10

At precisely six forty-five a knock rapped on Esme's hotel door. "Enter."

Jasper walked in looking entirely too handsome in his dinner attire and quietly closed the door behind him. "Ready?"

They were staying in the small village of Montgonne halfway between Reims and Paris. It was a sleepy place with little to

recommend it except the exciting glow of Paris on the evening's horizon. After four years of darkness under wartime curfew,

the grand old City of Love was blazing to life once more. Too bad she was not their destination.

"Finishing touches." She tied a navy satin ribbon around her head bandeau style and discreetly tucked the knotted ends under

her bob, careful to keep the attached tassel of pearls dangling in front of her right ear. "Must you always look so drab every

time we step out?"

He brushed at the sleeve of his impeccably tailored suit that made him look cut straight from the picture screen. "What can

I say? I work with what I'm given. Not all of us can achieve the dizzying heights of fashion such as you manage."

"This old thing?" Standing from the vanity mirror that looked like it had been through a revolution or two, she twirled. The hem of her navy satin skirt flared around her knees. Something about a dress rippling out simply made a girl feel pretty. And this little number was a showstopper she'd picked up the last time she breezed through Paris. Cut on the bias, it had a deep V-neck with an even deeper V down the back. The entire thing was held up by gauzy straps looped over her shoulders.

"Yes, that old thing, and well you know it." He crossed the room and settled into a faded green-and-white striped chair and

propped one ankle atop his opposite knee. How easy he made every situation appear. Even forced ones in stuffy hotel rooms.

"Now that we've settled your vanity, let's proceed to business, shall we?"

"Such as how much rope we bring to string up this magpie?"

"A man with a neck ruffle that shoots confetti while he swings upside down thirty feet in the air craves adoration and stimulation.

Playing hardball with Lamb won't work. Charm and finesse are his tools."

Returning to the dressing table, she rooted around her toiletry case for lipstick. "I don't have time to sit around fawning

over this parvenu."

"Why? The countess tugging on your leash already?"

"You should know better than anyone that no one throws a loop around me."

"Yet you've managed to loop yourself into quite the pickle. If I had to guess, I'd say every day you don't return with the tiara is a cinch tighter in the choke collar she's put around you. For a woman who espouses independence, you certainly have signed yours away to that woman. Which signifies one of two things. Either you're hard up, but given your couture wardrobe and Louis Vuitton travel set that is unlikely. Or you simply got more than you bargained for and must deliver or else."

The memory of Pirazzo's knuckles pushing into her chest stifled the air in her lungs. Her fate was sealed to the Valkyrie.

She would rise or fall based on this lift, and oh, how far she would fall if she failed. Every inch she had clawed herself

from the mud would be for nothing. She would be nothing. A mere blot—a smear wiped across yesterday's newspaper: "Woman Found

with Silk Cord Wrapped Around her Strangled Neck."

Jasper need not know any of that. She was a grown woman and had managed to survive without weeping on someone's shoulder her

entire life. If Mimsy had taught her anything, it was that the entire world was a stage and an actor's job was to smile through

it all. Especially when they were kicked low.

Finding her lipstick, she popped off the top and rolled out the dark red stick to glide across her lips. "My business dealings

are my own, except in the case of this magpie. If you don't mind, I'd prefer to keep to the task at hand. The sooner it's

over, the sooner we can return to Robin Hooding on our own."

"Except we don't steal from the rich to give to the poor. Lofty ideals do not often go hand in hand with keeping oneself from

the poor house. Our skills simply go to fund our own pockets."

"Then it's a good thing we're both good at what we do." She blotted her lips on a tissue. "And why we should have no trouble

outsmarting this egg."

"He does look rather like an egg, doesn't he? More so than when I last saw him." Jasper stretched out his long legs and laced

his fingers over his flat stomach. "You say you've never heard of him before?"

She shook her head and recapped the lipstick. "I know every worthwhile thief in the business, and more than a few who aren't. Which means he isn't worthwhile."

"Perhaps not in the grand heist of things. Mostly he's been content with swindling old ladies from their heirloom pearls or

nicking a museum piece or two."

