An Honorable Thief

by Anne Gracie

  Maggie's blush faded a little. She snorted. "No, and well it might not. Forty! He doesn't look it!" She snorted again. "Men! There's no justice in the world! Once past a certain age, they only seem to improve in looks..."

  She paused, a pair of Kit's slippers in her hands and stared at nothing for a moment or two, her eyes softening. To Kit's fascination, Maggie suddenly blushed a bright rosy red, all over again. She hastily bustled over to the wardrobe, hiding her face from Kit's inquisitive view. "What non­sense! 'Tis of no interest to me how many years Mr Griffin has. I'm an old woman Miss Kit—"

  "Old woman indeed!" retorted Kit. "Don't try to gam­mon me, Maggie darling, for you've told me a hundred times or more—" she mimicked Maggie's accent "I was barely twenty-six when I set off for darkest India, to look after that poor, ill-fated Kirkshaw family and with not an idea in the world that even before I'd left English soil, they was all dead and perished of the yellow fever, and me all

  on me own in a heathen land." Kit resumed her normal voice. “And that was when I was thirteen, and I am twenty now. Which means, Maggie Bone, that you are thirty-three, and as Mr Griffin is—''

  "Bite your tongue girl," snapped Maggie scandalised. "Thirty-three is old enough for a woman to give up thinkin' about...things. And besides, I've never been wed before and t'would be ridiculous for me to be thinking of taking such a step at my time of life."

  She shook out a travelling cloak with a snap. "Not to mention indecent!" She blushed again and hurriedly rum­maged though the wardrobe again.

  Kit fought to keep a straight face. So that was the way of things, was it? She could barely recall the last time Mag­gie had a serious suitor, and then she had given the hapless fellow short shrift. There had been no blushing then. Nor any oft-repeated denials of interest. Maggie had simply sent the poor man off with a flea in his ear for his presumption and discouraged, he'd left.

  Now, unless Kit was mightily mistaken, her maid was smitten.

  Kit resolved to take more notice of Griffin. He was clearly a man to be reckoned with. In the seven years of adventuring, she had almost never seen Maggie Bone flus­tered. And now, the mere thought of the tall, silent, burly groom had done it.

  Maggie's revealing words—"Not to mention indecent!" echoed in Kit's mind. She hid a smile. Oh, yes. Her dear, staid, practical, stuffy Maggie was indeed smitten, if she had allowed herself even to think of the activities of the marriage bed.

  "Goodnight, Maggie darling." Kit kissed Maggie warmly on the cheek, an extra loving kiss for the blunt, selfless woman who'd shown Kit more love than anyone in

  her life. "Sweet dreams of a handsome man," she whis­pered and watched the rose flood her maid's cheeks again.

  "Oh, get on with you, girl," said Maggie gruffly. "You get to sleep now, do."

  Kit snuggled down in her high bed, relishing the feel of the cool, clean linen sheets. Maggie would have her Griffin, she vowed. Kit would make it happen. Love ought not to be ignored, not when it was there, on your doorstep, being offered.

  A dark, sombre face appeared in her mind. A firm, un­smiling mouth, and cold grey eyes...only they weren't looking at her coldly, not at all...

  Kit turned over and thumped her pillow into a more com­fortable shape. It was Maggie she was supposed to be think­ing of, Maggie and Griffin. Not...anyone else.

  In any case, after this was all over, she was going to live in Italy. She didn't have a choice. She couldn't stay in England even if she wanted to.

  She did want to...

  But it was not possible, so there was no point even con­sidering anything else. Not that he—no! She was not con­sidering impossibilities. He was just some bossy, infuriating man who'd decided to follow her about and interfere in her life because he had nothing better to do.

  English gentlemen never did have enough to do, she de­cided. It was not a good feature of this culture. And once she'd gone to Italy he'd forget all about her, and find some other girl to follow about and annoy, only she'd be some good, well-brought-up, proper, virtuous English girl, not an unknown foreign adventuress, and she wouldn't be annoyed by him following her around. She'd probably enjoy being harried and protected by a big bossy brute; most girls would. Especially when they had nothing to hide...

