An Honorable Thief (10 page)

His damsel in distress was Miss Singleton, Miss Catherine Singleton, schoolroom chit with no conversation
— well, she'd been consistent in that at least, he reflected ruefully.

But what the deuce was a young girl like Miss Singleton doing riding unescorted in the park at dawn? On a morning after she'd danced the night away, what's more. And wearing a habit that was more suited to a servant than herself.

One thing, though, was clear. The motives of the men in frieze coats was no longer a mystery
—their target was reputed to be the owner of a diamond mine. The fools must have expected her to carry diamonds on her. Or perhaps their motive was ransom.

He rode slowly on, frowning in thought, avoiding barrows and pedestrians and hand-carts without consciously noticing them. The robbers had been waiting for her. That meant she must make a habit of riding in the park at that hour of the morning.

Odd behaviour for a chit just out of the schoolroom. Even odder for an heiress. Possibly that was why she wore such a shabby riding habit
—to deter possible robbers. But she really ought to have taken a groom at least to protect her. It was all most peculiar.

He reached his home and called for hot water, and for breakfast. Over a sirloin steak, he mulled over the situation. What the devil was a rich young woman doing riding an ill-favoured job-horse from a hired establishment? Someone with a seat like hers surely knew horses enough to demand the best.

And Rose Singleton had always been a stickler for the proprieties
—so why had Rose not arranged an escort for her niece? Miss Singleton might encounter robbers again— good God! He suddenly recalled what she had said. She
had
encountered robbers before.
In Jaipur once when I was fourteen!

Jaipur! He was fairly sure Jaipur was a kingdom or sultanate somewhere in India. And if that was the case...India was famous for its precious stones. Perhaps the fabled diamond mine was not in New South Wales, after all, but India...

But what was she doing being accosted by robbers in India at an age when she should still have been safely in the schoolroom, sewing samplers and practising her pianoforte?

He pushed away the remains of his breakfast, and drained his tankard of ale. Now, suddenly, his suspicions about how he had lost his tie-pin did not seem so ridiculous.

He'd gone out for a ride to clear his head, but instead had returned with it chockful of unanswered questions!

And the central question was
—who the devil was Catherine Singleton? Because he was now certain to his bones that she was not the simple little chit she appeared to be.

No chit fresh from the schoolroom could fight off an attack with such courage and then be so cool about it only a few moments later. That kind of self-possession came with age... or experience.

And there had been no sign at all of a lisp. An affectation, after all.

It was all very annoying. He'd planned to go for a ride and blow all thoughts of the inconvenient and irritating Miss Catherine Singleton out of his head, and hang it! She was more firmly ensconced there than ever.

And worst of all
—his park encounter with her had done nothing to diminish the attraction he had felt!

On the contrary!

He was more intrigued
—and, yes—more attracted than ever.

Blast it!

Chapter Four

Kit tossed the reins of the hired horse to the waiting stable lad, pressed a coin into his waiting palm and slipped into the side door of Aunt Rose's house. She silently closed and bolted the door after her, then leant against it, her eyes closed.

Of all people to run into at the park, why did it have to be him? Such bad luck, to find the very man who had been disturbing her concentration, appearing out of the mist, riding
ventre a terre
to her rescue. Wretched man! He had almost ruined a very successful morning.

The footpads were a worry. She had been so careful to establish her routine, to account for her absence from home in the early hours. It had not occurred to her she might become a target for thieves. Kit Smith! A target for thieves! She laughed, wishing Papa was alive for her to share the joke with.

She would have to vary her routine now, for it wasn't only footpads who'd discovered her.

Who would have thought Mr Devenish would ride at dawn?

Had he recognised her?

If only she'd worn a thicker veil. Only she hated the thick one. It made her feel trapped, a little as though she was suffocating. She hated the feeling of being shut in.

And how stupid to have spoken to him
—to have spoken at all! And in her own voice, her own accent!

Would the lisp she had adopted in his company be a sufficient disguise?

Kit took a deep, steadying breath. There was no help for it after all. What was done was done. She'd learned that lesson young.

There was never any going back.

So Mr Devenish had caught her riding alone in the park, unescorted. If he had recognised her, it would be a blot against her reputation. But he could not prove it was her.

And if she had fought off her attackers in a less than ladylike manner, what was that to say to anything? Many ladies she knew were not always ladylike.

And if she'd failed to act like an innocent young girl just emerged from the schoolroom... Well, not all schoolgirls were innocent.

Kit shrugged as she took the servants' stair to her room. He could make of it what he would. She had no control over what he would think anyway, so there was no point in brooding.

