Chapter Twenty-Six
Twenty-Six
Dust sparkled in the air around Jade and Theo in the streams of stage light that broke through occasional vents in the ceiling.
The farther they traveled over the audience and away from the stage, the dimmer the light grew, and in their solid black espionage uniforms, they disappeared into the darkness.
Not that there was anyone else in the rafters of the opera house to see them, anyway.
Music swelled and echoed in the empty space all around them, drowning out any sound they might have made, though they were light and careful with their footsteps.
The piercing notes of the leading soprano, the rich tenor of her love interest, and the majestic mixing of voices in the chorus carried along the waves of the orchestra to reach every dark corner.
Jade led the way to the place where the Evenshold box was located, on the top of four stories in the circular opera house. She positioned herself near a vent where she could see the family clearly.
Lord Grannam and his wife sat behind their two daughters, Marguerite on the right in a stunning emerald gown, and Sylvie on the left wearing navy blue. Grannam’s son, Phillipe, was not present, but he was likely with his wife in their own space.
Theo settled by a vent a short distance away, and Jade focused her attention on the Evensholds.
Marguerite held opera glasses to her eyes every so often, a small smile on her face.
Something relaxed in Jade to see Marguerite at ease.
Marguerite had become a friend to Elena, and the closeness surprised Jade.
In fact, she and Alanna were disproving some of Jade’s long-held beliefs.
They weren’t cruel, deceitful, and arrogant as she’d always thought about the nobility, especially the royal family.
Shallow and privileged, yes, but not spiteful. Not pretentious.
Sylvie reached out for the opera glasses, and Marguerite handed them to her. Neither appeared to have a care in the world. But just because the Evenshold daughters didn’t perceive a threat didn’t mean there wasn’t one.
Jade shifted behind the vent to get a better view of Grannam.
His gaze was trained toward the stage, but Jade could tell he wasn’t watching.
He was preoccupied. His eyes flitted to the side every so often, and his hand continually drifted to his pocket.
Something was hidden there. Could it be poison?
A letter? Jade didn’t want to leave the vent with the sightline to Grannam, so she threw her hand in the air, waving it at Theo.
He caught sight of her movement and hurried to her side. “What is it?” His words were a breath in her ear, and her skin broke out in goosebumps. Now was not the time to get distracted by Theo.
Jade angled her head toward where Grannam sat in his family’s box.
“I think he’s going to do something while he’s here,” she whispered, and when she turned to face him, their noses almost brushed.
One quick glance down to his lips, and Jade had to forcibly pull her gaze away.
“He’s restless, and he keeps touching his pocket. ”
“Keep a close eye on him. I’ll stick close to the Fellsrins but make rounds as I can to see if I notice anything suspicious.”
Jade nodded, not daring to look again at Theo.
But it didn’t make a difference.
Theo’s fingers caught her chin and turned her face toward him, and he closed the space between them with a kiss.
It didn’t last long—maybe three or four seconds—but Jade’s whole being lit with desire.
For a split second, she wished they weren’t currently in the rafters of an opera house on a vital espionage mission. They couldn’t afford any distractions.
“I just had to do that once,” he murmured, then released her chin. Jade grinned at him and shooed him away, returning her attention to Lord Grannam as Theo made his way around the drafty space.
They’d shared a lot of kisses over the past couple of days—as many as they could spare in their free time between meetings and preparations for the mission.
It was new but comfortable at the same time, and neither of them could get enough.
Though in the busyness since their first kiss, they hadn’t had a chance to talk much about it.
All they had agreed upon so far was that there was no reason to make it public yet.
While relationships within the military weren’t frowned upon—as long as those involved could keep the bedroom and the battlefield separate—they wanted to have some time where it was just theirs.
Jade shut that part of her mind off as she zeroed in on her mission and the portion of the royal family sitting before her. The opera carried on without incident, but still, Grannam didn’t do anything other than fidget.
Theo reported back to her after every couple of rounds with nothing of note, and Jade sat back on her heels with a huff. They were missing something. A tingle in the back of her mind told her something was going to happen, but she’d gathered no indication of what it could be.
At Theo’s suggestion, they swapped tasks, and she got to move around and survey the rest of the opera house for herself as Theo kept watch on Lord Grannam.
Jade crept from vent to vent, peering through at the nobility she could spot in their boxes.
Nothing about the Fellsrins appeared unusual, except that Prince Reynauld had dozed off in his chair.
His wife noticed and nudged him, and he came to with a slight snort.
She glared at him before returning her attention to the performance, and Reynauld shook himself awake.
Arabella and Alanna sat side by side, pictures of beauty in their complementary wine red and forest green gowns.
Jade studied their faces and posture for signs of fear, anxiety, or anything else that might indicate they knew something she didn’t, but they appeared as contented and relaxed as the Evenshold sisters.
Even Lady Arabella, whom Jade had rarely seen without a scowl, was completely captivated by the performance, sitting slightly forward in her chair as though physically drawn to the stage.
Jade’s own apprehension about what the night might hold began to fade as she circled the ceiling of the rest of the upper boxes. The symphony of instruments and voices lulled Jade into a sense of calm. Finally, she rejoined Theo, who had no updates to report.
“You can take over here if you want,” he said quietly, standing from his crouched position so Jade could resume his place at the vent. “I think I’ll head back to the stage and see if I can see anything from there.”
“Okay,” Jade confirmed, but before she lowered herself to the vent by the Evensholds’ box, Theo grabbed her gloved hand and brought it to his lips, kissing her knuckles.
Jade couldn’t resist the smile that tugged at her lips.
Theo flashed one back at her, then turned and crept toward the hatch that would take him to the wings above the stage.
