The Gentleman and the Thief (The Dread Penny Society #2) - Sarah M. Eden Page 0,12

baffled.

It was with this mystery hanging heavy on his weary mind that he mounted his trusty steed and dedicated a morning to riding a circuit of the estate. He was not at risk of being beggared by the thefts, but neither could he ignore the growing list of pilfered items. Who could possibly be taking them? What ill-intentioned thief was bringing such misery to his already painful life?

He rounded a turn in the path as it passed the cottage of the estate steward. Elmore Combs had remained in his post after the death of Wellington’s grandfather some fifteen years earlier, Wellington’s father ten years after that, and Wellington’s older brother a mere two years ago.

Combs’s daughter, Tillie, stood outside, pulling laundry off the clothesline. Wellington had known Tillie since they had been children running and skipping and laughing through the meadows and lawns and streams of Summerworth. They had been dear friends during those long-ago days. He hadn’t seen as much of her the past few years as he would have liked. Life had demanded too much of him.

“Good morning, Tillie.” He pulled his horse to a halt beside the house. “How are you faring this fine day?”

She folded a sheet against herself and smiled at him. “I’m well, sir.”

“You needn’t call me ‘sir,’” he said as he dismounted. “We have been friends all our lives.”

Tillie laid the sheet in her large basket. “But you’re grown now, and the master of the estate. Things ain’t quite what they used to be.”

He pulled another sheet from the line and began folding it himself. “Are we not still friends, Tillie?”

“You’re hardly here anymore. I’ve a closer friendship with the hedgehog who lives in back of the cottage.”

Her words struck deep. Heaven forgive him, he had been neglectful. He’d lost his grandparents, his parents, and his brother. He seldom saw his friends from Cambridge. He had no true friends amongst Society in London, merely a list of vague acquaintances. He kept to himself, a shield against the grief of losing people he felt close to. But it meant he remained painfully lonely.

“I could come help you fold laundry,” he offered. “Then we could talk as we work.”

Amusement danced in her eyes. “Folding laundry ain’t for the master of the estate.”

“I’m doing it now.” He dropped the sheet into the basket. “Besides, who will even see me working other than you and your father? This needn’t be a source of teasing, unless you mean to engage in jests at my expense.”

“’Course not.”

He took down a serviceable-looking apron and folded it as well. “If laundry is off-limits to me, what will you permit me to do? Sweep the front stoop? Weed the kitchen garden? Are either of those acceptable for a ‘master of the estate’?”

She folded a shirt, no doubt her father’s. “I suspect you’ve spent time weeding and sweeping at your own house, it being short-staffed like it is.”

“Lately, I’ve invested most of my time attempting to locate a virtual treasure trove of missing things.”

Nothing remained on the clothesline. She took up the basket and held it against her hip. “Things’ve been swiped?”

“Quite a number of things,” he said. “Jewelry. Silver. Paintings.”

“And you’ve not located any of it?”

He shook his head. “I fear this mystery will prove utterly unsolvable.”

He walked beside her back to the quaint and inviting cottage. The door stood open, allowing them to enter without a pause.

Her father was inside and greeted Wellington. “Welcome, Mr. Quincey. Have you come on estate business?”

“I stopped to offer a good morning to my lifelong friend but have been rightly informed by your daughter that I have not been an attentive companion to her these years.”

Mr. Combs turned wide eyes on his child. “Tillie. You’d speak so critically to a gentleman of his standing? ’Ave you taken leave of your manners, girl?”

“Pray, do not scold her,” Wellington insisted. “I was rightly chastised, and I mean to make amends.”

“How?” Tillie never had lacked for boldness.

“We spend little time together, as you rightly observed, and I have a maddening riddle at the estate. Perhaps you might help me sort it.”

She looked intrigued. If she agreed to join the hunt for the elusive thief, he would have her company again. The house would not be so empty. The joys of their childhood friendship would bring light back into his darkened world.

“Would you help?” he pressed. “I would be greatly obliged.”

“I do have a knack for sorting mysteries.” She carried her basket to the table. “We could solve this’n