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Chapter Two
Two hours earlier
Callahan Kelly was a conman, pure and simple. The fact that he had survived to the ripe old age of thirty-one proved, to him at least, that he was an excellent conman. The fact that he was standing in the middle of The Royal Italian Opera House, surrounded by perfumed and bejeweled women and starched and stuffy old men, proved he was a resourceful conman.
The borrowed evening clothes he wore fit him like a glove—a bit too much like a glove as the trousers, designed to be snug, were bordering on indecently tight. His shoulders stretched the seams of the black wool dress coat, and Cal dared not take too deep a breath lest he pop a button on the embroidered silk waistcoat. He’d slicked his unruly mop of chin-length, dishwater-colored hair back with a pomade that smelled like oranges, but he would have fit in better if he’d donned a false mustache or mutton chops. Next time.
But perhaps there wouldn’t be a next time.
And now who was conning whom?
He spotted Mr. Applewhite, the financier who’d been pointed out to him on numerous occasions, and slid sleekly through the crowds in the opera house’s lavish grand entrance. Applewhite stood at the wide base of the grand marble staircase. The crowds were meandering that way at any rate, so it was easy to move with the masses.
You’ve plenty of time, he reminded himself, resisting the urge to check the stolen pocket watch tucked in his fancy waistcoat. He didn’t have to be at the station for two hours. He didn’t have to be there at all, but Cal was a risk-taker at heart. He wouldn’t be able to get the offer out of his mind until he saw what was truly behind it.
He walked right past Applewhite, took one step then another, before seeming to notice something or someone. Cal had no idea if anyone was watching this little act, but he’d perform it nonetheless. He was a professional.
“Mr. Applewhite!” Cal turned as though just seeing Applewhite. He stripped his voice of any Irish brogue and took on a rather generic English accent. “How good to see you again, sir.”
Applewhite turned from the conversation he and his much younger wife were engaged in with another couple and gave his attention to Cal. Applewhite’s face was blank, indicating he did not remember having met Cal. And they’d not met—until now.
“I’m sure you don’t remember me, sir,” Cal said, smiling broadly and holding his gloved hand out in greeting. “We met last month at the board meeting. Long, tedious afternoon.”
“Of course, I remember you,” Applewhite boomed. “You’ll forgive me if I can’t recall your name.”
“Kelly,” Cal said. A conman stuck to the truth as much as possible. He couldn’t be tripped up as easily that way. “And this must be your lovely wife.” He smiled at the young brunette dressed in pale pink and blinking at him with interest. At his smile, her cheeks pinkened.
“Yes.” Applewhite was forced to introduce him now. “Mr. Kelly, this is my wife, Mrs. Applewhite. We met at the ah...what board meeting was it, Mr. Kelly?”
Cal had no intention of telling Applewhite which board meeting as he’d invented the meeting in the first place. Instead, he took Mrs. Applewhite’s hand and kissed the back of her gloved knuckles. She wore a diamond-and-pearl ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. He knew it well. “I’m charmed.”
“And this is my friend George Benton and Mrs. Benton.”
Cal reluctantly dragged his gaze from Mrs. Applewhite and extended a hand to Mr. and Mrs. Benton. He kissed Mrs. Benton’s hand as well, his lips just the merest fraction of an inch from the large square-cut, rose-colored diamond she wore on her left hand. It was worth an estimated one hundred thousand pounds, particularly valuable because of the size, color, and perfection of the pink diamond. But though his heart kicked at the sight of it, he ignored his body’s excitement and turned back to Mrs. Applewhite and her paltry twenty-thousand-pound ring.
“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Benton. Mrs. Benton. Charles?” Cal looked at Applewhite. “May I call you Charles? I feel as though we’re old friends after our ordeal.”
“Of course!” Applewhite said jovially.
“Good then. Charles, it will please you to know I’ve cultivated a new talent that might just see us through another of those unending board meetings. You see, I am also on the board of a foundling house.”
“Oh, how good of you,” Mrs. Applewhite said. “Which one? I serve on—”
But he couldn’t indulge her questions. Already Benton was shifting away, preparing to excuse himself and find his seats.
“Of course, Mrs. Applewhite. And at your establishment are there lads with skills such as sleight of hand?”
“Do you mean pickpockets, Mr. Kelly?” Mrs. Benton asked.
Cal did not smile. It was unseemly for the predator to smile before he gobbled up his prey. “I cannot say I know what the boys did before they arrived at the foundling house, but we are certainly reforming them now. I thought their talents might be put to use as street performers until such time as they had the education or skills to go to work in a factory.” Amazingly he said the word factory without a shudder. He’d been put to work in a factory once. He’d kill himself before going back.
“I’m not sure I would encourage the boys to become street performers. It seems a less than respectable profession.”
“I quite agree, Mr. Applewhite. But it is so entertaining. Entertaining enough, I might add, that I asked one of these youths to teach me a few tricks of my own. I thought they might distract us from all the”—damn, he didn’t know what sorts of things men looked at in board meetings—“fluff at the next meeting. Would you like me to demonstrate?”
Applewhite shook his head, but his wife clasped her fingers together and nodded eagerly. “Yes! Please.”
Mrs. Benton moved closer, eager to see the trick as well. Thank God for women. Cal never had any trouble with women—at least not initially.
