15

BURGLARY AND OTHER DIVERSIONS

THE CARTE D’INVITATION ARRIVED by messenger two days later, addressed to her simply as Mademoiselle Wilhelmina Rennie. Seeing her name—even a mistaken version of her assumed name—in black and white gave her a slight rippling sensation down the back. If she should be caught…

“Think about it, girl,” said her father’s logical voice, affectionate and slightly impatient. “What if you are caught? Don’t be afraid of unimagined possibilities; imagine the possibilities and then imagine what you’ll do about them.”

Her father was, as usual, right. She wrote down every possibility she could think of, from being refused admittance to Argus House, to being recognized at the ball by one of the clients she’d met this week, to being detected by a servant while returning the letters. And then she summoned the O’Higginses and told them what she wanted.

SHE’D COME LATE, smoothly inserting herself into a group of several giggly young women and their chaperones, avoiding the notice paid to guests who arrived singly and were announced to the crowd. The dancing had started; it was simple to find a place among the wallflowers, where she could watch without being seen.

She’d learned from Lady Buford the art of drawing men’s eyes. She’d already known the art of avoiding them. Despite having worn her best—the soft river-green eau-de-nil gown—so long as she kept her head modestly lowered, hung about on the edge of a group, and didn’t speak, she was unlikely to get a second glance.

Her eyes, though, knew just where to look. There were a number of soldiers in lavish uniform, but she saw Lord Melton instantly, as though there was no other man in the room. He stood by the enormous hearth, absorbed in conversation with a few other men; with no sense of surprise, she recognized Prince Frederick, bulging and amiable in puce satin, and Harry Quarry, fine in his own uniform. A small, fierce-looking man with an iron-gray wig and the features of a shrike stood at Melton’s elbow—that must be Lord Fairbairn, she thought.

She sensed someone behind her and turned to see the Duke of Beaufort beaming down at her. He swept her a deep bow.

“Miss Rennie! Your most humble servant, I do assure you!”

“Charmed, as always, Your Grace.” She batted her eyes at him over her fan. She’d known she was likely to meet people she knew—and she’d decided what to do about it. To wit, nothing special. She knew how to flirt and disengage, moving skillfully from one partner to another without causing offense. So she gave Sir Robert her hand, joined him for two dances, sent him for an ice, and disappeared to the ladies’ retiring room for a quarter of an hour—long enough for him to have given up and sought another partner.

When she came back, moving cautiously, her eyes went at once to the hearth and discovered that Lord Melton and his companions had vanished. A group of bankers and stockbrokers, many of whom she knew, had replaced them by the fire, deep in financial conversation by the look of them.

She drifted inconspicuously around the room, watching, but Hal—Lord Melton, she corrected herself firmly—was nowhere to be found. Nor was the prince, Harry Quarry, or the ferocious Scottish grandfather. Clearly the conversation had reached a stage where privacy was required.

Well enough. But she couldn’t get on with her own job until the bloody man came back into sight. If he was having private discussions, chances were good that he was doing it in the library; she daren’t risk walking in on him.

“Miss Rennie! What a vision you are! Come and dance with me, I insist!”

She smiled and raised her fan.

“Of course, Sir Robert. Charmed!”

It was more than half an hour before the men came back. The prince reappeared first, strolling to one of the refreshment tables with a look of pleased accomplishment on his face. Then Lord Fairbairn, who popped out of a door on the far side of the ballroom and stood against the wall, looking on with as amiable an expression as his forbidding features could manage.

And then Lord Melton and Harry emerged from the door that opened into the main hallway, chatting to each other with a casualness that failed entirely to cover their excitement. So, whatever Hal’s business was with the prince, it had come to a successful conclusion.

Good. He’d stay here, then, celebrating.

She put down the half-finished glass of champagne and faded discreetly away in the direction of the retiring room.

She’d noted what she could—the locations of doors, mostly, and the quickest path should she need to get out fast. The library was down a side corridor, second door on the right.

The door stood open; the room warm and inviting, a good fire lit in the hearth and candles blazing, softly upholstered furniture in blue and pink against a wallpaper of wine-striped damask. She breathed deep, burped slightly, and felt the bubbles of champagne rise up the back of her nose, and, with a quick look up and down the hallway, stepped into the library and quietly closed the door behind her.

The desk was on the left side of the hearth, just as Mick had told her.

THE METAL WAS warm from being carried in her bosom, and her hands were trembling. She’d dropped the picks twice already.

