Now that she knew the handsome marquess was secretly the ill-mannered younger brother of her favorite Bow Street Runner, she liked Hawkridge’s company even less. Yet she could not cut him. Both slights had been confessed to her in secret.
Even if Hawkridge would have caused offense to Dahlia directly, he was still a marquess—and thus a very eligible bachelor. With the slightest murmur of disapproval from his lips, Dahlia’s invitations to all future society functions would disappear in a heartbeat. No marriage-minded mama would risk alienating a titled lord in want of a bride due to having the “wrong element” on the guest list.
She would simply have to play the game.
“I did indeed open a charitable school,” she answered with an ingratiating flutter of her eyelashes. “I don’t suppose you’d like to contribute to the cause?”
His smile faltered.
Dahlia tried hide her pleasure that her barb had struck true. Of course he couldn’t contribute. Hawkridge was at this party for a similar reason to her own. He needed to drum up an heiress to refill his family coffers.
By phrasing her question as to whether he’d like to contribute, she had placed him in an even tighter spot. If he said no, he’d be a heartless cad. And if he said yes, he’d have to explain why it was that he could not. A perfect question that no reputation-minded gentleman could possibly answer.
Hawkridge’s only recourse would be to feign catching a glimpse of an old friend across the room, and beg his leave before the conversation could go any further.
Precisely what Dahlia wanted.
His eyes met hers.
“I would like to,” he said quietly. “Current circumstances do not allow me to make an immediate gift, but please trust that the moment my resources improve, your boarding school will be the first and greatest recipient of any funds I can spare.”
Dahlia’s throat grew thick. Blast Hawkridge’s self-effacing sincerity. No wonder Faith still held a tendre for the man after twelve long years.
“Thank you,” she said grudgingly. “You are all that is generous and kind.”
What she really wished to ask was where the devil his kind, generous spirit had been when his brother had displayed the courage to introduce himself.
She hadn’t told Simon that she had known Hawkridge since the day of her come-out eight years earlier. The way Simon felt about people living double lives, she hadn’t wanted to admit there was more to hers than met the eyes, too.
If Simon found out she was of the same social ilk as his brother, one of two things would happen. He would walk away in disgust over the subterfuge—or he would realize their class differences were too great to overcome, and cease his attentions altogether.
Either way, she would lose him. She hoped to put off that day for as long as she could. Their romance had always been doomed. The best she could aspire for was enjoying their stolen moments to the fullest while she still had him.
“Out of curiosity, you haven’t seen Miss Di…” Hawkridge coughed into his gloved fist and shifted his weight.
Dahlia narrowed her eyes. “Have I seen who?”
“No one. Nothing,” he said quickly, with only the slightest flush to give lie to his words. “I am monopolizing too much of your time. Please excuse me.”
Wind nearly blew from his heels, so swift was his exit.
Had he almost asked her about Faith? Dahlia stared after the fleeing marquess with a mix of disbelief and joy. “No one.” Ha! She could not have devised a worse punishment.
If the tendre was mutual, that meant Hawkridge wanted Faith and couldn’t have her. A perfect reversal of the situation in their youth.
Good. He deserved it. Even if Faith did not.
Dahlia wished she could tell her best friend about the conversation that had just transpired. But she had promised years ago not only that she wouldn’t interfere in the private matters between Faith and Hawkridge, but also swore never to mention Faith’s name to him, or report anything he might have said. To do so simply hurt Faith too much.
If Hawkridge wished to patch their past differences, she had said firmly the last time Dahlia dared broach the topic, then he knew where to find her. And if he did not, then Faith was much better off without him crossing her mind.
“Is he going to pay you a call?” squealed a hushed voice from behind Dahlia’s shoulder.
“Mother, no.” Dahlia turned to face her in exasperation. “I’m not interested in Hawkridge and he’s not interested in me.”
