Roses in Moonlight (6 page)

He was a careful reader, that much she could say about him. She was having trouble making sense of what was in front of her, but he didn’t seem to be having the same problem. She didn’t bother to point out to him that he was starting at the wrong end of the bank of display cases, because obviously he didn’t care. She managed to get through two displays—and yes, she was counting—by the time he’d done six and they’d met in the middle. She’d stopped fanning, mostly because the wrinkled piece of paper she held in her hand had simply given out under the strain.

She took a deep breath and looked at the man standing next to her.

He was watching her with a grave expression on his face, as if he waited for something pithy to come out of her mouth.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” was the best she could do.

He seemed to consider. “Why do you ask?”

“Because . . . well, never mind.”

The man looked at her from the most amazing pair of green eyes she had ever seen. She wished suddenly that she’d gone ahead and sprung for that guidebook. At least that might have left her with something else to use to keep herself from perspiring.

“Did one frighten off your escort?”

She looked at him in surprise. “How did you know?”

“It’s a castle,” he said easily. “Nothing should come as a surprise here.”

She would have smiled, but he was a stranger and she didn’t want to look like an easy mark—on the off chance he wanted to steal her wallet, of course. Because she couldn’t quite understand why a man that good-looking would be in the middle of a castle museum. Even more baffling was why he would be talking to her.

“Are you a tourist?” she blurted out before she thought better of it.

He smiled a very small smile that was so charming, she found herself smiling in return.

“No,” he said with consonants so posh he had to have been either very well educated or some sort of upper-crust type, “just a student of history. Had a free day and thought this might be interesting. And you?”

“Ah,” she said. “I’m just a tourist.”

“And your boyfriend?”

“He isn’t my boyfriend,” she said quickly. “Just someone I know.” She almost added
unfortunately
, but thought that might have been too much information.

He only lifted his eyebrows briefly, then nodded. “Have a lovely visit,” he said, then he turned and walked away.

Samantha was slightly surprised by the abruptness of his departure, but since that seemed to be the state of affairs with the men in her life during the past half hour, she supposed she couldn’t expect anything else.

She sat down on the bench surrounding the pillar in the middle of the room and tried to regroup. She attempted it until the room filled with foreign-speaking tourists and she realized she wasn’t going to get any serious thinking done.

She managed to get out of the castle and catch a bus back to the Cookes’ without seeing Dory. She could only assume he’d stomped off in a huff and was intending to punish her by his absence.

Lydia answered the door at her knock. “Have a good morning, love?”

“It was interesting,” Samantha said, because there was absolutely no way she was going to talk about what she’d seen. She was almost convinced she’d imagined the whole thing.

Lydia smiled. “You know, Samantha, I was just wondering if you might be up for a little errand tomorrow.”

“Will it require my traveling long distances?” Samantha asked hopefully.

Lydia laughed a little. “Actually, I was hoping you wouldn’t mind nipping down to London and delivering something to a colleague for me. I’d go myself, of course, but Edmund and I start rehearsals soon.” She smiled apologetically. “You know how that goes.”

“I do,” Samantha said, and boy, did she ever. Her father’s stage career had been all consuming for him. Even the university lived in fear of conflicting with his theater schedule.

“There is no hurry, actually, about your arrival,” Lydia said. “I’ll give you a phone number to ring when you reach the city. I hadn’t intended for you to do this, but I thought you might want to—what’s that phrase you have?”

“Get the heck out of Dodge?” Samantha supplied.

“That’s the one,” Lydia agreed. “I can suggest a place or two of interest, or you can just wander without a plan.”

“Oh,” Samantha said, feeling something akin to unease take hold of her. “No plan? I’m not sure that’s wise.”

Lydia smiled gently. “Then let me choose for you, just this time. Castles or gardens?”

“Castles.”

“Medieval or Renaissance?”

“Medieval,” Samantha said reverently. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

“Then I’ll book you a couple of spots to stay, suggest a well-preserved medieval relic or two, then send you off in the morning to the station. I’ll get you a key to the house as well, of course. You’ll need to get back in when you return, won’t you?”

Samantha nodded. “I’ll pay you for the hotels—”

Lydia shook her head. “Of course you won’t. You’re doing me the favor of running an errand for me. The least I can do is cover your travel expenses. You can see to your meals, if you like.”

