Dashing All the Way : A Christmas Anthology

by Eva Devon

  He stopped to look blankly at her, slowly focusing his gaze on her face. Then her breasts. But to his credit, his eyes did eventually return to her face. He smiled back, although he looked a bit confused. “Yes!” he said gamely. “Here I am!”

  Amie leaned her bosom into his arm and squeezed his bicep. His jacket was padded. He likely had an arm like a chicken leg beneath his stuffed sleeve. That was all right with her. She didn't need a muscled oaf. She only needed someone who was still more or less upright.

  “I thought you'd forgotten,” she scolded playfully, giving him a little pout. “You promised you'd show me the conservatory.” She batted her eyelashes.

  He just stared at her. “But...it's winter.”

  Good heavens, what a clod.

  She wasn't much of a performer, to be sure. She exaggerated her pout slightly, then more. Perhaps she wasn't convincing enough. She toyed with his cravat as she went on tiptoe, sliding her body up his side. “You told me that you would take me to the conservatory because you wanted to see me naked in the moonlight!” she shouted over the den.

  The notion that he might actually have sexual satisfaction sometime in the near future seem to pierce the idiot's drunken fog. He began to nod emphatically. “Yes! Yes, I remember! I would never forget that! The conservatory, yes, let's go to the conservatory!”

  Amie giggled sickeningly and then tugged his arm toward the arching stair. “It's this way, silly!”

  “Ah, ah, yes! This way!” He stumbled along with her and even managed to pick up the pace on the steps.

  At the top of the stairs, the hallway led off in two directions. One way would take them to the front stair and front door, where still more guests were arriving. The other led deeper into the house.

  Amie gave a little yelp and pushed the dandy away, uttering the magic words. “There's my lover! I think he saw us!”

  Wizardly words, indeed. In a flash, her companion had vanished, likely gone back down the stairs to lose himself in the crowd below. She ought to write a pamphlet—How to Make a Man Disappear.

  She was well shut of him, for her only goal had been to appear as just another tipsy demi-rep looking for a dark corner.

  No reason to remember at her all.

  Elliot silently closed the door behind him and lifted the candle-stub he'd lighted from a hallway wall sconce. The host's study was as ostentatious as his ballroom. Lord Beardsley was known as a libertine who denied himself nothing. Hence the plush carpet, the gleaming rosewood desk and the priceless art.

  The house had thick walls. Elliot could barely detect the rousing country-dance tune now being played in the ballroom. He could likely fire a brace of pistols in here and no one in the house would know.

  He went directly to the desk and sat in the chair. Then he reached beneath the inlaid lip of the desktop and slid his fingers to the right. There should be a—

  His index finger touched a tiny brass button. A spring-loaded segment of the wooden trim popped into his hand. Within lay a heavy iron key.

  Elliot hefted it in his hand and turned to a large box resting in a corner of the study. It had been brightly painted with pastoral scenes with some intention of making it look like a decorative piece, but when Elliot touched it, he could feel the cold iron beneath the thin skin of paint.

  The strongbox was a good one. Solid iron, strapped with bands of more iron. Beardsley was so sure of its solidity that he'd not even bothered to carefully conceal it.

  The lock was good as well. Elliot smiled. There was a large, obvious keyhole on the front. It was meaningless, a distraction. Elliot pulled a small lock-pick set from his cuff and turned his attention to a tiny hole concealed in the painted design of a wheel of a hay wagon. It required a tiny key that Elliot happened to know never left his lordship's watch fob.

  Someone would have to know just where to look for that inconspicuous keyhole.

  That someone would be Elliot.

  He quickly sprang the miniature lock, which caused a two-inch square painted door to open. Behind that door was the large keyhole meant for the heavy key Elliot had found concealed in the desk. Elliot turned the key, listened to the thick bolts slide open and swung the weighty lid of the chest upward.

  He grinned. “That will teach you to fire your faithful butler without reference because he skimmed a bit off the top of the household budget, you miserly wanker.”

