Chapter 7 #2
“They do,” Greer nodded, finishing with his boot and standing straight again. He handed Penny a set of lock-picking tools that he’d evidently taken out of his boot. “Left-behind servants often grow lax, but there’s no telling, given Lord Pennington is still in residence.”
“I’m not resting on any laurels or pretending this will be an easy job,” Penny said, taking the tools and studying them. He glanced to Greer. “You planning on teaching me how to use these?”
Greer blinked, then swore under his breath. “You don’t know how to pick locks already?”
“I do, yes. But I’d hardly call myself an expert of your renown,” Penny said, grinning.
Greer swore again, rubbed his face, and muttered something that sounded a great deal like a curse on Brutus and Titus for saddling him with someone so green.
“Right,” he said aloud, shaking out his shoulders. “Looks like we’ll have to practice before we approach the house.”
Penny liked that idea. He liked learning new skills, but mostly he liked when Greer was forced to turn his full attention to him.
It was still too early for the main housebreak anyhow, so Greer gestured for Penny to follow him away from the square and along one of the smaller streets to a dark and quiet mews.
He found a gate with a lock, then quickly and deftly demonstrated how to use the lock-picking tools.
Penny was impressed by how easily Greer could foil the otherwise solid-looking lock.
“Your turn,” he said, handing the tools over to Penny as they walked inside the mews and over to a small stable.
It took Penny a few times once Greer showed him.
He was not used to such refined tools for the job in front of him.
It didn’t help that they had to keep their voices down as they worked.
But before long, Penny felt his way through teasing the various cogs and dials, or whatever it was he felt inside the lock’s mechanism, until the door to one of the horse stalls clicked open.
“That was simple enough,” he said with a giggle as the startled horse wandered out into the mews in search of hay.
“Careful not to congratulate yourself too much on beginner’s luck,” Greer told him, placing a hand in the center of his back and nudging him toward the mews’ gate.
“Is it luck if you’ve been taught by a master?” Penny flirted, glancing over his shoulder at Greer as they slipped back out onto the street.
“It’s luck until you’re caught,” Greer replied, pulling Penny into a patch of thicker shadows as a gentleman marched quickly past at the far end of the street.
Penny took advantage of the moment to press against Greer. Memories of the cabinet were still hot in his head, and he wouldn’t have said no to repeating them. Especially given the situation they were currently in. Nothing made his blood pump to his cock harder than danger.
“You know,” he murmured, brushing a hand up Greer’s arm as he watched for the best time to make a move. “When this is all over, we could find a nice room somewhere to discuss things. Maybe work out a bit of tension.”
Greer glanced down at Penny and growled low in his throat. Penny loved the sound, until Greer said, “If all you’re going to be is a distraction, then I can do this on my own.”
That stung, but Penny supposed he deserved it. “Some other time, then,” he said with a wink.
Greer stared at him for a long time, like he was considering it, before pushing forward.
They walked around Berkeley Square a few more times, observing not just Pennington’s dwelling, but the houses around it. As things quieted, they ventured back into the mews behind the house, going so far as to slide up to the kitchen door.
“The servants are always the last to go to bed,” Greer said, as if his lesson in housebreaking had truly begun. “But they never sleep deeply. Most of the servants will have rooms in the attics, but there’s always a house boy or scullery maid sleeping, sometimes out in the open, downstairs.”
“What do we do if we find one?” Penny asked, eager to be a good student.
“We leave them alone,” Greer said solemnly.
Penny nodded.
Greer reached into his pocket for his tools. “We head upstairs directly,” he whispered. “We find the study and take the letters we need without faffing around.”
“Not even a little?” Penny teased with a grin.
Greer sent him the flattest look Penny had ever seen. He made it hard for Penny to keep silent instead of laughing.
“In, letters, out,” Greer said. “I’m not the best housebreaker in England because I dawdle about, taking tea and reading their books.”
“Tea and books,” Penny sighed with pretend longing. “That’s the life.”
Greer growled at him again, and Penny’s cock jumped.
It probably wasn’t an ideal state for him to accomplish an important housebreak, so he took a breath and steadied himself, then nodded to Greer.
Greer nodded back, then went to work on the lock.
It truly was amazing, the speed with which he was able to puzzle through it and open the door. Thankfully, because it was Mayfair the door’s hinges were well-oiled, and they hardly made a sound as Greer pulled it open.
As soon as they stepped into the unfamiliar kitchen, Penny sobered.
