Chapter One
For a viscount’s daughter, Meg Swift really was quite good at stealing things.
Not the hearts of enamored gentlemen—as the novels would have you believe—but proper things. Useful things. What did she want with a heart, after all? Messy business all around. No, she preferred stockings. Ribbons. Soap. And sweets.
So many sweets. Once, an entire tea cake with a lurid orange fondant frosting in the shape of marigolds. She knew to carry a large reticule with her, especially to breakfast where guests were groggy and fully consumed with acquiring a strong cup of tea. She knew to avoid sticky buns as they always left an oily smear on her reticule—a dead giveaway. The main trick was never to take too much at any one time. Rock candies were the easiest, as were bread rolls. Blancmange was impossible. Though she sometimes wanted to test herself and the wobbly decorated jelly pudding would make a decent adversary.
Meg only stole from fancy dining rooms in even fancier houses—never from the shops. Not only did she not have any particular wish to be hanged, but shopkeepers would miss their wares. The Duke of Pendleton wouldn’t miss gilded almonds. She could have stolen a mouthful of pudding right off his spoon and he wouldn’t have missed it. No one would have.
Until now.
This ought to have been child’s play. Her godfather, the very same duke, was hosting a ball for his many goddaughters. Well, his unmarried ones, anyway. It wasn’t especially subtle. In fact, it had already earned the nickname of “The Cinderella Ball”, which was mildly mortifying. But he was a good man who only wanted to see his goddaughters happy and safe and so she agreed to attend. Not to mention that any excuse to get away from her uncle was a good excuse. And she was certain her friends Tamsin and Priya would have hopped into a carriage to fetch her otherwise. By the ear, if needed. As would have Persephone, if she wasn’t currently traveling through Egypt on her honeymoon. She had sent the duke an envelope full of sand which he’d promptly put on display in a gold box.
Music swelled from behind a screen which Meg had painted with river nymphs for the duke’s last birthday. The friezes she had done more recently for the duke’s Festival of Antiquaries watched her from the walls. Romans in their white chitons, Zeus watching from the ceiling, thunderbolts in hand. Across the parquet floor freshly painted with the Pendleton family crest, lay Ancient Egypt: papyrus fields, the pyramids, ladies with kohl around their eyes. Persephone, more than a trifle obsessed with Egypt, had insisted Meg use real kohl.
Tonight, the rest of the decorations were rather restrained for a man with a life-sized statue of the jackal-headed Egyptian death god in his breakfast parlor. Beeswax candles burned in tiered crystal chandeliers, sweetening the air along with a cheerful riot of flowers spilling from vases, balconies, and wall sconces. Dancers whirled like dandelion seeds blown about a summer field. Champagne flowed like the Nile.
It should have been perfect.
It was late enough in the evening that no one paid her any mind as she made her way to the buffet tables. They were piled blue Wedgewood filled with cheeses, tarts, rosewater custards, chocolate truffles, grapefruit ices in delicate teacups. And bowls of gilded almonds. Not just bowls, but veritable troughs. She knew several children who would be thrilled to their toes to eat gold. And best of all, almonds wouldn’t spoil. There were days yet before she had to return home, and she hated to go back empty handed.
Despite the abrupt attention of a man at the other end of the table.
He leaned against the wall, more darkly handsome than he had any right to be. He attracted attention. Which was unhelpful.
And he was looking straight at her.
Also unhelpful.
She shifted slightly so that the impressive marzipan peacock sculpture blocked her hands. There was no reason for him to notice her. She looked like every other lady in attendance, with pearl pins in her hair and a white ballgown. Hers was trimmed with a considerable amount of embroidery, to be sure. But she liked to embroider. It was brilliant at hiding worn spots in gowns four years out of fashion.
The man wore the same sort of evening wear as the other gentlemen, only with far less gilt and decoration. Maybe he thought it made him blend in as she did, but it did the exact opposite. There was nothing to detract from the edge of his jaw, the slash of his eyebrows. The kindness to his mouth. Even his waistcoat was plain, no embroidery at all, not even gold buttons. But it was such a beautiful shade of blue that she longed to capture it with her paints. It was the summer sky at twilight, just before everything turned to shadow. He had none of the languid ennui of the others; his was the boredom of someone who wanted to be doing things. It sizzled under the stunning lines of his coat and cravat. It sizzled in his eyes, the same blue as his waistcoat.
Several ladies murmured to each other nearby, watching him but not yet approaching. Diamonds flashed around their necks. Good. Let him be distracted. With any luck, he hadn’t actually seen her filch the almonds. He could have glanced in her direction for any number of reasons.
His single raised eyebrow said otherwise.
Blast.
“Are you still eating?” Tamsin asked, suddenly at her elbow, grinning. “Honestly, I don’t know how you’re not as round as a hedgehog.”
Tamsin was the daughter of a duke and could say pretty much what she liked whenever she liked. Mind you, she would have done the same as the daughter of a fishmonger. Tamsin was Tamsin: beautiful, clever, and with a morbid curiosity she camouflaged with a sunny smile. No one else, lady or gentleman, could have filled a London townhouse with artifacts ranging from tarot cards to a scrying mirror reputed to have belonged to Queen Elizabeth’s sorcerer John Dee.
“Why aren’t you dancing?” Tamsin asked. She wore a gown of green sarsenet, with emeralds in her hair and around her throat. She spooned up a mouthful of grapefruit ice.
“Because Pendleton is watching,” Meg remarked. “And he’s likely to make the first gentleman who asks marry me on the spot.”
“You only dance with married men who have no interest in you,” Tamsin scoffed. She was quite correct. When one had no dowry, there was no sense in playing the game. No offers would come and if she flirted, her reputation might suffer. If her reputation suffered, she wouldn’t be able to get the things she needed to get done, done. It was that simple.
“Pendleton is not the only one watching you,” Tamsin said, mischievously. “So is the Duke of Thorncroft.”
“Is he here? I’ve never met him.”
“He’s just there, leaning against the wall while the debutantes circle at a safe distance. Cowards.”
Meg turned her head, already knowing who she would see. “That’s the Duke of Thorncroft?”
Dougal Black, lately from Manchester and only the duke as of three months ago. He was all the gossip papers could talk about. Even The Times mentioned him more than once. No one could remember the last time a duchy was inherited by such a distant member of the family, previously living on fifteen pounds per year working at a mill. She couldn’t imagine how confusing it must be to move between such conflicting worlds.