“I doona ken why ye are so angry, lass, but I had naught to do with it.”
Annie stared at him, then dropped her gaze. He was right. Suddenly she felt like a fool. She was venting her anger on the wrong person. She worried her bottom lip for a second. Apologies did not come easy for her. She looked up. “I am sorry. I dinna mean to scream at ye like a fishwife.”
“Since I have nae been screamed at by a fishwife, I cannae compare.” A corner of Niall’s mouth quirked. “Ye remind me more of an irritated hedgehog than a fishwife.”
“A…hedgehog?”
“Aye.” The quirk turned into a smile. “Your hair is nigh to standing straight out from ye.”
Instinctively Annie put her hands to her head to brush her hair down. “It is nae.”
Niall shrugged. “Mayhap I was mistaken.”
“Of course ye were.” The image of an angry hedgehog caused Annie to smile. She probably did look like one. “Well, mayhap nae that much.”
Niall gave her a look of mock surprise. “We agree, then?”
“Agree to what?” Kingsley asked as he came in from the warehouse.
“Um, nothing important,” Annie said quickly. “I am glad to see ye back, though. I had a question about the tobacco barrels.”
“What about the barrels?” Kingsley asked.
“There were only nineteen when I counted earlier. The ledger says twenty.”
“Twenty is correct. I entered the number myself,” Kingsley replied.
“I ken that. But I wanted to double-check the inventory that came in while I was gone,” Annie said. “Ye did say two sets of eyes were better than one.”
Kingsley nodded. “So I did. Why do we not go and recount?”
She didn’t know what good that would do since she’d counted twice, but she didn’t want to offend the foreman. “Perhaps that would be best.”
“Do ye mind if I come along?” Niall asked. “Just in case of a dispute.”
“Please do,” Kingsley replied smoothly. “I am sure we will all find that there are twenty barrels of tobacco stored exactly where they should be.”
Annie led the men into the warehouse. The barrels had been rearranged. “Someone moved them.”
“I did,” Kingsley said. “When I got back from lunch I realized we did not have much room in the aisle so I shifted them slightly.” He gestured. “Please go ahead and do your count.”
Annie used her index finger to point at each barrel so she wouldn’t lose count. “Eighteen. Nineteen…. Twenty.” She looked at Niall. “What did ye get?”
“Twenty.”
“Good. Then that is settled,” Kingsley said. “Twenty barrels.”
“But there were only nineteen earlier.”
Kingsley smiled. “One was probably hidden a bit behind another one. At any rate, no harm is done. We are all agreed there are twenty barrels in stock. Yes?”
“Aye,” Annie said and followed Kingsley and Niall back to the office. She knew she had counted nineteen earlier. There hadn’t been one misplaced, either, since she’d searched the warehouse.
Where did that twentieth barrel come from?
****
Kingsley watched Annie and Niall leave and then muttered a curse. What a bloody close call that had been. After what hadtaken place Monday night, he hadn’t expected the chit to return to work so soon or he would have made sure he’d gotten that twentieth barrel back in place.