"Why now seek the cream of society's attention? Along with ours?"

"Clearly his ambitions have grown in the past few years. He orchestrated performing the most brazen act right out in the open.

And right under the noses of the world's best thieves. What better way to make a name for himself?"

"To what purpose? To claim he's better than us?" She snorted, sliding the lipstick tube into her beaded purse. "Beginner's

luck was all it was."

"Luck or careful plotting, he won that round. He has the Valkyrie. And now we need to figure out a way to steal it back."

"He'll be expecting us to try."

Jasper shrugged, unruffled by the challenge laid before them. "Of course he will. So we'll use that, along with what else

I know about him. He's arrogant, has a flair for the dramatic, and a need to prove himself."

"I would prefer stupidity."

"Arrogance is its own form of stupidity. It will do."

Esme dipped her puff into the pot of powder, then dusted her nose and forehead. "If I didn't know better, I would say it sounds

an awful lot like we're becoming a team." She caught his eye in the cracked mirror and smiled.

"A team for one mission only." He didn't return the smile but turned his head to the open window. The sound of shop windows closing and doors locking for the night as neighbors bid one another bonne soiree drifted up. "During the war we paired up with the French for the big pushes. We didn't trust them and they didn't trust us,

but we both hated the Germans more. Common enemies bring about the most unlikely unions. All that matters is the mission."

Misery dulled with time etched his words. A familiar tone to all who had lived through that hell. She swiveled on the stool.

"You don't talk much about what happened over there—well, over here actually. None of the boys do."

Sighing heavily as if an invisible weight pressed him from the inside out, he leaned forward to the edge of the chair and

dropped his gaze to the floor. "Not much to say. What happened is done. Those who were there know, and those who weren't cannot

understand."

She would never boast to understand what those men experienced in the trenches. Yet those on the home front had not escaped

unscathed. Theirs was an entirely different kind of hell. One of waiting and hoping, of making do and carrying on. Of wondering

how they could ever pick up the broken pieces of their men, wondering how they could ever be whole again.

She'd been fighting long before an assassin decided to put a bullet through an archduke as he motored around town with his

wife. Fighting to survive. Fighting to know who she was. Fighting other children who had been bestowed a father's last name.

Fighting to make something of herself and for herself. But always the past came haunting with its taunts of never quite making

the mark.

"There are far too many ghosts we carry in this life," she said quietly.

Jasper's head came up. His gaze was steady and deep. "How do you silence yours?"

"They refuse to be silent, but I do my best to drown them out."

"Do you succeed?"

"Sometimes. And sometimes they scream louder."

A moment knit with understanding and sharpened by years of survival passed between them. Fleeting in its existence, but palpable

to the core of Esme's being. As if her very marrow lunged in recognition of another scarred soul and the weight of its loneliness

shared, if only for that one blinding point in time. But that was all it was—blinding. And she had vowed long ago never to

allow sentimental feelings to rule her. She would not become a cautionary tale like her mother, and if there was anyone she

needed to use caution around, it was Jasper. He was the only one who came close to enticing her to throw it all to the wind.

So she did what she knew best to cover the temptation. She took back control and summoned her charms. Grabbing an opera strand

of pearls, she stood and turned her back to him, dangling the pearls over her shoulder. "Help a girl out, darling."

From the reflection in the mirror, she watched as he unfolded himself from the chair and stood, then smoothed the wrinkles

from his suit. After buttoning the single black button on his jacket, he tugged his cuffs into place just over his wrists

and crossed the room to her.

"They look more than long enough to slip over your head." His brown eyes caught hers in the mirror.

She ignored the flirtations of his cedarwood cologne as it wrapped around her own orange-blossom scent like a warm summer night breeze. "True, but there is a single large pearl, and I can never center it down my back on my own."

Taking the pearls from her, he rubbed them expertly between his fingers. She waited for him to rub them across his teeth to

test for authenticity, but he refrained. "South Seas?"

"Japan. They belonged to an empress who had the misfortune of losing them while on a diplomatic mission in Prague last year."

There had also been a gaudy topaz, but yellow wasn't Esme's color.

