“Because you’re not paying attention!”

“I’m not?” He’d thought he was.

“Don’t you even care?” She was indignant, as usual.

“About what?”

“About the cursed missing artifacts!” she screeched.

Malachai sighed. She just wouldn’t leave the damned artifacts alone. Drove him crazy with her perpetual frenzy about the damned artifacts. “Of course I care. I did all the work, remember? The police are working on the problem.”

“The police?” Loretta scoffed. She was good at that. “William Tillinghurst has the police in his pocket.”

He shrugged. “That’s good. If they respect him, I expect they’ll be diligent in searching for and finding the lost treasure and in pursuing the thieves.”

She pinned him with her beautiful brown eyes. He was glad they were once more unaffected by swelling. It had hurt his heart to see them swollen shut, imprisoned in puffy black and blue flesh.

Lord. There he went again. Until he met Loretta Linden, he’d been happy in the belief that he didn’t possess a heart. At least not the kind the poets were forever ranting on about. Now . . . well, he could only hope he’d get over this . . . this . . . infatuation, he supposed was a good word for it.

“Have you listened to a single thing I’ve said to you, Captain Quarles?”

“Why don’t you call me Malachai. It’s so much friendlier.”

She huffed, but said, “Very well, Malachai. You may call me Loretta.”

“Thank you, Loretta.” He hoped he’d endowed his thanks with the proper humility. Since she huffed again, he guessed he hadn’t. To hell with it. Humility wasn’t one of his primary character traits.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said accusingly.

“Which question was that, Loretta?” He liked the name Loretta for her. It wasn’t a name he’d taken any particular notice of before he met her. But it seemed to fit her somehow, being a trifle snappish and crisp, but pretty, too, in an odd way.

Lord, she had more hair per square inch than any other person he’d ever met in his life. His fingers itched to burrow into those thick, silky tresses.

“I asked,” she said sharply, “if you’d been listening to me.”

“Of course, I’ve been listening to you. Do you realize that you have more hair than any other woman I’ve ever met? Your hair is very pretty, Loretta.”

Her mouth fell open and stayed that way for a moment before shutting with a snap. “What does my hair have to do with anything?”

He shrugged and sipped more tea. Ugh. It had gone cold and now tasted even more vile than it had when it had been hot. “It’s very pretty, is all. It catches the sun, and it looks like there are red and gold sparkles in it.”

Her right hand lifted and patted her hair. She said, “Oh,” in a disconcerted sort of voice. “I . . . I . . . thank you.”

Waving away her thanks, he said, “Your eyes are beautiful again, too, now that they aren’t swollen shut. Too bad the skin around them is still green, but at least brown and green go well together.”

She gaped at him.

“Does your leg still hurt?”

She continued gaping for several seconds. Malachai didn’t have a clue what the matter was. He was only being polite, after all.

At last she burst out, “What are you trying to do?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You keep changing the subject!”

Honestly puzzled, he said, “What subject?”

“For heaven’s . . . I’ve been trying to talk to you about Tillinghurst having stolen your precious artifacts, Malachai Quarles!”

He sighed heavily. “Oh. That again.”

“Yes, that again,” she said indignantly. “I keep telling you that Tillinghurst is behind the theft.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Well? Don’t you want to know why?”

“Why what? Why he stole the loot?”

“No! Why I know he did it!”

“You’ve told me why.” He thought about that for a second. “Come to think of it, you haven’t told me why. You’ve only told me that you think he stole it, and I’ve told you that I think you’re crazy.” He shrugged. “Has anything changed?”

Irate, Loretta cried, “I did, too, tell you why!”

“You said it was a feeling, if I recall correctly. Have you taken this feeling to the police? I’m sure they’ll rush right over to Tillinghurst’s place and arrest him. I suppose there’s a San Francisco law granting warrants to the police based on ladies’ feelings.” San Francisco was kind of a crazy place. It wouldn’t surprise him much if such a law really was on the books somewhere.

Angry now, Loretta leaned closer to him. “That’s not the only reason, curse you!”

The blanket she’d thrown over her shoulders slipped, exposing her arms. She was wearing a deep-green silk robe that shimmered in the fall sunshine almost as brightly as did her hair, and it clung to her various protuberances enticingly. Smiling with pleasure at the sight, Malachai said, “You ought to wear silk more often, Loretta. And that color is nice on you. Do you call that jade green?”

“What?”

“Is that jade green? Is that what they call that color of green? It kind of goes with the skin around your eyes, but I’m sure that greenish color will fade soon. At least you’re not black and blue any longer.”

