Page 20 of A Waltz on the Wild Side (The Wild Wynchesters #6)

In less than three short hours, Viv found herself living her cousin’s wildest dream.

She was in costume. Accompanying the Wynchesters . About to enter an upper-class town home on false pretenses.

And she’d helped plan the whole thing.

She tried to steady her trembling hands by pretending she was a character in one of her plays. “You’re sure his wife is at home?”

“Graham’s sure,” Jacob confirmed.

Viv’s strategy hinged on Mrs. Olivebury’s presence.

Her husband’s influence was in the House of Commons, but a woman’s power depended on her place in society.

As wife of the Duke of Faircliffe, Chloe Wynchester would be a valuable connection for both political and aristocratic aspirations.

With luck, the wife would confide to the duchess everything they needed to know.

And without luck… the team had Viv’s contingency plan.

“Ready?” Jacob asked her quietly.

“She’s ready,” Tommy interjected. “I dressed her myself.”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Viv touched her reticule lightly. She hoped not to have to use her secret weapon, but she hadn’t come this far to give up now.

The Wynchester carriage slowed to a stop in front of the long brick terrace where the shepherd’s-pie-and-whooper-swan incident had taken place.

Er, one of the Wynchesters’ multiple carriages.

Viv suspected they lived out in Islington rather than fashionable Mayfair by choice, not because their coffers wouldn’t cover the high rents.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t money that kept them on the fringes of society. More than half of the Wynchesters were white as a lord, but almost all had been born poor, or on the wrong side of the blanket, or other such unforgivable offenses amongst the beau monde.

“So far, so good,” said Jacob. “It looks like Faircliffe’s ducal coach-and-four arrived seconds before us. He’s helping Chloe down now.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Tommy flung open the carriage door and bounded out onto the cobblestones. She motioned to them impatiently. “Come on, come on. Don’t worry, I memorized the interior distribution of the house.”

Of course she had. That’s why she was leading the reconnaissance squad.

Jacob gestured for Viv to exit the carriage next. His voice was chagrined. “I’d give you my arm, but you’re supposed to be a chambermaid, not my client.”

Did all clients receive such gallant attention?

“I wouldn’t want your arm anyway,” she lied. Viv thought way too often about Jacob Wynchester’s arms. And the rest of his body. The sight of him alone could make her purr.

Viv joined Tommy on the pavement, followed by Jacob.

“Look humble,” Tommy warned.

“Trust me,” Viv muttered. “I know what people like this expect from people like me.”

When she’d escaped the plantation on Demerara, she’d vowed never to behave as though she was worth less than anyone else ever again. Viv tried to tell herself that this time, she was just pretending. But the prickly, unwelcome sensation felt far too close to her early life for comfort.

As the two teams united on the walkway, the trio exchanged secret glances with Chloe and Faircliffe before falling behind the regal duke and duchess in faux subservience.

The butler welcomed them in at once. If he was surprised that his aristocratic visitors paid morning calls flanked by multiple servants, he gave no sign. Perhaps this was normal behavior in the world of the nobility.

More likely, servants were simply invisible.

“Please,” said the butler. “Come this way. My master and mistress are expecting you.”

Chloe straightened the most hideous bonnet Viv had ever seen in her life. The duchess looped her arm through the duke’s and sashayed importantly down the corridor.

Viv would have sworn a headpiece so garish must be part of a costume, but apparently Chloe always strolled about town with two dozen ugly silk flowers and five yards of mismatched ribbons glued to her head.

“The parlor is just ahead,” said the butler.

Mr. Olivebury’s respected position as the most influential man in the House of Commons was clear at a glance. Although not a titled aristocrat himself, he lived amongst the haut ton. His house was as full of marble and gilding as the Wynchester residence.

Was that related to why he’d been targeted by the thief?

“The Duke and Duchess of Faircliffe,” the butler intoned as they reached the parlor.

Mr. and Mrs. Olivebury scrambled to their feet. The ladies bussed each other’s cheeks, while the gentlemen merely inclined their heads rather than bow.

No one remarked upon Viv, Jacob, and Tommy’s presence, much less glanced in their direction.

Chloe engaged Mrs. Olivebury in bright chatter about fashion and theater. Faircliffe and Mr. Olivebury launched straight into talk of politics, and the prevalent issues with each of their respective houses of Parliament.

Viv could practically hear Jacob in her head: Everything is going to plan.

The Faircliffes had long been political allies of the Oliveburys, but today they hoped to gain their personal confidence.

