“I have something that might take that scowl off your face.” Entering Owen’s office without bothering to knock – the only man who could do so and live to tell about it later – Grant walked to his Captain’s desk and held out a small leather pouch.
“What the bloody hell is that?” Owen asked, dark brows pinching over the bridge of his nose as he leaned forward, his shadow rippling across the far wall.
It was well past midnight, but a Runner’s work was never done, especially when most of the criminals they hunted prowled the streets of London between the hours of dusk and dawn. He’d only just returned from a murder down by the docks. Some poor bloke had ended up belly down in the Thames with a knife sticking out of his back. It was the third floater that had been fished out the river this week alone.
Sometimes Owen felt as if Bow Street was actually making a difference and then there were other times, like tonight, when he feared there was no end in sight to London’s depravity.
“Open it and see,” Grant invited with a grin. “Go on. You’ll like it. I promise.”
Owen picked up the pouch. “Where have you been?” he asked, taking note of Grant’s unusually disheveled appearance. Of all the runners Grant was always the most impeccably dressed, but not tonight. Tonight his coat was ripped and there was mud – at least, Owen hoped it was mud – splattered across his shirt.
“I had a lead on the thief that’s been pinching those townhouses. Managed to track the chit all the way past Blackfriars Bridge, but then she managed to disappear into Dickens Square.”
A dark labyrinth of alleys and twisted streets, Dickens Square was a veritable fortress of wickedness. Like a rabbit disappearing into a thicket of brambles, it was where a criminal went if they wanted to escape the clutches of the law.
Owen’s eyebrows rose. “She?”
“Didn’t I tell you? Turns out our little jewel thief is a woman.” Now it was Grant who scowled. “A red-haired vixen with a penchant for knives.” He glanced down at his coat. Upon closer examination Owen realized it had not been ripped, as he’d originally assumed, but rather sliced.
“Nearly stuck you, did she?”
“What she did was ruin a perfectly fine jacket. Go on then,” Grant said with an irritable jerk of his chin. “Open that up.”
Loosening the drawstring, Owen flipped the pouch over and gave it a shake. When a single earring fell into his palm he pinched it between his thumb and pointer finger and held it up to the oil lamp in the middle of his desk. A large, square cut sapphire surrounded by tiny diamonds caught the light. “This is worth a pretty penny. Where the devil did you find it?”
“Well that’s the interesting part. It was given to me this afternoon when I went to check on a body. By Thomas Guthridge.”
That got Owen’s attention. Guthridge was the undertaker who had prepared Sherwood for burial. Sitting up straighter in his chair, he examined the earring more closely, turning it back and forth. Unfortunately, there were no identifying marks that he could see. “Did he say where he found it?”
“He did indeed.” Grant’s expression turned smug. “Says he discovered that little beauty when he was undressing Sherwood. Thinks it must have gotten caught on his clothing.”
Owen’s hand closed reflexively around the sapphire earring. While it did not prove anything on its own, it was yet another piece of evidence that Sherwood’s death was more than what it seemed. If he could somehow find a way to link the green hair ribbon and the sapphire earring back to Scarlett…
“Interesting,” he murmured. “Very interesting.”
Grant lifted a brow. “I told you that you’d like it.”
“A room has been readied for the children at the end of the hall. It is directly across from yours as you requested. All of your trunks have been brought up and the maids are in the process of unpacking. Is there anything else you need?”
“No,” Felicity said with a weary, albeit grateful smile. “You’ve done more than enough.”
“It is the least I can do.” Three weeks had passed since Rodger’s funeral and Scarlett – along with Felicity and her two children – had just completed the long, arduous journey from London to Surrey. They’d arrived a full month before the end of the Season, but given that Scarlett was in mourning and Felicity was in hiding following her humiliating divorce trial no one had objected to them fleeing the city.
In fact, no one had even seemed to notice they’d left.