Kit tugged off her gloves. The worst damage would be that a slur would be cast on Rose's reputation as a chaperon. Regrettable, but not so very bad, in the larger scheme of things.

She peeped into the small dressing room attached to hers. Maggie was still fast asleep in her truckle bed. It was only just after dawn, after all. Only the most menial of the servants were stirring yet, and their hostess, Rose, would be abed for another four or five hours. She rarely arose before eleven.

Kit stripped off her habit and hung it neatly in the closet. She quickly tossed on the nightgown that she'd discarded an hour or so earlier, and shivering in the cool air, climbed into her high, still faintly warm bed. She could catch a quick, refreshing catnap, and no one would be any the wiser about her dawn excursion.

She was well used to interrupted sleep, after all. Another lesson she'd learned as a child was that the most productive hours were often the hours when the rest of the world slept or were at their most vulnerable
—the hours just before dawn.

The Watchdog rode magnificently, she thought as she watched the early morning sunlight play across her window. She'd noticed him in the distance before those footpads had accosted her...not that she'd realised who was riding that splendid black horse.

Horse and master were perfectly matched.

It was odd, how strongly he appealed to her. He shouldn't. He wasn't at all what most people called handsome
—his face was harsh, almost saturnine. And he stared at her so coldly and made no attempt to charm her. In fact, it seemed to be a strain on his temper merely to be agreeable towards her.

She'd met many men in London who were much more personable and good looking, and yet she wasn't nearly as attracted to their practised compliments than to his barked-out interrogations. Why was that?

And yet...when he thought he was dealing with an unknown woman in the park, he'd acted quite differently. He'd been quite gallant in her defence and, afterwards, solicitous and protective.

Towards a stranger.

Why so brusque and businesslike towards his young nephew's supposed intended, and yet so charmingly protective and, and
—yes—flirtatious towards a stranger whom he must have known, from her horse and habit alone, was not of his station in life?

A Watchdog indeed.

It was all most intriguing.

She sighed.

"Whatever are ye doing, Miss Kit?" said Maggie, later that morning.

Kit pulled out a white muslin dress from the large oak wardrobe, examined it closely and tossed it onto a pile. "No, that won't do either," she muttered and pulled out another one, also white, but worked in fine pale blue embroidery around the hem and sleeves. She scowled at it a moment, then tossed it, too, aside. "Insipid, insipid, insipid! Why is everything so insipid?"

Maggie let out a small cluck of annoyance. "Oh, will ye stop tossing those dresses around so carelessly, Miss Kit! Gowns like that don't grow on trees, ye know! Whatever is the matter, now?"

"They won't do, Maggie. Not at all."

Maggie stared at her a moment. "What do ye mean, they won't do? You mean somebody said something to ye at the ball about yer gown? Drat! That dratted dressmaker
—I knew she couldn't be trusted. Her little black eyes were too close together! The woman swore to us that they were the very thing for a jern fee only just out!"

"But I'm not
a jeune fille
only just out."

"Ye are too
—" Maggie broke off. She stared at Kit a moment. "What d'ye mean, ye're not a jern fee?" Her eyes narrowed shrewdly. "What are ye then?"

Kit sighed. "I'm a diamond heiress."

There was a short silence broken only by the ponderous ticking of the grandfather clock out in the passageway.

"A diamond
heiress?"

Kit nodded. "Apparently Papa said something to Rose in a letter and..." she shrugged "...it's all over London."

"Drat!" said Maggie. There was another short silence, then she said, “Typical of yer pa. He never did like to keep things simple, rot his bones!" She sighed heavily and smoothed the fabric of a dress. "A diamond heiress. Are ye sure?"

Kit nodded glumly. "Everybody says so."

"Drat!" said Maggie again.

They gloomily surveyed the pile of simple white dresses which had been purchased for the
jeune fille.
They were fresh and simple; not at all the sort of thing a diamond heiress would wear.

“Ye cannot afford a new wardrobe, I suppose. No, silly question. Oh, Miss Kit, what a thing to
—''

"A diamond heiress might prefer simplicity," said Kit slowly. "Don't you think so?"

Maggie snorted. "Well I hope so, because simplicity is all this diamond heiress can afford!"

"Yes," Kit continued. "I think I very much dislike ostentation
—''

"Just as well!" Maggie busily began to sort clothes into two piles: one, obvious "jern fee" clothes, the other with heiress possibilities.

"
—and, of course, I
never
wear diamonds! Nor any other stones."

"That's right." Maggie started to enter into the spirit of things. "Nasty vulgar things, diamonds. Especially for a jern fee."

