She knelt below the desk, feeling its surface for a sign of any hidden latch or grooves. Her fingers crossed over joint work so smooth that it was difficult to be certain. She shrugged off her cloak and slid farther beneath the wood, searching out dark corners and edges but finding nothing.
Nim sighed and slipped from under the desk, standing again to lean over its top. Aside from the edge and the writing area directly in front of the chair, the wood grain showed no wear. None but one odd mark on the front edge of the desk. Nim could imagine a figure leaned against it, his hand resting over the ledge. Leaving her cloak sprawled on the floor, she walked around the desk, tapping a knuckle at intervals on the sides of the wood. It echoed back: Solid. Solid. Hollow. A slow grin slid across Nim’s lips, and she pressed her fingertips over the hollow area’s trim. A small point of the carved embellishment slid down like an opening wing, and beneath it was a thin slip of wood that served as a latch. Nim drew her key from her pocket and slid the metal lockpick through the latch. The panel came free noiselessly to reveal a narrow coffer.
She wiped her palm over the thigh of her pants and thanked the fates. The entire ordeal was taking longer than she had, and it was past time to steal the fool thing and be gone. She was beginning to hope she might actually get away with it. Nim carried the box to the back of the desk for better light, but when she opened the top, there was nothing inside. She whispered a nasty curse.
“How very vulgar,” someone said into her ear. The breath was hot and close, and Nim’s heart slammed into her chest. She spun, but the figure was already pressed against her, his grip tight on her wrist. She gasped, suddenly trapped between the desk and a hulking man, and as her back leaned precariously over the wood, Nim stared up at her captor, the man who held her wrist, the seneschal of Inara.
Chapter 5
The lord Warrick Spenser stared down at Nimona, his hard features outlined by moonlight and shadow. He hovered unbearably near, his thigh pressed to hers, not allowing a single chance for escape. He did not appear to react in the way she might have suspected from a man in his situation, could she even imagine the proper response at all. Given that he was a king’s agent, at the least, she would have expected a call for his guard. But his gaze only narrowed on her as his fingers became a manacle around her wrist. His grasp on the thin bones of her wrist was short of painful but tight enough to make her unable to deny that she could not fight him and win.
Nim was slender but not slight and reasonably tall. She’d never had much trouble handling men—outside the Trust, of course—and the weapons at her side were not merely for show. But the man towering over her radiated strength and confidence. They both knew she didn’t stand a chance against him.
He raised his free hand beside her. “Is this what you’re after?” His voice was a low rumble, though Nim doubted anyone would hear a word they spoke even if she screamed. Not that she was considering it.
As he held the timepiece in his spare hand, her gaze remained steady and trying for uninterested, but she knew her pulse ticked beneath his fingertips, her chest rising and falling beneath his in too-quick breaths. She had stolen into his rooms, left a message in his desk. There wasn’t exactly a route to talk herself safely out of a mess of such proportions, so Nim held her tongue.
He set the timepiece on the desktop beside her. She held very, very still, every inch aware of the heat of him in the thin space between them and where his legs pressed to hers. The room was dark, lit only by moonlight, and his eyes seemed unnaturally green, his brow drawn low.
“They won’t let you go, even if you succeed. But you know that.”
Nim startled, her mouth coming open. No one spoke of the Trust. No one dared. And certainly not a king’s man.
His gaze roamed over her in what she thought was an attempt to instill fear. The look hadn’t worked. His words, however… The man had mentioned the Trust—he knew her secret. He understood she’d been sent on a task and that she was afraid she would never get free.
“And yet,” he said, his words rolling over her, “here you are.”
She didn’t reply, dread a vise around her throat.
The seneschal did not back away from her. “You realize it means death to steal from a king’s man. Surely, at the least, you understood there would be extended torture and the possibility of being tossed in the dungeons.” His tone turned conversational. “Stewart’s favorite dungeon is quite disagreeable.”
He watched Nim’s throat work then drew his eyes from the movement with a slow smile. “All that risk, knowing full well, should you be caught, the society will not protect you. You’ll still owe them, your debt accruing while you’re imprisoned, alone in the dark depths of Inara Castle. Or worse.” His last words came in a whisper, as if toying with her, dangling her attention on a string. “So why? I ask. What price do you put above your own life by stealing into the heart of a king’s house?”
The silence stretched before her word slipped free. “Freedom.”
“There is no winning freedom from the Trust.” Nim’s jaw went tight, and he added, “Not even in death.”
He’d hit his mark, but he didn’t stop there. “The contract is not yours. You inherited a debt.”
Panic welled in Nim—the king’s seneschal knew too much, impossibly so—but the man straightened, suddenly giving her room to breathe. It didn’t last long.
“You’re trapped.”
She felt defiance flash in her gaze, and he moved forward again. His free hand gripped her hip as he released her wrist with the other to fish in the pocket at her waist. He retrieved her key. “No,” she said. “You can’t.”
His brow shifted. He already had.
She watched in horror as he tucked it into the waist of his own pants. Nim became aware, quite suddenly, that he was wearing nothing over a thin shirt and pants. It was not particularly commonplace to have a visitor hours before dawn, or, she imagined, he might have dressed for the occasion. She shook off the odd thought. “I need that. You can’t take it.”
His mouth twisted in wry disapproval. “As you steal from beneath my very nose.”
He kept hold of her hip, his thumb pressing a warning, careful and deliberate, his gaze steady on hers. She didn’t know what was wrong with her—she was acutely aware that she should not feel herself drawn to a man who might see her hanged. “And so, thief, I give you a choice. Death or a bargain?”
Nim’s confusion had to have been plain on her face, but she could not seem to find the ability to form a proper reply. “What?”
“You’re already caught. Nothing could incriminate you more. You are in the private rooms of the king’s seneschal. There could be no single excuse that might find you a way out. What I’m offering is all there is.”
There was something curious in his manner, and her fingers trembled where they pressed onto the desk, holding her tipped backwards as he leaned over her. She had no idea what he wanted and couldn’t fathom why he would propose such a ludicrous proposition, but she knew better than to trust anything that might bind her. “I don’t make bargains.”
He couldn’t seem to help the soft laugh that slipped from his lips. “So much honor for a thief.”