Chapter 12 #2
“It’s not so sad,” he replied. “Not for a man like me, who is about to get his shiny rock back and put it with all my other shiny things. My collection is bigger than most, therefore I must be satisfied with the life I have.” His words were dry enough to make the Sahara seem tropical.
“I fear you will find these so-called shiny things cold and meaningless once you procure them,” the Duchesse cautioned sagely. “The joy of their acquisition will be short-lived and ultimately empty.”
“That may be…but there’s been a voice in my head for six years, screaming at me to hunt it down. Keeps me up nights. Interrupts any moment of peace I might carve out for myself. And I need to silence it for good.”
The Duchesse gave him a searching look from beneath her lashes, and Rosaline wondered if he’d confided in her about his brother, Caleb. Or if she were just a very perceptive woman.
“As you say.” She dipped her chin in a nod of deference.
Rosaline couldn’t take another step, and she stood in the middle of the spectating crowd encircling the ballroom dance floor, watching as people parted before the stately-looking couple.
This was what he’d come to England for. The Midas Chalice and the Anatolian Sapphire.
He’d go to war to obtain it, in order to quiet the memory of his brother’s screams.
Chewing on her lip, Rosaline felt a familiar vibration slither through her, tightening her belly with a sickening dread.
The need.
Sometimes it was a wicked whisper, easily ignored.
This time it was a roaring tempest, churning her blood into froth.
Pricking her skin with the bites of a thousand driving shards of ice.
Threatening to sweep her away and carry her to some dark nether where she’d drown in her despair and be forgotten to those depths by all those she loved.
And suddenly, she knew what to do.
Lifting the hem of her skirt, she made an abrupt about-face on her heel and marched toward the grand staircase. Calling upon years of experience, she hid her turmoil behind a mask of serenity, smiling at the people she passed as she climbed.
Finding herself at the top of the fourth-floor steps, she came face-to-face with a huge, bald man standing sentinel in front of a red velvet rope that stated “Private.”
“Oh,” she stumbled a bit, and righted herself on the banister. “Hello.”
“You’re not to be here, miss,” he said in a gruff Northumberland brogue. “Go back down with the other guests and wait your turn for a peek at the goods.”
“Ever so sorry,” she simpered, sidling up to the man who seemed fascinated by the fit of her frock. “I’m actually supposed to meet someone up there,” she improvised. “I’m…to model one of the necklaces on auction.”
His nonexistent eyebrow lifted as he inspected her chest, naked of any adornment. “A model, you say? I wasn’t told about ya.”
“Were you not instructed to let me by for the fitting?” she asked. “I apologize for the oversight, Mr…”
“Peckering.” He smiled wide enough for her to notice a few of his back teeth were missing.
“Mr. Peckering. You are an absolute gem for executing your vocation with such diligence. How about I simply go and fetch the lady of the house so she can clear this up—”
“No need.” He put his hand out to stop her, and she grimaced when his fingers cinched around her upper arm.
“I’m not keen to interrupt the Black Heart of Ben More’s wife.
You can pass. Just be quick about your business.
” He unhooked the rope and pulled it aside, allowing her access to the shadowy hall beyond.
“Thank you, Mr. Peckering.”
It took every bit of starch in Rosaline’s knees to walk down the hall as if she were supposed to be there, especially since she could feel the sinister guard’s eyes on her the entire way.
Flustered, she rounded the first corner she could find, and took a moment to orient herself. The passages of Northwalk Hall were long and lined with several doors. She wandered down this one feeling overwhelmed by choice and pressed for time.
Peering around a corner, she spied four men standing guard outside of a double-doored chamber at the end of the next hall. They’d strange bulges in their suit jackets that she had to imagine were the weapons Duchesse de la Coeur referred to.
Doing a few quick calculations, Rosaline was fairly certain that door faced north, so its windows would be on the east side of the manse. Which meant…
Turning behind her, she tried a door latch and sighed with relief when it opened.
Though the door was just as wide as the others, she’d stumbled upon a linen closet deep enough to fit three servants, complete with a table for ironing and a window no person could possibly fit through close to the ceiling.
