He pressed tight to the door to blend in as he tried the handle. Unlocked, praise be to the Lord.
From the parlor door came a swish of pale color and Marietta’s, “I’ll get it for you, darling.”
Blast. Quick as he could without making a noise, he jumped into the study and closed the door, praying she hadn’t seen him.
In case she checked the room, he sprinted around the desk and crouched behind it. That darling rang in his ears like a taunt. On Saturday pure fear had flashed through her eyes when she heard Hughes, and now, on Monday, she called him darling?
Maybe she had just been afraid of him seeing her with puffy eyes, her scarlet hair out of place.
She moved too quietly on her slippered feet for him to know where she had gone, so he stayed still and let his eyes adjust to the unlit room. No fire had been laid today, and he could see his breath in the moonlight that speared its way through the drawn curtains.
A soft click, and then a shaft of golden light from the hallway.
He pressed his lips together against a telltale plume of white air and willed his heart to slow. It was dark. He was hidden behind the desk. The massive, solid mahogany desk that looked exactly like the one in Hughes’s study. His eyes fell to the drawer in the same location, which had a matching keyhole.
Marietta’s hum filled the room. A hymn—“Rock of Ages.”
Slade eased closer to the wood, kept his head bowed.
And so he saw the lavender silk swish into view even as the humming went from song to simple hmm. Letting out the breath, he looked up and saw her leaning against the side of the desk, fiddling with the chain of her necklace while she gave him a charming smirk. “Looking for something, Mr. Osborne?”
Even knowing full well he would never pull it off, he went for casual and smirked back. “Yeah. Dropped my cuff link.”
“Ah. Of course. And no doubt kicked it in here under the door, around the desk, and…into the drawer, perhaps?” She twisted the chain around her finger, the round top of a pendant peeking up from her modest neckline.
Maybe she mocked him, but she sounded so dashed pleasant…and she hadn’t yet called for Hughes. “You know, I was just thinking it must have bounced in there.”
“Wily things, those cuff links.” She made a show of peeking over the side of the desk. “Unfortunately, I believe my dear late husband kept that particular drawer locked. And equally unfortunately, my charming brother-in-law is now in possession of all Lucien’s keys.”
And of his wife—how would ol’ Lu have felt about that? “Is he now? Well. By pure coincidence…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his pick. “I never need a key.”
Though her brows went up in obvious surprise, she didn’t miss a beat. She clucked her tongue and twisted the chain again around her finger. “I invite you to notice, my friend, that everything in here is showing its neglect, other than the top of the desk. Even the lock has a film on it, and if you go scratching at it with that…tool, you could very well leave a mark. And Devereaux does detest seeing marks upon his things.”
He sighed and paused with his pick an inch from the lock. When he angled another glance up, he found her leaning closer, finger extended. And from its tip dangled the necklace she must have pulled over her head when he looked down.
The necklace with a key at its apex. He looked from that metallic answer to prayer back into her cat eyes. It didn’t feel like a trap. Didn’t smell like one. No tingles of warning shot up his spine. And yet it couldn’t be as simple as that. “Why?”
She turned her finger, let the gold slither down. He caught it by instinct but kept his gaze locked on hers. And so he saw the bravado fade and watched her go from charming socialite to the vulnerable woman from the floor two days earlier. “I didn’t know who they were when I joined this family. Now I do.”
He closed his fist around the key, held it until he felt its indentation in his palm, and then flipped it into the lock and turned. “And you love him anyway.”
Did something flicker in her eyes, or was it a trick of the moonlight? She stood and picked up the pipe lying cold and dormant in the middle of the desk. Apparently where her darling had left it. “He’ll know if you move anything.”
“Can’t be avoided.” He pulled it open and hissed out a breath at the reams of paper within.
Marietta tapped the pipe against her palm. “Don’t take anything. And relock it when you’re through.”
Because it was wise advice, he nodded. Even as he wished he could put a few sheets into his pocket. Like this one with a full list of area Knights.
The light turned to shadow, and he looked up to see her in the doorway, one hand upon the post. “Slade…thank you.” She glanced at the library.