had difficulty bringing her dance partners to mind, except for Mr. Luttrell. And she only remembered him because he’d taken her into supper. His interest was horses. While he talked about the finer points of the thoroughbred he’d purchased at Tattersall’s horse auction, Jo fixed an interested expression on her face and allowed her gaze to wander, seeking a tall, dark-haired gentleman.
She sighed and put down her cup. Licking the chocolate from her upper lip, she admitted she’d spent the entire evening on the lookout for him. But neither he nor the Cartwrights attended the ball.
There were few clouds to shadow the moon, for which Reade was grateful. He found his way with ease across the lawns without stumbling over the many flowerpots the lady of the house seemed overly fond of and reached the brick wall at the rear of the house. Most of the building lay in darkness, but for a lamp in the front hall and a glimmer from a sconce on the upstairs landing.
He circled the house, moving through the shadows. The two occupants were out for the evening. The servants had retired to their attic rooms, except for one who awaited his employer’s return. Reade tried several windows and found them locked. He couldn’t risk jimmying a window open. On closer inspection, a casement window on the second floor was ajar, but there were no trees nearby to aid his climb.
It would have to be the drainpipe. He prayed it would bear his weight. When Reade took hold and shinnied up, the pipe shifted alarmingly beneath his hands and threatened to come away from the wall. But his luck was in, for it held, and he reached the next floor without mishap. His searching fingers located a crevice in the bricks. He swung himself across to the window and levered himself up onto the sill. Swinging his legs over, he dropped soundlessly onto the carpet.
Moonlight flooded in, revealing the room to be a bedchamber as he’d expected, and of no use to him. He stalked soft-footed to the door and listened. No snoring reached him, only the clunk of a clock and the scrabble of mice in the walls. He knew the residents were at a ball and unlikely to return until close to dawn. That should give him a few hours to inspect the library at his leisure.
On the landing, a guttering candle flickered in a sconce, lighting the stairs. Descending, he grimaced at the sharp creaks of the treads beneath his boots. One of the annoying things about being large. Reade was a heavyweight and always had to make allowances for it. He could handle himself well in a skirmish, but smaller men in the game had the advantage in matters of stealth.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, loud snores greeted him from the servant slumbering on a chair near the front door. Having some knowledge of the layout of the house from previous visits, Reade located the library without mishap. He entered and quietly closed the door, then went straight to the desk set against the far wall. Moonlight shone in through the break in the velvet curtains and revealed a stack of papers scattered over the oak surface, but not bright enough for him to read them. It forced him to pull the curtains shut and strike a taper. A dangerous move, but necessary.
The feeble light enabled him to scan them. He had splendid night vision. Two letters were immediately of interest. A delivery notice and a letter detailing the date of a meeting somewhere near the docks, but not the exact address. He slid both into his coat pocket, where his pistol rested, then turned his attention to the others.
A ruckus outside drew him to the window. A lumbering carriage with swinging lamps passed through the gates and rattled along the drive to the stables. Reade snuffed the taper between his fingers. Home early, curse it.
The snores in the hall ended with a curse and a scrape of a chair as Reade slipped back into the corridor. He made for the servants’ stairs, planning to leave through the kitchen.
Twenty minutes later, he crouched in the bushes to watch the house. The man and woman climbed the staircase; candlelight showed their progress in the long window. He considered going back inside after they fell asleep, but abandoned the idea as unsound and turned away. There was always another night, and what he had in his pocket might well prove