The Gentleman Thief

by Kate Gragg

  Chapter Five

  Mingling was the key. Directional mingling. Holding a glass of wine helped. I could stop, I could sip, and then pivot and angle more directly toward my quarry. There was food everywhere, so that was another perfectly valid reason to change course. I sampled from a chessboard with tiles made of cheese and pieces made of fruit, except for the pawns which were, jarringly to a man expecting to bite into a grape, little green olives. Recover, sip more wine, and glide to the other side of the ship’s ballroom to try the bourbon-soaked miniature cakes shaped like horses. Excellent. Restrain yourself from eating the whole herd.

  I always maintained an air of idleness, of aloof, good-natured belonging. Chatting up strangers was the key to moving inward, progressing along the haphazard spiral that would lead me to the center, to my quarry, the owner of that cursed penny. They were all gamblers, it turned out, to my immense relief. Gamblers are the easiest people in the world to talk to.

  They were making bets on who would win the princess’s hand. I would have thought that matter had been settled, what with the wedding invitations having gone out already, but I gathered nobles liked to make a sport of it. Some kind of footrace, or possibly a duel. The gamblers were drunk and vague about the details, but none of them had any awkward questions for me like “who are you” or “what are you doing here” so I didn’t mind one bit. I toasted the ladies and joined the men in raucous, back-clapping rounds of laughter, and traded hot tips about who the lucky swain was likely to be. I hadn’t seen the racing form, but that didn’t turn out to be any trouble either.

  There were only four challengers. Two brothers, Hughie and Dickie something-or-other, both army captains and as thick in the head as they were in the arms. Then there was Arthur “Wart” Beech, a stripling of a boy who couldn’t have been more than fourteen and had an enormous cheering section in the form of his entire extended family. Rounding out the competition was that delightful chap I’d met in the Duke’s palace in today’s distant morning, Clifton Crome.

  “It’s obviously got to be Clifton,” counseled my current conversation partner, a short little man with a long mustache that hung like two cat’s tails on either side of his crumb-specked mouth and bobbed energetically when he talked.

  He choked down another bite of sponge cake and washed it down with a liberal quantity of sherry.

  “He’s got the most wins on the jousting circuit.”

  “Oh, but jousting’s hardly comparable,” boomed his wife, who had been getting louder with each glass of wine. “Those Munton boys have leadership experience, military mettle!”

  “But there’s two of them. They can’t both win her, and that means brother will have to fight brother, and that’s–” he paused to shove another slice of cake into his mouth “simply not honorable.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the princess beckon one of her ladies-in-waiting and head to the back of the ballroom. She took a seat in the golden chair that had been set up on a low platform there, the better for her suitors to admire her, I supposed, and launched into what looked like some urgent gossip. A row of tapestries hung from the ceiling behind them, offering the perfect cover. If I was ever going to reverse-pickpocket her, this would be my best chance.

  “You’re both wrong,” I said, knocking back an emphatic slug of wine and leaning in close, playing drunker than I really was.

  The less you know about a subject, the more adamant you must be in your convictions about it. I put my arms around their shoulders, my wine cup sloshing up against one of the lady’s lurid puffed, peony-patterned sleeves.

  “You wanna know who the real killer here is?” I stage-whispered. I pointed at the boy, who was slouching self-consciously against a column, eating a frosted eclair and getting most of the frosting on his nose.

  “It’s him.”

  “Wart?” Mustache said incredulously.

  “My dear, that boy just entered the competition because it’s a tradition in his family,” said the lady. “He wouldn’t even be old enough to enter normally, but they let him in because–”

  She searched her husband’s face for the thought that had escaped her.

  “It’s funny!” he offered.

  “It’s cute,” she said. “He isn’t a real option.”

  I extricated myself from our huddle and shrugged.

  “I’ve heard some things. I can’t repeat them, sworn to secrecy, but if I were a betting man?”

  I cocked an eyebrow at the kid.

  “Secrecy, you say?” said the lady.

