Two Days Before the Auction

 

Greymore Castle, England

 

By the end of the house party’s third day, the crew was tired and the mountain of fake eggs was growing, and the guests, to say the least, were restless.

“Was the weather supposed to be this bad?” the viscount asked after dinner that evening while tea was being served in the drawing room.

Irina was helping the earl into a chair by the fire, but the old man sounded full of vigor when he laughed. “It’s the Scottish border in December. If you can’t take the cold, go back to London.”

“I’m just concerned for our guests, Uncle. If it keeps this up, the roads might be impassable. I’d hate for anyone to be stuck here and miss their own holiday plans. I know Scooter will need to get back to London for his auction.”

Hale took a sip of tea. “Nothing’s going to stop the auction. Don’t you worry about that.”

From a very young age Kat had been trained to see more, hear more, sense more than the perfectly-law-abiding portion of the world’s population. Perhaps that is why she heard the tinkling of the fine china, saw the subtle tremble of Gabrielle’s hand as the “new maid” distributed tea to the guests assembled in the room.

“You okay?” Kat said as Gabrielle worked at the tea tray in the corner.

Kat held her hands to the fire and didn’t turn when her cousin answered. “Mom’s getting sloppy.”

It was one of those instances where Kat really wanted to laugh even though it really wasn’t funny. “Parents do that,” she said instead.

For a moment, Gabrielle stopped working. “Aren’t we sup-posed to be the screw-ups? The kids taking stupid chances?”

Gabrielle cut her eyes across the room to where Irina fussed over the earl who sat beside an identical fireplace on the opposite side of the room.

There was greenery lining the mantle and mistletoe dangling from the ceiling. It made Kat want to sneeze.

“You and I were never kids.”

When Gabrielle spoke again, her voice had taken on a dreamy quality that made Kat look, doubt. She’d never before heard her cousin sound the way she did when she said, “It’d be fun, you know. Just once. To wake up Christmas morning with snow on the ground and stockings full of presents that no one had to steal and a house that’s really home.” She reclaimed the teapot and slowly slipped back into the con. “That would be nice. Maybe, someday, we’ll steal that.”

On the other end of the room, Irina was settling an afghan around the earl’s shoulders.

“Maybe that’s what your mom’s doing?” Kat tried.

Gabrielle scowled. “My mom’s doing what my mom always does: taking care of Irina.”

Gabrielle’s hands were steady once more as she placed a wedge of lemon on the saucer and carried it to the dowager duchess of something-or-other.

“I don’t like the look of this weather, Scooter,” the earl’s heir said from the window.

At this time of winter and so close to Scotland, the days were short and the sun had long since gone down. The mansion’s grounds were well-lit though, and the windows were spotless, but even from where Kat stood by the fire she could practically feel the chill that reverberated off the glass.

The castle was ancient and solid, drafty and damp. But nothing was as cool as Hale as he turned to the earl’s heir and looked outside. “I’m not worried.”

But that was just when the chandeliers decided to flicker. In an instant, the only light came from the flames that burned in the twin fireplaces at the ends of the room. In the darkness, the wind howled louder.

“No one worry,” Lady Georgette’s voice was lilting and light. “It’s just the storm, no doubt. Scooter! Where are… Oh, there you are.”

“There’s part of me,” Hale said.

“I’ve never cared for the dark,” Lady Georgette’s voice was soft, but it carried through the darkness.

When Gabrielle brought the antique candelabra to the fire and lit the candles, their gentle glow filled the room, and Kat could see the earl’s daughter pressed against Hale’s side.

She was not a possessive person. She’d never been prone to jealousy. No. Kat was more prone to simply making sure the very fancy college that Lady Georgette was going to be attending found out that the girl had had “help” with her entrance exams.

There was a murmur going through the drawing room. People shifted and whispered, waiting for the lights to come back on. Only the earl’s voice broke through the darkness.

“Ha! Just like the old days! Always did like a good blackout. Good for the soul, I say. What’s the use of having a house built in the fifteen hundreds if you don’t live like it!” The earl sounded genuinely excited about fireplaces and candles and maybe a duel or two by morning, but he seemed alone in his enthusiasm.

