Prologue

“Your Voice of Society declares that there is no need to clutch your reticules so tightly, my Lady Readers! It will not be you who wakes to find your jewels and coin have disappeared in the night!

Our Lady Thief does not prey upon the righteous and respectable. The Vixen strikes only at the strongboxes of the moneyed and miserly. Does Sir K– contribute to the orphanage not three blocks from his grand doorway? Does Lord P– pay his servants, or anyone else, in good time? Nay, your Voice of Society declares some fellows highly deserving of opening their treasure troves to find nothing left behind but a lacy handkerchief. Carry on, Dear Vixen, carry on!”

Chapter 1

London, December 1814

ANOTHER DRUNKEN PARTY in another London mansion. Lord Elliot Hughes concealed a wave of knee-weakening boredom. Why couldn’t he be assigned to a drunken party in the country for once, where the winter air would be clear of soot and the company better behaved?

Elliot dodged a sozzled couple leaving the dance floor and sent the apologetic gentleman on his way with a grin and a comradely slap on the back. He didn’t know the fellow or the so-called lady with him, but Elliot had long ago discovered that a tolerant geniality made him simultaneously well-liked and forgettable.

This ball was only one of several going on tonight. It was a frantic season this year. Typically, with the House of Lords session taking a break over Christmas, the more family-settled members of the ton spent their winter holiday in their country residences. This December however, the mercurial Prince Regent had declared that London was the place to be. Elliot suspected that it was because, unlike Elliot, revelry-loving Prinny found being snow-bound in Scotland to be tedious as hell.

At the home of Lord Beardsley, a cavalier bachelor with no children, rum punch ran freely and Elliot was certain he caught the scent of opium smoke now and again. The crowd was a decadent display, full of brightly colored ladybirds with high hems and low necklines who attended to the needs of their high-ranking protectors with bawdy energy. All gathering about a great, festooned evergreen tree that reached easily to the next story.

Clearly Lord Beardsley had taken to the new fashion. Personally, Elliot didn’t think this latest holiday decorating trend would last long. Trees? In the house?

He continued casually strolling the outskirts of the ballroom, making an effort to portray a slightly inebriated fellow at loose ends. It’s only me wandering about, simply another useless offshoot of a noble family, beneath any special notice. He was taller than some and more fit than others. He wore a silk waistcoat that some would say was too flashy, and some would say was too dull. He was as much background color as one of the potted palms.

Precisely the way he wanted matters.

He had timed his arrival well, appearing somewhat late and well after the dreary receiving line where he would be forced to greet his host, yet early enough that the guests were still in and out quite actively and had not yet begun to move on to other gatherings. No one had asked for his invitation. Good thing, for he had no such thing on his person.

He doubted anyone at Lord Beardsley’s bawdy event would stick so closely to the niceties anyway. What a strange way to celebrate Christmas! It was almost as though the very notion of a reverential holiday spurred certain members of Society to renewed debauchery.

Exactly like my schoolboy Christmas holidays … except, of course, not at all.

Elliot prided himself that he fit right in, youngest son of the youngest son of the Earl of Breckenridge, with a mountain of lordly uncles and cousins, all quite healthy, mind you, standing between him and any sort of future. As Lord Elliot Hughes, too highborn for real work, too late-born for any chance at advancement, he disappeared into the crowd of young men with more rank than sense, more time than brains and nothing to do with themselves but to overindulge.

“Marry well,” his father had advised before he passed away with as little fanfare as he’d lived. “Find an heiress who wants to be a lady.”

Elliot’s mother hadn’t had anything useful to add, as she’d died when he was born.

It wasn’t very good advice. He wasn’t inclined to marry some status-hungry steel magnate’s daughter with her heart set on becoming Lady Hughes. A feminine shriek of gleeful shock rose from behind a potted palm in Elliot’s path. He veered well around it.

None of the women here this evening were bride material.

Elliot was living the life everyone expected of him, drinking and dancing and spending the allowance doled out by his dutiful but indifferent grandfather, the current earl. A ball here, a horse-race there, a card game or two in between.

It would be enough to drive an intelligent fellow mad with his own uselessness. That is, if that fellow hadn’t come up with a much better way to pass the time.

As he strolled, he glanced into one of the side rooms set apart for gentlemanly cards.

