Chapter 15 #2
She looked at Derrick. “And the Cookes? What will happen to them?”
“I’m not entirely sure, actually,” he said. “They don’t have a history of theft, as far as we can tell.”
“How far can you tell?” she asked.
He hesitated, then smiled faintly. “We have access to a few databases with interesting facts.”
“Hacker,” she chided.
“And that’s nothing I’ll ever admit to,” he said promptly. “I don’t know if they’ve been pinching little stuff all along and this is their first attempt at something big, or if this is the first thing they’ve ever attempted to steal.”
“How are you going to tell?”
He sighed deeply. “Well, the circles I run in are rather small. Word tends to get round fairly quickly about thefts and thieves. I haven’t heard anything about the Cookes to this point, but that may change.”
“And you don’t think the cops should know?”
He shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable.
“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? If I let the Cookes go unpunished and they poach something else, where does that leave me?
Yet on the other hand, I have a man with an impeccable reputation who would shudder at the thought of the bobbies tramping through his private sanctuary. ”
“Which is why he called you in the first place, I supposed.”
“I am discreet,” he agreed. “It’s part of our charm.”
And keeping an old man from being stressed was likely the other part. She studied him for a moment or two.
“Do you know anyone in Scotland Yard?”
“Someone,” he said enigmatically.
“Does he have a secure phone line?”
“Assuredly, and the lovely ability to keep a few things to himself,” Derrick agreed. “We’ll see what happens over the next couple of months.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know how I got mixed up in all this.”
“Well, the first item of business is to get you out of it,” Derrick said. “Oliver’s on his way, I’ve texted your contact, and that should be done this afternoon. I think we can safely head north in the morning and take care of everything else.” He considered. “I assume you left gear in Newcastle?”
She nodded. “Money, plane ticket, and lots of polyester.”
“How much money?”
“Two hundred and sixty-seven pounds.” She paused. “And twenty pence.”
“I think we can replace that.” He smiled, then his smile faded. “Thank you, Samantha. You have put up with far more than should have been required.”
She had no idea what to say about that, so she decided that saying nothing was the best plan.
“I’ll also get you a new plane ticket.”
She looked at him in surprise. “That’s very generous, but you don’t have to.”
“Least I can do.” He paused. “Unless you’d rather stay in England for the summer.”
She caught her breath at the sudden longing for exactly that. The thought of roaming over moors, sketching lakes, wandering along the endless miles of coast . . .
It took her a moment or two before she trusted herself to speak. “Oh,” she managed, “I don’t think I could.” That killed her, right there. She had to take a deep breath to get the rest out. “Got to get home, and all that. Things to do.”
“What sorts of things?”
She looked at him, sitting there on an obscenely expensive reproduction sofa, and wished things were different.
She wished she were different. She wished that for once, she had the time and means to do what she wanted to instead of what her parents wanted her to do.
She wished she had saved every penny she had ever earned instead of just seventy-five percent of them.
That extra twenty-five surely would have been enough to let her stay in England for the summer.
But eventually the piper would have to be paid.
She could either blow her money on what would amount to only a couple of months of freedom, or she could get back home, buckle down, and carve out a future for herself.
Dull, but responsible. And given what she’d just been through, responsible seemed so . . . responsible.
It took her another moment or two before she could speak. She looked at Derrick.
“I know it was just for a short time,” she managed, “but when one travels to Elizabethan England, nothing’s quite the same afterward.”
He smiled seriously. “Nay, it isn’t.”
“I don’t think I can go home again,” she admitted, “but I think I probably should.”
“I would offer you a job as resident expert on Elizabethan textiles, but that isn’t really what you want, is it?”
“Nope,” she said without hesitation, ignoring what that cost her to sound so convinced. “Don’t want anything to do with anything that isn’t art. I’m officially out of the historian arena.”
Or she would be, just as soon as she went home and saved up enough money to never have to identify another lace pattern.
“I honestly can’t blame you.” He paused. “But perhaps before you go, you could come with me to Castle Hammond. His Lordship might even give us the private tour once he stops weeping.”
“Attached to his antiquities, is he?”
“Very.”
She considered, then hesitated. “I should probably text Gavin.”
“Tell him you’re coming with me to have a private tour of Lord Epworth’s collection. We’ll hear his head exploding from here.”
She laughed a little in spite of herself. “All right.” She paused, then looked at him. “Think the embroidery is stolen, too?”
“Given who the recipient is, I would say yes. But whoever is willing to pay for it deserves what they get for buying rubbish. We’ll let Oliver deliver it, then I’ll snoop a bit on my end and see what turns up.”
“Is that legal?”
“You probably shouldn’t ask.”
“What if the Cookes are famous international jewel thieves and this was just a trial run?”
He smiled, apparently amused. “Then we’ll let the bobbies handle it, I suppose.”
“Unless it’s one of your clients getting stolen from.”
“Well,” he admitted, “yes.”
“Do you have a gun?”
“You probably don’t want to know.”
“I’m not sure I would be surprised,” she said. “I’ve seen you with a sword.”
“It helps to be handy with quite a few things.”
Apparently so. She approved the messages he sent both to the Cookes and her brother, then left him to his conversation with Oliver.
She ordered a late lunch because she had become unfortunately quite familiar with the room service menu. She accepted compliments on her last movie role from the room service girl on the other end of the phone, then hung up and looked at Derrick.
“They think I’m a famous actress.”
“So they do.”
“They think you’re my famous actress self’s equally famous boyfriend.”
“The burden of celebrity,” he said with a light sigh. “We do what we can, I suppose.”
She laughed a little in spite of herself, then looked at him and felt her smile fade. “Thank you for the adventure.”
“Hmmm,” he agreed. “Calling you names, chasing you all over the island, dragging you to places you didn’t want to go. Thrilling, no doubt.”
“It beats being stuck in a musty old museum.”
“Well, if you’re going to put it that way, then you’re welcome.”
She had the most unreasonable wish that it could go on a bit longer.
She found herself rather more interested than she should have been in Derrick Cameron.
She wondered what his favorite treasure had been, how in the world he had ever gotten involved in the whole antiquities business, how long he intended to keep up the craziness.
She was also tempted to tell him that out of all the colors she’d seen his eyes, she liked green the best.
But that was crazy. She had things to do, her life to get back to.
Her trip to England, no matter how brief, had allowed her to test her wings.
To her surprise, they were sturdier than she would have thought.
But that testing was over for the moment.
She would happily accompany Derrick up to York and deliver the lace, but then she was going to have to turn and look life squarely in the eye and get on with it.
She could only hope she might make something of it that would be worthy of a sketchbook.