“Well done, partner.” He shook his head, his admiration clear. “And that fake you put up wasn’t half-bad, either.”
Danny’s chest swelled with the compliments, as much as possible when her entire body felt like undercooked blancmange. She slapped the side of the pot with the palm of her hand, feeling giddy now that the theft was over.
“Why that was nothing, good sir. I could have taken the lot, but I didn’t wish for poor Mr. Stoney to lose his position. I hear the aristocrat who lives here is fond of his animal collections. Especially hisspotted raven.”
Percy smiled as he took a seat beside her, using his half of the pot to rest his back. “You’re a natural. You even figured out how to move the pot.” He nudged her shoulder with his own. “Clever girl.”
Clever she may have been, but sore she was now.
She grabbed her shoulder and winced. Conmen must be the most athletic people in the world. “I may have to crawl through the woods to get home.”
“Growing pains of the criminal life,” Percy said. “You should stick to cornering villains instead of joining their ranks.”
It was her turn to smile, the only movement that didn’t hurt. “That sounds highly dangerous. A lady would flirt with ruin if she listened to your advice.”
She rolled her head to set him down with her fiercest imitation of Xanithippe, but the action left them facing each other, their bodies and mouths but inches apart.
Suddenly, her aches and pent-up energy transformed into a flood of awareness.
Here they were again, in a most compromising position, not a servant in sight.
Judging by the glazed look in his eyes, he felt the tension mounting between them too. His voice was rough when he said, “It’s all right to admit you enjoy it.”
His gravelly tone shot bolts of want to her toes. Leaning forward, she didn’t know to which she referred—to the criminal behavior or him—when she confessed against his lips, “I like it.”
The kiss was no more than a wing’s brush of lips, but the contact felt like it carried with it an emotional pressure Danny couldn’t decipher. Pulling back a breath, their gazes locked. No one had ever looked at her like him: full of hunger and intensity... and pride and respect.
A correlating feeling of connection clicked into place somewhere in the vicinity of her chest.
She reached out, her fingers whispering across his mouth, eager to grasp the feeling before it vanished. “Percy—”
“What in tarnation?!”
Danny gasped at the distant yell. She and Percy broke apart to poke their heads around the great oak in time to see Mr. Stonebrook scratching his head at the stand-in bush, his mouth working and his gaze searching the area.
“What in tarnation?” the gardener repeated. He stood back from Danny’s poor excuse for a trimmed bush and peered around the pot as if the original were hidden behind.
Danny watched in rapt horror, fearing the man to stand on his head next, until the man beside her snickered.
No, it was worse than a snicker. Percy snorted.
“Oh, no.” Danny arranged her face into a severe expression, holding back the beginning of her own mirth.
Percy snorted again, wiping the laughter from his eyes.
“Don’t, Percy—”
He snorted a third time, followed by a whoosh of breath that sounded like a great “UHHHYUK.”
Danny lost the battle. Her laughter burst out, as sporadic and unchecked as his.
Children’s laughter.
They laughed until the tears ran. They laughed until their sides pinched and their chests heaved.
When at last Danny released a final hiccup, she found herself on her back, staring up at the canopy, pressed side to side with Percy.
“I haven’t laughed like that since before I was fresh out of stay bands,” Danny said.
