Page 30 of To Save a Scoundrel’s Soul

“As she dances in my arms, light as air,” added Willoughby dreamily.

“More like a sack of coal with all that heavy jewellery dragging her down,” Rollo pointed out. “And she’ll also be in her fiancé’s arms.”

“Talybridge is too old and too crotchety to dance.” Willoughby shot his brother a glare. “She told me so herself. He prefers the card tables and the company of all the other wrinkly old men. She’s pleaded with her father to call the whole thing off, but he refuses to entertain the idea. A wedding date is set for Epiphany.”

Mickey performed some mental calculations. Only three weeks away.

“Seeing that damned parure again tonight and not being able to snatch it back will be infuriating,” declared Fitzsimmons. “I’ve a good mind to wrench it from around the chit’s pretty neck during supper and be done with the entire thing.”

“No!” squawked Willoughby. “I will not stand by and let my one true love be assaulted.”

“And I won’t stand by and watch you be arrested either, Lyndon,” declared the duke equably. “Cool your blood. If we have to do this damned thing—and everyone has convinced me we must—then we will do it carefully, thoughtfully, and in a circumspect manner, so that we get away with it.”

He turned to the earl. “Rossingley. Please tell me you and Kit have put your keen minds together and come up with a plot far smarter than strangling poor Miss Amelia during the soup course?”

Since Fitzsimmons had confirmed, via a fencing trip to Jack’s, that Talybridge kept his keys on his person, things were moving more quickly.

“We have,” Rossingley confirmed. “And we believe we have one solid chance at this thing. Kit and I suggest we steal the parure at the Talybridge ball.” Hands clasped behind his back, he paced the floor of the small salon as the others nodded. If his astute brain concluded the New Year ball afforded the best opportunity to swipe the parure, then it probably was.

“Being invited into his house for the ball is the simplest way of getting close to Talybridge’s safe without the added risk of breaking into the property. If I may, I’ll bring you up to speed on what we’ve devised so far.” Rossingley cleared his throat. “Step one—early evening, Kit contrives to bump into Talybridge and puts his sleight of hand to good use by retrieving the key to the safe from about his person.”

“Good lord,” Ashington muttered. “I’m not sure I want to hear the rest.”

Kit himself acknowledged his pivotal role with a casual, unworried nod. Having been the unwitting quarry of his party tricks on several occasions, Mickey had every confidence they’d have the key to the safe in their possession before the string quartet even tuned up.

“Step two,” continued Rossingley, “is to create a distraction. Of course, the hullabaloo of a New Year ball itself may be distraction enough, but to be absolutely sure our theft goes undetected, we ought to create one of our own.”

All eyes turned to his youngest son, Rollo. Over the last year, he’d raced a curricle across the Palladian bridge whilst foxed as a barrow; introduced his stable groom as a Danish prince to elderly Lord Cummings; then proceeded to pretend to gabble in Danish to the man whilst Cummings looked on, bewildered. And he’d strung dozens of pairs of frilly ladies drawers from one side of the roof of Marble Arch all the way across to the other.

“It would be my pleasure,” he said, beaming.

Ashington mopped his brow. “I don’t want to be privy to single detail.”

Stifling a smile, Rossingley moved on. “Step three is terribly simple. Trifling, really. During the diversion, a person who won’t be missed for a few minutes must duck out of the ballroom, trot along to Talybridge’s study, open up the safe, identify the parure, and extract it from said safe.”

“Step four,” continued Kit before anyone had a chance to point out that step three was actually a very big deal indeed, “is for that person to hightail it out of the study, return to the ballroom, and drop the parure safely into Ashington’s pocket. Thus, when Talybridge discovers his key is missing and, a minute later, discovers his priceless jewellery also missing, he calls for the law. But the parure will not be found.”

“Because no one would presume to accuse a duke,” observed Fitzsimmons, drumming his fingers appreciatively on the arm of his chair. “Moreover, anyone with half a brain in their skulls would also imagine the culprit to have scarpered. Not be loitering with intent next to the salmagundi trolley. Bravo, Rossingley. Bravo.”

Ashington, unsurprisingly, did not share his enthusiasm. “I’m…sorry. I can’t have heard correctly. You’re going to expect me to carry on all night, making polite discourse to every man and his dog with that thing burning a hole in my pocket and the runners questioning everything and anything with a pulse?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” scoffed Fitzsimmons. “Even if they do suspect the thief to be still at large in the building, who would ever dare demand you empty out the contents of your pockets?”

“My valet does,” answered Ashington mournfully, “on a regular basis.”

“Did your valet receive an invitation to the ball?”

“No.”

“Then the contents of your pockets shall remain your own.”

“Splendid.” Rossingley returned to his seat. “I admit the plan is a very simple one. But I don’t believe it needs to be anything more complicated.”

Tommy’s brow wrinkled. “We’re assuming, of course, that Beauregard doesn’t beat us to it.” His grey gaze passed over to Mickey. “Do you still believe Beauregard has plans to steal the parure?”

“More than ever,” Mickey said.

Admitted it somewhat reluctantly, if he was being honest. Telling tales on Valentin’s planned movements felt awfully like disloyalty. What had started as a rather enjoyable means of keeping tabs on the Frenchman had somehow slid, without Mickey noticing, into what Tommy might label a romantic attachment. Especially now the Frenchman had as good as declared himself besotted. Idiot. And Mickey now called his lover by his Christian name, Valentin, for goodness’ sake.