A Dangerous Deceit (Thief-Takers) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  A Dangerous Deceit

  Alissa Johnson

  Dear Reader,

  When I set out to write the character of Jane Ballenger, a woman with central auditory processing disorder, I knew I was going to run into some interesting obstacles.

  Although it has gained some attention in recent years, CAPD is still not a particularly well-known disorder. It’s also not something I could give a name to in a book set in Victorian times, when the condition was not recognized. To further complicate matters, CAPD shares many similarities with, and is commonly mistaken for, some more widely known disorders and learning disabilities, such as autism and attention deficit disorder.

  I confess that several times during the process of writingA Dangerous Deceit, I wondered if I should have my heroine struggle with something more likely to be familiar to readers. I never wavered for long, however — in large part because the inspiration for Jane Ballenger came from a much-loved member of my own family, a young woman who faces many of the same challenges. I wanted to give her, and readers like her, a heroine of their own.

  I also hoped that some readers might be inspired to learn a little more about central auditory processing disorder. If you are interested, there is a wealth of information available online. One place you might start is at the Learning Disabilities Association of America website. There are also a number of individuals who blog or vlog about their own unique experiences with CAPD.

  But above all, my hope is that you, the reader, will simply enjoy getting to know Jane as a fun and engaging character, and invest in her journey with Sir Gabriel Arkwright to a well-earned Happily Ever After.

  Best Wishes,

  Alissa Johnson

  Chapter One

  “Hit a miss dress a tome?”

  Jane Ballenger carefully considered these six words and the gentleman on her doorstep who had just delivered them.

  He didn’tlook like a madman.

  To be fair, Jane had never actually met a fully grown lunatic before. It seemed to her, however, that such an infirmity would be, if not wholly obvious in a person, then at least soundly hinted upon. His clothes should be askew, his hair in disarray. His eyes should be wild. There should be some combination of fidgeting, moaning, or drooling.

  The remarkably handsome man before her exhibited none of these signs. His dark brown, fashionably cut suit was notably free of wrinkles and stains. The thick black hair that brushed the tops of his ears was clean and tidy. He was freshly shaved, his sharp jaw showed not a hint of stubble, and he was watching her with clear, wintry blue eyes.

  He was also smiling at her in a way that managed to be both solicitous and a just little bit rakish.

  She wasn’t sure she liked that smile.

  Keeping a firm grip on the door handle, she peered at him through the few meager inches she’d cracked open the door. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Sir Gabriel Arkwright to see Miss Jane Ballenger.” His gaze swept over her head. “Is she at home? She should be expecting me.”

  At home… A tome.

  Miss dress. Mistress.

  Mistress at home…

  Is your mistress at home? “Ah. That makes sense.” A lot more than his offer to hit a woman and dress a book. She really ought to have waited for one of the Harmons to answer the door.

  The stranger’s smile turned quizzical. “Miss?”

  “Yes. Right. I am Jane Ballenger.” She bobbed a quick curtsy when he dipped into a shallow bow, but whereas his movements appeared natural and graceful, hers felt awkward and ungainly from lack of use. “Did you say you were expected?”

  He nodded once. “I sent word ahead. A letter last week and a telegram again three days ago.”

  “I see.” She threw a quick glance over her shoulder at the chaos that currently reigned in the cottage. There was probably correspondence in there somewhere.

  “Did neither arrive?”

  “Difficult to say,” she murmured. The letter, possibly. The telegram, probably not. The young man generally tasked with delivery was afraid of the house.

  “Then I apologize for the intrusion.”

  “You’re not intruding.” He was standing on her doorstep, not a portion of her property about which she felt especially territorial.

  “Excellent.”

  There was a short pause that may or may not have been awkward. She couldn’t always tell.

  He cleared his throat, and then there was another pause. This one she was certain was awkward. Why didn’t the man simply say his piece and be done with it?

  He lifted his brows expectantly.

  She lifted hers right back. “Is there something you want, sir?”

  “Very much,” he replied with a twitch of his lips. “And if you would be so kind as to invite me in…”

  “In?”In was definitely intrusive.

  “I’ve come on a matter of some import,” he pressed. “It regards your late brother.”

  “Oh! Are you a solicitor?” The spark of excitement she felt was unseemly under the circumstances, but it couldn’t be helped. It had been nearly two weeks since Edgar’s belongings had been delivered to her home, along with an unsigned note informing her of his demise in St. Petersburg. There’d been no mention of funds to follow, and Jane could only assume Edgar had managed to spend or lose what had once been a sizable family fortune. But perhaps this man knew otherwise.

  “I’m not, no,” he replied.

  “Oh.” Another thought occurred to her, immediately replacing her disappointment with fear. She squeezed the door shut another half inch. He hadn’t seen inside, had he? “Are you after a debt? Because I don’t—”

  “No.”

  Oh, thank God. “Were you friends with Edgar? Have you come from Russia?”

  “I haven’t come from Russia.” He tapped his hat against his leg. “Could we have this conversation inside, do you think?”

