Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Penny had spent most of his life alone. Surrounded by people, yes, but alone all the same.
He’d learned how to entertain himself at an early age, had played his own games and made his own friendships when he was a child, and entered into the life of a street thief without anyone making the decision for him or teaching him the tricks of his trade.
But as he watched the wagon carrying Greer move farther and farther away from him as he walked across the barren Cornwall landscape, he felt abandoned for the first time in his life.
He cleared his throat and kicked a stone from his path on the dirt road he walked.
Abandoned was too strong a word. And he hadn’t been abandoned.
He was in the middle of completing a job that would pay him in safety and security for himself and Helen.
Walking along an unfamiliar road in a landscape that could have been fairyland for all he was familiar with it was merely part of the task at hand.
He adjusted the grip on his case and concentrated his thoughts on everything he’d seen and learned since arriving at Trebarral Castle.
His idea of pretending to be a tinker selling various bits and pieces to the servants of the house had been a brilliant one.
He’d liberated a few choice items from around the village and tucked them into his case before setting out after he and Greer had parted ways, which meant he had plenty to show to the servants.
It had been a bit of a surprise to find the servants rushing about their duties at the castle to be relaxed and willing to entertain an outsider hoping to sell them silly things in the first place.
To hear Brutus and Titus talk about it, Trebarral Castle should have been a prison filled with dour servants who were suspicious of everything and everyone.
The very fact that he was admitted to the castle was a sign that Trebarral’s inhabitants weren’t on alert at all times.
They might not even have been aware of the “guest” their home harbored.
That was the first fortunate thing Penny had noticed.
The second was that it was potentially easier to slip in and out of the castle than they’d first thought.
It was true that there were only two doors as far as he could see, the front door, which he’d only glimpsed briefly as he approached the castle, and the kitchen door, but the stone walls of the castle were filled with nooks and crannies that would make it a simple thing to climb up to or down from windows.
What was more, the windows he’d been able to see had all been open to let in the salt breeze from the ocean, since the days were warm.
Penny had casually asked one of the maids if they left the windows open at night, and she’d confirmed they did.
Trebarral Castle was not as impenetrable as they’d first been led to believe.
That thought should have made Penny happy, but the same breeze that whistled across the plains of long grass and had the leaves of the nearby trees swaying also seemed to creep down his back, standing his hair on end, and making him feel just how out of his depth he was.
He took a breath and scanned the horizon once more. Where had Greer gone? Whose was the wagon he’d arrived on and how had he fallen in with those farmers? What if their paths never crossed again and Penny was left stranded clear on the other side of England with no way to return home?
He shook those thoughts off as ridiculous and walked on. Greer would not abandon him. Like it or not, the two of them were a team for the length of the job they’d agreed to do.
And after the way Greer had kissed him, after the two of them had felt each other’s heat as they tried to sleep in that narrow inn bed, after the things they’d shared on the train and the new, blossoming feelings between them that neither of them could deny, Greer wouldn’t leave him.
Not yet, at least.
Penny pretended that he wasn’t immensely relieved when he came across Greer leaning against a huge haystack beside a barn about an hour after he’d set out from Trebarral Castle.
“Took you long enough,” Greer said, greeting him with a smirk.
Penny laughed and veered off the path and into the barnyard.
He glanced around carefully, aware that it might be necessary for him to pretend he did not know Greer at all, and stopped just in front of the haystack.
“Are you in such a hurry that you don’t care to do the job right? ” he asked with a teasing grin.
Greer radiated warmth and temptation as he raked Penny with a glance from head to toe. “I’m never in a hurry,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Someday I’ll show you that.”
Penny chuckled low in his throat and took the risk of going to the haystack, putting his case down, and sitting beside Greer. “Did you make new friends?” he asked, glancing around.
“For the moment,” Greer said. “I aided the farmers with their deliveries today in exchange for permission to spend the night in their barn.”
Penny nodded and made an impressed face. “And where are your farmer friends?”
“Attending supper with their wives,” Greer answered. “They invited me to join them, but I feigned exhaustion and said I needed a rest first.”
Penny arched one eyebrow. “They didn’t find that suspicious?”
