by Tamara Gill
Perhaps they were simply there because of the party.
Or perhaps they’d linked the thief’s crimes and thought it possible that—
She shook her head.
That possibility did not bring comfort to her. She refused to dwell on it.
“Are you lost, mademoiselle?” A voice wafted toward her, and she turned toward a middle-aged man.
Comte Beaulieu.
Most men did not stand about greeting people outside.
Even most hosts did not do this, but given his frequent coordination with the servants and guards, it seemed possible that some of the servants might be guards in disguise.
Comte Beaulieu managed the local department and administered justice, despite his utter dismissal of basic ethics.
He’d asked her if she were lost, though, and she halted and put a confused expression on her face. “Where is the entrance?”
“It’s over there, mademoiselle,” the man continued.
Madeline forced herself to look relieved. “Forgive me, I am new to this country.”
“Where are you from?”
Madeline hesitated. The good thing about speaking in French was that her Englishness was less obvious. Yet could she actually claim she belonged to another country, even if it would help her evade notice?
Was it possible someone inside could recognize her? But she’d been careful to keep her identity separate from such events. She wasn’t going to abandon that instinct, now that people seemed to be truly following her.
“I am Swedish,” she said. “Lady Isberg.”
“Forgive me,” he said. “I did not know you were invited.”
She gave her best innocent expression and blinked. “But I received the invitation. I didn’t think I would need to bring it. My carriage has already left.”
The comte seemed to hesitate.
“Surely you must know me,” she said. “I am a countess!”
“A countess?”
“Are you so very unfamiliar with Swedish aristocracy?” she continued. “I will tell the king when I next see him—”
“That won’t be necessary,” the comte said quickly. “You are naturally very welcome here. Forgive the confusion.”
She did her best forgiving smile and strove to remember everything she could about Sweden.
Fortunately the country was so far in the north, that few people were prone to heading there. The only things people seemed to know about Sweden was that the inhabitants were fair and tended to be pretty.
Madeline smiled. She met both those expectations.
Tonight she would be Swedish.
“And I am Comte Beaulieu,” the man said.
Her heart tightened involuntarily, but she managed to smile. “I am very pleased to meet you.”
“I am at your service,” the comte continued. “We want to make certain our guests are taken care of.”
“How kind of you.”
“You haven’t seen any unscrupulous characters about?” the man asked.
Madeline hesitated. “Why?”
“We just want to ensure everyone is safe. Standard security procedure.”
Madeline raised her hand to her chest, and she widened her eyes. “France is still a dangerous country?”
“No, no,” the comte assured her. “We are quite safe. This is probably the safest place in Antibes.”
He laughed, and she joined in.
“Very well,” Madeline replied. “I must confess, I did see somebody closely following me. I think he went behind the house. That is why I looked worried when I entered the courtyard.”
“Mon dieu,” Comte Beaulieu said. “I do apologize. Please enter—I’ll investigate.”
“So heroic of you,” she cried out and slipped into the manor house to steal the jewels.
This time she didn’t enter from the roof, but through the front entrance as if she were just a normal guest.
And though she might quickly feign a headache and leave, perhaps even before she reached the entrance, she did not. She suspected that speaking with the comte rather voided her as a suspicious character, at least from the perspective of the men guarding the roof.
She smiled and forced her strides to be confident. It was easy to do so. She’d always been confident, even as a debutante. She’d been under pressure to marry, to make some use of her skills at flower arrangement and ability to look pleasing, since no other avenue existed for her to secure some coin. Unlike her male cousins, Madeline couldn’t purchase a commission to battle for the Crown, and she’d had no estate to manage. She certainly couldn’t go to the Caribbean and turn whatever meager funds she might have into great wealth as the sugar barons seemed to do, although everyone knew their means for procuring the wealth lacked any attempt at morality.
Once Arthur left, it had been easy to resign herself to her duty to marry well, even if she lamented privately that most of the men when she debuted lacked charm. Most men were fighting France, and the ones who remained were older or sickly. Her husband Maxwell had been both.
But Maxwell had been kind, despite his proclivity to visit Soho brothels, and he’d lived near her family. She’d thought that an advantage, though her cousins seemed wary of spending time with her after she married. To them, everything had changed, even though Madeline had worked to make certain that nothing would change. Her parents had died from consumption soon after she married, and her efforts to secure their finances by marrying a man of ample means had been unnecessary.
Madeline had told herself that love didn’t matter. She’d told herself love was an invented concept, intended to get women to spend more coin at the modiste. Her parents hadn’t experienced love, and Arthur’s easy abandonment of her did not speak well for the concept.
But then her cousin Rosamund had married well, and later her cousin Fiona. Perhaps they’d been right to scoff at her vision of marriage as merely an act of practicality. She sighed. She wouldn’t make the mistake of marrying for convenience again.
