The Heart of a Hellion

by Jess Michaels

  And perhaps now was the time to put aside her wild attraction to the man and instead focus on her job. That would make Vale happy, at any rate. She knew her partner was anxious that they just get this done and move on.

  Tonight would be a perfect opportunity. Selina only had to lay the groundwork. She shifted in her chair and set her fork down with a little sigh.

  Just as she had suspected would happen, Meg leaned forward to rest a hand on her forearm. “Are you well, my dear? You suddenly got an odd look.”

  “Just a headache,” Selina lied. “It must be all the excitement of the past few days. I swear I am unaccustomed to these kinds of parties.”

  “They can be overwhelming,” Meg said kindly. She glanced down the table toward Katherine, who was sitting beside Robert. Their heads were close together, and from the smile on Katherine’s face, Selina’s brother was saying something very naughty. “When we break from supper in a few minutes, why don’t you sneak away to your chamber?” Meg said. “I’ll make your excuses to the group.”

  “That is very kind, but I couldn’t be so rude,” Selina said, even though this was exactly what she’d been steering Meg to do. But she couldn’t make it too obvious. The duchess was a sharp woman.

  “It isn’t rude to take care of yourself,” Meg said. “I insist. I’ll wager after a good night’s sleep, you will be right as rain.”

  “Well…” Selina pretended to consider it. “I suppose I won’t do anyone any good feeling as I do. If you don’t mind, I would greatly appreciate it.”

  Meg squeezed her hand. “Of course. Anything for a friend.”

  Selina stiffened. A friend. Was she anyone’s friend, truly? Could she be when she was scheming behind their backs?

  She pushed the thought away as the final plates were taken. She settled back with a sigh as she awaited the signal for the guests to rise and split off with the ladies going to the large parlor and the men going to their port.

  She had wiggled herself into an opportunity tonight. And she had to make it worthwhile by focusing on the task at hand. Not on regrets. Not on consequences. Certainly not on Derrick. And she could do it.

  At least, she hoped she could.

  Chapter 13

  Selina glided free the lockpick that was hidden in her hair and wedged it into Lady Winford’s lock. The lockpick was ornate. It had to be in order to fit in with the other decorative pins that held her hair. She smiled at the sparkle of paste gems as she wiggled the handle and heard a distinct click of the mechanism giving way.

  She opened the door and stepped inside, then took a long, deep breath. After days of feeling out of sorts, at last she was herself again. Picking locks, sneaking through the dark, relaxing into the role of Faceless Fox. This was much better than the confusion she felt whenever she was around her family, whenever she was around Derrick. When she questioned herself, her motives, her past, her future.

  She blinked as she realized she was still standing at the door, woolgathering instead of focusing. And focus was paramount to these things. She thrust her shoulders back and moved across the room, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light of the low fire. Now she just had to find wherever Lady Winford had put the necklace.

  “Not in the open,” she murmured, but still crossed to the little box on top of the dressing table. She dug through the jewels there. “Paste, paste…real…” She examined the piece closely and then tossed it aside. Pretty, but not worth the trouble. “Paste, paste, real, real…”

  There was nothing of material value in the jewelry box, certainly not the Breston necklace. But she hadn’t expected it to be. Lady Winford would hide it, thinking that would protect her from the Fox or any other interested party.

  Selina had marked several places where Lady Winford might put her jewels when she had been here with Derrick. She moved toward the false drawer in one of the dressers, but as she opened it and slid clothing around to find it, her mind wandered again. That night when Derrick had found her snooping here and they’d searched the room together had been one she’d never forget. Aside from Vale’s assistance with research and pretending to be her companion, she worked alone, she lived alone, she’d resigned herself to being alone.

  But when she’d stood in this very room with Derrick, she hadn’t felt alone. She never felt alone with him. She felt comfortable and accepted. She felt worshipped and adored.

  A false feeling, of course. Derrick Huntington wanted her body. His passion every time he touched her proved that. He would do or say anything to get that prize. When he was bored, when their time together was over, he would forget all about her. Other men had. Hell, she had done the same with plenty of lovers. Passion was transactional and once the price became too high, it lost its value.

  Except that all around her were couples who didn’t seem to fit the mold she’d come to expect. Robert and Katherine, for example. Robert had been as wild as Selina now was. Only he’d changed with love. He was faithful, and even all these years later, he seemed as drawn to and in love with his wife as he ever had been.

  The Duke and Duchess of Crestwood were also exceptions to the rule she’d thought existed in the world. She knew their story, everyone did. Their passion for each other had broken Meg’s prior engagement, destroyed a friendship for a time and sent ripples through Society for years. If ever there was a recipe for falling out of love, that was it.

  But they hadn’t. Just yesterday she’d caught them kissing passionately behind a tree in the garden, like they were young lovers.

  And the Duke and Duchess of Sheffield? Also seemingly in perfect accord. Whenever they were near each other, it seemed they were bound to touch. Like magnets, drawn together. Or moths to a flame. Always holding hands or brushing fingers. Two becoming one in a constant reaffirmation of connection.