“Great! The cell tower must be out too. I’ve got nothing.” A digital screen glowed in the darkness, and the earl’s heir looked like he wanted to throw his phone across the room. He was starting to pace and the windows were starting to fog, and a nervous energy was coming off of him in waves.

“Did you have urgent business waiting for you?” Hale asked him, but the viscount tried to push the words away.

“Nothing important,” he said, sliding his phone into his pocket.

A footman found more candles, and someone added wood to the fire and slowly the room grew brighter. The fire cracked, and people whispered and the shadows practically danced to the rhythm of ice pelting against the windows.

“I think it’s romantic,” Lady Georgette said. She didn’t even try to disguise the dreamy look in her face as she stared up at Hale. “Oh, look, Scooter. Someone’s under the mistletoe!”

As the girl went up on her tiptoes and brought her lips to Hale’s it was all Kat could do not to throw a lit candle at her.

She might have done just that if the old duchess hadn’t chosen that moment to yell, “We should play charades!” Everyone looked at her. “I met the duke during a blackout. Charades helped.”

“Oh!” Georgette brought her hands together. “I love charades. Scooter, you’re on my team.”

“Well, I—” Hale started, but the earl cut him off.

“Good idea! The Hales and the Fitzsimmonses have always been a good team. You won’t find a better partner than my Georgie, Mr. Hale.”

Kat felt a presence at her elbow, and almost recoiled when she saw the viscount looking down at her. “I suppose that leaves us,” he said.

He ran a finger down her arm, and Kat choked out a startled, “Yay.”

Kat had never been so happy to hear a Bagshaw as when Hamish threw open the doors and said, “Excuse me, my lord.”

“If you’ve come to tell us the lights are out, you’re too late,” the earl snapped.

“No. It’s not that, my lord. Or, well, it is. But it isn’t. It’s just that…”

“Spit it out!”

Hamish looked at the earl but then his gaze found Kat’s. His eyes went wider. His knuckles turned white, and for the first time in her life it seemed to Kat that one of the Bulletproof Bagshaws was trembling.

“You have guests, my lord.” Hamish turned back to the earl.

“Obviously,” the earl said, gesturing to his far-from-empty drawing room.

“What I mean to say, my lord, is you have callers.”

“In this weather?” The earl turned to the window. With the power out, it was pitch black outside, and, if anything, the sleet seemed to be falling harder. “Send them away.”

The lights flickered for a moment, as if fighting their way back on, and, a second later, the room felt almost too bright when the chandeliers sprang back to life.

“You’re still here?” the earl asked when he could finally get a good look at where Hamish still stood in the doorway.

“Yes, my lord. It’s just that—”

“I’m not going anywhere.” The man who appeared in the doorway was tall and broad. His black hair was cropped close and his coat and thick glasses were covered with snow and ice as if he’d walked through a blizzard to get there. And perhaps he had, Kat realized.

It said a great deal about him that Kat didn’t immediately notice the woman behind him.

“Who are you and why are you tracking snow into my house?” the earl demanded.

The man didn’t remove his coat.

He didn’t offer his hand.

He didn’t bow and the woman didn’t curtsy. He just looked at the Earl of Greymore and said, “I’m Jonathan Hoyt. Director of UK Operations for Interpol. This is my associate, Agent Bennett.”

Associate? Kat wanted to laugh. Or slap him. This is how the man referred to his second-in-command? No wonder Amelia had wanted to keep her friend’s situation secret from Director Hoyt. He was the kind of bureaucrat who would race across the country in the middle of the storm of the century just to impress an old man with a title.

But that didn’t change the fact that he was here. Now.

Amelia didn’t look at Kat. There were no signals, no secret glances that might have passed between the two of them—no hint that they had ever met at all, and Kat was glad the woman was so smart. Truthfully, it was a bit of a shame that she played for the other side on most occasions. Nick’s mom would have fit right in with Kat’s family.

The woman was smart and gorgeous, even if she had traded her fashionable heels for tall rubber boots and her hair was plastered to her scalp, wet and mussed from the wind and the freezing rain.

But no one else was looking at Amelia Bennett. They were focused on the man in the trench coat. “I’m sorry to interrupt your holiday, my lord, but we have had bad news.”

“And you couldn’t call?”

“The phone lines are down,” the heir reminded everyone, but the man from Interpol just shook his head.