"How irresponsible of her."

"Indeed."

Lowering the creamy strand of pearls over her head, he gently laid them across her shoulders to sweep down her back in a gentle

V. His fingers brushed her skin as he adjusted the center pearl. Warmth tingled along her spine, threatening to undo the steel

resolve she had fortified around herself.

"I once found a double strand of black Tahitian pearls," he said.

"Found?" she teased, returning to stable ground.

He smiled but didn't take the bait. "If you turned them in the light, they shimmered dove gray and peacock with a touch of

cherry. They would have looked extraordinary on you."

And just like that, her teasing armor weakened at the joints. Turning, she found herself inches away from the very temptation

that could destroy her. Those brown eyes that peeled her apart layer by layer until she had nowhere left to hide. Those lips

that had once kissed her so tenderly and eagerly, even breaking Anglican tradition by kissing her right in the church before

the priest. She'd felt alive as she never had before.

Children were taught not to touch fire, but danger of the forbidden often proved even more alluring. How close could she get

to the flame without being burned?

Emboldened by curiosity, she traced a nail along his smooth jaw to the slight indention beneath his lower lip, the fullness of it resting beneath her finger. "I seem to remember you being a very thorough kisser."

"Is that so?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Do you know something else you should remember about me?" He leaned close, his voice rough silk gliding over every untouched

part of her.

Eyelashes growing languid, she angled her face up. "I wouldn't object to you reminding me."

He brushed the back of his fingers over her cheek, sending tendrils of anticipation curling through her. If this was the flame,

she could stand being burned. Her eyes drifted closed, waiting.

"I don't like being late." He tweaked her cheek and pulled away. Her eyes snapped open to the cold rush of reality, and she

could have sworn she saw him smiling as he brushed past her to open the door.

Curse the man.

***

Close to an hour later they sat together in the back of a Rolls-Royce gliding down a country lane. The spit-shined chauffeur

had said not a word as he rolled the car in front of the hotel and held open the back door for them. He turned his head neither

right nor left as they drove down seemingly endless one-lane roads that cut through fields growing wild with red poppies.

Battlefields reclaimed by the wild and nourished with spilled blood.

Esme peered out the window at the cropped moon hanging low against a backdrop of black velvet spangled with stars. "How much longer, do you think?"

Jasper shifted next to her on the leather seat. "Not much I suspect. Our host wants to impress us with a dramatic journey,

not push us to the edge of bored irritation."

"He has officially five more minutes before I cross that threshold."

"Are you feeling unwell? I can ask the driver to pull over for a moment." Unable to see in the darkened interior, she heard

rather than saw Jasper's concern for her motion sickness and its ingenuity at arising during the most inopportune moments.

Thank heavens it was dark, otherwise he would surely notice the warmth flushing unbecomingly up her neck. "I'm perfectly well,

but I appreciate your concern."

"I only ask because this is a Rolls-Royce. The cleaning bill would be more than what I'm carrying in my pockets."

And just like that the warmth vanished. "Don't fret over the seats. I'd be sure to aim for your shoes," she replied sweetly.

The auto turned and passed through a thick hedgerow to reveal a square-shaped country chateau. Symmetrical rows of windows

lined the two-story facade of sand-washed stone that glowed yellow from the torches staked along the drive. A simple roof

of clean lines and neatly trimmed bushes on the lawn offered an air of tidy elegance.

"Part of me anticipated a circus tent," Jasper mused as the car rolled to a stop at the front door.

"As his bosom friend, have you never visited before?"

"Arm's length competitor, remember? And no, we never so much as took tea together."

The chauffeur came around and opened the door. Jasper climbed out first before turning to offer his hand to Esme. The front door swung open, and a butler dressed in traditional black and starched white welcomed them into the receiving hall that was simply decorated with watercolor landscapes, fresh flowers, and a chandelier that brightened the wood-paneled walls.

"If you will follow me," the butler intoned, then led them to a room off the main entrance that was cheerful in yellow and

cream. "Your host will join you shortly. Should you require anything in the meantime, do not hesitate to ring." He indicated

a silver bell placed on a low table between two wingback chairs.

