Plots Schemes and Scandalous Means (World of Weyvar Book 1) Read online

  My pincher dagger slides effortlessly from its secret pocket at my back. Shimmying the dual prongs into the seam of the window near the latch, I wait patiently for my moment.

  Drunks sing at the tavern across the street, so I only need to wait-out their escalating bars of “The Bard with a Barrow.”

  Ah, there.

  With the drunks’ raucous laughter filling the carriageway with noise, no one notices as I sharply strike the handle of my weapon.

  The window sash levers away from the frame. The opposing hinge creaks an objection, but I didn’t want it to break—I only wanted it slack.

  The tips of my pinchers are just thin enough to pry out the hinge pins. They finally relent, now that they’re better aligned. I swing the cheap window inward, the latch on the inside barely any opposition.

  Ten years ago, a disgruntled chimney sweep plotted for weeks, then triggered a district fire that destroyed more than half the homes in the upper-class Carmel District. The earl, as with so many other things, took shortcuts rebuilding this residence and never considered what an intruder could do.

  An intruder like a thief.

  Plush carpets mute the sound of my leather soles as I drop inside. My access route lands me in a drawing room meant for his absent wife and children.

  Wedging the window back in the frame, I scan the space to confirm my suspicions. Street noise filters into the dead silence of the house through the flimsy windowpanes. A heavy coat of dust blankets every surface. The dirt crust formed on each of the other windows as well, thanks to proximity to the street and a lack of maintenance, so I should be safe for now.

  I remove a small vial of the infamous exotherm from my satchel. The glass disintegrates in heat, the remnants indistinguishable from soot.

  Once I break the seal, or if it’s lit externally, there are only seventy seconds before the admixture combines fully and explodes in a severe exothermic reaction that could melt the skin from my hands.

  Perfect for hiding my tracks.

  I stash a vial under the window, ensuring that my entry point will be thoroughly consumed by the coming blaze, whether I break the seal or not.

  The layout of this house is typical for the Carmel District—the “public level” main floor with hosting and service rooms; the second-floor “women’s level” and third-floor “men’s level” host bedrooms, offices, and other necessities. The men’s games room is always situated on the top floor, above the main stairs, overlooking the proper-side of the upscale row-house-style buildings.

  My access route requires that at minimum I maneuver into the adjacent kitchen, up the service stairs, and then sneak to the opposing end of the residence.

  This cook takes pride in her kitchen, and so her windows are clean. I’ll need to cross several of them to reach the stairs, but the risk is better than trying for the main staircase at the front of the house. I won’t even place vials in other rooms on this level; too many people on the street can see in. Thankfully, my night vision is good enough that I don’t need a lamp.

  Despite the cook’s efforts, someone left a half-eaten apple core on the counter. The earl isn’t known for his fastidiousness; it’s more surprising he’d eat an apple than that he’d leave his discards wherever he pleased. I place two more vials before moving on.

  Tiptoeing up the tight stairs, I hug the wall and pause for a long moment to survey the second-floor landing. I hold in a breath to focus on the stillness, although it makes my nervous heart kick harder.

  It’s been quiet thus far, but the magics are a trickster I can’t ignore.

  If the earl decided to stay here tonight, as the apple suggests, this would be the most dangerous part of my mission—both for the need to avoid him, and to ensure he expires with the house as a precaution.

  Floorboards creak under my steps, but no noise comes from the bedrooms along the dark hall. The stale, musty air is reassuring. I creep from my hiding spot and inch down the dim corridor.

  Approach a door, pause, listen, place a vial.

  Move on.

  Approach the next, pause, listen, vial.

  And on it goes past the half dozen rooms that line this side of the hallway. Some of the doors are ajar, which is odd but not alarming as I slink through the quiet house.

  The grand staircase at the front of the house, and the end of this hall, is as beautiful as it is commonplace. An overbearing welcoming chamber three stories high consumes the entire width of the residence.

