To Catch A Thief (Saved By Desire 2) (2 page)

He just hoped Algernon wouldn’t be too disappointed that Jeb hadn’t changed his mind toward marriage and using Briggleberry as a permanent base.

“Marriage,” Jeb muttered with a shudder. It had always been something others did. He always wished his friends well if they chose to enter into it, but never once stopped to consider that it might be something he should do.

Now, though, he began to wonder if he might just be missing out on something.

“It's not good enough, Sophia,” Hooky grumbled, his ample girth wobbling with the strength of his annoyance. “She has to be made to understand she cannot keep spending like this. I know she is already in her fifties, but she could live for another thirty years. There is barely enough left in the account to last for a third of that. What is to happen then? She cannot rely on receiving anything from me because everything I have will come to you when I pass on.”

“I don’t think she will listen to me, Papa,” Sophia replied softly.

She adored her father and would do anything to help him, but there were limits to what she could do.

Delilah’s rather carefree ways had caused consternation within the family for many years. Sophia knew that several relations had tried to talk to her about it on several occasions but had all been ignored. While Sophia agreed that something had to be done, she had no idea what.

“Well, if we don’t do something soon, my dear, when I pass you are going to find yourself burdened with a penniless relative who refuses to curb her appetite for the high life. It is not for you, or me, to provide for her if she doesn't help herself.” His sigh was heavy as he slumped into the chair on the opposite side of the fire. “I have tried time and again to get that woman to listen to me. I know she is my sister, but she is beyond the pale. She really is. I know she looks on you fondly, and would probably be inclined to listen to you. I really don’t have any other options. You must go and try to get that woman to see sense.”

Sophia nodded instinctively before she could find any argument. Inwardly though, she hated the thought of having to travel to Hertfordshire. She loved the house she shared with her father and their housekeeper, however, couldn’t bear to see Hooky so distressed over something she knew had plagued him for a very long time.

“If you think she might listen to me then I am happy to try. However, Delilah has always been like this. I cannot see how I can be any more successful than you.” She frowned when she saw her father’s hesitation, and knew there was more he had yet to tell her.

“There are rumours she has a man,” Hooky warned darkly.

“A m-man?” Sophia asked with a scowl. “Whatever for?”

Hooky’s eyebrows lifted.

She looked at him askance. “Is he her butler?”

Hooky coughed and shifted uncomfortably in his seat while he contemplated how to answer.

His daughter never ceased to amaze him sometimes. Her innocent response warned him that while he adored her and wanted to keep her with him all the time, he had done her no favours by sheltering her from the world she should inhabit. She had too much innocence for someone who was three and twenty. While he deplored Delilah’s lifestyle, he did consider that rural Buckinghamshire was a little, well, too rural for Sophia. He hated the thought of her leaving because then he would be all by himself, but was painfully aware he was getting on in years and wasn’t going to be around forever. Who would look after his darling daughter then? Her apparent disinterest in finding a worthwhile mate to spend her time with had been proven over the past several years when she had declared on several occasions that she never wanted to take a husband. To his dismay, in spite of the many social engagements she attended, she had spurned any and all potential suitors.

It was part of the reason why he felt that sending her to Delilah’s house for a while might just show her a side of life she really didn’t appear to even realise was there.

“No. I think the man might be more of a lover.” He smiled when Sophia gasped and blushed prettily, and began to hope that while she was away, she might find a gentleman who was able to open her eyes to the world. As long as he didn’t break her heart, then what harm could there be?

“I will give you some money to take with you, and a little extra to give to Delilah. Tell her it is to cover your living costs while you are there, but make sure she spends it on food and the like for you both. Don’t let her fritter it away on dresses, or dining with her associates. I doubt any one of her layabout circle could be true friends. I really don’t know why she continues to associate with them,” he grumbled on a sigh.

“Maybe she gets lonely by herself? You know, maybe it is a way of avoiding the fact she is alone?” Sophia replied thoughtfully as she contemplated her aunt’s new lover. She was a little shocked, and now worried about what she might find once there.

Hooky studied her, stood up, and moved to stand in front of her chair. He cupped her chin with a gentle hand and pressed a tender kiss to her forehead.

“You are the delight of my life, my dear. I do think you have the most generous heart, and you may very well be right. However, Delilah has always been frivolous with her spending, and rather too arrogant. It is time, even in her middle years, to slow down a bit. I think that if anyone can persuade her to, it shall be you. I shall miss you dreadfully while you are gone, but I don’t want you to miss me. Accompany Delilah on those social engagements of hers and make a note of who her friends are. I think that man in her life is her lover, but if she has any conscience, she won’t accommodate him with you in the house. Find out what you can about him.”

