A Talent for Trickery

by Alissa Johnson

  “What’s in the house?” Owen asked.

  The Ferret’s blackened smile spread. “Diamonds, milord. The Strale diamonds. Old Will Walker hid ’em.” He winked at Esther. “Didn’t know that, did you?”

  “Perhaps I did.”

  “Ah, bollocks. Those jewels ain’t been sold. I’d’ve known. Wouldn’t be a man in London what wouldn’t hear of something rich as that turning up for sale. And a Walker wouldn’t sit on a prize pretty as that for eight years. Not if he knew they was there.” He offered Owen a conspiratorial whisper. “Ain’t the patient sort, a Walker.” He looked back to Esther and shook his head. “No, either you didn’t know old Will took ’em diamonds, or you don’t know where he hid ’em.”

  “Will Walker never lived in this house,” Gabriel pointed out.

  “But his things are here, ain’t they? He were always about, scratching in those books of his.” He nodded knowingly. “That’s where the secret is. There’s a treasure map in ‘em books, there is. Lead a man right to the Strale diamonds.”

  He had it more right than wrong, Lottie thought, and she exchanged a concerned glance with Owen. This was too easy. The Ferret was being cooperative, even friendly. They’d not had him a quarter hour and already he was offering everything but his name. It didn’t make sense.

  “You tracked us from London,” Samuel said. “How did you know we were coming here? Who told you?”

  “Not a soul.”

  Owen glanced down at his scraped knuckles. “It wasn’t luck.”

  “It was work. I watched you for weeks.”

  “A man has to sleep,” Samuel pointed out. “He has to eat.”

  Gabriel nodded in agreement. “Three of us and only one of you. You weren’t watching all of us all the time.”

  “Had a bit of luck, I did.”

  “No,” Owen said quietly. “You had a bit of help.”

  “Don’t know as I’d call it help. Competition. That’s what it were.”

  “How many competitors?” he asked.

  “Six, to my count. But they didn’t know what they was watching you for, did they? Didn’t know about old Will and his journals, or they might’ve tried a bit harder.” His tone turned boastful, his expression smug. “It were me watching when you left town.”

  Lottie stifled a shiver of fear at the thought of a half-dozen nefarious characters like the Ferret watching Owen and his men from the shadows. But at least he’d come alone. “Someone set you on them. Who?”

  “Can’t say as I know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re working alone then, are you?” Gabriel inquired. “You wrote the letters? Stole the artwork? Hired your competitors?” He paused to inspect a nail. “You murdered Mrs. Popple?”

  “Murder?” He wiggled about in his chair. “There’ll be none of that talk. I was to follow you, that’s all. I was to follow you to Will Walker’s journals. Weren’t expecting to find them with the Walkers themselves. Word is you lot left the country ages ago.”

  Esther shrugged and offered another cheerful smile. “Word now is you’re going to hang for murder.”

  He shook his head rapidly. “There’ll be none of that. None of it. Here’s what we do, then. You give me Walker’s journals, and I’ll be on my way. When I’m clear of you, I’ll see the boy released. No harm done.”

  “What boy? What…?” Lottie turned to Esther as her heart squeezed tight. No, no, no, no. “Where’s Peter? Where is he?”

  “In the study. He’s been in there all day… Oh, God.” Esther paled, spun, and bolted from the room.

  Lottie rounded on the Ferret. “You don’t have him.”

  “Fine bit of luck running into the boy on the empty road. Weren’t no one around far as the eye could see. Couldn’t pass up a chance such as that, could I? That were hours and hours ago. And you ain’t noticed the boy gone all this time.”

  Because he wasn’t gone, Lottie told herself. Peter had gone off to sulk and they had given him the solitude he needed.

  Ferret was lying. He had to be lying.

  Even as she prayed for the words to be true, she knew they weren’t. His confidence, his willingness to talk, it all made sense now. He knew he wasn’t truly caught, not so long as he could bargain Peter’s safety for his own freedom. He could leave, and without giving them a name, without giving them any idea where he might go. They would never be able to track him.

