Chapter 12: The Art of Deception
The lemon drop was a hard, sour jewel on her tongue. Selina pressed her forehead against the cold window of the carriage, the familiar streets of Belgravia blurring. Her heart thudded a slow, sick rhythm against her ribs.
She could still smell the study. Leather and bergamot. The friendly crackle of the fire. And underneath it all, the metallic scent of her own fear.
His hands. Burke was right. She had watched Sir Geoffrey’s hands.
They had been steady as a rock as he poured the Darjeeling. No tremor as he lifted his own cup. But when he’d leaned back to regale her with a story about her father’s poor horsemanship, his right hand—his dominant hand—had drifted to the top drawer of his desk. His fingers had absently traced the brass fitting. A habitual, possessive gesture. And there, catching the firelight, was the thin, bright scratch. Fresh. A mark that hadn’t been there the last time she’d visited, when she’d come to borrow a book on botany.
A scratch from a lockpick. From a tool no thicker than a needle.
“Home, milady?” the footman asked as she descended, her legs feeling foreign and clumsy.
“Yes. Thank you, James.”
The grandeur of Carrow House felt like a stage set. The echoing marble hall, the silent portraits of ancestors judging her with flat, painted eyes. She handed her cloak to a maid, the routine gesture feeling like a pantomime.
“Your mother is in the blue salon with Lady Frampton,” the butler intoned.
“I have a headache,” Selina said, and it wasn’t a lie. A vise was tightening behind her eyes. “Please convey my apologies.”
Upstairs, in the quiet tomb of her bedchamber, she locked the door. The sound of the bolt sliding home was final. She stood in the center of the room, arms wrapped tightly around herself, and replayed every word, every glance.
His smile had been so warm. So genuine. “My dear Sprite, you look pale. Are they working you too hard at these endless parties?” He’d pressed the lemon drop into her palm, his own hand large and lined. The hand that, according to Burke, could apply precise pressure behind a man’s ear and drop him silently into oblivion.
She had steered the conversation, her voice light as air. “I hear the Dutch are causing quite a stir. The ambassador’s reception at the Greymont next week—Mama is desperate for an invitation. Something about a diamond the size of a quail’s egg.”
Sir Geoffrey had chuckled, stirring his tea. “Ah, the relentless glitter of diplomacy. Security will be a circus. The Home Office is in a tizzy. Too many eyes, too many hands.” He’d said it with the amused contempt of a former military man for bureaucratic fuss. Perfectly natural. Perfectly normal.
But his eyes—had they flickered, just for a fraction of a second, to the Gainsborough landscape on the far wall? To the spot where Burke claimed a fortune in stolen notes was hidden?
She walked to her escritoire. Her own manuscript, The Thief of Mayfair, lay in the hidden compartment. She didn’t pull it out. She didn’t need to. The words were etched into her mind. The clinical description of the silent takedown. The mapping of the fictional townhouse, which bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the real layout of Hadlow House.
She had written the blueprint. He had followed it.
The nausea rose again, bitter and sharp. She had crafted a villain for her own amusement, and her godfather had stepped into the role, wearing it like a second skin.
The winter light faded early, staining her room in shades of grey and blue. She didn’t ring for a lamp. She sat in the gathering dark, watching the shadows deepen.
The choice Burke had given her was a false one. There was no walking away. Not really. Knowing what she knew now would poison every lemon drop, every avuncular smile, every memory. It would turn her life into another kind of prison, one made of silent complicity and decaying trust.
At half-past nine the next morning, she stood before her mirror. She dressed simply, a walking dress of deep green wool, practical boots. She looked like herself, and yet like a stranger. A woman with a secret purpose.
Her mother intercepted her in the hall. “Going out so early? In this chill?”
“The air will help my head,” Selina said, kissing her mother’s powdered cheek. “A turn around the park.”
She walked. The cold was a slap, cleansing. Frost crunched under her boots, and her breath plumed in the still air. Green Park was nearly empty, just a few hardy nannies with bundled children and gentlemen taking brisk, healthful constitutionals.
