“You’re lucky that’s all I broke,” Dougal said flatly.
“You broke into a duke’s house,” Meg pointed out with grim cheerfulness. “He could have killed you and no one would blame him.”
The man swallowed. Before she could reply, Canterbury arrived, hastily dressed. “Your Grace, what can I—oh. Well, now.”
Dougal rose to his feet. “We seem to have a housebreaker.”
“One of the blasted house tours?” Canterbury asked.
“No, a treasure hunter this time. He went for Meg—Miss Swift—with a knife.”
“He did what?” Canterbury’s jovial eyes narrowed.
“I’m fine,” she assured him. “Barely a scratch.”
“He scratched you?” The butler’s outrage was climbing into fury. Meg wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t accustomed to such reactions on her behalf outside of the Cinderella Society.
Canterbury and Dougal exchanged a look before the butler added: “I’ll send a footman to town for the constable.”
“Thank you. And wake a few more to take this garbage away and keep him secured until the constable arrives.”
The man looked mutinous, briefly. “I am a gentleman.”
“You’re a thief,” Dougal corrected him.
“And he’s a duke,” Canterbury said as he walked away to rouse the footmen.
Meg shrugged. “Told you so.”
Dougal crouched beside the treasure hunter. He was all coiled strength, loose limbs, patience. The kind of patience Meg imagined a cat displayed moments before catching a mouse. “You’re going to tell us what you know.”
He scowled. “I’m after the Tudor Treasure, that’s all. This is a bit much, don’t you think? Historians take this sort of thing in stride, my good man.”
“I’m not a historian.”
While he squirmed under Dougal’s cold, deliberate glare, Meg unfolded the other pieces of parchment that they’d taken from his pocket. She read the first quickly, dread prickling through her.
Canterbury and three footmen returned as she skimmed the other pages, cursing silently.
“Edward will go to the village, Your Grace,” Canterbury said. “And the rest of us will stay with this blackguard.”
“Thank you,” Dougal said. “Sorry to take you from your beds.”
“Not at all.”
“Perhaps you could take him into the Gold drawing room,” Meg suggested. “In case the other ladies heard the ruckus and come exploring.”
“Certainly, Miss.”
They were none too gentle as they carted him away. Meg turned back to Dougal and handed him one of the papers. “Eaton isn’t just telling the treasure hunters about you, he’s offering a reward. A large one.”
Dougal whistled. “Bollocks.”
“That reprobate isn’t even a collector,” Meg snapped. She wasn’t sure why it should matter, but it did. “He just wants to make more trouble for you.”
“Apparently one hundred pounds worth of trouble. Very few people will be able to ignore that kind of money.” He ran a hand over his face. “I guess he didn’t like being punched.”
“Next time,” she said with palpable disgust, “Punch him harder.”