The Grift of the Magi

  Hale ran a hand through his thick hair, then studied the dim room, the shelves lined with flour and potatoes. For a moment, it was like she wasn’t even there.

  “Does the earl seem sane enough to plan this?” Hale asked, his voice low.

  Kat shook her head. “No. I seriously doubt Irina would be messing with him if he were. She’s always gone after the low-hanging fruit.”

  Hale nodded, then ran a finger along the stacks of table linens that covered one shelf. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

  Even in the dim room, Kat was aware of Hale’s light fading. When he’d first heard that one of Hazel’s charities had been conned, he’d been afire. Now rage was being replaced by something colder. Something darker. The weather wasn’t the only thing that was changing.

  “Angus and Hamish found five more eggs,” Kat told him.

  “I was wondering what that crash was,” Hale said.

  Kat shrugged. “The portico off the library wasn’t as stable as it looked.”

  “I see.” Hale nodded.

  “They’re all fake, Hale. We’ve found almost a hundred. Every single one of them fake.”

  “Do you think the earl’s lost it?”

  “The egg or his mind?” Kat asked.

  “Either,” Hale said. “Both?”

  “It could have been an honest mistake. There are so many fakes lying around here, maybe he got confused and sent the wrong egg to London?” Kat tried, but Hale only cocked an eyebrow.

  “When was the last time you and I met someone honest?”

  He was right, of course, but something in the back of Kat’s mind kept bothering her, and Kat couldn’t quite pinpoint what. “Elizabeth Evans is honest.”

  Hale’s smile, when it came, was almost sad. “And someone sent Bobby to her door.”

  “Yeah,” Kat said, and she knew that was it—the one fact that really mattered: if the earl had made an honest mistake no one would have ever dangled an Egg of the Magi beneath the nose of one of the world’s premiere art thieves.

  So Hale nodded slowly. “Not a mistake,” he said.

  Kat nodded. “Not a mistake.”

  Someone had sent a fake to London and then set Kat’s father on its scent. Someone wanted—no needed—that egg to be stolen, and even though Kat knew why she didn’t know who, and Kat had long ago learned to dislike unanswered questions.

  “Hale, what if—”

  “Oh, excuse me!”

  Kat turned at the sound of the voice, not entirely surprised to see Lady Georgette in the door of the pantry, looking as if ladies frequently examined the cramped closets of their ancestral homes.

  “Was there something you were looking for, Mr. Hale?” She blushed prettily as she asked and pushed a piece of blond hair behind her ear.

  “No. I was just…admiring the view.” He turned to the long narrow window that looked out on the woods that circled the house and dominated the grounds.

  “The view?” Lady Georgette said. She wasn’t shy about sliding her gaze onto Kat, as if she knew exactly what teenage billionaires liked to admire in small closets. “Then might I suggest the music room? The gardens were designed to be viewed from the windows there.”

  “What an excellent suggestion,” Hale said. “Whatever would we do without you, Lady Georgette? Your father is lucky to have such a gracious hostess.”

  “You are too kind, sir.”

  Hale bowed over her hand, then slipped out the door. But before Kat could follow, she found her way blocked.

  “Scooter Hale is a very wealthy man,” Lady Georgette said as if that were some kind of secret.

  “He’s seventeen,” Kat corrected even though she knew it wasn’t the smart call, the savvy play. But even Kat felt the need to be stupid sometimes. It was little consolation to know that Hale had that effect on most females.

  “He is a powerful man,” Lady Georgette went on as if she hadn’t heard. And perhaps she hadn’t. She just eased closer, backing Kat into the corner. “And a handsome man,” she concluded as if that weren’t the worst kept secret in the world.

  “If you’re expecting me to argue with you, you’re going to be disappointed,” Kat told her, but Lady Georgette talked on.

  “The Hales are a very old family. A very powerful family. Scooter’s great-grandmother was a lady-in-waiting to the queen with my great-grandmother. Did you know?”

  “No,” Kat said, truthfully, though she wasn’t surprised.