“Oh, look!” he murmured to himself. “Lord Beardsley is at the gaming tables. What a lovely time to take in that gracious view from the upper floor.” Also to find his lordship’s study… and his lordship’s strongbox!

Elliot slipped out of the ballroom as easily as he’d entered it.

No reason to remember him at all.

LORD BEARDSLEY LIKELY believed that his eight-foot stone wall would keep the riffraff out of his garden. Miss Amie Jackham begged to differ. The crowded ball was well under way in the bachelor lord’s house beyond the barrier, making now the perfect time to breach his laughable defenses.

Large cylindrical stone spikes marched across the top of the wall, surely intended to be intimidating, or perhaps hinting at Lord Beardsley’s self-deluded personal endowment. The spikes only aided Amie’s attempt. From her small rucksack she removed a simple grappling hook with a lightweight line woven of leather strips. After a glance up and down the dark and icy cobbled alleyway, she tossed the hook up to catch easily on the top of the wall.

Taking the line in her black-gloved grip, she ran nimbly up the vertical, hand over hand on the rope. She was still reasonably strong after months of dire winter deprivation, but who knew how long that youthful vigor would last? At least being thinner made her more lightweight. Once on top, she kicked the covering snow away and poised lightly, gripping the squat pedestal of one of the spikes between her feet as she pulled her line up after her. She tossed the line down the other side, and quickly followed it to the ground below.

Around her, the artistically placed boxwoods slumbered peacefully beneath a blanket of snow. This winter was the coldest in decades, people claimed. Amie had to agree. The snow was lovely, but the chill crept into her home and her bed and her bones. Also, the snow caused her to leave footprints.

No matter. She knew this part of the garden was invisible to the house beyond because she’d been in that house only this morning, checking the view from every window. She smiled slightly at the memory. No one ever looked at chambermaids, particularly in a house filling up with guests. The other maids had given her a few curious glances, but there were so many new arrivals in the house already that they hesitated to question her for fear she served someone important.

Now, confident that no one could see this dark corner of the garden from any of the tall windows of the house, Amie didn’t hesitate to strip off her clothing. Off came her trousers and boyish shirt and vest, along with her grubby cap. Clad in nothing but a short chemise that came halfway down her thighs, she shivered as she pulled the last item from her rucksack and shook out the folds. The pale green silk gown had been cleverly packed so as not to wrinkle, but Amie had to take care not to allow the hem to drag in the snow as she dressed. It was a second-hand dress, much altered. The color was meant to play up her flaming red hair, while the cut was daring enough to make it appropriate for a risqué gathering. To Amie, the gown was merely a costume designed to make her neither too attractive nor too unattractive, only entirely forgettable.

The precautions had been worth it. Moments later she looked utterly different. The neatly folded boy’s garb, arranged in order for speedy dressing later, went back into the rucksack. She concealed the waterproofed leather bag behind a tree.

The line still dangled from the grappling hook but in the shadowed corner she doubted anyone would notice. Best to leave her escape route in place. She might not be able to leave through the front door!

She had no mirror so she could only hope that the boy’s cap had protected her intricately braided hairstyle from her vertical gymnastics. Her hair felt fine to the touch but she was perhaps not the best judge of fashionable hairstyles.

At any rate, this was not the sort of ball where a woman’s hair stayed tidily up. She paused, wondering if she ought to be a little more mussed to fit in. Never mind. Stop thinking, she told herself.

Light on your feet, quick on the pull, nothing on your mind. Just as Papa had always told her.

She was a Jackham, born of a long line of night-burglars and jewel thieves. Nerves had no place in her life.

She stepped forward confidently, trotting toward the house with her skirts daintily lifted, nothing but a guest rushing back to the fun of the party.

Up the stone steps, across the terrace, through the glass doors, simply stroll inside the house as if I belong.

There were already many guests moving in and out of the house through the ballroom terrace doors, so no one took notice of her. The floor must be an overheated crush if people were seeking air on such an icy night!

By the time she arrived inside she was slightly flushed and panting. Nothing odd there, only another woman fresh off the rowdy dance floor. She reached a drink off a servant’s tray and stepped into the crowd.

Lord Beardsley’s ballroom was very grand, and lavishly decorated for the event. Evergreen garlands and draperies of golden silk festooned every surface. More silk was hung to create little alcoves where one might find a fainting couch, a decanter of whiskey, or tiny plugs of opium on a tray with a hookah for smoking it. Bizarrely, there loomed a great evergreen tree in the center of the floor. Amie hid her astonishment and passed it by.

