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best opportunity to determine how to proceed. But it seemed my work was more complicated than I had expected.
    Finding Lucretia had been easy, and her young would-be lover seemed a nice enough sort. But if Henry was already promised to another, then that was no good. Master James was right: The Golden Rose had only a few more days’ respite here in Leeds before we would head off for more southern climes. Not only did we have to sell the goods we’d stolen, but we could not afford to be caught with our pockets full of gold.
    But still, Henry . . . I frowned at the young man Annabelle was plying with her feminine wiles. Then I noted Annabelle’s expression, the movements of her hands. I was so intent that Lucretia’s next words all but startled me into my next life. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Are you memorizing Annabelle’s movements?”
    â€œWhat? No!” I said hastily, dropping my hands to smooth my gown. Of course I had been doing that very thing. I was constantly studying other women, as I would be doubtless asked to portray the type at one time or another. Who didn’t want to be prepared? “She is just a bit . . . distracting, I guess,” I said lamely.
    â€œOh, I don’t blame you,” Lucretia said, even her irritability charming. “She has half the world in her sway, and the other half envious. I tell you plain, she is not a woman you would wish to have as your competition.” She smiled at me. “We’ve not been formally introduced, though. I’m Lucretia Williams.” She held out her hand.
    â€œMathilda Mathison,” I said, taking her hand as I considered her words. I watched Henry’s attention move beyond Annabelle and to the newest group exiting the doors of the church. Instantly he took his leave of the young woman and made his way to the knot of clergymen as if he actually liked them.
    I had a bad feeling about that.

    No sooner had I resolved to go over to find out why young Henry Dobbs, productive member of the house of Dobbs, was hanging on to a minister’s conversation when a far different problem affronted me.
    A cry of outrage rang out over the lot of us, accompanied by the thudding of panicked feet. Then the clutch of older churchgoers at the head of our gathered assembly parted suddenly with a fuss and a flurry just as the shifty jewel dealer Theodore Minsk ran smack into the center of our group, shouted out in a voice overloud for the small space that he had been cheated , he had been duped , he had been lied to, and above all else, he was not to blame !
    Behind him, hard on his heels, were two magistrates I didn’t recognize, and one blustering nobleman I did. My fingers twisted in my skirts.
    I remembered the fat lord specifically because I’d been the one to snip a jeweled cuff from his glove just yesterday morning, a cuff that had sported a large, nearly perfect amethyst cut into a rectangle, one of the prettiest stones I’d ever seen.
    And, more important, it was also one of the stones we’d sold to Theodore Minsk, not eight hours after I’d stolen it.
    My grudging worry of the past few days immediately burst into full flower: Theodore had been caught out!
    Which meant, unless I acted very quickly, the Golden Rose would be as well.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    â€œWilliam Mathison!” I called out in a voice loud and aristocratic enough to cause even Lucretia to jump back and every man, woman, and priest in the churchyard to look round to me. I swung forward with the haughtiest step to my stride I could master, not missing the gape-mouthed stares of Annabelle and her cohort. They had thought me a simple country miss, some daughter of a traveling merchant, and now I was painting quite a different picture indeed. But there was nothing for it.
    â€œWilliam, I will not have this disruption. I will not have it!” I blustered all the way up to Theodore and the man who