"Touch nothing but the bell." With that cryptic instruction he bowed and quietly slipped away.

"Touch naught but the bell," Jasper said with mock seriousness. "What does he take us for? Two-bit cons?"

"Our reputations precede us."

Esme wandered about the room taking inventory. A grouping of Queen Anne chairs on an Aubusson rug. Fifty thousand pounds on

the black market. Artwork by two unknowns and three Adéla?de Labille-Guiards. One hundred thousand pounds. Two hundred if

she could sell it to one of those suffragettes always bidding over female memorabilia. Silver tea set. Limoges ceramics. Engraved

Spanish swords. All worth a pretty farthing.

"No hidden vault for his collection, I see," she said.

Jasper peered at a chair crafted in a traditional Indian style and inlaid with pearl and silver. Two thousand pounds. "He

enjoys displaying his spoils. Thinks he's untouchable once he lays claim to them."

"Is that so? Perhaps we'll get lucky and he'll wear the Valkyrie to dinner. I can snatch it off his head after soup is served."

Footsteps pattered out in the hall. " Mes plus sincères excuses ," their host claimed as he rolled into the room. He wore a purple velvet smoking jacket with toggle fasteners, olive-green

silk trousers, and black boots with white spats. Why spats when there wasn't a need to protect one's shoes from mud in the

house, there was no logical explanation for except to claim it was perfectly within his odd character. "I hope you forgive

me for not greeting you at the door."

"Your butler was most gracious in welcoming us," Jasper said smoothly.

"Ah, Jasper! Mon ami ! " Lamb rushed forward, grabbed Jasper by the face, and pulled him down, planting a kiss on each cheek. "How delighted I am

to see you again."

Jasper extracted himself. "It's been some time, Lamb."

"Indeed it has. Delighted to see you out and about as a free man again."

If she hadn't had her eye on him, she would have missed Jasper's infinitesimal flinch. Esme pounced. "Free from what?"

"The army," Jasper quickly replied as he laid his hand on Lamb's thick shoulder. "Where we met and have followed each other's

capers ever since."

Lamb's eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second before fluttering wide once more. Whatever his true thoughts, they were gone

in a blink of sparse lashes.

"The past is riddled with many twists and turns, though I'm delighted to see your company has improved." Pointing out his

toe, Lamb bowed deeply to Esme. The dome of his head shone white under the electric lamps. "I am Felipe Auguste Constantine

Lambert Boisseau. My friends call me Lamb, and I hope you will do the same." Straightening, he waited with expectation on

his round face.

"Surely you know my name," Esme finally said as he continued to wait.

Lamb tittered, an abrupt noise, as if someone had seized him under the arms. "Most certainly, but proper introductions are

what keeps a civilized society from succumbing into the Wild West. We three are civilized, are we not?"

She'd adamantly declared that she would not dance to this fool's tune, yet here she was going back on her own word.

"Very well." Esme pivoted one foot behind the other and bent her knees in a perfectly executed curtsy that would gain a standing

ovation from the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Just as Mimsy taught her. "Esme Fox."

Lamb clapped with delight. " Merveilleux , Miss Fox."

Esme straightened. One distasteful task complete. "You and Mr. Truitt are old army comrades. Did you serve together for the

entirety of the war?"

"Heavens no. We met during the truce of fourteen. I sat contentedly atop a fresh pile of snow sipping what passed as coffee,

only to see this Brit striding bold as brass up and down no-man's-land sipping champagne with the poilus, trading cigarettes

for chocolate with the Boche, and rounding out the exchanges with a fine tenor of ‘Auld Sang Lyne' with the Sawneys and their

caterwauling bagpipes. Never have I witnessed a man enjoy himself so on a battlefield."

"Wasn't a battlefield at the time," Jasper said.

The Christmas truce of 1914 occurred mere months after the war had started. Enemies from both sides of the trenches put aside their fighting and came together for a moment of respite. German and Allied soldiers played football, dealt cards, shared photographs of sweethearts, all forgetting for a single moment the misery in which they had been entrenched. Some of the men who had come to hospital had spoken of it as the finest Christmas they had ever spent. At least until high command got wind of the mingling and threatened court-martialing and worse if such spontaneous comradery ever dared to happen again.

