Taking the Earl by Sara Ramsey

Author:Sara Ramsey
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2017-04-10T18:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

AFTER SEARCHING CALLIE’S ROOM for an hour, Max was ready to admit defeat.

“Are you sure she has the Bible?” he asked.

Lucy shoved her hair away from her face. It looked a little wild after the evening’s festivities and he tried not to think of how she would look if she indulged in even more wildness. He was tempted to try to convince her to misbehave.

But her attention was entirely focused on the room, and on all the trunks and hatboxes they’d searched so carefully. Luckily, Callie’s door had been unlocked — Max hadn’t had to decide whether he would show Lucy his lockpicking skills. But Callie’s maid had packed everything for her eventual move to Thorington’s house, which made their job more difficult. It was harder to dig through a deep trunk without disturbing it than it was to look through drawers and shelves.

“I’m not sure,” Lucy finally admitted. “But Grandfather knew Tiberius stole the Bible before he left England. With the war, I assumed Callie would have brought everything of value from America in case she wasn’t able to return.”

“Well, it’s not here,” Max said. “Unless there’s a hidden vault in the wall of this room?”

Lucy looked at the trunks again. “You didn’t see any jewels in her trunks, did you?”

He shook his head. “The only item of interest I saw was a flask of cognac. You Briarley women are more rebellious than I would have guessed.”

“Callie and Octavia are the rebellious ones, not me,” she said. “I’ve had my adventure already.”

Her gaze was still on the trunks. Her voice said she was only half-thinking of what she was saying. He wondered what her adventure had been — and why she would choose not to have any more, especially given that she seemed to have been born into the only family in England that encouraged its daughters to get into as much trouble as its sons.

But, as he’d reminded himself so many times already, Lucy’s past and future were of no concern to him.

“Why did you ask about jewels?” he asked, changing the subject back to something that was definitely of concern to him.

She tapped one of the trunks with her foot. “I know she brought jewels with her. She asked Claxton to store a case in the strongroom for safekeeping. Maybe the Bible is there as well?”

Max felt a little flash of heat — the same feeling he always got when a picked lock finally opened. “The strongroom?”

“We might as well look there,” she said. “Unless you’d rather go to bed? The servants say you get an early start most mornings to ride with your groom.”

She said it as though it was entirely natural to admit that her servants tracked his whereabouts. The knowledge made him uneasy — had any of them noticed how much he talked to Titus while they were riding?

But any concern over that threat was easily forgotten. She’d just invited him to Maidenstone’s strongroom.

If he weren’t so good at controlling himself, he might have done a little dance.

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