She drew a long breath and began to creep toward the wall opposite the open door. The farther she was from the gossiping servants, the less likely it was she would be caught. The more likely she could find some second hiding spot if one of them did come into the room.
“Penny, you’re only making it worse!” one of the servants said with a giggle. “Heavens, you’ve wrapped it all around itself.”
“You know that bitch will complain about the wrinkles, too,” the other girl said. “And with no time to go press them out.”
Selina shook her head as she eased around the foot of the bed, moving into the line of sight of the two servants if they looked her way. Lady Winford sounded like a terror to work for. She deserved whatever she would get when Selina finally took that damned necklace.
She inched along the foot of the bed, easing around it at last and back toward the wall, into the shadows. Just as she neared the door, she pressed her foot down on one of the floorboards and there was a loud creak that pierced the silence of the room.
“What was that?” one of the servants whispered to the other. “Did you hear that sound from t’other room?”
Selina was still a least a few feet from escape and there was nowhere else to hide except to tuck herself hard into the shadows and hope her dark blue evening gown would offer her some camouflage.
“Perhaps it’s a ghost,” came one of the whispered voices.
“Oh, don’t speak of that, I’ll be up all night with the terrors.”
Selina reached for the handle of the door and glided it open softly. She kept her gaze on the other room, listening as the women debated which one of them should be responsible for going and checking to see if they were truly being haunted.
She stepped into the hall and shut the door with a quiet click. She heard the maids squeal from within and hustled away just in case one of them got up the gumption to check the hallway for their ghost.
Her heart throbbed as she staggered up the hallway, away from the room. She had been the Faceless Fox for years and never been anything close to caught. It was a matter of pride for her, really, to know that no one had seen more than a shadow of her. To the point they didn’t even know she was a woman, not a man.
But tonight she had been distracted. More than distracted. And that made her sloppy. It put her in danger. And it proved, once again, how being close to other people didn’t match with being a master thief.
So she was going to have to decide which thing was more important. The burgeoning relationships she was starting to forge? Or the life she had lived for so long that she hardly remembered another?
Derrick stepped into Selina’s chamber and quickly shut the door so no one coming up the hall might see him. He looked around and his brow wrinkled. She’d left the festivities of the gathering downstairs with a headache, or so he’d been told when the gentlemen rejoined the ladies a short while ago. And yet she wasn’t here in her bedroom, resting. He didn’t hear her in the adjoining sitting room, either, but he went there regardless and opened the door.
He was startled to find Selina’s companion, Vale, sitting by the fire, a book in her hand. She glanced up, and instead of panicking at the sight of a strange man in her mistress’s chamber, she arched a brow at him and set her novel aside.
“Mr. Huntington,” she said. “This is unexpected.”
“Miss Williams,” he said, trying not to shift with discomfort. “I apologize for disturbing you. I ought not have entered the room.”
“No, I suppose propriety dictates such,” Vale said, getting to her feet and taking a step toward him. Pale blue eyes swept over his face and down his body. “But Selina and I have never stuck much to the rules of propriety.”
His brow wrinkled at the purr in her tone. The way she glided toward him. “Selinamost definitely marches to her own beat,” Derrick said. “And you two are obviously close.”
“Very,” Vale said. “So you can understand why I might be protective of her.”
“You are well within your rights to be so. It’s good to know Selina has someone on her side.”
“Are you on her side, Mr. Huntington?” she pressed, arms folding across her chest. “Or are you just tupping her?”
His lips parted at the unexpectedly blunt question. Part of him wished to deny it all, to act as though he didn’t know what she was talking about. But it was evident this woman did know what he’d been up to with Selina. Perhaps she’d told her friend. Selina had made it clear she didn’t have a prudish mind when it came to sex and sin. Or perhaps Vale had overheard something, put the pieces together when tidying up for her mistress.
Or maybe they were just too obvious in their ardor. After all, he could tell Barber suspected them, as well.
“You would have to speak to your mistress about that,” he said, refusing to reveal anything that Selina hadn’t, herself, said out loud.
Vale arched a fine, blonde brow. “I’m askingyou.”
He frowned. So much for trying to go the gentlemanly route. Not that he could. He’d thrown gentlemanly out the window the moment he took Selina against the library wall.
“You are clearly a clever woman and I can see you know what you think you know. So I won’t deny that Selina and I have grown…close…since our arrival here.” He blinked. “More close than I ever could have imagined. But I’m not…using her, Miss Williams.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You truly care for her?”
