Chapter 13 #2
He elbowed Greer for good measure.
Greer laughed and shoved him in return. Their gestures were childish and fun, but with each touch and the closeness that came with the two of them walking in step and nudging into each other, Penny’s heart beat faster.
He was brimming with unaccountable good feeling and excitement by the time they made it back to the castle. By then, it was well after dark, and most of the lights that had shone in the windows of the castle as they’d approached it had gone out.
“We’re not here to rescue Lord Fabian tonight,” Greer reminded Penny as they walked slowly around the castle’s perimeter, studying the windows, half of which were open, just as Penny had hoped, and getting a feel for the ground around the crumbling wall, where the moat had once been. “We’re here to map things out.”
Penny agreed with a nod. His blood raced with a sense of fun, as if he were playing a dangerous game instead of risking his life to free a tortured prisoner.
No wonder Greer had committed himself so much to this line of work.
Penny himself would have to make his case for a lengthier partnership with the man once all was said and done and they were back in London.
Trebarral Castle was quiet and lazy in the night.
It definitely worked to their advantage.
They circled the wall multiple times, testing the stones and trying to learn where the rough spots in the ground were.
Finally, when they were satisfied that they understood the castle’s exterior, Greer picked a window and climbed a few feet so that he could peer inside the darkened room beyond.
After a minute, he lowered himself again and leaned close to Penny.
“It’s a study,” he whispered. “Empty.”
Penny nodded, grinning. The last time they’d broken into a fancy study they’d nearly brought disaster down on themselves.
That wouldn’t happen this time. Greer climbed up the wall again and leaned his upper body in through the open window. With a shimmy that gave Penny the perfect eyeful to look at, he wriggled through the window and dropped on the other side. Penny barely heard a thing.
A moment later, Greer appeared in the window once more, gesturing for Penny to follow him.
Climbing into the house was easy. Penny warned himself not to grow too complacent as he pulled his body through into the study and lowered himself as silently as he could onto the carpeted floor on the other side. He remembered what had happened last time, and he did not want to be caught again.
The interior of the study was dark, but once again, Greer had his trusty matches to light the way in momentary bursts.
It helped that the moon was nearly full and that it was a clear night.
They had enough light to tip-toe their way through the study and on to a hallway, both of them keeping the creaks and groans of the ancient floor they walked across to a minimum.
The castle was so quiet that it made the hair on the back of Penny’s neck stand up.
Surely, someone somewhere in the castle could hear the ghosts of their footsteps as they walked with painful slowness through the downstairs hall, then up a polished staircase to the first floor.
Someone had to be awake, reading by candlelight, on the other side of one of the doors they passed or poised on the verge of calling for a footman to bring them a midnight nibble.
But no, the entire place remained calm and hushed as Penny and Greer walked through, memorizing the layout and attempting to ascertain which of the rooms they passed might be occupied and which vacant.
Penny had a thousand questions, but it was too much of a risk to ask any of them.
All he could do was follow Greer as he made his way up another staircase to a higher floor.
He was reasonably certain Greer was searching for which room might contain Lord Fabian.
Greer touched each door on the upper floor as if he could feel the vibrations of a captive young man breathing behind them.
It amused Penny to think his friend might have some sort of magical touch, but magic wasn’t needed as they reached a narrow staircase that led up to what had to be the tower room.
There, on the landing at the top of the wooden staircase, in front of a small door, a thickset man sat on a chair, his head lolled to one side and resting against the wall. He snored, which was amusing.
Not so amusing was the handgun he held loosely in his lap.
There was the danger. The rest of the castle might have been an amusing relic from an earlier era, filled with sweet, na?ve servants, but the guard sitting in front of the door to the tower room told everything Penny needed to know about the reality of the mission in front of them.
Greer stopped and tensed at the bottom of the stairs.
The guard had a flickering candle lit on a table across the door from where he sat, so both of them were able to see more of what they were up against. Penny couldn’t hear Greer utter so much as a loud breath, but he swore he could feel his partner in rescue curse loudly.
The castle might have been open and friendly, but Lord Fabian was as much a prisoner as if it were the most forbidding prison in England.
Greer rocked back, glancing around as if searching for some other way into the tower room.
The end of the hall where they stood was bare but for the door in front of them leading into the room under the tower.
Greer stepped toward that, resting his hand on the door for a moment.
He frowned, then pressed his ear to the door.
There was no way to know for certain, but several possibilities sprung to Penny’s mind.
The room under Lord Fabian’s could have been a storage room.
It could have held kegs of gunpowder, for all he knew.
But it could also be another bedchamber, one that housed Dalhurst, or even Hammond, if he was in Cornwall.
The men didn’t seem like the sort who would let a prize like Lord Fabian out of their sight for long.
More than that, logic told Penny that even with the guard, the door to Lord Fabian’s room would be locked. Dalhurst wouldn’t leave anything to chance.
That was something the two of them had in common, Penny thought with a wicked grin. He wasn’t about to take chances either.
As Greer listened to his door, Penny crept carefully up the wooden staircase. He moved softly, in the way he’d observed Greer had. Absolutely everything depended on him not disturbing the stairs or making anything creak or snap.
A squeak of victory nearly left Penny’s lips when he climbed high enough on the stairs to spot exactly what he was hoping to find.
There, on the small table across from the guard, sat a pair of iron keys on a ring.
One appeared to be the right size to fit Lord Fabian’s door.
If he and Greer were in possession of that key, all they would need to do when the time came to rescue Lord Fabian in earnest would be to cause a distraction from somewhere downstairs, draw the guard and potentially Dalhurst away, then calmly let themselves into the room, gather up Lord Fabian, and slip off to freedom.
Penny was at the top of the stairs when he heard a shuffle from below. His hand was already extended to the table, but he glanced down, only to find Greer glaring furiously up at him.
Rather than retreating, like he was certain Greer wanted him to do, Penny winked at his companion, then gracefully lifted the keys from the table and brought them quickly to his pocket.
He froze when the guard sucked in a breath and shifted on his chair.
The smug smile he’d put on for Greer vanished.
The air around him seemed to crackle. He held his breath and kept every muscle in his body absolutely still as he watched the guard.
Flashes of the way he and Greer had nearly been caught in Mayfair raced through his brain.
He refused to be caught again. As soon as he was certain the guard was asleep, he moved with aching slowness back to the stairs and started down. He wasn’t as silent as he needed to be, but he was deft enough to make it to the bottom of the stairs with a minimum of sound.
Once he stood face to face with the man, Greer glared at him like he wanted to wring Penny’s neck.
Penny couldn’t help himself. He leaned in, lifted to his toes, and quickly kissed Greer’s tight lips.
Greer jerked back, looking even more furious.
It took a supreme effort of will for Penny not to laugh.
He stepped back, hoping the floorboards didn’t give them away, then started down the hall as quickly as he dared to go, racing to the stairs.
They’d gotten everything they’d come for and more.
Rescuing Lord Fabian would be as easy as taking a handkerchief from a lady.