An Unexpected Pleasure. Candace Camp

you, but that won’t be necessary,” Megan assured him quickly. She preferred to talk to the man without his being influenced beforehand by Barchester. “I should set up an appointment myself. I’m not sure exactly when I will be able to see him. In the meantime, I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention any of this to Mr. Coffey.”

      He looked surprised. “Naturally, if that is what you wish.”

      “I find I get better results if I have the first thoughts out of one’s head,” Megan said by way of explanation. “You know, without their thinking it over a great deal. It’s no longer fresh then.”

      “Of course,” Barchester agreed politely, though he still looked faintly confused.

      And well he might, Megan thought, since her glib response was not precisely the truth. She had found that the more witnesses to an event discussed it, the more alike their accounts of the event tended to become, but she had also found that telling people that fact often insulted them. In the same way, she also suspected that Mr. Barchester’s story had probably been somewhat different than it would have been if Deirdre had not been present. The man had been clearly smitten by her sister. Megan wasn’t sure how his story might have differed, of course; no doubt it was subtle. But she had also found that men were not inclined to be entirely honest when they were speaking in front of a woman they admired. She intended to arrange her visit with Coffey so that her father and sister were not present.

      They stayed for a little longer after that, making polite chitchat with Mr. Barchester. He offered them tea and inquired about their trip across the Atlantic and their lodgings here, offering to help them in any way possible. He seemed a nice enough man, Megan thought, though a trifle bland. Her sister, however, seemed not to notice this defect, for she smiled and even, Megan realized, flirted with him a little.

      For her part, Megan was barely able to sit still and be polite. She wanted only to go back to the house they had rented and talk over the tantalizing possibility of “treasure” that Mr. Barchester had raised. She could see, glancing at her father, that he was fairly twitching to discuss it, too.

      Indeed, they had barely bade Mr. Barchester goodbye and walked a few feet from his front door before Frank burst out, “I knew it! Did I not I tell you? That murderin’ English bastard stole that pendant from Dennis. That’s what Den wants back, I’ll warrant.”

      “Now, Da, we don’t know that,” Megan pointed out fairly.

      “It’s as plain as the nose on your face, girl,” he retorted. “After Dennis was dead, that titled scoundrel was wearing this thing around his neck and being terribly secretive about it. How else did it suddenly appear? And why else would he have been hiding it?”

      “It makes sense,” Megan agreed. “But we don’t know that Moreland took it from Dennis, or that he killed him over it. The truth is, we don’t even know what ‘it’ is!”

      “A pendant,” Deirdre offered. “That’s what Mr. Barchester said.”

      “Yes, but what sort of thing was hanging from it? A jewel or a golden medallion or what? And what was it hanging from? A golden chain or a simple string? It could even have been a little pouch hung on a bit of twine. His description was very vague.”

      “Aye, that’s true. It might not have been a necklace,” Frank mused. “It could have been something small that he just carried close to him like that for safekeeping.”

      “But clearly it was something ‘precious,’” Megan went on, emphasizing the word Deirdre had used in describing her brother’s loss.

      “And clearly Moreland did not want anyone to know about it.”

      “Well, at least it narrows down my search,” Megan said. “I know that it’s something small I’m looking for, probably a necklace of some sort.”

      Excitement rose in her, as it always did when she was chasing down a story. But this time, there would be a far greater reward if she tracked down the truth. All the little doubts that had been teasing at the back of her mind—the liking she had felt for the duchess and the twins, and her reluctance at deceiving them, the strange feeling that had gripped her when she first saw Theo Moreland—all vanished now. Such minor things scarcely mattered.

      Tomorrow she would start stalking her brother’s killer.

      5

      Megan presented herself at her new job the next morning with firm resolve. She was there to find her brother’s killer, and she was determined not to be swayed by other feelings.

      Barchester’s story had brought back vividly her own memories of Dennis, making his loss once again a fresh hurt. She could well imagine how Dennis’s imagination would have fired at the tales of the lost treasures of the Incas. She could picture his smile, his reddish brown eyes, so much like her own, lighting with eagerness. He had always been interested in the Inca civilization; she could remember him recounting with horror the bloody takeover of their lands and fortunes by the Spanish invaders centuries earlier.

      Dennis would have loved to have found some piece of that empire, however small, some tangible link to that long-ago time. Megan felt sure that he had diligently looked for treasure. What if he had found it? After all, Barchester had said that Coffey had come upon some artifacts. Surely Dennis could have, as well.

      Thinking back on it, Megan wished that she had questioned Barchester more closely about Mr. Coffey’s find. At the time, she had been more interested in digging more deeply into the quarrel that had set Dennis’s death in motion.

      Well, she reminded herself, she could talk to the man again—or, better yet, she would ask Julian Coffey himself when she interviewed him. It was even possible that he might have a better idea about the pendant that Theo Moreland had kept hidden beneath his shirt.

      In the meantime, she could begin looking for the necklace. At least now she had a better idea what she should be searching for.

      When Megan arrived at Broughton House, she was taken in hand by the housekeeper, a short, stout, grandmotherly looking woman with snow-white hair pulled back into a soft bun. Her name, she said, was Mrs. Brannigan, though the members of the family called her Mrs. Bee, a name given to her by the first set of twins when they were children. It was clear, from the softening of her face and the faint smile upon her lips when she mentioned this fact, that the housekeeper was sincerely attached to the family.

      “The ‘Little Greats,’ now, they can be a trial,” she said confidentially as she led Megan up the back stairs. “But you look like a sensible young woman. I think you can handle them.”