“If she’s telling the truth, they want what’s in that case of hers. A blasted book! It’s madness.”
Harrison set the glass on his desk and drummed his fingers against the polished mahogany. The steady, even rhythm fit the studious, well-ordered man he’d become during his years away from the Highlands. “Did you search the bag? A hidden compartment, perhaps?”
“Of course. I detected no concealed spaces, nothing out of the ordinary. If she’s hidden something in that satchel, she’s been clever about it.”
“You think she’ll tell you what she’s after?”
Connor shook his head. “Damned little chance of it. She doesn’t trust me.”
A raw laugh escaped Harrison’s lips. “As if she should.”
“She’ll live longer putting her faith in me than trusting those bastards. Ross would’ve slit her throat just to watch the life drain out of her eyes.”
“You think she has something the Order wishes to recover?”
“There is an interest. The chancellor knew the moment she left London. I was instructed to intercept her using any means necessary.”
“She’s considered dangerous?”
“Not that we have reason to believe. But she is in great peril.”
“Obviously, given the night you’ve had.” Was that a smirk on his brother’s mouth?
Connor nodded his agreement. “There’s more. Not long before she left London, our agents spotted one of Cranston’s operatives in Mayfair, a woman known only as Mrs. Smythe.”
“A rather unimaginative alias.”
Connor fought a smile. Leave it to his acerbic brother to take issue with the creativity of a she-devil’s assumed name. “Mrs. Smythe is a killer—by all accounts, a highly inventive assassin. She recently crossed paths with a mutual acquaintance of Miss Templeton and Richard Benedict, a widow by the name of Eleanor MacInnis. Suffice it to say, the unfortunate Mrs. MacInnis did not survive the encounter.”
Harrison cocked a brow. “An accident, I presume.”
“Of course. Mrs. Smythe is quite masterful when it comes to setting the stage for lethal mishaps. The widow MacInnis plunged from the fifth floor of an unoccupied flat along the Strand. There was an inquiry—cursory at best, or so I’m told. The official pronouncement was an accidental fall, though many believe the death a suicide. Unfortunately, the flat wasn’t the widow’s only destination that afternoon. Mrs. MacInnis paid Johanna Templeton a visit an hour before her death.”
Harrison’s fingers continued to tap in that infuriatingly predictable beat. “Does anyone know the purpose of the call?”
“Only Miss Templeton. And perhaps her housekeeper. Our people in London have the woman under watch. For her own protection, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Whatever Miss Templeton has in that satchel, Cranston wants to get his filthy hands on it. His interest in antiquities is well-established. The question is—what does the bastard think she’s brought with her from London?”
The lines around Harrison’s eyes deepened, adding a somber maturity to his face. “Something Benedict gave her for safekeeping, no doubt.”
“It’s possible. We can’t be certain she even knows what she has.”
“That book is indeed valuable. It’s a first edition, bearing the author’s inscription. God knows how much a collector would bid for it.”
“That’s not what Cranston is after.” Connor rubbed his jaw, as if that would ease away the dull ache. “The man deals in gold. Jewels. Items connected to the Crown. Not paper printed with the words of a commoner who wrote of mad scientists and monsters, no matter how rare or costly that edition might be.”
“Perhaps the volume contains a means to the treasure he seeks. Some code, perhaps, concealed within the text.”
“It goes without saying each page will be analyzed to detect a cipher. But the book might be nothing more than a decoy, a distraction from the true prize. I searched that satchel and found no secret compartments, no sign of anything other than that blasted tome. And you found nothing on her person. Surely you would’ve noticed jewels tucked in her corset or strapped to one of those long legs.”
Harrison gave his head a rough shake. “There’s nothing on her person. At least, nothing I detected.”
Devil take it, he should’ve searched the woman himself. Harrison was a gentleman. He’d hesitate to compromise her modesty for any purpose beyond what his medical examination required.
But Connor would impose no such restrictions on himself. He’d do whatever it took to discover what she ferried in that satchel. He had to find out what Cranston believed she’d brought from London. The man was ruthless, but he was also cunning. He wouldn’t kill a valuable source of stolen antiquities like Richard Benedict over a stack of leather-bound pages, no matter who’d inscribed them or how much the book would fetch at auction. No, Cranston’s motives extended far beyond simple greed.
One thing was certain. Whatever madness Johanna Templeton had got herself into with Cranston, the predicament wasn’t of her making. Something had drawn her to the jackal’s lair.
Something utterly dear to her.