“I’m sure they weren’t when I left London, but this is the kind of news one expects to receive in person.”

Gabrielle looked at Irina who seemed to remember that she was supposed to be a future countess, so she swept out her arms. “Won’t you join us, Director Hoyt? Miss Barnett?”

“Bennett,” Amelia corrected, but to Irina it was as if she didn’t speak at all.

“I’ll ring for a fresh pot of tea.”

The agents came farther into the room, but no one took their wet coats. It was like they carried the storm inside, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop with every step they took.

“Now what is it?” the earl snapped. “My Georgie was getting ready to play charades with the Hale boy,” the old man said as if everyone in the room couldn’t hear him.

Director Hoyt eased into a chair across from the earl’s. He studied the old man a moment, as if weighing the truth of the rumors and trying to decide how fragile the earl’s health really was.

When the earl snapped, “Are you mute?” Hoyt stopped weighing and began.

“It is my understanding, my lord, that you recently donated a very rare, very valuable Fabergé egg to the Magi Miracle Network.”

Kat was twenty feet away, but she could actually feel Hale’s blood pumping, his pulse rising as he turned to Agent Bennett. “What’s wrong?” he asked. He didn’t care what her boss had to say. He wasn’t concerned with protocol or appeasing aging, insane peers of the realm.

What Hale wanted was answers.

And he looked at the only woman who had them.

But Amelia just looked at the earl. Kat didn’t doubt, however, that her words weren’t intended for him.

“I’m very sorry to have to tell you, my lord, but your egg has been stolen.”

The duchess gasped. The viscount stared. And Kat stayed perfectly still, knowing the best way she could help Hale was to resist the urge to comfort him.

“No!” Hale snapped. His anger and his fear were real, even as the director turned his gaze in his direction.

“Perhaps you kids can go…somewhere else…while his lordship and I—”

“This kid is W. W. Hale the Fifth!” Lady Georgette shouted, cutting the director off.

“And I am Jolly Old Saint Nicholas. Now if you’ll excuse us, I’ve traveled a long way in treacherous conditions to discuss a very serious matter with his lordship.”

Behind the director’s shoulder, Amelia Bennett grimaced, but Kat didn’t say a word.

“And I do appreciate you coming, Director,” Hale said, his mask firmly back in place. “As the chairman of the board of the Magi Miracle Network I assure you that I would know if something were amiss with the egg. And until ten minutes ago my cell was working perfectly. I would know if…”

But Hale trailed off when he saw the newspaper that Amelia had pulled from her oversized handbag.

Even from across the room, Kat could read the headline: MISSING MAGI IS NO MIRACLE.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hale,” Amelia told him.

She wasn’t talking about the egg, Kat knew. It was no more missing than it had been a moment before. No, Agent Bennett was talking about the headline.

“This was in this morning’s paper. We wanted to inform you and his lordship in person.”

Hale glanced at the paper but didn’t read the article. Kat knew he didn’t have to. He just tossed it—at the earl or at the fire, Kat couldn’t really tell which.

“How?” the word sounded almost like a growl. Hale’s hands fisted at his sides.

“It seems this man posed as an art expert and made off with the egg,” Agent Hoyt was saying. “Do you know him?”

Kat couldn’t bring herself to look at the sketch. She already knew what the thief looked like.

“I don’t believe it,” Hale said.

“Oh, believe it.” Hoyt slid the sketch back into the pocket of his coat. “I’m only sorry the likeness isn’t more specific. The best we can tell is that the man is tall with dark hair. Unfortunately, that matches a large portion of the men in Britain, but witnesses tell us a man of this description was seen with the charity’s director, and that is no coincidence. The charity is in on it, Mr. Hale.” The director lingered on the Mr., a slightly mocking sound.

“That’s preposterous,” Hale ground out.

“Is it?” the director asked. “What do you know of your new director, Mr. Hale? Perhaps you saw a pretty face and long red hair and didn’t bother to run a background check?”

Kat knew that Elizabeth Evans was a good person. An honest person. A woman who had taken one look at Kat’s handsome father and believed whatever words came out of his mouth. She was human, in other words. And far too decent for the likes of them. It wasn’t often that Kat met innocent people, after all. Maybe because she learned at a young age that they’re almost always the ones who get hurt.

