Page 14 of The Hood and his Thief

Rhosyn jumped forward into it with an annoyed growl. She was not going to lose her mark a second time, letting him disappear in a puff of smoke like some half-rate magician.

As she stepped into the fumes, they filled her nose and she coughed around the strangely sweet scent. The smoke swam around her. Or maybe it was her vision. Rhosyn continued to push forward, but her equilibrium was nowhere to be found. Her silky slippers, so different from the thick soled boots of her uniform, caught on the carpet.

Her knees hit the ground before she knew she was falling, the world continuing to spin around her. The Hood emerged from the smoke, looking down at her with his head cocked. Rhosyn tried to curse at him but her tongue was too large and thick against her teeth.

Instead of responding, the Hood bent down. An odd shiver ran up Rhosyn’s spine as he appeared to reach for her, only to pick up something on the ground at her side.

He held up a playing card—the three of spades, Rhosyn knew—that must have fallen out of her sleeve during their altercation. Without a word he tucked it into his pocket, offered a tiny, mocking bow, and disappeared.

Rarely had Rhosyn been so happy to collapse onto the too-soft bed in her too-quiet bedroom. She flopped onto her coverlet, burying her face in the pillows. Lying perfectly still, she hoped sleep would take the last of her wooziness away.

Whatever had been in the smoke bomb the Hood had used hadn’t ever knocked her completely unconscious, but it had left her and Joseph disoriented enough to do nothing but lay on the ground while he made an escape. The cloth across Hood’s face, likely combined with him knowing to hold his breath, had given him a chance to slip away into the night.

By the time Mr. Gower came and opened a window to let the fresh air in, their culprit was nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, the night had not ended there.

While the rest of the party guests had left quickly, scared off by the commotion and threat of an intruder, Rhosyn and Joseph stayed as Mr. Gower went through his documents and valuables to ascertain if anything was taken.

As their host did, Rhosyn ventured through the house looking for signs of forced entry. By the time Mr. Gower announced that nothing had been taken, she had found no signs of how the Hood may have entered, although with so many comings and goings for the evening’s revelries, and not knowing what he looked like under the mask, it was possible he may have slipped in unnoticed without even picking a lock.

Rhosyn and Joseph had shared a carriage back to the middle city, Joseph resting his face in his hands.

“Why would they try to rob him after we just managed to return his wife’s jewels to him?” he asked in a tone of utmost despair.

Rarely one for quiet, Rhosyn had just shaken her head and looked out the window. In two weeks, she had gone to two parties that ended in ruined dresses and failed chases. Even before she was an officer of the Royal Police, Rhosyn had tasked herself with protecting the people of London in whatever way she could. Recently, she had failed at every turn.

Now she rolled onto her back with a sigh, closing her eyes and letting her mind drift. Despite the unusual heaviness of her limbs from the remnant of the drugs in her system, Rhosyn’s blood rushed through her body with unnerving speed. She would not be able to sleep soon. It had been too long since she had been in a proper brawl, and even just the taste of a fight with the Hood today had been enough to reactivate old instincts. Hell, the last time she had been able to let her reflexes take over like that was when she fought Scarlett in the Wolves’ fighting pits. She missed it—the adrenaline and freedom that came from throwing herself at a problem with everything she had.

Rhosyn rubbed a hand over her eyes. She was now an officer for the Royal Police, and that was the best way for her to protect the city she had called home all her life—where she had chosen to stay to be with her adoptive family even when adventure and the sea had tugged at her blood. It didn’t do to dwell on such things, though, and she forced her mind to focus on something else.

The memory of trading blows with the Hood morphed into exchanging easy jabs with Mr. Blakely over cards. Disappointment flooded her that he, along with the rest of the guests, had been gone by the time she and Joseph recovered from the drugged smoke. It was probably for the best though. As much as she enjoyed Mr. Blakely’s charms, it was clear she should keep him at arm’s length.

With the way he had stiffened when Mr. Gower spoke of being Talented, and how determined he seemed to be to climb the social ladder by brushing elbows with the elite and wealthy, she doubted Mr. Blakely’s casual flirtations would continue if he were to find out about her checkered past.

Still, if she wasn’t going to be able to sleep anyways, it didn’t hurt to imagine. She and Mr. Blakely might meet again, but instead of leading her towards a dance floor, they would break out into a shadowed corner of the garden—perhaps an ostentatious hedge maze like the Worthingtons had.

But then what would he do? Mr. Blakely was a gentleman, but Rhosyn was far from a lady. She knew how things would go in the darkened alley of the lower city, but proper romantic trysts were not in her repertoire.

In line with these thoughts, the vision morphed, so it wasn’t Mr. Blakely she pressed herself against in some darkened corner, but a masked figure with a hood pulled low over his face. With those powerful thighs and broad shoulders, Rhosyn didn’t doubt that the Hood could easily hoist her in his arms.

She shook herself, snapping her eyes open and tracing her gaze over the spiderweb cracks in the plaster ceiling. She really wasn’t fit for society if her mind preferred to ponder romantic entanglements with the man who had just punched her before leaving her fighting for consciousness on the floor. Maybe she just hadn’t been in a proper brawl in too long.

Rhosyn’s fingers drifted up to her face, tracing over her battered cheekbone, the ache of something deeper bothering her more than the pain of the bruise. She missed running with the Lions.

Joseph intercepted Rhosyn the moment she walked in the door, pouncing on her as if he had been waiting. She blinked at him groggily, having tossed and turned most of the night. The deep furrow between his brows chased the sleepiness from her mind though.

“Mr. Gower sent a message early this morning.” Joseph began without preamble. “He found that something was missing.”

“What?”

“His household staff, the Talented ones,” Joseph admitted grimly.

They had been walking through the mess of desks towards Joseph’s station in the corner, but Rhosyn froze.

“Paul…”

“He and Olivia are missing,” Joseph explained.

Rhosyn turned on her heel, ready to storm out and march through the city until she found her former charges, but Joseph’s hand on her shoulder stopped her. Her head snapped toward him and at the very last second she schooled her face out of the snarl that threatened the corners of her mouth.