Page 26 of To Heist and to Hold

“You keep telling yourself that, you pigheaded bastard,” he mumbled.

Before Ethan could think of a reply, Isaac clapped him jovially on the back.

“But I’ve spotted several of our patrons eyeing us.

And as I’m damned tired of dealing with these cocky nobles, let’s find a quieter bit of dirt to stretch these beasts’ legs, shall we?

” Giving Ethan a roguish wink, he kicked his horse on.

Ethan, unsettled and not knowing why, watched him leave. Then, shrugging off the uneasy feeling, he urged his own horse after him.

No matter how much effort Heloise put into avoiding everyone at the Wimpole Street house, she would not be able to succeed forever.

Something she tried to remind herself of as she made her way to Sylvia’s suite for their scheduled afternoon tea.

Could she have claimed a headache and sat it out?

Certainly. Was she going to? She had been tempted.

Oh, she had been tempted. But in the end she knew it was best to get it over with.

So she raised her head high and threw open the door to Sylvia’s rooms, ready for the barrage of questions regarding her planned seduction of Ethan.

After the trip to Dionysus the evening before, the others had to know something had occurred.

What she did not expect, however, was the absolute disinterest she was faced with.

“I am telling you, Euphemia,” Sylvia was saying, pointing a bit of shortbread at her, seeming not to notice as Heloise approached and took a seat nearby, “your skills are improving beyond even my imaginings. When you walked in here this afternoon, I swore some strange man had infiltrated the house. I very nearly called Strachan to deal with you.”

Euphemia, still in the craftsman’s garb she had used to gain access to Dionysus earlier that morning, laughed delightedly and removed her wig of closely cropped dark hair.

“No thank you,” she said with a grin, pulling the pins from her pale brown locks.

“I’m terrified enough of Strachan; if she were to come at me in full fury I would expire on the spot.

Oh, hello, Heloise. My disguise was quite a success, if I do say so myself.

Mr. Ferris never batted an eye. Introducing me as your cousin was positively brilliant. ”

“I do wish I could find a way to help,” Iris fretted, fiddling with the spoon in her teacup, nearly sloshing the beverage over the rim in her agitation. “I feel so useless sitting at home.”

“My dear Iris,” Sylvia drawled, giving her an arch look even as she laid a gentle hand over the other woman’s to still her anxious fidgeting, “you are delusional if you think you are not useful.”

“Sylvia is right,” Laney chimed in as she passed Heloise her cup of tea—plain, without a bit of sweetness, just as she liked it. “Your usefulness is not determined by how often you get into the thick of things. Supporting us from the barracks, as it were, can be even more meaningful.”

But Iris was not to be soothed so easily.

Placing her cup down with a clatter, she worried at the skin of her wrist with her thumbnail.

“If only I was a better actress, I could assist you all within Dionysus as well.” Her small pixie-like face screwed up in frustration.

“I must have improved somewhat since I started out. Surely if you give me something to do within Dionysus, I can manage to succeed.”

“No,” Sylvia said, a touch too quickly, an alarmed look in her eyes before she schooled her features into a mild smile.

“That is, we need you here. You’ll have to be fresh for the night of the masquerade should we be forced to infiltrate the gaming hell en masse, and as you are quite the most talented of us when it comes to picking locks, your help will be invaluable then.

Also, I’ve sent out word through my connections to see if any more of Dionysus’s victims can be located.

I shall need someone close to home should word come through. ”

“Oh, splendid,” Iris exclaimed, sitting forward, knee precariously bumping her teacup in her relief. “Whatever I can do to help.”

Sylvia gave her a small smile. “With you ready in the wings, Laney’s plans to practice in the new ring once it is built, my own invitation to play in their private gaming room, Euphemia in place to locate the valve to the gas lamps, and Heloise well and truly ingrained in Dionysus and with Mr. Ethan Sinclaire, our success is practically assured. ”

Heloise tensed. There it was, confirmation that they knew she had succeeded in seducing Ethan. But once more she was proven wrong in her belief that they would leap to discuss it. The conversation quickly turned.