"Yes, Papa would never have allowed me to wear diamonds. Not even tiny ones as earrings."

Maggie made a rude noise.
"No, he'd have had 'em out of your ears and off to the nearest card game before you could say Jack Robinson!"

"Maggie!" said Kit reproachfully.

Maggie stopped her sorting and directed a sceptical eyebrow in Kit's direction.

Under that gimlet gaze, Kit capitulated. “Oh, very well,

yes, he would have. But
not
if I were a diamond heiress. Which I am, apparently. And I cannot think that a diamond heiress would wear such....such insipid garments as these. It was one thing when I was merely an obscure, long-lost niece...but a diamond heiress."

They both stared gloomily at the pile of clothing.

"Perhaps a diamond heiress
—of the becomingly modest variety—would wear some of these...only not quite such commonplace things," said Kit. "What about...?"

She reached down and dragged a small trunk from under the bed. A quick rummage secured the piece she sought, a brilliant blue length of Indian silk, bordered with exotic embroidery. "How about this?" She draped it around herself and posed.

Maggie regarded her critically, then sniffed. "Not bad. Matches your eyes. What else have we got?''

Kit rummaged around some more and drew out several gorgeously coloured, exotic small hats
—caps they were, really, and not designed for women. She placed one at a rakish angle over her dusky curls. "A new fashion, perhaps?"

Maggie adjusted the angle of the cap, frowned and nodded. "It'll do. And what about the young prince's jacket?"

"Oh, yes!" said Kit excitedly. She went to a large chest of drawers and took from it a heavy dark red silk jacket, which she slipped on over her white muslin gown. The jacket was cut short, just to her waist, with long tight sleeves and a high collar of unusual cut. The thick silk gleamed with subtle richness. It was densely embroidered in a stunning black and gold design on the collar, cuffs, down the front and around the base.

She gazed at herself in the looking glass. The white of the muslin gown did not look so insipid now; in fact, it provided the perfect background for the heavy gorgeous red of the jacket. She fetched one of the caps, a black one with
a small tassel of gold, from her trunk, put it on and frowned critically at the effect. “If we got some slippers to match, and perhaps embroidered a reticule with the same design... What do you think Maggie?"

Maggie pursed her lips for a moment, then nodded. "Might be the sort of thing a diamond heiress would wear
—if she had unusual tastes, that is."

"Unusual tastes! Yes! That's it! I am not your everyday, run-of-the-mill diamond heiress. I have unusual tastes!" agreed Kit enthusiastically. "And then we can use some of the things we have collected on our travels, and if I look odd
—which of course I shall—it will only be a sign of eccentricity. What is odd in ordinary people is mere eccentricity in an heiress, I am certain. Oh, what a relief! For a while there I thought we would never be able to pull this mad thing off. But now, if I am to be eccentric and unusual—well, that is so much easier. So, what else can we use?" She burrowed back into the trunk, while Maggie began to tidy things back into the wardrobe.

“What about the peacock shawl?'' Kit drew out a large, very fine black Kashmiri shawl, upon which was embroidered two peacocks facing away from each other. Their embroidered feathers gleamed with iridescence in a thousand gleaming shades, almost as magnificent as the original birds. It was edged with a silken fringe, so long that it almost touched the ground. The insipid white gown could hardly be seen.

"And this!" She pulled out a length of shimmering gold material, so fine and delicate that her skin glowed though the fine transparent weave.

"And the Maharani's headdress!" She placed an intricately wrought silver headdress over her hair. It settled close, hugging the shape of her head, a row of dainty glittering silver pendants adorning her brow.

Kit settled on her heels beside the trunk, a billowing tangle of exotic finery tumbled around her. "Oh, Maggie darling, what a good thing we brought all these bits and pieces with us. I thought only to keep them for a rainy day
—to sell them to raise some cash, but they will be a godsend to us, now that I am a diamond heiress. A diamond heiress! Whatever was Papa thinking of?" She shook her head in rueful disbelief. "But if we use these as a basis, and have one or two more spencers and pelisses and perhaps a riding habit cut to a similar unusual design... I might, I just might actually look the part!"

"And how do ye think we are going to pay for these extra pelisses and habits and whatnot?" said Maggie grimly. "A fine heiress you will look if the dressmaker comes a-dunning us and ye can't pay."

"Oh, Maggie, my deah," said Kit, affecting a drawl very reminiscent of some of the society ladies she had met, "'tis terribly provincial of you even to consider it. One does not
—positively not, my deah—bother ones head with tradesmen's bills. Your mantua maker should be grateful— positively grateful, my deah—that you consent to wear her offerings in such distinguished society."

