A Thief Before Christmas

by Jennifer McGowan

  “Your protection is costing me time,” James said to him. “So our price just went up. Now, we’ve other places to be. Is it a fair deal?”

  Theodore puffed his lip out, but I knew the value of the stones we were offering him, and he did too. He would make a tidy margin if he had buyers for the jewels. Which he no doubt did.

  “Ah, very well,” he muttered. “Let me just get your pouches.”

  That was the signal for the ending stage of the dance. For, of course, we weren’t actually buying the stones from Theodore; he was buying them from us. Still, if anyone was watching, we needed to keep up the ruse that we were prosperous merchants purchasing pretty baubles after a particularly good year. So, by the end of this exchange, we must look as if we had jewels for our troubles while Theodore had money in hand.

  Thus the game began. And, as ten identical pouches were opened and monies and stones placed within, then were passed around, then passed again, then were tucked away and out of sight, well . . . who was to know into whose pocket went the precious gems, and into whose pocket went the coin?

  We chatted then but briefly, each of us swallowing great draughts of ale. Then we stood to take our leave.

  And that’s when the screaming started.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Someone had turned us in! It was the only explanation.

  My stomach plunged as I joined Master James and Theodore to throng toward the door with the other curious tavern-goers, the magistrates at the fore. Though the Golden Rose acting troupe was very good at picking pockets, even we were not perfect. There was always the risk of a mark getting jostled or a particularly shrewd nobleman realizing that he was somewhat lighter in the linen. Not too often, though, truth to tell. Other than Tommy, the members of the Golden Rose chose our targets carefully. We needed to, to keep our hands attached to our bodies.

  I glanced to the side as we pushed through the crowd. I could see the fear pinching Master James’s eyes even as it ate at my nerves, but we’d both been trained too long and too well to betray any overt concern. We were good at this—we were good! What had happened?

  I tried to remember the gawkers in the crowd whose pockets I’d rifled on my way into the inn. None of them had stood out as particularly bad marks.

  Penny-pinchers we avoided, even though some held enough coin in their pockets to feed us for a month. Still, those men had an eerie way of knowing when a stray coin had just left their person. The obviously gullible we avoided as well. Someone would take their money eventually, but we didn’t need to be the ones to ruin their day. Women were fair game, and children besides, but only the markedly affluent among them. One, because they had better jewels, and two, because they were often distracted, delicate members of the gentry class who’d just as easily lose a bauble as have it lifted.

  But the scream that rang out over the courtyard of the Horse and Pony was not that of a delicate lady . . . but a fat, brawling matron who easily weighed fifteen stone.

  “Get away from me, you vicious beast!” she howled, beating the neck of a wild-eyed horse, the animal’s snout lifting up and away even as its rider fought to control the animal. Beside them, a slender slip of a woman tried to control the wailing shrew.

  Instantly I saw what had happened, and I relaxed enough to give a short, coughing laugh. The woman’s elaborate wig—featuring flowers, feathers, and even a few fake birds—had somehow gotten too close to the ornate reins of a gentleman’s horse and was tangled up in the lacings. The more she tried to pull away, the more she became inextricably linked.

  The girl beside her was doing her able best to assist, her small white hands flashing in and out of the woman’s headdress, but with every section of hair she freed, another got caught.

  Ever gallant, Master James leaped to the fore. I let him go even as Theodore squeaked beside me. “What is he doing? He cannot draw notice—is he mad?”

  Theodore clearly didn’t know that, for our grandstanding troupe master, the easiest place to hide was at the center of everyone’s attention. And, I suspected, James had a slightly more avaricious interest in the thrashing noblewoman, with her overstuffed velvet gown and thick, ebony cape. This would be something to see.

  “Madame, madame!” James boomed. “Pray, calm yourself before you spook the horse!” Unfortunately, his good-natured assistance drew him nothing but fury as the woman instantly turned on the troupe master and proceeded to heap such vitriol upon James that even a few magistrates gasped.

