by The Impostor
And she had certainly never responded so to a simple touch. For a moment, she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like if she really were Rose.
Rose could carry on with a thief, if she were careful. And if she were caught, she’d shame no one but herself. Of course, poor little Rose would never dream of doing such a thing. Almost the only thing the girl had in the world was her virtue.
Monty finished locking the safe box and turned to her. “I know the way out. You don’t have to show me the door,” he said softly. His voice was gentle, almost apologetic.
Suddenly Clara felt silly for fearing him, if that was indeed the emotion she’d felt. What had he done but touch her? He’d not harmed her at all, despite every opportunity.
“No, I’ll take you back.” She smiled and reached for his hand once more.
This time, however, she was profoundly aware of how large his hand was, and of how warm. There was something new in his grasp. Awareness and … caution? He held her fingers carefully, as if to let her know that she could pull free at any time if she wanted.
He was kind, she decided. Kind and daring and very, very … interesting.
Chapter Seven
The girl said not a word as she led Dalton back up the black stairwell to the attic. They stopped before the window where he had entered.
“My master will be opening his safe in a few days’ time.” She cocked her head and smiled slightly in the faint glow through the sooty window.
Dalton found that he missed that wild-child grin.
“You’d best get all them papers back in there by then,” she added. Then the wicked smile flashed all too briefly in the dimness.
Startled, Dalton realized that she hadn’t been fooled at all. Had she seen him take only the files, or had she guessed?
She stepped back, almost disappearing in the attic shadows. “Fare thee well, Monty.” The soft scuff of her shoes moved away, and she was gone from his sight.
“Wait. You didn’t tell me your name.”
Her soft laughter came dancing back to him through the darkness.
“Why, ‘tis Rose, of course.”
The stews of London smelled nothing like food. This portion of the city reminded James Cunnington more of decay than cooking. The loose community that had built up over the years around the estuaries of the Thames—long since shortened to stews—attracted the lowest rung of civilization. Excrement, both animal and human, could be found in the gutters. Everywhere was the pervasive stench of urine, both new and old. Coal smoke mixed with the miasma to cause a choking brew that nearly blocked the sun, even at the hour of noon.
There was no sum now, for the hour neared midnight. Torches lit the entrances of those establishments that could not afford lanterns or perhaps did not want to risk almost constant theft and breakage.
He and Collis were here to investigate the subjects of yet another Sir Thorogood cartoon. They’d identified more than two dozen such subjects today and they were bloody tired of it. Now they were on the hunt for a whore who went by the name of Fleur.
The public houses lined the street and whores lined the alleys. For a penny, one could even lie down with one of diemon a straw pallet in a tiny wretched crib. If a bloke only wanted to spare a ha’penny, or perhaps just a swallow or two from his flask, he could take a whore up against the alley wall and never so much as wrinkle his trousers.
James had tried it once in his younger and more drunken days, but the odor from the woman’s rotting teeth had doused his lust like a candle. He’d paid her anyway and ducked off into the night, half-shamed but mostly relieved that he hadn’t followed through.
Still, he could read the thoughts in Collis’s mind as if they were his own, not so long ago. It was not easy for a gentleman to take care of his satisfaction. Young ladies were off limits, as they should be. Mistresses were expensive and James had spent too much time with Simon—son of a Covent Market whore—to ever wish that life on a woman. Widows were a possibility, but they often expected marriage. Wives were the most convenient but the trickiest, having husbands who tended toward jealousy.
Lavinia had been a wife. Of course, Lavinia had also been a vicious, kidnapping, murdering French spy who had brought about the deaths of several of the Liars before she was stopped, but when James had met her he hadn’t known that. All he’d known was that she knew how to do things he’d only heard about and that seemed character reference enough for him.
He would never be that stupid again. And neither would Collis if James had anything to do with it.
“Put your eyes back in your head. Col. Those bosoms are constructed from whalebone and that laughter comes from opium.”
