What Price Love? by Stephanie Laurens Read Free Book Online Page B

but they weren’t so thick she would miss seeing any man-sized shape skulking in the shadows.
    She slid into the undergrowth. In breeches, boots, and jacket, with a kerchief about her neck, her hair up and severely confined, and a soft, wide-brimmed hat pulled low on her head, she could at a distance pass for a stable lad. The Lord knew there were plenty ofthose about Newmarket.
    Carefully forging deeper into the dark wood, she scanned ahead, searching for any sign of any other person creeping up on the Jockey Club. She could see the building through the trees, the red brick dull but with glimmers from the pale mortar and pointing, the white-painted window frames gleaming in the occasional shaft of moonlight.
    Her words to Eugenia over the luncheon table had reminded her; she did, indeed, know how Rus thought. When he’d written his last letter to her, he hadn’t known what the register was, not in detail, nor how it related to what ever illicit scheme Harkness was planning. Rus had intended to learn about the register. He’d known it was kept at the Jockey Club; presumably, he’d gone there and asked, as she had.
    Perhaps that was where Caxton and his friend had last heard an Irish accent.
    It would certainly seem odd to have two people with precisely the same accent—even the same inflections and tones—inquire about the register in a short space of time. No wonder they’d been suspicious.
    Doubly so if they had reason to suspect some scam was being planned.
    They might already suspect Rus.
    She knew Caxton suspected her, at least of being peripherally involved. Regardless, she had to get a look at the register. Once she had, she would know as much as Rus did—perhaps more if he hadn’t yet seen it.
    Given how tight-lipped Caxton was, given her sense of his character—potentially hard and unforgiving of errors—she wasn’t going to waste time charming his clerks. Not until she’d exhausted more direct avenues.
    And entrenched in her mind was the knowledge—not a guess but a certainty—that if Rus hadn’t yet learned what the register contained, then he would pursue the same direct avenue as she.
    Fingers and toes mentally crossed, she prayed Rus would come there that night. Getting a look at the register and finding her twin, reassuring herself that regardless of all else, he was hale and whole, and safe…right now, that was all she asked of the deity.
    Reaching the edge of the wood, she hunkered down beside a tree; slowly, she scanned the back of the building from left to right,paying attention to the layout, aligning it with what she’d seen from inside the previous day. Caxton had referred to the register as an archive. There would be more than one tome, stored who knew where, but she felt sure at least one, the one currently in use, would be in his office, sitting in the bookshelves there.
    All she needed was one glance, just enough to see what those “confidential details” were.
    A window to the right of the building, at the corner closest to her, had been left a tantalizing few inches open. Her eyes fixed on the darker gap; a second later her mind caught up. She’d been gauging the distance from the center of the building where the foyer was, along the corridor she’d traveled to Caxton’s office…that’s where the open window was.
    She eyed the sight with burgeoning suspicion. Her words to Eugenia rang in her mind. She knew better than to underestimate a man with a beautiful face.
    She stared at the window; her unease only grew. She simply could not imagine Caxton leaving that window open accidentally .
    Furtive movement at the far end of the building caught her eye—a flitting shadow that instantly merged into the dim wood. She glanced again at the open window and remained where she was, stilling, breathing evenly, becoming one with the night.
    The open window was a trap. But was the shadow she’d seen