“Well, then I want her head!” the earl roared. “I trusted them…” He looked at Hale. “I trusted you with a priceless…” He turned to the Interpol agents, his face almost red with fury. “You’ve got to get to the bottom of this. Now!”

Agent Hoyt began to rise. “That’s exactly what we intend to do, my lord.”

“Then go!” he snapped as if it wasn’t the middle of the night and the middle of the storm and they weren’t all in the middle-of-nowhere near the Scottish border.

“I want my egg back and I don’t care what it takes!”

“You were willing to give the egg away ten minutes ago,” the dowager pointed out, perhaps because she was the only person in the room who might possibly outrank him.

“I didn’t want to give it away! I… He made me do it.” The earl pointed across the room to where his man of business stood, a glass of scotch in his hand. “He said it could save the estate. He said I had to do it, but that was before I knew that it was being handed over to crooks and incompetents!” the earl snapped. “I want it back. Bring me my egg back.”

“But my lord.” The attorney was crossing the room, almost slithering, like a snake. “Perhaps this isn’t the time to discuss your particular situation.” Allaway cut a glance at the room full of guests. And gossips, Kat thought as the man let his gaze linger on the dowager who wasn’t missing a word. “You wanted to liquidate your non-entailed assets.”

“That was before I met my new countess.” The earl looked up at Gabrielle’s mother like a lovesick puppy.

“But my lord, you know the crown will have its share, and estate taxes are significant! A charitable donation of this size—”

“You think I care about estate taxes!” the earl roared like a man who intended to live forever. “You said I had to do it, so I did it. Now I want my egg back, Allaway. Bring me back my egg!”

Kat could feel Hale’s gaze upon her, and she could practically read his mind, but before either of them could say anything—do anything—a resounding crack filled the air.

“Look out!” Hale yelled, grabbing Lady Georgette around the waist and pushing her toward the wall, placing his body over hers as wind gushed and ice blew and shards of broken glass sliced through the air like buckshot.

It took a moment for the group to realize that a giant tree was lying in the center of the room, pieces of the ancient window scattered all around.

“Is everyone okay?” Kat shouted, and people nodded, too stunned to speak.

Hamish and Angus rushed through the doors and tried to pull the heavy draperies and block the worst of the wind, but the lights picked that moment to flicker.

And fade.

And Kat knew they wouldn’t be coming on again.

In the light of the fire, Amelia Bennett looked more beautiful and stronger than ever. “No one is going anywhere tonight.”

 

 

Whether it was the storm or the news, no one could really tell, but if there was one certainty in the darkness, it was that no one felt like playing charades anymore.

Hale was pacing in front of the fire, staring down at the useless phone in his hands. He wasn’t thinking, Kat could tell, when he hurled it through the shattered window, out into the storm.

“I do declare,” came the duchess’s small voice through the darkness. “This is exactly like old times.”

Kat might have gone to him if Lady Georgette hadn’t already been there, placing one of her delicate hands upon Hale’s strong shoulders.

“Scooter, I’m sure it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.” Hale didn’t push her away but his tone did.

“But Interpol is here. And the egg is heavily insured. Surely…”

“Your father insured the egg. The charity didn’t,” Hale snapped, then he saw Kat and seemed to remember. “Not yet. The charity hadn’t had a chance to yet.”

“But…Father…” Georgette was turning to the earl.

“Ha!” He stopped near the door where Irina was trying to lead him away from the cold and the glass. “Mr. Hale, if you think you’re getting a dime of that insurance money after your charity let my egg be stolen, then you’re as insane as they say I am!”

“I’m sorry to bring this up, Uncle,” the heir said, easing from the shadows. “But that reminds me, someone should really reach out to the insurance people as soon as the phones are back up. We’ll need to get the ball rolling on that and have it all settled before…”

But he trailed off. His face turned as white as the snow.

“Before what?” the earl snapped. “Before I die?”

“Father, I’m sure—”

“That’s enough, Georgie!”

“That’s enough, all of you,” Irina broke in. She sounded very much like Uncle Eddie, and a part of Kat knew that Irina wasn’t acting. Not right then. “Perhaps we should all just go to bed. The storm will no doubt break, and, in the morning, Mr. Hale and the officers can return to London to get to the bottom of this terrible injustice. And the rest of us can return to celebrating the holiday.”