  She blinked. She’d spent a lifetime telling herself that kind of lasting affection didn’t exist. It seemed it did. She’d also told herself she didn’t want it. And yet, when Derrick touched her, when he smiled at her from across a room, she felt the flutters of something more than mere desire. Something deeper than passion or pleasure.

  “Little idiot,” she grunted out loud.

  She was truly a fool for allowing those feelings. After all, Derrick didn’t know the truth about her, did he? He was seeking the Faceless Fox with unswerving devotion to his duty. He wanted to catch the thief and bring that person to justice. If he ever found out that it was Selina?

  Certainly all the tenderness or sweetness or connection she sometimes saw in his eyes when he looked at her would be gone. He would despise her, not only for who she was and how she’d lived, but for the lies she’d told him. He would see pleasure as pain then. He would see seduction as manipulation.

  He would hate her.

  For a moment, deep, sharp pain gripped her at that idea. So powerful that she reached out to press a hand on the dressing table to keep herself from falling over. And it was in that moment that she heard voices in the adjoining room.

  She gasped. She’d been so lost in thought, she hadn’t heard the door in the adjoining chamber open. There were female voices, two of them, and they were coming right for the room she was in. She glanced at the door that exited to the hallway, but it was too far away. The knob was already turning.

  She had no choice but to dive for the window, pressing herself behind the curtains as the adjoining door opened and she heard footfalls into the room.

  “Well, the fire didn’t die entirely, that’s something,” came a very Scottish voice. “Lady Winford wouldn’t let me light it while she readied herself before supper. Something about the heat ruining her curls. Her perfect curls.” There was mocking in the voice now. “But I’ll stir these embers now and have it ready so she doesn’t scream the house down later.”

  “Never can be pleased, that one,” came a voice in the distance from the adjoining room. “I’d go if I could, but…”

  There was a cackle from the other side of the curtain. “But we all know what happe
ns to servants who leave her house, by force or by choice. Poor Mary had such a bad reference, I hear she’s a barmaid now at the Lucky Swan in London.”

  “It don’t have as much respectability, I guess, but the wages come at a far lower cost,” the other voice added. “Oh drat, she’s tangled up the knot on this dressing gown something fierce. I swear she does it just to make extra work. Will you help, Gertie?”

  “Aye.”

  The voice in the room behind the curtain faded, as did the footsteps, and Selina sucked in a breath. She would only have the amount of time required to loosen the knot they were discussing in the other room, then the servant would return. It was likely she’d throw open the curtain just to check that the window was secured for the night. And then Selina would be cooked.

  She had to get out. Right now.

  She stepped from the curtains and glanced toward the door. The room was already brighter thanks to Gertie stoking the fire. Which made Selina’s next moves all the more treacherous. She had to get across the room, crossing in front of the now-open adjoining door, and to the exit without being caught.

  She drew a long breath and began to creep toward the wall opposite the open door. The farther she was from the gossiping servants, the less likely it was she would be caught. The more likely she could find some second hiding spot if one of them did come into the room.

  “Penny, you’re only making it worse!” one of the servants said with a giggle. “Heavens, you’ve wrapped it all around itself.”

  “You know that bitch will complain about the wrinkles, too,” the other girl said. “And with no time to go press them out.”

  Selina shook her head as she eased around the foot of the bed, moving into the line of sight of the two servants if they looked her way. Lady Winford sounded like a terror to work for. She deserved whatever she would get when Selina finally took that damned necklace.

  She inched along the foot of the bed, easing around it at last and back toward the wall, into the shadows. Just as she neared the door, she pressed her foot down on one of the floorboards and there was a loud creak that pierced the silence of the room.

  “What was that?” one of the servants whispered to the other. “Did you hear that sound from t’other room?”

  Selina was still a least a few feet from escape and there was nowhere else to hide except to tuck herself hard into the shadows and hope her dark blue evening gown would offer her some camouflage.

  “Perhaps it’s a ghost,” came one of the whispered voices.

  “Oh, don’t speak of that, I’ll be up all night with the terrors.”

  Selina reached for the handle of the door and glided it open softly. She kept her gaze on the other room, listening as the women debated which one of them should be responsible for going and checking to see if they were truly being haunted.

  She stepped into the hall and shut the door with a quiet click. She heard the maids squeal from within and hustled away just in case one of them got up the gumption to check the hallway for their ghost.

  Her heart throbbed as she staggered up the hallway, away from the room. She had been the Faceless Fox for years and never been anything close to caught. It was a matter of pride for her, really, to know that no one had seen more than a shadow of her. To the point they didn’t even know she was a woman, not a man.

  But tonight she had been distracted. More than distracted. And that made her sloppy. It put her in danger. And it proved, once again, how being close to other people didn’t match with being a master thief.

  So she was going to have to decide which thing was more important. The burgeoning relationships she was starting to forge? Or the life she had lived for so long that she hardly remembered another?

  Derrick stepped into Selina’s chamber and quickly shut the door so no one coming up the hall might see him. He looked around and his brow wrinkled. She’d left the festivities of the gathering downstairs with a headache, or so he’d been told when the gentlemen rejoined the ladies a short while ago. And yet she wasn’t here in her bedroom, resting. He didn’t hear her in the adjoining sitting room, either, but he went there regardless and opened the door.