Maggie glared. "Don't tell me ye're planning to diddle some hardworkin' woman out of her hard-earned
—"

Kit giggled. "I knew you would be horrified, but indeed, that is how some of them speak. And of course we will pay the dressmaker. I remember, as well as you, how hard it is to earn a living as a seamstress. My thumb is still practically scarred from the number of times I pricked it with a needle."

"And what do ye think we will pay her with, Miss Optimism?”

Kit grinned cheekily. "Oh, we will be able to pay, Maggie dearest
—do not fret yourself. By the time the dressmaker's bills come in, we will have plenty of money to pay her with."

Maggie eyed her narrowly. "Miss Kit! I thought ye'd given up playing those tricks!"

Eat instantly thought of a tiny gold phoenix with a glinting ruby eye. She squashed the guilty thought. "Oh ye of little faith," she said airily. "There will be no tricks involved
—I promise you. But Aunt Rose goes to so many card parties and one thing I did learn from Papa was how to win at cards—and, no, I will not use his methods. I have no need of them. I have always been lucky at cards, you know that, Maggie."

"Aye," agreed Maggie gloomily. "And ye know what they say about that, don't ye? Lucky at cards, unlucky at love."

There was a small stir in Almack's when Kit and Miss Singleton arrived the next evening. Miss Rose Singleton was clad in one of her usual gowns, trailing a number of gauze scarves. However, Miss Catherine Singleton, who had only ever been seen dressed in white or the palest of pastels, was again wearing a white dress, but there her usual pattern ended.

Tonight she positively caught the eye in a very exotic jacket of dark red silk with the most intricate embroidery in black and gold. An unusual tasselled cap was perched jauntily on her short dark curls. She wore embroidered slippers which curled to a point and carried a reticule to match.

It was a most picturesque, not to say outlandish outfit.

The ladies buzzed with speculation.

Miss Catherine Singleton appeared oblivious of the minor sensation she was causing on this, her first appearance at the hallowed Marriage Mart. She curtsied demurely to each person her aunt introduced her to and said very little, apart from the common politenesses. She prettily agreed to dance with whoever asked her. Apart from her bizarre costume, she behaved like any other young girl making her come-out.

The discussion of the diamond heiress's eccentric attire, as Kit had predicted, lasted a short while, then moved on to more fruitful topics...

"Did you hear about poor Lady Alcorne, Hettie?"

Kit was seated in the main room at Almack's, watching the dancing and eavesdropping a little dreamily on a conversation between three elderly ladies seated nearby. They had shredded the reputations of three of her acquaintances so far. Kit was finding their conversation quite entertaining.

"Oh, yes, the Alcorne diamonds! No wonder she is not here tonight. Poor creature
—her husband is reputed to be furious."

Kit pricked up her ears.

"Kit dear, why are you not dancing?" Rose came up from behind her, looking vaguely concerned. "You don't want to be a wallflower, now do you?"

In fact, that was exactly what Kit wanted to be at the moment. What did it matter if she missed one dance? She glanced at Rose to tell her so, and stopped. Sweet concern for Kit's welfare was all Kit could see and her heart melted. She was so little accustomed to someone worrying about her happiness that she had no defence against it.

Had Rose been a wallflower in her youth? Was that the reason she had never married? Had she ever had an offer? It was a pity, for Rose would have made the sweetest of wives and a truly loving mother.

Kit grimaced faintly. "My new slippers pinch a little. Don't worry, Aunt, I will join the next set, after my poor toes have had a short rest."

"Oh, dear, your poor feet." Rose peered at the odd slippers and nodded understandingly. “By all means rest for a moment or two, but it will not do if people see you sitting too long when all the other girls are dancing." She nodded encouragingly at Kit and floated off, trailing gauzy draperies behind her.

Kit resumed her eavesdropping

“In the family for generations, and you know what men are like. They'll blame whoever is convenient. And I heard she had neglected to lock the diamonds away."

Generations?
Kit wrinkled her brows.

"But, Maud, I was certain someone said it was a highwayman. The blackguard bailed her up on the way home from the Parsonses' ball."

"No, no, Pearl, dear. That wasn't it at all
—a robber broke in to the house in the dead of night. I had it from my dresser, who is first cousin to Lady Alcorne's housekeeper. Lifted the whole set from the dressing table in the very room where Lady Alcorne was sleeping."

"Good God! She could have been murdered in her bed!" said Hettie, who was really Lady Hester Horton, Kit learned.

"Oh, indeed! Quite, quite shocking! The state of the world today! A person is not safe in her bed."