“Now that we have got that out of the way,” Sylvia continued with satisfaction, “I would very much like to begin planning a trip for when this whole affair is done. It will be good to get out of London for a bit as the dust settles. What say you all to a visit to the Isle of Synne? I’ve a mind to clear my head with a dose of sea air and sunshine, and it’s far enough removed from London that we may safely relax there without fear of becoming entangled in the aftermath. ”

And just like that, the entire atmosphere transformed, everyone joining in with her plans for the proposed trip.

Everyone, that was, except for Heloise. Now that her worry had settled some that they would bring up the more intimate aspect of her dealings with Ethan, a new feeling had burrowed under her skin, causing the muscles in her shoulders to twitch.

Frowning, she sipped at her tea, trying to make sense of it.

It had all the flavor of guilt. But why guilt?

She thought back over the past minutes, trying to understand.

It was when she recalled Sylvia mentioning the aftermath of their efforts that she realized just what it was that had her uncomfortable and itchy: If she failed to locate the jewels and they infiltrated Dionysus in a last-ditch attempt to save Julia, it could destroy the place’s reputation.

That fact, of course, had certainly never bothered her before.

Why, then, did it now feel wrong?

She stared down into her cup and the dregs submerged beneath the amber surface.

Wrong? There was nothing wrong with what they planned.

The club was responsible for the hell that Julia was going through.

If not for their crooked tables, her dear sister-in-law would not now be facing possible transportation or death.

Yes, it was Julia’s employer’s actions that had put Julia in this position.

That woman had been the one to offer up the jewels as collateral, after all, and was now threatening Julia if said jewels were not recovered—something she had to know Julia had no control over.

But if not for the fact that the gaming had been rigged in the first place, her sister-in-law would not now be living in daily fear.

Yet even as she tried to reawaken the same outrage she’d had when she’d first learned of the hell Julia was being subjected to, she found it was a weak thing.

Why? Nothing she had seen or heard thus far during her time at Dionysus had given her reason to regret doing whatever was necessary to recover the jewels.

Well, that is not exactly true, is it? The small, quiet question floated about in her mind, almost like a scolding.

Hadn’t Ethan shown her incredible tenderness and care?

But more than that—for she could not go solely off of their time spent in intimate congress, for God’s sake—others showed him an extraordinary amount of respect and ease. He was a man people trusted.

While it was well known in society that he was feared for his power, that he could make a man wet himself with one well-timed glower, his effect on those weaker than he seemed to suggest something else entirely.

From the kitchen maid, Mary, to Mr. Ferris heading the boxing ring build to Mr. Kendal in charge of the playbills and advertisements, she had seen him treat them with nothing but respect.

Something that showed in their comfortable way of interacting with him, in the relaxed lines of their faces when they spoke to him, and in the way they went about their work without fear.

If he was at the root of the cheating, she had not seen a hint of it.

The next moment she downed the remainder of her tea in one long swallow, using the burn of the hot liquid to shock herself back to her senses.

What, did she expect the man to advertise that he was a swindler?

One could be kind to those working for one and at the same time steal from others.

Didn’t even the worst criminals have people they had fooled into thinking they could not possibly be guilty?

No matter how she tried to tell herself that Ethan was the great big villain that she had gone into this believing him to be, she could not reconcile that image with that of the man who had held her so tenderly after she had fallen apart in his arms.

“You are strangely quiet this afternoon,” Sylvia said in her ear.

“What? Oh!” Heloise’s face burned as she turned a wide, false smile Sylvia’s way. “My apologies. I’m afraid I was woolgathering.”

“No apologies needed, my dear,” the other woman replied gently.

That gentleness gave Heloise pause. While Sylvia was kind to them all, while she cared for them all, gentleness was not part and parcel of her personality.

Euphemia leaned forward and handed her a plate full of pastries and fruit.

“Woolgathering is all well and good, but you must eat,” she said with sternness colored liberally with affection. “I don’t believe you ate a bite this morning before our departure, and I know you did not eat after your return.” She grinned. “I asked.”