  But maybe, just maybe, it was a bluff. Maybe he…

  The dagger flew across her line of sight a split second before it landed with a sick thud in Ferret’s upper arm.

  Esther’s furious shout followed a heartbeat later. “Where is he?”

  “Ahhhh!”

  “Christ Almighty, Esther!” Samuel rushed forward, wrapped his uninjured arm around Esther’s waist, and hauled her off her feet. Owen plucked a second dagger from her hand.

  Esther twisted in Samuel’s grasp. “Put me down!”

  “You can’t kill him,” Owen snapped, handing the dagger to Lottie.

  Samuel adjusted his hold, yanking Esther higher against his chest. “If anyone is going to kill him,” he said in a voice cold and hard as ice, “it will be me. Understood?”

  “I’m not going to kill him. Bloody imbecile.” She jabbed a finger at the Ferret. “Tell me where he is!”

  Where’s the money? Tell me where the money’s gone!

  “Esther, stop.” Lottie struggled to keep her calm. “Put her down, Samuel.”

  “If she tries—”

  “I said put her down!” She tugged her sister free and pulled her aside before she could charge their prisoner. “This is not the way, Esther.”

  “He will talk,” Esther hissed back. “I can make him talk.”

  “Not like this.” They were better than this, better than people like Mr. Fensley.

  “But—”

  “My way first. We try my way. If it doesn’t work”—she took Esther’s hand and slapped the handle of the dagger into her palm—“you stab him, and I will twist the blade myself.”

  She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t let it come to that.

  Esther’s gaze shot to the Ferret and back before her fingers curled around the handle. “You have five minutes.”

  “I need ten. Owen?” She motioned the men over and kept her voice down to a whisper. “We need a plan. Right now. We need—Owen, are you listening to me?”

  He didn’t appear to be listening. He was watching the Ferret with a strange new intensity. “Lottie, look at him. Notice anything odd?”

  She studied their hostage as he alternated between whimpering at his wound and snarling at Esther. “He looks dreadful.”

  “No, he doesn’t. Well, apart from the stabbing, he doesn’t,” he clarified. “He looks run-down, but he doesn’t look like a Londoner who has spent days in the woods, sleeping in the rain and mud, eating what he could find or hunt. He should be exhausted, hungry, and filthy. He should look far worse than he does.”

  “He’s had access to food and shelter,” Lottie said, catching on.

  “At least some of the time. I’m sure of it. And wherever he’s been—”

  “Is likely where we’ll find Peter,” she finished for him.

  “And possibly the Ferret’s coconspirator.”

  “Someone in the village?” Gabriel suggested.

  “No,” Owen replied. “Too many people who might notice a stranger and recognize him as the man we’ve asked after.”

  “And it’s too close,” Lottie added. She glanced at the Ferret and studied his drawn face and muddy coat. “He hasn’t had regular access to food and shelter.”

  “Close enough to reach but too far to be a convenient daily trip,” Samuel said.

  Lottie suppressed a groan of fear and frustration. Not too close, but not too far. That told them nothing. Depending on terra
in, roads, weather, and condition of rider and mount, the location could be anywhere in a ten- to twenty-mile radius.

  Panic began to grow and nip at her control. Peter had to be terrified. He might be hurt. Someone could be hurting him right now. And they didn’t even know where to begin looking for him.

  “He could be going into another village,” Esther said.

  “Again, too many people,” Owen replied. “Too much talk between the villages.”

  Too many people like Mrs. McKinsey, Lottie translated. A woman who kept an ear out and her tongue wagging around the gossip of every village within a half day’s travel. But a man accustomed to the anonymity afforded by London might not be aware of how quickly talk spread in places like Wayton.

  There was one way they might find out for certain. She stepped away from the group to stand before their captive. Bending down, she faced him eye to eye. “Have you been going to a village, Ferret?”

