To Catch A Thief (Saved By Desire 2) (16 page)

“I want you to break all association with that man immediately.” Delilah’s voice was cold and hard and directly behind her.

Sophia closed her eyes and held the lingering warmth of the blossoming feelings in her heart for Jeb as long as she could before she slowly shut the door.

“I shall do no such thing. Given that Jeb is a man of wealth and good standing, he cannot be called into question. I will remind you that my choice of an associate is considerably better than yours. With that in mind, you should not consider yourself at liberty to tell me who I shall and shall not see. After all, you have clearly shown you have no consideration for the family name, so cannot accuse me of trying to sully it. If you won’t be told what to do, neither will I.”

Before Delilah could issue any more ludicrous orders, Sophia made her way to her room to choose her outfit for the forthcoming ball.

Jeb left Sophia in Delilah’s house, but it was the last thing he wanted to do. Something about the last hour left him extremely uncomfortable. He felt as though he was missing a vital clue, but as he ran over everything in his mind was at a loss to know what it was. 

At first, he was miles away as he meandered through the village toward Briggleberry. It was only when he was halfway home that he began to sense he was being followed. When he turned the corner at the end of the main street, a sudden flurry of movement vanishing into what he suspected was a side alley caught his eye. He took a moment to pretend to adjust his boot and saw someone in a dark pair of trousers, a white shirt, and brown jacket about twenty or thirty feet behind him. Suspecting this was the same man who had met with Delilah; Roland Myers, Jeb resumed his journey but deliberately slowed his pace so he had time to look around.

His knew that the only way of finding out where this man was staying was to follow him. With this in mind, he decided to take a short cut across the fields. That took him down a country lane with nothing bracketing it except for a small stone wall. To follow him would mean being visible, but this didn’t appear to bother Myers, who ambled along behind keeping a steady pace.

Jeb grinned. Familiar with the area, he took a circuitous route that would take him to a small copse that would temporarily block him from view. His good friend Archie had once told him of the perfect place to hide if he was being followed and he used that to his advantage once he was out of sight.

“Find some trees and go up,” Archie had declared. Jeb had looked at him askance for a moment. “When people are in a dangerous situation, especially when they are following or looking for someone, they rarely think to look up.”

Jeb smiled as he thought about his good friend and wondered if his wife had presented her husband with a new child yet. The last time he had seen Portia, she had been so large with their third child she had practically waddled when she walked. His smile widened when he considered the last time he had visited the large, rambling house that was seemingly full of chaotic noise and confusion. There had been children running everywhere because Jamie had been visiting with his wife, Cecily, and their four children. Jeb’s ears had still been buzzing the day after he had left but he didn’t care one bit.

He rather envied his friends their contentment in life and, not for the first time, had begun to reconsider his own future. Was it possible that he could have the same level of contentment with Sophia that his friends had with their wives? For the first time in his life he was starting to believe that yes, he most definitely could.

He sat on the highest branch that was robust enough to bear his weight and watched Myers walk through the copse twice. He stopped, glanced around, then let out a blistering curse as he scratched his head and tried to work out how someone Jeb’s size could simply disappear. Moments later, after more vicious curses, Jeb watched Myers leave. Thankfully, from his viewpoint he was able to see Morwenna Banks’ house. He was able to keep his quarry in sight while protected by the thick branches and lush foliage. It made his job a heck of a lot easier, especially when the man walked into the door at the rear of the house with a familiarity that was nothing short of arrogant.

“So, are you the killer or his accomplice?” Jeb thought over the strange events that had happened in London of late, especially the circumstances surrounding the way the bodies were strangled. The Star Elite believed the killer had an accomplice; was Myers it, or the killer?

Had they both come to Framley Meadow?

“It’s impossible,” Jeb murmured with a sigh.

Everything within him was screaming at him that it was not possible for the killer to have followed him all the way from London. Why would he? What would he possibly want with Jeb when the rest of the Star Elite were still on the streets in London?

