in the play, and then, none the wiser, it would be available for his trip. Clever.”
“Then let’s arrest him.”
“Unfortunately, this is all circumstantial. A man can’t be arrested for keeping plans for a trip secret or for stealing his own paintings.”
“So … now what?”
“We wait. Our one advantage is that he doesn’t know we’re onto him. We watch and wait for him to make a move that will convict him.”
“And hope we don’t lose him.”
“That will be your job. Find him and stick with him.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Look for evidence.”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Carl said, turning back. “I heard from our contact in the Admiralty. They have no record of a Captain Pottinger in the United States Navy. He suggested Pottinger may have sailed under letters of marque.”
“A pirate?”
“A privateer. A private ship, outfitted at the owner’s cost, whose captain is authorized by President Madison to take our ships as spoils of war. Lucrative if they are successful. However, a number have disappeared without a trace under fire from British warships.”
That made sense. If Eleanor’s husband had invested everything in such a risky venture, she would have been left penniless when he failed.
“Thank you,” he said to Carl. “Since that line of inquiry has hit a dead end, let’s concentrate on Digby.”
Shermont scanned the room one last time before blowing out the candle and leaving Digby’s suite. There was still a missing piece to the puzzle. Minimal clothing, jewelry, and two rolled up paintings. Not enough to fill the luggage piece he remembered. What was Digby leaving space in the portmanteau for?
Eleanor paced the library, trying not to watch the clock. Not wanting to appear anxious, she sat on the settee, carefully arranging the skirt of her dress. She checked her breath and armpits. Should she be waiting in a seductive pose? She put up her feet and laid back, one arm over her head. But unless she scrunched up her legs, her head had to rest on the arm of the settee. After a few minutes, the position gave her a cramp in her neck. She tried a stance near the fireplace, but that felt pretentious. She wandered around the room.
What would Jane Austen do if she were waiting for a suitor to call? She would want to appear nonchalant, not indifferent, but not overly eager. Eleanor decided to sit on one of the wingback chairs, an open book on her lap. That way she could close it when he entered, a signal that he was more interesting than the book, but when he wasn’t there she was pleasantly occupied. Perfect.
After twenty minutes, her anticipation faded. She made excuses for his delay. He met an old friend and couldn’t break away. Maybe the countess cornered him and demanded a dance. After thirty minutes, she concluded he wasn’t coming.
Probably for the best. In a few hours she would be going home, and then her memories of him were all she would have. She blinked away tears. She set the book on the table and stood, then paced the room again to get hold of her emotions. Was he even worth her tears?
Although her heart said yes, she forced her brain to deny it. The man had stood her up—couldn’t even find a servant to bring her a message. He didn’t have to dance with the countess or spend time with an old friend. Shermont wouldn’t have if he’d really cared about her. She fanned her anger because it helped her cope.
Well, she certainly wasn’t going to wait any longer. Did he expect to find her an hour from now, welcoming him with open arms and grateful for his belated attention? Like hell he would. If she happened to see him in the ballroom, she would give him the cut direct. She stood and stomped to the door, but paused with her hand on the knob. There was still the matter of keeping track of him until midnight. Damn.
The girls or him.
She’d come to care about the girls and wanted them to have their wonderful Season untainted by their brother’s death in a duel. It wasn’t as if she thought all her recent actions had been in noble self-sacrifice. There had been plenty of selfish, lusty satisfaction. Well, she would find Shermont and stick by his side a little longer, but she would be strong and resist her physical attraction to him.
She left the library intending to find him, wait with him until midnight, and then meet the ghosts in her room for the trip home. Six steps outside the door, she stopped at the sound of Deirdre and Mina’s voices drifting from above.
“Aunt Patience said she went to lie down in her room,” Mina said. “Where can she be?”
“You’re the gypsy seer,” Deirdre said.
“I knew you were upset about that.”
“I am not.”
Eleanor certainly didn’t want to explain why she wasn’t in her room. She did an about-face to return to the library and nearly ran over a couple headed toward the same place. But she didn’t want to go back to the ballroom because that’s probably where the girls were headed, and she wanted a chance to find Shermont without them. She spun around and took off in the opposite direction, even though that took her to a hallway she’d never been down before. Her evening shoes with the soft leather soles made no noise on the thick carpet.
Yet the voices followed her. The hall dead-ended without an exit. She had to turn around and start back. She tested the first door on her right. When it opened, she ducked inside. And encountered a surprise.
Chapter Fourteen
Eleanor tried to make sense of the scene before her. Teddy, who had changed into plain traveling clothes, knelt in front of an open iron cabinet built into the wall behind a movable section of wainscoting. He unloaded items and threw them into the portmanteau he’d used in the play and didn’t notice she’d entered.
“What are you doing?” she blurted out without thinking.
She startled him, and he dropped an oblong green velvet box. A necklace, bracelet, and earrings fell out. She recognized the emerald necklace as the one Mina had a paste replica of in her drawer upstairs. Those must be the real emeralds.
Teddy jumped up, grabbed a pistol off the desk, and pointed it at her. “What in bloody hell are you doing in my estate office?”
“Rather a long story. I—”
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Sit down and keep silent,” he demanded, his expression hard and ugly.
Shocked, Eleanor slipped into a nearby chair.
He returned to his task, laying the pistol on the floor next to his knee, and occasionally glanced up to make sure she hadn’t moved.
She realized he was stealing the girls’ jewels, and she was a witness. Not a good omen for a long life. She couldn’t expect anyone to rescue her. Deirdre and Mina would never think to look for her here and would likely be distracted from their search in next to no time. Weren’t the fireworks supposed to start soon? Once they did, he could shoot her with impunity, and no one would even notice. She had to escape before then. She looked around the estate office and noticed the door leading outside, which was used by tradesmen so they didn’t come through the front entrance. If she could distract him from the weapon, she might have a chance to run for it.
“Why are you taking Deirdre and Mina’s jewelry?” she asked.
“I told you to keep silent.”
“I will, if you tell me why you’re stealing from your sisters.”
“Adoptive sisters,” he said in a derisive and contemptuous tone. “If Father had married my mother as he should have and brought her back to England, she wouldn’t have died.”
“You can’t know—”
“By the time I arrived here, he’d already married that insipid, mewling female and produced those two whining brats. I hated her for taking my mother’s place, and I hated him for stealing my true inheritance.”