Collis pulled his head back into the unmarked carriage, grinning and unrepentant. “Don’t worry, James. I’m only looking. I won’t go blind from looking.”
James snorted. “No, not from looking.”
They spared a moment for boyish snickers, then returned to the discussion of their plan, which had been interrupted by Collis’s distraction. James wasn’t sure how much Dalton had revealed to his heir about the Liar’s Club, so he’d kept the origin of his quest secret, only telling Collis that he needed to track down Sir Thorogood’s most recent subjects. Collis had agreed so willingly and unquestioningly that James suspected his friend would have come along on any excuse in order to occupy his mind.
“We’re two young louts with more money than brains, and we’ve a wager at White’s that we’ll be the first to find the mysterious Fleur.”
Collis raised a brow. “I like it. Original.”
It wasn’t original at all, they soon learned. The first publican they hailed answered almost before they got the question out.
“Don’t know any Fleur, she ain’t here,” he recited as if by rote. “But there’s a girl in the corner over there that’ll let you call her anything you want.”
James and Collis peered through the smoky pub to spy a young girl sitting on the corner bench. She was pretty and fairly clean, but her eyes held a level of emptiness that bordered on idiocy. Collis whistled low. “I don’t think she’s a French spy, do you?”
James flinched. His affair with Lady Winchell and her subsequent treasonous acts had been made all too public by Lavinia herself. Her defense had been that she had never meant to shoot the Prime Minister, but had truly been aiming at her former lover, James. The gossip sheets had outdone themselves for days, although the furor had subsided when the Prince had decorated James at the same time he had knighted Simon Raines.
Collis sent him an apologetic glance. “Oh … sorry, old man.”
James forced a careless smile and shrugged off the familiar burn of humiliation and regret. He was simply going to have to get used to this sort of thing.
Collis turned back to the publican, adopting a slur and waved the wrinkled bit of newsprint with the cartoon on it. “Want the real Fleur. Want her! Got the brass to pay her well, and you, too.”
The man shrugged as if he’d heard it all too many times to care. “No Fleur. Nobody knows her. Damned paper sending you sods all over the city, lookin’ for some whore what don’t exist.” He turned his back, muttering about wasted time and sorry sods.
That was the story all over the stews, and finally James and collis called it an evening. Or rather, a morning.
“These girls change their names more often than they change their drawers,” James complained when they were back inside the carriage. “She’s long gone, if she ever existed. Who’s next on the list?”
Collis pulled out the file and flipped through the cartoons within. “We’ve identified everyone in this lot except for two of the four people in the Fleur cartoon. I’ll wager anything that Fleur is a figment of Sir Thorogood’s imagination.”
James nodded. “Sounds good to me. I doubt we’ll ever identify the third man, with only half his face to go on. We’ve two hours until dawn. Let’s get some sleep now. I’ve much to do tomorrow.”
“You mean today.” Collis yawned. “W
ell, if you wanted to cure me of ever visiting a whore, you just did.” Shuddering, he glanced out the carriage window at the women still wandering the streets. “What a life.”
“I wouldn’t call it that.” James shook his head. “That’s no life at all.”
There was no reason for Dalton to be looking behind him every step of the walk to the club the next morning, yet he was. He felt compelled to check under every cap, every tall hat, that filled the streets around him.
A great many people were about today, both walking and driving. Carriages and carts on the cobbles, people of all sorts on the walks. Dalton had his own money tucked deep inside his waistcoat, but he knew that many of those around him would lose their purses today.
A glint of light hair caught his eye as a gentleman doffed his hat to some ladies and Dalton squinted to see through the crowd. No, the bloke was too old …
Dalton was beginning to wonder if he was losing his mind. He had seen the fair-haired man twice more since the attack in the alley yesterday, or at least he thought he had. Both times had been a mere flicker of an image at the corner of his vision, yet when he’d tried to get a better look, the stranger was not there.