Sophia’s brows shot up, and she immediately began to look doubtful.

“Oh, well, if that is the case, maybe I should not pay a visit after all. I mean, I shouldn’t want to intrude. If they are – well – er – I think -” She stumbled to a halt, unsure what to say.

Hooky grinned at her and helped himself to a liberal shot of brandy. He poured his daughter some Ratafia and resumed his seat.

“I wouldn’t worry. He isn’t living in the house. I just want to make sure that he isn’t taking advantage of a single woman living all by herself. Delilah can be a little – vulnerable sometimes.”

“Vulnerable?” Sophia’s brows lifted again.

Vulnerable was not the word she would use to describe her somewhat wayward aunt. Eccentric - yes. She tended to want to dress in fur, ruffles, and feathers; lots and lots of feathers. Outlandish - definitely. She tended to be loud and wanted to be the centre of attention. Uncouth - most definitely. She spoke first and thought about what she had said later – maybe - if nothing else took her interest. One usually had to take Delilah as one found her, and if you didn’t like anything she had to say then you could lump it.

Sophia sighed. The thought of having to spend any more than a few days with her aunt left her more than a little anxious, and she knew the next few weeks were going to be very trying indeed. However, Hooky was right. Someone in the family needed to try to get Delilah to live more of a staid life more befitting for a woman in her fifties.

How on earth do I do that?
Sophia thought with a hint of desperation.

“If I must, I must, I suppose,” she replied carefully.

When she saw the relief on her father’s face, Sophia held a hand up before he could launch into a flurry of plans.

“However, I shall stay no longer than a week. If I cannot persuade her in a week to watch her spending because the money is running dry then she will just have to learn the hard way and go bankrupt. I will worry her into at least thinking about how much she spends, assuming she will talk to me about it. However, I cannot promise to be any more successful than you. One week. I don’t mean to be rude or churlish about it, but I will not stay a moment longer.”

Hooky sighed in delight and nodded an enthusiastic agreement. He rather suspected that a week in Delilah’s company was enough for any sane individual.

Beaming proudly at his daughter, he began to make plans for her departure.

Two weeks later

Sophia hummed as she scrubbed the kitchen table. Her aunt, Delilah, was busy in the garden and for once, seemed to have embraced being outdoors. Although she was pleased her aunt had ventured outside to enjoy the sunshine, she had to wonder how long that would last. Delilah was most definitely not the gardening type. She was more of a social butterfly who lived to socialise, and nothing else. If she wasn’t going out in an evening, she was entertaining at home, usually until the early hours of the morning. As a result, she tended not to want to leave the snug confines of her bed until early afternoon. When she did get up, it was just in time to prepare for the next round of social engagements.

“Still, it’s not been too bad,” she murmured with a frown.

Although she still wasn’t accustomed to the constant round of social engagements, and was bored with the seemingly endless teas and duty calls, her time at Delilah’s house had passed more swiftly than anticipated.

In spite of Hooky’s reasons for sending her, as far as she could see, Delilah didn’t go out of her way to throw money around. She just liked to go out, that was all. It was a little perplexing given Hooky’s level of agitation. Not for the first time since she had arrived, Sophia wondered whether she should make arrangements to go home so she could talk to him about it. First, though, she had to raise the issue of the state of Delilah’s finances with her – somehow. She just didn’t know when.

“Now where does this go?” Sophia murmured aloud as she eyed a rather lovely trinket box her aunt had left on the kitchen table.

It was plate, with intricate carvings of flowers on the lid. While relatively inexpensive, the design that flowed freely around the box was exquisite. Unfortunately, it wasn’t something she could remember seeing before so had no idea what to do with it.

“Delilah?” She called but suspected her aunt couldn’t hear her out in the garden.

Sophia hurried to the back door, but Delilah was nowhere to be seen.

With a sigh, she studied the tiny box as she wandered through the house. The inscription on the back didn’t make much sense:
To AT, with love, Yours.

“Who is AT, I wonder?”

Was ‘AT’ the man in Delilah’s life Hooky had mentioned?

Sophia decided to put it into her aunt’s bedroom and hurried upstairs. She didn’t give the opulence within the largest bedroom a second glance as she wandered across the room to a dressing table beside the window, and slid the drawer open.

What she saw nestled inside made her stare in shock.

“Oh, my word,” she gasped.