  He was startled to find Selina’s companion, Vale, sitting by the fire, a book in her hand. She glanced up, and instead of panicking at the sight of a strange man in her mistress’s chamber, she arched a brow at him and set her novel aside.

  “Mr. Huntington,” she said. “This is unexpected.”

  “Miss Williams,” he said, trying not to shift with discomfort. “I apologize for disturbing you. I ought not have entered the room.”

  “No, I suppose propriety dictates such,” Vale said, getting to her feet and taking a step toward him. Pale blue eyes swept over his face and down his body. “But Selina and I have never stuck much to the rules of propriety.”

  His brow wrinkled at the purr in her tone. The way she glided toward him. “Selina most definitely marches to her own beat,” Derrick said. “And you two are obviously close.”

  “Very,” Vale said. “So you can understand why I might be protective of her.”

  “You are well within your rights to be so. It’s good to know Selina has someone on her side.”

  “Are you on her side, Mr. Huntington?” she pressed, arms folding across her chest. “Or are you just tupping her?”

  His lips parted at the unexpectedly blunt question. Part of him wished to deny it all, to act as though he didn’t know what she was talking about. But it was evident this woman did know what he’d been up to with Selina. Perhaps she’d told her friend. Selina had made it clear she didn’t have a prudish mind when it came to sex and sin. Or perhaps Vale had overheard something, put the pieces together when tidying up for her mistress.

  Or maybe they were just too obvious in their ardor. After all, he could tell Barber suspected them, as well.

  “You would have to speak to your mistress about that,” he said, refusing to reveal anything that Selina hadn’t, herself, said out loud.

  Vale arched a fine, blonde brow. “I’m asking you.”

  He frowned. So much for trying to go the gentlemanly route. Not that he could. He’d thrown gentlemanly out the window the moment he took Selina against the library wall.

  “You are clearly a clever woman and I can see you know what you think you know. So I won’t deny that Selina and I have grown…close…since our arrival here.” He blinked. “More close than I ever could have imagined. But I’m not…using her, Miss Williams.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You truly care for her?”

  She acted as though that was a strange thought. Why? Did she not believe Selina warranted someone to care for her? Or did she just judge all such clandestine relationships harshly?

  He hesitated in his answer. He hadn’t told Selina he cared for her. Christ, he hadn’t allowed that thought to fill his own mind all that much. Caring for her was not in the cards. It wasn’t why he was here.

  Either way, he certainly didn’t want her companion to be the one he told his feelings to.

  He shrugged. “She is captivating.”

  Vale smiled, but it was on the edge of a smirk. “Oh yes. She is that. Everyone ends up captivated by her in the end. She’s like a flame. She draws moths like us, Mr. Huntington. She draws us in and it’s warm and lovely in her circle. But you must also be wary, lest you burn up in the fire.”

  He frowned. Vale was defending Selina, yes, as he would expect a friend to do. But it was all in a very backhanded manner. Why would she do that?

  “Not a kind assessment of a friend,” he murmured.

  “Don’t get your back up, Mr. Huntington,” she said with a chuckle. “I’m only warning you to be careful. Selina is all the wonderful things you’ve seen, all the things you care about, even if you refuse to admit it. But she can be more. She can be less.”

  “Can’t we all,” he said, holding her stare.

  There was a sound from the room behind him, and Vale stepped forward. “Sounds like your real desire is coming in
now. I’ll leave you two alone.”

  She pushed past him as Selina entered the room. He pivoted, watching as Selina’s gaze flitted first to him, a combination of pleasure and confusion. Then to Vale. When she looked at her companion, she wiped her emotions away and gave a little shake of her head.

  “Mr. Huntington has come to call, miss,” Vale said as she stepped forward. “I’ll leave you two alone.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “Good evening.”

  “Good evening,” he mirrored.

  Selina was quiet until Vale had left the room and closed them in together. He took her in with her dark blue gown and her white gloves with the blue stitching along the seams. She was so utterly lovely.

  “I-I didn’t expect you,” she said at last, taking a step toward him, then hesitating like she wasn’t certain she should do so.

  “I know you didn’t,” he said softly. “I was surprised not to find you here when I arrived. You called off the gathering with a headache.”

  She arched a brow. “Were you coming to check up on me?”

  He laughed. “Yes.”

  She smiled at him. “Well, you know as well as I do that those events can become tedious. If I wasn’t entirely honest about my needing to escape, perhaps I can be forgiven.”

  He saw the paleness of her cheeks, the tightness of her lips, tells of discomfort. But was it just that she’d lied about her headache, or was Vale’s implication that there was more to her the reason?

  “I’ve probably snuck out of a few parties with the same excuse, especially in my youth,” he said, moving toward her. “I don’t judge.”

  “Good,” she said, reaching for him.

  Their hands tangled. His bare one, her gloved one and a thrill of desire shot through him. Hardened him. This woman was a drug and he never wanted to be free of the influence.

  He cleared his throat. “Your companion is…interesting.”