  “He’s in line for a title. Did you know that?” Lady Georgette said, then laughed. “Of course you didn’t. Why should the sixth in line to the Duke of Clayton answer to you?”

  “How nice for him,” Kat said. “Maybe five people will die. Wouldn’t that be swell?” Kat said, but Lady Georgette never wavered. She certainly never cared what the too-short, too-young, too-American girl might say on the subject of dukedoms.

  “Dukes’ heirs might dabble with the help, Katarina,” Lady Georgette said. “They do not marry it.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Lady Georgette,” Kat said with a smile. “But I’m a little young for marriage. So is he, as a matter of fact.”

  “Great families make great alliances,” the girl talked on. “The Hales and the Fitzsimmonses are great families. Do you think it’s a coincidence that my father donated the egg to a Hale charity? Do you think it’s happenstance that he’s here?”

  It wasn’t rational; it wasn’t logical, but Kat felt the words like a slap.

  “Scooter Hale is going to marry me,” Lady Georgette told Kat. “This is how these things work. My father isn’t going to live forever, and he aims to see me settled.” She looked Kat up and down. “I’m willing to settle for Scooter Hale.”

  “You should totally start by calling him Scooter, then. Trust me. He loves it.”

  Kat wanted to laugh, but Lady Georgette didn’t think anything was funny.

  “That egg is going to buy me the Hale heir, and I’m not going to let someone like…”—she looked Kat up and down again—“…you…stop me.”

  Kat was no lady. She was no cultured heiress or rare beauty. No. She was just the girl who had crawled through W. W. Hale V’s window and into his life at a time when he had no friends and no family other than Hazel—no world at all beyond his gilded cage. She had given him all three, but then Hazel died and gave him the literal and figurative keys to that cage—to the entire kingdom—and a part of Kat had always wondered if someday he might use them to finally walk away from her.

  But she didn’t dare say so.

  “So your dad got you a billionaire for Christmas. That’s nice. I’d offer my congratulations, but, as you said, I’m just the help.”

  Hale would scold her if he heard her say it—even here, even now, in the middle of a con. But there was a part of Kat, deep down, that might have even thought it was true if she ever allowed herself to think about such things—if she could stop running, working, grifting long enough to wonder if she was really going to get away with stealing W. W. Hale V.

  But Georgette didn’t seem appeased. She didn’t seem angry anymore though, either, so she just huffed and turned and left. Kat stayed among the groceries and the linens for a long time, watching ice collect on the narrow window, not knowing whether she should laugh or scream.

  “There you are.” Gabrielle’s voice sliced through the silence of the cold stairwell in one of the older parts of the castle.

  So far, Kat had searched the armory, the wine cellar and a large, stone room she was fairly certain had once been a dungeon. She’d found spiders and dust along with a great many chains and some very questionable stains on the floor, but no eggs. Not even fake ones.

  And Kat could feel the sun setting and time running out.

  “Maybe we need a metal detector. A big one. Maybe—”

  “Kat, stop. Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong?” Kat snapped. She didn’t mean to and she felt awful as soon as she let the words fly free, but it was too late to take th
em back. “What’s wrong is this house is really about six houses crammed together over the past six centuries. What’s wrong is that our esteemed host wasn’t content to own just one Egg of the Magi. No. He had to own it and pretty much every replica ever made. What’s wrong is that the auction is in three days, and we don’t have an egg to auction!”

  “So we sell a fake,” Gabrielle said with a shrug. “It’s not like we don’t have plenty to choose from, and it’d be easy enough to swap it out for the real one once we find it.”

  “And what if we never find it?” Kat said the words that had been haunting her for days. “What if the buyer has the egg authenticated before he takes possession and it gets out that the charity knowingly auctioned off a forgery.”

  “Kat?”

  “What if Interpol finally realizes that my dad stole from a London charity? I don’t think the ‘I had to do it to save my daughter’s boyfriend’ defense is gonna fly.”

  “Kat!” Gabrielle’s voice echoed off of the cold stones and Kat finally felt her heart slow down. “Feel better? Okay. Now are you going to tell me what’s really wrong?”

