An Unexpected Pleasure (The Mad Morelands #4)(46)

The three glanced at Megan, then back at each other, and nodded, bursting into laughter. Megan cast a sharp glance back at them.

No doubt Theo was enlisting her charges against her, she thought darkly. Well, let him. Perhaps she would be able to saddle him with the twins so she could slip away to talk to the museum’s director.

The ducal carriage stood in front of the house, the coachman waiting patiently to open the door and hand Megan up into the vehicle. The twins bounced in after her and plopped down side by side in their usual way on the seat across from her. This left Theo to sit down beside Megan. She managed with some effort not to turn her head to look at him.

“Where are we going?” Theo asked cheerfully. “The British Museum?”

“No!” Con and Alex chorused. “The Cavendish!”

“The Cavendish?” Theo repeated in surprise.

Megan turned. “Yes. The twins said they had never gone, and I thought it better to start out on a lesser scale than the British Museum.” She lifted her brows a little. “Is there some problem?”

Theo shrugged. “No. Of course not. The Cavendish it is.”

He leaned out to tell the driver, and the carriage rumbled off.

“It will help a lot to have Theo with us,” Alex confided to Megan.

“Indeed? Why is that?”

“He knows all about the stuff at the Cavendish,” Con explained. “Don’t you, Theo? He’s been there.”

“To the museum?” Megan asked, as if she knew nothing about it.

Alex and Con chuckled. “No. To South America. That’s what the Cavendish has—South American things.”

“The Cavendish specializes in objects from Central and South America,” Theo said, his voice blank of any emotion. “Ancient civilizations, primarily—Aztec, Maya, Inca.”

“I see.” Megan looked at Theo. His face was as unrevealing as his tone of voice. “It is an unusual specialty, don’t you think?”

Theo shrugged. “The director is something of an expert in the area.”

“I take it you must be one, as well,” Megan said, still watching him for any change of expression.

“Con and Alex tend to exaggerate, I’m afraid,” Theo said, his gaze flickering to the boys. “I have been up the Amazon once, that is all.”

“That must have been quite exciting,” Megan remarked. “When did you go?”

“Ten years ago.” Something changed in his face, hardened. He turned his head to look out the window.

Guilt, Megan thought. It was obvious that he did not want to talk about his trip. Who would, if they had done what he had done? Her heart squeezed a little in her chest at this confirmation that she was right, and she realized, with some surprise, that somewhere deep inside her, she had been hoping that she would be proved wrong, that some other explanation for what had happened to Dennis would arise. She did not want Theo to be guilty.

She, too, turned to look out the window, not wanting her emotions to show. It was foolish and wrong, she told herself, even to wish that Theo Moreland would turn out not to have killed Dennis. She felt as if she were betraying her brother by entertaining such a thought.

Theo Moreland was her enemy. Just because he had not revealed to his father that she had tried to steal the key to his collection room did not make him kind or a friend. He was merely playing some game of his own. Look at the way he had grinned at her last night, taunting her with his knowledge of what she had done—and look at how he had forced his way into this field trip. And it didn’t even bear mentioning that he had kissed her the other night just as a means to slip the key from her pocket.

She told herself that the problem was that she had unexpectedly liked all the Morelands so much. She did not want the duchess or the twins or any of the others to have to learn that their beloved heir was a murderer. Her desire to absolve him had nothing to do with the fiery heat of their kisses the other evening or the way her heart turned over when he smiled at her. She was not that weak, that ruled by the flesh.

Megan unconsciously straightened her shoulders. She would do what she had to do. She would follow through with this investigation and not falter, no matter how likeable the Moreland family was—and no matter how treacherously heat quivered through her body when Theo was near.

In keeping with her resolve, she ignored Theo during the remainder of the drive to the Cavendish Museum. When they arrived, however, she could not completely ignore him, as he stepped down from the carriage before her and offered his hand to help her down. It was a gesture that she could not politely refuse, so she was forced to slip her hand into his as she emerged from the carriage. However, she steeled herself against any sensation and turned her attention quickly from Theo’s face to the structure that lay before them.

Cavendish House, though perhaps no longer in a fashionable area, was a magnificent structure. Built of massive gray stone in the baroque style, it was reputed to have been designed by the master English architect Sir Christopher Wren, along with a great many other buildings during the vast rebuilding of London after the Great Fire. Megan had found a guidebook of London in the large Moreland library, as well as a thick volume on the work of Wren, and she had read everything about the Cavendish, as it was called. She had learned that it was quite a bit larger even than Broughton House, and there was still a good bit of grounds around the house itself, including a pleasant garden behind the museum.