“How can you think that?” Mother whispered with obvious delight. “He spoke to you completely on his own, without a single subtle hint from my lips.”
Dahlia could only imagine how not-subtly her mother had been prodding eligible bachelors all evening.
“I am not interested,” she repeated. “I’m surprised you are. You must know he’s penniless.”
“I know he’s a marquess,” Mother replied primly. “I certainly wouldn’t be ashamed if my second daughter became a marchioness.”
“What if I just became a Mrs.?” Dahlia asked. “Or a perfectly happy old maid?”
Mother blanched. “Don’t even say such horrid things. There’s still plenty of time for you to find a promising match.”
“Is there?” Dahlia asked. “I’m five-and-twenty. Some would say I’m already an old maid.”
“This may well be your last viable season,” her mother admitted. “That is why we must make it count. If you are to be a mere ‘Mrs.,’ then by God, it will be with the finest gentleman I can beg you an introduction to. I want you to be happy, darling.”
Dahlia’s smile softened. She and her mother rarely saw eye-to-eye, but through the years, she had never doubted that she was loved. “I think we’ve exhausted the supply of single men at this gathering. Should we not be flitting to the next?”
Mother’s expression brightened. “Almost. You’ve not yet spoken to the host of this soirée. Go bid well wishes to Mr. Mapleton, and we can be on our way. Unless he invites you for a romantic stroll in the back garden.”
Dahlia valiantly refrained from gagging. Phineas Mapleton was her least favorite acquaintance of the entire Beau Monde. She would rather throw herself from Blackfriars Bridge than spend a moment alone with him. But if thanking him for tonight’s party meant she could leave it all the sooner, then there was no choice but to face him and have done.
Girding her loins against what was certain to be an infuriating encounter, she rolled back her shoulders and strode toward the refreshment table where Mapleton was currently regaling a group of young dandies with one of his interminable stories.
“—which is how I began to collect globes!” Mapleton was saying, his voice rising with obvious merriment. “All the poor bastard had to say was that he had the finest collection in all of London, and I was determined to have the largest set in England. I have big globes, small globes, colored globes, black and white globes, free standing globes, globes that spin…”
Did the man even know anything about globes other than their size and color? It was all Dahlia could do not to bury her face in secondhand embarrassment.
If her girls had access to even a single globe, Dahlia had no doubt they would dedicate themselves to memorizing every sea and landmass represented on its surface.
For months, she had been looking for secondhand globes in pawnshops. He had probably purchased all of those, too.
Science was wasted on a fool like Mapleton.
“When he found out I had two copies of the very pocket globe he’d been searching for,” Mapleton continued with a laugh, “he had the nerve to ask me to sell him one of mine. The fool! The only reason I found the globe is because he was looking for it. Naturally, I bought them all. The last thing I’d do is sell one to him. It’s not my duty to increase someone else’s collection, is it?”
“You could give one to charity,” Dahlia found herself blurting.
“Charity!” Mapleton chortled. “Now, that’s a good laugh. If I wouldn’t sell one for pro
fit, why on earth would I give any away?”
“You said there were duplicates,” she insisted, ignoring the wide-eyed faces of her host’s sycophants. “If you’ve already multiple copies, surely you wouldn’t notice the loss.”
“Of course I wouldn’t notice.” Mapleton stared at her as if she were mad. “I don’t even like globes. I never look at them at all. They’re in boxes in one of my guest chambers.” He paused to cast a can you believe this? glance to his friends. “As a woman, you naturally wouldn’t understand. How can I make it clearer? The point of a collection isn’t to have one of everything, it’s to have the most of everything.”
Dahlia didn’t bother to hide the fury in her voice. “Thank you very much for that elucidating explanation. I am certain I shall have to ruminate over your wisdom for many hours before my female brain can fully comprehend the masculine joy of collecting something one isn’t intelligent enough to value, just to ensure it doesn’t fall into the hands of someone who might appreciate it.”
