An Honorable Thief (21 page)

Kit dear handed it over with a look that was calculated to slay.

Mr Devenish looked imperviously satisfied. "Not the wait
—"

Too late. Mr Devenish, having scribbled his name in two places, smugly handed back her card. Kit glanced at it and gritted her teeth. Of course
—first the supper dance and then the waltz. Perfect! Her plan for the evening was quite, quite ruined! She'd been certain he would not come tonight; he was well known to be on very cool terms with the Up-pington-Smythes, which was why she'd wanted to come.

If he wasn't there to dog her every footsteps, she would be free to get on with her plan. It had all been falling into place so neatly...until Mr Watchdog Devenish stuck his long pointed nose in where it wasn't wanted.

Not that his nose was really long and pointed, she thought irrelevantly. It was a solid sort of nose, longish and aquiline, but not at all pointy. Rather a nice nose, in fact.

Or it would be if he kept it out of her business!

The dance before supper was a cotillion. There were not many opportunities for conversation, but Kit was determined to have it out with him, somehow.

"Why are you following me?" she said quietly.

Hugo looked down at her, his face grave, concerned, implacable. "I seem to have appointed myself your guardian angel," he said lightly.

"But I don't need a guardian angel. Aunt Rose looks after me perfectly well."

He twirled her lightly around and she sighed and allowed herself to be spun, knowing herself to be wax in his sure, strong hands, and yet wishing it were not so.

"Perhaps the sort of guardianship I am performing is one which your aunt is incapable of."

She craned her head back a little so she could look him full in the face. "What do you mean, incapable of? She is a very good guardian! And besides, I am nearly of age
—I need no watchdog!"

His face looked a little weary. "Well, there, we must disagree. I think you do not realise what danger you court.''

Kit's pulse leapt at his words. He could not mean... He surely did not believe... She glanced up at his stern, harsh-featured face again and those oddly cold, grey eyes met her gaze.

He did mean it.

They danced on in silence for a few minutes. Kit's thoughts were racing wildly. He could not possibly know. There was no way he could. He was just being...bossy.

"Actually, I do not feel much like going in to supper," Kit said as the dance drew to a close. “Thank you for the dance, sir. However, I find I am not at all hungry. But please, if you wish to dine alone, feel free."

He smiled faintly. "T would not dream of deserting you. As your partner for the supper dance, my honour as a gentleman is at stake."

"Oh, very well." Kit almost stamped her way towards the supper room. Was there no shaking this wretched man?

She sat and watched him fill plates for two people. "In case you change your mind," he said blandly.

Kit gritted her teeth at his presumption, but she was in fact quite hungry so, making a show of reluctance, she allowed herself to be tempted. He had selected a variety of food that was exactly to her taste. Although she had only two crab patties; he had served himself three, or was it four? She watched them disappear swiftly. He reached out and served himself another two, then hesitated and took one more, a little sheepishly. Her bad mood slipped away. It was very difficult to remain angry long with a man who had such an obvious weakness for crab patties. She nibbled on her own and felt strangely at peace.

After they had both cleaned their plates in a most unfashionable manner, he said, "Miss Singleton, would you care for an ice?"

She looked up at him. The man was not the only one with a weakness, for certain dishes. "Yes, please." She sighed. "I am very fond of ice-cream."

Mr Devenish signalled a waiter, who returned in a short time and placed a dish of smooth, creamy ice-cream in front of her. Kit thanked him and began to eat, while he sipped meditatively from a glass of wine. She was aware of his occasional gaze, warm upon her skin, as she ate.

She was just enjoying her third mouthful of the cold, delicious confection when he leaned towards her and said quietly in her ear, "It is time the Chinese Burglar disappeared from your life. He endangers your life and your freedom."

Kit spluttered in surprise. The ice-cream went down her throat, the wrong way. She began to cough.

Solicitously he patted her back. “Can I fetch you some water?"

She nodded her head, eyes streaming, glad for the reason to send him away.

He returned with the water. She drank several mouthfuls down, playing for time.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes," she gasped, scrabbling for composure.

"I believe my question shocked you." His eyes bored into her.

She shook her head. "Shocked me? No, no," she said. "I merely choked, er, on...on a bone."

His brow rose and he nodded in grave sympathy. "A common difficulty with ice-cream, I find
—the bones."

Some mistakes you walked away from. Kit finished her water, slowly.

Mr Devenish watched her a moment, but said nothing. The ghost of a satisfied smile played about his lips.

Kit tried to make a recovery. "So, you think I am in danger, that that Chinese criminal is planning to steal something of mine or my aunt's. I suppose since you discovered him near my aunt's house that time, he might be
—"

"I mean nothing of the sort. I think you understand me very well."

"But
—"

He stood up. "If you have finished your ice, Miss Singleton, perhaps we may return to the ballroom."

Frustrated, wishing to rid his suspicious mind of any notion of any connection between herself and any burglar, Chinese or otherwise, Kit stood, aware of the impossibility of a public argument in a crowded supper room.

She was still determined to argue it out with him; she had to disabuse his mind of any notion that she had any connection with the recent spate of burglaries. His name was down for another dance; she would insist they sit it out and talk, like civilised beings.

The band struck up the last waltz for the evening. He

arrived just seconds before the music started. She glanced up at him, disdainfully. He looked very fine and reserved and elegant in his formal clothes. He said not a word, but the very faintest of smiles curved his lips and his hard grey eyes demanded impossible things of her.

She was
not
going to dance with him. She already knew it was folly to dance with him, let alone a waltz. Much better to sit and talk.

