A Scot to the Heart (Desperately Seeking Duke #2) - Caroline Linden Page 0,79
cadies saw nothing?” Duncan pressed, referring to the City Guard who patrolled at night.
“The sheriff will be asking them, but one presumes not, or they would have raised the alarm.”
“Have you any idea what the loss is?”
“At least twenty bolts ruined or missing. Mother guessed four hundred pounds, but she’ll need the inventory book to know for certain.”
His friend nodded. “Thank God no one was hurt.”
“How many burglaries is this?” Drew had been trying to count, cursing his earlier lack of attention.
“Too many,” said Duncan. “Other victims have offered rewards, with no result.”
“How much?”
“Ten guineas, in one case. Some of the stolen goods have been returned or discovered in the streets or along the road to Leith. I wonder who the devil takes the trouble to rob a shop, then scatters the take around the city.”
“Strange, indeed.” Drew glanced at the undamaged door. “And how is it,” he murmured, “that no one’s seen anything or heard anything? They must not be long at their work. Look—this lock was opened as easily as if the villains had a key.”
Duncan stooped to study it. “A picklock?”
“Something like that.” Drew pictured the bolts of silk. “If there’s more than one thief . . .”
“To carry off twenty bolts of cloth, there must be,” said Duncan. “Someone would notice a cart waiting in the street.”
“Precisely.” He fell silent, thinking. When they’d been children and misbehaved, his father had told them confession and penitence would excuse them from serious punishment. He’d said it was more important to him that his children could admit their mistakes and try to set things right than that they take a whipping. Drew had escaped multiple thrashings by prompt confession, even though he’d been punished in other ways. The philosophy had served him fairly well ever since, too . . .
“What are you going to do?”
With a wrench Drew pulled his thoughts back to the conversation at hand. “I told Mother not to mind it too much. Seems a perfect moment for her to sell the shop and come with me to Carlyle, eh? She and the girls.”
The other man’s throat worked. “I didn’t think you meant to make them go . . .”
“Make them!” Drew scoffed. “As if I could make them do anything! I invited them, to provide a better situation for my family after all these many years of being away and leaving Mother and the girls to manage on their own. But if the shop is gone, or failing, that’s certainly less reason for any of them to stay.”
Duncan said nothing.
“Have you got anything to say about Agnes?” prompted Drew. “Or should I assume you’ve apologized for whatever idiocy you committed that roused her fury?”
Color crept up his friend’s broad cheekbones. “’Tis not your concern.”
“No,” Drew agreed. “’Tis Agnes’s, and she’s already told me I may not thrash you for it, more’s the pity. But I would still like to know.” He stepped into the street and headed toward the sheriff-clerk’s offices.
“May not! Could not,” retorted Duncan, keeping pace with him.
“I’ve seen you fence and box,” Drew replied. “She’s saving you, idiot.”
Duncan tried to smother his laugh with a cough. “Aye, tell yourself all the lies you want.” He motioned at the shop. “What will you do?”
Drew hesitated. “I have one idea, rather audacious. Tell me what you think of it . . .” And they put their heads together and discussed it all the way back toward Castle Hill.
It turned out that the St. James shop was not the only one to have been robbed recently. Nearly every night while they were at Stormont Palace had seen another robbery; every morning another shopkeeper had discovered his or her premises in tumult, and every day the Highland guardsmen who walked the streets after dark could not account for it. The thieves seemed to have an uncanny sense for avoiding being seen, and in consequence a new level of fear and apprehension gripped the city.
Unfortunately, Ilsa’s main source of information was a steady parade of Jean’s friends, dour matrons and stern dowagers trooping through their drawing room to discuss the latest rumors about the thieves over tea and cake. Jean professed herself terrified and alarmed, but had an insatiable appetite for gossip about robberies, the more alarming the better. To escape, Ilsa spent more time than ever wandering the fields around Calton Hill with Robert, even if she felt unaccountably lonely doing so now and had to endure renewed argument from her aunt about it.