  And then he'd marry the well-brought-up proper English girl and take her to the lovely home he had built in York­shire and...and then he'd...he'd waltz with her...

  She turned over again and thumped the pillow. She did need to get some sleep; she was so tired her eyes were weeping.

  And she had a big day ahead of her tomorrow.

  A slight shadowy figure moved in the darkness, stepping cat-footed across the slate tiles roofing the Brackbourne family mansion. The illicit visitor peered over the edge of the roof, looking down to the ground, four stories below. A long black pigtail dangled from beneath a small black cap.

  A very thin, very light, strong rope coiled over the edge, dropping noiselessly down to a couple of feet above one of the second-storey balconies. The intruder checked the rope, then slipped cautiously over the edge, winding one foot around the rope like a circus performer, then sliding down it to land lightly on slippered feet.

  The balcony, with its carved stone balustrade and marble paving, framed a very handsome pair of French windows which opened on to the balcony from the master's sitting room. The intruder tried the handle, then pulled out a bun­dle of oddly-shaped metal sticks, which clinked faintly. First one, then another was inserted carefully into the lock of the doors; there was a soft clear click, and the lock was undone. Two catch-fasteners then caused a slight delay while they were negotiated and then the windows opened and the intruder stepped inside.

  The room was very dark, but the intruder did not pause to allow her eyes to adjust to the gloom. She hurried over to the door which led out on to the landing and silently turned the key. She had no wish to be disturbed.

  The room was richly furnished; lined with books and beautiful objects. The outline of two small paintings glowed against the silk-hung surface of the wall, their gold-leafed frames gleaming softly. The paintings were a pair, quite small—about eighteen inches square, but exquisitely done.

  The subject of both was a naked woman; in one she was surrounded by cherubim, innocent and laughing. In the other painting, there was a tree and a serpent, the woman clasped an apple, the cherubim were half-grown boys and the things they were about to do did not look at all inno­cent.

  Kit smiled. She had done her homework well. These were what she had come for; the Bronzino paintings. There was a deep square compartment waiting for them at the bottom of her camphor wood chest at home.

  She removed the loose black Chinese tunic she was wearing and slipped a kind of harness off her back. She laid it on a large mahogany table. Carefully she lifted down one painting, laid first a sheet of silk, then a soft, thick piece of felt over it. She wrapped the whole painting in oilcloth and laid it on the harness. She did the same with the second painting, then fastened up the harness and swung it back onto her back, buckling the straps carefully. Then she dropped the tunic back over her head, hiding the harness completely.

  She pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and let it drop untidily on the floor, then she slipped back to the French windows and onto the balcony. Grinning to herself, she closed and locked the French windows and the catch-fasteners too—there was no point in advertising how easy they had been to open. Let Lord Brackbourne be baf­fled by the mystery when he realised he'd lost the Bronzino paintings and had no idea how the thief had got in.

  People always put locks and bolts all over their ground-floor windows and doors, and also the next floor up, but after that—well, for some reason they almost never expected burglars to be able to fly like birds. Or climb like monkeys.

  Swiftly she climbed back up the rope, coiling it around first one foot, then the other, rising to the roof rapidly and silently, with little apparent effort. It was a technique she'd been taught when she was eight. It
was second nature to her now. In seconds she was on the roof. She coiled the rope up, wrapping it around her waist under the tunic, then padded silently towards the back of the house, where there were lower outbuildings attached to the main house. Here, a high wall, embedded with vicious-looking iron spikes, led from the kitchen area to the street.

  Lightly and carefully, Kit stepped between the spikes; her small, narrow feet were a definite advantage here. She came at last to the dark street and waited, listening, until she was certain nobody was around. Then she took a deep breath and carefully dropped down the ten or twelve feet on to the cobblestones. This was the most dangerous part of the whole operation—the cobblestones were uneven and it was only too easy to land crooked and twist an ankle— but she landed without mishap and vanished into the shad­ows.

  Moments later a horse trotted out of a dark street. On its back rode a gentleman wearing a greatcoat and curly-brimmed beaver hat. Whistling softly, the gentleman trotted off into the night.