  Not only had the furious butler spoken freely about the strongbox, he'd given Elliot some very interesting notions about might be found within.

  The interior was filled almost entirely with stacked folios, each at least an inch thick with documents. Beneath those was a small wooden casket.

  Elliot knelt on the floor, his candle planted in a dollop of wax on a small side table holding brandy and glasses. He gave a quick sort to the folios, making piles, scanning each page in the way he'd been taught—not so much reading as drifting his eyes over it for an instant, allowing a few key phrases to leap out.

  Deeds and provenance for estate property and art treasures? Useless. A set of accounts, including income from Beardsley's estate...and then another, nearly identical set of accounts, that added up quite differently.

  His lordship was keeping double books. Not of interest to Elliot, but he would be sure to alert the King's Remembrancer about Beardsley's rather monumental income tax evasion.

  Finally, one slender folio revealed all that any Crown spy could wish. Several coded pages, which appeared to be two sides of a secret correspondence, presumably letters to his lordship and his lordship's own copies of his replies. The code was nonsense to Elliot's eyes, but no matter. He wasn't the one charged with finding the cipher. His job was to make a quick, neat copy and put the originals back where they belonged.

  He used his lordship's own paper and ink. He was fast at his work, as were all the operatives of the Liar's Club. He was just one of a well-trained ring of thieves, infiltrators, code-breakers and yes, even the odd assassin or two.

  A quarter of an hour later his careful copies were drying to one side while he bound up the folios, winding their cords precisely as he'd found them. Lord Beardsley wound clockwise, with a half-twist on the third round.

  Elliot placed half the folios back in the iron box, the original left-hand stack in the very order in which he'd found them.

  The wooden jewel casket he saved for last. Without really looking inside, he dumped the contents into his large, plain handkerchief.

  Then he pulled a lacy lady's hanky from his pocket and laid it in the jewel casket.

  The Liars were taking advantage of the fresh notoriety of the mysterious Vixen, concealing their activities in the wave of jewel thefts. Besides, as James, Elliot's immediate superior, said, “The coffers can always use a bit extra—all in the cause of national defense and whatnot.”

  There had been some recent activity in a once-defunct ring of highborn traitors. Every Liar who with a hand at lock-picking was being stuffed into a flash coat and weskit and sent out to infiltrate Society's ballrooms—and a few other rooms as well.

  The timing was excellent.

  Too excellent?

  Elliot paused in his rifling to look down at the stones twinkling in the pile. A glamorous, mysterious thief hits grand house after grand house. A spy ring, led by some incredibly powerful people, needs to peruse a few secret files in a few grand houses. No one had ever seen the Vixen. Other than the trademark handkerchief, Elliot wasn't even sure how Society could be so sure the thief was female...

  Unless someone with a stable of primarily male spies had needed the distraction of a female suspect?

  “Knots within knots,” Elliot muttered. He was a loyal sort and a patriot, but even he could only trust the brilliant, devious minds of his superiors so far! He could only hope that all his assignments worked in aid of the Crown and leave the deep thinking to others.

  He replaced the jewel casket beneath the right-hand stack of folios, folded the bauble-stuffed handkerchief tightly and tucked the fla
ttened parcel into the right breast pocket of his coat.

  His copies, he folded down to half page and was preparing to fold them down to a size he could conceal in his cravat. No guard ever thought to search a man's cravat.

  A floorboard creaked beyond the door of the study. Elliot didn't bother to turn or even hesitate. With a few swift motions, he had the strongbox shut tight again and the key back in the hidden slot of the desk.

  With his copies stuffed roughly into his coat, he turned to the door with a loose drunken grin and bit of a stagger.

  Chapter 2

  “God, I've been found at last! I thought I'd die here, lost in the bowels of this bloody majestic house!” It never hurt to compliment a man's wealth, especially when displayed with such vulgar abandon.