“You are too generous.”

Lydia shrugged, as if she were a little uncomfortable with the thanks. “Not to worry, darling. I’ll go make your arrangements.”

Samantha thanked her again, then made her way up to her room to consider what to take. The entire place was comfortingly free of Elizabethan specters and obnoxious New Englanders both, which was a bonus as far as she was concerned.

Now, if she could have perhaps encountered an extremely handsome guy wearing Middle English sayings on his shirt—and no doubt knowing what they meant—she might have considered that things were truly looking up.

Maybe tomorrow, if she was lucky.

She considered what to take, then decided she would pack as light as possible. Money for food and some ID were probably enough. And as far as clothes went, she wouldn’t take more than would fit in her rather small backpack. After all, it wasn’t as if she would be seeing the same people all the time.

She went to pull her backpack down off the wall and get ready to go.

D
errick
leaned against a handy outcropping in an otherwise quite uninspired bit of brick wall and watched the door a hundred feet to his left. It was not quite seven, but he’d had a feeling the excitement would begin quite early in the day. He glanced to his right as Oliver simply appeared from nowhere, two cups of something steaming in his hands. He gave one to Derrick, then joined him in his leaning. He looked alert, which Derrick could definitely not say about himself, and he had been the one sleeping through the night whilst Oliver kept watch over the Cookes’ residence.

“You could have slept in this morning,” Derrick remarked.

“I slept at the office last week.”

There was no denying that. Among Oliver’s many gifts was the uncanny ability to lose himself in slumber in any location and on any surface. Derrick had avoided him rather well in the lobby of Cameron’s suite of offices, stepped over him several times in the middle of the rug in his own office, and marveled at his ability to make himself comfortable on a sofa that just wasn’t quite long enough for him.

“Perhaps I’ll sleep on the train,” Oliver continued easily, as if he discussed whether to have a scone or a croissant for breakfast. “Or not. No matter. What of you?”

“I slept.”

“After you snooped, no doubt.”

Derrick conceded that with a slight nod. “Had to have something useful to do.”

“What’d you find out?”

“Nothing that makes any sense.”

“Criminals are like that.”

Derrick sighed, then returned to his study of the Cookes’ front stoop. “They’re both humanities professors, though they seem to do an appalling amount of acting.” He had to take a deep breath because he did indeed know more about Edmund Cooke than he wanted to admit, but it was nothing he would divulge. He would just have to feign a sort of baffled ignorance. “They’re not rich,” he continued, “but they’re comfortable. No points on their licenses, no brushes with the law, current on their council taxes, no illegal telly time.”

“How boring.”

Derrick almost smiled. “It would look that way, wouldn’t it?”

“And what do they have of ours?”

Derrick looked at him then. “A rather large, perfectly preserved piece of sixteenth-century lace.”

“The one the Earl of Epworth left behind his utterly inadequate piece of glass?”

Derrick nodded. “That’d be the one.”

Oliver shook his head and looked vaguely unsettled, if such a thing were possible. “Don’t care much for that thing, if you want the truth. I think it’s cursed.”

“Or worth a fortune.”

“
Cursed
sounds more interesting.” He sipped his coffee. “How do you know they stole it?”

Derrick set his cup down at his feet, then folded his arms over his chest. “I watched the security tapes at Epworth’s castle. Professional burglar, if you can believe it. The Cookes were also attending a house party at the castle the same night.”

“That’s a stretch.”

“So was watching the thief as he visited our good Mr. Cooke in his office a week later. I thought perhaps our sticky-fingered lad’s backpack seemed a little lighter afterward.”

Oliver pursed his lips, but his eyes almost twinkled. “Still on the thin side, don’t you think?”

“The subsequent conversation Mr. Cooke had with his wife about their new lacey acquisition wasn’t.”

“Very well, I’m convinced. What now? Are you telling me these two paragons haven’t been squirreling away their ha’pennies, waiting for just enough of them to buy this legally?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

Oliver shook his head. “Not much market for a whacking great piece of lace of that vintage, is there?”

“That’s what baffles me,” Derrick admitted. “It isn’t as if they could dispose of it at a flea market, is it? I didn’t pay any calls to seedier suspects, but I did have friendly visits with most every legitimate dealer who would be interested in that sort of thing. I came up empty-handed.”