  There was nothing for it. I darted beside them both as the woman was focused on James, and palmed my knife from my gown. With a half dozen strokes, I sliced through the ends of the woman’s wig and freed her.

  “You stupid girl!” she screeched the moment she was loose. “You’ve ruined my wig!”

  I’d expected this, of course. The woman spun away from the horse that now bolted to the left, grateful to be leaving the crazy people behind, while I dropped to the ground, gathering up the scattered scraps of lace and flowers and one very sad-looking stuffed finch that I sincerely hoped had never drawn breath.

  “There must be an accounting!” the woman wailed. “You must repay me for ruining my headdress! I demand you—”

  “My lady!” I managed over her caterwauling. “I believe I have gathered up everything you’ve dropped?” And I pushed the lot of it toward her, shutting her up, as I knew I would with what I held in my hands. For in addition to the woman’s bits of finery, I had added one of the Golden Rose’s stolen jewels to the mix.

  “Oh!” The old bat hiccupped, her demeanor instantly changing when she spied the fine stone. “Well, yes! Yes, of course, this is all mine. Thank you, girl, for your assistance in my time of need.”

  She hauled the treasures to her impressive bosom and looked sharply at her companion. “Well, don’t just stand there, girl!” she snapped. “You are worse than useless. Tell me you haven’t lost anything, since you clearly couldn’t manage to actually help me, as is your duty and charge?”

  “Forgive me, aunt,” the young woman said miserably, and then I looked at her, too. She was well dressed, though plainly so, no extra shillings spent on ribbons or lace to beautify her dark woolen gown, no Christmas trimmings of bright red berries or rich holly leaves. Her gloves were fine leather, however, and she wore a lovely lace ruff at her neck and a prettily shaped hat atop her flaxen gold curls. Nothing like the monstrous display of the older woman. But it was the girl’s eyes I noticed most. They looked almost too large in her face, wide and dusky blue—and were currently filled with panic as she fluttered first to her aunt, then scanned the ground, and then, almost absently, tapped the side of her skirts . . . and froze.

  “I will be off then!” I said brightly, though my heart twisted just a bit to see the girl’s ashen face as she glanced around desperately. I knew I did not want to be anywhere near when she announced she’d misplaced some bauble or bead. “I’m so happy I could help! Good day, mum!” I shouted this last as I turned smartly on my heel. The magistrates and most of the crowd had gone back into the inn, and I deliberately set off down the snow-packed street, as if I had something very important to do somewhere else.

  Master James fell into step with me about forty paces later. We were moving through the craftsmen’s district then, and I eyed the pretty little shops, now locked tight against the winter’s chill.

  “That was neatly done,” he allowed, and I smiled in the growing darkness. I had been improving my thieving skills alongside with my acting ones, and tonight’s adventures had displayed both to fine advantage.

  “Tell me we kept more than we gave away?” I muttered.

  “And to spare. Here.”

  I should not have been surprised that the first thing James pulled from under his cloak wasn’t a stolen bauble but a meat pie. He shrugged at my laugh. “The crowd was hurrying out the door, and we’d not eaten yet. ’Twas nothing to take it from t
he serving tray. And it’s still warm.”

  He pulled out another for himself, and we devoured them in short order. In our line of work, you learned quickly to eat when food came to you; you never quite knew when it might again. James, as usual, was quicker than I was and already trailing his gloved hands through the snow to rid them of any vestiges of pastry as I popped the last of the pie into my mouth. By the time I’d fished out my own much-mended handkerchief, he had another prize to show me.

  “Oh!” I gasped. “It’s exquisite—and of far greater value than the jewel I gave to the woman to still her tongue!”

  “I thought so as well, though you did well to give what you did. That bauble you flipped the old crone will keep her cackling for days; it’s bigger and grander than the one I stole from her, at least to the untrained eye. I suspect her husband or whatever poor soul is keeping her in finery will not notice that he is down one fine jewel and up one not so fine, but that is of no account.” He tossed the stone to me, and I caught it. “Providence provides,” he said.