Laney gave her a look of mock horror. “You braved asking Strachan?”

“What, do you think I would willingly don that particular hair shirt?” Euphemia’s laughter was like bells, a strange thing indeed coming from her lips, seeing as she still wore the makeup that had changed her from a sweet, unobtrusive woman to the quietly handsome Herbert.

“No,” she continued, “I asked Helena in the kitchens.” She took up a strawberry and plopped it into her mouth, giving them all a look that said, And I shall do the same for all of you if you don’t eat your fill.

The next half hour passed pleasantly, with no more mention of Dionysus or anything relating to their plans for that place.

Which should have eased Heloise’s mind. Yet she could not help noticing that, on occasion, the other women sent curious, concerned glances her way.

Perhaps it’s nothing , she told herself firmly as Iris, in the process of reaching for a small sandwich, looked at her out of the corner of her eye.

Mayhap I’m imagining things , she thought as Euphemia’s laugh faltered ever so slightly when she looked her way.

But she could not ignore the strange way Laney pressed her hand, nor the tighter-than-normal hug Euphemia gave her when they bade each other farewell.

They knew, they all knew, and were worried about her, a realization that should have given her some relief that she did not have to tell them but instead filled her with dismay that they could not even stomach bringing the subject up to her.

None of them had wanted her to seduce Ethan, after all. But she had seen no other way.

“Oh, but I need to get out of this disguise,” Euphemia said, tugging at the limp cravat at her throat. “I feel positively filthy.”

“Shall I help you?” Iris asked, hurrying toward her, nearly upending the whole of the tea table in the process in her eagerness.

“Absolutely,” Euphemia replied with a smile. Waving their goodbyes, the two women left, Laney quickly following. Leaving Sylvia and Heloise quite alone.

And then Sylvia, patting Heloise’s arm, made to leave as well. And Heloise found she couldn’t take it a moment longer.

“Is no one going to ask me how things are going with Mr. Sinclaire?”

She tried her best to raise her head high and feign unconcern. But her voice wobbled horribly until it faded off entirely, a complete and utter betrayal. Sylvia heard it, if the way she pressed her lips together in compassion was any indication.

“Anyone can see you succeeded,” she said gently. “Just as anyone can see that you don’t wish to discuss it.”

She came to stand before Heloise and took her hand. Now that they had gotten it out in the open, Heloise could see the stark worry in the other woman’s eyes. Warmth filled her chest, tears burning her eyes. She could not recall the last time anyone had worried about her.

Oh, she was certain that at one time, when she had been small, her mother had worried for her, loved her.

But then she had died, and her father had been too busy surviving to think of his only daughter.

When he had died several years later and she had gone to live with her uncle and his wife, they had let her know in no uncertain terms that she was under their protection only due to familial duty.

So she had kept her head down and worked hard to justify her place in their home.

When she had left their house and married Gregory, his only concerns had been for his sister and his business, in that order.

His wife, he had been fond of saying, was like a well-made broadsword, useful and strong and not needing much maintenance.

She had been proud of it then. It had meant she had succeeded in earning her place in his life.

Now, however, with Sylvia looking at her as if she truly mattered, with the memory of the concern in the other Widows’ eyes still fresh in her mind, she saw it for the empty success it had been.

“I will, of course, be here for you should you wish to talk things over,” Sylvia said before Heloise could begin to understand this new ache coursing through her chest. “As will any of us. You know we are here for you.”

Feeling suddenly raw and vulnerable in the face of such kindness, Heloise cleared the tears from her throat and pulled her hand from the other woman’s grasp. “Thank you, Sylvia.”

“Of course,” she murmured with a small smile.

The worry adding to the lines of her face, however, did not ease.

If anything, those lines deepened, bracketing her mouth, hugging her eyes.

“But know that, should Mr. Sinclaire mistreat you in any way, you need only say the word and we shall converge on Dionysus with all the fury of… well, the Furies.”

Laughing softly, she winked and made her way from the room, leaving Heloise to thoughts that were much too tender for her to know what to do with.