To Catch an Heiress
“Oh, yes,” she answered. “Well, when he bought something new, he liked to crow about it and admire it for weeks. And he always made certain that Percy and I admired it as well. So if he bought a new candelabra, one could be assured that it would be on display in the dining room. And if he bought a priceless vase, then—well, I'm sure you understand my meaning. It would be completely unlike him to purchase something rare and expensive and then hide it away from view.”
Blake didn't say anything, so she added, “I've been rambling, haven't I?”
He stared at the map intently, then shifted his gaze to her eyes. “And you say he keeps this room locked?”
“All the time.”
“And Percy isn't allowed to enter, either?”
She shook her head. “I don't think Oliver has very much respect for Percy.”
Blake exhaled, feeling a familiar rush of excitement coursing through him. It was at times like these that he remembered why he had first gotten involved with the War Office, and why he had stayed with it for so many years, even though it had taken so much away from him.
He'd long ago realized that he liked to solve problems, to put little pieces of a puzzle together until the entire picture presented itself in his mind. And Caroline Trent had just told him where Oliver Prewitt was hiding his secrets.
“Caroline,” he said without thinking, “I could kiss you.”
She looked up sharply. “You could?”
But Blake's mind had already jumped ahead, and not only did he not hear Caroline, he hadn't even noticed that he'd told her he could kiss her. He was already thinking of that little corner room at Prewitt Hall, and how he'd seen it from the outside when he'd been spying on the house, and what was the best way to get inside, and—
“Mr. Ravenscroft!”
He blinked and looked up at Caroline. “I thought I told you to call me Blake,” he said absently.
“I did,” she replied. “Three times.”
“Oh. Terribly sorry.” Then he looked back down at her map and ignored her again.
Caroline wrinkled her lips into a grimace that was half-irritated and half-amused, picked up her cane, and headed for the door. Blake was so engrossed in his thoughts he probably wouldn't notice that she was gone. But just when her hand touched the doorknob, she heard his voice.
“How many windows in this room?”
She turned around, confused. “I beg your pardon?”
“This secret room of Prewitt's. How many windows does it contain?”
“I'm not sure, precisely. I hardly ever went inside, but I certainly know the grounds well, and…Let me think.” Caroline started pointing with her finger as she mentally counted the windows on the outside of Prewitt Hall. “Now then, that's three for the dining room,” she murmured, “and two for the—One!” she exclaimed.
“Just one window? In a corner room?”
“No, I meant to say that there is only one window on the west wall, but on the south—” Her finger started to bob in the air again. “On the south wall there is also just one.”
“Excellent,” he said, mostly to himself.
“But you will have a devil of a time getting in, if that is your intention.”
“Why?”
“Prewitt Hall wasn't built on level land,” she explained. “It slopes down to the south and west. And so at that corner there is a good bit of the foundation showing. Since I was in charge of the gardens I planted some flowering bushes there to hide it, of course, but—”
“Caroline.”
“Yes, of course,” she said sheepishly, ending her digression. “What I meant to say is that the windows are quite high above the ground. They'd be very difficult to climb through.”
He offered her a crooked smile. “Where there is a will, Miss Trent, there is a way.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“What kind of question is that?”
She blushed and looked away. “A rather intrusive one, I suppose. Please forget I asked.”
There was a long silence, during which he stared at her in a rather uncomfortable way, and then finally he asked, “How high above the ground?”
“What? Oh, the windows. About ten or twelve feet, I suppose.”
“Ten feet? Or twelve?”
“I'm not really sure.”
“Damn,” he muttered.
He sounded so disappointed Caroline felt as if she had just lost a war for Britain. “I don't like being the weak link,” she said to herself.
“What was that?”
She rapped her cane against the floor. “Come with me.”
He waved her away as he resumed his perusal of her floor plan.
Caroline found she didn't much enjoy being ignored by this man. WHAM! She slammed her cane against the floor.
He looked up in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”
“When I said, ‘Come with me,’ I meant now.”
Blake just stared at her for a moment, clearly perplexed by her newly autocratic attitude. Finally he crossed his arms, looked at her much as a parent might do to a child, and said, “Caroline, if you're going to be a part of this operation for the next week or so—”
“Five weeks,” she reminded him.
“Yes, yes, of course, but you're going to have to learn that your desires can't always come first.”
Caroline thought that was rather condescending, and she would have liked to have told him so, but instead, the following words erupted from her mouth: “Mr. Ravenscroft, you do not know the slightest thing about my desires.”