  In her young life, Kat had misled cops and bankers and jewelers and even the occasional nun. But Kat had never, ever been able to lie to Gabrielle.

  So she blurted, “I’m pretty sure Lady Georgette is going to marry Hale.”

  “Does Hale know this?”

  “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter. She’s going to marry him and then kill the Duke of Clayton and five of his heirs just so she can be a duchess.”

  “Don’t even joke about that,” Gabrielle said. “We don’t want to give my mother any ideas.”

  Kat might have laughed—she might have smiled—if this had been any other job, but the seconds on the clock were passing much too quickly. Their window was closing, and once it was gone she couldn’t help but worry that a part of Hale might be lost forever.

  “Tell me what you need,” Gabrielle said.

  “We need time. We need to find the egg. We need…” Kat let her voice trail off as she ran a finger along the mortar between the ancient stones. “A miracle.”

  Gabrielle looked out one of the long, skinny windows over the pristine grounds. She could have been a medieval lady of the manor, taking up a bow to defend her home from marauders, so intent was her focus.

  “Miracles can be arranged.”

  After all, it was the season.

  Two Days Before the Auction

  Greymore Castle, England

  By the end of the house party’s third day, the crew was tired and the mountain of fake eggs was growing, and the guests, to say the least, were restless.

  “Was the weather supposed to be this bad?” the viscount asked after dinner that evening while tea was being served in the drawing room.

  Irina was helping the earl into a chair by the fire, but the old man sounded full of vigor when he laughed. “It’s the Scottish border in December. If you can’t take the cold, go back to London.”

  “I’m just concerned for our guests, Uncle. If it keeps this up, the roads might be impassable. I’d hate for anyone to be stuck here and miss their own holiday plans. I know Scooter will need to get back to London for his auction.”

  Hale took a sip of tea. “Nothing’s going to stop the auction. Don’t you worry about that.”

  From a very young age Kat had been trained to see more, hear more, sense more than the perfectly-law-abiding portion of the world’s population. Perhaps that is why she heard the tinkling of the fine china, saw the subtle tremble of Gabrielle’s hand as the “new maid” distributed tea to the guests assembled in the room.

  “You okay?” Kat said as Gabrielle worked at the tea tray in the corner.

  Kat held her hands to the fire and didn’t turn when her cousin answered. “Mom’s getting sloppy.”

  It was one of those instances where Kat really wanted to laugh even though it really wasn’t funny. “Parents do that,” she said instead.

  For a moment, Gabrielle stopped working. “Aren’t we sup-posed to be the screw-ups? The kids taking stupid chances?”

  Gabrielle cut her eyes across the room to where Irina fussed over the earl who sat beside an identical fireplace on the opposite side of the room.

  There was greenery lining the mantle and mistletoe dangling from the ceiling. It made Kat want to sneeze.

  “You and I were never kids.”

  When Gabrielle spoke again, her voice had taken on a dreamy quality that made Kat look, doubt. She’d never before heard her cousin sound the way she did when she said, “It’d be fun, you know. Just once. To wake up Christmas morning with snow on the ground and stockings full of presents that no one had to steal and a house that’s really home.” She reclaimed the teapot and slowly slipped back into the con. “That would be nice. Maybe, someday, we’ll steal that.”

  On the other end of the room, Irina was settling an afghan around the earl’s shoulders.

  “Maybe that’s what your mom’s doing?” Kat tried.

  Gabrielle scowled. “My mom’s doing what my mom always does: taking care of Irina.”

  Gabrielle’s hands were steady once more as she placed a wedge of lemon on the saucer and carried it to the dowager duchess of something-or-other.

  “I don’t like the look of this weather, Scooter,” the earl’s heir said from the window.

  At this time of winter and so close to Scotland, the days were short and the sun had long since gone down. The mansion’s grounds were well-lit though, and the windows were spotless, but even from where Kat stood by the fire she could practically feel the chill that reverberated off the glass.