Esme couldn't help smiling. "You were there for the Christmas truce? We all read about it in the papers afterward."

Jasper shrugged as if such miracles of ceasefire happened all the time. "Many were there."

"Just as many were not taking guard of their valuables while they fraternized." Lamb pulled a silver pocket watch from his

breast pocket and shined it against his lapel, all the while watching Jasper. Jasper stared at the watch, then looked away.

With one final satisfying buff, Lamb tucked the watch away.

Before Esme could form a thought on that interaction, a gong sounded quickly, followed by the silent appearance of the butler.

"Dinner is served."

The dining room was grand enough for an emperor. Brilliant green damask clung to the walls, suits of armor were posted in

the corners, a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a garden filled one wall, painted scenes depicting various stages

of a stag hunt covered another, and a four-tiered chandelier was suspended by multiple wires that crackled with the hissing

of electric bulbs. In the center of the room stretched a walnut table long enough to seat twenty people with high-back chairs

cushioned by gold satin pillows. Three formal place settings had been arranged at one end with Lamb at the head, Esme to his

honored right, and Jasper directly across from her to Lamb's left.

Lamb had gone to considerable expense for the petite fête with a menu of exceptional French cuisine that had been hard to find since before the war. Hors d'oeuvres of salmon mousse with capers. Trout smothered in a white sauce, swiftly followed by a palate cleanser of lime sorbet. Le plat principal was a heavenly beef braised to perfection in a cherry wine sauce with seasoned vegetables on the side. A light salad, cheeses,

and olives, and finally dessert with a decadent chocolate pots de crème topped with fresh cream and white chocolate shavings.

Esme dipped her silver spoon into her pot for the last scoop of chocolate and savored the creamy thickness on her tongue for

a moment before reluctantly relinquishing her spoon. The temptation to lick the pot clean was overwhelming and she signaled

for the server stationed behind her to take it away before she made a stuffed girdle of herself.

"A long line of bakers my family comes from," Lamb was saying as the dishes were cleared and a silver service of coffee was

arranged on the table. The butler then carried in two trays topped by silver domes and presented them to Lamb, who whipped

off the cover of the first to reveal a cherry-red fez with a black tassel, which he placed ceremoniously on his head.

"One cannot truly enjoy coffee without a head covering. It helps to keep the heat from evaporating." Then he reached to uncover

the second dome. There, nestled among a leafy bed of lettuce, sat a chicken. Complete with puffs of silky fine feathers and

a black beak that stuck out from pom-poms covering its intact head.

Without warning, the uncooked centerpiece raised its head and clucked.

Esme and Jasper jumped back. It was alive.

Jasper was the first to regain his composure. "I believe your chef has gone a bit far in preparing your food rare."

"Lettie is no meal to be served." Huffing, Lamb picked up the clucking feather duster and deposited it in his lap. "She is a Silkie. A rare breed known for their silken plumage and originating from China in the fourteenth century. She is also my dearest confidant. Is that not right, Lettie?" He plucked a bright green leaf of lettuce and stuffed it under Lettie's beak. She gobbled the treat. "My confidant, my adviser, my right wing, and my golden goose."

Collecting herself, Esme ventured forth into the absurdity. "Forgive my city-born ignorance—"

"And where was that?" Lamb interrupted.

"Pardon me?"

Lamb stroked the chicken as it settled onto his lap munching its lettuce with contentment. "The city you were born. You forgot

to mention."

"Oh, Westminster. London."

"Your father?"

"My father?" Her brain scrambled to latch on to one of Mimsy's cockeyed fabrications. What did her birth details have to do

with lettuce-eating chickens? "Sir Thane Macbeth. A member of Parliament."

"Thane Macbeth. Thane Macbeth. Why does that name ring familiar?" Lamb tapped the top of Lettie's pom-pom. "It shall come

to me in due time. Now, you were saying, mon cher , before I so rudely interrupted."

"You mentioned Lettie as your golden goose. While the closest I've come to a farm animal has been served on a plate, is she

not a chicken?"