“I am going for a walk around the grounds.” After four consecutive days trapped within the cramped confines of a carriage with three other adults and two squalling children, Scarlett desperately needed to stretch her legs. “Would you care to join me?”
“No, thank you. I had best help the nanny settle Henry and Anne into their room. They’re quite exhausted.”
That makes three of us, Scarlett thought silently.
“Very well. I will see you at dinner, then?”
“Yes. I do hope you enjoy your walk. It is a lovely day.” If Felicity’s smile was stiffer than usual, both women did their best to look the other way.
Despite their reconciliation there was still an edge of formality to their friendship that had never been there before. Scarlett hated that they felt more like strangers than the sisters they had once been, but there was nothing she could do but let time bring them back together. Felicity needed time to heal from Ezra’s abrupt abandonment and she… well, she needed time to figure out what the devil she was going to do now that her husband was dead.
The law did not look kindly upon widows. It was only a matter of time before everything she and Rodger had owned – their carriages, Rodger’s collection of fancy thoroughbreds, their townhouse in London and their country estate in Surrey – would either be given to the closest male heir or returned to the king if no such heir could be found. Never mind that Rodger had kept their properties from falling into ruin with the money from her dowry.
Forgoing a bonnet, Scarlett whisked a shawl over her shoulders and stomped outside. It was a bright, beautiful spring day but the clear blue skies did little to raise her spirits. Walking to the middle of the circular stone drive she turned around and looked back up at the manor, a wistful sigh escaping from her lips as she studied the familiar columns and jutting terraces and sprawling gardens that were just beginning to bloom.
Of all the things she was about to lose, she would miss this estate the most. She regretted that she had not spent more time here amidst the rolling hills and quiet solitude. Soon it would all be gone and there was nothing she could do. Oh, no doubt she would be given a small settlement. Even if Rodger’s will – which still had yet to be found – hadn’t taken her needs into accord it was customary that the widow of a peer be given something in the way of compensation.
She supposed she could always go running back to her parents. They would take her in without question, but the idea of living beneath her mother’s thumb yet again was enough to set her teeth on edge. She would rather be a pauper than a puppet dancing on strings that someone else controlled.
If only she’d reached such a realization before she decided to marry Rodger! It would certainly have saved her a tremendous amount of trouble, not to mention heartache. But what was the use in imagining what could have been? It served no one, least of all herself.
Striking out across the lawn Scarlett veered right when she reached the stables and headed down a small hill to the pond. A pair of ducks swam lazily through the water, their paddling feet stirring up a rippling current in their wake. They lifted their heads when Scarlett approached but after a few quacks and a few flaps of their wings they settled down and meandered over to a collection of bristly cat-tails.
Walking around the far edge of the pond, she slipped off her shawl and spread it on the grass beneath the shade of a towering oak. Since she could not remember the last time she had sat outside with her bare feet pressed to the earth she kicked off her shoes, stripped off her stockings, and proceeded to do precisely that. On a long, contended sigh she stretched her legs out, leaned back against the rough bark of the oak, and closed her eyes.
She had been in gilded ball rooms and sumptuous theatre boxes and pretty parlors for so long that she’d forgotten what it felt like to simply be out in nature with the sun on her face and dirt between her toes. As she sat on the ground with a faint breeze lifting the curls off the nape of her neck and the twitter of birdsong sweetening the air, she was afforded a rare glimpse at what her life might have been like had she chosen Owen.
It wouldn’t have been fancy, and it wouldn’t have always been pretty, and it certainly wouldn’t have been filled with elaborate balls and fancy dresses and dinner parties. But oh, how happy she would have been! How happy they would have been.
“Well done, Scarlett,” she said aloud as she opened her eyes and looked up through the leafy branches at the sky above. How close it seemed, and yet when one tried to grasp a handful of the blue it was always just out of reach. Not unlike the dream she’d once had of running away with Owen and living happily-ever-after. “Well done.”