opposite end of the table, chuckled at her morbid humor. “That’s what you said about Rundell and Bridge, and it went off without a hitch, did it not? It’s not impossible, Em. Just difficult. A challenge worthy of our skills.”
Emmy raised her head and shot her brother a withering glare. “I am sick of such challenges. We will be caught. And hanged. Or transported to the Antipodes. It’s only a matter of time before our luck runs out.”
Camille—who refused to accept the title Grandmère on the grounds that it made her “feel terribly old”—took a delicate sip of her tea and nodded.
“Well, we are all in agreement there, ma chère. Your father, God rest his soul, may have been my son, but this quixotic dream of his has left you with a very dangerous legacy. The Nightjar!” She gave an elegant feminine snort. “What a name! I told him he should have called himself ‘The Fox’ or ‘The Conjurer.’ Something with a little more flair.”
Emmy bit back a laugh of despair. That was typical of Camille. The fact that her son had repeatedly broken the law in at least six different European countries over the course of a fifteen-year career was less offensive to her sensibilities than the fact that he’d not done it more stylishly. In her grandmother’s mind, there was very little that couldn’t be forgiven provided one went about it in a suitably dashing manner.
With a family like this, how could she ever have hoped to lead a normal life? Was it any wonder they were in the tangle they were in now?
She glared at the letter that lay, unfolded, on the table between them. It was the latest in a string of similar missives, the first of which had arrived just over a year ago. “He is mad, this Danton,” she said flatly. “How did he discover Father was the Nightjar? How did he find us?”
Luc’s handsome features twisted in a grimace. “Does it matter? He can send us all to the gallows, as he says. We have no choice but to follow his orders.”
Emmy groaned again. For four blissful years, since their father’s death, they’d lived a blameless, crime-free life. Louis d’Anvers’s patriotic whim—to recover the French crown jewels and store them until the Bourbon monarchy had been restored—had been, if not forgotten, at least suspended. Napoleon had been so secure in his rule over France that it had seemed unlikely his reign would ever end, despite the valiant efforts of Britain and her allies to quell his ruthless empire-building. Even exile on Elba had proved insufficient to stop him.
But with his downfall at Waterloo last summer, their father’s dream of a Bourbon restoration seemed destined to become a reality. Luc and Emmy had just been discussing what they should do with the Nightjar’s ill-gotten gains when the first letter from Emile Danton had arrived.
Danton’s father had been the revolutionary leader Georges Danton, the man their father had publicly denounced for the theft of the French crown jewels. Having been deprived of his true target by their father’s death, the younger Danton had turned his ire on the Nightjar’s family. As far as Emmy could tell, Danton Junior was as corrupt as his sire. He’d demanded not only the cache of jewels their father had already stolen, but insisted they obtain three additional jewels—a white diamond, a blue diamond, and a ruby—that were still at large. She doubted very much that he planned to atone for his father’s sins by returning them to the French government.
Failure to comply, he’d assured them, would result in most unpleasant consequences, not only for Luc and Emmy, but for those they loved. He’d specifically mentioned Camille as a potential target if his wishes were not carried out “in a timely manner.”
Emmy and Luc had had no way of refusing, no way of communicating with their blackmailer. They’d thought to claim ignorance of where the treasure was hidden and tell Danton the secret had gone to the grave with their father, but there was no return address. His demands were always delivered by one of London’s innumerable scrappy errand boys, who, when questioned, could only report that they’d been commissioned by “a dark-haired gentleman” with a “foreign accent.”
With no other options, they’d begun to plan the Rundell & Bridge heist.
The Nightjar had been resurrected.
Emmy had been fourteen the first time her father had involved her in one of his “little jobs,” and that had only been under duress. It had