She had timed her arrival well. Any earlier and the other guests might’ve been more observant, social sharks that they were. Any later and the party would grow out of control. Already she spotted a few women wearing richly decadent gowns that seemed rather the worse for wear. Amie kept her revulsion to herself. Not her sort of gathering at all. She might be a thief, but she was still a lady!

She continued around the ballroom, slipping unnoticed through the press of guests who laughed a little too loudly, stood a little too close, or swayed a little too loosely in the dance.

She wasn’t the prettiest woman in the room, nor the plainest, nor the best dressed, nor the worst. Utterly forgettable, precisely as planned.

On the other side of the great ballroom a staircase arched up to the doorways on the next floor. That was where she needed to be.

A tricky moment. That curving stair was intentionally in full view of the party, intended for grand entrances and exits.

Amie looked around her. She wondered if she could find just the right fellow.

“Oh, there you are!” She widened her eyes fervently, gave a loopy grin, and clasped the muscled arm of an overdressed dandy staggering past her. He was a pasty, sweaty-looking fellow, but he was good and drunk. That was all she required.

He stopped to look blankly at her, slowly focusing his gaze on her face. Then her breasts. But to his credit, his eyes did eventually return to her face. He smiled back, although he looked a bit confused. “Yes!” he said gamely. “Here I am!”

Amie leaned her bosom into his arm and squeezed his bicep. His jacket was padded. He likely had an arm like a chicken wing beneath his stuffed sleeve. That was all right with her. She didn’t need a muscled oaf. She only needed someone who was still more or less upright.

“I thought you’d forgotten,” she scolded playfully, giving him a little pout. “You promised you’d show me the conservatory.” She batted her eyelashes. He stared at her blearily.

“But…it’s winter.”

Good heavens, what a clod.

She wasn’t much of a performer, to be sure. She exaggerated her pout slightly, then more. He did not seem convinced. She toyed with his cravat as she went on tiptoe, sliding her body up his side. “You told me that you would take me to the conservatory because you wanted to see me naked in the moonlight!” she shouted over the din.

The notion that he might actually have sexual satisfaction sometime in the near future seem to pierce the idiot’s drunken fog. He began to nod emphatically. “Yes! Yes, I remember! I would never forget that! The conservatory, yes, let’s go to the conservatory!”

Amie giggled sickeningly and then tugged his arm toward the arching stair. “This way, silly!”

“Ah, ah, yes! This way!” He stumbled along with her and even managed to pick up the pace on the steps.

At the top of the stairs, the hallway led off in two directions. One way would take them to the front stair and front door, where still more guests were arriving. The other led deeper into the house.

Amie gave a little yelp and pushed the dandy away, uttering the magic words. “There’s my lover! I think he saw us!”

Wizardly words, indeed. In a flash, her companion had vanished, likely gone back down the stairs to lose himself in the crowd below. She ought to write a pamphlet — How to Make a Man Disappear.

She was well shut of him, for her only goal had been to appear as simply another tipsy demi-rep looking for a dark corner.

No reason to remember her at all.

THE NOISE OF the unruly ball faded behind Elliot as he silently closed the door of Lord Beardsley’s study and lifted the candle-stub he’d lighted from a hallway wall sconce. The room brightened just enough to make it navigable. The host’s study was as ostentatious as his ballroom. Lord Beardsley was known as a libertine who denied himself nothing. Hence the plush carpet, the gleaming rosewood desk, and a crystal whiskey decanter the size of a stewpot.

The house had thick walls. Elliot could barely detect the rousing country-dance tune now being played in the ballroom. He could likely fire a brace of pistols in here and no one in the house would know.

He went directly to the desk and sat in the chair. Then he reached beneath the inlaid lip of the desktop and slid his fingers to the right. According to his informant, he would find a trigger.

His index finger touched a tiny brass button. A spring-loaded segment of the wooden trim popped into his hand. Within the cavity left revealed lay a heavy iron key.

Elliot hefted the key in his hand and turned to a large box resting in a corner of the study. The case had been brightly painted with pastoral scenes with some intention of giving the appearance of a decorative piece. Nevertheless, when Elliot touched the surface, he could feel the cold iron of a strongbox beneath the thin skin of paint.