He held out a masterful hand. It was a nice hand, square, long-fingered, a little battered.

Spinelessly, Kit allowed herself to be led onto the dance floor. He drew her into his arms, those strong, sure, arms and she closed her eyes and allowed herself to be swept away by the music and the magic and the man. It was the stuff of dreams...

His big warm hand cupped her at the waist, his touch burning through the fine soft fabric of her gown. His other hand gripped her hand firmly, possessively. He twirled her around the dance floor with an ease which had a touch of arrogance in it; it felt as if she were floating. There was no need to watch her steps; she was in the hands of a master. She needed only to give herself up to the rhythm of the music and the expertise of her partner.

She could smell the faint tang of the soap he used, the fresh scent of newly washed linen, pressed with a hot iron. He seemed to give no thought to the steps of the dance; his eyes clung to hers, drawing her to him, with the inevitability of a whirlpool.

The music shimmered and seduced. The man was all she was aware of and Kit gave herself up to the dream, floating and twirling in a magical daze.

For it was only a dream.

It could be, for Kit, nothing more.

Maggie was waiting up for her. “Well? How did it go?'' Kit noted her maidservant's heavy eyes. "I told you not to wait up for me, Maggie. I can perfectly well undress myself and put all my things away
—you know that—so why did you wait up for me?"

"You know why," was the grim reply.

"Well, nothing happened, and I'm going straight to bed tonight, so you may sleep easy." It was not quite a lie. Bad enough Maggie had guessed Kit's plans; she didn't want her implicated any further.

Maggie looked her over, and said shrewdly, "Something has put you all end upon beam!"

Kit hoped she wasn't blushing. After that wonderful, magical waltz, she'd drifted home, only vaguely attending to Rose's chatter. She'd been in a blissful haze, conjuring up impossible, wonderful daydreams in which somehow, everything was different, and she could stay in England, and be courted like a normal girl...

Then they'd reached Dorset Street and as they'd climbed out of their sedan chairs, she'd noticed Mr Devenish's groom, Griffin, lurking in the shadows. Reality had crashed down all around her in all its nasty gritty irreconcilable contradictions.

She was still being spied on.

She'd stepped out of the sedan chair and mounted the steps to Rose Singleton's house, leaving her dreams in the gutter.

"That wretched man as good as admitted he's been following me. He spouts nonsense about a guardian angel, but I have another word for it
—spy!" She did not mention the connection he had somehow made between herself and the Chinese Burglar. Maggie worried too much as it was.

Maggie made a non-committal noise and busied herself tidying away the clothes Kit was discarding.

"As if I need a guardian angel! I
—who have been looking after myself perfectly adequately for years! Have you

ever heard anything so outrageous! What business am I of his, I ask you? Even Papa never questioned my activities and he at least had the right!"

"Mebbe so, but I've always said your pa should have protected you a lot better than he did."

Kit pursed her lips. It was an old argument and one she knew from experience she could never win. Maggie had never approved o
£ her father and nothing would ever change that. Perhaps Papa had been a bit lax in some areas—all right, she knew he had been—but that didn't mean she had to accept a perfect stranger foisting his presence on her! "But this Mr Devenish—he's not even a relative!"

She glanced at her maid as she said so, and surprised a look on her face which shocked her. "Maggie! You cannot mean you approve of him hounding me in this fashion!"

"Hounding!" snorted Maggie. "I wouldn't call it hounding. Does he nag at you constantly, telling you what to do and what not to do?"

"No, but
—"

"Does he persecute you and interrupt what you are doing?"

"No," conceded Kit grumpily, "but
—"

"So, he just happens to be where you are, and minds his own business like a gentleman is supposed to." Maggie curled her lip. "Doesn't sound like anyone's being hounded to me! And if keeping a friendly eye on you, and making sure you get home safe and sound is what you call hounding, well, all I can say is, good for him!"

Outraged by this betrayal in her own home, Kit snapped, "Why, what would you call it when wherever I go, there I find him or else that wretched groom underfoot! He was down in the street, outside, just now
—the groom, I mean! How
dare
he send his man to spy on me!"

Kit stared at her maid, awaiting her response. Maggie looked oddly self-conscious, she realised.

"Well, Maggie? Isn't it outrageous?"

Maggie avoided her eyes, bustling around the room, tidying with a vengeance. The busy activity could have accounted for her maid's heightened colour, but suddenly another thought, completely unrelated to their discussion, leapt into Kit's mind.

"Yes, if Mr Devenish cannot follow me, he sends that big groom of his
—what's his name—oh, you know, Maggie. Ruffm? Griffith?"

"Griffin," mumbled Maggie, polishing the bedroom looking-glass with quite unnecessary vigour.

“Oh, yes, Griffin, I recall now. He was the spy you mentioned the other day, wasn't he?"

Maggie scrubbed furiously at the pure surface of the mirror.

"The handsome one," added Kit provocatively. "The big, clumsy jackanapes."

By this time, Maggie's cheeks were pure, brilliant rose.

"Have you spoken with him since?"

Maggie mumbled something that might have been an affirmative.

"Often?"

"Hmmph!" Maggie straightened the bed covers violently. "Can't help it if he comes around, can I?" Her face was almost glowing with embarrassment, Kit noted gleefully.

"I do believe you have a
tendre
for Mr Devenish's coachman, Maggie dear."

"His groom, you mean." Then, realising what she had said, Maggie blushed even more furiously. "A
tendre
for the groom? What nonsense! Nothing of the sort. I'm a respectable woman, Miss Kit, and
—"

"Oh my, oh my, Maggie dear," Kit crooned.