She stared in stunned disbelief at the plethora of trinket boxes, brooches, combs, pins, brushes, and snuff boxes to name but a few. It was only the presence of several ornate brushes in the drawer that warned her that this veritable hoard of expensive items did not belong to Delilah. Mainly because some of the brushes had been used, and none of the different coloured hair strands still caught up in the coarse bristles matched Delilah’s rather unusual shade of red.

Unsure what to do, Sophia closed the drawer and then opened the next one down. There weren’t as many items in the second drawer, but it contained several picture frames, ornate ones just as expensive as the smaller articles in the drawer above, several rather expensive combs, numerous cravat pins, and yet more brooches.

“Why would you have these tucked away in here?” she whispered as she stared down at the trinket box still clutched in her hand.

Intrigued, she ignored the tiny inner voice that warned her she shouldn’t probe into someone else’s personal belongings, and took another look in the drawer above.

Careful to keep the noise down she began to rifle through the contents, searching each item for any engravings or markings which might give her a clue as to who they were from. It quickly became evident that some of the items in the drawer belonged to other people, several other people.

“Seen something you like?” Delilah drawled sarcastically from the doorway.

Sophia let out a squeak and slammed the drawer closed. The look of guilt on her face spoke volumes, but she brazenly brushed it aside and squared her shoulders as she prepared for a confrontation with her aunt.

“I was looking for somewhere to put this.” She nodded to the trinket box she held. “I can’t remember seeing it downstairs before so thought it might belong up here. I don’t believe you need it, though,” she added carefully as she nudged the drawer fully closed with her foot.

It wasn’t lost on her that, for the first time ever, Delilah looked positively menacing.

“I-I am sorry. I didn’t mean to pry,” Sophia added when Delilah didn’t immediately answer.

Unable to get past her aunt, who still blocked the doorway, Sophia had to stay inside the room. What could she say or do now? She had just been caught snooping through her aunt’s belongings. There was no excuse.

Delilah stepped away from the doorway in a silent appeal for Sophia to get out. Sophia hesitated and glanced at her aunt. She had expected her to rant and rave at her. This stony silence was so uncharacteristic of Delilah that Sophia wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with it. She suspected then that her aunt was up to no good and was avoiding a confrontation herself in case Sophia asked too many questions. Why, though? What could she have to hide?

“I cannot remember seeing them before,” she whispered. “Are they yours?”

“What does it matter?” Delilah snapped, displeased at being questioned.

“It matters to the people they belong to,” Sophia challenged. “There are at least four hairbrushes in there, all owned by different people from the looks of it. Where did they come from? How did you get them?”

Had Delilah bought them? Did she have some sort of kleptomaniacal tendency that none of the family were aware of?

“Where have they come from, Delilah?” She asked again, but there was something deep inside Sophia that warned her she wasn’t going to like Delilah’s answer – if she got an answer.

Rather than lambast her, there was a momentary pause while her aunt decided what to do. With a swift intake of breath, Delilah put on a rather false display of bonhomie that didn’t reach her eyes and waved toward the stairs.

“Come on, let’s go downstairs. I think a cup of tea is in order. I am parched. All that gardening is just not good for my complexion. Besides, we are due at the Lord’s dinner tonight so we will need to rest for a while.”

She didn’t give Sophia time to answer before she disappeared downstairs, leaving her niece to take one last look at the drawers before she let herself out of the bedroom.

Sophia found her casually preparing tea in the kitchen as though nothing untoward had just happened. She frowned and took a seat to wait for her aunt to join her.

Was she making something out of nothing? After all, there were a few objects tucked away in drawers in Delilah’s bedroom. There was nothing odd about it – was there?

Well, yes there is because none of those items could be hers,
Sophia thought.

She traced a random pattern on the table with her finger while her aunt poured the tea. After all, what would Delilah want with several snuff boxes? Delilah didn’t take snuff. She was fairly certain they weren’t family heirlooms either, so why did she even have them in her possession.

“Where has it all come from?” she asked carefully once the tea had been poured and Delilah had taken a seat on the opposite side of the table.

The only outward sign of Delilah’s upset was the heavy clatter of the spoon hitting the saucer.

“Why? Do you like them? They are pretty, aren’t they?”

“They are beautiful; what I saw of them. But you have a veritable hoard of goods there. It is a lot for anybody to just keep in a drawer out of sight. What do you intend to do with them?”

“Cake, dear?” Delilah asked. She nodded at the cake on the table between them.

