Page 58 of Courting Trouble
“And?” Nora breathed.
“He’s obscenely affluent. Perhaps wealthier than the Queen.”
Felicity frowned. “I knew we were rich, but to listen to Father go on, it’s as if we’re on the verge of ruin at all times.”
“The warehouse, Mercy,” Nora redirected the conversation back to the salient topic, doing her level best not to snipe at her sisters.
“Oh, well, Father has a few warehouses closer to the mouth of the Thames. According to the papers I found, they’ve been for sale for months, but the rafters are rotting, so no one’s been interested. He’s planning on razing and liquidating the property.” She put her fists on her hips. “Did you know, he has estate holdings all over, in the strangest of places. Houses we never knew existed?”
This seemed to increase Felicity’s distress. “What does he do with them?”
“Who is to say?”
Nora put a hand to her heart, just below the still-healing wound that now ached when she became so tense. “It could be there,” she whispered. “Morley has no jurisdiction in Sheerness.”
“Should we send for him?” Felicity suggested. “For safety’s sake, if nothing else.”
“No, you ninny,” Mercy stood as well and began to pace as she considered. “If we invite the police, they’ll confiscate the gold.”
“The gold has been stolen from someone…” Nora reasoned. “Even if we find it, it’s not ours.”
“We’d be taking from smugglers to finance medical care for the poor,” Mercy remonstrated. “We’re essentially Robin Hood.”
Nora couldn’t believe she was about to do this. “I’m not getting you two involved. You need to return home at once.”
“Oh, no you don’t!” Mercy wagged her finger, then winced as she jostled her wounded hand. “You’re not leaving us out of this adventure. I’ve been reading about quests for illicit treasure my entire life and I’m finally able to go on one!”
“I do think we should hire more security…and probably shouldn’t leave until after dark.”
“Excellent!” Mercy swept to the front door. “I’ll just ask our entourage if they have any dangerous-looking friends.”
Dawn
Titus was stone-cold sober by the time he reached Sheerness.
As they careened through the sleepy port town, dawn licked the eastern sky with silver. Clouds built a swirling mass in the distance, pregnant with an approaching storm. The ocean ebbed and surged in a murky maelstrom, as a swarming flock of dark birds waved and shifted like an ominous flag above.
When the carriage clattered up to the dilapidated warehouse at #12 Seaworthy Street—the address on Dorian’s note—Titus leapt from the carriage before it even had a chance to slow down. Clutching his medical bag in one hand and a wicked iron-tipped club in the other, he realized he was more ready to use the unfamiliar weapon than the typical tools.
After suffering through the past couple of weeks, he was ready to break something.
Or someone.
The warehouse stood gaunt and bleak, hunkering alone over a vacant dock. It was as if the tightly clustered shipyard businesses to the south and north had turned their backs, leaving it to rot abandoned and alone.
Dim light flickered from a window in the corner facing the water. Along one dark alley, two passenger carriages and a cart used for hauling freight were hitched to sleepy horses. Their breaths curled from their nostrils into the chill of the morning, and Titus could almost hear the sound, so complete was the eerie silence.
Still as death.
What if they were too late?
Dread and fury threatened to overwhelm him, tunneling his vision with shades of crimson.Nora. His heart tattooed the syllables of her name into his ribs.
“Wait, dammit,” Morley growled as his and Dorian’s boots hit the ground behind Titus. “We don’t know what is awaiting us in there.”
“She’s in there. That’s all I need to know.” Even as he said it, he paced at the door, desperately listening for signs of life. He looked behind him to see Morley hang a rifle over his shoulder.
“That woman is banned from entering warehouses for the rest of her natural life,” the Chief Inspector muttered with no small amount of exasperation.