The Star Elite work mostly in the middle of the night when the shadows were dark, and the only witnesses were largely the criminal element who they were there to catch. It would be considerably easier to capture, or kill one of them in London.

It was just too far-fetched; too ridiculous to even contemplate, to think that someone would follow him to Framley Meadow to give him a warning. Although he wanted to ignore the facts though, he had to question the many similarities between the two sets of circumstances. Two bodies had been found, both of whom had been strangled. There was also a thief in the area with a yen for expensive jewellery. Myers was demanding jewellery from a posh house. Jewellery he should not even have knowledge of. Not only that, but there were not one, but two strangers in the village who had both appeared at the same time as Jeb. He couldn’t forget the man who had attacked him; it hadn’t been Myers. Was Myers just waiting for the jewellery before he left? If so, where did the man who accosted him in the street fit into all of this? Why was he even in the village? Had he killed Tabitha and Mrs Banks? If so, why?

“Where are you off to now then?” Jeb murmured as he watched Myers leave the house.

Dusk had started to fall and had cast everything in rapidly darkening shadow. It helped to hide Jeb as he left his camouflage and followed closely behind - right to the woods beside Delilah’s house.

“I have told her, but she says no,” Roland began without preamble when he met his contact.

Jeb got into a good enough position to see the connection and recognised him as being the man who had threatened him in the street the other night.

So, they are working together,
he mused, and settled back to listen.

The stranger growled. “She doesn’t get the choice.”

Jeb wracked his memory but wasn’t sure if he had seen either man in London before. Unfortunately, so many people crossed his path that unless they did something illegal, or he was following them, he barely gave them a second glance.

“I think I can persuade her,” Myers said a little too hesitantly to be convincing.

“Not good enough. She
will
do this,” the man growled. “I want those jewels. Someone is waiting for them. Don’t let me down. If you do not get those jewels then don’t come back.”

Myers swallowed and took a wary step back. “I will do my best, Bamber. If she doesn’t do it, I will,” he promised nervously.

“See that you do.” Bamber stepped toward Myers menacingly. “Don’t let me down on this. Once we have those jewels, we leave town. Make sure you leave no trace behind. I don’t want to see you again until we are back. Do you understand?”

Myers nodded again and looked warily around the woods as though he expected someone to pop out. Jeb wondered what kind of hold the stranger had on Myers to worry him so much, and decided right there and then that Myers would not make any meeting in London. Not without the Star Elite on his tail anyway.

“What do you have for me?” Bamber sniffed when Myers stared at him with wide eyes, temporarily frozen with fear.

Myers cautiously handed over a lumpy package that contained several small items.

“That’s good, but it is not enough. Get me those jewels and I will call it quits,” Bamber snapped.

“Fine,” Myers nodded energetically as he began to back away. “I will make sure you get them.”

“See that you do.”

“I will.

The man glared. “See that you do.” The threat hung in the air.

Myers remained silent, willing to give Bamber the last word if that was what he wanted as long as he could leave the woods with his life intact.

Bamber pocketed the parcel and didn’t even bother to look at Myers again. As silent as a wraith, he turned around and melted into the trees.

Just as quietly, Jeb followed.

Two days’ later, cold, tired, and hungry, Jeb watched Bamber disappear into dingy lodgings on a side street on the wrong side of London. To say the area was disreputable would be an understatement. Jeb had a gun and a knife on him but still felt vulnerable. As he sauntered casually down the road after his quarry, he could hear babies crying, women screaming, and men shouting from inside the ramshackle abodes he passed. Although the night was falling, children, barely covered against the elements, stood on doorsteps, their darkened, soot covered faces devoid of laughter and gaiety the likes of which children should be entitled to. The almost too still and silent way they watched him move through their neighbourhood was disturbing.