  In the darkness the Watch could be heard, "Four o'clock and all's well."

  Outside a back gate of a Dorset Street house, a boy waited, fidgeting in the shadows. Finally he heard the sound of hooves on stone. He whistled softly and a gentleman in a greatcoat and curly brimmed beaver hat whistled back to him. The gentleman dismounted, tossed the boy the reins of the horse, then followed it with a shining gold guinea.

  The boy mounted the horse and rode away smiling, clutch­ing his precious gold coin.

  The gentleman slipped in the garden gate, unlocked the kitchen door and slipped inside and hurried silently up­stairs. There, safely in her bedroom, she carefully removed first the great coat, then the Chinese tunic, then the harness. She opened her camphor wood chest, lifted out its contents and the false base, then laid the Bronzino paintings care­fully in the compartment which awaited them.

  Kit then stripped off the clothing belonging to the Chi­nese burglar, folded and wrapped it carefully in oiled silk, and hid it in the false bottom of the chest. She then replaced the contents of the chest and closed the lid.

  There was a large can of water sitting beside the still-glowing fire in her bedroom. It was an agreeable luxury, a fire in her bedroom, and she didn't often ask for it, but on these nights it was vital.

  She poured the warm water into a large basin, picked up a sponge, soaped it with her special rose soap and began to wash her naked body from head to toe. She had to re­move every trace of the sandalwood and incense scent with which she'd impregnated the Chinese Burglar's clothing.

  The sense of smell was a powerful aid to memory and perception. Your smell could identify you to others; another lesson she'd learned as a child. If you wanted people to think you were Turkish or Portuguese or French, you used perfumes associated in people's minds with Turkey, Por­tugal or France. If you wanted to be thought Chinese, you used Chinese incense.

  Had Kit been disturbed in the act, as she had by Mr Devenish, even if he hadn't seen the pigtail or the clothing, he would have smelled her in the dark and assumed the culprit was a foreigner. People questioned their eyes and their ears, but they weren't conscious enough of their sense of smell, so they let it influence them, more strongly than it should.

  The Chinese Burglar was a fellow who stank of joss sticks and foreign incense. Kit Singleton was a young lady who smelled delicately of rose petals. There could be no connection between the two. Kit scrubbed until her skin was pink.

  Chapter Nine

  The lights in the Royal Opera House dimmed and the heavy plush velvet curtains drew slowly back. The stage was lit by bright lights. Kit leaned forward, fascinated. She and Aunt Rose had been invited to attend the opera in a small party arranged by an elderly friend of Rose's, Lady Hester Horton, and the performance was about to com­mence.

  The orchestra began. A stout man in tights and an old-fashioned doublet strutted to the front of the stage and be­gan to sing.

  Kit's Italian was a little rusty, but she was able to pick up most of the words—he was singing about love, of course... Interspersed with the passionate Italian, other fragments of dialogue wafted to Kit's ears.

  "Another robbery last night...becoming an epidemic! None of us safe in our beds any more."

  The tenor sang on, his voice tragic with passion and un­requited love.

  "I blame the Watchmen—drunk as wheelbarrows, no doubt."

  The tenor strode about the stage, singing, watched se-. cretly by his love...

  Kit was seated at the front of the box. Lady Hester, knowing she had never been to the opera before, had seated her there, adjuring her to, "Sit up and make sure everyone sees that lovely blue thing, my dear. Oh and make sure you notice who else is here, tonight—here, take these glasses. Got to see and be seen, my dear, see and be seen."

  Meanwhile Lady Hester and her cronies, Lady Gosper, and the Honourable Pearl Hamnet, retired to the back of the box, where the noise of the music would not disturb them so much. Kit leaned back in her chair and eaves­dropped unashamedly.

  "What did the devils filch, Hettie?"

  "Haven't you heard, my dear? Brackbourne's precious Bronzinos."

  “What's a bronzino?''

  "A little statuette, Pearl, made of bronze, obviously," explained Lady Gosper kindly.

  Kit stifled a giggle.