  She glanced around him with the idea of suggesting a walk instead. Important matters could be spoken of out-of-doors as easily as indoors. But the early morning sky threatened rain, and the mostly wooded property didn’t invite social strolling unless one cared to hike through the trees or tour the vegetable patch. Sir Gabriel looked to be the sort who preferred to keep his very fine boots on manicured paths.

  “Very well.” With a resigned sigh, she stepped back and swung the door open to allow him entrance, along with a clear view of what awaited him inside.

  Twillins Cottage was…undone. Not a particularly spacious dwelling to start, every inch of available space was currently occupied by a wild, untamed sea of her late brother’s belongings. There were artworks and furniture, clothes and linens, tools, glassware, several musical instruments, enormous piles of books, and a seemingly infinite number of trunks and crates in various stages of spewing their contents into the small front hall and rooms beyond. It was a mansion’s worth of items crammed into a modest home designed to fit a small family and one or two servants.

  Her guest stepped inside and flicked a cautious eye to his right, where a table, several crates, and a dozen chairs with spindly, gilded legs were stacked to the ceiling in a haphazard manner, forming a sort of tangled and precarious web. The chair at the top was one hard slam of the front door away from toppling off and b
raining the unwary. “This is unexpected,” he said.

  Jane lifted her overlong skirts to nudge a small stool aside with her toe. “My brother’s possessions were delivered here after his passing. His home was larger than my own.”

  He closed the door carefully. “No apology necessary.”

  “I didn’t apologize.” Why should she? It was her home; it could be in any state she pleased. Besides, it had been his idea to come inside. “It was only an explanation.”

  His brows winged up again, but whether it was in response to her correction, or continued reaction to the mess in her front hall, she couldn’t say.

  He wisely moved out of the web’s shadow and sidestepped an umbrella stand covered with a threadbare quilt. “My mistake. Is there somewhere we might sit?” He glanced back at the dangling chair. “Somewhere safe?”

  “Of course. This way, please.” She gathered more handfuls of her skirts. The gown was one of the last she’d not yet altered to fit the current fashion of narrow skirts and bustle. It was designed to fit over a large hoop. Only she had gone without the cumbersome frame, and now the extra material dragged on the floor like an enormous dust mop. “Mind where you step.”

  She led him to the crowded hallway at the back of the house, where the walls were lined with more of Edgar’s things. As she maneuvered down the narrow space, she became increasingly aware of Sir Gabriel’s presence behind her, a looming figure stepping on her shadow.

  In the front hall, he’d seemed quite tall—six feet perhaps—but hardly an intimidating giant.

  She felt a little intimidated now.

  He was just too close. And the space was too small. And her experience with men was too limited. There was Mr. Harmon, but he was more than thirty years her senior, several inches shorter than her, and happily married to her best friend. It wasn’t quite the same.

  Would Sir Gabriel be uncomfortable at the small kitchen table, she wondered? There wasn’t a great deal of room for a man of his height…

  She came to an abrupt halt.

  The kitchen?

  “Oh, wait.” Good Lord, she couldn’t take him to the kitchen. Guests weren’t invited into the kitchen. What was she thinking? “Not this way.”

  She spun about, intending to go back the way they’d come. Her foot caught on the hem of her dragging skirts, the material pulled tight, and she stumbled forward. For one terrible second, she thought she might tumble into the bric-a-brac and cause it all to come tumbling down on top of them like creation’s most ridiculous avalanche. But large, strong hands grasped her at the elbows, steadying her.

  Sir Gabriel’s deep voice sounded over her head. “Easy.”

  Mumbling an apology, Jane disentangled her slippers from her skirts with a few awkward kicks.

  “Better?” he inquired when she’d regained her balance.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  She took a deep breath to settle herself, and caught the scent of him—something woodsy. It wasn’t cologne. Mr. Harmon sometimes wore cologne. Edgar had always worn it. Cologne had a spice to it, or a flowery aroma. It tended to waft with movement. Sir Gabriel smelled fresh and subtly earthy.

  His hands slid away, and he took a step back, leaving behind a strange coolness. “Are you injured?”

  “No, of course not.” Just a trifle light-headed all of a sudden. Embarrassment, no doubt, with a healthy dose of frustration mixed in for good measure. She wasn’t a clumsy woman. Her faults were legion. She was easily distracted. She was rude. She lacked a proper sense of humor. She was hard of hearing. According to some, she was a proper idiot. But, as a rule, she could put one foot in front of the other without making a spectacle of herself. Until now, evidently. Theone time a handsome stranger intruded on her privacy. “I’m quite all right. Are you?”

  For some reason, the question seemed to amuse him. “No harm done, Miss Ballenger.”

  “Excellent. If I could just…” She took a step forward with the vague idea of moving past him to lead him back down the hall. But there wasn’t sufficient room. They would have to press together and circle each other like dancers in a risqué waltz. The image brought a flair of heat to her cheeks. “That is… If you could just…” She made a shooing motion with her hand. “Back the way we came?”

  There went the brows again, nearly up to the hairline. “All right.”

