How to Steal a Scoundrel's Heart (The Mating Habits of Scoundrels #4)(12)
Until a moment ago, she’d been ready to give herself a pat on the back the instant she’d found her great-grandmother’s roman coin diadem in the viscountess’s dressing chamber. But then the furry object on the floor—which she had mistaken for a discarded muff—opened its eyes and began to growl. Then the little snub-nosed beast sounded the alarm. Yyyyyip-yipyipyipyipyip! Yyyip-yip!
Now, Prue was running from a dour-faced housekeeper, scrambling down the narrow back stairs. Thankfully, the orchestra playing in the ballroom drowned out the shouts of “Call the guard! Call the guard!”
Reaching the doorway at the bottom, Prue dashed across the corridor to make her escape. But the kitchen was in midparty chaos, a line of tray-toting footmen waiting near the door. And she collided with the first one.
“Oh! Apologies,” she said hurriedly. Then cringed as she saw him bobble his dish and stumble backward into the next in line—who, in turn, bumped the man behind him—and from there it was like dominoes of doom.
The blustering housekeeper charged into the room, shaking her fist. “Did you simpletons hear me? I said to call the—”
She didn’t finish. Because an artfully garnished haddock slid off the platter and slapped her across the face. Before she could recover from shock, a mountainous molded gelatin bounced atop her grizzled coiffure, knocking her cap askew. Then a tureen of turtle soup teetered and everyone held their breath. The contents sloshed back and forth, rising higher and higher. But the footman held steady. He breathed a sigh of relief . . . until he took a backward step and slipped on aspic. The tray suddenly jerked. A curling tidal wave of steaming broth surged over the creamware lip, hovering for a fraction of a second . . . then splashed down over the housekeeper’s disapproving head.
And Prue stole through the door, leaving pandemonium in her wake.
Darting down the mews between rows of walled gardens and carriage houses, she slipped around the corner. Only then did she stop to catch her breath. All she had to show for her efforts were perspiration, a hammering heart, a stitch in her side and two empty hands.
“Pekingese!” she grumbled with the contempt of an expletive. The word might as well be used as a curse considering how it seemed to encapsulate all her disappointments, frustrations and setbacks in one angry little ball of fur.
Larceny was turning out to be far more difficult than she imagined.
After all, this wasn’t her first failure. No, indeed. That began with her accidental attendance at a funeral . . . for a fish named Algernon.
She’d thought stealing in through the back gate of Lady Mumphrey’s garden, early in the morning before the servants went about their duties, was the perfect plan. Instead, she’d found a slightly senile older lady stooped over a small mound of freshly turned earth, gripping a bouquet of calla lilies in her gnarled hands. And when Lady Mumphrey saw her, she smiled, believing that she’d found a fellow mourner who’d been touched by the short life of the happy little goldfish with a fondness for eating shiny things . . . such as Prue’s great-great-aunt’s amethyst ring. Which was how he’d died, apparently.
In the end, after she’d fabricated a few words of remembrance, laid flowers over the grave and helped Lady Mumphrey inside, Prue hadn’t had the heart—or the stomach—to dig up the grave.
“And that makes two failures now,” she said on a heavy sigh, leaning against a tall wrought-iron fence. Her breath misted in the gilded lamplight as she looked up into the bleak darkness of the heavens. The night air was cool and damp, tinged with the charred fragrance of chimney smoke and autumn leaves.
Had she honestly thought it would only take a fortnight to retrieve her inheritance and reclaim her life?
It had been four weeks now. Four! And she still didn’t have a single one of the twelve items that her stepmother had maliciously discarded.
Her time was running out. The longer she stayed in London, the worse the societal scorn would become. Not that she was worried about herself. After all, she’d made her choices and she would live with the consequences. But she hadn’t counted on her friends suffering because of her, or even imagined that they would have forgiven her after what she’d done.
On the day Prue had arrived in London to confess her unforgivable actions to the friend she’d betrayed, she never anticipated forgiveness. A slap, perhaps. Immediate expulsion from the house, of course. Tears and condemnation, at the very least.
Instead, Elodie Parrish had welcomed her wholeheartedly.
Ellie had not blamed her for being duped by George, because he had fooled her as well for most of her life. Apparently, her blinders had fallen away after she’d met Brandon Stredwick, Marquess of Hullworth, and had fallen head over heels in love with an honorable man.
Shortly following this unexpectedly merciful reception, Prue was also reunited with Winn and Jane, who along with Ellie, had stayed by her side from the beginning of this entire ordeal. And she even found a new friend in Brandon’s younger sister, Meg.
During the past month, the five of them spent their time chatting, laughing and planning Ellie’s wedding as if they’d never been separated.
Prue had not encountered much constancy in her life until she’d met Ellie, Jane and Winn in finishing school. And their friendship meant more to her than they would ever know.
Which was the precise reason she couldn’t go on like this.
They were enduring societal scorn because of her. It had begun innocuously enough, just little snubs here and there. For Ellie it was in the scant number of callers she’d had during her at home hours. For Winn, it was a dressmaker who’d turned up her nose when they were shopping together. For Jane, it was a sudden cancellation from dinner guests when Prue was to attend. And for Meg, it was the whispering matrons in the park who speculated over her chances of marrying well if she kept such undesirable company.