To his disappointment, Loretta sat up in her chair and pulled her blanket over her shoulders. “You aren’t listening to a thing I say, are you?”

“Of course I am!” What was the matter with the woman? He was paying absolute attention to her. Lord, if his attentions got any more intense, he’d take the woman right here on her own patio, before God and her servants. Pathetic. He was pathetic.

“Oh, you drive me crazy,” Loretta said. “What’s the point in talking to you?” She threw her arms up, and her blanket slipped again.

Malachai was charmed. “I don’t know.”

“Well, I’ll prove it to you.”

“Prove what?”

Her eyes grew huge, and her cheeks turned crimson. From these symptoms, Malachai presumed he’d missed a clue again. Hang it all, though, it was difficult to concentrate on a conversation when there was so much delicious flesh teasing him. Besides, he hadn’t met a woman yet who was worth talking to.

“Prove what?” she shouted. “Prove that Tillinghurst is a crook, of course!”

“Ah.”

“Oh, you’re just impossible! I will prove it to you, though. You just wait.”

“I’ll have to wait, won’t I?” Waiting was becoming very frustrating, although he was pretty sure they weren’t talking about the same thing. With a sigh, he decided there wasn’t much he could do about it.

She glared at him for at least a minute, and neither of them spoke. Malachai was enjoying the view. He didn’t know what Loretta was doing—well, except for fuming, which was her natural condition—but he hoped she’d keep it up, because she’d apparently forgotten all about her blanket.

The back door opened, and she pulled her blanket up again. Disappointed but grateful for what enticements he’d been allowed to glimpse, Malachai turned to see which one of Loretta’s thousands of friends had come to call. A pretty blond woman, holding the hand of a pretty blond girl, stepped out onto the back porch. Malachai stood, thereby proving, if Loretta was paying attention, that he was a gentleman.

Ignoring him, Loretta jumped to her feet. “It’s the FitzRoys! I’m so glad you’ve come!”

“We brought you some books,” said the little girl. “Remember, we said we would.”

“I remember, sweetheart. You’re both dears to think of me.”

The pretty blond lady laughed. “My daughter selected the volumes, so prepare yourself for an education.”

Both women laughed. The little girl smiled, but Malachai sensed her heart wasn’t in it.

“I selected a number of books, both entertaining and educational, Miss Linden. Mama’s just teasing.”

She must be Eunice, Malachai deduced. Dr. Abernathy had told him about Eunice FitzRoy, the child genius. He smiled, prepared to meet the newcomers.

“Come over here and meet Captain Malachai Quarles. You remember I told you about Captain Quarles’ treasure-recovery expedition, Eunice.”

The child’s eyes brightened. “Oh, my, yes! Oh, Captain Quarles, I should be so happy to discuss your adventures on the high seas.”

So Malachai spent the rest of his visit with Loretta answering the most amazing set of questions he could have imagined, all posed to him by a nine-year-old girl. Eunice was almost—but not quite—enough to make him reconsider settling down.

# # #

Loretta was a little nervous, but not nervous enough to change her mind regarding her mission. She hadn’t dared tell Marjorie about her plans, because she didn’t trust her secretary not to blab. Marjorie always thought she knew best, but her decisions were invariably made according to her frightened, narrow-minded view of the world.

Well, Loretta was neither narrow-minded nor frightened, although she had to admit to the aforementioned trace of nervousness. It wasn’t, after all, her customary practice to climb over people’s tall black iron fences and snoop around in their gardens for stolen historical artifacts.

She’d prepared herself as well as she could for the adventure. She’d even gone so far as to don a pair of men’s trousers. No sense climbing fences in a dress, after all. Besides, why should women be forced to wear cumbersome skirts and petticoats? Her feminist soul took great joy in the freedom of movement her trousers allowed.

Her more conventional side, the one she tried to keep hidden from society and, more importantly, from herself, was grateful for the darkness under which she aimed to perpetrate her search. She’d have been mortified to have been seen in public wearing such scandalously revealing apparel.

She’d also brought along one of those newfangled, battery-operated torches—flashlights, some people called them. She’d attempted to stuff her hair under a cloth cap, but she had too much of it to stuff effectively. Therefore, she’d drawn her hair back into a bun and tacked it to the back of her head, and plopped the cap on top. It was dark, and she didn’t expect to be observed, so she felt sure her hair wouldn’t be a problem.

