12

Freshly washed, shampooed, and spritzed with her orange-blossom perfume, Esme felt more like herself as she stood on the small

wrought iron balcony watching the quaint town rub sleep from its eyes and yawn into the bright orange-and-pink beams of dawn.

She dug her fingers into her hair, massaging her aching head, but no matter how hard she rubbed, the brutal truth of failure

pounded in her skull. How much longer before the countess sent Pirazzo to finish off Esme for good? How much longer before

she felt the sting of his fingers around her throat because the Valkyrie had slipped through her fingers? Again.

All because of that little egg.

After their stinging disgrace at Lamb's house, she and Jasper returned to the hotel in silence, collected their bags, and

climbed back in the car to be deposited at the nearest train station. Lamb's driver waited and watched as they purchased tickets

and climbed aboard the early morning train, before finally motoring off to report to his master that they had departed.

Jasper waited until the wheels began churning before chucking off their luggage and hopping down to the platform once more, swinging Esme down with him. Lamb needed to think they'd slunk away with their tails between their legs if the plan was to work. What plan that was, they had yet to discuss.

From the train station Jasper hailed a taxi and gave directions to a small village some ten kilometers from Lamb's house.

In France, ten kilometers might as well have been another planet. Jasper seemed to know precisely where he was going when

he led her up a slim flight of stairs to a flat over a café. It was an airy space with pale oak floors covered in rugs of

light blue. White walls with pictures of delicate flowers and landscapes. Antique furniture in pristine condition and a bedchamber

with enough mirrors to satisfy the vanity of a peacock.

From the balcony she heard the front door to the flat open and close.

"Breakfast is here," Jasper called.

Turning from the serene morning view, Esme walked through the double doors into the living space where he'd settled a tray

piled with food on a low table in front of the settee. A single daffodil sprouted from a crystal vase on the tray.

"We have croissants, tartine, fresh butter, cherry marmalade, palmiers, sliced oranges, and cheese. Brie and Comtè, I believe."

Esme took one of the provided plates from the tray and chose a sampling of each as her stomach growled in anticipation. Of

all the countries she'd stolen across, nothing topped a fresh French breakfast. After settling on the blue silk settee, she

slathered her baguette with brie and cherries and bit into it. Decadence! She closed her eyes and savored the tangy sweetness

of the bread, the warmth of the sun's rays peeking through the windows, and the slow softening of her muscles as they relaxed

against the plump cushions. A delicious drowsiness swirled her thoughts together as her bones grew heavy, longing for rest.

"The English could learn a thing or two from the French about breakfast, though a rasher of bacon wouldn't go amiss," Jasper commented as he fixed his own plate. "Here is le chocolat chaud for you. Did she include tea? I thought I saw—ah! Here it is. Nice and hot. Do you know I used to dream about hot tea, well,

hot anything, really, while I was in the trenches. The only hot thing soldiers encountered then were flying bits of shrapnel.

I may go for a walk after I finish. Would you care to join? It might help clear the mind before we begin discussing the plan."

Esme's eyes pried open at Jasper's prattling. "Please don't tell me you're a morning person."

He sat in one of the matching accent chairs across the low table from her. His masculine frame dwarfed the spindly stick of

furniture with its outturned clawed feet and velvet-covered armrests. An ordinary man would look ridiculously uncomfortable,

but Jasper made whatever his surroundings fit. "I am a whatever-time-of-day-I'm-awake-so-take-advantage-of-the-moment kind

of person."

"All-around good-natured. Even worse."

"Are you always this moody first thing in the morning?"

"As I haven't been to bed yet, I consider this a continuation of a rather long evening."

"Then I suggest you take a sound nap in the bedroom. It's quite comfortable and the sheets are silk. When I return from my

stroll, you should be refreshed and we can begin formulating an attack." Placing a pristine linen napkin across one knee,

he poured tea into a porcelain cup and added a dash of milk.

"You've yet to tell me what sort of place this is"—she fingered the gossamer frills on the robe she had borrowed from the

bedroom's chifforobe—"or who it belongs to."

"It belongs to an old army comrade. For his mistresses. Currently, he is between ladies, leaving the apartment conveniently available for our purposes."

Fully awake at the risqué turn in conversation, she plucked a chocolate-drizzled croissant from the tray and pulled it apart

bite by bite. "Mistresses. My, my." She met his sharp gaze over the pot of tea steaming between them.

"The answer to your question is no. I do not have a mistress."

She shrugged a shoulder as if the answer meant nothing to her. "It's none of my business."

"Isn't it?" His voice was deceptively calm, a honey-covered thorn. One she couldn't help pricking her finger to.

"How do you know what the sheets are made of?"

"I've overnighted here a number of times when I was in the area and the ladies were out. When you've stolen Empress Josephine's

ruby brooch, it's best to lay low for a while and avoid the hotels."

"Ruby, ha. Try her emerald and diamond."

Jasper raised a questioning brow at her. You ?

Esme smiled smugly. Me .

He returned the smile. Not one of mockery or even of being impressed, but one of deep satisfaction. As if they were the only

two who understood what it meant to pull off such a feat and revel in the success. An understanding as intimate as a caress.

One that simply could not be allowed to continue.

She brushed crumbs from her fingers and sipped her le chocolat chaud , then got to the matter of business.

"I have decided that there is no other recourse but to combine our skills in taking back the Valkyrie. Without a doubt, that

man is more than a few bricks shy, and your previous experience with him should help sort the order of said bricks into our

favor."

"A logical assumption, but after meeting Lamb you should know that logic long ago gave up claim to him." Jasper set his cup on the table and leaned back in his chair, settling his gaze on her. Alert and entirely too focused on her. Precisely the way she preferred it.

