Page 93 of A Scot Is Not Enough

“He’d take one look at you and congratulate me on my choice of companion.” He closed his fist around the metal pieces. “Now let’s see if I remember how to use these.”

They trotted to a narrow side door on Arundel Street. Mr. Sloane dropped to one knee and went to work on the padlock which secured it. Cobwebbed mist fell on their heads. Excitement throbbed inside her. Danger came with a certain thrill, or it might’ve been Alexander. He was methodical to her daring. A precise balance. A perfect partnership.

She kept her back to the wall, watching his, checking from the riverside to the Strand.

“Strange, how empty it is.”

Not a soul was in sight, not even a rat.

“The blessing of a coming storm,” he said, concentrating on the padlock.

“Have you noticed, the outside of her ladyship’s warehouse is terribly clean,” she said. “No rotting cabbages. Bricks in perfect repair. It’s unnatural.”

Blowing wind soughed over them. Alexander concentrated on the lock, adjusting his tools by minute degrees.

“If I have to break into a warehouse, I much prefer a clean one,” he said matter-of-factly.

The upright barrister had surprised her by taking her to his rooms at the White Hart. He’d jammed clothes into a portmanteau to ensconce himself in her home for a few days, because he’d meant what he’d said about not leaving her side. Then he’d shocked her when he added lock-picking tools to his portmanteau, a forgotten token from a merchant who had been on trial for fenced goods.

She hooked her heel on a brick behind her. “You never told me what happened to the gentleman who bequeathed these tools to you.”

“Transported. Seven years.”

“Oh. I thought there might be a happy ending.”

“Not when you fence goods stolen from two members of Parliament. But considering they demanded a hanging, seven years’ hard labor isn’t so bad.”

“Therein is the lesson,” she mused. “Don’t agitate the ennobled.”

Metal clicked, and the padlock sprung open.

Mr. Sloane rose to his feet and winked. “We’ll make an exception for the Countess of Denton.”

To which she laughed quietly and unhooked a candle lamp off the brick wall. They entered the darkwarehouse and walked into a wall of wool. Its oily earthy smell filled the warehouse.

“This way.” She held up the lantern and they sidled through a narrow gap between two walls of wool twelve feet high.

Once through the gap, light splashed an organized cavern. An aisle wide enough for a drayage ran through the heart of the warehouse. More wool bales were stacked against the far wall. Crates marked Silk clustered next to crates marked Wallpaper which were next to more crates marked Dishes. A golden-eyed tabby cat looked down from its perch on one of those piles of crates.

Alexander touched her elbow and nudged his chin high. “The clerk’s office must be up there.”

She raised the lamp. “Up there” was a loft opened to the warehouse below. A crane stretched from the loft, heavy ropes dangling from it with an iron hook at the end. To reach the office, they took the stairs built against the wall.

The office was unlocked. Inside, a lone window looked out on the river. Through it, she could see a heftier crane reach over the quayside, the wind batting its rope like a toy. A slanted clerk’s desk, a chair, a bookshelf crammed with ledgers, and a lone cot cramped the tiny room. A side door to the loft had been left open.

Alexander was already on his knees thumbing through a ledger.

“The light would help,” he said.

She took the hint and crouched on the floor beside him. The shelf had been recently dusted.

“Even the ledgers are clean.”

“A boon for us. No trace of our visit,” he said.

She pulled a ledger off the shelf and began the inelegant task of skimming the pages. Rebellion was a dull exercise. They riffled through one ledger after another, careful to return each one to its same spot on the shelf. Her current book listed food supplies and ammunition for a nine-hundred-ton East Indian ship, but the dates began to blur.

“I’m not finding anything.” She yawned and checked her pocket watch. “Our half hour is nearly done.”