“Do you think the earl’s lost it?”
“The egg or his mind?” Kat asked.
“Either,” Hale said. “Both?”
“It could have been an honest mistake. There are so many fakes lying around here, maybe he got confused and sent the wrong egg to London?” Kat tried, but Hale only cocked an eyebrow.
“When was the last time you and I met someone honest?”
He was right, of course, but something in the back of Kat’s mind kept bothering her, and Kat couldn’t quite pinpoint what. “Elizabeth Evans is honest.”
Hale’s smile, when it came, was almost sad. “And someone sent Bobby to her door.”
“Yeah,” Kat said, and she knew that was it—the one fact that really mattered: if the earl had made an honest mistake no one would have ever dangled an Egg of the Magi beneath the nose of one of the world’s premiere art thieves.
So Hale nodded slowly. “Not a mistake,” he said.
Kat nodded. “Not a mistake.”
Someone had sent a fake to London and then set Kat’s father on its scent. Someone wanted—no needed—that egg to be stolen, and even though Kat knew why she didn’t know who, and Kat had long ago learned to dislike unanswered questions.
“Hale, what if—”
“Oh, excuse me!”
Kat turned at the sound of the voice, not entirely surprised to see Lady Georgette in the door of the pantry, looking as if ladies frequently examined the cramped closets of their ancestral homes.
“Was there something you were looking for, Mr. Hale?” She blushed prettily as she asked and pushed a piece of blond hair behind her ear.
“No. I was just…admiring the view.” He turned to the long narrow window that looked out on the woods that circled the house and dominated the grounds.
“The view?” Lady Georgette said. She wasn’t shy about sliding her gaze onto Kat, as if she knew exactly what teenage billionaires liked to admire in small closets. “Then might I suggest the music room? The gardens were designed to be viewed from the windows there.”
“What an excellent suggestion,” Hale said. “Whatever would we do without you, Lady Georgette? Your father is lucky to have such a gracious hostess.”
“You are too kind, sir.”
Hale bowed over her hand, then slipped out the door. But before Kat could follow, she found her way blocked.
“Scooter Hale is a very wealthy man,” Lady Georgette said as if that were some kind of secret.
“He’s seventeen,” Kat corrected even though she knew it wasn’t the smart call, the savvy play. But even Kat felt the need to be stupid sometimes. It was little consolation to know that Hale had that effect on most females.
“He is a powerful man,” Lady Georgette went on as if she hadn’t heard. And perhaps she hadn’t. She just eased closer, backing Kat into the corner. “And a handsome man,” she concluded as if that weren’t the worst kept secret in the world.
“If you’re expecting me to argue with you, you’re going to be disappointed,” Kat told her, but Lady Georgette talked on.
“The Hales are a very old family. A very powerful family. Scooter’s great-grandmother was a lady-in-waiting to the queen with my great-grandmother. Did you know?”
“No,” Kat said, truthfully, though she wasn’t surprised.
“He’s in line for a title. Did you know that?” Lady Georgette said, then laughed. “Of course you didn’t. Why should the sixth in line to the Duke of Clayton answer to you?”
“How nice for him,” Kat said. “Maybe five people will die. Wouldn’t that be swell?” Kat said, but Lady Georgette never wavered. She certainly never cared what the too-short, too-young, too-American girl might say on the subject of dukedoms.
“Dukes’ heirs might dabble with the help, Katarina,” Lady Georgette said. “They do not marry it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Lady Georgette,” Kat said with a smile. “But I’m a little young for marriage. So is he, as a matter of fact.”
“Great families make great alliances,” the girl talked on. “The Hales and the Fitzsimmonses are great families. Do you think it’s a coincidence that my father donated the egg to a Hale charity? Do you think it’s happenstance that he’s here?”
It wasn’t rational; it wasn’t logical, but Kat felt the words like a slap.
“Scooter Hale is going to marry me,” Lady Georgette told Kat. “This is how these things work. My father isn’t going to live forever, and he aims to see me settled.” She looked Kat up and down. “I’m willing to settle for Scooter Hale.”
“You should totally start by calling him Scooter, then. Trust me. He loves it.”
Kat wanted to laugh, but Lady Georgette didn’t think anything was funny.
“That egg is going to buy me the Hale heir, and I’m not going to let someone like…”—she looked Kat up and down again—“…you…stop me.”
Kat was no lady. She was no cultured heiress or rare beauty. No. She was just the girl who had crawled through W. W. Hale V’s window and into his life at a time when he had no friends and no family other than Hazel—no world at all beyond his gilded cage. She had given him all three, but then Hazel died and gave him the literal and figurative keys to that cage—to the entire kingdom—and a part of Kat had always wondered if someday he might use them to finally walk away from her.