It had taken her a long, hard session of soul-searching and deep thought before she’d opted to take a cab and not her Runabout on the night’s adventure. Ultimately, she decided upon riding to Tillinghurst’s estate in a cab. If she awakened a servant to crank up the Runabout, the whole household would know about her adventure come morning—and if she cranked it up herself, the noise would probably awaken the whole household anyhow. Therefore, she considered taking a cab the more prudent course of action to follow.

And then there was the problem that should, by some remote possibility, anything happen to her, nobody would know where she was. After all, if Tillinghurst was a wicked criminal, he might not balk at murder. With that possibility in mind, Loretta decided to leave a note.

A shudder slithered down her spine as she pinned the note to her pillow. Marjorie would faint dead away when she read it, but at least they’d know where to find the body.

She told herself not to be ridiculous. There was no need even to think about bodies. Nothing was going to happen to her. She was only borrowing trouble and acting hysterical, two behaviors that were most unlike her. After giving herself one last severe inspection via mirror, she crept downstairs and out of the house.

When she gave directions to the cabman, she disguised her voice, which was perhaps unnecessary, but she didn’t want to take any chances. She also gave him a lot of extra money and extracted a promise that he’d wait for her outside Tillinghurst’s gated estate so that she’d have a ride home. She didn’t fancy being caught out of doors in her britches, no matter how enlightened she considered herself.

Besides which, if she ended up injured or dead, perhaps the cabman would tell someone.

Stop it!

Peeved with herself, Loretta frowned and tried to see the countryside from the cab’s windows. Given the state of night, she couldn’t do it, but squinting took her mind away from ugly thoughts.

Her heart sped up as the cab approached Tillinghurst’s estate just outside of the city. The area was rural and woodsy. It didn’t seem quite as welcoming as it had when Loretta had visited during the daylight hours. When she’d come here before, she’d enjoyed the twittering of the birds in the trees and the chattering of the squirrels. Now she wondered if the trees hid bears. Or, worse, human predators.

But that was silly. It was mere fancy that made the trees loom taller and darker and more menacing than she thought they should. Trees were trees. They couldn’t hurt her.

Anything hiding behind them might. Again, Loretta scolded herself for cowardice.

“We’re here,” the cabman said as his automobile rounded a bend in the road and the iron bars on Tillinghurst’s gate flashed in the headlamps. “You want I should let you out at the gate?”

“No,” Loretta said in her altered voice. “Go on about a hundred yards and pull over.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ma’am? Loretta stared at the back of the cabman’s head, dismayed. Fiddlesticks. She’d thought she looked so masculine, too. Well, it couldn’t be helped. With luck, no one else would see her.

Following Loretta’s instructions, the driver pulled over and stopped the cab in a small clearing among the bushes and trees approximately a hundred yards from Tillinghurst’s gate. Taking a deep breath for courage, Loretta slid out of the cab before the cabman could open the door for her. At least the moon wasn’t out yet, and it would only be a sliver when it showed up. And there was lots of shrubbery to hide her from any passing motorists.

Passing motorists? Loretta wondered at her mental processes. No one came out here at night.

Well, that was a good thing. She slipped into the bushes, noticing as she did so that they were quite dense. Thank God she’d worn long sleeves, or she’d have scratches to remind her of the night’s escapade from here to kingdom come.

Climbing tall iron fences, Loretta soon discovered, wasn’t a job for the weak-willed or unhealthy. It would have been easier for her to do if she hadn’t been laid up for the past two weeks, because her strength had ebbed substantially during her period of enforced idleness. Her determination was at least as strong as her body, however, and she managed to heave herself over the top of the fence after a struggle.

She then found herself dangling, and wished she’d given more thought to trajectory. With a little more effort, she managed to scoot along the top of the fence, hand over hand, until her feet barely touched a bush beneath her. Then, holding her breath and praying she wouldn’t break anything, she let go of the fence.

It was a prickly bush. Fortunately, it didn’t sport any actual thorns, the prickles having mainly to do with broken twigs, and she managed to disentangle herself without sustaining too many scratches. Thank God for gloves. Too bad no one had invented a glove for one’s face.

Once she’d gained entry to the estate grounds and brushed herself off, Loretta engaged her flashlight only long enough to take her bearings. She knew where she aimed to search once she figured out where she was in the overall scheme of things.

She heard a dog bark and nearly suffered a spasm. She hadn’t recalled that Tillinghurst owned dogs. Were they guard dogs that were only released at night? Were they trained to attack intruders?

Lord, she wished she’d remembered to have Marjorie ask Tillinghurst about his estate’s security measures. It would have been perfectly within the supposed scope of their visit.