“It’s dead easy,” Rafe had told her, handing over the two little brass instruments. “Just don’t let yourself be hurried. Locks don’t care for haste, and they’ll defy and obstruct ye if ye try to rush them.”

“Like women,” Mick put in, grinning at her.

Under the O’Higginses’ patient tutelage, she’d succeeded in unlocking the drawer of her own desk with the picks, several times. She’d felt confident then, but it was a lot less easy to feel confident when you were committing burglary—well, reverse burglary, but that was even worse—in a duke’s private library, with said duke and two hundred carousing witnesses no more than a stone’s throw away.

Theoretically, this desk had the same type of lock. It was bigger, though, a solid brass plate with a beveled edge surrounding a keyhole that looked to her as big as a gun barrel at the moment. She took a deep breath, pushed the tension pick into the hole, and, as instructed, turned it to the left.

Then insert the feeler and pull it out gently, listening to the lock. The roar of the ballroom was muffled by the intervening walls, but music thrummed in her head, making it hard to hear. She sank to her knees, pressing her ear almost to the brass of the lock as she pulled out the pick. Nothing.

She’d been holding her breath and the blood was pounding in her ears, making it even harder to hear. She sat back on her heels, making herself breathe. Had she got it wrong?

Again. She put in the tension pick and turned it to the right. As slowly as she could, she slid the feeler in. She thought she felt something, but…She licked her lips and pulled the feeler gently out. Yes! A tiny ripple of sound as the pins dropped.

“Don’t…bloody…rush,” she whispered, and, wiping her hand on her skirt, took up the feeler again.

On the third try, she’d nearly got it—she could feel that there were five pins, and she had three, each making its soft little click—and then the doorknob turned behind her, with a much louder click!

She sprang to her feet with a stifled shriek, startling the footman who’d come in nearly as badly as he’d startled her. He said, “Oh!” and dropped the tray he was carrying, which struck the marble floor with a loud clang and spun like a top, clattering finally to a stop.

Minnie and the footman stared at each other, equally aghast.

“I—I beg your pardon, madam,” he said, and squatted, fumbling with the tray. “I didn’t know anyone was in here.”

“That’s…quite all right,” she said, and paused to swallow. “I—I—felt a bit faint. Thought I’d just…sit…down for a moment. Out of—of the—the crowd.”

Both picks were sticking out of the lock. She took a step backward and put one hand on the desk, to support herself. It wasn’t pretense; her knees had gone to water, and cold sweat was chilling the back of her neck. But the footman couldn’t see the lock, screened as it was by her eau-de-nil skirts.

“Oh. Of course, madam.” With his tray now held to his chest like a shield, the footman was regaining his composure. “May I bring you an ice? A glass of water?”

Jesus Lord, no!

But then she saw the small table at the far side of the hearth, flanked by two armchairs and holding a plate of savories, several glasses, and three or four decanters—one of these plainly filled with water.

“Oh,” she said faintly, and gestured toward the table. “Perhaps…a little water?”

The instant he turned his back, she reached behind her and jerked the picks out of the lock. With trembling knees, she crossed the hearth and sank into one of the chairs, pushing the picks down beside the cushion, under cover of her skirts.

“Would you like me to fetch someone for you, ma’am?” The footman, having solicitously poured her water, was swiftly tidying away the decanters of spirit and what she now saw were used glasses onto his tray. Of course—this was where the duke had been having his meeting.

“No, no. Thank you. I’ll be quite all right.”

The footman glanced at her, then at the plate of savories, and, with a tiny shrug, left it on the table, bowed, and went out, pulling the door gently to behind him.

She sat quite still, forcing herself to breathe evenly. It was all right. Everything would be all right. She could smell the little savories—things wrapped in bacon, bits of anchovy and cheese. Her stomach rumbled; ought she to eat something, to steady her nerves, her hands?

No. She was still safe, but there was no time to waste. She wiped her hands on the arms of the chair, stood up, and marched back to the desk.

Tension pick. Right turn. Feeler to be sure of the pins. Probe. Raise the pins one by one, listening for each tiny metal tink! A pull. No. No, dammit! Try again.

Twice she had to get up, go drink water, and walk clockwise round the room—another of the O’Higginses’ bits of advice—to calm herself before trying again.