He’d described the fellow to the Liars in detail, but none of them had any help to offer, nor had they seemed terribly impressed by his urgency. After the first time he hadn’t mentioned it to them again.
He would deal with this one on his own, as he was dealing with the Sir Thorogood case.
Which was going nowhere fast. He’d spent two evenings attending every ridiculous ball and excruciating musicale that he could bear, and still he had not flushed out anyone who made protest of his posturing.
Except perhaps the blond man. He could very well be associated with the fellow, or even be the artist himself, though he looked more like a cricket master than a flamboyant artist.
Still, unless the fellow left a drawing of himself behind, Dalton didn’t stand much chance of identifying him by description alone. It was too bad that the Liars didn’t have an artist of their own …
He stopped in his tracks. What a brilliant idea. An artist could supply every Liar with a sketch of suspicious characters. The identification rate would soar. No enemy operative would be safe within the boundaries of London or Westminster!
Dalton realized that he was standing stock-still in the center of the walk with a stupid grin on his face, like a child who had spotted the confectioner’s shop. Two ladies stepped around him with a whisper and a twitter, followed by two footmen laden with shopping. Dalton removed his hat and bowed deeply in his best Sir Thorogood manner.
“My apologies, dear ladies. I was only struck still by your brilliance. Do forgive me.”
The twittering increased, but their gazes turned from judging to flirtatious as they walked on. Dalton returned his hat to his head and turned to cross the busy thoroughfare.
He’d been traversing the dangerous streets of London for many years, and the way of it was second nature. Keep one’s attention focused on both lanes of heavy mid-morning traffic, watch for oncoming carriages, carts, and riders, and run for one’s life.
He’d almost made it across when a man on horseback veered suddenly to cut him off. Backpedaling, Dalton cursed under his breath and made to dodge around the horse’s rear.
The heavy rattle of wheels sounded far too close and Dalton jerked his head to the left to see an ale wagon bearing directly on him at high speed. He leaped forward out of the way, his coattails clearing the rushing vehicle by mere inches.
Only to find himself in the path of a coal cart coming fast from his right. The lead horse threw up his head in alarm. There was nothing that Dalton could do but to reach for the harness and pray.
His hand closed around the leather strap at the horse’s jaw and he was jerked from his feet. With all his might, he pulled down on the strap, using the leverage to swing one leg up on the cart horse’s back. There he hung sideways on the wild-eyed animal feeling like a circus fool, but at least he was not lying chopped beneath sixteen iron-shod hooves.
The carter called halt and Dalton felt the horse come to a shuddering stop. Gratefully, he slipped off to land on his feet and released his death grip on the chin strap.
“Oy, there, guv’nor! You all right, sir?” The drover stumped forward to hold the horse, his sweating face horrified and fearful. “I din’t see you ‘tall! The coal’s that heavy, it don’t stop easy. Tell me you’re all right, sir.”
Dalton dusted himself off. “I’m very well, my good man. That was fine driving. Couldn’t have done better myself.”
Profound relief crossed the stout man’s face. No doubt the fellow had dealt with “the Quality” before. Many a gentleman of the ton would have had the fellow up on charges, even for something so unavoidable.
Yet had it been an accident, or something more sinister? Pedestrians were struck so often in the London streets that under any other circumstances, Dalton would have thought it was just bad timing on his part. After all, if it hadn’t been for the man on horseback—
A fair-haired man, well dressed, with his hat pulled low. Dalton had only had the merest glimpse as he’d dodged behind the horse. He hadn’t seen the fellow’s face at all. He honestly couldn’t be sure. And yet, the ale wagon hadn’t so much as slowed its pace.
Had the mystery man purposely herded Dalton into danger? If so, it was the perfect crime. Murder by ale cart would never be investigated. He would have simply been another unfortunate story for nannies to tell their charges, a cautionary tale about looking both ways before crossing the street.
After reassuring the carter once more, Dalton headed onward down the street to a hack stand. From now on, he’d be taking a carriage to work. His daily constitutionals were becoming deadly.