Jade settled into her position beside the vent, keeping her eyes on Lord Grannam as the music swelled and transformed.
The sweet calmness dissipated, replaced by a deep rumble of increasing tension.
Marguerite and Sylvie were entranced, their eyes fixed on the stage before them, which Jade couldn’t see.
Even their mother, Lady Beatrice, watched intently, enraptured by the story playing out.
Grannam, however, still fidgeted, still flitted his eyes, still tapped his foot. He was clearly waiting for something.
The song ended, and the audience applauded. Grannam leaned over, whispered something in his wife’s ear, and stood.
Jade leaped to her feet. Surely this was what he had been anticipating. She rushed to the next vent, spotting him through the window in the door behind another family’s box, then to another until he had gone out of sight.
Time was of the essence. Jade raced in the direction of the stage, where she would find a way down. In her haste, she checked to see if Theo was still with her in the rafters, but she didn’t find him. And she couldn’t waste the time locating him.
A trapdoor in the floor was her way down.
She flung it open and shimmied down a ladder in the darkness far off to stage right, favoring her hurt shoulder, until she reached a landing.
A door awaited her on the opera house side of the landing.
Jade pulled her thin black cloth mask over the bottom half of her face, then her hands flew to her hip and then her boots, double-checking her weapons.
The music swelled, booming and powerful so close to the stage.
Jade cast another quick glance across the flies for Theo but didn’t spot him.
The performers on stage had turned dramatic with the music, conveying their despair and desperation in passionate song.
In a flash, Jade opened the door and slipped her body through, shutting the opera behind her.
Even the dim light from the electric sconces along the walls burned Jade’s eyes. She blinked several times to regain her sight and listened. She heard nothing beyond the powerful music now muffled through walls and bodies.
Jade moved like a gust of wind, fast and invisible, as she rushed silently down the top concourse past the doors to the boxes.
She was counting on this portion of the performance being gripping enough to glue all the audience members to their seats.
The last thing she could afford was being spotted.
A low male voice reached her ears, and Jade froze, trying to place the sound. Another male voice spoke, slightly higher pitched. She’d heard it before.
In Grannam’s war room.
The man who may have been his assassin.
A hallway appeared on her right, and the sound of voices drew her down it.
She turned under the arched opening and crept along the hallway, clinging to the shadows in the direction of the lavatory and a sitting room.
The plush red carpeting silenced her footsteps as she passed exquisite paintings of past operas and singers hung in gold frames along the walls.
The voices grew steadily louder, and Jade took cover behind a statue of a woman reaching up, the top of which held a tall candelabra with several flickering candles, wax dripping down their long stems. Murmured words floated to her.
They were hard to make out with the rising intensity of the music behind her, but getting any closer to the sitting room where they seemed to emanate from would take away her cover.
She had to risk it. Jade made the decision in a split second as the crash of cymbals drowned out their words. If she were going to hear any part of this conversation, she had to be closer to the doorway.
Jade rounded the massive candelabra, coming upon the open entryway of the sitting room where guests could step away and take a break from the performance if they desired.
The voices came more clearly into focus.
Though she kept far enough back that she couldn’t be seen, Jade recognized the voices as those of Lord Grannam and the same unidentified man she’d heard with him before.
This time, she was able to catch a glimpse of one of the men—not Grannam, given the reddish-blond hair she spotted on the back of his head.
He wore a black dinner jacket and slacks, not the expected tailcoat for the opera.
So he wasn’t attending. He must have slipped into the opera house just to speak to the Duke of Evenshold.
The music softened for a moment, and she caught the tail end of a quiet sentence from Grannam.
“ . . . you couldn’t find them?”
“I’m afraid the information you provided was incorrect, Your Grace,” came the slick, higher-pitched voice.
There was a short pause, then Grannam ground out, “That’s impossible. She must have known she was being targeted and moved them.”
She? Jade’s mind instantly went to Arabella. She was the only woman involved in this conflict.
“I can try again, if you would like,” the other man said.
“No. I have other ways of getting her attention.”
Was Grannam targeting Arabella next? Could he be targeting her here, at the opera?
The weight of duty to stay and listen to their conversation was not enough to keep Jade outside the sitting room. Fear coursed through her at the possibility of what Grannam might have done. She had to see if something had happened to Arabella. She had to stop whatever Grannam had planned.
Jade tore back down the hallway and around the concourse to the Fellsrins’ box.
She peered through the window in the door, finding the family as she had last seen them from above.
Arabella angled her head toward Alanna to whisper something in her ear.
Nothing about her appeared unusual, and there were no refreshments present in which to hide poison.
Jade stepped back from the door to the box, taking a slow breath to bring her heart rate back down.
So what was Grannam talking about with that associate of his? He had already done something. It involved Arabella. The pieces were there, but Jade couldn’t seem to put them together.
She could return to the sitting room to listen in on more of the men’s conversation, but it was likely Grannam was already returning to his box.
If he’d told his wife he had to visit the lavatory, he wouldn’t have long before she found his absence odd.
Of course, Jade had no idea what he had told Lady Beatrice.
Perhaps she knew he had business in the Conflict of Succession to see to that night.
Either way, she didn’t want to get caught creeping back in the direction she had left him, so instead she decided to return to the rafters and reconvene with Theo.
Perhaps if she shared what she had learned with him, he could help her figure something out, especially if he had learned anything himself.
The music grew to a crescendo as the first act came to a close, and uproarious applause overlapped the end of the song. Patrons would be leaving their boxes soon for intermission. Jade had to get back into the rafters.
She reached the door to the wings and placed her hand on the knob, ready to swing it open, when another sound was added to the din.
Screaming.