Hale nodded. “Yes. I’ll leave in the morning, assuming the roads are passable.”

“I’ll go with you,” the heir chimed in. “To represent the family, you know.”

“You’ll do no such…” The earl started but even in the candlelight Kat could tell his face was as red as the ribbons that hung on the garland.

It was all Irina could do to guide him into a chair.

“The earl is going to bed!” she snapped, then gestured to Angus and Hamish to come help her. “I’d highly suggest you all do the same.”

 

 

The first time Kat ever saw W. W. Hale V, she was thirteen and he was fourteen and it was the middle of the night in the Hale family’s manor house in the country—a place that spoke of old money and even older blood and a society so elite one could only be born there. Only Kat was brave enough to try to steal her way inside. That night, she came for a Monet but left with something better.

Someone better.

Or so she had to think as she crept down the stairs of the family wing of Greymore Castle. The electricity was still out, but the storm was fading and, outside, the light of a full moon reflected off the ice and snow. It looked like something from a painting—something from a dream.

But the boy at the bottom of the stairs, staring through the window, was trapped inside a nightmare, she could tell.

“Stop it,” he said.

Hale hadn’t even turned, but he knew she was there, of course. Hale always knew.

“Stop what?” Kat asked.

“Stop worrying. Scheming. Planning.”

Kat half-laughed and eased down the stairs. “Someone has to worry, scheme and plan, you know.”

“Yeah.” He turned and reached for her, sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her close. “But not you. Not right now. Right now your only job is to breathe and feel and…look up.”

Kat pulled back just enough to see the mistletoe that hung above them.

“You planned that.”

“Me?” He gasped. “Never.”

Then Hale’s lips were on hers and his arms were around her and there were no eggs and no thieves and no lies between them.

“Tell me it’s going to be okay,” he said, pulling away and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Lie to me if you have to.”

“Hale, it’s going to be okay. It’s—”

But Kat never got to finish.

Maybe it was the darkness or the lateness of the hour, the coating of snow and ice that covered the huge house and must have kept the sound inside, because the scream seemed to go on forever. It echoed down the stairs and across the perfectly polished floor, and Kat couldn’t help but shiver at the sound.

“Irina!”

But before Kat could rush up the stairs, her aunt appeared on the landing. The others must have heard—how could they not? And they threw open doors and ran down the hall, candles in hand, toward the place where the future countess stood, as white as a ghost.

“What’s happened?” Agent Hoyt asked, but Irina just stood, breathing hard, as if she’d run all the way from London. “Ma’am? What is—”

“He’s dead.” The words were barely a whisper, and yet they seemed to be enough to make her sway. Agent Hoyt put out an arm to brace her lest she tumble down the stairs.

Agent Bennett was there, too, and she turned to Gabrielle who still wore her maid’s uniform. “Show me.”

“Everyone else just stay here!” Agent Hoyt ordered when the earl’s heir and daughter started to follow.

Perhaps Agent Bennett was gone for a minute. Perhaps she was gone for an hour. Time meant very little in the dark, cold hall, with the earl possibly growing even colder just a few rooms away.

When she finally reappeared, no one really needed her to speak, but she did anyway.

“I’m afraid the earl has passed away. Even if we could summon an ambulance…” She looked at Lady Georgette. “I’m very sorry, my lady.” Then she looked at Fletcher. “My lord.”

It was the first time anyone had addressed the new Earl of Greymore by his title, and Kat saw him fight the smile that grew at the corner of his lips. A man was dead, after all. And it was the greatest moment of his life.

“Father!” Lady Georgette cried. Her cousin reached for her, but she pushed past him and threw herself against Hale’s broad chest.

“Well, what do we do now?” Fletcher asked.

“About what, Fitzsimmons?” Agent Hoyt asked.

“It’s Greymore now. I’m the earl,” he said.

But Irina made a sound like Uncle Eddie when someone enters his kitchen uninvited. “You weren’t fit to wipe his boots. He was a good man.”

“And now he’s a dead man,” the new earl said. “And his estate will need to be handled immediately. And that egg will have to be found and the insurance—”

“The egg was not a part of the entailed estate!” Irina snapped.

