, then nodded and walked with Samantha behind Lord Epworth’s secretary.
“This is amazing,” Samantha said, staring up at the ceiling.
“It is,” he agreed.
“And that was a pretty good client voice you just used.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “I only trot it out on special occasions.”
She looked at him. “I hope he’ll be happy.”
“I think he’ll be thrilled.”
They were led into the earl’s private study, or rather, Lord Epworth himself opened the door at the knock and welcomed them inside. He didn’t look quite as uneasy as his secretary, but close.