Sanditon: A Sisterhood Forms

46

It was well past midnight, and heat still radiated from the fireplace in Mr Campion's study, warming the two figures who had just entered through a window along the western wing.

"Looks like I counted correctly," Georgiana said as she locked the study door, her eye drawn to the tiered bookcases that surrounded the fireplace, then upward, to the balcony that spanned the length of the study.

"Are you... accustomed to carrying knives?" Arthur asked warily as he stoked the coals of the fire. The sudden appearance of flames illuminated the bookcases nearest them.

She pocketed the small blade, "It would be foolish to trust that you would always be around to protect me - and it proved useful to break into this very room, did it not?"

"I suppose you are right, Miss Lambe, but I am rather put off that you have assumed I may not make it out of this intact."

"Well," she flashed a grin at him in the darkness, "I wouldn't say I didn't entertain the possibility."

"I'll have you know-" he started in an affronted tone.

"That you are more capable than I give you credit for? Is that it?" she asked. Her smile faded as she studied him, "Yes, I can just about imagine what that might be like."

The fire bloomed to life and Arthur brushed ash from his breeches as he stood. "I have no doubt you could, Miss Lambe."

She had drifted over to the desk, now bathed in the glow of firelight, and lingered almost hesitantly over it. "That's... unusual."

"How do you mean?"

"The papers on the desk. They seem to have multiplied since we were here last."

"Well... Mrs Higgins wasn't very pleased with our meddling. Perhaps she looked everything over after we left."

"Perhaps," Georgiana murmured, a hand hovering over the desktop, "but why?"

She crouched down to open the bottom drawer for the second time that day, her hand reaching down into the shadows, grasping at nothing but air.

"What is it?" Arthur stepped toward her.

"Arthur... I'm beginning to think someone else has done exactly what we came to do ourselves."

"What?"

"The drawer... it's been emptied."

A look of alarm flashed over his face as Georgiana searched through the imposing mahogany desk.

"Miss Lambe," he looked to his feet, then crouched down to examine papers strewn across the floor.

"It doesn't make any sense. It's almost as if-," she paused.

She looked around the room, at the darkest corners of it, the places hidden in shadow, suddenly aware of the fact that they may not be the only ones to occupy it. The fire popped.

"Impossible-" she murmured, at last, turning back to the desktop, "Bicknell would have told me if he had stationed someone here."

Arthur gathered the papers on the floor, "I should hope so, Miss Lambe," he said, shifting stacks of paper back to the desktop. Georgiana reached for them.

"Yes, well, it will do us no good now to dwell upon it," she said, tilting the paper to catch the light, "But I dread to think what information might have been lost to us."

"And I dread to think what they might have sought," Arthur said, turning to look over his shoulder to the spiral staircase. "You don't think they might-"