“But his liquid assets were,” the new earl countered. “And that insurance money will be as liquid as—”

“Stop it!” Amelia snapped. And the crowd seemed to remember, not that the earl was dead, but that other people were watching.

“It’s that blasted egg that did it.” Irina sounded like she wanted to choke on the words. “Whoever stole that egg…they killed him. They killed the earl.”

But the heir was practically rolling his eyes. “That’s absurd. My uncle was not a well man. Anyone could see it.”

“They killed him!” Irina shouted, and Kat knew it wasn’t just a con that had brought her there. She honestly cared about the man, and Kat hurt for her. After all, Irina rarely cared for anyone.

“It would be hard to charge the thief with murder, it’s true. But…” Agent Bennett let the thought trail off, as if seriously considering the possibilities.

“Well?” Irina snapped.

“Given the circumstances… If someone dies during the commission of a felony, it is not unheard of to see the culprit charged.”

The new earl seemed almost faint. “Surely you can’t mean that.”

“They stole from a charity that has helped the under-privileged children of this country since the Second World War, destroying its reputation. They broke the heart of an old man—a peer of the realm. When we find whoever is behind this it will not be pretty.”

“But what will this do to the money?” the new earl had to know.

“My father is dead!” Lady Georgette pulled herself away from Hale long enough to slap her cousin across the face.

“Lady Georgette, please!” Agent Bennett said. “I know you must be upset, but we’re all stuck here together, at least until morning.”

“There’s the Range Rover,” Fletcher said. “We could get out in that. I say we load up and head to London. We have to get to the bottom of this. There is a lot of money, and—”

“Shut up, Fletcher!” Lady Georgette snapped.

“It’s Greymore now,” he told her and she actually recoiled. Her cousin was colder than all the ice in Scotland.

“I’m finished,” Lady Georgette said and turned. “I’m finished with…all of you.”

And then she was gone, into the darkness and the shadows of the upper floor without even a candle to guide her through the home that had sheltered the members of her family for hundreds of years.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Agent Bennett told Irina who had started to cry. Silent tears. Real tears. Even Gabrielle seemed to feel it.

“Mr. Hale,” Amelia turned to him. “I’m afraid this is not going to help your charity’s reputation.”

Hale nodded, cold and stark. Kat knew that he was feeling everything and choosing to show nothing.

“At least the storm will slow down the story, take the majority of the headlines,” Agent Bennett said. “Perhaps we can minimize the damage.”

Hale turned back to the frosty window. “The damage is already done.”

“Perhaps everyone should try to get some sleep now,” Kat said. She reached for Hale’s arm, knowing they would need it.

 

*

 

Kat was aware, faintly, of the opening and closing of doors, of candlelight flickering and growing dimmer as it disappeared down dark halls.

But mostly, Kat noticed the warmth of Hale’s hand in hers, the slight pressure on her waist as he guided her toward the double doors and the coldness of the patio outside.

She shouldn’t have been surprised to see Gabrielle already standing there, one heavy coat around her shoulders and another in her arms.

“You’ll be wanting this,” Gabrielle said and handed it to her. Kat took it, but, mostly, Hale was what kept her warm as he led her through the ankle-deep snow and the darkness.

There was a bench at the edge of the formal gardens. Hale scraped off the snow and ice, and Gabrielle laid out a blanket, and that is where they sat, Hale’s arm around her shoulders. It was late, and Kat was tired, so she leaned against him.

When Angus sat down beside her, no one said a word. Not even when Hamish and Gabrielle sat on the other side.

They were all as still as statues as a light flickered inside the dark castle, floating down the stairs like a fairy or a ghost.

When the door opened, Kat sat up. And waited.

“Now?” a voice asked from the shadows behind them.

Hale waited a beat. “Now.”

It only takes a second for the world to change sometimes. For up to become down, right to become left.

Dark to become light.

First, there was a click and then a light so bright it felt like instant day filled the darkness. The spotlight’s glare shone upon the mansion and the grounds, leaving dark shadows and a lone figure, almost glowing in the light, one hand held up to block the glare.

“Hello, Lady Georgette,” Hale said. “Leaving without me?”