She saw him by the gate, as agreed. Burke looked like he hadn’t slept. There were shadows under his eyes, and his usual polished nonchalance was sanded down to something harder, more raw. He was leaning against the iron railing, watching a flock of crows peck at the frozen ground.
He didn’t greet her. Just pushed off the railing and fell into step beside her. They walked in silence for a minute, the gravel path grinding beneath their feet.
“Well?” he asked finally. His voice was quiet, stripped of all theatrics.
“The scratch is there,” she said. The words felt like stones dropped into a still pond. “On the desk lock. Fresh. You were right.”
He didn’t look triumphant. He just gave a slow, grim nod. “And?”
“And I mentioned the Dutch Diamond. He called the security a ‘circus’. Said the Home Office was in a tizzy.” She swallowed, the memory of his warm smile making her skin crawl. “It was the way he said it. Not curious. Assessive. Like a man reviewing the dimensions of a problem he intends to solve.”
Burke stopped walking. They were in a bare copse of elms, skeletal branches clawing at the grey sky. “Good.”
“It’s not good.” She turned on him, the emotion she’d bottled up finally boiling over. “He’s my godfather. He taught me to play chess. He held my hand at my grandmother’s funeral. This isn’t a plot twist in a three-volume novel. This is… vile.”
“Yes,” Burke agreed, his gaze direct and unflinching. “It is. Reality usually is. The question is, what do you want to do about it?”
“You already know what I’m going to do. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Being here is one thing. Following through is another.” He took a step closer. The morning was so quiet she could hear the wool of his coat brush against itself. “I need you to get me into his house. Not for a social call. At night. Before the Greymont reception.”
Her blood went cold. “You want to break in.”
“I want to confirm the evidence is still there. To see if he has the security plans for the Greymont. If we have those, we can intercept him. We can catch him in the act, cleanly. Prevent the theft and expose him without a messy, public trial that drags your family’s name through the mud.”
The practicality of it was chilling. He’d thought it all through. The how, the when, the cover-up. She was just a tool in it. A key.
“He’s attending the Wexford musicale tomorrow night,” she said dully. The information fell from her lips like an automatic reflex. She knew his social calendar. He’d mentioned it yesterday. “He’ll be out from eight until late.”
Burke’s eyes locked onto hers. There was no mercy in them. Only a ruthless, focused intent. “Then tomorrow night it is. You’ll meet me at the mews behind his house at half-eight. You’ll get me in through the garden door.”
“He has a housekeeper. A butler.”
“The staff takes their evening leisure when the master is out. It’s their one guaranteed quiet time. We’ll have a window.” He was already moving, mentally pacing through the plan. “You’re familiar with the house. You know which floorboards creak.”
She felt dizzy. The plot of her own life had spiraled far beyond anything she’d ever penned. “And if we’re caught?”
For the first time, something like a real emotion flickered in his expression. Not fear. Something darker. “Then we’re compromised. And the consequences will be… severe. For both of us. More so for him, if he realizes we know.”
He left the threat hanging in the frigid air. Sir Geoffrey wasn’t just a kindly old man. He was a precision instrument. A man who knew how to make problems disappear silently.
Burke reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, folded square of paper. He pressed it into her gloved hand. “A sketch of the garden lock. Study it. The mechanism is simple.”
She didn’t open it. She just held it, the paper feeling like it was burning through her kid leather glove.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered. The question was for him, for herself, for the whole mad situation. “Really? It’s not just about justice. You’re not a constable.”
He looked away, across the barren park. His profile was sharp against the bleak sky. “Let’s just say I have a personal interest in seeing certain accounts settled. And your godfather’… extracurricular activities… have touched someone I owed a debt to. A debt that can now only be paid this way.”
He offered no more explanation. He just started walking back toward the gate, leaving her standing alone in the frozen copse.
“Half-eight,” he said over his shoulder, not looking back. “Don’t be late.”
Selina watched him go, his figure growing smaller and more definitive against the path. The weight of the lock sketch in her hand was immense. She had crossed a line. There was no pretending anymore, no retreating into the safe fiction of her writing desk.
Tomorrow night, she would become a character in her own darkest story. And she had no idea if she was walking into a third act climax, or simply the beginning of the disaster.