Don’t miss Mia Marlowe’s newest,
TOUCH OF A THIEF,
available now . . .


Only once more, Viola vowed silently. Though, like the Shakespearean heroine for whom she was named, she’d miss wearing men’s trousers from time to time. They were ever so much more comfortable than a corset and hoops.
From somewhere deep in the elegant row house came a low creak. Viola held her breath. The longcase clock in the main hall ticked. When she heard nothing else, she realized it was only the sigh of an older home squatting down on its foundations for the night.
The room she’d broken into still held the stale scents of cigar smoke and brandy from the dinner party of the previous evening. But there were no fresh smells, which meant Lieutenant Quinn had taken Lord Montjoy up on his offer to introduce him at his club this evening.
Probably visiting a brothel instead. No matter. The house was empty and why made no difference at all.
She cat-footed up the main stairs, on the watch for the help. The lieutenant hadn’t fully staffed his home yet, but he’d brought a native servant back with him from India. During the dinner party, Viola had noticed the turbaned fellow in the shadows, directing the borrowed footmen and giving quiet commands to the temporary serving girls.
The Indian servant would most likely be in residence.
So long as I steer clear of the kitchen or the garret, I’ll be fine, Viola told herself.
Besides, the stones would be in Lieutenant Quinn’s chamber. Her fence had a friend in the brick mason’s guild who, for a pretty price, happily revealed the location of the ton’s secret stashes. Townhouses on this fashionable London street were all equipped with identical wall safes in the master’s chamber. The newfangled tumbler lock would open without protest under Viola’s deft touch.
She had a gift. Two, actually, but she didn’t enjoy the other one half so much.
Slowly, she opened the bedchamber door. Good. It had been oiled recently. She heard only the faint scrape of hinges.
The heavy damask curtains were drawn, so Viola stood still, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the deeper darkness. There! A landscape in a gilt frame on the south wall marked the location of the safe.
Viola padded across the room and inched the painting’s hanging wires along the picture rail, careful not to let the hooks near the ceiling slide off. She’d have the devil’s own time reattaching them if they did. With any luck at all, she’d slide the painting right back and it might be days before Lieutenant Quinn discovered the stones were missing. After moving the frame over about a foot, she found the safe right where Willie’s friend said it would be.
Viola put her ear to the lock and closed her eyes, the better to concentrate. When she heard a click or felt a slight hitch beneath her touch she knew she’d discovered part of the combination. After only a few tries and errors, the final tumbler fell into place and Viola opened the safe.
The dark void was empty. She reached in to trace the edges of the iron box with her fingertips.
“Looking for something?” A masculine voice rumbled from a shadowy corner.
Blast! Viola bolted for the door, but it slammed shut. The Indian servant stepped from his place of concealment behind it.
“Please do not make to flee or I am sorry to say I shall have to shoot you.” The Hindu’s melodious accent belied his serious threat.
Viola ran toward the window, hoping it was open behind the curtain. And that there was a friendly bush below to break her fall.
Lieutenant Quinn grabbed her before she reached it. He crushed her spine to his chest, his large hand splayed over one of her unbound breasts.
“Bloody hell! It’s a woman. Turn up the gas lamp, Sanjay.”
The yellow light of the wall sconce flooded the room. Viola blinked against the sudden brightness. Then she stomped down on her captor’s instep as hard as she could.
Quinn grunted, but didn’t release his hold. Instead, he whipped her around to face him. His brows shot up in surprise when he recognized her. “Lady Viola, you can’t be the Mayfair Jewel Thief.”
“Of course I can.” She might be a thief, but she was no liar. “I’d appreciate it, sir, if you’d remove your hands from my person.”
“I bet you would.” The lieutenant’s mouth turned down in a grim frown and he kept his grip on her upper arms. His Indian servant didn’t lower the revolver’s muzzle one jot.
“Did I not tell you, sahib? When she looked at the countess’s emeralds, her eyes glowed green.” The servant no longer wore his turban, his coal-black hair falling in ropey strands past his shoulders. “She is a devil, this one.”
“Perhaps.” One of Quinn’s dark brows lifted. “But if that’s the case, my old vicar was right. The devil does know how to assume pleasing shapes.”
That was a back-handed compliment if Viola ever heard one. She hadn’t really considered Lieutenant Quinn closely during the dinner party. She made little time for men and the trouble they bring a woman. Once burned and all that. Besides, she’d been too intent on Lady Henson’s emeralds at the time. Now she studied him with the same assessing gaze he shot at her.
Quinn’s even features were classically handsome. His unlined mouth and white teeth made Viola realize suddenly that he was younger than she’d first estimated. She doubted he’d seen thirty-five winters. His fair English skin had been bronzed by fierce Indian summers and lashed by its weeping monsoons. His stint in India had rewarded him with riches, but the subcontinent had demanded its price.
His storm-gray eyes were all the more striking because of his deeply tanned skin. They seemed to look right through Viola and see her for the fraud she was—a thief with pretensions of still being a lady.