"A chicken? Certainly, she's a chicken! What gave you the impression she's not?" Without bothering for a reply, he shooed the butler away and began to pour the coffee. Lettie continued to munch her lettuce in his lap.

"What was I saying before? Ah yes. Hard workers, the Boisseaus. We kept our noses to the ground, and when the war came, we

were in the right position to sell our flour and wheat to the right buyers."

"The black market you mean," Jasper said, accepting the cup Lamb had poured for him.

Lamb nodded and poured a second cup of the steaming brew. "Though instead of staying on to assist in the transaction, my father

forced me to don a uniform. To keep a sliver of honor in the bloodline, I suppose."

Jasper cleared his throat. A bit too loudly.

"So I marched for the honor of France, and the Boisseaus made a tidy sum," Lamb continued as he slid the cup across the polished

walnut table's surface to Esme. "We became the most successful bakery in all of northern France."

Angling the cup in front of her, Esme added a dash of sugar and a splash of cream, then stirred until the black liquid softened

to brown. "Even during the war years, that's quite a feat when most people were starving."

That fat, golden chicken sitting plump right among them would have been a feast. Lettie's beady black eye glared at her from

under its fuzz as if it could read Esme's hunger-consumed memory.

Sighing, Lamb stroked Lettie's back and stared off into the distance. " Oui , our success was unparalleled, but scooping flour onto the black market was not enough."

"Nicking fellow soldiers' personal items not fulfilling?" Coolness sharpened Jasper's words to a knifepoint.

"If they were so mindless to leave them unattended, then why should I not make better use of them?" Lamb slipped out the silver watch and rolled it over his palm. "Finders keepers."

Ah, so that was the point of contention. Jasper had made his stance clear that those in service to their country were not

to be taken advantage of by a pair of light fingers. A matter Esme entirely agreed with. A caveat of honor, if such a thing

existed among thieves.

Tucking the watch away, Lamb poured his own cup of coffee. "As both of you will understand, I needed more. A new challenge

that didn't involve flour or pocket baubles. I craved the art of heisting."

Jasper sputtered on his coffee.

"‘The art of heisting,'" Esme mused. "How sophisticated that sounds when all along I've been calling it stealing."

Lamb scratched under Lettie's beak. Her long golden neck stretched out for better access. "Sophistication at all times. It

is how we stay ahead of the beasts."

"You seem rather a paradox, monsieur. For all your words of sophistication and the understated tone of your home are not parallel

to the man we saw swinging from a trapeze as if all the world were his stage."

"The world is my stage! How else would I shine so brightly if the items around me were not kept subdued? Barring your glowing presence,

of course." Lamb inclined his head toward her. His fez slipped over his bald head and covered his brow. He quickly tucked

it back on top.

"I began small. An heirloom teapot here. A lady's ring there. All to hone my skills, and I found the practice exhilarating because at any moment I might have been caught. But I was not, and the thrill of success drove me on to larger prizes. Paintings, crowns from assassinated royals, statues, a yacht. Yet always in the back of my mind was the craving for something more. To be the best. And to be the best I must compete with the best. Et voilà! The reason I insisted upon our acquaintance."

Jasper finished his coffee and pushed the cup away. "You're right in that the lady and I are the best at what we do, though

there is a debate about who is formally the best."

"There is no debate. It's me." Esme hiked a superior eyebrow across the table before leveling her attention on Lamb. With

each passing minute she felt more like the mouse batted between the cat's paws. This feline had his absurdities with his jacket

toggles and fez, but an unmistakable predatory spark gleamed in his eyes hinting at the claws beneath his velvet attire.

Best of luck to him. She had claws of her own and they were well sharpened on miniscule tuft-hunters like him. "How did you

know about us?"

"As I said earlier, I've had great success on the black market and many of my buyers were only too happy to offer the names

of the grandest thieves in the business, under the assumption that I required your services, of course. The Phantom and a

fox. Though I suppose vixen would be more apt as you are a lady."

"Isn't she just?" Jasper dabbed his mouth with the linen napkin and flashed a mocking smile at her across the table. "A vixen,

that is."

