Thick as Thieves Read Online Free PDF

she’d made her hasty escape. But…well…she just needed to know . It was a particularly bothersome trait…another of those Bexley-Smythe characteristics which so often felt like curses.
    Alas, Freddie wasn’t one to typically feign an illness, but that was precisely what she did when, after at least two hours of such ennui-inducing tedium, it seemed the other occupants of the drawing room were no closer to retiring for the evening than they had been immediately after supper.
    After what could perhaps have been considered an overly dramatic sigh, she placed a hand to her temple. “Oh, dear.”
    Edie was still so caught up in her current conversation with Lady Upton Grey that she didn’t hear her. Either that or she was ignoring her. One of the two.
    But Lady Upton Grey turned in her seat and leaned forward. “Are you quite all right, my dear?”
    The lady’s concerned query drew the attention of the entire room. It became very quiet all of a sudden, almost eerily so. Even Lord Preston turned his slightly troubled hazel eyes in her direction.
    Goodness. She hadn’t intended to draw all eyes in the room to her. It was much easier to make a quiet and subversive retreat if one hasn’t garnered an entire room’s attention. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” she said in a rush. “It’s just a bit of a megrim, I’m afraid.”
    “Oh, how horrid,” Lady Upton Grey said. “I always suffer megrims after spending more than a few hours in a carriage. It’s the constant bumps along the road, I’m sure. Come, you should go up to bed at once.” With that, the lady rose and reached out a hand as though to assist Freddie.
    Bother and blast, she wasn’t truly ill. She couldn’t have anyone coming with her—not if she intended to go and get a better look at the silly reliquary. Then she’d have to go all the way to her chamber, likely change into her nightrail and climb into bed until her maid left her alone, and then somehow find a way to sneak back down to the blue corridor without any proper clothes on.
    That would prove to be the absolute opposite of coming closer to meeting her end goal.
    “Oh, truly,” Freddie said far more hastily than she ought to have done. She pushed herself to her feet and smoothed her skirts, all the while making a pointed effort to avoid looking at Lord Preston, lest he stare at the fire again and befuddle her more than she already was. “There’s no need for you to accompany me. I’ll just go upstairs and Meg will see to getting me settled.”
    Slowly returning to her seat, Lady Upton Grey inclined her head just enough for the action to be visible. “If you’re certain…”
    “Meg will see to anything she needs,” Mama put in. “We will see you in the morning, Frederica. I’m sure you’ll feel much more the thing then.”
    Their hostess smiled graciously up at Freddie. “I do so hope you feel well enough to join us tomorrow.”
    “As do I.” Before anyone could say anything else which might deter her, Freddie skirted around the various chairs and tables and out of the drawing room. Once she was alone, however, she didn’t continue on towards the stairs. She looked all around her, making certain no one would see where she was headed, and then turned in the direction of the blue corridor.
    Curiosity might have killed the cat, which was an awful thought indeed…but it would undoubtedly kill her, too, if she didn’t appease it.

 
    Since Lady Frederica had already gone up, Preston didn’t feel it would be too terribly rude of him to excuse himself from the after-dinner festivities soon after her departure.
    Therefore, he told Upton Grey and his sisters that due to his extensive travel—not to mention the reason for it—he was weary and in need of his bed.
    That wasn’t exactly true, though, or at least not entirely.
    The truth was that since he’d first come into contact with the two young Bexley-Smythe ladies, his thoughts had been almost entirely consumed with images of