Greer shrugged. “Whether they do or not, they did not say. Bob’s wife provided me with a plate and seemed grateful that I wasn’t interested in making eyes at her daughter.”
Penny laughed. “I wish I’d been given a plate.”
Greer twisted to retrieve the plate in question from his other side. It still contained half a heel of bread, a chunk of cheese, a bit of sausage, and some boiled potatoes.
It was the simplest offering imaginable, but Penny’s heart lifted at the gift as if it had been diamonds and pearls.
“You’re wonderful, you are,” he told Greer, diving into the meager feast.
“There’s a well on the other side of the barn as well,” Greer said, smiling as he watched Penny eat. “I can fetch you some water to wash that down.”
Penny shook his head and put a hand on Greer’s thigh as he started to move. For the briefest second, the touch sizzled. Then he swallowed his bite and forced himself to address the job they’d been given.
“The castle isn’t as formidable as Brutus and Titus believe it to be,” he said as he picked up one of the potatoes.
“I know,” Greer nodded, turning serious as well. “It should be easy to climb up to one of the windows and to slip inside, or to bring Lord Fabian out that way.”
Penny smiled as he chewed. When he swallowed, he said, “That’s what I noticed as well.”
For a moment, the two of them sat there grinning at each other. Penny’s chest felt light and fluttery, which was madness, considering how anxious he’d felt just an hour or so before. The fresh Cornish air had addled his brain.
Greer’s smile dropped a few seconds later. “Dalhurst was there,” he said. “I overheard him speaking with another man. They confirmed what you heard at the inn about Lord Fabian being in immediate danger of being moved.”
“I can see why they would want to move him as soon as possible,” Penny said with a mouth full of bread. “That castle isn’t as secure as it should be for holding someone prisoner.”
“There must be something we’re missing,” Greer said, frowning. “Dalhurst and Hammond aren’t fools. Brutus and Titus wouldn’t have sent the two of us out here so hastily if they were.”
“You think there are hidden dangers and difficulties?” Penny asked.
“There must be. Dalhurst and Hammond are ruthless, experienced traffickers.”
Penny agreed with that logic. He nodded. “So what do we do?” he asked. “Clearly, there’s more at play here than either of us could determine, despite our cleverness.”
The corner of Greer’s mouth quirked up.
Penny caught himself wanting to lick it and delve his tongue into Greer’s mouth.
“We need to know more,” Greer said, his gaze dropping to study Penny’s mouth in turn.
He didn’t say anything beyond that. Penny had the distinct impression his focus had scattered once again.
Penny took a bite of the cheese and put the plate down. “Can we go back into the castle?” he asked, amused that he was the one still concerned with the mission while Greer’s mind seemed to have wandered on to other things.
Greer sucked in a breath, and his eyes snapped up to meet Penny’s. “If we want to execute this mission as easily as possible, with full understanding of everything we could encounter, we might have to,” he said.
“We should go tonight,” Penny went on. “I don’t think time is on our side.”
Greer nodded. “Would that we had an entire fortnight to plan this thing.”
Penny laughed. “I don’t think we have even two days, let alone two weeks.”
It was the truth, though neither of them liked it.
Despite his reputation as an accomplished housebreaker and a daring thief, Penny had learned that Greer was a cautious and methodical man by nature.
He did not like acting without a plan or rushing into anything.
He supposed that’s what made him such a successful housebreaker.
The sun was already mostly set by the time they made the decision to return to the castle for more reconnaissance.
Greer took the plate that the farmer’s wife had given him back to the house while Penny carefully stashed his case in the barn’s hayloft, where Greer’s case already waited.
He was careful to keep out of sight so as not to alert the farm’s inhabitants to his presence there.
“I’ve told them I’m going straight to bed and that I’ll most probably be on my way before dawn tomorrow,” Greer told Penny once he returned and the two of them started back along the road to the castle.
“And they are happy with that?” Penny asked.
Greer shrugged. “Bob and his son don’t seem to care, but the farmwife, her daughter, and Michael’s wife don’t seem to like me much.”
Penny laughed. “They don’t know you. Anyone who knows you would certainly like you.”