An Unexpected Pleasure (The Mad Morelands #4)(92)

“What?” Megan asked quickly. “Did Coffey do anything?”

“Not as I’ve seen, miss. I took a tour through the place today and poked about wherever I could without being obvious. Wandered about the grounds a bit. Didn’t see anything untoward. But after it closed, I hung about where I could watch the entrance. Nothing happened. The clerk left, but your Mr. Coffey never did. Then, a little while ago, these two fellows came up to the place and somebody let them inside. Two or three more came, and one of them was that chap Barchester. A couple of them were women.”

“Really? Interesting. What do you suppose they’re doing there at night?” Theo mused.

“It could be nothing more than a meeting of the museum’s trustees,” Megan proffered.

“With women present?’

She shrugged. “I presume Lady Cavendish is one of the trustees.”

“Maybe.” Theo shrugged.

“But I think we ought to take a look,” Megan went on.

Theo grinned at her. “I couldn’t agree more.”

So it was that, a few minutes later, they were sitting in a carriage outside the walls of the museum, gazing at its front door from across the street. There was nothing to indicate that anything was occurring inside—or even that there were any occupants. No lights shone behind the curtained windows. None burned outside.

“Let’s look a little more closely,” Theo suggested.

They slipped out of the carriage and across the street, melting into the shadows as they moved toward the house. Tom Quick ran lightly up the front steps and tried the door. It was locked. They moved around the house, looking for a chink in a curtain, an open window, an unlocked door. They found none.

“Locked up tight,” Theo concluded as they turned away from the back door. He looked at Tom, who grinned back.

“I could probably get the locks to tumble,” Quick said in answer to Theo’s unspoken question. “Have to improvise. Don’t have any of my tools with me.”

Theo hesitated, glancing at Megan. Her chin went up.

“Don’t back out of this because I’m here,” she told him. “I want to find out what’s going on here as much as—”

She broke off at a noise inside. The three of them glanced at the doorway, then jumped away from it, slipping in behind a flowering bush a few feet from the door. They were silent, barely breathing, waiting.

The back door opened with a crack that made Megan’s stretched nerves jump. There was a low murmur of voices, then the sounds of steps on the flagstone walkway. Several men walked out, followed by a woman. All were dressed in black, with hats pulled low on their heads. The woman was heavily veiled. Megan peered through the branches of the bush.

There was a pause, then a few more people emerged. There was no light from the house, and none of them carried a lantern, moving with the ease of familiarity in the darkened yard. In the dim light, it was difficult to see the faces of the dark figures.

Finally two more people exited the door, closing it behind them. One was a woman, heavily shrouded in a veiled hat. The other Megan recognized, even in the faint light, as Julian Coffey.

The two of them walked close together, her arm linked through his, and there was something about them that spoke to Megan of lovers. She exchanged a glance with Theo. He bent close and whispered in her ear, “I suggest we follow the woman.”

Megan nodded emphatically, and as soon as the couple was out of sight, they slid out from behind the shrubbery and moved around the house after the dark figures. Sticking close to the shadows of trees and shrubbery, they trailed the couple out to the street.

There they paused, looking after the dark figures disappearing along the street in different directions. Tom nodded toward one of the men and took off after him, silent as a wraith. Theo and Megan slipped across the street and into the carriage. After a few whispered instructions to the coachman from Theo, the carriage began to roll slowly down the street.

They stayed well behind the couple, keeping them in sight. Before long, Coffey hailed a passing hansom and handed the woman up into it, kissing her hand before he closed the door.

Theo glanced at Megan. “Follow the woman?”

She nodded. “Yes. I want to find out who she is. Maybe she is a lever we can use against Coffey.”

“I agree.” He pushed aside the curtain and spoke to the coachman.

They followed the hansom, staying a discreet pace behind it. At last the cab came to a stop, and the woman got out. As they watched through a slit in the curtain, she walked up the steps to an elegant white Georgian mansion and entered.

Megan glanced up at Theo. “Any idea who lives there?”

“Oh, yes,” Theo replied. “I do indeed. That is the home of the late Lord Scarle.”

Megan stared. “Lady Scarle? Your Lady Scarle?”

“I must point out, she is not mine,” Theo responded.

“My, my, my. So all the while she has been chasing you, she has had Coffey dangling, too.”

“It would appear. Very interesting.” He looked at Megan, light dancing in his eyes. “I think we shall have a number of calls to make tomorrow.”

They drove home, talking over what they had seen that evening and speculating on what it all meant. When they reached Broughton House, they found it not dark, as they had expected, but with lights blazing.