  “You mean… no one else knows about this?” her husband said.

  I put my finger up to my lips and walked away as they staggered off to find a bookie.

  It was no trouble to slip behind the tapestries. Everybody was drunk or well on their way, and the ship’s staff were only occupied with keeping the wine pitchers full and making sure every one of the hundreds of brass buttons on their crisp blue uniforms was buttoned and shining. Everyone in here was assumed to belong here and thus to be incapable of suspicious behavior. Crime was for the lower classes, and as far as they knew everyone of that sort was safely away on dry land.

  I had a debate with myself about how picky the cursed penny was likely to be. Did I need to hand it back to her, the way she’d handed it to me? I hoped not. I hadn’t seen the princess shake hands with anyone all night.

  In her possession then, let’s say. All of Fritz’s advice about reverse-pickpocketing had presumed the existence of, well, pockets, but the princess was wearing a cloud of tulle in the approximate shape of a dress, and the dressmaker hadn’t made any such concessions to practicality. All I could think of was to toss the coin so that it fell down the back of her bodice.

  As it happens, flipping pennies is a popular drinking game down at the tavern I most frequent. I cupped the penny in my hands and blew on it, warming the coin up enough so the princess wouldn’t gasp from the sudden spot of cold metal on her back and draw attention while I was trying to make my getaway.

  I drew back the edge of the tapestry and readied my shot. She was talking animatedly and moving around too much for me to be confident. I only had one try.

  “Everyone told me there were going to be last-minute entries, but there aren’t,” she said. “Everyone’s saying how embarrassing it is, and how they might be better off just canceling this year.”

  The princess didn’t seem sad about this. Her lady-in-waiting looked around the room nervously.

  “I know, but–”

  My ears perked up. That voice was familiar.

  “This whole thing might not happen!” crowed the princess. The lady with the familiar voice shushed her.

  “I heard our fathers talking about that. They think it would be a disgrace, and already there’s so much bad press from last year. If they have to cancel, your father’s going to marry you off to Clifton to give them something else to talk about.”

  The princess gasped.

  “He wouldn’t do that!”

  Her dark-haired friend shrugged.

  “He can do whatever he wants.”

  As if on cue, the Duke walked up flanked by two other rich-looking men, one whose dark hair and ramrod spine echoed those of the girl with the voice that my mind turning cartwheels.

  “Ready to start the festivities? There’s, er, an announcement to be made later,” he said, tugging on his beard pompously.

  “I’d be thrilled, father,” said the princess. She dropped into a deep curtsey, but the diaphanous volume of her skirts made it so her friend had to maneuver a bit to do a curtsey of her own.

  The minute she turned around I knew.

  She was Lydia.

  Chapter Six

  I left my hiding place among the tapestries and melted back into the crowd, cursing my hesitation. The dark-haired man looked so similar to Lydia I decided he must be her father. He clapped his hands and summoned a quartet of footmen, who marched into the ballroom carrying a large treasure chest. They dropped it at the Duke�
�s feet in a moment of unrehearsed awkwardness that scratched a large gouge into the gleaming parquet floor and made Lydia’s father flinch. I guess he was the one who owned the boat.

  “Oh, now Argus, what is this?” said the Duke, feigning bashful surprise.

  Argus threw up his hands.

  “Not my idea.”

  “I’m to blame, I’m afraid,” said the narrow, silver-haired man I hadn’t seen leave the Duke’s side all night. His entirely black garb made him stand out as a solemn and dignified gentleman.

  He stepped up to the chest and cleared his throat.

  “Thank you for your attendance on this wonderful journey,” he said, smiling gently and casting his fond gaze over us all. “Many of you know me, but for those who are joining us for the first time, I am Lord Saunders, the Master of Games. The aim of these games is of course to identify the bravest, the noblest, the truest among us, so that we may welcome them into the brotherhood of our sacred order of knights. This is an occasion of great significance, not only for the lives of our young champions, but for the fair maidens whom tradition dictates are to be their brides.”

