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Giving a severe tilt of his head in acknowledgment, Liam reached for the board, intending to replace it in case the robbers returned. He didn’t want them to know about the secret hideaway. That would give them more reason to find Emeline. Something shiny caught the corner of his eye, and he leaned closer.

“What’s this?” Unease knotting his neck and shoulders, he extended a hand into the hole and clasped a hard object. He withdrew a rectangular metal casket-type box.

A fine line creasing her forehead, Emeline sent him an astonished look. “I dinna ken what that is. I’ve never seen it before.”

Liam’s gut told him this was what the assassin was after. He couldn’t guess why Jeneva LeClaire hadn’t told her niece about the case. But by placing the small chest in the place Emeline knew she kept her valuables, that meant she wanted to ensure Emeline found the box if something happened.

“We dinna have time to go through these now.” He swiveled to Camden and flicked a hand toward the hole in the floor. “Close this up and put the table back. I’m takin’ Emeline upstairs to collect anythin’ she needs.”

The warning bells in his head pealed raucously louder once they reached the upper story, and she glided into the nearest bedchamber. He strode down the narrow corridor to the room at the far end, past the living apartments.

“This was yer aunt’s bedchamber?” he called.

Emeline poked her head out the doorway. “Aye.”

He peeked inside, not surprised to see the room as ravaged as the lower level had been. He spoke over his shoulder. “Would she have hidden anythin’ of value in here?”

“I dinna think so.” Eyes narrowed in consideration, Emeline shook her head. “Aunt Jeneva was paranoid. She wouldna even move the table below until after she’d hung an extra panel across the window, locked the doors, and waited until the wee mornin’ hours.”

Turns out she had good reason to be distrustful. Which, again, begged the question: what did Jeneva LeClaire know and when did she know it?

Swiftly retracing his steps, he took mental note of Emeline’s progress before surreptitiously glancing out her bedchamber window.

Broden, hat lowered and ankles crossed, lounged against a milliner’s shop across the street.

Liam couldn’t see Logan Rutherford from this angle.

He veered Emeline a quick glance.

She swiftly shoved a few more garments into her valise. After searching the floor for a handful of breaths, she spotted her hair brush. She seized it and plopped it atop the pile inside the valise. Her furrowed brows and pursed mouth were silent testament to her distress as she cast a wary eye about her chamber.

He returned his attention to the wynd below.

Hell.

Two scruffy men ambled down the cobblestones. Another unkept pair of scunners joined them. Each looked like a down-on-his-luck beggar rather than hired mercenaries. A calculated ploy so Liam would underestimate them, or were they the only riffraff the Frenchman cold find to do his dirty work?

Hopefully, the latter.

The miscreants shuffled to a stop several feet away from the modiste shop. One, attired in a too-big moth-eaten coat spat, and another who wasn’t wearing stockings picked his teeth while they listened to something their apparent leader said.

Broden casually pushed his tam up his forehead, his flinty gaze trained on the quartet. He drew upright as two more unsavory reprobates ambled toward the foursome.

Christ.

“Emeline, we need to go. I’ll send someone back to collect the rest of yer belongin’s.”

She raised her head, a question in her eyes.

“We must leave at once.” He wasn’t going to tell her about the men outside. She’d find out soon enough.

He took the valise from her. After placing the containers from beneath the floorboard inside, he closed the top with a quiet snick. He tapped the bag’s handles. “I believe the contents of those boxes are the most critical. But just in case there’s somethin’ else here we’ve overlooked, I’ll ask Logan and Coburn to thoroughly search both levels later. If that’s acceptable to ye.”

Even if it wasn’t.

Sadness crimped the corners of her eyes and pulled her dainty mouth downward. “Aye. ’Tis still so hard to believe she’s really gone. That I’ll never see her again. And that someone—God only kens who—is so vile, they’d do this, and try to kill me, too.”

“I ken, leannan. I ken.” He drew her into a swift hug, kissing her forehead. She leaned into him, her cheek against his chest, and he closed his eyes for two blinks, savoring the moment. “Come, jo. We must be off.”