Page 100 of Beauty and the Thief

Chapter Twenty

Bridget shouldn’t have doubted him. After all, Baron rarely made mistakes, and he’d obviously known what he was about when he chose Callahan Kelly for this mission. Before sunrise, they were on a ship bound for Liverpool. She didn’t know how Callahan had managed the papers for their transport or the fare for the ticket, but she didn’t ask.

Instead, she sank down onto the berth in the cabin he’d paid extra to secure and fell asleep almost immediately. When she woke, the sunlight streamed into the cabin and Callahan stood at the porthole looking out. She pushed up on her elbow. “Do you see land yet?” she asked.

He looked over his shoulder and gave her the smile that always stopped her heart. “The captain said we won’t be there until nightfall. Rest now. We’ll travel at night.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“I’ll take me chances with highwaymen any day over Sean MacDonald.”

“MacDonald? He doesn’t even know where we are.”

He crossed the cabin and sat beside her, making her fall forward slightly as his weight tilted the berth. “Don’t underestimate Sean MacDonald. He has contacts and connections all over Ireland. England too. By now he’ll know what ship we’re on and where we’ll land. And he’ll send his men for us too.”

“They’ll never catch up.”

“Sure and I don’t want to take that risk. But there’s something I want to show you.” He pulled a folded paper from his coat and smoothed it out between them.

“It’s a map of England. What do these wax dots mean?” she asked, pointing to the markings.

“I thought maybe you would know.”

She turned the map and studied it closer. Red dots of wax seemed to be located haphazardly over the country, mostly near cities. Black dots were over London, York, and Lincoln. Blue dots tended to be placed along the coast. One was over Liverpool.

“I don’t have any idea.” She looked up at him. “Where did you get this?”

“It was in the cellar. It seemed to be where Innishfree would meet and plan operations.”

“Then Sean MacDonald didn’t want to kill you. He wanted you to carry out a mission for Innishfree.”

“That’s what I gather, lass.”

“What was it?”

He rubbed his chin, now shaded with a night’s worth of stubble. “He didn’t say. He’s no fool. He didn’t plan to tell me until it was too late for me to say no. Not that I could say no, with him holding you hostage. He didn’t anticipate you wouldn’t be a hostage for long.”

The appreciation in his eyes warmed her.

“Or that you would come for me. How did you know where he had hidden me?”

“I didn’t. After MacDonald and Michael came out of the house, I ran around to the back and went in the kitchen. I would have searched the whole house, but as I went through the parlor on the way to the bed chambers, I saw the tapestry was shoved to the side. When I moved closer, I saw the door. Then it was just a matter of finding the key to the lock. MacDonald had hidden it in a vase on the mantel.”

“I’ve always said you are a clever woman.”

She crossed her arms. “Have you? I thought you called me Keeper of the Clipboard.”

His eyes widened. “And how did you hear that?”

She smiled. “I’m a spy, remember?”

He made a sound of agreement. “Would you believe me if I told you I missed that clipboard?” He lifted the map and tossed it off the bed then scooted closer to her. She all but fell into him.

“No.”

“I do. I like how you look with that pencil gripped between your fingers and your eyes darting up and down between your subjects and the words on the paper.”

“I don’t think of the agents as my subjects!”

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