To Catch A Thief (Saved By Desire 3)

Still, the suspicion she was right just wouldn’t go away. Delilah had been a little too defensive about the items, and still hadn’t told Sophia where they had come from. If she had nothing to hide then there was no reason not to confide in her – was there?

“I need to write to Hooky. He would know what to do,” she whispered.

Sleep was going to be impossible now that she had started to worry about last night and the items in the drawer. Her frown was deep as she pushed out of bed. It would be best all round if she wrote a missive to Hooky and got her problems off her chest, and then she could at least try to get back to sleep before dawn broke. If not, it was going to be a very long night indeed because the clock had only just chimed two o’clock.

She made her way downstairs to the study to collect everything she needed but decided to write the note in the comfort and warmth of her own bed. Once in the study, she made her way over to the writing bureau and dropped the lid.

Her heart fell to her toes when she saw what was secreted within.

“Oh Delilah, what have you done?” she whispered.

Her fingers trembled as she lifted one of the boxes out of the bureau. She knew immediately where they had come from, and they didn’t belong to Delilah. Even in the darkness, she recognised the two small trinket boxes that had been sitting on a side table in Algernon’s hallway.

“Delilah, you are a disgrace,” Sophia whispered. For the first time in her life, she was actually disgusted with someone, and it galled her for that someone to be a relative. “To steal it from right under their noses is stupid. You are nothing but a thief.”

What Sophia couldn’t immediately understand was why Delilah would take such a risk. There had been so many people in attendance last

night that someone was bound to have seen her. It was almost as though Delilah wanted to get caught, or liked the challenge, or the thrill of snatching something right out from underneath everybody’s noses.

“What should I do now?” she whispered.

She could hardly inform the magistrate and risk the entire Carney family facing ruination. But Delilah was a thief, and a regular one at that. The evidence was right in front of her eyes. The memory of the assorted items in the drawer upstairs warned her that although the items Delilah had stolen were small, they were also expensive. What did she plan to do with them? It was an incredible risk just leaving them in her own house to be found should the magistrate want to search the properties of everyone in attendance at these gatherings. She couldn’t use all of them herself because there were just too many. Putting them out on display would mean being caught. Besides, who would want to use a hairbrush used by somebody else?

That left only one option as far as Sophia could see. Delilah intended to sell them to make some extra money.

“I have to do something,” she whispered, suddenly horrifyingly aware that while these two trinket boxes sat in the house she could be considered as guilty as Delilah.

Sophia glanced at the parchment in her hand and wondered if writing to Hooky would actually do any good. A letter would take several days to get home and, assuming Hooky wrote back immediately, she couldn’t expect to receive a reply for at least a week. Heaven only knew how much Delilah would manage to steal in that amount of time. That meant she had to deal with this situation herself.

A sudden click outside the study door made her jump in alarm. It sounded like the side door in the sitting room. Thankfully there was enough moonlight to guide her across the room without her bumping into anything. She peered cautiously around the edge of the curtain and caught the flicker of movement of someone disappearing toward the woods at the rear of the house. At first, she wondered whether it might be the lover Hooky had mentioned. However, the more she studied the cloaked figure the more she realised it was Delilah.

“Where are you going at two o’clock in the morning?” she whispered aloud, knowing there was now nobody in the house to hear her.

Hurrying through to the kitchen, she stood on tiptoe to peer out of the back window and watched Delilah disappear into the trees at the back of the house.

“What do you have there then?” Sophia asked, eyeing the dark, neatly wrapped bundle her aunt carried.

To begin with, she was tempted to follow, but knew she wouldn’t be able to come up with an explanation if she stumbled upon her aunt outside so remained where she was. Eager to see if Delilah had taken the stolen items with her, Sophia raced upstairs to her aunt’s room. It didn’t come as any surprise when she opened the drawer to Delilah’s dresser, which had once contained the stolen items, and found it empty.

“Have you taken them to hide them where I can’t find them, or are you meeting someone?”

There was only one way of finding out what her aunt was up to. She had to go out there and see for herself. Quickly slipping her boots on, she drew her thickest cloak around her, and paid particular attention to hiding the brilliant white material of her nightgown. Once the hood was tugged over her hair, Sophia quietly let herself out of the side door but, before she could follow, Delilah re-emerged out of the trees and headed back to the house.

Sophia quickly slipped back inside and hid in the downstairs cupboard while she waited for her aunt to go back to bed. Her heart pounded as the minutes ticked by. Her ears strained for sounds of movement outside but, apart from the faint rustle of clothing, she could hear nothing. She prayed that her aunt wouldn’t use the cupboard to store her soiled boots in, and edged toward the furthest corner of the closet to wait.

Eventually, the quiet creaks and groans of the stairs protesting beneath Delilah’s weight broke the silence. Sophia puffed out her cheeks and remained perfectly still while she listened for the quiet click of Delilah’s bedroom door. She waited a few minutes longer, just to make sure that her aunt had gone to bed, and let herself out of the cupboard.

It was only when she was about to close the door behind her that she realised someone had been in the closet lately. The box of candles that used to sit on the shelf now rested on the floor. In its place on the shelf was another, much larger box. Her hand shook as she lifted the unusually heavy box down and took a peek inside.

“I need a candle,” she muttered.

Once a candle had been lit, she returned to the closet to take a look inside the box suspecting that she already knew what it contained. Not everything that had been in the drawer upstairs was there, but the majority of Delilah’s stolen hoard was now tucked away in the box, secreted in a place where actually, only Delilah usually ever went.

“Damn you, Delilah.”

Sophia scowled as she slid the box back into position on the shelf and quietly crept back to bed. It was only when she threw the covers back over her legs that she realised the parchment was still downstairs, in the bureau, the top of which had stupidly been left open. Delilah would know she had been in there, and had seen the newly stolen items, if she happened to go into the drawing room before Sophia did. What then?

Would Delilah move the rest of the stolen goods out of the house?