Page 99 of Highland Sword
“The key is here somewhere.” The artist searched the bottom of a large quilted bag she used for carrying her supplies around.
Morrigan had come along in hopes of finding her father’s letter. Aidan said it didn’t matter. She agreed. Still, the opportunity had presented itself when Madame Laborde mentioned that she wished to go back to the house and collect the rest of her things. Sir Rupert never returned to Huntly Street after the arrest. He’d had no chance to secure his papers or give them to someone else. That meant her father’s letter could still be here.
“I found it.” The key slid into the old lock, and the Mackintosh men went inside the house ahead of the women.
All was quiet inside. And cold. No fires had been lit inside these walls for three days. The windows rattled in their sills and a whistling moan came from the chimney in the drawing room.
“I’ll go upstairs for my things.” The artist pointed out a door to the right. “That is his study. I believe that would be the place to look.”
One of the escorts walked into the study and looked around. She waited in the hall until he made sure no one was inside. He nodded to her that she could go in.
The study was furnished with a large table, a secretary’s desk by a window, and chairs. Bookcases lined two walls. A cabinet with diamond-shaped openings for maps and scrolls stood empty. She pushed some papers around on the desk and opened drawers. Nothing caught her attention, and she began to wonder if his clerk had been here, after all. Or perhaps he had another office. Niall told her that in Glasgow, Burney had taken over offices in the City Chambers in the Saltmarket.
Morrigan recalled what Wemys told her. Burney kept secrets on everyone. All his spies and agents. All the people who worked for him. And anyone else he could use or manipulate. Looking around the room, she tried to think how he would keep this information close at hand. Perhaps there was a ledger that would lead her elsewhere.
As she stood thinking, she heard Madam Laborde call from upstairs that she needed help carrying a trunk downstairs. Footsteps moved away down the hall.
The volumes on the bookshelves were different sizes, and, from the coating of dust, many appeared to have been here for quite some time. She pulled out books thatseemed to have been moved more recently. Working steadily, she went through them and looked behind the rows. Nothing.
As she was sliding items on the bookshelves of an inner wall, the wooden case moved slightly. She pulled at it, and the entire case began to swing toward her. A hidden closet. Of course. Searc said this house belonged to an old smuggler.
The bookcase groaned a little but swung open smoothly. Morrigan peered in. Shelves lined the opposite wall, and they were filled with books and ledgers and packets of papers tied with black ribbon and stacked neatly in rows. A metal cash box sat on a small desk and a large leather satchel filled with ledgers and papers was propped open beside it.
She stepped into the space and reached for the bag. She didn’t get far. The keen edge of a knife pressed against her throat. She tried to twist to deliver a blow to the man standing behind her, but the jerk of his fist in her hair and bite of the blade stopped her.
“Mrs. Grant. How gratifying to find you here.”
Sir Rupert Burney stood behind her. The bookcase swung shut.
CHAPTER38
Mrs. Goddard’s news that Morrigan had accompanied Madame Laborde to Huntly Street went through Aidan’s chest like a hussar’s blade.
As the hooves of his steed pounded along the lane and through the deserted cattle market toward Castle Hill and the bridge, he kept trying to convince himself that nothing was wrong. She wasn’t alone. The women had two Mackintosh men with them. Nothing said that Burney would return to a house that was assuredly locked up by the authorities.
But all along the way, a feeling of doom clouded his brain.
Aidan only started to breathe when he espied the driver and carriage waiting outside the house as he reached Huntly Street. Reining his horse sharply in front of the house, he jumped down and rushed through the door. Male voices came from an upper floor.
“Morrigan!” he shouted.
One of the Mackintosh men appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Where is my wife?”
“In the study there.”
He started to come down the stairs, but Aidan didn’t wait. He didn’t know the layout of the house. He called her name, looking in at the first door.
“The next one, Mr. Grant. In there. She was here but a minute ago.”
They both went into the study. The window was shut, the curtains were drawn. No one was inside. There was nowhere for her to go.
“I know she didn’t leave the house.” The Mackintosh went out into the hall to look around.
The second man came down and joined the search. Immediately, Aidan was told the door going out to the back from the kitchen was still latched on the inside. The same was true of the windows and the other servants’ entrance. The only way in or out was the way he’d come.
“Check the floors for a trap door.” Aidan rushed back into the study and pointed at the bookcases. “Pull them down. Every one of them. There’s got to be a door somewhere that leads out.”