It was the same tone he'd used in the hotel, but instead of wanting to beckon him closer she was inching her fingers toward

the sugar bowl for a lob attack that was entirely warranted.

"Referring to myself professionally as a vixen has certain connotations I'd rather avoid."

"Why? I rather like that about you," Jasper said.

His hand rested on the table with nearly two feet of waxed walnut separating it from her own, his index finger slowly tapping

the wood. The soft beat pulsed into her palm, strumming her to a rhythm with an awareness he seemed particularly adept at

mastering. The scoundrel.

"Do I sense a tendre swirling under my own roof?" Lamb wagged a finger between Jasper and Esme, breaking the crescendo.

Jasper tapped his finger one final time, then stilled, his eyes on Esme. "Yes, but don't worry. It's nothing serious."

"Nothing serious at all. In fact, it was over before it even began. C'est la vie. " She waved a dismissive hand, clearing the air of electric possibilities and stifling disappointment.

Leaning back in his chair, a dreamy look passed over Lamb's face as he slurped his coffee. " Quel dommage . Love is rare, except in France where it perfumes the air."

Esme tapped her lacquered nail against the table, a challenging harmony to the previously struck melody. "Here I thought it

was still smoking from trying to put out the fires after war."

"Would require a rather large fire for it to still be smoking after four years." Jasper's gaze pinned her to the current zinging

between them. "Can't imagine the heat it put off when it first caught blaze."

Her nail tapped faster. "Perhaps it's wise to remember that those who play with fire often get burned."

A golden fuzzball came into view, cutting Esme off from Jasper. Her nail skittered to a stop, and she blinked at the chicken

that had been thrust between them. Two deadly black eyes glared at her as a growl—could one call it a growl when coming from

a chicken?—vibrated up the ruffled throat.

"I feel as if I have trod into a conversation that began long before I came upon it, and I must inform you now that there is nothing I loathe more than being left out of a game. Lettie feels the same." Lamb retracted into his seat with a pout. Hunching in the chair, he flicked his spoon into a spin. Tiny drops of coffee sprayed across the tabletop. Lettie sprang onto the table and pecked at the drops. "So I propose this: either I am allowed to join your game of secrets, or you may join mine."

Their host was nothing more than a petulant child, and spoiled children who did not get their own way often turned to destructive

habits. A good hide tanning was what was needed here, but before that lesson was taught, Esme needed to smooth his rumpled

feathers. It was the only way to get what she wanted from him.

She gently touched the sleeve of his velvet jacket and softened her voice to a purr. "I'm afraid this secret is just for two,

Lamb dear. Professional courtesy, as it were. You understand."

Lettie eyed Esme's hand still touching his sleeve. Her beak pointed and aimed. Esme snatched her hand back just in time before

being impaled.

Huffing, Lamb sat up and halted the twirling spoon by pressing his thumb into the shallow bowl. "Certainly, certainly." He

popped his thumb in his mouth and licked off the last dregs of coffee before dragging Lettie back into his lap. The overgrown

feather duster swiveled her neck to gloat at Esme.

"That means it's my turn for a game."

"What sort of game?" Jasper asked. It was a perfectly polite inquiry with just the right tinge of boredom. It could fool anyone

who didn't have a high stake in the outcome of this bizarre evening.

"The best. Winner takes all. In this game we may truly discover who is the best thief among the two of you."

Esme's brow lifted in surprise. "Two of us? Will you not be joining?"

"I've already bested you both. It is now time to see who wears the second-place crown." Lettie squawked in agreement.

Second place indeed! By the end of this little farce Esme would get her hands around his little no-neck lump and rattle the

unmitigated gall from his fat head.

"What's the mark?"

Lamb's pale forehead wrinkled in befuddlement. Like an eggshell being rolled and cracked against the side of a sink. "Mark?"

"The target, the prize, the object to be stolen."

Lamb smiled as he removed his fez and placed it next to his empty coffee cup. His mouthful of large, squared teeth glowed

under the chandelier.

"The Valkyrie, of course. It is why you came, is it not?"