  On each floor, the mahogany monstrosity of stairs and railing splits into two legs that wind in warped half circles, twisting to meet on the landing above. As is traditional, a triangular room hangs in open air on the third floor, its entry door meeting the hallway at the point.

  Rumor has it, some distant king’s lover fancied herself an architect and took to assisting the nobility with designing their homes. She favored such floating rooms, the effect lingering despite the passage of time.

  Once one side of the row is secured and set with vials, I switch to the opposing side and work back to the service stairs.

  After leaving another vial on the landing, in the stairway, I follow the same procedure on the third floor. This time, I zigzag between the various rooms. Once I have my prize, I won’t have time to double back, and there’s less likelihood of being seen from the windows.

  After finally making it to the front of the residence, it’s become a choice of door number one or door number two. Door one, to my right, leads to an office. Door two, straight ahead and suspended over the welcoming hall, is the men’s games room.

  Most would believe the earl would lock his important papers in his desk, but the earl is about as thoughtful as his masters are lenient.

  No—so obsessed with gambling, night after night, Pravis has worked from a large game table his mistress keeps in her apartments solely for him, despite a desk in the corner. He’d store his most important documents in his work area—the games room.

  It’s a wonder the earl’s survived this long. After tonight—once he’s lost all of the assets and debts markers he safeguarded—he had best pray to the magics or he won’t suffer much longer.

  Still, the task needs to be done. The documents are necessary for the Crown, along with a lack of evidence of my possession of them. There is no other way to weaken the duke’s cohorts. If I can’t undermine his confidants, they’ll act as his shield when it’s time to attack.

  For six months, that leering man has either kept his faithfulness or kept his indiscretions secret. We’ve come to a crossroads. The duke needs to feel helpless if we want him to slink back to his country estate, and he won’t if he still has allies.

  Should he decide to remain regardless, and go through with the royal marriage contract, he’ll have no choice but to lose his life.

  When the time is right, of course.

  The games room’s center door barely whispers as I swing it inward and then shut. Drab-olive felt wallpaper gives the room a sickly feel, along with those same carpets as the remainder of the house. Crowded cabinets and bookcases checker the angled walls, the wide, far side anchored with a frigid fireplace flanked by windows.

  Unlike the rest of the house, no dust covers the surfaces here, and I feel justified in my conclusions. I’m in the right place.

  The windows prevent me from fully lighting the room, regardless of the gauzy curtains, but I manage a single-wick lantern while I search for hidden caches.

  Nothing hides under the carpet, nor behind any of the cabinets or bookcases. I don’t have time to search every book, but I remove the largest and check them for compartments. I even brush my hands along the walls, looking for indentations and impressions hidden in the hideous wall covering.

  There’s a billiards table, but that isn’t the earl’s play. A games table sits in front of the windows, affording the best view of the other fine residences that comprise the society-facing side of the house.

  As I approach the games table, I examine it for any odd marks or etchings. A single column supports the octagonal behemoth, the wood-and-marble-inlay top forming the figure of a naked woman. The surface is smooth, but I still run my fingers over each of the joints to check for triggers. I inspect every chair, but no luck.

  There’s nothing here. The front of the books appeared clean, but dust coats the tops. The closed cabinets are mostly bare, the fireplace still spotless from the last scrub.

  Swigging from an abandoned bottle of whiskey in the bar cabinet, I plop into one of the chairs. The liquor burns a path down my throat. I probably shouldn’t drink on the job, but it’s been a long night—and week—and the house is empty of threat or interest.

  Perhaps I gauged the earl’s intentions wrong? I’ll give it one more go-round, then try the office.

  As I stand from the table, my foot catches on a slight hump in the carpet.

  Odd, it’s under the table.

  Kneeling below the surface, I prod at the bump and smooth it out to find its origination point.

  There, set into the pedestal leg of the table, is a fine seam. I run my nail over the crevice until it turns ninety degrees.