“Most,” Oliver repeated, glancing at him briefly. “Who’d you miss?”

“This is what doesn’t make sense,” Derrick said slowly. He looked at Oliver. “The only reputable bloke I didn’t talk to was Gavin Drummond.”

Oliver rolled his eyes, which for him was an appalling display of deep emotion. “That pansy-waisted Yank? He can’t even overcharge for bad art and you think he’s in the market for stolen lace?”

“I’m just wondering about him,” Derrick said, shrugging. “I’ve often wondered if he’s using Yolynda’s gallery as a stepping-stone to bigger things.” He shot Oliver a look. “Do you know who his parents are?”

“His mother is some long-winded harridan with a penchant for cheap Victorian knickknacks and his father is a blowhard who thinks he’s the second coming of Sir Laurence Olivier, and both of them hold court in some exclusive little university in the States where their students no doubt live in fear of what’ll happen to their marks if they indulge in a very justifiable bit of sleeping to stave off the utter boredom of the classes this narcissistic pair purports to teach.” He looked at Derrick blandly. “Is that about right?”

Derrick laughed a little in spite of himself. “Something like that.”

“And why do you think Gavin Drummond’s trying to better his life?”

Derrick watched the door open and a woman in her twenties step out onto the sidewalk. She was pretty, in a bookish, spinsterish sort of way. All she was missing to complete the picture were librarian-style glasses. He wondered, absently, what she might look like if someone had cut off the thick, nondescript braid that hung down her back. He had certainly considered that a time or two the day before when he’d been putting himself in her way in the Castle’s great hall. He nodded toward her.

“Because of that lass there.”

“The one who looks like she’s been kept in storage for the past thirty years?”

“The very same.” Derrick looked at him. “Know who she is?”

“Samantha Drummond,” Oliver said. “Gavin’s youngest sister.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I believe you were shadowing her yesterday.”

“My faith is restored.”

“I wasn’t snoozing.”

“You never do.”

Oliver shrugged. “I have a reputation to maintain. Pray I don’t disappoint when you need me the most.”

“I do, laddie, every day.”

“And you think she’s involved in this?”

“I can hardly credit it,” Derrick said, “but the timing of her arrival is suspicious. As is her occupancy here with this particular set of antique collectors.” He glanced at Oliver. “Wouldn’t you say?”

“It’s convenient,” Oliver conceded. “Find out anything useful about her yesterday?”

“She believes in paranormal happenings.”

Oliver smiled briefly. “How interesting.”

“I thought so, too.”

Oliver was silent for a moment or two, then pushed off from the wall. “See you at the station. I’ll catch her bus. I checked us out of the hotel, by the way. In cash.”

Derrick expected nothing else. They’d both spent so many years flying under the radar whilst ferreting out details for Robert Cameron that remaining as anonymous as possible was simply second nature. Derrick wondered now and again if that had made him paranoid, but he never wondered about it enough to change how he did business. He tossed his coffee in the trash, slung his backpack over his shoulders and walked down the street to catch a taxi on the busier cross street, not looking up as the bus passed him. The next train south left in an hour, which was enough time to make a few alterations to his appearance, have breakfast, then get a seat near his quarry.

It was possible, he supposed, that she might go another direction besides south. It had been all he could do earlier that morning not to hack into Lydia Cooke’s bank account as well as paw through her emails to see what sort of travel arrangements she’d booked for Gavin’s sister, but that would have made things feel too easy.

The very sad truth was, he was slightly bored.

He wasn’t proud of it, but there it was. He wasn’t so bored that he’d become sloppy, not truly, but enough that he had left things unknown that he normally would have investigated without hesitation. Perhaps he had spent too many years rubbing shoulders with villains and the criminal class had ceased to hold any fascination for him. Their methods were different, true, but in the end they were all nothing more than a lot of punters with no respect for the law or anyone else’s property.

He supposed there were those who might say the same about him for reading their private correspondence, but he supposed he wasn’t the only one, so perhaps that made it less unpalatable than it might have been otherwise.

He crawled into the back of the taxi that pulled to a stop in front of him, gave the cabbie his destination, then sat back against the seat with a weary sigh. He was getting old, perhaps. He would be thirty-two in the fall, old enough to have settled down by now. Perhaps he was getting broody, though he couldn’t imagine any woman wanting to settle down with him. Instead of nights down at the pub with the lads, he spent his weekends—and some weeks, truth be told—with James MacLeod. Not exactly anything to write home about.