Perhaps in an unguarded moment, they could learn directly from the source what had been stolen.

As a contingency, Viv, Jacob, and Tommy were to nose about where they didn’t belong.

Assuming the trio could get where they didn’t belong.

Viv had written Chloe’s next line herself and was itching with impatience for the duchess to get on with the show.

Or maybe her anxiousness had nothing to do with the Oliveburys at all, and Viv simply was eager to hear someone, anyone, perform something she had written. Even if it was just one line of dialogue.

On cue, Chloe glanced over her shoulder and made an exaggerated expression of shock to see her three “servants” hovering against the wainscoting.

“This isn’t your holiday,” she said coldly, just as Viv had scripted. “I suggest you make yourselves useful if you wish to remain employed.”

Viv, Jacob, and Tommy bobbed in chastisement and scurried from the parlor before anyone recalled that this wasn’t their place of employment, so of course there were no tasks they ought to be performing.

As she filed out last in line, Viv overheard Mrs. Olivebury scold Chloe.

“Now, was that necessary, Your Grace? I’m sure every member of your loyal staff works very hard. A few moments of idleness whilst the four of us have a chat wouldn’t hurt anything. In fact, my husband has been drafting a reform bill in which protections for residential employees would be—”

Viv nearly tripped over her own feet. A plain old ordinary Mrs! Criticizing a duchess to her face! Over perceived rudeness to paid servants!

Jacob made several strange hand gestures.

She made a face and whispered, “I haven’t finished learning sign language yet.”

“I said, Faircliffe told you Olivebury’s politics are on our side,” he whispered back.

Viv could still hardly credit that a wealthy white stranger would leap to her defense without hesitation.

“Oy!” A hall boy rounded the corner up ahead of them and stopped in his tracks. “What are you doing back here?”

“I’m assistant housekeeper to the Duke and Duchess of Faircliffe,” Tommy announced grandly, patting her white wig. She lowered her voice. “But I used to be maid-staff for Mr. and Mrs. Olivebury out at the Yorkshire cottage. Now that’s how a household should run, am I right?”

This was a calculated risk. Graham had provided them with a list of names and dates of service for every servant who had ever worked in the Oliveburys’ country residence, so that Tommy could pretend to have been briefly employed there in whichever era proved most convenient.

But that didn’t mean the London staff weren’t equally aware of the list of names and would realize Tommy wasn’t who she claimed to be.

The hall boy’s eyes widened. “I wouldn’t know, ma’am. I’ve never been to Yorkshire.”

Perfect.

“And why would you need to?” Tommy beamed at him. “The ones who do their jobs best are based in London. Which is why we’re here today—we’ve been instructed to have a look around, so that these two new hires can see how things ought to be done.”

This was almost, but not quite, the dialogue Viv had written.

She did not fault Tommy for embellishing at will, however.

Chloe had followed Viv’s script to the letter, and it had nearly ruined everything.

If the trio hadn’t left so swiftly, Mrs. Olivebury might have insisted the duchess’s servants spend the entire visit right there in the parlor with them, relaxing on cushioned chairs.

“Um,” said the boy, clearly at a loss how to proceed next.

“Now then.” Tommy turned to Viv and Jacob, raising one finger in a stern gesture. “You’re to stay behind me and not touch anything. Up ahead, we have…”

She kept up a steady patter, regurgitating rules their own housekeeper had provided about how often floors should be swept and mopped, and shelves checked for dust.

Nonplussed, the hall boy watched them disappear around the corner, but did not try to stop them.

“He’s gone,” Tommy whispered after a moment. “ Hurry .”

They sprinted after her to a closed door at the end of the corridor. Mr. Olivebury’s personal study, from which some unknown object had been purloined. Tommy jiggled the handle.

It was locked.

Viv tried to remember which contingency plan this corresponded with. Five? Three?

Tommy held up a ring of keys and grinned. “Thank you, Marjorie.”

The trio hurried inside the room and shut the door behind them.

“Should we lock it?” Viv asked.

Tommy shook her head. “Too suspicious. This way, if we’re caught inside, we can claim the door was unlocked and we wandered in by mistake.”

Viv glanced around the room. Though she’d never before been in the private study of a representative of Parliament, it looked exactly as she would have written it.

Thrice the size of her parlor at home, with large furniture and large windows and a large fireplace, and more shelf space dedicated to bottles of Madeira than to anything resembling paperwork.