Chapter Five #2
An interesting way of framing it, and Henry wondered—on which side did she place herself? He’d watched her steal a pocket watch evening last, and yet he couldn’t quite find it in himself to fault her for it. “May I ask, Miss Seymour, what became of the pocket watch you stole evening last?”
A tiny, suspicious tilt of her head. “Is it somehow germane to this conversation?”
“No,” he said. “And—yes. I suppose I’m asking, if in a roundabout fashion, where it is you would place yourself upon the scale you proposed. Closer to moral—or immoral?”
“Does it matter? You’re not precisely spoiled for choice in thieves. We both know it.”
“It matters to me. You’ve been honest enough with me thus far”—once she’d had no other choice but to admit to her thievery and after his assurances that her criminal bent would remain secret, at least—“so I have no reason to doubt your word. But I would like to know who it is I’m dealing with.”
“The devil you know, eh?”
“Something like that.” Though he couldn’t imagine Lucifer filling out a day dress quite so nicely as Grace did. “Whatever you have to say, it will remain between us. On my honor.”
Grace pursed her lips. “Had you observed a little longer,” she said. “You might have seen me slip the watch to my Uncle Chris.”
Henry’s brows lifted. “Mr. Moore is aware of your penchant for thievery?”
“Aware might not be quite the right word,” she said.
“He’s got a talent for it himself. Taught me a few tricks I’d not have learned otherwise, though I like to think I’ve taught him a few myself.
I’m far more skilled at palming cards than he is, for example, though I’d say we’re evenly matched at picking locks. ”
Probably his brows had twitched straight up into his hairline. What sort of upbringing had Grace had, exactly?
“It would be disastrous, you see, were I to be caught in possession of stolen goods,” Grace explained.
“So on those occasions that I steal something, I send it along to Uncle Chris. He knows every fence in the city. Once he’s divested himself of the goods, he sends the proceeds back to me—minus a fee, of course. ”
Stunned, all Henry could utter was, “A fee?”
“Well, of course. He really isn’t the sort to do a favor without expecting anything in return.”
No; Henry supposed not. He didn’t seem much the sort to have a charitable bent.
“But I have no need of the money,” Grace said. “I receive ample pin money from my family. So what Uncle Chris returns to me, I distribute to various philanthropic causes. I prefer to think of it as…charity, of a sort, donated on behalf of those least likely to give it.”
A thief with scruples. Henry rather liked that.
A skewed sense of morality, perhaps. But not an altogether broken one.
“Will you help me, then?” he asked. “I haven’t the faintest idea of how I might go about obtaining the proof my uncle claims exists.
Nor have I any of the—er, talents that might be necessary in the doing of it. ”
“Thievery, you mean to say,” she said.
“Yes. Thievery.” A sigh collected in his lungs; an accumulation of all the anxiety which had plagued him these last days.
“I’ll admit my motives are not entirely selfless.
” He didn’t know who he would be if not an earl, if not his father’s heir.
He had always known the expectations that would be settled upon his shoulders someday, and had been prepared from birth to bear them.
“But if it is to be between my uncle and me, by no means can Uncle Nigel be allowed to inherit the earldom.”
Grace blinked those obscenely long lashes, and a flicker of interest kindled in her eyes. “So it isn’t only the scandal, then, for you?”
Henry loosed the sigh and bowed his head.
“I have a duty,” he said, “to my mother and sister. Of course I would protect them from the scandal, if it were within my power to do so. But I have been brought up to be the earl, and my uncle—my uncle has been a wastrel since before I was born. He has no sense of duty, no sense of obligation. I doubt he’d even go to the bother of paying people to see to his responsibilities for him.
Across our properties, we employ some two hundred people, and lease land to nearly five hundred more.
It’s not only my position and livelihood which is presently at risk.
It is theirs. My uncle is not a good steward to those beneath his protection. ”
“Are you?”
“Yes,” he said, earnestly. “Because I do take such responsibilities seriously. Probably there are some areas in which I could improve, but my tenants know that any concerns they might have will be addressed, and I have never failed to make necessary improvements when they are due. My employees are treated well and paid a good wage, and I have no doubt but that they would tell you so, if you were to ask them. Would you like to?”
“I don’t believe that will be necessary,” she said slowly.
He had surprised her yet again, he thought. Probably she had not expected him to be quite so candid with her. To not only not have taken offense at the question, but to offer her proof of his claims.
She was going to help him. Not because of his reputation, or to save him and his family from the scandal—but for every person who relied upon him who would suffer for it if he were forced from his position.
Charity, then, for people who—if he were very lucky—would never know what she had done for them.
“I have one condition,” she said as she rose to her feet and extended her hand to him. Not to kiss—to shake. The sealing of a bargain; a shared secret stored between the clasp of their hands.
“Anything,” he said. “Anything within my power.”
She canted her head to the right, and he followed the direction of the motion with his eyes, across the stone to the place where Tansy rolled exuberantly within a patch of catmint.
An exasperated groan slid up Henry’s throat. His shoulders slumped. “Really?”
“She has got a marked preference for your garden. You may return her in the evenings, if you wish. Only let her come and enjoy it during the daylight hours.”
Probably the blasted beast would gore him before she let him lay so much as a finger upon her.
He’d seen the state of those massive claws; it would not have surprised him to learn that the cat had committed several murders already.
And still—still it was so much less than she might have asked.
So much less than he would have been willing to pay.
“Oh, all right,” he found himself saying in a gritty grumble that bore a striking similarity to the cat’s ominous, threatening purr.
“Your damned cat has got a standing invitation to visit my garden as she pleases.”