She opened her bag and took out a forged sapphire and diamond bracelet. It looked splendid and would allow her some time to leave the ball before it was noticed. Gabriella had had a watercoloring of the original bracelet. She hid the bracelet in the palm of her hand, and quickly continued to stroll.
French women moved their slender figures through the room. They moved purposefully, though with a slight note of suspicion on their faces, as if conscious of the perils in the room: crumb laden canapes, lemonade that might make their lips pucker with sourness, and overly polished surfaces that they might slide over in a manner associated with the clumsy.
Madeline grabbed a lemonade and slid through them. Some debutantes trembled nervously whenever a man sauntered by them. Thank goodness she no longer worried about that. Being a widow had some advantages.
She missed her husband. Maxwell had been pleasant to be around, and it still felt strange riding in a carriage by herself or entering a ballroom without his familiar form at her side. She’d thought they would have many years left. Life was perilous, but she’d never expected to be a widow before the age of thirty. Before she’d even experienced… She shook her head. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was aiding the Costantini family.
Her husband’s heir had allowed her to remain in the manor house. He’d been a distant relative and had already inherited substantial sums from his father. He’d expressed no eagerness to remain in Yorkshire, dismissing it as too prone to rain and snowstorms, and too far from London, the continent and all things delightful.
She’d been lucky to remain there, she reminded herself.
But she still remembered when her husband’s heir had shown up to pay his respects to her, even though he hadn’t bothered to make an appearance at the funeral. He’d been brash and stared far too long at her bosom, while speaking mockingly about her late husband’s habit of spending time in Soho. She suspected he’d probably seen Maxwell there himself, even if Soho had attracted them for differing reasons.
&n
bsp; He’d then ordered his servant to remove all the paintings Maxwell and she had collected together. A friend at his club had recommended he take them, given Maxwell’s expertise in art.
She’d chosen each painting, each sculpture. Maxwell, though, had paid for them. They didn’t belong to her, and so Maxwell’s heir had packed them away on top of his carriage, unconcerned about the perils the pieces might encounter on the journey south.
A familiar wave of longing and regret for the missing art surged through her, and she sighed.
Maxwell hadn’t been an expert in art. If she hadn’t decided to have him publish her work under his name, if he hadn’t become renowned in the field, she would have been able to keep the paintings and sculptures.
No matter.
She would ensure the Costantini family did not need to suffer as much as she had. She continued to stroll through the ballroom, glancing at the wrists of the middle-aged women. At least being a widow had advantages. Nobody rushed to introduce her to people, and in the crush of guests, it was easy for her to achieve some anonymity. An excess of height was not one of her traits, and it was easy for her to raise her glass or fan if passing a person whose attention she did not desire.
Not that she knew many people here.
Older women discussed their health while giving cursory glances to make sure their younger chaperones had not managed to be seduced by the swaggering Frenchmen who lingered near the punch table in search of heiresses.
Madeline strode along the perimeter on the off chance the hosts might have ordered their servants to display the jewels in a case in the ballroom. It was not unheard of for owners of great art to possess a desire to display it, and Madeline felt that it at least showed some appreciation.
The comte had not done so, either adopting a conservative view on his guests’ predilection toward theft or a desire for his wife to wear the sapphires.
Madeline kept her face in a placid expression, honed from years of attending uneventful functions, and swept her gaze around the room.
The comtesse.
It had to be.
A magnificently attired woman, perhaps ten years older than Madeline, circled the room. Sapphire and diamonds sparkled from her wrist.
Madeline just needed to get closer to her…
She surveyed the room again, just in case the comte or a suspiciously burly footman was nearby.
No one.
She smiled.
And then a guest stepped away, revealing a person behind him.
She swallowed hard.
Arthur.
He was here.
At this ball.
Where she intended to steal the final and most important piece of jewelry for the Costantini family.
Her heart galloped, and she jerked away.
Evidently it had been no idle curiosity that had made him interested in Venetian jewelry.
No matter.
He hadn’t seen her.
Madeline fluttered her fan over her face and strode away from him and toward the comtesse and a certain invaluable sapphire bracelet.
She picked up a glass of white wine and a canapé with her right hand, ensured her left hand remained closed, and wove through the cluster of guests toward the comtesse.
When she approached the comtesse, she dropped her canapé discretely on the marble floor. She stole the bracelet easily.
Gabriella and she had practiced many times before.
But she couldn’t afford for the comtesse, the comte or one of the many burly servants to notice its absence.
So Madeline tripped on the canape.
She’d tripped accidentally before, but this was no such occurrence, and she pushed into the comtesse and dropped her wine glass and the false bracelet.
The comtesse’s attention was immediately on her. “What are you doing?”
“Forgive me,” Madeline said, directing her finger at the now crushed canapé. “Somebody must have dropped it on the floor. I tripped.”
The momentary anger on the comtesse’s face dissipated. Madeline did not look very intimidating. Centuries of painters depicting innocent people with blonde hair and blue eyes had accomplished that.