  “Providence provides,” I agreed.

  We were nearing the Cock’s Crow Inn, where we’d agreed to house Meredith and Matthias in anticipation of their Christmas baby. And now we could even pay for their rooms. Cheery light poured out of the windows, and the promise of heat and sleep was tempting. Still, I stayed Master James with a touch of my hand.

  “Would you—would you mind reading something for me?” I asked.

  He eyed me curiously. “Read something? Whyever for?” He paused under one of the torches lighting the entryway. I pulled him just inside the door but not into the main hall. No need for us to freeze while he carried out my mad request.

  I pulled out the letters I’d been carrying in my skirts and unceremoniously thrust them at James. He frowned more deeply. “What are these?”

  “Letters, I should think,” I said tartly. “I— I wanted your help to read them, in case there were words I didn’t know.”

  “But where did you get . . . ?” He suddenly made the connection. “Tommy’s letters? But they’re worthless!”

  “Not to their owner. Look at that, here. Those are wear marks. The writer had been carrying around these things in his pockets for who knows how long! Who does that?”

  James furrowed his brows. “But why do you care?”

  “Why do you not?” I asked, exasperated. “The letters could mean nothing at all and be little more than kindling. But what if—what if—oh, I don’t know. What if they’re the last remaining letters from a loved one? Or instructions on how to find a hidden treasure? Or—”

  “Meg!” James was laughing now, and I felt my cheeks redden. “I would never have taken you for a romantic.”

  “Oh, leave off,” I grumbled. “If you’ll not read the letters, I’ll find someone else to—”

  “No, no. You’ve quite piqued my curiosity. But here, first off, the seals are of two different houses. This one I know, because we pass it every day.” He held out the crisper letter, its edges only faintly worn. The waxed seal bore the emblem of a sheep. “Master Dobbs and his house have made their money in the woolen market for the past generation, and their business is only expanding. There is money in that holding; I mark it plain. The other one”—he moved it, and both of us caught the faint scent at the same time—“well, that’s interesting. That’s a letter from a woman, unless I miss my guess.” He blew out a long breath, considering. “Of course, she’d have to belong to one of the local homesteads, and a right rich one, besides, for her father to give her leave to learn how to write.”

  “Are you just going to speculate, or can you not just read the letters?” Far from being slaked by Master James’s guesses, my irritation was increasing. Why should a lady of breeding and quality not be given the right to learn how to read and write? What was the point in keeping such skills from someone who had the coin and time to master them?

  “Patience, patience,” James gibed back, but he unsealed the first letter and handed it to me while he opened the second one wide.

  I looked down at the lovely penmanship of the letter I held. The looping strokes of a deep, black ink, delicate and feminine and somehow intensely urgent. I wondered what secrets they held, but even as I squinted down studiously, James’s soft chuckle had me glancing up again.

  “Well, this is almost embarrassing,” he murmured, his eyes darting over the page. “Poor fellow has it so bad, he—” Something stopped him then, and he looked down at his letter sharply, then over to mine.

  “Give me that,” he said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “What? What is it?” I handed over the softly scented letter, strangely not surprised when James let out a soft whistle of recognition. He grinned at me, turning the letters over to show me both. “Notice anything similar?”

  My gut tightened, and I was glad that I was looking down so that Master James could not see the rising flush of embarrassment that climbed my cheeks. He truly didn’t know! Grandfather had never told him, probably embarrassed, as well he should have been, that he had not taught me all I should know, before he left this world for the heaven he otherwise richly deserved. But either way, how was I supposed to tell any similarities between the two letters with James now jiggling them eagerly, bursting with the desire to share his news?

  I blinked, my eyes blurring with angry tears at my own failure to read the words clearly, raking my gaze over the first letter, then the second, then the first—then the second, then—

  And then I saw it.