He’d never been in a nob’s house before.
He wasn’t prepared for the warmth of the kitchen or the delicious scents that seemed to permeate the air.
Everything was so clean and well-kept that he felt a sudden pull to do exactly what he’d joked about and just sit and enjoy it for a while.
Greer had a better head on his shoulders. He gestured silently for Penny to follow him through the nearly pitch-black hall, feeling his way along until they came to a staircase.
The darkness suddenly felt stifling to Penny as they made their way up, one careful step at a time.
The stairs creaked slightly, but moving slowly helped to bury the sound in the other cracks and creaks the house seemed to make on its own as it breathed through the night.
Being nearly blind in an unfamiliar place had the hair on Penny’s neck standing up, though.
When they reached the top of the stairs, stepping out into a hallway, Greer reached into his pocket, took out his vesta case, and struck a match.
That tiny flame illuminated far more than Penny would have expected it to.
Greer searched up and down the hall, then nodded to one end, gesturing for Penny to follow him.
It was his first housebreak, and the thing that struck Penny more than anything was how slowly the whole thing unfolded.
Greer knew how to walk in a way that barely made a sound.
Penny imitated him as best he could, but he worried he was being too clumsy.
It unnerved him to move through someone else’s space with its unfamiliar sounds and scents, especially since they had only the light of the occasional match Greer lit to guide him.
When they found Pennington’s study, Greer located a candle and lit that. It was such a tiny light, but Penny found immense relief in it. “What now?” he whispered as Greer looked around the room.
“Look for a correspondence box,” Greer whispered back.
Penny nodded and stepped deeper into the room.
The walls were lined with more books than he’d ever seen together in one place.
He glanced at the titles, wishing once again that he had more time to look, and perhaps even to read something.
Reading was his favorite luxury, and it had been too long since he’d been able to indulge in it.
They weren’t there for books, though. Penny forced himself to circle around to the center of the room, where there was a long, leather couch with tables at each end.
Those tables held various boxes and a crystal container that looked to be full of cigars.
With a grin, he lifted the lid and helped himself to a handful of those cigars, stuffing them into his pocket.
He couldn’t help but to treat himself to a gold-handled letter-opener as well, not to mention a small, silver bowl and an enameled brooch that had been inexplicably left on one of the tables.
“What are you doing?” Greer hissed from the desk, where he’d opened one of the top drawers.
“Enjoying myself,” Penny whispered back.
Greer rolled his eyes as he took a handful of letters out of the desk drawer.
They seemed to be precisely what they’d been commissioned to find, so Penny abandoned the rest of the room to walk over to Greer’s side.
“Are those the ones?” he whispered as Greer held his candle close to the lot.
Greer didn’t answer. He looked over the letters, checking addresses and opening a few to see who they were from and what they contained. Penny couldn’t read much from where he stood, but the letters seemed primarily to be about business transactions.
“These are the ones,” Greer whispered, stuffing the letters into a concealed pocket inside his black coat.
The letters weren’t the only thing Greer helped himself to.
As he stepped away from the desk, Penny noticed another crystal dish, this one containing chocolates.
Greer made a happy sound and opened the dish to plunder it, eating one chocolate right away and wrapping the rest in a handkerchief before tucking them in his pocket as well.
“You and your chocolate,” Penny laughed.
“We all have our vices,” Greer said in a low voice, grinning and leaning closer to Penny.
“That we do,” Penny said, blood rushing again.
They were close. Close enough that Penny could grab the front of Greer’s coat and pull him closer. Close enough to bring his mouth crashing against Greer’s chocolate-tasting one.
Greer made a sound of surprise and grasped Penny’s arms. His first movement was to push Penny away, but as soon as he did, he changed his mind and yanked Penny flush against him again, slanting his mouth over Penny’s.
It would have been a hot and exciting kiss, had Greer not accidentally knocked the candle he’d just set down hard enough that it tumbled off the desk.
“Shit,” Greer hissed, stepping back from Penny in the sudden dark.
They both bent to retrieve the candlestick at the same time, and in the process, the lid of the crystal chocolate dish fell off the corner of the desk and clattered to the floor as well.
“Shit!” Greer snapped, louder.
It might have been nothing. The noise could have been anything. It might not have been loud enough to stir anyone in the house.
For a moment, the two of them held still, listening.
Then they heard it, the sound of movement from the room directly above the study. Then came a man’s muffled voice.
“Fuck,” Greer whispered. “Run!”