Only used for venting the space to prevent mold, she surmised.
Trying the next door, she found a tidy bedroom surely used for visiting valets or ladies’ maids who served important guests. The accommodations were certainly nicer than servant’s quarters, but not grand enough for guests of the master and mistress of the house.
Shutting herself in and bolting the door, Rosaline was relieved to find that the window latch was very similar to so many in this part of London. Easily unlocked from the outside with something like…This.
Swiping a letter opener from the secretary, she went to the window, depressed the latch, and leaned out to check the width of the ledge.
Easily doable, though it would take some finesse to circumvent the gargoyle at the corner.
Looking back at the door, she indulged in one of Eli’s favorite curse words as she committed to the task.
She’d get Eli his sapphire by putting to use the dubious skill she’d mastered over the years.
She wanted to gift him the peace he sought, without him having to suffer recriminations.
Stepping out of her heavy skirt, she tied her petticoats between her legs, making a rather poufy pair of pantaloons out of them. Scooting up on the windowsill was easier than expected and from there she simply swung her legs around and slid down to the ledge.
It would take some doing to lift back up, but that was a problem for her future self to solve.
The night was just about moonless, and the illumination of such an incredible gathering was kept to the first and second floors, leaving the top of the house secured in shadow, for the most part.
Heights were not counted among Rosaline’s many anxieties, so she flew on featherlight feet along the ledge, until she reached a stone monster perched on the corner pulling a dreadful face.
“Pardon me,” she whispered, taking hold of his goblin-like ears in order to throw one leg around his perch and wriggle around to find stable purchase before scooting her back leg along.
“I’ll only have to do this once more,” she informed him apologetically.
“Please don’t tell my husband I straddled you. He’s not a forgiving sort.”
Now was an odd time for levity, but sometimes a burst of humor would appear at the most stressful of moments.
Finding herself safely on the other side, she peered into a darkened window, surmising that each room on this side would have at least two, if this bedroom was any indication.
The guarded door had been four counts down the hallway, so she hurried past eight windows, ducking beneath the lone glowing one—number five.
Taking a breath, she carefully peeked over the window ledge to find a darkened room stacked with open cases.
She was making a distressing habit of this, breaking into the treasure troves of her wealthy peers. Finding the scant moments when their plunder wasn’t hidden away in a vault, but behind a window too high to be opened from the outside over a ledge too thin for most everyone but herself.
This time, she wasn’t taking for herself. That had to mean something, hadn’t it?
The latch didn’t spring as easily as the ones at Hespera House, but she managed after a bit of a struggle with the letter opener to lift it from the hitch and swing the window outward. Boosting herself into the window was the most difficult thing, but she managed to do so quietly…if inelegantly.
Standing up, she dusted herself off, hoping her simple gold bodice hadn’t been too damaged in the struggle with the ledge. It was impossible to tell in the dark.
Inching carefully around the room only lit by the ambient London night, she found a lamp and placed it as far as she could from the door, so as not to illustrate illumination from underneath.
Lighting it, she turned the wick as low as possible before starting her search of the room.
It was a lesson in opulence. A plunder only deserving of the greatest pirate, or king, or even a dragon.
Stunning paintings were carefully placed next to priceless art and sculpture.
Some of them considered fabled, were they not tangible in this very room.
Necklaces belonging to beheaded queens. Canvases painted by masters long thought lost to war.
Bejeweled weapons. Ancient pottery, tools, and trinkets.
Weapons encrusted with jewels. The crown jewels of forgotten empires winking like fallen stars.
Rosaline touched none of it, though she quite literally ached to do so. This room was akin to a museum, and her greatest wish would be to study every last artifact.
Alas, time was of the essence.
Leaving anything in a display case after a cursory perusal, she began to open traveling trunks and boxes full of soft batting or shreds of wood and paper. Most she found empty. Until…
A leather satchel with an odd padlock on it had been abandoned by itself in a cupboard. Slicing through the straps with a whispered apology to the owner, she opened it and pulled out the kind of purse used for coins some hundred years past. More a pouch than anything.
Pulling at the strings, she reached inside and extracted something covered in a velvet cloth.