Roses in Moonlight by Lynn Kurland Page A

Obviously, he hadn’t slept enough. He rolled his eyes and sighed, hoping he could stay awake on the way south.
    •   •   •
    H e followed her all the way to Hedingham Castle, making sure she heard him doing his best impression of a slightly baffled tourist. He kept her within sight the entire time, but she made no move to talk to anyone. She simply made her way to the castle as if that were the entirety of her plan. If he hadn’t suspected differently, he would have thought her nothing more than a typical tourist, gobsmacked by the sight of a decently maintained castle boasting a perfectly preserved Norman arch. She read all the plaques in the castle, studied her guidebook diligently, kept her hands in her pockets as she looked in the gift shop but purchased nothing.
    He frowned to himself. She was without a doubt the most unlikely criminal he’d ever seen.
    Then again, perhaps not. He realized at one point that she was very aware of him. She was fairly adept at glancing casually over her shoulder without being too obvious about it, but not perfect at it.
    He watched her as she carefully ate what she’d paid for—every last bite, which left him wondering if she were short of funds and didn’t anticipate any supper—and suspected that perhaps the Cookes weren’t paying her very much. If that was the case, maybe she had no idea what the value was of what she was carrying. If someone had wanted him to courier that piece of lace, he would have named a figure that would have left them gasping.
    The day wore on. He began to wonder what else Samantha Drummond could find exciting about a small castle in a remote location, but perhaps she was looking for things to steal.
    Or perhaps she was killing time until her contact arrived.
    He followed her as she left the keep. He would have expected her to trot right over to the bus, but again, what did he know? He was just the bloke charged with the task of getting property back for a man who trusted him to do the job with absolute discretion. He should have at least been professional enough to have done his research.
    He watched Miss Drummond sit on a bench near the castle and pull out a journal she then studied intently, completely oblivious to what was going on around her. He supposed if he’d had any sort of altruism in his soul, he would have rung the Cookes and told them they needed to find better couriers in the future. If that lace wasn’t stolen because she wasn’t paying attention to it, he would have been very surprised.
    Perhaps it was time to do something besides tail her. He sighed, then walked over to make a more direct nuisance of himself. It might be possible to startle her into a confession.
    “Might I sit?” he asked, pausing beside her and putting on his best German accent. “A rest would be welcome.”
    She blinked at him. Then she shut her little journal quickly and put it in her bag.
    “Sure.”
    He sat down and made a production of taking pictures of the castle with his phone. “My English is
nicht so gut
.
Wie
is your German?”
    “Worse than your English, definitely.”
    He suppressed the urge to wince, because she’d said it in German and her German was much better than his. He considered, then jumped in feetfirst.
    “Have you many castles seen?” he asked.
    “One or two,” she said warily. “You?”
    “I come from a land of many castles,” he said with a shrug. “They do not hold my attention for long.”
    She nodded uneasily, then looked at the castle in front of them as if she might like to run inside it and slam the door shut against him.
    “What do you do?” he asked.
    She looked at him quickly, then seemed to consider the question. “I’m, um, an . . . artist.”
    Of course she was, just like she was a fabulous liar who could apparently take on a persona and never fall out of character. Either that, or
slightly batty tourist
was the persona she was actually going for and she was making a brilliant job of it.
    “Are