Mapleton blinked, then shrugged. “There, you see? You worry about hems and bonnets, and leave the collecting to men like me.”
Dahlia’s answering smile was sharp enough to break glass.
But now, she had a plan.
Up until this moment, she had only pilfered small items of value out of desperation. When there wasn’t enough food to fill her girls’ stomachs, or the debt collectors were pointing out that debtor’s gaol offered prison cells for ladies.
After that exchange, however, she wouldn’t feel the slightest hint of remorse if a few of Mapleton’s pocket globes were mysteriously diverted to an impoverished schoolroom in the heart of the St. Giles rookery.
The only question was how.
Chapter 20
After her mother dropped Dahlia off at the school in the family coach—and sent the driver as a guard to ensure she made it safely from the street to the door—Dahlia sprinted up the abbey steps to her bedchamber and flung open her wardrobe doors.
It was nearly three in the morning. Mapleton’s dinner party guests would have long returned home, or set out in search of better parties. Mapleton himself wouldn’t be able to resist dropping in to every other ongoing soirée, just to casually mention how much better his had been. His staff would either be abed, or concentrated on the ground floor, where the party had been.
In other words, there would never be a better time to strike than right now.
She exchanged her evening gown for one of the threadbare day dresses she wore when doing menial tasks about the old abbey. In case one of the servants caught her poking about, she needed to look like one of them—not Robin Hood in ringlets. She yanked the combs from her hair and fashioned a messy bun to stuff inside a mobcap. A white apron completed the outfit. Perfect.
A glance in the looking-glass indicated she appeared perhaps a little too clean to be an overworked maid at the end of a long day, but tossing soot from the fireplace onto her cheeks and gown would only cause more questions than answers. If anyone enquired, she would simply have to act like a lazy maid.
While her mother had been busy giving heartfelt goodbyes to her friends in the queue of partygoers awaiting their carriages, Dahlia had managed to slip a shilling to one of the milling hack drivers, and extract a promise to follow her family coach to the school.
She tiptoed back downstairs and cracked the front door to glance outside. Good. He was still there.
The hack driver believed he was collecting one of Dahlia’s maids, who had been given a holiday to visit a sister who worked at another domicile. It had been the best story Dahlia could come up with. All the same, she wouldn’t have him drop her off too close to Mapleton’s townhouse.
She grabbed a small sack of rags earmarked for the morrow’s laundry and rushed outside to climb into the hack.
“Where to, miss?” asked the driver.
Careful to keep her cap low enough to hide her face, she murmured an address a short walk from where she needed to go.
Her attempt at an accent likely wouldn’t earn her front billing at the Royal Theater, but it was good enough not to raise the hack driver’s eyebrows. In no time, the cab rolled to a stop exactly where she had intended.
Doubt didn’t set in until she neared the rear staff entrance to Mapleton’s townhouse.
Her previous petty crimes had been far easier to execute, requiring no subterfuge at all. She simply walked a little too close to a certain shelf or table, and slipped a trinket into her reticule without anyone being the wiser.
If she would have been caught entering or exiting a chamber where she didn’t belong, absolutely nothing would have happened. No one would ever imagine the daughter of a baroness to be stealing from her peers. A ratafia-laced giggle of “Where did the retiring room go?” and she would be sent fondly on her way.
This time would be different. She wasn’t pilfering a palm-sized object in the midst of a chaotic party. She was sneaking in.
With determination, she marched up the unlit path to the servants’ entrance and pulled the brass handle.
Locked. Blast.
She stood frozen for a few moments. What was she supposed to do now? She couldn’t walk in the front door. Even if she’d worn trousers instead of a dress, she wouldn’t scale the trellis to an open window. Not because she wasn’t capable of such acrobatics, but because too much could go wrong if she were caught.
It was done. Her attempt to outfit the schoolroom with tools the girls could actually use was over before it could begin. Mapleton would keep the globe collection he didn’t care enough about to even look at, and the schoolroom would stay empty, just as is it was before.