The strongbox was a good one. Solid iron, strapped with bands of more iron. Beardsley was so sure of his defenses that he’d not even bothered to carefully conceal his hoard.

The lock was good as well. Elliot smiled. There was a large, obvious keyhole on the front. That was meaningless, a distraction. Elliot pulled a small lock-pick set from his cuff and turned his attention to a tiny hole concealed in the painted design of a wheel of a hay wagon.

Someone would have to know specifically where to look.

That someone would be Elliot.

He quickly sprang the tiny lock, which caused a painted door to open. Behind that door was the large keyhole meant for the heavy key Elliot had found concealed in the desk. Elliot turned the key and listened to the thick bolts slide open. He lifted the weighty lid of the chest. His candle revealed the contents.

He grinned. “That will teach you to fire your faithful butler without reference because he skimmed a bit off the top of the household budget, you miserly wanker.”

Not only had the furious butler spoken freely about the strongbox, he’d given Elliot some very interesting notions about what might be found within it. The interior was filled almost entirely with stacked folios, each at least an inch thick with documents. Beneath those was a small wooden casket.

Elliot knelt on the floor, his candle planted in a dollop of wax on the side table that held the whiskey and glasses. He gave a quick sort to the folios, making piles, scanning each page in the way he’d been taught. It was not so much reading them as drifting his eyes over the words for an instant, allowing a few key phrases to emerge.

Deeds and provenance for estate property and art treasures? Useless. A set of accounts, including income from Beardsley’s estate. Then another, nearly identical set of accounts, that added up quite differently. His lordship was keeping double books. Not of interest to Elliot, but he would be sure to alert the proper authorities of Beardsley’s rather monumental income tax evasion.

Finally, one slender folio revealed all that any Crown spy could wish. There were several coded pages which appeared to be two sides of a secret correspondence. Elliot found letters to his lordship along with meticulous copies of his replies. The code was nonsense to Elliot’s eyes, but no matter. He wasn’t the one charged with finding the cipher. His job was to make a quick, neat copy and put the originals back where they belonged.

He used his lordship’s own paper and ink. He was fast at his work, as were all the operatives of the Liar’s Club. He was only one of a well-trained ring of thieves, infiltrators, code-breakers and yes, even the odd assassin or two.

A quarter of an hour later his careful copies were drying to one side while he bound the folios, winding their cords precisely as he’d found them. Elliot placed the folios back in the iron box, the original left-hand stack in the very order in which he’d found them.

The wooden jewel casket he saved for last. Without really looking inside, he dumped the contents into his large, masculine handkerchief. Then he pulled a lacy lady’s hanky from his pocket and laid that calling card in the empty jewel casket.

The Liars were taking advantage of the fresh notoriety of the mysterious Vixen, concealing their own activities in the Vixen’s jewel thefts. All of London was agog at the stories in the gossip-sheets. Besides, as Elliot’s immediate superior said, “Why not take the ill-gotten gains? The club’s coffers can always use a bit extra — all in the cause of national defense and whatnot.”

James had good reason to think ahead. There were rumblings of renewed support for Napoleon, even imprisoned as he was on the island of Elba. The former emperor seemed to be gaining a fresh foothold in a once-defunct ring of highborn British traitors. Wealthy beyond measure, these powerful few seemed to believe themselves beyond the reach of the government. The Liar’s Club had a fairly good notion of who was involved. The problem? Proving their suspicions.

Every Liar with a posh accent and a hand at lock-picking was being stuffed into a flashy coat and waistcoat and sent out to infiltrate Society’s ballrooms — and a few other rooms as well.

Yes, the Vixen’s timing was excellent.

He replaced the jewel casket beneath the right-hand stack of folios and locked the strongbox, setting the heavy tumblers as quietly as he was able. Taking up the handkerchief filled with glittering loot, he rolled it tightly and tucked the flattened parcel into a secret pocket sewn into the right-hand seam of his coat.

The copies he’d made were folded down to half page. Elliot was preparing to fold them once more when a floorboard creaked beyond the door of the study. He didn’t bother to turn or even hesitate. With a few swift motions, he had the strongbox shut tight again and the key back in the hidden slot of the desk.

With his copies smoothly tucked into a similar secret pocket sewn into the left side of his coat, Elliot turned to the door with a loose drunken grin and a bit of a stagger.