“Scooter?” she said, but her voice had lost that dreamy, little girl quality. “What are you…”

Kat could tell the moment when Lady Georgette’s eyes began to adjust against the glare of the spotlight, when she was able to see the people who sat between the house and the garage, waiting.

“Scooter, oh, I was just going to—” The dreamy quality was back again.

“You weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye, were you?” Hale asked.

Lady Georgette shook her head. “No. I just couldn’t stay in that house with my father’s…body.”

Her voice broke. Her hands trembled. She made quite the pretty picture, but Kat couldn’t help but ask, “That father?”

The side door was opening, and Irina was there, the earl leaning on her arm, moving slowly but moving just the same.

“Georgie girl…” The earl started, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing—as if he’d rather be dead in truth than witness this.

Georgette gasped and brought her hands to her mouth, and the bag she was carrying landed in the snow.

“If my egg is in there—” Hale started toward her.

But Lady Georgette spun in his direction. “Your egg!” she snapped and the sweet little girl act was abandoned forever. “Your egg was stolen in London and the whole world knows it!”

She expected outrage, Kat could see. Georgette was looking for a scene. Nothing could have surprised her more than when Hale pulled a newspaper from his coat pocket and held it out toward her.

“Do they?” Hale asked. “Because this is a copy of yester-day’s London Herald.”

She looked at the headline, but Kat knew it wouldn’t make any sense.

“Yesterday’s real London Herald, that is. The secret’s still safe, Lady Georgette. Whatever buyers you found on the black market for that egg are never going to believe that it’s authentic. Not with another one being photographed and paraded over London like the queen.”

She looked at the headline: LONDON CHARITY GETS MAGI MIRACLE.

“I don’t… How?”

The snow was falling softly, shining in the too-bright light, so Kat yelled, “Simon?”

“Yeah?” The voice came from the shadows again as the garage doors opened.

Only then did Lady Georgette seem to realize that there was a boy in the garage, sitting behind a bank of laptops and very complicated equipment.

“I think we can turn the electricity back on,” Hale said, and in the next moment the mansion sprung to life like a Christmas tree, lights shining through every window.

Systematically, the lights that covered the grounds came on one by one, shining on the scene that, until then, had been invisible from the house.

There were huge banks of scaffolding covered with hoses and fans, a very complicated pulley system and something that Simon had patented when he was seven and was now used in nine out of ten big budget Hollywood movies.

“You can kill the snow too,” Kat said, and instantly, the fans stopped blowing and the hoses stopped running and just like that the storm was over.

“But…”

Too late, recognition dawned in Lady Georgette’s eyes. She grabbed her bag from the cold ground and bolted.

“Get out of my way,” she shouted, but Hale was bigger, stronger, angrier.

“Give me my egg.”

“It was never going to be your egg. It was mine. It should have always been mine. I’m his daughter. He bought it for my mother. But…no. I wasn’t even good enough for that, especially once she came along.” She glared at Irina who didn’t as much as blink. She’d heard worse in her life. And often. But Lady Georgette had been sitting on these words for most of her life, if Kat had to guess.

Nothing was going to stop them now.

“If I’d been a boy, then I would have been his real heir, then I would have been good enough, but I wasn’t. I was never…”

The earl eased closer, leaving Irina behind and drawing on some deep reservoir of strength. “Georgie…”

“My name is Georgette!” his daughter yelled. Tears streaked her cheeks and Kat wondered if her heart was so cold it might freeze. “It’s a girl’s name, Father. For a girl. For your daughter. And you would have left me penniless if you’d had your way.”

“That’s not true. I wanted you to have the Hale heir.”

“I don’t want some wealthy husband. I want what I deserve. And I deserve this.”

“No.” Kat eased forward. “You don’t.”

“Give me the egg, Lady Georgette,” Agent Bennett said from the shadows, and Georgette spun.

Kat could see her calculating angles, wondering if it was too late to run.

Then “Director Hoyt” appeared on Georgette’s other side. Except he didn’t look like Director Hoyt. In fact, he looked remarkably like the sketch of the thief her contact in London had hired to steal the fake egg in the first place.

“Hi, nice working with you,” Bobby said to Georgette, but the girl just shook her head, as if trying to find her way out of this nightmare.

