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that surprised me. Pity that it had been plucked from its own quiet life inside the wrappings, would now be subject to scrutiny, have its value and utility assessed.
    It wasn’t fair. Any of it.
    I checked the crowd again, especially the young scribe from the museum. He was frantically jotting notes, straining to get a closer glimpse of the ankh.
    Showalter had said we could keep what we found, hadn’t he?
    And hadn’t our friends and neighbors seen enough of Showalter standing over me this evening to keep tongues wagging and minds whirling for weeks?
    And hadn’t I had as much attention as I could endure for one evening?
    Yes, yes, and yes.
    Satisfied, I closed my palm around the trinket and tucked it into the bodice of my dress.

Chapter Three
     

     
    I’d only ever stolen biscuits from the kitchen at home, so I was surprised that I felt as cool in that moment as the bit of ironwork hiding in my dress.
    And it was this realization that thrilled me even more than the act itself.
    To stand amid a throng of people and have a secret. To have done something just beneath their very noses was simply the most delicious feeling.
    Not that I had in the strictest sense actually stolen it. If I was guilty of any theft, it was merely that I robbed the other partygoers of a glimpse of the little object.
    I slipped nearer the knot of admirers poring over the scroll. Lord Showalter, brow furrowed, announced, “No, the hieroglyphs are unfamiliar.”
    “Has the Crown made any progress in that area?” Lady Marbury, the oldest and most respected member of the Park’s grand society, asked gravely. Britain had recovered the Rosetta Stone from Napoleon’s troops after his defeat at the Nile some ten years ago. I’d seen it at the museum and knew like the rest of the world that it represented the best hope for eventually unlocking the hieroglyphics adorning the many artifacts now populating London, that it might hold the keys to unlock the secrets of ancient Egypt.
    “No, my lady, but my people at the museum assure me we are making progress.”
    Lord Showalter was as avid a collector of experts as he was of Egyptian antiquities. He’d brought dozens of scientists and historians to London from the Continent and Egypt, several of whom were installed as employees at the British Museum.
    Showalter himself had only been living in London for the last five or six years. Mother said he’d inherited his title and a stunning manor somewhere near York but hadn’t lived there, taking degrees from Cambridge and then spending a few years on the Continent, where he’d increased an already sizable fortune by buying shares in a shipping company. But then he moved to London to indulge his passion for Egyptology, to be at the heart of the world’s greatest collection of artifacts, and to oversee developments and steward the considerable funds he’d endowed the museum with.
    Showalter’s valet—a man I knew only as Tanner—suddenly broke through the crowd in great agitation and whispered in his master’s ear. I could not hear what was said, but I could see Showalter’s face transform from contented self-importance to something altogether grim.
    “When?” he barked, glaring at the valet in a rare display of temper. I blanched, half-worried that my theft had been seen, that I was about to be exposed. . . .
    “Just received the message, sir,” said the valet, his voice rising to match Showalter’s. The light caught the rest of his face now, revealing the oddity that made him seem at home among Showalter’s collection of curious objects. One of his eyes had a misshapen pupil, the black dot spilling out into the gray-brown iris like the cracked yolk of an egg.
    “I beg your pardon,” said Showalter, pushing his way free of his guests. “I’ve urgent business to attend to. I’m sure Mrs. Blalock and the Wilkins family will continue events in my absence.” He left without another word, striding hurriedly back to the house, Tanner