  He gestured to Lydia, who flashed an unfeeling smile, and to Princess Althea, who kept her solemn expression undisturbed.

  “Unfortunately, a most shocking tragedy mars this happy day. For you see, this very morning dear Princess Althea’s dowry was stolen –”

  “The largest dowry in the history of the realm,” the Duke groused.

  “With the culprit still at large,” Lord Saunders said as if the Duke hadn’t spoken at all, “fair Althea’s hopes to be happily wed at last fall upon the generosity of her subjects.”

  He nodded at the footmen, who flung open the lid of the chest. I was pretty sure it was larger than the one in the palace.

  “Lord Argus and I have given what we could,” said Saunders, and indeed the chest was about half full, an impressive pile of coins already. “But we ask that you all give what you can, in honor of a family that has done so much for the games, and for the nation.”

  There was some grumbling in the crowd at this, and no surprise considering how rich the Duke was, but they formed a line anyway and started reaching into purses and unpinning jewelry to drop into the coffer.

  I tried to resist the tide of the crowd at first, but then I realized this was my chance. The dowry was Althea’s, right? So, donating the coin to the dowry was just like giving it to her. What kind of nit-picky curse would find fault with that?

  “Poor man,” woman in front murmured. “He’s doing so well. So brave.”

  “Last year certainly was a tragedy for many,” her husband agreed, “but Lord Saunders the most. His poor son. So handsome.”

  When I got close to the chest, I palmed the penny to hide it from view (wouldn’t want anyone to think I was cheap, now) and dropped it behind a knotted strand of pearls the lady in front of me had parted with very reluctantly.

  The coin landed with a satisfying plink. I took a gratifying inhale to clear my nostrils of any magical residue the coin may have wafted and let the crowd drift me back to the edge of the ballroom. I checked my pockets just to be sure, but the coin had stayed put. I was free.

  I knocked back another glass of wine just to make it look like I wasn’t in too much of a hurry, and then meandered in my conversational ricochet fashion back to the ballroom doors, where I found Clifton Crome doing what he did best, blocking my way.

  A young society girl draped in a shocking quantity of purple silk cooed at Clifton, her leviathan of a dress blocking the exit I needed and a good length of the deck outside it.

  “Do you mean you really saw the thief?”

  “With my own two eyes,” Clifton boasted. “Terrible fellow, seven feet tall, crooked as a corkscrew, his soul as black as the devil’s eyebrows.”

  “Oh, that sounds just awful,” Plum Pudding trilled, rearranging her aubergine meringue of a bodice to even more fetchingly frame her best features.

  “Oh, it was,” Clifton said, leaning close. “The princess called for my aid, allowing him a chance to escape, but mark me, when I’m knighted, I’ll make finding that scoundrel and retrieving his purloined fortune my very first quest.”

  He took her hand in his and clutched it to his chest, letting his eyes do the limpid pools of unfathomable depth thing I’d seen Fritz use to charm his landlady into forgetting how many months he was behind on rent. Only blue-eyed boys got away with that one.

  “Yeoowww be careful!” the majestic purple mountain said, swatting Clifton with her peacock-feather fan. “You’ll snag my new dress.”

  “My stiffest apologies,” Clifton said, hurriedly extricating the strands of one of the doorknocker-sized tassels hanging from her sleeves from his chainmail tunic.

  “Why are you even wearing armor yet,” she said. “They aren’t starting the games on the boat this year, are they? Oh, I hate blood!”

  “No, no,” Clifton laughed. “Just a bit of a silly superstition. I wore this the first time I won a jousting tournament, and well, some fellows carry a lady’s favor to bring them luck, I wear this.”

  “I don’t know that I want to wish you luck,” she teased. “Get too lucky and you’ll have to marry that princess.”

  “Maybe I’ll just aim for second place, then,” Clifton growled, earning a lot of tittering and fan-flapping from his lady friend.

