things to suit herself—and took out the entirety of her funds.
It wasn’t much, just a few hundred pounds Gavin had traded her dollars for at Thanksgiving. He hadn’t given her much of an exchange break, she was sure, but she’d been willing to pay for the convenience. She counted it out, considered, then took most of it and looked for someplace to stash it. She finally decided on the underside of the drawer of the nightstand. After securing it there with the small amount of duct tape she never left home without—it was better than a stapler for blown-out seams or unraveled hems—she put her mother’s agenda back in her bag along with other necessities and decided it was probably time to sleep while she could.
She got herself ready for bed, then lay there and looked at the ceiling for far longer than she should have. She had made it. She had escaped the confines of her former life and marched boldly into her future life.
She sighed. Perhaps it would turn out to be nothing more interesting than her old life where nothing exciting ever happened to her, but at least that boring life would be happening in a different country and without her parents scrutinizing her every move. She might actually attempt something daring, like leaving the house without checking the weather first, or attending a show with absolutely no educational or career-furthering value whatsoever. It could be very exciting.
She fell asleep smiling.
Chapter 2
There were times a man simply couldn’t take any more of the criminal class.
Derrick Cameron stood at the window of a small office overlooking Hyde Park and contemplated the truth of that. He was an ordinary man with ordinary tastes. Good food. A good book. Pleasant company. Of course he wasn’t going to argue if someone offered him tickets to Drury Lane or insisted that he shuffle off to supper in the back of a Rolls, but on the whole he preferred dealing with average blokes who worked for what they got and shunned shady dealings. He wasn’t at all fond of blighters who took what didn’t belong to them, much less tried to sell it to those who should have known better than to buy valuable items from lads with shifty eyes.
He had spent his share of time trying to understand what motivated those who preferred to steal instead of earn, for no other reason than it helped him decide where they might strike next. The unfortunate thing was, in his current business the thugs looked far too much like respectable—even very visible—citizens of the Commonwealth. That left him shaking his head more often than not.
He supposed it was nothing but his own fault. He had signed on to work for his cousin as part of Cameron Antiquities, Ltd., eight years ago, a year after he’d first clapped eyes on Robert Cameron. There was some history there that he mulled over when he had the leisure to, but thinking about it generally left him shaking his head in disbelief. Today, he didn’t particularly feel like making himself dizzy, so he left those contemplations for another time.
He’d spent seven years as part of a very exclusive cadre of six who had formed the nucleus of that particular business. He had always been quite fond of history, but Robert Cameron’s passion for it had inspired him to take that fondness to the level of obsession. He had never thought antiques would become his life’s work, but they had.
He could identify genuine from fake from ten paces and difficult cases with only a minor examination. His nose twitched when presented with anything pre-Tudor and he could honestly feel his ears begin to perk up when something predated 1400.
Their client list was very exclusive and requiring absolute discretion. He had hobnobbed with everyone from the filthy rich to the richly titled, including nobility from several countries. A phone call, a subtle expression of interest, or a discreet note always began the chase and the quarry was always caught and delivered with a minimum of fuss. There wasn’t a part of it that he didn’t relish, from the research to the schmoozing.
After all, what was there in the world that could possibly be more exciting than finding things that couldn’t be found and buying them from souls who didn’t want to sell them? Cameron Antiquities’s only condition of sale was that the collectors of said unattainable items be thoroughly vetted as to their plans for their acquisitions. He could think