Chapter 2

2

His name was Nate Smith – that was what he said, and nobody was inclined to argue – and he was a thief. A prince of thieves. If you stole something, especially something valuable, in London and didn’t give him his share, you’d be looking over your shoulder, and while you were looking over your shoulder you might trip and break your neck. It had happened. And why would you be so foolish? Nate Smith could make things disappear. Things, and people. But if you helped him, he’d help you. He could be very helpful, and fair, by his lights.

He’d helped the girl who was now Sophie Delavallois. It could be said that he’d created her. Unlike everyone else, he knew where she came from, what she’d been before, and he hadn’t told a soul. This seemed almost incredible in such a dog-eat-dog world, but it was true.

A lesser man might have seen a short-term, obvious profit in a penniless, friendless and very pretty girl who could claim descent from various kings of France, and who had the manners to match. An auction could have been arranged. Several auctions, human ingenuity being what it was. Maidenhead was a valuable asset, and only a fool would imagine that it could be sold only once.

This sort of thing went on all the time, and Nate Smith had no bone to pick with anyone who chose to make their living in that particular way. He wasn’t sentimental. Flesh was a commodity like any other. But it had seemed to him to be a waste of potential, in this instance. He’d seen something in the girl when he’d met her. She’d been destitute, alone, bereaved and dazed with grief, but she hadn’t given in to despair, and he’d been aware of a spark of something in her that gave him pause. If he’d made the obvious arrangement eight years ago, as he easily might have done, if he’d sold her on to some madam or other, the girl wouldn’t be convincing anyone she was of royal blood by now, he thought as he looked at her. He’d always enjoyed looking at her. She still held on to her youth, and he was glad to see it. Of course, she might have made a go of whoring – some rare women did – and spent her days riding in a fine carriage down Bond Street and her nights as some great lord’s particular favourite, but more likely she’d be walking the streets of Covent Garden and painting her face an inch thick to hide the pox sores. Or dead in a gutter: wasteful.

He could, he supposed, have found other women who could pass as upper servants (though not a fraction as well as she did) and find their way into the most exclusive houses in the country. He’d done similar things before, when the stakes were lower, when it was just a matter of a doxy taking a few shillings to leave a door or a window open and looking the other way. This was different. The thing about thieves and criminals and their strumpets – and he was aware of the irony of this – was that you couldn’t trust the bastards. His reputation, won in blood, though not his blood, ought to ensure he’d never be double-crossed again. Normally this would be the case. But when it came to very valuable things, to extreme temptation, people were so stupid. They could lose their heads. And Lord Wyverne had an awful lot of valuable things – a fortune, a king’s ransom. Nate Smith wanted all of it. Sophie – best to think of her as Sophie now – just wanted one particularly precious trinket. Her fair share.

It wasn’t as though he’d trained her just for this particular caper. She’d earned her keep a thousand times over. She could empty a pocket like nobody he’d ever seen, though she’d started at it late. She could pick a lock as easy as winking. She could pass as a lady, or as a tavern wench, since she’d been both. She could read and write, in several languages. She could draw you up a letter that looked as though the old Queen had had the scriving of it, or any lord or banker you could name, which was surprisingly useful.

She could stab a man who attempted to lay rough hands on her, if it came to that, and be a hundred yards away before anybody noticed, including the victim; she didn’t care for that side of the business, but she’d done it. Who’d suspect her, with her pale, little face and big, dark eyes? She could go anywhere, and do anything, from Carlton House to a Charley’s shelter. She could be anybody, from a duchess to a foul-mouthed doxy, a Frenchwoman, an Italian. She was fearless, quick, bold and clever. A woman after his own heart, if he’d had such a thing. And he was supposed to have sold such an exceptional woman into the life of a lightskirt – an expensive baggage and then, almost inevitably as time wore her down, a cheap one? Madness. He’d made her, and she was his creature. And together they would pull off the greatest, most audacious theft of the new century. It wouldn’t be long now, if she could hold her nerve. He trusted her – as far as he trusted anybody, which was to say, not completely. Never that.