  This was taking all day. I shortened my gait and affected a pained expression, then dug my shoulder into Clifton like I didn’t see him.

  “Pardon, pardon!”

  “Hey! Watch it!” Clifton snapped, grabbing me by the collar. I watched his eyes to see if there was any flicker of recognition, but I knew it wasn’t likely. Even if I hadn’t been covered in soot the last time we met, men like Clifton never expect to see men like me in places like this.

  “My hem, Cliffy, he tore it!”

  “Sorry about that miss, I’m in a hurry to flush the bilge tanks, if you know what I mean.”

  “I most certainly do not!” she said with a snap of her fan.

  “Has the wine robbed you of your manners and your sense, sir?” said Clifton, rearing up on his tiptoes to match my eyeline.

  “Mate, if you don’t let go of me that sofa cover she’s wearing is going to suffer a lot worse than a torn hem,” I said, holding my empty wine goblet up for emphasis.

  Clifton let go of me in disgust and grabbed the lady’s arm.

  “Come along, Violet, we’ll find some more suitable company.”

  I couldn’t help myself.

  “Your name’s Violet?” I laughed.

  “What’s so funny about that?” Violet said, clutching her embroidered purple stole around her amethyst-encrusted purple bodice and sending about twenty yards of purple silk skirting into waves of motion.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said. “You and Cliffy have a lovely evening. But be careful around that one. I heard the dowry heist was an inside job.”

  Violet gasped and clutched her jewels while Clifton shot a deadly look at me. No chance he’d forget my face this time, but that was no concern of mine. The pair of them stalked off to the dance floor muttering about how the gamblers really ought to be made to take their own boat to the games, while I staggered drunkenly down the deck until I was sure I was out of sight.

  The gangplank was fortunately unattended when I found my way back to it, but there was a new wrinkle. It was lying on the deck in front of me, and the gap in the railing opened out to nothing but a perilous and rapidly widening strip of water between me and the docks.

  I’d never been on a boat before, but I guess I’d assumed there would be some sort of announcement when they got underway. “Attention everyone,” the captain might say, “any of you here under false pretenses, please disembark at this time or else get ready to swim home.”

  I couldn’t swim. I could jump, but I wasn’t sure how far. The hell of it was, the longer I thought about how far I could jump, the farther it would have to be.

  Come on, Joe.
Don’t be a coward.

  I checked my pockets once again, suddenly afraid that the penny had magicked itself back to me just in time to curse me with the sudden appearance of a hungry whale, but they were empty. Not my preferred state of affairs generally, but a comfortingly familiar one, and it meant tossing the poxy thing into the dowry chest had worked. I, Joe Thorne, had succeeded at something. Now all I had to do was jump.

  Now.

  Definitely now.

  Now—

  “Joe Thorne, don’t you dare!”

  I was mid-leap when Lydia said this, so obliging her wasn’t all that simple. The sound of her saying my name made me flinch, which is not something you want to do when you’re halfway between dry land and the briny deep. Instead of the graceful athletic bounding motion I’d intended, my limbs folded up like a shopkeeper’s umbrella and my course took on a direction that was far more vertical than horizontal. In an effort to correct this I swung my arms backwards and managed to hook one around the ship’s railing, so that I was dangling along the side of the hull like a fresh catch when Lydia caught up to me.

  “I knew that was you,” she said, offering me a hand.

  My pride was more injured than the rest of me, so I waved her off and hoisted myself back onto the deck. That Joe Thorne may not be any good at getaways, they’ll say, but he sure can do a pull-up.

  “That makes two of us,” I said.

  She peered up at me.

  “You got tall.”

  “You got rich.”

  “Do you really need the whole story?” she said, crossing her arms in a way that was irritatingly just like she had done it when we were kids. She still the same constellation of freckles too, now adorning a face that had kept its dramatically sweeping eyebrows, its sculptural nose, its wide, expressive mouth, now set into an elegant jawline that had lost the roundedness of youth. She looked exactly like I’d always imagined she would, and it was infuriating.