  He took two hard breaths through his nose and shook his head. “Bitch stabbed me.”

  “She did, indeed. A cottage?”

  He shook his head again. “Go to hell.”

  “Hunting box?”

  He snarled this time and bobbed his head once. “To hell.”

  Her voice blended with Owen’s. “Hunting box.”

  The Ferret’s pain was momentarily forgotten. “Didn’t say that. I never said that.”

  “You did.” With that one nod, he’d said it. She returned to the group. “It makes sense. A gentleman who can afford a hunting box can afford to have it stocked regularly, even if the goods go to waste.”

  “Maybe. If he used the box with some regularity.” Owen glanced at the Ferret. “The return of the owner would be a constant risk.”

  “Unless he knew the owner to be away,” Gabriel replied. “Or he had permission.”

  “We know he has an accomplice,” Lottie said, keeping her voice low. “Whoever wrote those letters.” The madman who wrote those letters. The man who’d strangled Mrs. Popple. Peter could be in the hands of a murderer. They had to hurry.

  Owen nodded in agreement. “It shouldn’t be difficult to narrow down where he’s been going. We start with every hunting box within a twenty-mile radius.”

  It was easier to compile a list than Lottie expected. She couldn’t hope to name everyone who lived or owned property within a twenty-mile radius of Willowbend, but families who could afford the luxury of a hunting box were families of note. Everyone knew them.

  There were only five, three of which could be immediately eliminated. The Earl of Fent was four years of age and had no adult male relatives to make use of his box. The widowed Mrs. Cuttingsworth and her three young daughters were also unlikely to either use or lend their box. Baron Vabrey was a notorious miser. He would neither stock his box nor offer it to someone who might.

  “That leaves Lord Brock and Mr. Edwards.”

  “Did your father have dealings with either?” Gabriel asked.

  Lottie shook her head and gave into the urge to twist her hands into her skirts. They were so close, and still it wasn’t enough. “None of which I am aware.”

  Esther looked to Lottie. “Lord Brock was there that night. At the Strale ball.”

  “He is also a particular friend of the current Lord Strale,” Owen added. “The late Lord Strale was quite fond of him.”

  Lottie worried her lip as she considered the connection. “Sufficiently fond to have been allowed to issue invitations of his own to the Strale ball?”

  “Possibly.”

  “That would explain how Father and I gained entry,” Esther said. “And he might have kept family and staff occupied, away from an increasingly drunk Lady Strale.”

  “They trusted him,” Owen replied. “If he told them she was being watched and cared for, they would have believed him.”

  Lottie strode back to the Ferret. “Lord Brock’s box. Is that where you’ve been hiding?” she demanded.

  The Ferret may have been a poor liar, but in this instance, he was a quick study. He closed his eyes, sat still as death, and said nothing.

  “Mr. Edwards?” When that produced no reaction, she rattled off the other names on the list, but he gave nothing away.

  Damn it. Lottie was certain she could pry the truth from him eventually. The man couldn’t remain a statue forever. But it would take time they didn’t have. Then again, so would riding the fifteen miles to Lord Brock’s box only to find it empty.

  They had to make a decision. They had to hurry. And they had to be right.

  She turned to Owen. “What do you think?”

  “Brock’s first. It’s the most likely choice.” Owen jerked his chin at Gabriel. “Ready the horses. Send Haden and Lemke here when you’ve done.”

  The two burly groomsmen to guard the prisoner, Lottie thought. “This could all be for nothing. We could be wrong.”

  Oh, God. What if they were wrong?

  “Find out what you can from him.” He jabbed a finger at Esther. “From a distance. And have one of the men remove that dagger—”

  “I’m going with you,” Esther declared.

  It was Samuel who answered. “No.”

  “It is not your decision—”

  “Neither of us ride well, Esther,” Lottie cut in. “We would only slow them down.”

  “And he won’t?” Esther gestured at Samuel and then scowled at him. “You’re injured.”