  “Those . . . those are the same names,” I said at last. A quick look up confirmed my suspicion, as a broad smile spread across James’s face.

  “Indeed they are,” he crowed. “She talks about him being a merchant, while he talks about her tied to hearth and home. These letters are not only about each other, but”—he waved them under my face again, as if by sheer motion he could impress their contents upon me—“they are love letters to each other!”

  “Love letters!” I gasped, my eyes going wide. “You must read them to me. Both of them!”

  “Oh, pish, Meg, read them your—”

  “No!” I said, doing my best to bat my eyes at him with girlish fervor. I was a girl, so I had that in my favor, and “fervor” was an act I’d honed to a fine art over long years. James had precious chance of resisting me. “I just, I just so want you to hear it in your voice, Master James. If you don’t mind? Please?”

  The second round of batting did the troupe master in, and he sighed heavily.

  “Very well, Meg. At least they’re short. This one”—he brandished the letter with the feminine writing—“is actually the sweeter of the two. ‘My dearest Henry,’ it begins. . . .” And as he spoke, I imagined the fine lines of the woman’s writing, written with such intense force of emotion. She had loved Henry since she’d first met him three years ago, when he was just an apprentice in his father’s business, and they’d come to Leeds as part of their journeys throughout England to sell their wares and build their name. She’d loved everything about him, from his graceful hands to his kindness to children to even the cant of his head and the smile in his eyes. And though she knew she never had a chance with him—

  “Wait, what?” I interrupted, perplexed. “Never had a chance? But why?”

  “Mmm,” James said. “It doesn’t say. But in any event, although she knew she never had a chance with him, she wanted him to know that he was the most perfect of men, and that he would make a fine husband, and that whosoever should be lucky enough to marry him, would be the happiest woman in England.”

  I wrinkled my nose at that. It had been a reasonably good letter up to that point. Still, I was left wanting. “That’s it?” I pressed. “She doesn’t say anything about him meeting her at the village oak tree to share a midnight kiss?”

  James frowned at me over the top of the letter. “What village oak tree?” he a
sked. “And what would you know about sharing midnight kisses?”

  “Oh, leave off,” I said. “What does Henry’s letter say?”

  James looked as if he might change his mind, but as I schooled my look into one of earnest winsomeness, he relented again. “Henry is more bold in his praise,” he said, snapping to attention as if he were a young soldier giving a critical report. “‘My dearest Lucretia, you cannot know who I am, but to me you are the fairest flower in all of England, and I would give anything for a mere moment with you to express my truest heart’s desire.’”

  “Just a moment?” I rolled my eyes. “That would be a pretty brief expression.”

  “Do you want me to finish his letter or not?” James demanded, petulant. “I would be happy to insert my own script if you prefer.”

  “No, no,” I said. “Carry on. That bit about her being the fairest flower is nice.”

  James grimaced but continued on obligingly. “‘I spend my days in thoughts of you and my nights in dreams that you are in my arms. I know it is a sin, but—’”

  I made to protest, but James’s dark look convinced me to hold my tongue. “‘But I cannot help my heart. Would that the course of my life been other than what it is, and I would make you mine this day, this hour, this very minute. But we all must honor our obligations to our family. I will content myself with knowing that you will make—’”

  “Wait, let me guess,” I said dryly. “A fine wife, for whosoever should be lucky enough to wed her.”

  “Near enough.” James grinned. “And he signs it: ‘Yours, o heart of my heart, Henry.’”

  “Well, piffle,” I said, rocking back on my heels. James handed the letters back to me. “What are the odds that we would pick the pockets of two lovebirds who don’t know of the other’s affection?”

  He shot me a wry glance. “Pretty good, I should say. And it’s not so surprising as that. If the two were longing to be in each other’s company, then it stands to reason that they would try to be near each other at every opportunity. What better way to justify proximity than the latest production of the Golden Rose?”