Geordie sat up straighter and nodded vigorously. “Anythin’. What can I do?”
He held up a hand to calm him. “All we need at the moment is information. Did you get a good look at them?”
“One o’ ’em. The other three sorta hung back in the shadows.”
“All right. Describe him.”
Geordie squinted, thinking back. “He were tall, an’ real rough lookin’. Like he’d rolled in a trough. His hair were real oily. Oh, an’ he had a long scar across his forehead . . .” he lifted his finger to illustrate, drawing a diagonal from mid hairline almost to the ear “. . . from here to here.”
Gage glanced back at me, and I removed the sketch of Curst Eckie from my reticule and handed it to him. He unfolded it and laid it on the table in front of Geordie. “Is this the man?”
Geordie instantly perked up. “Aye. That’s him.”
“What else can you tell me? Did they say where they’d come from or where they were going?”
Geordie’s face fell again. “Nay. And I hid in the watchtower ’til they were gone.” He frowned down at his hands where they rested on the tabletop. “I didna want to give ’em any reason to change their mind.”
Gage studied the scruffy man a moment longer and then rose to his feet. Geordie looked up at him hopefully.
“I’ll tell the rector the truth about what happened, and hopefully he can relay that information to your wife.” He picked up the bottle of liquor. “In the meantime, I suggest you bathe and take care of yourself. Don’t give her any reason to believe you really have started drinking again.”
“Wait,” I said, stepping forward.
Gage paused in his progress toward the door. His brow lowered in displeasure.
“Just one more question,” I told him and then turned to address Geordie, who was looking up at me with some misgiving. “Was there a woman? Perhaps someone who remained with the horses?”
He shook his head. “I dinna see one.”
I thanked him and then pivoted to go, ignoring Gage’s probing look. I had told him about Bonnie Brock’s sister and his claim that she’d run off with one of these men. It only made sense to ask whether she’d been seen since Geordie was the only person we’d discovered so far to have had a recent run-in with these body snatchers and lived to tell about it.
A few minutes later as our carriage rolled down the drive, I peered out the window to find Geordie hurrying toward the river with some type of linen slung over his shoulder. I shivered at the thought of bathing in such chilly water, but I supposed the man had no other option. Most people were not as privileged as I was, with servants to heat and carry water for them, or advanced plumbing systems to deliver water from cisterns on the roof.
Gage stared down at the crude label of the whiskey bottle in his hands and then offered it to Trevor across the carriage. “I imagine these are rather crude spirits, more fit to burn in a lamp than drink.”
Trevor grimaced. “Worse. Best to just dump it out.”
When we returned to the church, Gage leapt out to apprise the rector of the information Geordie had given us, leaving my brother and me alone for a moment. A somewhat awkward silence descended and I considered pressing Trevor about my concerns regarding him and the estate, but I realized there would never be enough time before Gage returned. So instead I asked if he planned to come up to Edinburgh in the spring.
“Yes. Probably sometime after Alana’s baby is born.”
I nodded, adjusting the kid leather of my glove on my left hand.
“When do you plan to return to Edinburgh?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Certainly not until this inquiry is over. Maybe sometime in February.”
I wasn’t entirely sure why this conversation felt so stilted, but I could tell that Trevor felt the strain as well. He kept his gaze fixed out the window.
“Then you should know we’ve received our invitation to Lady Kerswood’s Burns Night Ball.”
I groaned. “She’s still hosting those?”
Trevor nodded regretfully.