Page 38 of To Catch A Rogue

Chapter 8

Lark slipped inside a dark room somewhere on the second level, and relaxed once she realized it was Balfour's study. Gemma's agent on the inside had given them the map of the house, and it was a relief to find it accurate.

"Hurry," she whispered as Charlie slipped in behind her. "We'll have ten minutes at the outside before they report us both missing. The fireworks might keep them busy, but they'll check in."

Charlie had given Byrnes the signal. Gemma was going to cause a distraction in the ballroom.

Lighting the candle on the desk, she began searching for Balfour's seal. The top drawer on the desk was locked, but she removed the small lock pick she'd hidden in her hair and jimmied the lock in less than ten seconds. Success. There was another small locked box inside, and the seal was within.

Charlie ran swift fingers over the folders on the desk. "A shame neither of us can read Russian. There might be something we can use here."

Lark heated the red wax and started dripping it onto a piece of blank paper. "He might have written something in English," she replied, but when she took a glance, Charlie was correct. They were all written in Cyrillic, and whilst her grasp on the written language was admittedly basic considering how young she’d been when she fled Russia, she could make out the gist of it. "Which one do you think would suit Gemma's purposes better?"

Boring estate statements and letters from correspondents in Saint Petersburg. Invitations to social events. For a man of Balfour's cunning, she hadn't expected to find anything incriminating lying about, but it was important to check.

"This one," she murmured, finding a piece of private correspondence written to what appeared to be one of Balfour's Russian bankers.

Lark pressed the seal into the wax to make an impression. "He'll be keeping anything important in a safe, if at all."

Charlie scanned the room, and then slipped a small listening device under the desk. The small brass aural device used Hertzian waves to send a wireless transmission to the communication device in Ava and Kincaid’s room, which could replicate people’s voices if conditions were optimum. "Be quick. Once we've got this tuned, Ava will be able to listen in after she finds the right frequency."

Voices echoed down the hall.

She and Charlie looked at each other.

Someone was coming.

Shit.

She tucked the seal and wax away and relocked the top drawer. Blowing out the candle, she blinked as they were both plunged into an abrupt darkness. The taper still glowed gold, so she spat on her fingers and obliterated it. The smell of smoke couldn't be helped.

Hiding a six-foot-three giant in a small room was going to be near impossible. Lark spun around as her vision began to come back. Desk, bookshelves, chairs, curtained alcove....

"In there!" she hissed, practically shoving him behind the curtains and half-drawing them. If she closed them completely, someone might open them, so she let just enough moonlight spill through so it didn't look suspicious.

Tugging open cabinets, she found one that was mostly empty and almost large enough to fit her. Lark crawled inside and dragged the door shut behind her, the sprawl of her silk gown bunching up around her face.

Just in time. The study door opened and footsteps grew louder as two people entered. A crack of light gleamed under the door of the cabinet.

"Well, they've taken the bait," a woman purred as the door clicked shut.

"Surprisingly." It sounded like Balfour. "I wonder what sort of hold Malloryn has on them to bring them all the way to the Crimson Court?"

It's called loyalty. She'd recognized it in Charlie's face.

"Perhaps they want revenge? Obsidian certainly does."

"Hmm." A chair creaked as someone, presumably Balfour, sat in it. "I think Obsidian wants more than that. I wonder.... Just how much of his memory has he managed to recover? Without Dr. Richter and his frequent conditioning sessions, the memory blocks might be fading."

"What does it matter? His brain's been manipulated so many times it's a wonder it hasn't started dripping out of his ears yet."

"It matters a great deal. He's the only thing that can disrupt my plans in regards to the tsarina naming her new heir at the end of her celebrations."

There came a brief pause. "Why don't you just kill him?"

"Because he hasn't yet outlived his purposes. And perhaps I can work this sudden reappearance to my advantage. Sergey's beginning to strain at his yoke. He might need a reminder he's not the only Grigoriev out there in the world."

Lark froze. Sound drained out of the room, as her ears started ringing.