Morning sunlight streamed into Oswald Trapp’s study, illuminating dust motes into flakes of gold and making Clara’s eyes water as she glared at Oswald’s stubborn safe box.
She blew her straggling hair from before her eyes and bent to the lock to try again. Had Monty told her to hold the top pick still and move the bottom one, or was it the other way around?
Perhaps Wadsworth’s safe box worked differently from the Trapps’. Or perhaps she was simply no use at all at this sort of thing. Fortunately, she had decided to practice on Oswald’s safe first.
She wiggled her new homemade lock picks in the keyhole once more, but nothing happened. She sighed. What she needed was a set of real picks. A hatpin and a dismantled scissor blade were never meant to be put to such purpose.
She changed her approach and began again, even as she berated herself for her stubbornness. This was a terrible idea. She was losing her mind. There was nothing interesting left in Wadsworth’s safe.
Except that Monty would be returning the papers soon, she was sure of it. And somewhere in that stack of documents might just be the ticket to striking a real blow for her objective. She’d been combing Wads-worth’s desk for months, hoping the man would accidentally leave something useful for her, but she’d never dreamed she’d be able to get inside his safe.
Not to mention that it would be a lovely excuse to see Monty again.
“Oh, shut it,” she muttered to the little voice. “You’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
Monty. You recall, with the mysterious mask and the roguish grin and the way he has of making your toes curl when he stands close to you in the dark?
Clara sighed. “Oh. That Monty.” She was becoming as silly as Beatrice, drat it. All atwitter over a man.
Worse. All atwitter over a thief.
Clara bit her lip and forced herself to concentrate on her task. Now was no time to be thinking about the heat of his hands over hers, or the way she’d felt when his arms were around her as he had demonstrated the picks. Or the touch of his slightly rough fingertip on her mouth, and how her body had responded, warming and aching between her—
The lock tumbled, something clicked, and the door of the safe box opened into her hands. She�
��d done it!
Clara’s fingers twitched with curiosity, but with ruthless self-control she quickly closed the door and worked the lock back into action with her makeshift picks. She wasn’t here to snoop into the Trapps’ business, but to practice what Monty had shown her last night.
Now, again.
But the picks felt like pikes in her clumsy fingers and no matter how she concentrated, nothing she did seemed to work. How had Monty held this pick, and how had he moved that one? She ought to have paid better attention, but he’d been scrambling her thoughts with his large hard body pressing to her back. She’d felt the heat coming from him through the fabric of her gown, felt it sink into her and warm her from a certain spot within. He was a big man, bigger than Bentley. She wondered if his size corresponded—
The lock went snick. Clara blinked as the door popped open. She’d done it again, but she’d been so busy thinking of a certain masked thief and his certain parts that she didn’t even remember doing it. …
Aha? She grinned and shut the door, working the picks to lock it once more. Then she purposely concentrated on nothing but the dark need in Monty’s touch when she’d turned in his arms to face him. With sudden intensity, she wished she’d kissed him. Kissed him and wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body close enough to feel his bulging—
Click. Clara pulled her thoughts from the fascinating contents of Monty’s trousers with difficulty, then smiled as the door released once more. It seemed that all she needed to do was think terrible, scandalous thoughts about Monty and nothing would be safe from her picks.
She’d just jimmied the lock tight again when she heard the knob of the study door rattle. Quickly, she stood and straightened her skirts. By the time the door opened and Kitty entered, Clara was serenely examining a shelf of books, her head angled to read the titles.
“Oh, there you are. Auntie. Mama said she’s ready to go shopping if you are.”
“Oh … yes, shopping.” Drat. It was her own fault. She’d committed to purchasing a new gown yesterday. And she did need something appropriately featherheaded to impress Sir Impostor with her inanity. She turned a smile on Kitty. “I shall be ready as soon as I’ve fetched my bonnet and spencer.”