Page 61 of Kiss Me Lady One More Time
Sterne still hadn’t moved from the parlor.
Chapter 14
Sterne spent the next couple of days in Whiddon’s company, for the most part. He was on fire to do something. Accomplish something. Make some sort of forward progress.
They investigated the other men on the lists of collectors, without finding anything out of the ordinary. They watched the comings and goings at the Geological Society on Bedford Street. As a member, he was granted the right to spend time in the Society library—where he watched and listened for any talk of Stillwater, Tensford, his fossil, or the Rowland masquerade.
When he wasn’t doing that, he was working on his article. He wouldn’t even submit it to the usual journals. He would use it as a feature in the first issue of his own. He would need his two potential partners to agree, of course, but he had to finish first. It must be spectacular, vivid and thought provoking. And in order to really to a thorough job, he should do some traveling to do firsthand research. But he couldn’t do that until they found Tensford’s great, damned fish.
And so, it started it all over again.
And somehow, in the midst of all of this, he still found time to think about Penelope Munroe. He saw little of her, which was likely for the best. But he could not banish her from his thoughts. Or the feel of her skin from his fingers. Or the flow of her sweet, giving passion from his bloodstream. He was alternately numb, annoyed, profoundly sad and bemused at how he’d lost all control of the situation.
Beside him, seated at a table in the Geological Society, Whiddon sighed. “I think we are wasting our time, old man.” He kept lifting the cover of a thick tome and letting it fall.
Sterne did not reply.
“You feel it too, don’t you?” Whiddon gestured. “There’s nothing here. No hint of subterfuge. No current of secrecy or excitement or even watchfulness. None of them are interested in what we are doing. Most of them seem vaguely sorry for Tensford and interested in seeing the sketches of what he lost—and nothing more.”
Sterne sighed. “You are likely right. I don’t know what else to do, though.”
“I see this ending one of two ways,” Whiddon declared.
“Yes?”
“We might find Stillwater, the fossil, or both, at the Rowland masquerade.”
“Or?”
“Or we never find it at all.”
Horrified, Sterne threw up a hand. “Don’t even say such a thing.” He felt the bleak weight of such a possibility. It would alter him. Drag him down. He would be the black stain on the shine of their friendship. He shook his head. He already carried the burden of disappointment and failure in his family. He could not let it seep into the friendships that had brightened his life.
“There is a third possibility, I suppose,” Whiddon drawled.
He waited.
“Miss Munroe might be right. If her cousin stole the thing, I suppose she might yet drag the truth out of him.”
“I know she is convinced that he is involved, but I am not,” Sterne admitted.
“He hasn’t been found?”
“No one’s seen him, not since he showed up at her family’s house and found himself locked out. She was right, though, he did try to break in, but the men from the agency ran him off.”
“All that, and you don’t think he’s got himself into some sort of trouble?”
“Oh, he undoubtedly has, but though that fossil might fetch a bit of money, it wouldn’t be an amount that could settle a pile of debt.” He pursed his lips. “I heard that the Duke of Buckingham spent as much as a hundred pounds on a specimen from Lyme, but that was for one of the big reptile-like skeletons. A fish fossil won’t bring in so much, and I suspect Lycett is in for a great deal more than that.”
“Well, then.” Whiddon shrugged. “The masquerade is likely our best bet.”
He nodded.
Whiddon leaned in. “If it turns out we are wrong about that, it will be fine.” The look his friend gave him was oddly gentle. “You know that, don’t you? You have nothing to prove.”
Sterne smothered a bitter laugh and didn’t answer. Because Whiddon meant well. He just didn’t know how colossally wrong he was.
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