Dawn on a Distant Shore
Page 167

"I thought maybe he had stolen a teakettle, or a silver platter," she finished.
"I don't think it could have been Stoker," Nathaniel said. "He couldn't come up here without being seen. And the timing is off--that was before we left for dinner."
Curiosity's mouth was set in a hard line. "But who else knew about the coin?"
"Moncrieff," said Elizabeth. "Moncrieff knew, and he wasn't at dinner."
"Angus Moncrieff has not been in these rooms," said Curiosity firmly. "I could smell the man a mile off, rat that he is."
"The maids," Hannah suggested hesitantly. "The maids might have known. Maybe he sent one of them--"
"Or maybe Stoker did," said Elizabeth. "He is good at getting women to do his bidding."
Hannah watched her father's face, seeing the anger there just below the surface, and the frustration. He turned to Elizabeth.
"How much will it cost to buy passage home for all of us?"
Elizabeth spread her hands out on her lap. "About six pounds per person, if we want cabins. Perhaps half that for the twins. Another three pounds for provisions for each of us. Counting your father and Robbie that would be--"
"More than fifty pound," said Curiosity. "Might as well be a thousand."
"If only there were some way to contact my aunt Merriweather," Elizabeth said. "But I have no idea where she is."
Nathaniel turned away without a word. He took a candle from the mantelpiece and disappeared into the dressing room.
"Now what?" muttered Curiosity.
Elizabeth put her arm around Hannah. "I don't know."
A few moments later Nathaniel was back. He held out his hands, full now: a silver comb embedded with pearls and a set of brushes to match. A pair of shoe buckles encrusted with square-cut stones that caught the candlelight and cast it out again in a rainbow. A hand mirror, inlaid with ivory and pearl, and deeply carved: Sans Peur. He let them fall on the table and the sound of it was very loud in the room.
"Would these bring in enough money?"
"In London, yes," Elizabeth said. "But I doubt there are any jewelers in Carryckton. Perhaps in Moffat."
"Jennet told me about Moffat," said Hannah. "It's a place where rich people go to take baths."
A smile flickered at the corner of Elizabeth's mouth. "A spa, yes, and quite a fashionable one with the aristocracy. There would almost certainly be a way to dispose of these things."
"Lady Isabel is there, too," said Hannah. "And some of the Campbells."
Three heads came up suddenly to look at her. She said, "You made me start at the end, or I would have told you already."
Curiosity said, "Sounds like a long story, indeed. Let's set down."
It took almost an hour for Hannah to tell it. As she recounted what she had learned at the Laidlaw cottage, Nathaniel filled in the background that Contrecoeur--John Moncrieff, Elizabeth reminded herself--and Carryck had given them during their visit to Lady Carryck's chamber.
"A fine mess," Curiosity concluded when they had finished. "Priests and hidey-holes and runaway daughters. There ain't nothing like religion to bring out the worst in folks."
Elizabeth gestured toward the empty buckskin sacks. "And then this--"
"It don' much matter who took it," said Curiosity. "Not as far as I can see. Either way it's gone."
Nathaniel leaned forward to study a shoe buckle. "I don't know, Curiosity. If it was Moncrieff, or Carryck even, then that means they'll go to some lengths to keep us here. What we need is an ally, somebody to help us get away."
"I have rarely heard a master or landlord so universally praised," said Elizabeth. "It is hard to imagine that any one of his servants or tenants would be of any assistance. I think we must depend on ourselves alone."
Hannah said, "There's the Campbells. They want us gone, anyway. Maybe they'd help, once they know we've got no interest in Carryck."
"Maybe they would," said Nathaniel slowly. "But just because we don't want to claim this place don't mean we got to hook up with Carryck's enemies."
Curiosity put her chin down to her chest and gave Nathaniel a piercing look. "I don' wish the man ill, either. But tell me, what choice do we have? Cain't you talk to this Isabel, if not her menfolk? See if she's willing to send us on our way?"
Elizabeth watched Nathaniel struggle with this idea. She put a hand on his, and he looked at her.
"We must go to Moffat anyway to sell these things." She picked up the mirror and it flashed in the candlelight. "It might do some good to call on Lady Isabel. For us and perhaps for Carryck, as well."
Nathaniel ran a hand through his hair. He had discarded his coat, and the white linen of the shirt strained against his shoulders, all the tension in him rising up.
"I don't know, Boots."
She said, "Let me go. I could make the trip in one day, with a good horse."
Curiosity laughed. "Now, there's a rare idea. Send you off with a load of jewels in your pocket--on your own, of course--through strange countryside to find the Campbells, after they put two bullets in your husband."
Elizabeth tried to keep her composure. "The Campbells do not know me," she said. "I am just another lady come to Moffat to take the waters."
Hannah cleared her throat and Nathaniel turned toward her.