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“We had better make haste regardless.”
“Yes.” She led the way into the building, opened a door and gestured inside. “This is where I found the will.”
He muttered a curse when his shin struck a box just inside the doorway.
She winced. “Sorry, they do not seem to be the tidiest of record-keepers.”
He eyed the ledgers lined up along endless shelves then the many, many boxes. “This is going to take forever.”
“Not so.” She lifted a finger. “I just need to find...” She plucked a book from a nearby table. “Here it is.” She flicked it open and he peered over her shoulders. “Despite their erratic way of storing things, they do have a record of it all.”
“Makes you wonder if they have any idea they are dealing with a fraudulent company.”
“I imagine they have little idea but who knows?”
“The fact someone approached you here is suspicious.”
“Or someone could have been watching the building.” She twisted and gasped slightly.
He took a step back, assuming his proximity had startled her. Moving so close to her had been a mistake anyway. It allowed him to breathe in her sweet scent and feel the warmth emanating from her body. It tempted him to remove the ugly bonnet and press a kiss to her neck to feel her shiver in his arms.
She turned her attention back to the book and ran her finger down the page and tapped one entry. “Here’s Theodore’s name.”
He looked again, this time standing to one side rather than making the mistake of being behind her. “Looks as though there are several entries.”
“I think they conducted most of his business. It took me some time to find the will when I was last here.”
“We had better start then.”
She pointed to the bookcases that lined the whole room. A slender window running along the front of the building above the bookcases offered the tiniest fraction of light from the street lamps. He squinted at the spines of the ledgers. This was most certainly going to take a while. He’d regretted agreeing to this from the moment he’d spied her wearing trousers that hinted at the long length of her legs.
Now he regretted it even more.
“Ledgers thirty-four, eighty-one and one hundred and three.” She pursed her lips and set the lamp down on the desk then removed her bonnet and fluffed out her hair. His mouth dried as golden locks spilled from a dark ribbon. “Looks like there might be something still in the boxes too. Why do you not start with the ledgers whilst I search the boxes?”
He bolted into action and grabbed the first one. At least he had something dull with which to distract himself. A few hundred pages of records would surely make him forget how much he wanted to press his fingers into her hair and pull her close.
After flicking through the first book and coming upon Parsons’ name several times but nothing out of the ordinary, he put it back. “What was the next number?”
Cassie paused her rifling through the box to glance up. “Eighty-one.”
As he reached for the ledger, he stilled. Light flickered past the window above the bookcase. It moved too slowly to be a vehicle driving past. “Cassie?”
“What?”
He put a finger to his lips and nodded toward the source of the light.
“Oh pooh,” she muttered. “It might be the night watchman. We should dowse the light.”
“If it goes out suddenly, he’ll surely know someone is in here.”
Cassie’s eyes widened when footsteps approached. “The door is still unlocked.”
“Bloody hell.” If the man tried it, they would be caught to be certain.
She darted out of the room and Luke hastened after her. The mottled glass offered only vague shadows, but he spotted the outline of the man against the glow of his lamp. The doorhandle jiggled and Luke’s heart nearly slammed into his throat.
He pushed past Cassie when she hesitated at the door, snatched her to the ground and pressed the full weight of his body against the door. The man tried again, this time pushing against the door and Luke used all his strength to stop it from budging. Cassie remained curled in his arms, her hair tickling his nose. Her breaths sounded as rasping as his own.