"Be that as it may, we will find a way to our advantage."

"He's expecting us to try for the Valkyrie. He wants us to go for it."

"Then we mustn't disappoint." She grinned like a cat planning to dip a toe in cream and reached for a tartine. After living

off rationed meals through the war, her belly never denied the prospect of food.

A silence stretched between them, broken by soft bites of eating and the trill of birds outside the window. She didn't dare

go so far as to say it was comfortable, but it wasn't unpleasant. She had never found another person with whom to sit contentedly.

Growing up behind a stage, life was never quiet with actors and musicians and stagehands bustling about readying for the next

show. Always the next show, and any space between performances was filled with grumbling about torn costumes, missed cues,

or an ossified horn player. Esme had learned to stave off possible lulls early on, never allowing her true thoughts to bubble

to the top lest she give away some part of herself for the judgment of another.

"We all have a role to play," Mimsy had instructed as she overlined her lips with red color. "Learn your lines and never let them see behind the mask, because life is waiting just beyond the footlights, ready to snatch

at those pauses of weakness."

Over the years Esme's mask had grown heavy, and in the small, quiet moments she longed to put it aside. Like now. She gazed over at Jasper, the pomade having long since acquitted his hair and left it to flop about. The top button of his shirt was undone. His long fingers were laced over his stomach as he gazed serenely out the balcony door. He, too, carried a mask. His was brimming with charisma, charm, and wit. But there were times, like now, when he let it slip and she glimpsed what lay underneath. And it called to her.

"Were you injured during the war?" she asked.

Momentary surprise flickered across his expression as his gaze rested on her, but then he slowly shook his head.

"Not like the other lads. Cuts and bruises mostly." His mask hitched down a notch. "Had the hairs singed off my neck when

an incendiary exploded in the sandbag above my head. Not to mention a bucketload of sand in my ear."

She picked at the tartine crust, scattering toasted crumbs on the linen napkin draped over her lap. "Were you frightened?"

"Every day. Frightened of getting hit. Of dying." Each word was low and controlled as if he were pulling them from the far

reaches of his mind. His mask slipped further. "Then, once you move past that, it's almost the living that frightens you.

Living to hear your comrades scream in pain or be mowed down like wheat stalks in a charge. Living with starvation gnawing

your insides. Living through pure hell on earth... Sometimes you pray for the peace of death."

"How did you keep going?"

"The men. I put on a good face for them, told them again and again that I would keep them safe and get them through until

the last bullet fired. After a while you say something so many times that you begin to believe it." His mask fell away and

there she found a mirror unto herself—the cracks, insecurities, distortions, and the desperate need to make them all appear

whole.

The revelation should have summoned sadness, embarrassment perhaps, to see her own struggles laid bare so plainly on his face, but she felt only wonder. Wonder that another could endure the grueling performance of existing day to day seemingly without a care, all the while withering inside for a spark of hope.

"Life is easier speaking from behind a mask. Like a performer thrust onstage. He is no longer himself but what the audience

expects." Appetite waning, she placed the half-eaten tartine back on the tray. "At least, so I've seen in my experience."

"Experience on the stage?"

"Me? Heavens no. I didn't have the voice for it, not after the time I played a page boy in Empress Sissi of Austria's court.

I croaked the lines. Mimsy never allowed me in front of the curtain again. Especially not when my flub took the spotlight

from her own empress impersonation, but that's Mimsy for you. The whole East London stage or none at all."

She brushed a crumb from the silky material covering her knee. Once upon a time rough cotton and patched wool covered her

knee, castoffs from the stage costumes. It had been a long time since she'd donned threadbare cotton, yet the feel of it clung

to her skin even beneath the layers of chiffon and satin, as if knitted to her always.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm still on that stage croaking lines and waiting for the hook to snatch me off and toss me back in

the gutter."

"The gutter isn't an easy pit to crawl out of. It takes fortitude and moxie. It takes crawling over broken glass and slander, setback after setback. It takes looking the world straight in the eye when it claims you are not worthy of a place in it simply because you were born on the wrong side of the blanket." He gave a rueful laugh. "Apologies for not being much of a prospect for a lady. The bastard of an illegitimate son has little to recommend."

"I'm no lady. My father is one of a dozen theater patrons I've never had the misfortune to meet. A gentleman of some kind.

If abandoning your child to grease paint is the mark of a gentleman, I'll take a bastard over the toffs any day."

A wide, boyish smile spread across his face as he raised his cup. "To bastards."

"Cheers." She raised her half-eaten tartine in acknowledged salute.

He returned his cup to its saucer and selected a baguette slice, then slathered it with cream before settling back in his

chair. All ease and calm wrapped around the room in companionable comfort. "A gentleman, eh? ‘Thane Macbeth.'"

"Caught that, did you?"

"You showfolk and your Shakespearean references."

She scoffed. "Hardly Shakespeare. More like overacting and bawdy pub tunes."

He threw his head back and laughed. "I'd love nothing more than to hear a bawdy pub number at eight in the morning."

"Oh no. Those songs aren't meant to be heard while the sun shines."

His brown eyes danced over the creamed bread. "My dear, we're in France. That sensibility doesn't apply."

The ease between them sparked to flirtation. A ground she was more than comfortable sauntering across with him.

"I'll make a deal with you. When we relieve Lamb of the Valkyrie, I'll sing one." She decided to ignore the use of "we" for

now. It was simply a means to an end that would make the journey deliciously fun, but ultimately she would walk away with

the prize.

"The bawdiest?" he asked.

"I shall scrape one from the bottom of the barrel just for you."

That wide grin of his again. "Deal."

Returning his satisfied smile, Esme settled back against the pillows as all needs for a nap wafted away. "Now, as to this

plan of yours..."