“It’s no use,” Agent Bennett said. “We’ve tracked the sales, you know. You’ve promised that egg to some very bad men, Georgette—three of them if our sources are correct. It’s genius, really, when you have this many fakes lying around. Were you going to give the real egg to any of your buyers?” Amelia asked, and Kat could see the answer in the girl’s eyes: of course not. That was her mother’s egg, and Kat knew better than anyone she’d never sell it to the highest bidder.

“Run, and Interpol will be the least of your problems,” Amelia finished, but Georgette was long past caring. About her father. About her family’s pride. And maybe even about her egg.

Maybe the only thing she cared about was her life.

She looked like a queen when she turned to her father and said, “You want your precious egg, my lord. Fine.” She dropped her bag and pulled a bundle from among her clothes. Black cloth was wrapped around it.

Around and around like a shroud.

Kat watched the dark fabric pool on the snow-covered ground at her feet. It looked like a black hole that was getting ready to swallow her up. But then there it was, in her hands.

Spotlights shone down upon gold and emeralds and rubies and it looked like someone had shrunk Christmas and put it inside one glistening, glimmering orb.

Even Kat had to gasp at its beauty. At long last, their search for the missing Egg of the Magi was over, but Kat didn’t feel victorious.

“Merry Christmas,” Lady Georgette said. Her voice was as cold as the ice on the ground and her arm was as steady and strong as Kat had ever seen as she pulled back and hurled the Gold Egg of the Magi into the ice and the snow.

She was running, Kat knew. The Bagshaws were giving chase and Agent Bennett would lock her in handcuffs and throw away the key. But Kat could do nothing about that.

So she watched the egg fly through the air, tumbling end over end, rubies and emeralds catching the light, making the sky look like a kaleidoscope of moving color against the backdrop of wintry white.

Inside the mansion, the music must have come back on with the electricity because carols filled the night, a haunting sound.

And yet the world seemed to be in slow motion. Kat only knew that she was moving.

She was running and sliding and…falling.

And she wasn’t quite fast enough, Kat realized as the egg landed on the ice two feet away.

And shattered.

 

*

 

“Hale?”

Kat saw her breath fog in the chilly air. There really was a storm coming—that part hadn’t been a lie. She had simply asked Simon to move up the timeline a bit. And if it came with a side of chaos and isolation, all the better.

They were never going to find the real egg—not in that massive castle. Not in time. And their plan had worked, in a way. It just hadn’t worked well enough.

She should have put Angus and Hamish to following Lady Georgette sooner. She should have known the girl would rather see the egg shatter than see anyone else benefit from the gift her father had purchased for her late mother.

Kat should have known that pain better than anyone, recognized it for what it was. But Kat was too blinded by jealousy, too worried about losing the boy to pay too much attention to the girl who might have been her rival.

“Hale, are you okay?”

She saw him stop moving. Even though the electricity was back on throughout the castle, the lights were off in Hale’s room. He moved by the light of the fire to the bed and Kat noticed the suitcase that lay open there, waiting and half-full.

“Going somewhere?” she asked, trying to tease.

“London,” was his answer. “Someone will have to talk to the press. The auction will have to be canceled. The charity isn’t to blame, but that’s the thing about blame: it doesn’t always land where it belongs. Ms. Evans shouldn’t have to face it, so I… I have to go to London.”

“There’s a storm coming,” she told him.

“I know,” he said, shutting the suitcase with a snap, then jerking it off the bed. “I had Marcus call in a helicopter. We’ll be in London before it hits.”

He started past her.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll get the gang, grab my stuff. It might take Simon a little while to pack up, but—”

“Stay.” Hale stopped in the doorway and turned to her. There was mistletoe overhead, but he didn’t look up. He didn’t smile or tease or seem in any way Hale-like as he looked at her, almost like he didn’t see her at all. “You should stay with your family. It’s Christmas.”

“Hale.” She took his arm before he could leave.

You’re my family, she thought but the words just didn’t come.

“Thanks for trying, Kat. Really. Thanks for everything. It almost worked.”

He forced a smile, then leaned down to give her one quick kiss on the forehead before turning and walking away.

In the distance, the blades of a helicopter spun and snow began to fall for real this time, and Kat stood in the middle of a castle, fighting the feeling that someone had just stolen more than Christmas.