"I've set Lucifer on the trail of the pearls. If they've made their way to London's jewelers, he'll hear of it."
"He will?"
Vane explained. Patience frowned. "I really don't understand how they can have so thoroughly disappeared."
"Along with everything else. Just consider-" Vane checked, then wheeled his team for the turn. "If there's only one thief, and, given none of the other stolen items have been found either, that seems a reasonable bet, then all the items are probably hidden in one place. But where?"
"Where indeed? We've hunted all over, yet they must be somewhere." Patience glanced at Vane. "Is there anything more I can do?"
The question hung in the air between them; Vane kept his gaze on his horses until he could keep the words "Agree to marry me" from his lips. Now was not the time-pressing her was the wrong tack to take. He knew it, but swallowing the words took real effort.
"Check Minnie's inmates one more time." At a spanking pace, he set the curricle for the park gates. "Don't look for anything specific, anything suspicious. Don't prejudge what you see-just study each one." He breathed deeply, and flicked Patience a hard glance. "You're the one closest and yet most detached-look again, and tell me what you see. I'll call for you tomorrow."
Patience nodded. "Same time?"
Curtly, Vane acquiesced. And wondered how much longer he could refrain from doing something-saying something-rash.
"Miss Patience!"
Hurrying along the gallery on her way to join Vane, impatiently waiting downstairs, Patience paused, and waited for Mrs. Henderson, deserting her post supervising the maids down one corridor, to join her.
With a conspiratorial look, Mrs. Henderson came close and lowered her voice. "If you'd be so good, miss, as to tell Mr. Cynster that the sand's back."
"Sand?"
One hand to her ample bosom, Mrs. Henderson nodded. "He'll know. Same as before, just a trickle here and there about that heathenish elephant. I can see it sparkling between the floorboards. Not that it comes from the gaudy beast-I took a cloth to it myself, but it was perfectly clean. Other than that, even with these London maids-and Sligo's hired ones with the sharpest eyes in Christendom-we've not spotted anything awry."
Patience would have requested an explanation, if the expression on Vane's face when he'd called and found her in the drawing room, rather than ready, waiting for their drive, had not been indelibly imprinted on her mind.
He was impatient, champing at some invisible bit.
She smiled at Mrs. Henderson. "I'll tell him."
With that, she whirled, and, clutching her muff, hurried down the stairs.
"Sand?" Her gaze fixed on Vane's face, Patience waited for clarification. They were in the park, taking their usual route far from the fashionable throng. She'd delivered Mrs. Henderson's message; it had been received with a frown.
"Where the devil is she getting it from?"
"Who?"
"Alice Colby." Grim-faced, Vane told her of the earlier report of sand in Alice's room. He shook his head. "Heaven only knows what it means." He glanced at Patience. "Did you check out the others?"
Patience nodded. "There was nothing remotely odd about any of them, or their activities. The only thing I learned that I didn't know before was that Whitticombe brought books up from the Hall. I imagined, when he took such immediate possession of the library, that he'd found some tomes there and had settled to a new interest."
"And he hasn't?"
"Far from it. He lugged at least six huge volumes along as luggage; no wonder their coach was straggling behind."
Vane frowned. "What's he studying at the moment-still Coldchurch Abbey?"
"Yes. He goes for a constitutional every afternoon-I slipped into the library and checked. All six books focus on the Dissolution-either just before or just after. The only exception was a ledger, dated nearly a century before."
"Hmm."
When Vane said nothing more, Patience jogged his elbow. "Hmm what?"
He flicked her a glance, then looked back at his leader. "Just that Whitticombe seems obsessed with the abbey. One would have thought he'd know everything there was to know of it by now-at least enough to write his thesis." After a moment, he asked, "Nothing suspicious to report about any of the others?"
Patience shook her head. "Did Lucifer learn anything?"
"In a way, yes." Vane threw her a frustrated glance. "The pearls have not been cleared through London. In fact, Lucifer's sources, which are second to none, are very sure the pearls have not, in their idiom, 'become available.'"
"Available?"
"Meaning that whoever stole them still has them. No one's attempted to sell them."
Patience grimaced. "We seem to meet blank walls at every turn." After a moment, she added, "I calculated how big a space would be needed to store everything that's been stolen." She caught Vane's eye. "Edith Swithin's tatting bag, emptied of everything else, would barely hold it all."
Vane's frown turned grim. "It's all got to be somewhere. I had Sligo search everyone's room again, but he turned up empty-handed."
"But it is somewhere."
"Indeed. But where?"
Vane was back in Aldford Street at one o'clock the next morning, assisting a weak-kneed Edmond up the front steps. Gerrard was steering Henry, chortling at his own loquaciousness. Edgar, a wide, distinctly silly grin on his face, brought up the rear.
The General, thank heavens, had stayed home.
Sligo opened the door to them, and instantly took charge. Nevertheless, it took another half hour and the concerted efforts of the sober members of the group, to install Edmond, Henry, and Edgar in their respective beds.
Heaving a sigh of relief, Gerrard slumped against the corridor wall. "If we don't find the pearls soon, and get this lot back to the Hall, they'll run amok-and run us into the ground."
The comment accurately reflected Vane's thoughts. He grunted and resettled his coat.
Gerrard yawned, and nodded sleepily. "I'm off to bed. I'll see you tomorrow."
Vane nodded. "Good night."
Gerrard headed down the corridor. His expression sober, Vane crossed the gallery to the stairs. At their head, he paused, looking down into the darkened front hall. About him, the house lay slumberous, the cloak of night, temporarily disturbed, settling back, a muffling shroud.
Vane felt the night drag at him, draining his strength. He was tired.
Tired of getting nowhere. Frustrated at every turn.
Tired of not winning, not succeeding.
Too tired to fight the compulsion that drove him. The compulsion to seek succor, support, surcease from his endeavors, in his love's arms.
He drew in a deep breath and felt his chest swell. He kept his gaze locked on the stairs, denying the impulse to look right, down the corridor that led to Patience's room.
It was time to go home, time to walk down the stairs, out through the front door, stroll the few blocks to his own house in Curzon Street, let himself into the silence of an empty house, walk up the elegant stairs and into the master bedroom. To sleep alone in his bed, between silken sheets, cold, unwarmed, unwelcoming.
A whisper of sound, and Sligo materialized beside him. Vane glanced sideways. "I'll let myself out."
If Sligo was surprised, he didn't show it. With a nod, he descended the stairs. Vane waited, watched as Sligo moved through the hall, checking the front door. He heard the bolt slide home, then the bobbing candle crossed the hall and disappeared through the green-baize door.
Leaving him in the silent darkness.
Still as a statue, Vane stood at the top of the stairs. In the present circumstances, inviting himself into Patience's bed was unacceptable, even reprehensible.