“Berget sends her greetin’, Miss LeClaire,” Graeme said with a kind quirk of his mouth. “She hopes ye’ll pay a visit soon.”
Leave it to him to try to put Emeline at ease.
Face pinched and appearing as if she might cast up her breakfast, she fashioned a small smile in response.
Inserting the key into the brass lock, Liam’s brows crashed together. The catch had been forced. He cast Graeme a sidelong look, saying out the side of his mouth, “The lock is broken. Someone’s been here before us.”
Chapter Eleven
The revelation came as no surprise. “The back entrance is more inconspicuous. It’s odd they’d choose the one facin’ the main street,” Liam remarked.
“There’s a stout board obstructin’ the back doorway, rather than a keyed entrance,” Emeline said. “I imagine, that’s why. It would have been much too noisy to break the door down. Mrs. Morris hears everythin’.” The last was murmured in a tone that clearly conveyed she didn’t mean it as a compliment.
At once, Graeme and Camden slid their hands to their waists and grasped their dirks. Liam lifted his cocked hat and smoothed his hand over his head, a sign to the others that the establishment had been broken into and to be on guard.
Rutherford signaled to Broden who strolled to the other side of the street and doffed his hat. A warning to Wallace and Catherwood to be vigilant.
One hand at the base of Emeline’s spine, Liam ushered her in behind Graeme.
She gasped in dismay upon entering the dim interior.
“Nae! Look what they’ve done, the rotters!” she cried softly. Fingers to her mouth and pale, but steady on her feet, she gingerly ventured forward, slowly turning her head back and forth as she took in the mayhem. “I dinna understand. What could they possibly be after? They even sliced the cushions open.”
It was true.
The cushion stuffing had been ripped out and scattered pell-mell. The place was an absolute shamble. Fabric lay strewn upon the floor. Every shelf had been swept clean of its contents, and every bureau drawer emptied. The intruders had yanked the artwork from the walls, dumped out a potted fern, and tipped over the coal basket during their thorough search.
“I’ll check above,” Camden said before disappearing up the narrow flight of stairs situated at the back of the shop.
Emeline cast a furtive glance to the window. Tasteful midnight blue draperies obscured the display window as well as blocked the view of any curious patrons or passersby. She pointed to an unremarkable, long cutting table against the far wall.
Speaking in a low tone, she said, “There’s a board beneath a table leg that is loose. Aunt Jeneva hid anythin’ of import in the space beneath it.”
Graeme stepped to the door and, arms crossed, rested his back against the entrance, preventing anyone from coming inside. A handful of breaths later, Camden lumbered down the steps, a deep line between his eyebrows. “Whoever they were, they ransacked the upstairs livin’ quarters and bedchambers as well.”
“I expected as much,” Liam said, once more grateful these friends had agreed to assist him.
The plundered establishment confirmed his suspicions about why Emeline had been targeted. Quinn and Camden had poked around a bit themselves yesterday and discovered a French aristocrat had arrived in Edinburgh recently. Likely the very same man who’d visited the haberdashery next door.
Liam didn’t believe in coincidence.
The young, and oh so, debonair, Frenchman—according to Mrs. Morris, was a minor noble named Jean Claude Gagneux. Since his arrival, he’d been making the social rounds. Although, no one could specifically recall his inquiring after or mentioning Emeline or her aunt.
Smart bastard. Liam would give him that.
Quinn had also inquired at the The Edinburgh Evening Courant regarding the heiress article. The reporter who’d written it had gone missing a week ago—just hadn’t shown up for work one day.
Likely dead. The assassin had left no loose threads.
No one else at the paper could—or would—provide any information, including the sources for his story or how Jeneva’s body had been found or identified. Quinn had, however, learned she’d been buried in an unmarked grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard.
Liam suspected the assassin had sent men to investigate why the killers assigned to drive the coach and kill Emeline hadn’t returned. They’d come upon the coach, Jeneva’s corpse, or mayhap both. Damn lucky for them if that were the case.
The Courant’s editor might know something as well, but he was either too terrified to reveal what he knew, or he’d been bribed to keep his mouth shut. Or, perhaps, he’d simply approved the story for the sensationalism. He wouldn’t be the first or the last newspaper man to look the other way to sell a few extra newssheets.
Camden took a position beside the window, covertly edging the fabric aside to peek out the glass. “Nothin’ suspicious lookin’ yet.”
Liam made short work of pulling the table away from the wall. “Which board?” His nape hair stood on end, his warrior’s instinct detecting danger. “Graeme, Camden, be at the ready. I dinna have a good feelin’.”
“Aye,” they answered in unison, tugging their guns free.
Her plump lower lip clamped between her teeth, Emeline studied the scraped and scuffed floorboards for a moment. Squatting, she pointed. “There. That’s the one.”
Hunkered down, Liam used the tip of his dirk to pry the oak plank upward. It gave way, making a soft, scritching sound.
With the draperies closed and no candlelight either, viewing the inside of the small compartment proved difficult. However, without hesitation Emeline kneeled and reached her gloved hand within. She withdrew an octagon-shaped, satinwood inlaid box. “Everythin’s in here.”
Giving a severe tilt of his head in acknowledgment, Liam reached for the board, intending to replace it in case the robbers returned. He didn’t want them to know about the secret hideaway. That would give them more reason to find Emeline. Something shiny caught the corner of his eye, and he leaned closer.
“What’s this?” Unease knotting his neck and shoulders, he extended a hand into the hole and clasped a hard object. He withdrew a rectangular metal casket-type box.
A fine line creasing her forehead, Emeline sent him an astonished look. “I dinna ken what that is. I’ve never seen it before.”
Liam’s gut told him this was what the assassin was after. He couldn’t guess why Jeneva LeClaire hadn’t told her niece about the case. But by placing the small chest in the place Emeline knew she kept her valuables, that meant she wanted to ensure Emeline found the box if something happened.
“We dinna have time to go through these now.” He swiveled to Camden and flicked a hand toward the hole in the floor. “Close this up and put the table back. I’m takin’ Emeline upstairs to collect anythin’ she needs.”
The warning bells in his head pealed raucously louder once they reached the upper story, and she glided into the nearest bedchamber. He strode down the narrow corridor to the room at the far end, past the living apartments.
“This was yer aunt’s bedchamber?” he called.
Emeline poked her head out the doorway. “Aye.”