“What gives?” Trick asked, reining in Chaucer. “Why aren’t you inside?”
“We cannot just walk in and make an arrest. We need some incriminating evidence first. Have you any ideas regarding how to gain entry?”
“We might try knocking on the door.” Trick peeked through the hedge. “Is Garrick in on this or not? How many men has Charles roped into this operation?”
“Just we two. Garrick is the suspect.”
“John Garrick? A counterfeiter?” When Trick jerked upright at the thought, Chaucer danced beneath him. “Are you certain?”
“Not entirely. He could be just another link in the chain. But that description you gave me that sounded familiar? I asked around, found the man, and followed him for two-and-a-half days, until finally he led me here. Was in and out in five minutes. Then I hid for a while, and another man arrived. Didn’t match any of your notes, but he was in and out in five minutes, too.”
“So if Garrick isn’t doing it himself…”
“I’m assuming he’s involved in the distribution, at the very least. But we need proof.”
Trick’s mind reeled, remembering Garrick’s preachiness, his edginess, the way he always seemed to be snooping around. A closet Parliamentarian?
Blast it. That could very well be. These were unpredictable times. Perhaps Trick had been foolhardy to come into the county and indiscriminately welcome his new neighbors—strangers—into his social circle. He might have brought Garrick and the others to the cottage someday. They might have seen his props.
Blast it.
“We need an excuse to get in,” Pendregast said. “He has too many servants to simply wait until he leaves. People are always around.”
“I can gain us entry. I know him. And he owes me a meal.”
“Pardon?”
Trick patted his stomach. “Breakfast.”
SIXTY-NINE
“MRS. KENDRA? Were you not going to tell us about Clytie?”
With a sigh, Kendra flipped the page in the wonderful book of lesser-known myths she’d discovered in Amberley’s two-story library. At least she’d thought it was wonderful last month when she found it. Today, reading from it, it didn’t seem so wonderful at all.
Once she’d thought that attaining her dream, the orphanage, would be enough. But she’d been wrong. Working with the children was fulfilling, but it didn’t mend the hole in her heart that had opened when Trick left her this morning.
Dragging her attention back to the children, she smiled at their rapt expressions.
“Clytie loved the Sun God—”
“Apollo?” Andrew asked.
“Excellent memory,” she said, trying not to sound annoyed at the interruption. Every little thing seemed to annoy her these past few days. “But for this story we think of him as the Sun God. You see, he found nothing to love in Clytie, and so she pined away, sitting on the ground out-of-doors where she could watch him. And she would turn her face, following him with her eyes as he journeyed over the sky. And so gazing, she found herself changed into the sunflower, which ever turns towards the sun.”
“Did he ever love her?” a chestnut-haired girl asked.
Kendra met her big brown eyes. “I’m afraid not.” She sighed. “Clytie loved him with all her heart, but he could never return her feelings.”
Just like Trick. Her feelings for him had grown, but she feared his had not. The lies had started all over again, and so had the abrupt disappearances. How could any fellow love a girl and treat her this way?
Was she destined, like Clytie, to follow him with her eyes all her life? Never quite fulfilled, never truly possessing his love?
“Mrs. Kendra?”
She snapped the book shut. No use mooning about for these couple of days he’d be gone. He’d asked her to trust him, and she would do just that until she could confront him in person.
They’d come too far for her to let their marriage go without a fight.
Susanna wandered over to tug on her skirt. “Are we not going to finish the lesson?”
“Tomorrow, maybe.” Feeling a shade more hopeful, she smiled. “For now, let’s play blindman’s buff.”
SEVENTY
“LORD GARRICK is not yet awake,” a stiff-necked butler told Trick.
“Well, then, rouse him.” Without waiting to be invited, Trick stepped into the sprawling, dark manor house and motioned Pendregast to follow. “Tell him the Duke of Amberley is here to collect on a debt.”
“With all due respect, your grace—”
“Aye, I am due respect. I believe I shall wait in the dining room until I receive it.”
With a jerk of his head to Pendregast, he began wandering in the direction he figured a dining room might be located.
Sputtering, the butler marched up the stairs.
The third room Trick looked into had a dining table. He promptly dropped onto a dull-mustard upholstered chair. The rest of the chamber was no less drab. He’d seen no evidence of the remodeling Garrick had claimed was his reason not to host the house party, although the place was sorely in need of it.
Of course, the last thing a counterfeiter needed was construction workers roaming around his house.
“Forgot about this.” Pendregast took a folded note from his pocket. “It was sent by special messenger this morning, addressed to you.”
Trick broke the red seal and unfolded it. A letter from King Charles—he’d have recognized his distinctive hand even without the “Your loving friend, Charles R.” at the bottom.
The king wrote with good news that all was set, the plan to commence today and culminate sometime Monday evening.
Blast it. “A day or two,” Charles had told him with his usual blithe indifference when describing the plan last week. Trick had fixed on the convenient card party excuse without considering the operation might prove too complicated to be carried out over a weekend.
Blast it, blast it, blast it.
He couldn’t even go home and try to explain to Kendra. According to Charles’s letter, the king’s men would be waiting for him when he finished here.
“Is something amiss?” Pendregast asked.
“Aye. Nay.” Trick shook his head
