“What is it, Whit?”
Her heart drumming in her throat, she accepted the paper when he held it out to her. She skimmed its contents—twice. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but she’d rather thought it would be something a bit more incriminating than a simple delivery receipt for common house hold items.
Baffled, she held the paper up. “What is this?”
“A delivery receipt for—” Whit leaned forward to read. “—one case beeswax, small; one case port, large; two cases—”
She pulled the paper back. “I can read, Whit, I just can’t fathom why you think it’s important.”
“Look closer, imp.”
She did, but nothing grabbed her as being out of place. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I fail to see the relevance—”
He reached over and pointed at an item. “Two cases Gold Crown Ink.”
“And…?” she prompted. “I’ve never heard of it, but—”
“Gold Crown is remarkably similar in appearance to the actual ink used in the printing of some bank notes.”
She frowned thoughtfully. “If it’s readily available to anyone who wants it, then it’s not conclusive evidence against him, is it? Perhaps he simply likes the color.”
“It’s not readily available,” he informed her. “It has to be ordered.”
“People order inks all the time, Whit, and for a variety of reasons.”
“Two cases of it?”
“That is odd,” she agreed and looked over the list yet again. There were subtotals and totals at the bottom, invoice numbers, signatures, and the date and means of delivery. She glanced at the date again and laughed.
“This receipt’s almost a decade old,” she informed him.
“I noticed.”
She handed the paper back to him with an amused shake of her head. “If my uncle has been making poorly constructed bank notes for ten years, I should think someone would have noticed before now.”
“I’d thought of that,” he told her, taking the paper and stowing it away in his pocket. “There are several possible explanations. First, he could have been working on the process, attempting to improve—”
“My uncle works at nothing,” she scoffed. “Let alone at improving something.”
“Second,” he continued, “he may have had to wait for the remainder of the supplies, or wait until he believed the trail linking him to the supplies disappeared.”
“He hasn’t that sort of discipline, Whit.”
“Third, and my personal choice—he’s been passing them off to someone else who circulates them out of the country.”
“Oh.” That she could actually imagine, particularly since it involved an accomplice. In her opinion, her uncle simply wasn’t capable of committing a complicated crime without someone guiding him along the way. “I suppose that’s a possibility. But you can hardly prove it with one old receipt.”
“No, I cannot. But I’ve most of the week left yet.”
“You’re certain he’s guilty now.”
He considered that before shaking his head. “I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t care for your uncle.”
“Few do,” she pointed out.
“True, but only the two of us are responsible for obtaining evidence of his guilt in a serious crime.”
The two of us, she thought, and tried not to grin at his casual reference of them as a team. It pleased her well enough that she would forgo pointing out that she was looking for the proof of her uncle’s innocence, not his guilt. “You’re afraid you’re making mountains out of molehills—seeing things that aren’t there because you’ve already made up your mind about my uncle.”
“Not afraid exactly,” he argued with just enough affronted dignity to have her grinning after all. “It’s something to be aware of, that’s all. Why are you grinning?”
“No reason,” she lied. “I enjoy seeing you use that great sense of yours.”
“I wasn’t being sensible when I envisioned beating him black and blue over dinner last night.”
“You weren’t being original, either. I have that fantasy at least twice a day during my stays here.”
“You’ve cause enough. I want to send you back to Haldon.”
“We’ve been over and over—”
“I said I wanted, not that I could.”
She nodded in understanding. If it were possible, she’d have them both back at Haldon. “I need to see to dinner before the others return.”
Whit shook his head. “You won’t be coming down to dinner again.”
“It can’t be avoided, Whit. My uncle expects me to play hostess, or his version of it.”
He took her arm and led her towards the door. “I’ll handle Eppersly. Stay in your room and lock the door.”
She was perfectly willing to obey that order.
“You’ll come for me? You won’t search on your own?”
There was a long, telling hesitation before he answered. “I’ll come.”
Whit waited until the baron had a chance to settle himself into his study after the hunt before seeking him out.