Page 74 of The Duke and Lady Scandal
“Different than when he came before. Jovial and talkative. Kind. The more I spoke to him, the more I knew he was not the other man.”
“Who we can now suspect may have been involved in an attempt on the Crown Jewels.”
She clenched her fist where it lay against his chest. “I wish I could remember something to help you identify him. Or any of the other men who were with him.”
“Fitz, the man I hired to monitor Hawlston’s, will remain on the job for a few more days. Perhaps they’ll return.”
Allie thought it unlikely, and she suspected Ben did too.
“This is an official investigation now. We’ll question all of the coffeehouse staff.”
“Mrs. Cline won’t be happy with that.”
“Mmm.” He grinned. “What I’m trying to say is that your lead may still prove crucial.”
Allie would like the men in the shop to be found and questioned, at the very least, but most important was finding those responsible for the attempt on the Crown Jewels.
“Are you hungry?” Ben pulled her in a bit closer. “Mrs. Pratt will have dinner waiting.”
She didn’t want to leave this spot. Her hunger was for him. Nothing else. “Must we leave this room to eat?”
“No. We can have trays sent in.”
She was being selfish. Perhaps he was hungry for something more substantial than snuggling by the fire.
“Not yet,” she told him. “Kiss me first.”
Ben trailed his fingers along the curve of her cheek, then slid his hand along the line of her throat. That touch melted her insides, and she considered whether they could make love right there in the chair.
“If I kiss you,” he murmured, his eyes locked on hers, “I won’t ever want to stop.”
“Not ever?”
He bent and caught her lower lip between his teeth, then soothed the bite with a flick of his tongue.
“Not ever.”
Chapter Sixteen
Allie decided on taking a cab ride to Princes rather than the omnibus the next morning because she wanted to hold on to the peace she felt after spending another evening at Ben’s.
The thieves had been thwarted in their attempt on the jewels, and Lord Holcroft was simply an amiable nobleman. She felt an odd contentedness that she realized she’d been yearning for. All her life, she’d been waiting for her moment, struggling to discover how she might make her mark on the world.
But her heart was feeling fuller now, and her hopes had nothing to do with finding treasure or earning a headline in the newspapers.
She alighted from the cab, paid the cabbie, and unlocked the shop’s front door with an eagerness for what the day would bring, and even more, a yearning for the evening and more time with a certain detective inspector.
Normally, Grendel trotted out to greet her when she entered the shop. It was Gren’s way of reminding Allie that she was ready for her breakfast before curling up on the settee in the back for the remainder of the day.
When the cat didn’t appear, even after being called, Allie made her way into the darkened back room. She turned up the gaslight, and her heart jumped into her throat.
The back room looked as if a storm had blown through. Her books and papers were strewn across the floor. Every drawer in her desk and the nearby filing cabinet stood open, their contents rifled or tipped out. A few crates were broken too.
She rushed over to Mr. Gibson’s workroom door and queasiness washed over her. The door was ajar, its lock bashed and mangled as if someone had taken a maul or a rock to it.
Inside, she found the safe intact but dented. A few years past, she’d installed a safe with a combination lock and she’d never been more grateful for her own foresight.
Her heart still raced, and her blood thrashed in her ears, but she drew in her first relieved breath.
