"But you must!"
"It's too soon. We're going to take it slow. I'll go to their church again this Sunday, and the next Sunday, and the one after that. You all gave me the idea, and I think it's a good one. I'll let them get used to me there. In the meantime, I'll keep seeing her at the shop."
"Catherine could invite you to her parents' house for tea. That might help things along."
He shook his head. "We prefer our way. We've got patience."
"Unlike some," Matt said innocently.
I took his arm. "I have patience. I'll show you just how patient I can be by delaying bedtime. I'm going to read."
"In bed?" he said, hopeful.
"The drawing room."
Matt waited until we were alone in the drawing room, then he shut the door. "You win. You have more patience than me."
"I'm still going to delay bedtime." I circled him, tapping my chin and appraising him as I did so. He looked very handsome in his dinner suit, his dark eyes blazing so fiercely with desire that I thought I might melt. "But I'm not going to read."
"Wish I'd gone with Duke," Willie said as she poured a second cup of coffee at the sideboard. To our surprise, she'd joined us for breakfast. Usually after a late night she slept in, but it turned out her night wasn't that late after all.
"It were slim pickings at the poker table," Duke told her. "I didn't stay long."
"You should've gone somewhere else," she said.
"I was tired."
Willie sighed as she sat. "We're getting old. You don't like late nights no more, Cyclops wants to settle down, and I'm getting mighty fussy about my lovers."
"What was wrong with the nurse?" I asked.
"Bad teeth."
"Crooked? Missing?"
"She complained of a toothache the entire time and her breath was as foul as a pigsty on a hot day. I told her she should see a dentist but she refused. She's scared of the pain."
"Dentists ain't so bad," Cyclops said. "Not if they use cocaine or laughing gas."
"Anyway, she turned out to be as dull as a puddle on account of all the whining."
"Go and see Brockwell instead," I said.
"Maybe I will, maybe I won't."
Bristow entered, carrying a letter for Matt.
"It's from Cox," Matt said, opening it. He shook his head as he read. "They were burgled last night and the coronet was stolen."
"Is everyone all right?" I asked.
"It doesn't say." He passed the letter to me. "He wants us there when the police call, since we have experience with these matters."
"We have experience with murder, not theft."
"You're over qualified," Duke said with a chuckle.
I read the note and passed it back to Matt. According to Lord Cox, he thought we'd do a better job than the police in recovering the coronet since there was a possibility it was stolen because it was magical in nature. He might be right about that.
Matt and I arrived at Lord Cox's townhouse shortly after the police. A young detective inspector by the name of Walker was in the process of interviewing the servants, one by one. He was in the library with a maid at that very moment.
"He won't let me listen in," Lord Cox said, pacing the drawing room. "They're my staff, this is my house, and it's my coronet. I should be entitled to hear what they say."
"They won't say anything, because there's nothing to say," Patience said gently. She turned to me, sitting beside her on the sofa. "My husband questioned them as soon as we discovered the theft and no one heard or saw anything until this morning."
"How was the theft discovered?" I asked.
"The maid went into the study this morning to light the fire and saw the coronet's storage box was open. She notified the housekeeper and it was she who woke us." She touched the lace of her high collar. "To think, someone broke in here while we slept. It's terribly unsettling."
"Thank goodness the children didn't travel to London with us," Lord Cox murmured.
"It must have happened after midnight," Patience said thoughtfully. "We dined with my family last night, at their house, and arrived back at about eleven-thirty. Byron went into the study briefly but didn't notice anything amiss."
"Did you find the point of entry into the house?" Matt asked.
"One of the footmen says the service door has been forced,” Lord Cox said. “The police have inspected it but haven't reported to me yet. Detective Inspector Walker is playing his cards close to his chest."
I got the distinct impression Lord Cox didn't like being kept in the dark. For a man in his position, giving orders came more naturally than receiving them.
"He should be finished soon," Patience assured him. She spoke with remarkable composure, her voice soothing, while her husband continued to pace. The only sign that this incident troubled her was the way she knotted her fingers together in her lap and the way her gaze followed Lord Cox from one side of the room to the other.
"Patience suggested I ask for your assistance, Glass, but I'm not sure it's necessary," Lord Cox said. "Even though I stated in my message that the theft could be because the coronet contains magic, I don't believe the suspect is someone interested in it for its magical qualities. I suspect the culprit is someone more obvious."
"Longmire," Matt said.
Lord Cox threw up his hands. "Who else could it be? Nothing else appears to be stolen. An ordinary thief would have taken the silver, but this thief went straight for the box."
"But Longmire didn't seem to want it once he learned about the magic," I pointed out.
"Perhaps that's what he wanted us to think so we wouldn't suspect him. Or perhaps he changed his mind and decided he wanted it after all."
"Then why not get it through legal channels?" Matt asked.
"That would take too long."
Lord Cox continued his pacing again, his hands clasped behind him, his strides purposeful.
Patience appealed to me, her eyes full of concern.
"We should still consider the possibility it was stolen because of the gold magic," I said. "The coronet's magic properties were mentioned in that article."
Patience winced.
Lord Cox stopped dead. "That blasted column!"
"Nobody knows it was about you," Matt assured him. "Nobody could even begin to guess."
"If your theory about the theft is correct, then somebody guessed." Lord Cox sat and buried his head in his hands. "This is a nightmare."
Patience perched on the chair arm and rested a hand on the back of his neck. "It's been very trying for my husband," she told us. "He has done nothing wrong, and yet he's being punished by Longmire. I wish he would just leave us alone."
I shared a glance with Matt. We had to do something, but finding the coronet wouldn't be easy, and it would be even more difficult to be discreet. But we had to try. I didn't want to add to Lord Cox's burdens.
The detective inspector and a constable entered and Lord Cox introduced us. "Mr. and Mrs. Glass have some experience with detecting," he said. "They're going to help us find the coronet."