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readied the meal.
    She spotted Michael standing with the other footmen, receiving their orders from the cook. Though she said nothing and gave no sign that she was there, he seemed to sense her, since he glanced up and their gazes caught. A gleam like a welder’s torch flared through her, quick and bright, followed by a shard of confused pain.
    She gave him a tiny nod, and he returned the gesture, then glanced toward the corridor. Retreating from the kitchen, she waited in the hallway, pretending to look busy. At last, Michael emerged, and they stepped into the shadows behind several crates.
    “You look like an iced cake,” she murmured.
    He raised his hand to his head, then let it drop. “Footmen at Covington Hall wear powder for formal dinners. It’s a bloody nuisance.”
    “But so dignified.”
    He grimaced. “If resembling a sick sheep is dignified.”
    In truth, she almost liked him with powdered hair. It did give him a certain elegance, like in those paintings of young, sporting men—men who were confident, assured, gracefully sensual. Men who, the moment they finished posing for their portraits, went off and raised hell among the darker pleasures the world had to offer.
    This wasn’t the time or place to say such things, and she wouldn’t let him know the sway he still held over her.
    “I got into the Larkfields’ room,” she said.
    His expression sharpened. “You found something.”
    “More like I didn’t find something.” She glanced around to make sure no one was nearby and listening. “They kept all their luggage in their chamber. Everything but one. A valise is gone.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “A lot can be kept in a valise. Incriminating papers. Photographs.”
    “Evidence,” she said.
    Michael nodded. “Could be exactly what we’re looking for. Somewhere in this house, they’ve stowed that valise. We have to find it.”
    “And she threatened me,” Ada added. “Said if I stole her jewelry, she’d get ‘associates’ up from London to do me a violence.”
    Michael’s face darkened. “Fine lady. She tries anything, I’ll punch her and her London friends’ faces in.”
    Oddly, his anger reassured her. “There’s more danger here than us being sacked. If we get caught by the Larkfields doing anything…” She remembered the lord and his ivory-tipped cane raised in threat.
    “Then we stay even more alert,” Michael answered. “But we search for that valise.”
    “I’ve cleaned all day, and I still haven’t been in every room in Covington Hall. If Lord Larkfield used to come here as a child, he knows this place the way a butler knows a wine cellar. It could take days or even weeks to find what we’re looking for. And time’s not our friend.”
    “All true.” Yet Michael didn’t appear discouraged. Despite the shadows, his eyes gleamed. “Working with Nemesis taught me the value of patience. A gun can’t be built in a matter of minutes. And it can’t fire if even the smallest piece is missing. We’ve just found our hammer. Up next, we locate our firing pin. Bit by bit, we’ll assemble our weapon.”
    “Optimistic, aren’t you?”
    His expression turned steely. “Not optimistic. Determined. The Larkfields will pay for what they’ve done. You and I will make sure of that.”
    Ada straightened her shoulders. “The law’s blind. And its hands are bound, too. We’re just servants, but no one sees more or handles the dirty secrets of the masters the way we do.”
    “There’s my lass.” He lowered his head, and suddenly his lips were on hers. It wasn’t a lingering kiss, just the brief press of soft, warm flesh. Almost chaste. But not quite.
    She stiffened in surprise. And from the fast, potent response in her body. Hot as a burning brand. She wanted to lean into the kiss. She wanted to shove him away.
    Before she could do either, he pulled back. The blaze in his eyes showed the kiss, quick as it was, affected him, too. Just like when he’d touched her earlier, he