  "No, no, Maud, they are paintings—a little risque, I have heard—painted by a sixteenth-century painter, Bronzino— an Italian chappie."

  "What?"

  "Bronzino—an Italian painter. Dead now, of course."

  The music swelled, the tenor poured his passionate heart out at full voice and Maud had a little trouble hearing.

  "What, who's dead? Can't hear with all that dratted cat-erwaulin' goin' on," shouted Maud. "What happened to the fellow with the bronze statues?"

  "Bronzino—it's his name, dear," Hettie shouted back, just as the tenor finished. Her words echoed through the auditorium.

  A ripple of laughter ran through in the audience.

  Maud, relieved that the music had stopped for a moment, responded in disgust, “Oh, an Italian, I see. Big on art, the Italians. Went to Italy once—paintings and statues all over the place! Amazin'!" She cast a glance of misgiving at the tenor on stage. "I suppose he's Italian too."

  "Yes, dear. He's very good, isn't he?" said Pearl. "Don't you agree?"

  Maud pursed her lips and listened as he started the next song. "His tights are too dratted tight, that's what I think!"

  Giggling, Kit returned to the marvellous spectacle that was the opera. The music was beautiful, the costumes mag­nificent. She felt wonderful; relaxed and at peace with the world.

  Four compartments filled; only two to go.

  The operatic heroine's maidservant was disguising her mistress as a boy. Kit watched critically; it was not at all convincing, but the poor creature was in desperate straits. Kit hoped the hero was blind.

  There was a slight disturbance at the rear of the box. Another person had arrived, late. It was very fashionable to arrive late, apparently. Many of the boxes were only now filling up and yet the opera was well advanced. It was a waste, Kit thought. And a nuisance, for the new arrivals were quite unworried about disturbing people with their noise and chatter. Kit was entranced with the music and she wished people would be quiet. But it seemed the last thing people came to the opera for was the music. It was simply the fashionable place to be seen and the highlight of the event was the interval between acts, when everyone would visit each other's boxes.

  "Miss Singleton, you seem pale," said a deep voice be­side her.

  Kit turned indignantly to shush him. "I am not in the least bit pale," she hissed. "Good evening, Mr Devenish." She turned back to the stage.

  "She is looking quite ill," he stated. "It is the stuffiness

  in here. I think I should take her outside for a breath of air. Miss Singleton, Lady Hester, what do you think?"

  "Oh, indeed, yes. Take the gel outside," agreed Lady Hester instantly. "Can't have her faintin'.
"

  Kit felt a firm, masculine hand on her forearm. Crossly, she shook it off. She wasn't the least bit ill and she wasn't going anywhere; she wanted to watch the opera.

  He took her hand in a determined grip. "You are dizzy, perhaps. Let me help you to your feet, Miss Singleton."

  Annoyed, Kit turned to him, equally determined he should do no such thing, but as she turned, she caught a glimpse of his expression. His eyes were glittering, his mouth tense and compressed. He was utterly furious. If she didn't go with him and listen to whatever he was clearly determined to say to her, he was clearly quite capable of having a loud quarrel with her right here, in public. And she didn't want that!

  With bad grace she got to her feet and allowed him to lead her solicitously out of the box.

  "I cannot think why you should—" she began.

  He silenced her with a curt look. Wordlessly he gripped her arm and hurried her into a corridor, up a flight of stairs, down another corridor and into a small room where a faded chaise-longue and a small table were the only furnishings.

  "Sit down," he said grimly.

  Kit rolled her eyes and sat down. At least this quarrel would be in private, she thought.

  He loomed over her. "Now, perhaps you would care to explain!"

  Kit stared at him, outraged. "You burst into Lady Hes­ter's box and drag me off in the middle of the most beau­tiful opera—I've never been to the opera before and I was enjoying it so much—under the most blatantly false pre­text! And then you drag me, unchaperoned, down dusty corridors and up dark and narrow stairs to a room which is obviously designed for illicit assignations and then you de­mand that I explain?"

  He was not the slightest bit abashed.

  "I have done nothing wrong. You, on the other hand, have!"