  It was not his host who stood in the doorway of the study. It was a girl—a woman, actually, but a young one. Lord Beardsley had no wife or daughter. The woman wore an evening gown, so she wasn't a maid.

  Elliot casually lifted his candle-stub and lighted a branch of candles on Beardsley's desk. He needed to properly assess his new acquaintance.

  The gown wasn't terribly fine but it was tight in the bosom and worn without petticoats. He could see the faint outline of her limbs backlighted by the sconces in the hall beyond. Not a timid Society miss, that was certain.

  A prostitute? He secretly hoped not. She looked...nice, at least, not like a jade.

  An amateur prostitute? A young woman attending a vile soiree like the one downstairs wasn't looking for a husband—she was looking for a protector. If she already had one, she'd be dressed more expensively. If she'd had any idea what she was about, she would be dressed more temptingly.

  Not that it wasn't a fine view, what with the revealing lighting behind her. She was pretty, with a fresh complexion and large green eyes, but then he'd always been partial to red-haired ladies with freckles that showed even through her powder. Really, very pretty.

  It was too bad she was a whore.

  All of that assessment flowed through his mind before the girl could do more than blink at him in surprise.

  “Is this your house?” she asked. “I mean to say...are you Lord Beardsley himself?”

  Elliot let out a breath. A girl on the hunt sneaking in to introduce herself. Pretty but possibly not too bright. Excellent.

  “Not a bit like it, I'm afraid.” He bowed. “Just any old bloke. Ordinary as mud.”

  She tried to hide her disappointment, but she didn't do a very good job of it. “I saw you come in here, so naturally I thought…”

  You thought you'd put yourself in the great man's gun sights. Silly twit.

  Beardsley was a first-class bounder, cruel and prone to violence, according to the intelligence Elliot had been given. The last place a young lady should want to be was in that man's bed.

  Not his worry. After all, he was just an over-indulgent wastrel, soaking up another man's brandy. He slid a charming, slightly drunken smile onto his face. “I hoped Himself kept the good stuff in his study. Would you like a glass?”

  She shot a look at the decanter on the side table next to the strongbox. “I dare not,” she said, swaying slightly. “I’ll be too much in my cups and then I might do something untoward!”

  She was adorable. Alas, it was time to get out of this room.

  “Shall we rejoin the dance?” Elliot offered his arm, bowing far enough to fake a stumble upon rising.

  She batted her lashes at him and bit her lower lip. “Well… I was looking for his lordship.…”

  For quite possibly the first time in his life, Elliott wished he were the sort of fellow he portrayed. The shining red hair and emerald eyes and charming freckles—not to mention the way she filled out her enchanting little dress—added up to quite an intriguing package. Elliot the wastrel would be just the sort to secure a mistress...

  “…but I do dearly love to dance.” She smiled invitingly.

  Elliott didn't waste any time getting her out of the study and back to the ballroom. She snuggled into his arm as they walked down the hall, and when she squeezed his bicep and cooed over the bulk of his arm beneath his sleeve, he liked it. Dangerous master of intrigue or not, he was still a young man and young men liked it when pretty girls complimented their muscles.

  For all the balls Amie had attended uninvited, she had never yet taken the time to dance.

  Speed was essential. Get in, get the brass, get gone.

  This time, someone had beaten her to the strongbox.

  It had been the dim line of light beneath the study door that had warned her. His lordship would have had a brace of candles blazing. Even a housemaid would have good light to assure a careful cleaning, not that any staff could be spared from such a well-attended ball.

  The study door was unlocked, of course. She turned the latch slowly and soundlessly. No need to worry about creaky hinges in such a fine house.

  She only opened it a few inches, but she gained a very excellent view of a figure in a formal coat kneeling before the open strongbox, sorting through the contents.

  Blast.

  What to do, what to do...

  It could actually go in her favor. The competition had already cracked the lock. All she needed to do was to deliver him of his ill-gotten gains before he left the ball.

  Silently, she stepped back and closed the door, thinking quickly. He'd looked youngish from behind. Fit as well—that had been an exceptionally well-muscled bum!

