She wandered around the big house, exploring those rooms that had been opened in honor of the ball (and a few rooms she suspected had not), smiling at people, but initiating no conversation. She finally settled on the dark, quiet library as the best place to pass time uninterrupted by the demands of her aunt that she dance with one foolish man after another. She’d suffered through dances with three such men, men so similar in their banalities and appearance, she couldn’t distinguish one from another, let alone remember who they were.
“No one will notice if I spend a bit of time in the library,” she said to herself as she slipped into the room she had noted earlier in her wandering. “No one will bother me, and I won’t be a bother to — oh! You there! Stop! What do you think you’re doing?”
Thom closed the door behind herself and marched into the room, not the least bit intimidated by the fact that a young man with filthy hands and face had turned to scowl at her. She grasped a poker from the fireplace and pointed it at him, taking in his shabby, dirty clothing, a small cloth bag at his feet, and the window he was in the process of opening. It was obvious what was happening — the young man’s hand was on the sill as if he was preparing to escape with his bag of no doubt ill-gotten goods.
“You’re a thief!” Thom said, a secret thrill running through her. At last, something of interest to save her from the mundanity of the evening. A thief, a real thief. How very fascinating. What was the correct way to deal with one, she wondered as she eyed him. Polite but fi rm, that should do it. “I’ve never met a thief before. Especially not one so—” She stopped. There was no need to tell the villain that despite the dirt and grime, she thought he was a very handsome man.
“Especially not one so what?” he asked, his hands rising in surrender as she prodded his dirty waistcoat with the poker to make sure he wasn’t armed.
“Bold. Only a bold person would think of burglarizing a house while a ball is going on. That or a very stupid one, and to be truthful, you don’t look particularly stupid. Oh. I probably shouldn’t have said that, should I? I should be convincing you as to the folly of your current path. It is foolish, you know. Sooner or later you’re bound to be caught, especially if you insist on burglarizing houses where the occupants are holding entertainments such as a ball.”
The man smiled, and Thom found herself unable to keep from smiling in response before she realized what she was doing — smiling at a burglar! What was next, laughing with an arsonist? Swapping charades with a strangler?
“ ‘Bold,’ ” the burglar said, looking oddly pleased by her words. “I rather like the sound of that. What would you say if I told you I wasn’t a burglar?”
She snorted. What did he take her for, one of those simpering, idiotic young ladies in the other room who knew nothing but how to look pretty and flirt and embroider nicely? She walked around him, keeping her poker handy in case he got any ideas. “Let me see, why would I think you were a burglar? Well, for one, there is the matter of your clothing. It is ill-kept and just the sort of thing that I imagine thugs and ruffians and men of bad repute wear when they engage in acts of a nefarious and illegal nature. It fairly reeks of burglary.”
The man looked down at his clothes, rubbing a bit of dirt off a grimy waistcoat so tattered, she wouldn’t bed down one of her cats on it. “Ah. That. I can explain—”
“And then there is the fact that you have in your possession a bag of such dimensions as might be used to hide your swag.”
“Swag?” The man’s lips twitched.
Thom felt a corresponding twitch in her own lips, but quickly regained control of them, schooling them into what she hoped was a stern, forbidding line. “That is, I believe, the correct slang? I read it in the Flash Dictionary. It does mean stolen booty, does it not?”
“It does,” the young man said, giving in and grinning at her again. “I’m just surprised you should be familiar with such a word, let alone the Flash Dictionary.”
“I have a very eclectic reading taste,” Thom told him, momentarily charmed by the amused light in his handsome gray eyes. Really, he was very agreeable for a burglar. He seemed well-spoken despite the obvious wicked nature of his employment. “In addition to the other items, there is the fact that you were attempting to escape via the window.”
He looked behind him to the window, his head tipped on the side as he studied it. “It seems to me that unless you actually caught me in the act, you can’t be sure of whether or not I was opening or closing the window when you arrived.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, your bag is positively bulging with swag and such. It’s quite clear to me that you’ve allowed your lower nature to run amok, and now you are escaping with the fruits of this labor. Can you deny that the bag holds your swag?”
“I could,” the man said, leaning back against the wall, looking just as comfortable as if he had been born there. “But that would take all the enjoyment out of you attempting to sway me from my sinful path. You were going to try to sway me, weren’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” Thom said guiltily, dragging her mind away from the pleasing contemplation of his eyes. “Of course I am. It is my duty. Er…I’m not quite sure how to begin. I’ve never had to sway a burglar before. How would you advise me to proceed?”
He looked thoughtful for a moment. “You might get further if you told me your name. It’s the personal touch, you know.”
“It is? Very well, if you insist. I am Thom.”
“Tom?” He looked a little surprised.
“Thom. It has an H in it.”
“Ah.” He nodded wisely. “That makes a difference.”
“Yes, it does. What is your name?”
“Nick. No Hs in it whatsoever. And your surname?”
“Is none of your concern. We can be personal without it. Now, Nick, it is my duty to lecture you about the sins of your chosen path.”
“You may proceed,” Nick said, his lips curving slightly as if he found something she said amusing. Thom had no idea what that could be, but admitted to herself that she found the young man in front of her a hundred times more pleasing than the dandified fops she had just left. At least this man was real. He had a goal in life, even if that goal was to steal items belonging to others. “Don’t spare me. I am ready and willing to hear your thoughts on the despicable life I have chosen to lead.”
She pursed her lips and tried to think of something to say to him. “The problem is,” she said with a sigh a few moments later, “I don’t really see what’s wrong with your despicable life. Oh, the stealing part isn’t good. You shouldn’t steal something that doesn’t belong to you, you really shouldn’t, but as for the rest of your life, I can’t imagine it’s too despicable. You are free to do whatever you want with your life, are you not?”
“Within reason, yes.”
“And if you don’t want to do something—”
“Then generally I don’t do it.”
“Exactly. That seems to me to be the ideal life, really. Freedom and your own choice to guide you — the burglary aside, of course.”
“Of course,” he said, his eyes laughing.
“Are you a very good thief?” It didn’t seem to be quite a correct thing to ask, but Thom was not so naive as to be blind to the fact that her entire conversation was not quite appropriate, so it didn’t seem to her to matter if she compounded that by asking something she wanted to know.
“Not really, no. I haven’t had much experience at it.”