Whether it was the storm or the news, no one could really tell, but if there was one certainty in the darkness, it was that no one felt like playing charades anymore.
Hale was pacing in front of the fire, staring down at the useless phone in his hands. He wasn’t thinking, Kat could tell, when he hurled it through the shattered window, out into the storm.
“I do declare,” came the duchess’s small voice through the darkness. “This is exactly like old times.”
Kat might have gone to him if Lady Georgette hadn’t already been there, placing one of her delicate hands upon Hale’s strong shoulders.
“Scooter, I’m sure it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.” Hale didn’t push her away but his tone did.
“But Interpol is here. And the egg is heavily insured. Surely…”
“Your father insured the egg. The charity didn’t,” Hale snapped, then he saw Kat and seemed to remember. “Not yet. The charity hadn’t had a chance to yet.”
“But…Father…” Georgette was turning to the earl.
“Ha!” He stopped near the door where Irina was trying to lead him away from the cold and the glass. “Mr. Hale, if you think you’re getting a dime of that insurance money after your charity let my egg be stolen, then you’re as insane as they say I am!”
“I’m sorry to bring this up, Uncle,” the heir said, easing from the shadows. “But that reminds me, someone should really reach out to the insurance people as soon as the phones are back up. We’ll need to get the ball rolling on that and have it all settled before…”
But he trailed off. His face turned as white as the snow.
“Before what?” the earl snapped. “Before I die?”
“Father, I’m sure—”
“That’s enough, Georgie!”
“That’s enough, all of you,” Irina broke in. She sounded very much like Uncle Eddie, and a part of Kat knew that Irina wasn’t acting. Not right then. “Perhaps we should all just go to bed. The storm will no doubt break, and, in the morning, Mr. Hale and the officers can return to London to get to the bottom of this terrible injustice. And the rest of us can return to celebrating the holiday.”
Hale nodded. “Yes. I’ll leave in the morning, assuming the roads are passable.”
“I’ll go with you,” the heir chimed in. “To represent the family, you know.”
“You’ll do no such…” The earl started but even in the candlelight Kat could tell his face was as red as the ribbons that hung on the garland.
It was all Irina could do to guide him into a chair.
“The earl is going to bed!” she snapped, then gestured to Angus and Hamish to come help her. “I’d highly suggest you all do the same.”
The first time Kat ever saw W. W. Hale V, she was thirteen and he was fourteen and it was the middle of the night in the Hale family’s manor house in the country—a place that spoke of old money and even older blood and a society so elite one could only be born there. Only Kat was brave enough to try to steal her way inside. That night, she came for a Monet but left with something better.
Someone better.
Or so she had to think as she crept down the stairs of the family wing of Greymore Castle. The electricity was still out, but the storm was fading and, outside, the light of a full moon reflected off the ice and snow. It looked like something from a painting—something from a dream.
But the boy at the bottom of the stairs, staring through the window, was trapped inside a nightmare, she could tell.
“Stop it,” he said.
Hale hadn’t even turned, but he knew she was there, of course. Hale always knew.
“Stop what?” Kat asked.
“Stop worrying. Scheming. Planning.”
Kat half-laughed and eased down the stairs. “Someone has to worry, scheme and plan, you know.”
“Yeah.” He turned and reached for her, sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her close. “But not you. Not right now. Right now your only job is to breathe and feel and…look up.”
Kat pulled back just enough to see the mistletoe that hung above them.
“You planned that.”
“Me?” He gasped. “Never.”
Then Hale’s lips were on hers and his arms were around her and there were no eggs and no thieves and no lies between them.
“Tell me it’s going to be okay,” he said, pulling away and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Lie to me if you have to.”
“Hale, it’s going to be okay. It’s—”
But Kat never got to finish.
Maybe it was the darkness or the lateness of the hour, the coating of snow and ice that covered the huge house and must have kept the sound inside, because the scream seemed to go on forever. It echoed down the stairs and across the perfectly polished floor, and Kat couldn’t help but shiver at the sound.
“Irina!”
But before Kat could rush up the stairs, her aunt appeared on the landing. The others must have heard—how could they not? And they threw open doors and ran down the hall, candles in hand, toward the place where the future countess stood, as white as a ghost.
“What’s happened?” Agent Hoyt asked, but Irina just stood, breathing hard, as if she’d run all the way from London. “Ma’am? What is—”
“He’s dead.” The words were barely a whisper, and yet they seemed to be enough to make her sway. Agent Hoyt put out an arm to brace her lest she tumble down the stairs.