The door swung open.
Dahlia jerked backward so fast, she nearly dropped the sack of rags.
A bleary-eyed scullery maid with a dishrag tossed over one shoulder stared back at her.
“Er…” Dahlia pointed vaguely at the sack in her arms, her heart pounding. “I have…”
The maid rolled her eyes and stepped out of the way. “You’re late. Way past curfew. All you upstairs maids are the same. Think your day starts with the sun instead of at midnight like the rest of us.”
Dahlia gave an apologetic smile and rushed inside before the chamber maid could change her mind.
“Go on, then.” The maid tilted her head toward a servant staircase. “If I got to work, you have to, too.”
Dahlia nodded quickly and dashed up the dark stairwell. Halfway up, she sagged against the wall and gasped. She closed her eyes and tried to calm her racing heart.
As terrified as she’d been, the truth was that her infiltration had gone far more smoothly than she would ever have guessed.
Had she been a perfectly acceptable debutante attempting to enter Almack’s assembly rooms without a voucher, she would have been interrogated and vetted within an inch of her life, and still denied entry to those vaunted dance halls.
As a maid, however, she’d been able to walk right through a servant entrance without so much as raising an eyebrow. Invisible, even to her supposed equals. She took a deep breath and climbed up the rest of the stairs to the second floor.
Twin rows of doors lined both sides of the empty passageway.
Behind one of those doors was the guest room with the boxes of globes. Behind another door was Phineas Mapleton’s bedchamber. Possibly with him in it. Dahlia gulped.
“Lost?” came a brassy voice from right behind her.
Dahlia spun around in surprise.
“Oh, leave ’er alone, Helen. Can’t you see she’s a new one?” said a world-weary chambermaid to a slightly younger copy of herself. Family, Dahlia imagined.
“Course she’s new,” Helen said with a roll of her eyes. “Pretty maids never last for more than a few weeks. Where were you sent to clean, honey?”
“I-I’m to straighten the guest chamber with piles of boxes,” Dahlia stammered in haste. “I’ve forgotten where it is. Can you point me in the right direction?”
Helen pointed
a finger. “First door on the left.”
Dahlia nodded her thanks and slipped into the guest room. A row of wooden crates lined one wall. A somewhat ominous four-poster bed stood on the other side.
She would have to be fast. The last thing she wanted was for Mapleton to catch her now.
Heart pounding, she rummaged through each crate until she found one with a dozen Newton pocket celestial and terrestrial globes. They weren’t whatever rare vintage Mapleton had been referring to, but were rather the sturdy, serviceable variety like the pair she and her siblings had shared in their nursery growing up. Two sets ought to do.
Quickly, she wrapped the four smallest globes in rags and stuffed them into the small sack. They barely fit, but at least it was not obvious what they were. Time was running out. She shoved an ornate pen knife from the desk down the side of the sack before hurrying to peek out a crack in the chamber door.
No maids. No Mapleton.
With a deep breath, she raced across the hallway to the stairs and flew down the dark steps as swiftly and as silently as she could. When she reached the bottom, she didn’t pause to check if the scullery maid was back in the kitchen, but rather sprinted out the back door and into the night as fast as her legs would carry her.
By the time she was able to wave down a passing hackney, she was blocks away from fashionable Mayfair townhouses. She climbed up and sagged into the worn squab. Dahlia hugged the sack of pocket globes and soiled rags to her chest, not sure if she should laugh or cry. For better or for worse, now she really was Robin Hood with ringlets.
And there was no going back.
Chapter 21
“Care to join us for a pint?” one of the day officers asked Simon as he walked through the front doors of the Magistrates’ Court.
Simon gave him a pointed frown. “I’ve just started my shift.”
“You’re not starting your shift,” pointed out one of the others. “You’ve worked ten nights in a row. This is supposed to be your day off. How come you never join us?”
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