But then…a sudden decisive metal choonk and it was done. Her hands were shaking so badly that she could barely get the three parcels out of her pockets, but get them she did. She yanked out the drawer and flung them in, then slammed the drawer with an exclamation of triumph.

“What the devil are you doing?” said a curious voice behind her. She shrieked and whirled round to find the Duke of Pardloe standing in the doorway and, behind him, Harry Quarry and another soldier.

“I say—” Harry began, plainly aghast.

“What’s all this, then?” said the other man, peering curiously past Harry’s shoulder.

“Don’t trouble yourselves,” the duke said, not looking back at them. His eyes were fixed on hers, intent. “I’ll take care of it.” Without turning round, he grasped the edge of the door and pushed it shut in their staring faces.

For the first time, she heard the ticking of the little enamel clock on the mantelpiece and the hiss of the fire. She couldn’t move.

He walked across the room to her, eyes still fixed on hers. The sweat on her body had chilled to snow and she shivered once, convulsively.

He took her carefully by the elbow and moved her to one side, then stood staring at the closed drawer and the picklocks sticking out of it, brassily accusing.

“What the devil have you been doing?” he said, and turned his head sharply to look at her. She barely heard him for the pounding of the blood in her ears.

“I—I—robbing you, Your Grace,” she blurted. Finding that she could speak after all was a relief, and she gulped air. “So much must be obvious, surely?”

“Obvious,” he repeated, with a faint tone of incredulity. “What on earth is there to steal in a library?”

This from a man whose shelves included at least half a dozen books worth a thousand pounds each; she could see them from here. Still, he had a point.

“The drawer was locked,” she said. “Why would it be locked if there wasn’t something valuable in it?”

He glanced instantly at the drawer and his face changed like lightning. Oh, bloody hell! she thought. He’d forgotten the letters were there. Or maybe not…

He turned on her then, and the air of slightly puzzled inquiry had vanished. He didn’t seem to move but was suddenly much closer to her; she could smell the starch in his uniform and the faint odor of his sweat.

“Tell me who you are, ‘Lady Bedelia,’ ” he said, “and exactly why you’re here.”

“I’m just a thief, Your Grace. I’m sorry.” No chance of making it to the door, let alone out of the house.

“I don’t believe that for an instant.” He saw her glance and grasped her arm. “And you’re not going anywhere until you tell me what you’re here for.”

She was light-headed with fear, but the faint implication that she might go somewhere seemed to offer at least the possibility that he wouldn’t immediately summon a constable and have her arrested. On the other hand…

He wasn’t waiting for her to make up her mind or a story. He tightened his grasp on her arm.

“Edward Twelvetrees,” he said, and his voice was nearly a whisper, his face deadly white. “Did he send you?”

“No!” she said, but her heart nearly leapt out of her bodice at the name. He stared hard at her, then his eyes dropped, running the length of her shimmering green skirts.

“If I were to search you, madam—what would I find, I wonder?”

“An unclean handkerchief and a little bottle of scent,” she said truthfully. Then added boldly, “If you want to search me, go ahead.”

His nostrils flared a bit, and he pulled her aside.

“Stand there,” he said shortly, then let go of her and yanked the picklocks from the drawer. He dipped a finger into the small pocket on his waistcoat and came out with a key, with which he unlocked the drawer and pulled it out.

Minnie’s heart had changed its rhythm when he suggested searching her—no slower, but different—but now sped up to such a rate that she saw white spots at the corners of her eyes.

She hadn’t put the letters back in their correct places; she couldn’t—Mick hadn’t taken notice. He’d know. She closed her eyes.

He said something under his breath, in…Latin?

She had to breathe and did so, with a gasp.

The hand was back, now gripping her shoulder.

“Open your eyes,” he said, in a low, menacing voice, “and bloody look at me.”

Her eyes popped open and met his, a winter blue, like ice. He was so angry that she could feel it vibrating through him like a struck tuning fork.

“What were you doing with my letters?”

“I—” Invention completely failed her, and she spoke the truth, hopelessly. “Putting them back.”

He blinked. Looked at the open drawer, with the key still in the lock.

“You…er…you saw me,” she said, and found enough saliva to swallow. “Saw me close the drawer, I mean. Er…didn’t you?”

“I—” A small line had formed between his dark brows, deep as a paper cut. “I did.” He let go of her shoulder and stood there, looking at her.

“How,” he said carefully, “did you come to be in possession of my letters, may I ask?”

