“You read the journal without me?”
With a sigh, he extracted the book from his coat and handed it over. “I was trying to save us time, not keep the book from you. Read it at your leisure but start with the last entry. That is the one that mentions treasure.”
“Really?” Dipping her head, she began to thumb through the worn pages.
“Unfortunately, the date is May 1759. We need something a bit more recent, and I thought the most likely place for the rest of the journals to be kept was at my grandmother’s house.”
“Yes, mmm.” She was angling the book, attempting to read in the weak light from the carriage lamps. Stephen realized there was no point in trying to speak to her now, so he leaned back and watched Piccadilly go by until they finally turned onto Swallow.
“Miss Hale,” he murmured, when he saw the jarvey pass number twenty-eight. “Put the journal away. We’re almost there.”
He’d instructed the hack’s driver to drop them farther down Swallow Street, almost to Oxford, so that none of his grandmother’s neighbors would see a carriage stop before her empty house. This way, they could also find a back way inside. Stephen didn’t expect any of his grandmother’s servants to be about, not with a month or more before the old lady would arrive, but he intended to be cautious.
Stephen had found that Josephine Hale could be quite reasonable—when he wanted her to do something she wanted to do—and she followed him without comment through back alleys, over gates and fences, and finally to the back of his grandmother’s house.
He gave each of the windows a try, but they were all locked. He’d been expecting as much, so he pulled the crowbar he’d taken from his attic out of his greatcoat.
“Good Lord!” Josephine took a step back. “What are you planning to do with that?”
Stephen gave her a grin and swung at the window. The crack of the glass was loud, and they both held their breath for several moments. A dog barked and then all was silent.
Easing a hand inside the window to avoid wounding it on the shards of glass, Stephen turned the lock. He raised the window and looked at Josephine. She wanted unconventional.
“Ladies first.”
Chapter Twelve
“Ladies first?” Josie said. Of course, now that there was something dangerous to do, he was the soul of chivalry. But she wasn’t about to let a dark night, an empty house, and a teeny bit of breaking and entering scare her. If he wanted her to go first, she’d show him.
Of course, perhaps this was the time when the treasure’s bad luck would catch up to her. Maybe there’d be some old butler inside the house, pistol primed and ready to shoot her dead as soon as she was inside.
Bad luck or no, Josie was too close to the treasure to stop now. Hoisting herself up, she crawled through the window, managing not to knock anything over once inside. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, and when they did, she saw she was in the music room. There was a small lamp near the window, and she moved it aside as Westman came through.
Once inside, they lit two lamps, and he led the way through the silent house. They surveyed most of the ground floor as well as the first floor, and then Westman led them back through the music room to the book room.
“We’ll start here,” he told her. “We’ll check all the books on the shelves and then pull them all off to make sure the journals aren’t hidden behind them.”
Josie nodded, sighing inwardly. There were dozens of shelves and all crammed with books. She didn’t even know Westman’s grandmother, but she wished the lady wasn’t such an avid reader.
By tacit agreement, she and Westman started at opposite ends of the room. Josie took the ladder and climbed to the uppermost shelf, holding her lamp high enough to read the titles. She shivered. Without a fire, it was cold in the house and musty smelling. And she was so exhausted that the titles swam together before her eyes. The late nights with Westman and the planning of the ball with Catie meant she’d had about six hours’ sleep in the last two days.
But she couldn’t let Westman see how tired she was. If she didn’t work as hard as he, he’d never let her live it down. And she didn’t like how he always seemed to be one step ahead of her. She hadn’t even read the journal, and already they were searching for another.
But at least he had proved he was capable of treating her as an equal. He had waited for her before coming here, and she’d been the one to go in first.
Josie took down a row of books, attempting to keep them in the same order. She placed them on a side table and held her lamp to peer into the empty space.
Nothing.
She began to replace the books. So what did Westman’s sudden change in attitude mean? Had he actually listened to her when she’d gone on and on about arrogant, bossy men? That was more than she could say for most men of her acquaintance. But perhaps, as she’d heard her mother and aunts say, on occasion, men could be trained.
She began work on the next shelf and glanced at Westman. He, too, was examining books, picking one up, studying it, then setting it back again. His hair had come loose from the thong he used to hold it back, and it fell around his face, making him look just that much more feral than his cohorts.
Lord, she could see why all the ladies were after him. She could see why rooms quieted when he entered. And she could see that it was going to take more willpower and concentration to keep her thoughts where they should be.
She was going to find a clue to the treasure, not ogle Stephen Doubleday. She was going to figure out what lock that key fit, not imagine him without his shirt on. She was going to find the other half of her treasure map, not remember how his lips had felt on her body. She was going—
Drat! She tossed a book down hard enough that Westman looked over at her. She gave him an apologetic wave and went back to her searching.
