Last Dance in London (Rakes on the Run #1) - Sydney Jane Baily Page 0,12

in the ladies’ retiring room, and he didn’t want to be discovered lurking outside that particular door. Still, he could stroll the passageway until she returned.

While their next dance wasn’t until after dinner, if he ran into her, he could escort her back into the ballroom, and perhaps even ask her in a very roundabout way whether she had somehow — by mistake and completely innocently — opened his jewelry box inside his armoire and helped herself to his father’s sapphire cravat pin.

He realized all her antagonistic words had occurred as soon as he’d broached the topic previously. She’d created a good distraction, and he’d fallen for it.

Yet if her pretty cheeks turned pink and her sparkling blue eyes darted back and forth when he asked her, he would know the truth.

Thus, he began to pace, going to the end of the hall where long curtains were pulled across the window overlooking the street. And then he strolled back again, trying to keep his eyes averted as ladies came and went.

After a few minutes, he considered the staircase. Was it possible she’d gone back downstairs, maybe to the cloakroom? There was usually a seamstress there. However, it seemed unthinkable the girl would leave the floor without her chaperone.

He eyed the staircase again. She could have no reason to go upstairs. Yet he took a few steps toward it, unsure whether he would go down or ascend. Then he halted. This was madness.

At that moment, however, movement on the stairs caused his head to whip around, fully expecting Miss Sudbury to come into view.

A young man, his coat buttoned crookedly, and a disheveled young lady with very red lips and flushed cheeks descended. Relief flooded him that it wasn’t Miss Sudbury. Until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to him she might have taken off to enjoy a dalliance with some mutton monger.

On the other hand, these two were in for trouble if they returned to the ballroom in such a state.

Intercepting the wayward pair, Jasper ignored how the young man swallowed nervously and the pretty miss couldn’t meet his eyes. His glance took them both in and then looked decidedly past them.

“May I suggest you each go to your respective retiring room and rectify any issues with your appearance?”

The couple glanced at one another before the man nodded curtly, and they separated. Sighing at their carelessness, Jasper wondered how anyone had an assignation these days without getting caught and forced into marriage at the first kiss.

Which brought his thoughts back to Miss Sudbury. They’d shared an excellent first kiss, one he wished to repeat despite her having an acerbic saucebox. Again, he glanced up the stairs. If she were to dally with anyone that night, he hoped it would be him.

“There you are,” came a voice at his elbow.

Turning, he faced Louisa Tufton, looking to be in extremely high dander!

IT HAD TAKEN JULIA a little longer than she would have liked, but she found herself in Lady Pritchard’s dressing room after only one wrong turn. Naturally, there’d been nothing in the woman’s bedchamber. This lady had to house not only her clothing but her extensive jewelry collection in its own separate room.

Julia considered her options as quickly as possible. It was tempting to take more than she usually did because it seemed impossible her ladyship could miss even half of what she’d carelessly tossed in small velvet boxes and larger satin boxes and silver boxes and even bejeweled wooden boxes, all of which held baubles and dazzlers.

Feeling a little ill at the wealth before her while others shared a loaf of bread over an entire week, Julia nevertheless moved swiftly, picking over the choices. She’d learned her lesson about taking only one of a set. While it made the owner less likely to think the mate had been stolen, it also lessened the value considerably at the pawnbroker.

Thus, after slipping three pairs of earrings into her reticule, she turned to leave. One more set wouldn’t hurt and would do so much good in London’s poor neighborhoods. In the space of a heartbeat, she snatched another pair that looked to be black pearls surrounded by diamonds. And then, she slipped from the room as silently as she’d entered.

Taking the servants’ stairs, she met no one. When she returned to the ballroom, the dance had ended, a quadrille was about to begin, and her partner was doing his diligence by the fireplace.

“Jolly good,” Mr. Boreman said. “We won’t miss even a step if