Once he had noted the address Bamber disappeared into, Jeb rubbed at the stubble on his jaw and yawned. Eager to get out of the area before someone tried to mug him he turned around and headed back down the street. He desperately needed something to eat, some sleep, and a shave because the beard he had started to grow over the last couple of days was really starting to irritate. In addition to that, he needed to get his colleagues to watch the property, and follow Bamber when he left the house. He couldn’t do it. He was exhausted. The journey over the last couple of days had been fraught with challenges. He had little money on him, no horse, and hadn’t had a change of clothes for longer than he cared to remember. Still, he had survived, although had yet to uncover what the man’s real name was given that every time he had stopped at a tavern he had used an alias. Jeb had, as a result, practically been on watch over the last couple of days and nights, and was now in desperate need of rest.

Before he left the area behind, he signalled a young child standing on the doorstep of a house two doors away from the lodgings.

“Here, boy, who lives in that house? Do you know?”

The boy nodded. “That’s Mr Cavannah. He is one of the lodgers there. Old Mrs Rampton disappeared not long ago. He collects the rent now.”

“Brian, shut that door, now,” a feminine voice screeched from the back of the house.

Jeb nodded and handed the child a coin before he headed toward the safe house. 

Mr Cavannah, if that was his real name, could wait for an hour or two. If he was collecting rents from tenants at a property, he wasn’t going to leave it anytime yet. Either Mr Cavannah, or one of his associates, would appear at the property at some point. When they did, the Star Elite would be there.

Sophia followed her aunt into Mavis Arbuthnot’s house with great reluctance. It was the last place she wanted to be, not least because it just felt plain wrong that people were socialising so soon after Morwenna Banks’ murder.

Not even a week had passed since her body had been found strangled, yet here they were all gathering together to dine as though nothing untoward had happened. It didn’t feel as though a reasonable period of mourning had passed, but Delilah had accepted the invitation to dine on their behalf without even consulting her.

While it had irked her greatly at the time, Sophia was in desperate need of something to do. If only to take her mind off why Jeb hadn’t come to see her again like he had promised. Unfortunately, there were few people she could ask to find out where he was without raising their concerns over her interest in him so she was left to fret, worry, and wonder what had happened.

It wasn’t lost on her that others in the village had also become aware that he had vanished. Speculation was already mounting about why the Lord’s son had upped and left as quickly as he had arrived. She hoped that by coming tonight, she may be able to find out from Algernon where Jeb had gone and, more importantly, when he would be back.

“Mrs Arbuthnot, thank you for inviting me,” she murmured politely.

“I am glad you could make it,” Mrs Arbuthnot gushed. “Please, come on in. Everybody is here already.”

Mrs Arbuthnot scurried ahead into the brightly lit sitting room full of people who all looked distinctly uncomfortable. The polite yet somewhat awkward atmosphere was the first thing that hit her; that, and the lack of Mrs Banks, Jeb, and Algernon.

Battling disappointment, she tried to focus her attention on the evening. Without Jeb, the room seemed dull and flat, as though the life had been drained from it, and that brought Sophia a profound sense of loss.

She missed him and found that the longer she sat there, the more she yearned for him. If only she could speak to him. If she could reassure herself that he was alright then she could send him on his way again, more at peace with the knowledge that he had other things to do and wasn’t as interested in her as she thought he was. The fact that he didn’t reciprocate the feelings that were rapidly building within her was something that was personal to her. The hurt she would shed tears over later when she was alone. It was certainly something she couldn’t do anything about sitting in Mrs Arbuthnot’s sitting room.

Forcing her attention off Jeb and back to the occupants of the room, Sophia accepted a goblet of Ratafia off the hostess. To her horror, she then found herself completely stuck for wont of anything to say which was either appropriate or wise. She sensed that Mrs Arbuthnot was too because, after several moments of futile fluttering about, she turned an overly bright look on the group and waved her hand in a vague motion toward the other side of the house.

“I am sorry for the short notice about tonight’s dinner,” Mrs Arbuthnot gushed. “I just think it would be best if we carried on as normal, do you not agree? It is so difficult to know what to do in situations like this.”

“It might have been better if we had postponed everything for a while longer,” the Squire blustered, red-faced. “It has only been a week since poor Morwenna left us.”