  She followed him out, carefully skirted around him in the front hall, then led him into the cluttered parlor. There was a nearly clear path to the center of the room, but only because Mrs. Harmon had been using the ornate, aging green settee as a sort of makeshift table. Yesterday, she’d been sorting through flatware. Today, it was occupied by a mound of shoes. Jane shoved the footwear to one side and offered her guest the miserly sliver of newly exposed cushion.

  To his credit, Sir Gabriel took his seat without a word of complaint. He settled right in as if it were perfectly normal for a large man to cram himself between a dead man’s shoes and an armrest shaped like a swan’s head. He should have looked comical, Jane mused. But he didn’t. Somehow, he made his position seem completely normal, perfectly comfortable. Almost as if he wanted to be there.

  Mrs. Harmon had once told her that certain individuals were possessed of such great confidence that it was nearly impossible to make fools of them. They were perpetually at ease with themselves and their surroundings, as if the world spun around them but never quite touched them.

  It was, regrettably, not a trait to which Jane could lay claim.

  She tried clearing an armchair for herself, but gave up halfway through the effort and perched herself on the edge of the seat instead. No doubt she looked as uncomfortable as she felt. With any luck, however, she would conclude her business with Sir Gabriel before whatever sharp object was poking into her back tore a hole in her gown. Or before she slid off the chair.

  “You wished to speak of Edgar?” she prompted.

  “Yes.” He reached over to place his hat atop a closed trunk, reminding her that she ought to have taken it from him in the hall. “But first, allow me to extend my condolences for your loss.”

  “Thank you.” She eyed the bell pull in the corner. Should she ring for tea? It seemed the thing to do. But she had no idea if the bell pull still worked, and there was a good possibility the tea cart wouldn’t fit down the hall. “Did you know Edgar?”

  “Only by reputation.”

  “I scarcely knew him any better,” she admitted. They shared only a father, and there was nearly twelve years between them. “I wasn’t aware he had a particular reputation.”

  “He was not well known in a traditional sense, but his work was valued—”

  “Edgarworked?” The man had spent the last fifteen years in St. Petersburg. He’d earned no income as far as she was aware. He’d lived off his inheritance. And hers. “I don’t see how that’s possible unless he was some sort of diplomat.”

  “He wasn’t a diplomat, exactly, but he did perform certain services for the government.”

  “Edgar?” That didn’t seem at all likely. “What manner of services?”

  “I’m not privy to the specifics of his work,” Sir Gabriel replied lightly. “Only that it was highly valued, and that certain aspects of it were of a sensitive nature. Hence my reason for being here. The Foreign Office wants your brother’s belongings.”

  “You’ve come to take his things?”Herthings, she thought. Seventeen years ago, the Ballenger family had possessed Fourgate Hall and full coffers. Now, thanks to Edgar, their fortune was mostly gone. All that remained were the odds and ends currently occupying Twillins Cottage. It was the mere flotsam of a once grand estate, but it washer flotsam.

  “I’ve come to oversee their removal to London, yes.”

  “What,all of it?” Her eyes fell on the pile of shoes, then drifted to an open trunk filled with an assortment of battered kitchenware. “Surely not.”

  “All of it,” he assured her. “It should have been shipped directly to the Foreign Office, but there was so
me miscommunication following Edgar’s death.”

  “I’m grateful for the error.” If she knew the man responsible, she’d send him a thank you letter. And flowers. Chocolates and oranges, if he liked them. He’d done her a tremendous service. “This is my only inheritance. I mean to sell it, not give it away.”

  “It’s not a permanent arrangement.” He began tugging the gloves from his fingers, and she wondered if she should have taken those from him in the front hall as well. “Most, if not all, of your brother’s effects will be returned to you after they’ve been searched and catalogued.”

  “Searched for what? Items of worth?”

  “Not exactly, but I can arrange for appropriate compensation for anything they need to keep.” He set the gloves aside and relaxed a little more in his seat, leaning against the worn cushions. “It’s a good deal for you, Miss Ballenger. The Crown is primarily interested in paperwork that holds no value to you. It’s nothing you could sell for profit. Old itineraries, lists of expenditures. That sort of thing.”

  Lists of expenditures rang a distant bell, but there were mountains of papers in the house. She could have seen something like that anywhere. “If it holds no value, why are they so eager to find it?”

  “It’s the government,” he explained with a lift of one shoulder and another smile. “They’re keen on paperwork.”

  She shifted to dislodge the hard corner of a book that was digging into her hip. “They’re also keen on doing things in their own time. I’ll not send Edgar’s belongings with you and simply hope to get them back before I land in the poorhouse.”

  His brow furrowed. “Is your situation as dire as all that?”

  Jane considered how best to respond. It was possible the concern she saw on Sir Gabriel’s face was genuine, and chivalry might prompt him to be generous with a lady in dire straits. Unfortunately, it was equally possible he was pretending to care simply because it was expected of him. She wasn’t very adept at distinguishing truth from fiction. Better, she decided, to negotiate from a position of strength than desperation.