Page 87 of Thrones We Steal

“So we’ll go to the Society and check all of the logs for a ship leaving Ireland in May of 1837. It’s a brilliant plan.”

“Actually, I was planning to go alone.”

“Oh, come on!” she says. “I’m the one who read the diary and told you about it. If it weren’t for me, you’d still be sitting at home being nothing but a mere duchess. The least you can let me do is tag along. Besides, you don’t even know where the logs are at.”

“You just told me. In the nautical history section.”

She pulls the worst poker face I’ve ever seen and says, “I was wrong. I’m positive that’s not where they are after all.”

I should bring her just for the entertainment factor. “Fine. You can come.”

She jumps out of her chair and would have hugged me but stops at the look on my face. “When do we leave?”

“Tonight. After dark.”

She frowns. “Why at night? They’ll be closed. Did you forget the hours already?” Her eyes widen as realization dawns. “Ohhh, you’re planning to break in.”

“It’s not breaking in if you have a key.”

A knock sounds on my office door, and Maisie whirls around to answer it. Henry stands on the other side. My heart sinks, after leaping for the sky.

“I’m sorry,” he says, looking at me. “I thought you were alone.”

“And I thought you were in Japan.” Maisie assured me he was out of the country on business. I send her a withering look.

“The trip fell through.”

“You’re just in time,” Maisie interrupts, clearly interpreting the tension in the room as something that needs diffusing. “Celia was just telling me everything you discovered about Helena and Philip.”

“Was she?” His face is stony.

I try to catch Maisie’s eye, but she is focused solely on Henry.

“And we’re breaking into the Historical Society tonight to see if we can find proof of Philip’s passage—”

“Maisie,” I cut her off. “Aren’t we going to be late for something?”

Her poker face has improved in the past few minutes, because she looks at me with a look of pure innocence. “No, I don’t think so.”

Henry, meanwhile, has yet to remove his eyes from me, something I note with more derision than ever. It should be illegal to look at a woman that way, to make her feel so many things with just your eyes and not mean a single one of them. “I’ll come back another time,” he says.

“No, you have to stay!” Maisie says. I’m going to strangle her. “Or at the very least come with us tonight. It only seems right.”

There is a question in his eyes, waiting for my approval, I suppose. “I’m sure he already has plans.” I direct my answer to Maisie, but my gaze remains focused on Henry.

“Actually, now that my plans got canceled, I’m a free man tonight.” It’s a test. To see if I can be in the same room as him and still act like a civilized being.

“Then of course you must join us.” My smile feels sweet enough to cause cavities. I do an inner victory dance at the surprise that flashes across his face. Checkmate.

“Great. I’ll drive.”

* * *

I haven’t been to the Historical Society since my work there was terminated and I retrieved my things from my office. It looks different at night, foreboding and almost sinister, the bookcases in the archive room casting shadows twice their size and taunting us with the secrets they carry. The familiar scent of dusty manuscripts, ink, aging leather, and Mrs. Grisholm’s lemon verbena cleaner ushers in a wave of nostalgia.

“I’ll grab the ship’s logs and we can go through them at the table,” Maisie says, before darting off down one of the aisles.

I pull out a chair to sit and wait for her but am instead tugged into an aisle by Henry. I spin away from him and hiss, “What do you think you’re doing?”

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