“Yes, all right.”
“If something should go awry on my end, Daniel will come for you. One last thing, Letty.” Emma grasped Helena’s shoulders. “Promise me you won’t do anything to er…upset Madame Marchand while I’m gone.”
Helena might look as fragile as a tiny filagree snuff box, but her stubbornness had earned her Madame Marchand’s ire more than once. If Helena were to lose that quick temper and be sent from the house onto theLondon streets…
It didn’t bearthinking about.
Helena tossed her head. “I don’tknow what you—”
“Yes, you do.” Emma put on her sternest face. “You know precisely what I mean. I need you to stay safe, Letty, and Lady Clifford needs you to remain at the Pink Pearl until this business is finished. Don’t do or say anything to get yourself flung out onto the street. Promise it, Letty.”
Helena let out an impatient sigh. “Yes, yes, all right. I promise it. Now, off with you, before Madame Marchand catches you and flingsyouout onto the street.”
Emma grinned. “She hasn’tcaught me yet.”
“So smug, given you still have to sneak back out again.”
“Oh, I think I’m safe enough. I doubt Madame Marchand even remembers shehasa library.” The woman wasn’t keen on reading. She wasn’t keen on anything, aside from stripping coins from the fists of London’s aristocrats.
Emma pressed a hasty kiss to Helena’s cheek. “Go on now, before you’re missed, and rememberyour promise.”
Helena tiptoed across the room, peeked into the hallway, then turned to blow Emma a kiss before dashing through the door. Emma waited until the sound of her footsteps faded before adjusting her hood to cover her face and slipping back out the doorway through which she’d come.
She couldn’t risk returning to the Pink Pearl until she’d finished this business with Lord Lovell. It would take weeks, the rest of the season, but when it was settled, she’d return to the Pink Pearl, and this time she’d make Helena come away with her. She’d tried to do so before, dozens of times, but this time she wouldn’t rest untilHelena agreed.
Emma adored her friends from the Clifford School—Sophia, Cecilia, and Georgiana were as much her sisters as Helena was—but Helena had been there during the worst time of Emma’s life, a time when Emma had no one else.
She wouldn’t leave Helenabehind again.
Until then, Helena would be all right. Shewouldbe. She’d promised it.
Nothing could go wrong. Not a single, blessed thing. Emma had considered her plans from every angle. She’d plotted and schemed and honed this thing down to the minutest detail, becausethatwas how you caught a murderer.
She made her way through the darkened streets of London toward Lady Crosby’s townhouse in Mayfair, the scuff of her half boots against the uneven ground seeming loud to her own ears, her cold hands shoved as deep into her pockets asthey would go.
There would be no mistakes, and no surprises.
Emma didn’t tolerate mistakes, and she’d never liked surprises.
Chapter Two
Almack’s Assembly Rooms, London
The following evening
“Thisis Almack’s?” Emma’s gaze wandered around the ballroom, taking in the gilded columns, the silk draperies, and the row of chandeliers above their heads. “But…where’s the rest of it?”
“The rest?” Lady Crosby gave her a blank look. “My dear girl, thisis all of it.”
Thiswas the tribute to the nobility’s vanity, the pillar of fashionable society, the altar on which England’s prized aristocratic virgins were sacrificed?
Emma had seen the building from the outside many times, of course. It wasn’t remarkable, but given the tremendous fuss thetonmade about Almack’s, she’d imagined the interior would be drowning in oceans of costly marble, the walls would be studded with precious gems, and golden cherubs with eyes of pearls would be tucked intoevery cornice.
It was just a ballroom. Elegantly done up, yes, but much like every other ballroom in London. “I, ah…I imagined it would be larger.”
When she bothered to imagine it all, that is, which wasn’t often.
“Oh, no, my dear.” Lady Crosby gave Emma’s arm a playful tap with her fan. “We must be exclusive above all else, and there’s no better way to appear so than for every ball to be a crush. But don’t you find it elegant?”
