Page 88 of A Rogue at Stonecliffe

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

“I BELIEVE HIM,” Annabeth said. She and Sloane were sitting in the carriage. “Don’t you?” She laid a hand on his arm so casually it made his heart squeeze.

“Yes. There’s no way Russell could keep up such a charade all these years. Just look at what happened today. He crumpled and admitted he’d been in the race before we even asked him.”

“Should we go to visit Edgerton, question him?”

“Martha will be there right now, won’t she? I’d rather keep your mother out of this if we can.”

“You’re right.” Annabeth chewed at one corner of her mouth. “This is going to ruin her life, isn’t it?”

“It isn’t something I think we should enter into lightly, no.” Sloane frowned. “I’d really like to get some kind of evidence on him first and confront him with it when your mother isn’t there.”

“That way if he can explain it she doesn’t even have to know we accused him.” Annabeth sighed. “That would be better, I suppose, but I hate to wait. It terrifies me thinking of her in that house with him.”

“Whatever Edgerton may or may not have done, I truly believe he would never hurt your mother. I don’t think you should worry about that.”

“Even so, I don’t want to go home. I cannot face Grandmother right now.”

“Of course. Where shall we go? We can’t simply walk through the park. You’d be too exposed. My father may be at my house, so that wouldn’t do.”

“Why don’t we go where you work? You have an office, don’t you?”

“You want to see the docks?” he asked.

“It’d be a change.” She gave him a faint smile.

“Then that’s where we’ll go.” He leaned forward to give the driver directions. Sloane couldn’t understand why Annabeth would want to see the place any more than why it warmed him that she did.

They drove to the wharves, then got out and walked. Here, he felt safe. He still had guards in place, just in case Parker decided to renew his attacks, and there was too much bustle, too many people and carts and stacks of crates for anyone to get a good shot. He was careful to keep bales and such barriers between them and the buildings where anyone could hide to shoot at them.

He pointed out his ships. There were two of them in right now, one unloading and the other one being loaded. Many of the workers greeted Sloane, and he stopped to talk to a captain of one of the ships. Annabeth, her hand on his arm, viewed it all with great interest and asked him questions, pointing out various things that caught her eye.

They continued to the row of warehouses, looking in at the stored goods, and finally entered the one that contained his clerks and books. Sloane dashed off a quick note to Asquith telling him that they had found Hunter’s confession and that the document didn’t reveal anything about the spymaster Asquith sought.

“This way if there is a traitor inside his organization he will learn of this and know he is not in danger of being caught.”

“How does that help Asquith find him?” Annabeth frowned.

“It doesn’t. But it should help keep you safe. And really, that’s all I care about.”

Sloane sealed the note and handed it to a lad who worked in the office. The boy ran off to deliver it, and Annabeth and Sloane went to the upper level, where the back half of the space was taken up with storage, and the front half was his office.

Sloane watched Annabeth as she walked around the room, looking at the utilitarian space. He wondered what she thought of it, but he wasn’t about to ask. It suddenly seemed quite bare and plain. She stood for a moment, gazing out the window at his view of the wharves.

“What’s in here?” Annabeth turned and went to the open doorway on the side wall. The room beyond the door was smaller and contained even less furniture, only a bed and a washstand. “Oh.” Her cheeks turned pink and she turned away.

“Sometimes when I work late, I sleep here instead of going home,” he said, uncomfortably aware of the bed, which suddenly seemed to be the focus of the whole office. And, really, what did that say about his life that he’d as soon sleep here as go home? He turned away. He wanted to ask her what she thought of his world, what she thought of him now that she’d seen his world. Instead, he said, “It’s hard to believe Edgerton would attack you.”

“Yes.” Annabeth sighed. “Especially knowing how it would crush my mother. But perhaps he never meant to harm me and just wanted to scare us away so we wouldn’t look for the confession any longer.”

“That does seem more like him, something calculated to have a certain outcome he desires as opposed to an act of passionate anger.”

“Yes, and we are running out of options. It isn’t as though I want it to be Lord Edgerton. I’d much rather it was not him. However, now that we know that Russell was the other man in the race, that takes those three or four other suspects out of the picture. The only connection is that the accident was used to coerce him into giving the French information.”

“Which raises an interesting point,” Sloane said thoughtfully. “How did whoever this spy is learn about your father’s accident to begin with? Only Winfield and Feringham knew of it.”

“It could be that there was someone in the village who saw it.”