  A secret door flush with the support column likely hides exactly what I came for.

  I try manipulating the door and pressing the surfaces around it, but it refuses to yield. I consider prying it open but, absent knowledge of the safety measures, that has risks.

  Instead, I extinguish the lamp and allow my sense of touch to guide me. It will rub more of the paint off my fingertips and palms, but the table will burn with the house anyway.

  Skimming my hand around the outside of the column bears no success, nor does scraping the underside of the tabletop. I’d already checked the surface, affording precise attention to the intricate design.

  Standing,
I think through the use of the door. The square is positioned by the side of the octagon with its back to the windows.

  Exactly where the earl would sit.

  Settling in his chair, I skate my fingertips over and around the reachable surfaces. There, inside the lip of the table, I discover a small, round indentation.

  A press, and it clicks.

  Excellent.

  Gears clack in the soundless room. I’d fret over the noise, but the house is empty. A door pops and slides forward. The metal drawer unfolds as it extends past the edge of the surface, so that the box rests to the right of my chair.

  And there, concealed in shadows, is a thick stack of fading papers.

  The wax seals are cracking, so I’ll need to be extra careful, but they’ll hold until I return to the castle.

  Flipping through the documents, I confirm my suspicions—the earl’s stored his important papers in this hidey-hole, and they’re mine now.

  One set of pages in particular catches my eye. I fold the dozen sheets carefully, and tuck them into the thigh pocket of my suit. Of everything recovered, they’re the most important of the lot.

  With the remainder of the pages safely in my satchel, I consider the last three vials of exotherm.

  One goes in the drawer, before I press the button and let it wind back into the table.

  Another set near the entrance to the room.

  As I swing in the door, prepared with the final vial, I’m confronted with the image—through the now open office door—of a man rummaging through the earl’s papers.

  Fuck.

  He’s dressed in dark rags. The chaos of grays and blacks would actually be quite effective in the dark.

  Except it isn’t dark.

  The idiot lit the office, casting a rectangular column of light out the door, across the hall, and shining down one of the staircases. It illuminates the hallway and much of the welcoming chamber’s upper level. The neighbors and watch patrol will notice.

  I debate confronting him, incapacitating him to ensure he burns with the house. I don’t recognize him. He’s a potential witness, albeit in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Plus, his incompetence annoys me.

  The only question is whether I let the exotherm work, or accept the risk of hedging my bets by taking him down.

  Assessing him, I consider how his broad shoulders fill the shabby patchwork jacket. He’s hunched over the desk and facing my direction, cursing softly at the drawers he cannot open. He’s tall, based on how much he has to stoop. Firm neck and shoulder muscles flex as he tries to force the drawer.

  At least he had the foresight to cover the upper half of his face with a mask, his hair hidden under a wrap. Based on the chiseled jaw and full lips, I’d guess he’s handsome under all that cloth.

  Such a shame.

  He exhales hard, planting his knuckles on the surface and leaning over the desk on straight arms. It’s been a while since I’ve been bent over a desk, and I imagine it would be an enjoyable detour were he to break that frustrating streak. His teeth work at his bottom lip as he contemplates his next move.

  Yes, a shame indeed.

  The mysterious man’s eyes rise from the surface of the desk and immediately settle on me. His gaze grazes down my body in the catsuit, those teeth working harder at his lip before they spread into a wolfish grin.

  I smile back, tilting my head in acknowledgment.

  Then crack the seal on my last exotherm vial and shake it once, never breaking eye contact.

  Realization dawns, and he vaults over the desk toward me.

  Before he can reach me in the hall, I toss the vial in his direction. It bounces off his hands once, twice, then plummets over the railing.

  We both watch when the vial smashes, as if in slow motion, onto the marble floor below. The vial shatters into a magnificent plume of blue-white conflagration. The mahogany stairs ignite like dry kindling.