Her heart was still thundering in her ears, but some blood was coming back into her head. She swallowed again. Only the one possibility, wasn’t there?

“Mr. Twelvetreees,” she said. “He—he did ask me to steal the letters. I…wouldn’t do it for him.”

“You wouldn’t,” he repeated. One brow had risen slowly, and he was looking at her as though she were some exotic insect he’d found crawling over his chrysanthemums. He cocked his head at the drawer in question. “Why not?”

“I liked you,” she blurted. “When we…met at the princess’s garden party.”

“Indeed.” A faint flush rose in his cheeks and the stiffness returned to his person.

“Yes.” She met his eyes straight on. “I could tell that Mr. Twelvetrees didn’t like you.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” he said. “So you say he asked you to steal my letters—why did he think you would be the person to employ for such a venture? Do you steal things professionally?”

“Well, not often,” she said, striving for composure. “It’s more that we—I—discover information that may be of value. Just…inquiries here and there, you know. Gossip at parties, that sort of thing.”

“We?” he repeated, both brows rising now. “Who are your confederates, may I ask?”

“Just my father and me,” she said hastily, lest he recall the chimney sweeps. “It’s…the family business, you might say.”

“The family business,” he repeated, with a faintly incredulous air. “Well…putting that aside, if you refused Edward Twelvetrees’s commission, how did you come to be in possession of my letters, anyway?”

She commended her soul to a God she didn’t quite believe in and threw her fate to the wind.

“Someone else must have stolen them for him,” she said, with as much sincerity as possible. “But I had occasion to…be in his house, and I found them. I…recognized your name. I didn’t read them,” she added hastily. “Not once I saw that they were personal.”

He’d gone white again. No doubt envisioning Edward Twelvetrees poring greedily over his most intimate wounds.

“But I—I knew what they must be, because of what Mr. Twelvetrees had told me. So I…took them back.”

She was breathing a little more easily now. It was much easier to lie than to tell him the truth.

“You took them back,” he said, and blinked, then looked hard at her. “And then you thought you’d come put them back in my house? Why?”

“I thought you…might want them,” she said in a small voice, and felt her own cheeks flush. Oh, God, he’ll know I read them!

“How very kind of you,” he said dryly. “Why didn’t you just send them to me anonymously, if your only intent was to return them?”

She took a small, unhappy breath and told him the truth, though she knew he wouldn’t believe it.

“I didn’t want you to be hurt. And you would be if you thought someone had read them.”

“You what?” he said, incredulous.

“Shall I prove it?” she whispered, and her hand floated up without her actually willing it, to touch his face. “Your Grace?”

“What?” he said blankly. “Prove it?”

She couldn’t think of anything at all to say so merely rose on her toes, hands on his shoulders, and kissed him. Softly. But she didn’t stop, and her body moved toward his—and his toward hers—with the slow certainty of plants turning toward sun.

Moments later, she was kneeling on the hearth rug, fumbling madly under folds of eau-de-nil for the tapes of her petticoats, and Hal’s—she was frightened and exhilarated to realize that she was thinking of him as Hal—uniform coat had struck the floor with a muffled crash of buttons, epaulets, and gold lace, and he was ripping at his waistcoat buttons, muttering to himself in Latin.

“What?” she said, catching the word “insane.” “Who’s insane?”

“Plainly you are,” he said, stopping for a moment to stare at her. “Do you want to change your mind? Because you have roughly ten seconds to do so.”

“It will take longer than that to get at my blasted bum roll!”

Muttering “Irrumabo” under his breath, he dropped to his knees, rummaged her petticoats, and seized the tie of her bum roll. Rather than untie it, he jerked it, broke the tie, slid the bum roll out of her clothes like a huge sausage, and flung it onto one of the wing chairs. Then he threw off his waistcoat and pushed her onto her back.

“What does irrumabo mean?” she said to the hanging crystals of the chandelier overhead.

“Me, too,” he said, breathless. His hands were under her skirt, very cold on her bottom.

“You, too, what?” The middle part of him was between her thighs, very warm, even through the moleskin breeches.

“I’m insane,” he said, as though this should be evident—and maybe it was, she thought.

“Oh,” he added, looking up from the flies of his breeches, “irrumabo means ‘fuck.’ ”

Three seconds later he was alarmingly hot and terrifyingly immediate and—

“Jesus Christ!” he said, and froze, looking down at her, his eyes huge with shock.