Perhaps he simply had too many irons in the fire. He could give up something, perhaps, and have a bit more peace in his life. Cameron Antiquities, though, was his business and his source of not only pride but funds to keep petrol in his cars and food on his table. The other, well, he wasn’t sure he was willing to give up the exhilaration that was traveling to exotic locales with the madman from the castle down the way. It was no wonder Jamie was addicted to it. It was a damned good time.

And what would he give it up for? If he’d heard one more London socialite coo, “Ooh, you’re Robert Cameron’s cousin, aren’t you?” whilst attempting to look discreetly around him for a Ferrari hiding behind his back, he would have likely cracked his teeth from grinding them in frustration. If he’d had one more Scottish lass from the village he’d been a part of for the better part of his life do the same, well, he would have moved to London permanently.

He paid the cabbie and walked into the station, choosing a fairly large group to become a part of. He already had the train times committed to memory, so he kept a casual eye on Samantha Drummond, then noted the track she subsequently walked toward. He purchased a ticket, then followed her with equal casualness, passing and ignoring Oliver on his way. He waited until the train arrived, waited until the others disembarked, then followed Miss Drummond on board. He slid into a seat across the aisle and a row or two behind her where he could keep an eye on her without being overly obvious.

He supposed to be fair he would have to admit that she was really quite lovely in a New-England-prep-school sort of way. He wouldn’t have been surprised to have watched her break out a mystery novel and read it whilst dressed in bobby socks and saddle shoes. If he’d been going on first impressions, he would have said she was nothing more than a very sheltered though well-educated youngest daughter of two academics with sterling reputations who had sent her across the Pond to associate with other sterling-reputationed academics who would look after her innocent self with as much care as her parents would have.

Obviously, it was a very well-crafted front.

Determining what lay behind that front caused him to lift a mental eyebrow, but he firmly resisted the impulse to pull out his tablet and quickly find those answers. He would pretend to be just a normal bloke without access to all sorts of things he shouldn’t have had access to and see if he couldn’t pry answers out of her the old-fashioned way. He wasn’t quite ready to resort to a deerstalker hat and pencil and paper, but he was close. He was that desperate to keep himself awake.

He watched her for an hour, wondering where in the world she was going to stop and who, if anyone, would meet her there. Perhaps she was off on a little explore to look for other items of a textile nature to poach.

She started to gather her things together as they approached the station at York. That wasn’t where he would have expected her to get off, but then again, what did he know? He was just tracking down a priceless piece of lace for a man who simply wanted a piece of history behind glass and hadn’t listened when Derrick had told him to improve his security system.

Derrick supposed he hadn’t done himself any favors when he’d paid His Lordship a little visit one evening. He’d listened to a few of the earl’s stories, then bid the man a fond farewell, leaving him sitting in his study with a glass of wine. He had then waited half an hour before he had broken back into the man’s house, disarmed the security system and lifted that very fine piece of lace in under ten minutes, silently and without detection. He’d walked back in the front door, been escorted to the man’s study, and handed him his treasure.

It was, he was absolutely convinced, only the sterling reputation of the Cameron name that had saved him from being dragged off in irons right then. The earl, white-faced and trembling, had taken his lace back and promised to have someone out the very next day. Either that hadn’t happened or the abilities of the security firm had been sadly lacking.

Derrick followed his little librarian off the train and out of the station. He continued to trail after her as she wandered along streets, looking down at a journal she held in her hands, completely oblivious to what was going on around her. He raised his eyebrows briefly. Either she was cleverer than she looked, or the Cookes were idiots. He felt something stir in him that wasn’t the very vile pasty he’d snagged on his way to the platform. It was something that felt almost a bit like interest. Enthusiasm was overstating it, but a flicker of interest, aye, that was possible.

Who would entrust a piece of lace that valuable to the clueless tourist in front of him who was gawking at everything around her as if she’d never seen anything interesting before in the whole of her life?

His phone chirped at him. He looked down and found a text from Oliver waiting there.

Have scissors?

Derrick smiled to himself, because he’d been thinking the same thing, though as he followed Samantha Drummond, he found himself less tempted to cut her hair than simply unbraid it. She could have done with a bit of, ah, unbuttoning.