  In a matter of seconds, it’s insufferably hot on the third floor of the welcoming chamber. My eyes water from the heat and soot. He’s beside me on the rail, his big body blocking my exit. The remainder of the vials will follow quickly; we have perhaps sixty seconds before the house implodes.

  We dash together toward the rear service stairs. I’ll jump out a window to avoid burning to death, but the injuries would be a challenge.

  And he’s still here. He’s seen me; I can’t let him leave.

  The corridor fills with heavy smoke, but I swing an elbow at his head and catch him off guard. He grunts, falters, but recovers quickly. I scoop up one of my pre-placed vials and throw it at him, but he only bats it away.

  The roiling heat fills my lungs and steals my breath. We jockey down the stairs, shoving and tripping over each other in the narrow passageway. I miss a step, and for whatever reason he catches me and sets me in front of him.

  I debate trying to incapacitate him again, but we only have seconds left until enough vials shatter to cause the house to collapse.

  People will see us leaving anyway.

  He lives another day.

  We burst out the rear door, gulping in air to clear our lungs of bitter smoke. His hand skims down my back as he reaches for me, or perhaps just my satchel.

  He’s still wheezing when I take off running into a side alley, plotting my circuitous route to the castle.

  Gasping for air, I watch the agile form sprint toward Canal Avenue. I knock a fist against my chest to clear the last of the soot, and launch after her. She surprised the shit out of me once already; I won’t make that mistake again.

  When I saw her standing in the hall—curvy figure molded into that skintight bodysuit, the head-to-toe black emphasizing bright, hazel-green eyes—I considered whether she might be a Valkyrie here to collect my soul.

  No one else should have been in the house. I would know—I’d carefully searched it for more than three hours, starting from the welcoming chamber and working my way up each level. I only avoided the first floor until that obnoxious woman of a cook finally left.

  Penn secured a key earlier this morning, and time was of the essence. The Earl of Pravis decided, in his unending wisdom, to blackmail the Unscrupules into paying his gambling debts. He seemed to think the documents he kept for us gave him leverage, but a duck could out-think the man. I only needed to find the debt and asset markers, and the ledgers that went with them, and we’d dispose of the earl for good.

  Problem was, we had no idea where they might be. I tried the office first, then resorted to searching the rest of the residence for the keys to the desk and anything else that might be helpful.

  I place a well-founded guess that those papers are tucked into the heavy satchel of the goddess-like Shadow nimbly sprinting between carts and over crates in the alley.

  Oh, I know who she is. The Shadow is infamous, her misdeeds for the queen whispered between gossipy women and entranced men all the same. She’s taken on a mythical reputation. Everything that goes wrong, and sometimes right, is laid at her feet.

  I’d never seen her in the flesh, though. Almost no one has. Some think she isn’t real.

  Except the ass and thighs I’m currently chasing across the Carmel backstreets are very real, and I want to catch them for more than one reason.

  When she smiled at me, that mischievous glint in her eye, my practically dormant cock stood immediately at her attention. I haven’t had that strong a response to a woman in months. Maybe years, but now isn’t the time for laments.

  The Shadow careens onto a larger thoroughfare. The obscure figure dodges between staggering couples, exhausted workmen, and carriages both stopped and driven.

  I lose her, my heart dropping into my gut when her dark blur dissolves into the shadows, but then find her again two alleys over.

  It’s early, not even first light, although the sun will be on the horizon within the hour. Not that I can chase her for an hour, but surely she’s looking for refuge.

  I’ll need to find shelter myself. My hands are covered in soot and my clothes reek of smoke. Fires are uncommon in Carmel, due to the suppression systems protecting the attached houses and the expensive fire monitors patrolling the streets. Getting caught in this condition would implicate me in the demise of the earl’s home for certain.

  The Shadow uses a pipe bolted to the corner of a building to swing herself into another alley, the carried momentum boosting her speed even more. The hood falls away, revealing thick, dark hair twisted into a tight braid. She glances back briefly, exhilaration in her eyes as I trail her.