Jackson wasn’t most men.
He cocked a brow, his competitor’s spirit igniting at her insulting tone. “You can do better, can you?”
“With my eyes closed,” was her response.
The temptation was too great.
“Prove it.”
She smiled. Full, guileless, and as bewitching as ever.
“I’ll make you eat those words, Duke,” she vowed.
Sparks of anticipation fired in his blood. He couldn’t wait.
“Hold this.” She shoved her reticule into his hands as she loosened the drawstring. But ten seconds before she pulled out the strangest-looking lockpick tool—two different-sized nails fused together?—and bent so the door’s lock was eyelevel.
She turned her head, her gaze piercing even in the shadows of the townhouse. And then the fierce green disappeared under her lids as she did, indeed, close her eyes.
A brush of her fingers over the hole in the door before she guided her tool into the lock. A quick twist. More guiding with her other hand. Two more twists.
She couldn’t mean to—
Clunk.
Anna’s eyes popped open. She straightened, and that bright smile of hers brimmed with light. “How was my time, Duke?”
Jackson stared.‘Time’?How could he be bothered to check his watch when she was his own personal sun? “You unlocked the door with a nail,” he said stupidly, looking again at the tool in her hand. “Is that handmade?”
That smile of hers turned sly. Two gloved fingers placed on the side of the door. “It is,” she said, pushing.
The door opened on silent hinges, revealing the intricate black-and-white tiles of the foyer in the dim gray light.
He remained rooted to the spot. She used to practice opening the back gate that divided the Grandfellow estate from the neighboring lands when they’d been children. He’d stand on the other side talking to her as he’d waited for her to get the latch to unlock. Ten minutes, sometimes fifteen if it was a dark night. They’d never risked bringing a lamp, knowing any flickering light would be visible from the house.
Not only was shemakingher own tools... Eyes closed, it hadn’t been thirty seconds before the lock had given this time. Not any old, rusty lock meant to keep poachers and farmers’ children from trespassing on the duke’s lands. This had been a top-of-the-line lock manufactured by The Chubb Lock Company all the way up in Wolverhampton. Said to be unpickable.
Admiration swirled in his belly with something that might have been regret. “Your lockpicking has gotten better.”
Of course it had.
Her father had been hailed as the greatest locksmith in England before he’d died, his genius and expertise in constant demand. The reason Anna had often been left in the care of a trusted, elderly chaperone in the village that was not too far from Grandfellow. And the reason Anna had never been caughtsneaking out to meet the local lord’s son in the middle of the night.
But Anna was nothing if not observant. Little chance she hadn’t learned everything there was to know about locks—and lockpicking—from her father when he had returned in between commissions. A true master craftsman. Like father, like daughter.
All locks of London, beware!
She returned her tool to her reticule and tilted her head. “No lecture on such unladylike hobbies prepared, Duke?”
“They aren’t standard scripts,” he said, coming back to himself. “I can give it a go, if you wish?”
“This should be good.”
He cleared his throat, needing no rehearsal to tell the truth. “That was magnificent.”
She turned away as if displeased, but her lips were turned upward. “Someone needs to take you aside and inform you a lecture should not be so complimentary.”
“Excuse me!” He puffed out his chest in mock affront. “Who is giving the lecture here?”