  “If I slow down,” Samuel replied, “I’ll be left behind. If you slow down, we all fall behind.”

  Esther opened her mouth to argue and then wisely snapped it shut. “Damn it. I’ll help with the horses.”

  Preparations were completed with dizzying speed. Within minutes, Lottie was following Owen to the front door, moving down the hall in a kind of daze. Everything seemed to be moving so fast, and still not fast enough.

  Owen paused at the door to give her a brief kiss. Too brief. Without thought, she grabbed his arm. “Wait.”

  “What is it?”

  She didn’t know what she wanted to say, couldn’t find a way to put what she feared into words.

  Owen stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Trust me. I’ll bring him back to you.”

  “You don’t know that,” she whispered. “You can’t promise that.”

  “I’ll bring him back, or I’ll die trying.”

  Her heart gave one painful jolt. “That is not a comfort.”

  “Trust me to do my best.”

  “I do. I do. I only…” She wrapped her arms around him and held tight. “Come back to me. I love you. Please come back.”

  For a moment, he went perfectly still. Then his arms tightened around her with bruising force. “Say it again.” He buried his face in her hair, his voice a rough whisper. “Before I go. Say it again.”

  “I’ll say it again when you come back to me.” She would say it then, as she had wanted to say it, with joy and wonder and shared laughter. That was how she had imagined telling him for the first time. Not like this. But she couldn’t let him go without him knowing he was loved. She couldn’t let him go without the truth. “I need you. You have to come back.”

  “A bribe.” He pulled back to grin at her. “And a damn fine one.”

  Twenty-four

  I love you.

  Neither the words nor the woman were what Owen needed to concentrate on, but there was no shaking the thoughts of either.

  I love you.

  Bending low in the saddle, he ducked under a tree branch that stretched across the old drover’s trail. It was dangerous using this route, despite the light provided by a full moon and clear sky. The trail was riddled with ruts and rocks. There were long stretches where moonlight cut through the surrounding woods, and he and his men could guide their mounts around hazards at a punishing speed. But where the trees hemmed in tight
, casting dark shadows over the path, they had no choice but to slow to a near walk.

  Owen gritted his teeth at every delay. The drover’s trail would cut close to a half hour off their time, even with the slower pace, but it was hell to walk when every instinct screamed at him to charge ahead full tilt.

  Come back to me.

  She meant it.

  Actually, what she’d meant was, Come back to me—and bring Peter. But he couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t stop to wonder what it would mean for all of them if he failed.

  And he sure as hell didn’t want to wonder if he might already be too late.

  Couldn’t pass up a chance such as that, could I?

  It was the Ferret’s words that echoed in his head now. The man had seen an opportunity to grab a hostage and he’d taken it, but Brock may not have appreciated the initiative. Peter was a bargaining chip, but he was also a liability, someone who could identify them. There was a very real chance Brock intended to rid himself of that threat at the earliest opportunity.

  * * *

  Even with the shortcut, it took nearly two hours to reach Brock’s hunting box.

  Samuel was the first to catch the scent of wood smoke and signal the others. They dismounted quickly and crept through the dappled moonlight, following a thin path at first and then a dim light flickering through the trees until they reached the modest stone structure settled deep in the woods. They circled the building on foot, assessing dangers and weaknesses. There was a single man guarding the front door and one more in back. The interior of the house appeared dark and still except for the glow of candlelight visible in one upstairs room. That’s where Brock would keep Peter, off the ground floor, away from the exits.

  From the cover of the shadows, Owen considered his options. The room had a balcony. The smooth stone of the old walls would be difficult to climb, but it would be even harder for a man to scale the nearest tree and launch himself onto the balcony. An agile man could probably accomplish it, but he couldn’t do it quietly.

  It would have to be the wall.

  “Take care of the guard in the back,” he told Gabriel. “Move their mounts and then climb the wall to the balcony. Samuel and I will clear the front and inside. I’ll keep whoever is in the room occupied. Distract and ambush.”