But Marjorie would probably have fumbled the question. Loretta had grave doubts about Marjorie’s overall effectiveness as a collaborator.

Malachai Quarles would make a good partner in crime, she imagined, if he could only be persuaded that the cause was just. Unfortunately, he had an incredibly thick head when it came to seeing things Loretta’s way, curse him.

She stood still for what seemed like an hour at least, before deciding that the dog wasn’t a threat to her. Its bark faded and stopped, and Loretta guessed it was outside Tillinghurst’s gates. Thank God. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if Tillinghurst used, say, a bull mastiff to ward off intruders. She’d end up a doggie snack, is probably what she’d do. The notion held no appeal, and she vaguely wished that she hadn’t read The Hound of the Baskervilles so many times.

As she began wading through bushes and trees, making a terrible racket and wishing she’d chosen a less thickly planted area, she contemplated Malachai Quarles with rancor. If he weren’t so stubborn, she wouldn’t have to risk herself this way. She could have left it to him to explore his partner’s estate. But no. Malachai Quarles seemed intent upon thwarting Loretta at every turning in the road, blast the man.

Wouldn’t he be surprised when she told him where Tillinghurst had hidden the stolen artifacts?

Another bark sent her thoughts flying through the air like dandelion fluff. Again, Loretta paused, trying to determine where the bark had come from. She couldn’t. Not only was it so dark as to confuse her sense of direction, but fog had begun to creep in through the iron railings of Tillinghurst’s massive fence and blur the edges of her sharp wits.

The wretched estate was starting to resemble the castle of an evil king in a Gothic romance novel, and Loretta, whose sensibilities were exquisite, although she endeavored to keep them under control most of the time, was feeling an increase of her heretofore slight nervousness. Just because the place looked ghostly in the foggy night, didn’t mean it was haunted. There were no such things as ghosts.

There were such things as guard dogs, fog or no fog.

Loretta gave herself a hard mental slap and, sucking in a deep breath, only slightly fog-laden, she commanded herself to keep her wits about her. It would do nobody any good if she panicked. Loretta Linden, she reminded herself, was not the panicking kind.

That being the case, and since she heard no more barks, she crunched forward through the bushes, wishing she could stride. She felt much more like herself when she was striding through the world with vigor. This creeping about was for a personality less inclined to take charge than hers. Marjorie was the creeping-around type, not Loretta.

She nearly wept with relief when she finally maneuvered herself out of the underbrush and onto a paved driveway. At least she thought it was a driveway. Allowing one more tiny flick of her flashlight, she saw that she was right, and that she only needed to walk another hundred yards or so to be in the area where she believed her success might lie.

As quietly as possible—she was glad she’d worn rubber-soled shoes for this evening’s work—Loretta traversed the drive to a building sitting several yards beyond the back of Tillinghurst’s mansion, almost hidden by thick bushes and a tall hedge. Slowly, she edged around the building, searching for the door she’d espied right before Captain Quarles had thwarted her first search.

Ah. There it was, looming large and black before her.

Loretta wished she hadn’t thought the word loomed. Loomed was such a . . . a dangerous word.

Well, never mind. She’d found what she’d been looking for: a recessed area that, during the day, was shaded by thick bushes. If she hadn’t inspected them during her first visit, with Marjorie, to Tillinghurst’s estate, she’d never have discovered, behind the prickly hedge, steps leading down to a door. That door must open into a room underground, and it was so well hidden that Loretta couldn’t think of a better place to hide stolen loot.

That being the case, she tiptoed down the stairs until she stood before the door. Silently, she tried the knob. Locked. Disappointing, but not unexpected. Feeling with her hands, she tried to determine if there was a window in the door. There wasn’t. She muttered a soft, “Damn,” under her breath.

Her heart nearly jumped out of her chest when, from the other side of the door, she heard a whispered, “Cap’n? Is that you, Cap’n Quarles?”

Loretta was halfway up the stairs before she recalled that she’d probably just found what she’d been looking for, at least in part. Swallowing her heart and pressing on her chest to keep it where it belonged, she edged back down the stairs. Her nerves were still jangling when she put her lips close to the keyhole and whispered, “Jones?”

A voice responded, “Cap’n?”

“Are you Jones?” Loretta tried again.

The voice said, “Is that you, Cap’n Quarles?”

Curse the man! Why wouldn’t he answer her question? A tiny bit louder, Loretta said, “Are you Mr. Jones? Mr. Percival Jones?”

A pause ensued. Loretta was about to bolt up the stairs again when the voice said, somewhat pettishly, “The name ain’t my fault.”