  She had so little experience with distracting men. If this fellow was intelligent enough to crack that strongbox, then he would be far too clever to fall for her earlier gambit.

  What would Ruby do?

  When Amie heard the faint sound of the strongbox's spring-loaded locks clunking back into place, she bent over and shook her bosom a bit higher into her bodice, then straightened, pinched her cheeks, bit her lips and warmed up her eyelashes with a few practice flutters.

  A creak and a rattle of the latch later, she opened the door onto the fairly believable scenario of a spoiled young gentleman sneaking a bit of his lordship's best brandy.

  When he'd asked her to dance, she'd realized a waltz would be an excellent moment to try his pockets.

  Then he'd taken her into his arms and every larcenous thought had drained from her mind. His hand on her waist was so warm...and the way his other hand held hers so gently, yet with total assurance. He took the lead and she had no impulse to do anything but follow him.

  I'm dancing...

  She gazed up at her partner in wonder. He was handsome. She'd been so busy thinking, always thinking, that she'd scarcely taken in his appearance. Now, so close, she could see the light from the chandeliers gleaming off his fair hair. Something about the way his cheekbones angled into his square jaw made her insides feel a bit unsteady.

  He smiled down at her as if she pleased him as well, his gray-green eyes twinkling. Her blood began to heat in her veins. She took a deep breath to steady herself, but his clean, spicy, manly scent struck like a lightning bolt to parts better left unmentioned.

  The music swelled. He swung her easily around the floor. The colors of the many brilliant gowns around her blurred in her vision, like a blooming garden seen through tears.

  His hand slipped farther around, until it rested in the center of her back and then he was close—so close—

  Mind your task, Amethyst.

  Mama's voice, time-faded but true, snapped Amie back to herself. Now, she wasn't dreamily chopping carrots in the kitchen, but risking everything she had for everyone she loved.

  Right. On with the job.

  Elliot's pretty partner was still a bit tipsy, for she suddenly stumbled and giggled, and turned left when she should've turned right. Elliot didn't mind one bit. It was a very pleasant collision. All sorts of soft places pressed against his body.

  He was beginning to feel little inebriated himself. She smelled like apple blossoms and vanilla, like summer in the country. Outside it was the dark of winter. Inside, the
candles were bright above them and she was a warm, soft armful. Once she'd landed against him, she didn't move away again. Their turn about the floor became less a waltz and more of a cuddle. Right in front of all concerned, not that anyone would care at this sort of party.

  Being a spy for the Crown didn't leave much time for young ladies, especially not for dancing too close, or losing oneself in the scent of feminine warmth, or—

  The music ended. Prompted by habit and the conditioning of his governess's oft-applied cane, Elliot stepped back, snapped his heels together and bowed, as one did to a lady after a dance. “Might I beg your name, miss?”

  When he straightened, his warm, bright companion was gone. Though he looked sharply all around the ballroom, she was nowhere to be found.

  A sudden thought chilled him. He clapped his hand over his secret left inner breast pocket. The thick packet of folded copies was a reassuring bulk beneath the silk of his evening coat.

  Then he checked for the jewels in his right inner pocket.

  At the complete and total lack of anything resembling pearls and emeralds held within the lining of his specially constructed coat, he gave a bitter laugh and shook his head.

  Bloody hell. He'd been quite deliciously taken by a most delectable thief.

  As he turned to leave the ball, weaving just enough to be believable but not enough to call attention to his exit, he quite honestly thought the dance might just have been worth it.

  In the last hour before dawn, Amie finally arrived at her own back gate. She'd come home the long way, as she always did after a job. Her father had drilled into all three of them that they ought not to lead possible pursuers to their home base.

  So, even tired as she was, she'd given her imaginary shadow a merry chase through the alleys and side streets of London. Passing as a boy made this bit easier but she was careful never to pause, nor to rush in a suspicious manner or to remain exposed in the light from a window or lantern for too long.