It hurt shockingly and she froze as well, taking shallow breaths. She felt his weight shift, knew he was about to leave her, and gripped his bottom to stop him. It was tight and solid and warm, an anchor against pain and terror.

“I said I’d prove it,” she whispered, and pulled him in with all her strength, arching her back. She let out a stifled shriek as he came the rest of the way, and he grabbed her and held her, keeping her from moving.

They lay face-to-face, staring at each other and gulping air like a pair of stranded fish. His heart was hammering so hard that she could feel it under the hand she had on his back.

He swallowed.

“You’ve proved it,” he said at last. “Whatever it…What was it you wanted to prove again?”

Between the tightness of her stays and his weight, she hadn’t enough breath to laugh, but she managed a small smile.

“That I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Oh.” His breathing was growing slower, deeper. He isn’t wheezing, she thought.

“I didn’t want—I didn’t mean—to hurt you, either,” he said softly. For an instant she saw him hesitate: should he pull away? But then decision settled on his features once more and he bent his head and kissed her. Slowly.

“It doesn’t hurt that much,” she assured him when he stopped.

“Mendatrix. That means ‘liar.’ Shall I—”

“No, you shan’t,” she said firmly. Over the first shock, her brain was now working again. “This is never going to happen again, so I mean to enjoy it—if such a thing is possible,” she added, a little dubiously.

He didn’t laugh, either, and his smile was only a trace—but it reached his eyes. The fire was hot on her skin.

“Yes, it is,” he said. “Let me prove it.”

Some little time later…

HE PUT OUT a hand to her and, dazed, she took it. His cold fingers closed tight on hers, and hers on his.

He took her to the back stairs, where he let go her hand—the stairs were too narrow to go side by side—and went down before her, glancing back now and then to be sure she hadn’t disappeared or fallen. He looked as dazed as she felt.

Noise echoed up the wooden stairwell from the kitchens below—pots clanging, voices calling to and fro, the clash of crockery, a crash and subsequent cursing. The scent of roasting meat struck her in a gust of warm air, and she was suddenly ravenous.

He took her hand again and drew her away from the smell of food, through a plain, dim, unvarnished corridor into a larger one, with a canvas floor cloth that muffled their footsteps, into a broad corridor with a Turkey carpet in blue and gold and candles flickering in the bronze plates of reflectors that shed a bright, soft light over everything. Servants flitted past them like ghosts, carrying trays, jugs, garments, bottles, eyes averted.

It was like walking through a soundless dream: something between curiosity and nightmare, where you had no notion where you were going or what lay before you but were obliged to keep on walking.

He stopped abruptly and looked at her as though he’d found her walking through his dream—and perhaps it was, she thought, perhaps it was. He put a hand very lightly on her breast for an instant, fixing her in place, then vanished round a corner.

With him gone, her stunned senses began to awaken. She could hear music and voices, laughter. A strong smell of hot punch and wine; she’d drunk nothing save that first glass of champagne but now felt very drunk indeed. She opened and closed her fingers slowly, still feeling the grasp of his hand, hard and chilled.

Suddenly he was there again, and she felt his presence like a blow to her chest. He had her cape in his hand and swung it open, round her, enveloping her. As though it was part of the same movement, he took her in his arms and kissed her fiercely. Let go, panting, then did it again.

“You—” she said, but then stopped, having no idea what to say.

“I know,” he said, as though he did, and with a hand under her elbow led her somewhere—she wasn’t noticing anything anymore—and then there was a whoosh of cold, rainy night air and he was helping her up the step of a hansom cab.

“Where do you live?” he said, in an almost normal voice.

“Southwark,” she said, sheer instinct preventing her from giving him her real address. “Bertram Street, Number Twenty-two,” she added, inventing wildly.

He nodded. His face was white, his eyes dark in the night. The place between her legs burned and felt slippery. He swallowed and she saw his throat move, slick with rain and gleaming in the light from the lantern; he hadn’t put on his neckcloth or his waistcoat, and his shirt was open under his scarlet coat.

He took her hand.

“I will call upon you tomorrow,” he said. “To inquire after your welfare.”

She didn’t answer. He turned her hand over and kissed her palm. Then the door was shut and she was rattling alone over wet cobbles, her hand closed tight on the warmth of his breath.

She couldn’t think. She felt wetness seep into her petticoats, with the slightly sticky feel of blood. The only thing floating through her mind was a remark of her father’s. “The English are notorious bores about virginity.”