“Is that yours?” Madeline picked up the forged bracelet. “It must have fallen.”
Relief spilled onto the countess’s face. “Thank you for telling me.”
“You’re very welcome,” Madeline said.
“I will tell the footman about the spilled canapé.” The countess slid the bracelet onto her wrist. She gazed at Madeline’s silk purse. “Some of your wine has stained it. Let me get a footman to dry it for you.”
Oh, no.
This was not part of the plan.
Madeline’s heart raced.
“It’s really not necessary,” she said.
“Nonsense.” The comtesse smiled and whisked her bag away.
Madeline nodded. She clutched the real bracelet in her hand. She would just have to hold it in her palm for a while longer.
The important thing was she’d accomplished it.
She’d stolen the last piece of the Costantini collection back.
Now she just had to exit the palais, a task that should be far easier than entering it, and she could return to the cottage Gabriella and she had rented. Tonight they would leave for Venice.
She made her way to the ballrooms doors.
At least…she strolled toward them for a few seconds.
Unfortunately, Arthur was there now, surveying the crowd. Madeline’s heart quickened. She turned around, once again fluttering her face with her fan.
Perhaps she would need to wait here just a while longer.
If it had been any other person she knew, she would have been fine. But she’d told him specifically that she was going to Venice. If he saw her, he would be suspicious.
Very suspicious.
Chapter Nine
Comte Beaulieu entered the ballroom and strode toward Arthur. “Did you spy any possible thieves?”
Arthur shook his head. “And your wife is still wearing the bracelet.”
The comte beamed. “Splendid. No one outside either.” He laughed. “Or perhaps they are intimidated by the superior security.”
“Good.”
“This isn’t England,” the comte said. “No jewel thefts will take place.”
Arthur’s smile tightened. It was no use reminding the comte that the most recent theft in England had taken place in the French Ambassador’s residence.
“You should enjoy yourself,” the comte declared. “Live the French life. It’s the most romantic one.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to halt my duty.”
“Nonsense,” the comte said. “Meet the guests. Mingle. There’s even a princess here. And I just met a lovely Swedish countess. A Lady Isberg.”
“You must not concern yourself about me,” Arthur said.
“And yet I do.” The comte gestured in the direction of a group of party goers. “There she is.”
Arthur thought it unlikely a Swedish countess had anything to do with an art theft. Women with money would have no need to steal, and he doubted the crime could have been motivated by a sense of revenge. King Karl Johann was popular in Sweden, despite his French heritage.
“Countess Isberg,” the comte called out. “Oh, she’s not paying attention. But that’s her. Can you see her back?”
The comte pointed, but Arthur had already spotted her. He'd never considered backs to be particularly enticing, but this one certainly belonged to that category.
The countess’s hair was piled into an alluring chignon, and crystals sparkled from golden locks. She held her slender figure very straight, as if she’d practiced holding a book over her head.
Unlike various debutantes, she did not cower or display any signs of discomfort at the sumptuous surroundings so far from her home. She did not cluster with other women, gossiping or giggling to hide any nervousness and to ascertain proof of some dominance, however feeble, in the room.
“Lady Isberg!” the comte called out.
“Ja,” the woman said finally. “Yes?”
Her voice was high-pitched, but still charming.
He supposed the thought should not shock him. Charming women were plentiful in the world.
Then the blonde woman turned around. More jewels sparkled from her neck, but it was her face he was focused on.
Her face was pleasing, just as the comte had indicated.
Candlelight flickered over high cheekbones and a small yet sturdy nose. Her mouth could be compared to rosebuds. He knew that. He’d compared them to the flowers before.
Madeline.
Her dark blue eyes seemed to widen, and for a moment he was transfixed by the flutter of sooty black eyelashes that framed them.
“This is the Swedish countess?” he asked with mirth.
Obviously the comte had made a mistake.
He waited for Madeline’s lips to soar upward. Perhaps her eyes might twinkle, and for just a moment they could be young again, both new to London and life itself.
For a brief moment she tilted her head, as if striving to decide something, but then her face seemed to stiffen.
She nodded.
And then curtsied.
To him.
He’d expected her to explain that she was in fact not Swedish, and that she certainly was not of the Swedish aristocratic variety.
“The Marquess of Bancroft,” she said smoothly in an accented voice.
He blinked. “But you’re not—”
She gave him a stern look. “I believe we’ve met before. Perhaps we can reacquaint ourselves?”
“Oh, how wonderful,” the comte said. “You really must entertain the poor marquess. He is all by himself. Just like yourself.”
“I shall do my best.”
“Yes, do tell me all about life in Sweden,” Arthur said. “How is Stockholm this time of year?”
“I am from Gothenburg,” she said, with a glance at the comte. “And I assure you the climate is far more conducive to snow.”
“I suppose the roads here must appear positively bare.”
“Quite scandalous,” she replied.
He despised the way the simplest words seemed filled with emotion when she spoke. Desire lurched through him.