  The castle was ancient and solid, drafty and damp. But nothing was as cool as Hale as he turned to the earl’s heir and looked outside. “I’m not worried.”

  But that was just when the chandeliers decided to flicker. In an instant, the only light came from the flames that burned in the twin fireplaces at the ends of the room. In the darkness, the wind howled louder.

  “No one worry,” Lady Georgette’s voice was lilting and light. “It’s just the storm, no doubt. Scooter! Where are… Oh, there you are.”

  “There’s part of me,” Hale said.

  “I’ve never cared for the dark,” Lady Georgette’s voice was soft, but it carried through the darkness.

  When Gabrielle brought the antique candelabra to the fire and lit the candles, their gentle glow filled the room, and Kat could see the earl’s daughter pressed against Hale’s side.

  She was not a possessive person. She’d never been prone to jealousy. No. Kat was more prone to simply making sure the very fancy college that Lady Georgette was going to be attending found out that the girl had had “help” with her entrance exams.

  There was a murmur going through the drawing room. People shifted and whispered, waiting for the lights to come back on. Only the earl’s voice broke through the darkness.

  “Ha! Just like the old days! Always did like a good blackout. Good for the soul, I say. What’s the use of having a house built in the fifteen hundreds if you don’t live like it!” The earl sounded genuinely excited about fireplaces and candles and maybe a duel or two by morning, but he seemed alone in his enthusiasm.

  “Great! The cell tower must be out too. I’ve got nothing.” A digital screen glowed in the darkness, and the earl’s heir looked like he wanted to throw his phone across the room. He was starting to pace and the windows were starting to fog, and a nervous energy was coming off of him in waves.

  “Did you have urgent business waiting for you?” Hale asked him, but the viscount tried to push the words away.

  “Nothing important,” he said, sliding his phone into his pocket.

  A footman found more candles, and someone added wood to the fire and slowly the room grew brighter. The fire cracked, and people whispered and the shadows practically danced to the rhythm of ice pelting against the windows.

  “I think it’s romantic,” Lady Georgette said. She didn’t even try to
disguise the dreamy look in her face as she stared up at Hale. “Oh, look, Scooter. Someone’s under the mistletoe!”

  As the girl went up on her tiptoes and brought her lips to Hale’s it was all Kat could do not to throw a lit candle at her.

  She might have done just that if the old duchess hadn’t chosen that moment to yell, “We should play charades!” Everyone looked at her. “I met the duke during a blackout. Charades helped.”

  “Oh!” Georgette brought her hands together. “I love charades. Scooter, you’re on my team.”

  “Well, I—” Hale started, but the earl cut him off.

  “Good idea! The Hales and the Fitzsimmonses have always been a good team. You won’t find a better partner than my Georgie, Mr. Hale.”

  Kat felt a presence at her elbow, and almost recoiled when she saw the viscount looking down at her. “I suppose that leaves us,” he said.

  He ran a finger down her arm, and Kat choked out a startled, “Yay.”

  Kat had never been so happy to hear a Bagshaw as when Hamish threw open the doors and said, “Excuse me, my lord.”

  “If you’ve come to tell us the lights are out, you’re too late,” the earl snapped.

  “No. It’s not that, my lord. Or, well, it is. But it isn’t. It’s just that…”

  “Spit it out!”

  Hamish looked at the earl but then his gaze found Kat’s. His eyes went wider. His knuckles turned white, and for the first time in her life it seemed to Kat that one of the Bulletproof Bagshaws was trembling.

  “You have guests, my lord.” Hamish turned back to the earl.

  “Obviously,” the earl said, gesturing to his far-from-empty drawing room.

  “What I mean to say, my lord, is you have callers.”

  “In this weather?” The earl turned to the window. With the power out, it was pitch black outside, and, if anything, the sleet seemed to be falling harder. “Send them away.”

  The lights flickered for a moment, as if fighting their way back on, and, a second later, the room felt almost too bright when the chandeliers sprang back to life.

  “You’re still here?” the earl asked when he could finally get a good look at where Hamish still stood in the doorway.