Page 98 of Too Scot to Handle
Joe hauled him back down into the darkness and pointed to the house. “B-bollocks.”
A light, dim but distinct, shone through Montague’s window. Somebody was stirring about with a shuttered carrying candle, and Lord Colin was doomed to swing for sure.
* * *
Anwen couldn’t sleep, and the two times she’d dozed off, she’d woken with a start, dread making her heart pound.
Colin was searching the Montague household for the money, or possibly he’d already been found out, the watch called, the magistrate’s office involved.
Or he might have the money, in which case getting the funds back to the orphanage unobtrusively presented an equal challenge.
She got up, put on her robe and slippers, and made her way through the darkened house to the conservatory, where lovely memories could keep her company. She woke up on her favorite sofa in the world, pink streaking the eastern sky, and her heart once again pounding with dread.
* * *
“You looked inside his boots?” Tom asked.
“Every pair,” Lord Colin replied wearily. “After Lady Rosalyn made her little raid for his spare change, I also went through all of Montague’s coat pockets, I checked every glove box, under the bed, the wardrobe, everywhere.”
“If his lordship says he made a proper job of it,” John muttered, “then he made a proper job of it. The money weren’t there.”
“But Montague took it,” Dickie said, sounding whiney. “We know he took it. He’s a rotter, and a liar, and he took the money.”
They had congregated in the hayloft of the stable behind the orphanage, and light was beginning to fill the eastern sky. Tom had had longer nights, but none more disappointing.
“He’s a canny rotter.” Lord Colin stood and brushed straw off his breeches. “If he did take the money, he put it somewhere other than his own rooms. He must suspect Lady Rosalyn occasionally helps herself to his loose coins.”
“When would he ’ave had time to stash the money any place besides his house?” John asked, flopping back into the straw. “You said he came here with you to drop off the money. Hitchings sent him on his way after you left. He had to have taken the money right after that, and then where would he hide it? We looked all over the orphanage, including the empty wing. The clubs wouldn’t have been open that late and you said none of Montague’s friends were with him. The money has to be where he lives.”
Tom had been over the same sequence of events in his mind, time after time, and had reached the same conclusion. The money had to be at the Montague mansion, which was a bloody damned big place. An army of thieves would need a week to search the house properly, and that assumed it was empty ’round the clock.
Which it bloody well wasn’t.
“We’re tired,” Lord Colin said, “and arguing in circles. I thank you all for your help—I’d be watching the sunrise from the windows of Number Four Bow Street, but for you four. I can try again tonight, assuming Montague hasn’t started up a hue and cry.”
“He’s Montague,” Tom said. “He’ll be tattling to Miss Anwen’s duke, and then the game’s up. If a duke starts sniffing about, the newspapers will come trotting along behind him, and we’re for the mines.”
“Or worse,” John said. “I’m scared of the dark myself. Don’t fancy a turn in the mines.”
He’d never admitted that before, though Tom had long since figured it out. A loathing of being shut up in small dark places all night was part of what sent John on his rambles.
Lord Colin started down the ladder. “Nobody is going down the mines, but you raise a good point. Montague will bestir himself to attend services this morning, and he’ll doubtless ask for a moment of Moreland’s time. I have never been so frustrated, furious, and ready to do violence in my life, and yet my best course at this point is to show up at services myself, my fine baritone ready to sing praise to my Creator.”
Tom went down the ladder next, followed by Dickie and John. Joe came down last, and they stood with Lord Colin in a circle, failure filling the shadowy silence.
“Get some rest,” Lord Colin said. “Hitchings will be distracted, but go about your day as normally as you can. I’ll make another try tonight, assuming the looming scandal hasn’t sent my dearest lady—”
He stopped and scrubbed a hand over his face, an odd expression creasing his tired features.
“What?” John asked. “You look like you seen a ghost up in the rafters.”
“Or an angel,” Dickie said.
“Bollocks,” Lord Colin said softly. “I know where the money is.”
“N-now,” Joe said. “Get it, n-now. Best time. Services.”
Lord Colin left off studying the hay mow. “Break into the house during Sunday services?”
