9. Fenric #2
With that rationale locked in place—and he wasn’t lying to himself so he wouldn’t succumb to panic—Fenric charged up the stairs with silent footfalls in search of the old fart’s study.
He paused at the top and looked to the left and right, trying to decide which hallway to go down first. The two looked identical.
It was likely one direction led to the lord of the house’s rooms while the other way was supposed to lead to the guest rooms. Or maybe the lord had one wing and the lady had the other?
Fenric was in no mood to check every fucking room.
The first floor was a bust, and he was growing more anxious to get off the premises before the cook stirred from her drunken stupor.
Right it was.
He turned toward the right and smirked when he spotted a set of double doors. That had to be the master’s bedroom. He was headed in the correct direction now. Nothing was going to get in his way.
Fenric’s steps were even lighter now, a spring in his step as he charged forward. Just as he lightly touched the doorknobs to push both doors open, the brass handles began to turn. His heart froze.
No! No! No!
What the ever-loving hell was this? There wasn’t anyone else in the house! There couldn’t be! He should have shifted back into his cat form, but his brain was too full of scattered thoughts and confusion to focus on the magic.
Fenric jerked backward, air trapped in his lungs. His brain scrambled. A shirtless man with short, curly pink hair and sparkling ocean blue eyes stepped into the doorway and stopped when his gaze locked with Fenric’s shocked one.
This sexy hunk of a man with the broad chest and ridiculously full pouty lips was not a sixty-year-old miser.
“Who the fuck are you?” the stranger choked out. He released both doors and stumbled backward a step into the bedroom.
Now that he was no longer blocking the doorway, light poured out of the bedroom, illuminating a decadent canopy bed, chaise lounge, and thick carpets.
And seated in the middle of the bed was a young woman with a sheet pulled up to her chest. Thick brown hair tumbled down her back and over her shoulder. She was Cartwright’s new bride.
Oh, fuck him and his shit luck.
Seemed the husband had gone to dinner while the wife had come down with an “unexpected headache” and remained home so she could meet her much younger and significantly hotter lover.
Fenric should have watched from a closer position to make sure both the master and the mistress climbed into the carriage.
Fuck him sideways. It just wasn’t fair.
“Thief! Intruder!” the woman screeched at the top of her lungs. “Thief!”
And that was Fenric’s cue to get the fuck out of there.
Shockingly, the lover didn’t grab him, instead seeming to read the room the same way.
He lunged forward before Fenric could get his feet moving.
A large hand landed on the center of Fenric’s chest and pushed him aside.
He stumbled a couple of steps and regained his balance in time to see the wife tumble naked off the bed and race to the windows of her bedroom.
She lifted the sash and shoved open the shutters.
With her head and bare breasts out the window, she continued screaming in a shrill voice.
Yep, it was definitely time to go.
Fenric raced through the corridor and thundered down the stairs, only a few steps behind the lover, who was clutching his shirt in his fist while his pants hung dangerously low on his hips.
As they hit the first floor, they turned almost in unison toward the back of the house and the kitchen. Exiting out the front seemed like a bad idea, what with the new Mrs. Cartwright screaming for help out the window. At the very least, her appearance had to be drawing a crowd.
Almost there, almost there… He could see into the kitchen through the open doorway—
Fuck his luck. Up ahead, the cook had woken from her alcohol-infused nap and grabbed a cleaver like she meant to remove their heads.
The large woman swayed, the cleaver slicing wildly through the air.
The lover skidded to a stop and put out his arm, catching Fenric across the stomach, causing Fenric to grunt from the impact.
“Thieves!” the cook slurred, raising her cleaver above her head.
“Wrong door,” Loverboy muttered, a line of sweat slipping down the side of his face.
“Let’s try door number two,” Fenric panted out, adrenaline and frustration making his voice somewhat husky. He didn’t need this shit. In his long and highly successful career, he’d broken into plenty of places and not had any of this fuss. This idiot had ruined a perfectly good job!
“Good idea.”
With their feet sliding on the thin rugs once more, they stumbled and clawed their way back through the dark corridor with the cook shouting behind them and the wife shrieking from the upstairs bedroom. They reached the front doors at the same time yet again and jerked them open—
—to see a hefty crowds of neighbors and gawkers standing right in front of the property. Shouts from the masses—along with Mrs. Cartwright—were bringing more townsfolk and even what looked to be a couple members of the town watch.
It took only a heartbeat for Fenric to weigh his options. There was still enough of an opening for him to shove through the crowd and down the twisting alleys. He needed only to break their line of sight and he could shift into a cat. He didn’t have to be caught if he didn’t want to be.
But despite his knee-jerk reaction to blame the man for this job turning to shit, the lover had in turn been caught because of Fenric’s sloppiness.
Fenric had been so sure the wife had left with the husband.
He should have checked over the house more carefully.
If he had, the lover could have left after their tryst with none the wiser.
He glanced over at Loverboy to see those bright blue eyes twinkling with a mix of mirth and regret.
Surprisingly, he didn’t seem pissed he’d been caught in Ebeneezer Cartwright’s house, and considering his half-dressed state and the undressed state of Mrs. Cartwright, everyone in town could guess what they’d been doing.
Fenric still felt like punching the asshole just to take his frustration out on someone. All this trouble and noise for nothing. No money. Not one step closer to finding his treasures.
He should just let Loverboy go to jail alone.
But he couldn’t, which only pissed Fenric off even more. Leaving the asshole to face the consequences alone would be shitty of him. Something he wasn’t usually against. Maybe Maxie was already making him soft.
Sighing, Fenric lifted both hands above his head. “Yeah. You got me.”
No gold. No jewels. Nothing worth pawning at all.
And now he had to help this guy break out of jail.
This was turning out to be a real shit day.