“Yes, please,” Sophia replied absently. The cake was the last thing she wanted to think about and she suspected that Delilah didn’t either. Her aunt looked as though she was about to run away at any moment. But if cutting and serving the cake kept her at the table and there to discuss the contents of the drawer then Sophia was happy to choke a piece down.

“Have you written to your father yet? I expect you will be relieved to see him again,” Delilah said pointedly as she cut them both slices of cake and pushed Sophia’s across the table toward her rather roughly.

Sophia nodded her thanks. “I have written to him just last week, in fact, to tell him I have arrived safely. I have to confess to being a little homesick. I am sure he would be more than interested to learn how I have found life here.”

“Well, I cannot see that Hooky should have a problem with anything you have seen or done while you have been at my home,” Delilah said firmly.

“You know Hooky. He has only the best interests of the family at heart. He was most concerned when he was informed by the bank that the account containing your inheritance has nearly run dry. The figures are dangerously low, Delilah, and cannot continue to provide you with the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed. I know Hooky has already told you.”

“Pah! Balderdash,” Delilah snapped. “Why, there is a fortune in that account.”

“No, there isn’t,” Sophia replied matter-of-factly. “There
was
a fortune in that account. There isn’t anymore.”

She hurried to her room to collect several notes Hooky had given her.

“I have been asked to give you this,” she said when she returned to the kitchen.

When she placed them on the table, though, Delilah made no attempt to pick them up and read them. She refused to even look at them and instead stared absently at the table top while she sipped elegantly at her tea.

Determined not to give up, Sophia opened the uppermost parchment.

“This is the latest figure provided by the bank detailing the funds available. Delilah, I know you probably find this distressing, but you cannot continue to bury your head in the sand. The money hasn’t been replenished for a very long time. You cannot continue to plunder it at will the way you have. While the sum left seems like a lot of money, at the rate you are spending it there is barely enough to provide for you for the next three years.”

“Rubbish,” Delilah protested, still refusing to look at the parchment.

“You are still relatively young and could be around for another twenty or thirty years given that you are in excellent health. What do you plan to do to ensure you keep a roof over your head and food on the table? Hooky has calculated that if you cut back your expenses, and live frugally, then you could have enough for at least ten years. After that, you could very well be forced to seek grace and favour accommodation with a relation. Unfortunately, not many relations can afford to spend as much as you do each month. If you don’t cut back now, you will most certainly have to then.”

“Well, there will be some old codger in the family pass away, won’t there? I will undoubtedly inherit more funds from someone,” Delilah declared spitefully.

Sophia shook her head in dismay at her aunt’s arrogant display of unmitigated greed.

“I am afraid Uncle George has his nephew to inherit his estates, and your cousin, Beatrice, has already spent everything she has. Cousin Beatrice is in the process of selling her house and is going to move in with us, however, will have her own expenses. By the time Beatrice passes, she could very well have used all of her funds, and as the man in the family, Hooky will inherit the rest. I shall inherit everything from him. He has already said so. There are no other relatives to pass on and leave you anything. So, unless you plan to live with us too you must start to cut back.”

“Well, this is ridiculous,” Delilah protested, finally picking up the parchment and glaring at it accusingly for a moment.

She immediately froze. Her eyes widened at the amount stated. Although she didn’t speak, she couldn’t hide the fear and worry in her eyes as continued to sip her tea. After several moments of glaring at the note, she threw it down onto the table and stared absently out of the window.

It is hard to tell from the blank look on her aunt’s face if she was angry, tearful, or upset. Either way, Sophia couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. She had the benefit of financial security but was able to recognise that for someone like Delilah, who had spent virtually all of her life doing what she wanted when she wanted it was going to be tough to live with the new, rather restrained circumstance. She now had to live with financial insecurity in her long term future. Unfortunately, there was nothing Sophia could do, or say, to ease her aunt’s fears.

“I am sorry to bring you worry, but it is better to deal with this now rather than later when the account is completely empty. At least this way there is sufficient funds to provide your everyday needs.” She glanced hesitantly around the house then looked compassionately at her aunt. “Maybe you should downsize? If you had somewhere small -”

“This is preposterous,” Delilah spat and suddenly pushed away from the table. She glared at Sophia as though it was all her fault. “I am not going to be reprimanded like a young child who is still wet behind the ears by someone half my age. I don’t care what Hooky told you to say me, I am not going to be scared into leaving this house. This is my home, and I am going to stay here whether he likes it or not, so you can take that back to him. Meantime, if he wants me to start to curb my spending, which is, I suspect, the reason he sent you here in the first place, then he shouldn’t burden me with another mouth to feed.”