An Honorable Thief Read Free Page A

approve and you know it —and I hope I know better than to try to change your mind after all these years, so dratted stubborn you can be— but you do know they hang people here, Miss Kit. Or transport them."
    "Yes, and they chopped people's heads and hands off in China, but I still have both my bits, don't I?" said Kit. "You need not worry," she added soothingly. "It is only a small commission from Papa, and not at all dangerous."
    Maggie snorted. "Don't try to gammon me, Miss Kit. I wish you'd just forget whatever it is your pa asked you to do. He never was careful enough of your welfare. Can you not forget all that nonsense now His Nibs has passed on?"
    "Nonsense? Family honour is not nonsense," said Kit. "In any case," she added hurriedly, having almost forgotten her resolve to keep Maggie ignorant of her doings, “I have no idea what you are talking about. I am merely preparing to attend a ball. Now —"
    Maggie sniffed. "Won't break a promise, will you? And he knew it, drat the man!" she added under her breath. "I'll say no more, for I was never one to waste breath in trying to change what can't be changed."
    "Yes, and we must hurry, or I shall be late for this ball.
    Now, where is that shawl, the embroidered gauze one? I have a mind it will go perfectly with this gown."
    Grumbling under her breath, Maggie fetched the embroidered white-on-white gauze shawl and draped it carefully around her mistress's shoulders. She stood back, examined Kit with a critical eye, and sighed heavily. "Aye, 'tis bonny you look, right enough, though I wish you'd wear something other than white. It does bring out that dratted brown colour in your skin."
    Kit laughed. "Oh, pooh! I am no longer brown at all — in fact, I think I look sadly pale. But there, that is the fashion, I suppose. And my gown must be white, dearest Maggie. I am supposed to be a girl just emerged from the schoolroom—naturally I must wear white."
    She ignored the maid's snort and searchingly examined her face in the looking glass. “I do look like a young girl, do I not, Maggie? My twenty years do not show too much, do they?"
    "No, Miss Kit. T'aint natural," the maid said gloomily. "You   look barely eighteen —even younger when you
    "Good,'' said her mistress briskly. "I must remember to smile more often then. Now hand me my cloak, if you please, or I will keep this new 'aunt' of mine waiting in the hallway, and that would never do."
    Kit hurried down the stairs. She found Aunt Rose patiently waiting in the hallway below.
    "Ah, there you are, dear," called Rose. "I hope that cloak you are wearing is warmer than it looks. The evening is chillier than I expected and, you know, that mausoleum of Fanny Parsons's is as cold as a tomb, and she never heats it properly. I blame that husband of hers," she added darkly. "The Parsons have always been shocking pinch-pennies, but he is by far the worst of them. I have had to put on three petticoats —three!—and I am sure I shall still catch a chill." She shivered and hugged a slightly tatty fur cloak around her.
    Kit could not help smiling down at the middle-aged woman as she descended the stairs. It was a little cool, but to hear her speak, one would think it about to snow.
    "Aunt Rose' was slender, almost wraithlike, with a pale, faded sort of prettiness about her —rather different to the bold good looks her father had favoured in women. And, far from being fashionable, she was generally dressed rather dowdily and, being so susceptible to drafts, always with a great many scarves and shawls trailing about her person.
    And yet, despite the faded looks, despite the dowdy clothes and the vagueness, there was a definite sort of something about Rose Singleton, a certain unconscious air of ton that even the best looking and most fashionably dressed of her father's other female friends had lacked.
    Kit supposed that this was why her father had chosen to send her to Rose Singleton instead of anyone else. The surprise was that