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“Maybe they realised they had made a mistake and wanted them back,” Barnaby suggested.
“If that is the case, why not burgle the house like they have done everywhere else where they see something they want?”
“True,” Barnaby nodded. “You have a point there my good friend.”
“Do you think it was Tate, or someone else?”
They both knew that Terrence Sayers’, and those working with him liked to use every ounce of subterfuge possible, and had no qualms about dressing up to play a part.
“I don’t know. Thankfully, Tahlia picked up that something was wrong with the man and didn’t give him the real message. As far as I can see, he shouldn’t be given it at all now, even if he turns out to be the real Mr Tate. Either way, I need to return to the Tate house. There is something bothering me about it, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.”
“Well, we can go together,” Barnaby replied.
When Connor lifted his brows, Barnaby shrugged.
“You need help,” he sighed. “Ben and Reg are here now. They can keep an eye on this place while we are gone. Besides, you look as though you could use some fresh air.”
“Don’t I just,” Connor replied fervently.
“Let’s face facts, Connor,” Barnaby sighed. “Someone might have tailed you. They might have found out you were asking questions about them, and tried to silence you.”
“I will go in disguise,” Connor murmured.
“You need to go everywhere in disguise,” Barnaby corrected. “I can stay with you myself right now, but until we can discover what they want, you need just as much protection as Tahlia.”
“We need to find out how Henry Gillingham died,” Connor warned. “The wording of his letter is unusual.”
“I know. I have already read it. I can get Simon Andrews to find his cause of death.”
When the clock in the hallway chimed the hour, Connor rose and made his way to the door. “Seeing as the hour is late, let’s go and see what we can discover about this Mr Tate.”
Barnaby rose and followed him into the hallway.
“Before you go, Connor, how does the situation lie between you and this Tahlia woman now? I don’t mean to pry, but is she likely to ignore you if she had to follow instructions?”
Connor knew his friend was asking whether they were likely to have to force her to do something if they ever faced danger. He contemplated that for a moment. He would like to say that Tahlia would follow instructions without a qualm, but doubted so given how things were between them at the moment.
“There is no trust there, I am afraid,” Connor admitted reluctantly. “She is not the kind of woman who would take foolish risks, but she is strong willed.”
Connor thought about that. It had been three years since he had seen her last. In some ways it felt as though an entire lifetime had gone by. However, it also felt like what they had shared back then had all taken place only yesterday. The emotions were still as fresh and as raw as they had been back then, and he suspected they always would be.
“I should have offered for her regardless of the consequences,” Connor murmured.
“You were working undercover, Connor. It wouldn’t have been fair to her to marry her and then leave her to live in hiding. You knew the dangers. Remember what happened to Sir Hugo and his wife, and Simon Ambrose. We barely got out with our lives intact. You did what you felt was best at the time.”
“I left her, Barnaby. We got caught in a compromising situation by one of the most spiteful gossips to live in London. I handed her over to her coldly furious uncle and left London. Alright, so I was going to Cornwall to capture smugglers killing innocent villagers. But I could have at least explained my situation to her uncle, and assured them both that I would be back as soon as possible.”
The countless times Connor had been over this very same argument in his head began to give him a headache.
“You had to remain undercover, Connor. If you told her uncle, he would have used it to explain to others why you were no longer around. That would have compromised us all,” Barnaby reasoned. “Besides, you were not ready to settle down back then. You were still carousing your way around town whenever you weren’t working. That is the problem with working undercover. You practically live outside, getting rained on, frozen, and threatened with death so much that when you are rested, fed, and back in the land of the living, you enjoy life to the fullest. You eventually become one of the shadows. You don’t live a normal life like everyone else does.”
“But Sir Hugo has been married for many years and is entirely happy. Simon Ambrose is the same, and Archie, Christian, Pie, Stephen, Rupert, and all the others. They have all settled down.”
“Yes, they have been lucky. However, their paths have been incredibly difficult. There has been a time or two when we doubted some of them would survive at all. You cannot lose sight of the fact that their job means they have to leave their families vulnerable, sometimes for several weeks at a time. They still put themselves in terrible danger and run the risk that one day they might not return home at all.”
Connor
knew his boss had a point, but was prepared to take the risk. The last three years without Tahlia had hardly brought him much in the way of happiness. Life couldn’t get any worse. He wanted to find out for himself what he had been missing out on for all that time, and discover for himself what the woman who owned his heart was truly like.
