Aster, long trained in the art of suppressing her reactions, gasped out loud.

  “Excuse me.” The young woman said, her voice dripping honey. She was tall and had wide doe eyes a faded blue and an attractive enough face and form if you went for that sort of thing. Exactly in the center of popular beauty standards. Her hand instinctively went to her necklace (Aster’s necklace! It could be no other!), as though seeing where her eyes went and fearing the scrappy red head would snatch it right off her bosom.

  Don’t tempt me.

  The woman kept walking when Aster didn’t respond, and went back to her seat on the far side of the room.

  “Aster, dear one, is that you?” Cora called. “Come over. Why are you standing around like that? Allow me to introduce you to my grand nephew.”

  “Thanks for saying so, but I’m not so grand.” The boy she was with said cheekily.

  Aster slowly went to them, not wanting to give away to the room any further signs of her distress. She was shocked at herself already, well, for being shocked. She thought nothing could surprise her anymore.

  Her first instinct was, had Dru lied about the whole thing? Had the sneaky skirt chaser actually given away Aster’s diamond to impress a woman and then felt badly about it? Well then where did the man, the gambler fit into it?

  She sat down and tried out a watery smile on Cora and her nephew. Her face felt unseasonably hot.

  Cora squinted her already squinty blood shot eyes. “Good god, dear, you look a mess! Are you feeling ill? Here, have some water, I haven’t touched it.” Cora slid her glass of water across the table towards Aster. Cora shifted in her seat slightly to look over her shoulder at the mystery woman who had Aster’s necklace, clearly knowing something had happened between them but having no clue as to what.

  The boy gave Aster an appraising look, then looked between his grand aunt and Aster, clearly knowing something had happened between THEM and having no idea what.

  “I’ve heard so much about you.” The boy said. Maybe he did know, after all. Or it was just the kind of bland small talk rich people seemed to relish as social lubricant between scenes.

  “Is that – is that so?” the meaningless chat got stuck in Aster’s throat and caused her to choke. The coughing caused her eyes to fill with tears and she thought for a moment that this could be just the excuse she needed to cry it out a little without drawing undo attention. But, no one seemed to be buying it, and her companion’s looks of concern only deepened.

  The boy pulled a gold-colored silken handkerchief out of his pocket and held it out to Aster.

  “Oh. Oh, thank you –” Aster blanked on his name, her voice still sputtering and unsteady.

  “Aunt Cora forgot to say my name when she introduced me.” The boy said.

  “He has one of those ridiculous island names.” Cora waved her hand dismissively, as though she could not be bothered to pronounce such a thing, and frankly it was somewhat uncouth to put her in a spot where she was expected to.

  “It’s Kawaihaku.” The boy said. “Which isn’t sooo bad I think, although I admit there are a lot of syllables and an unseemly number of vowels. Try Kit, it’s what everyone calls me.” He smiled, his white teeth gleaming in a charming manner, although the overall impression it left was a little sad. Aster couldn’t tell right off if it was in empathy for herself or he had something else weighing on his mind.

  “I think it’s a very pretty name.” Aster said, while trying to stop the floodgates with this little rag of fine materials that were not the most suited for absorption.

  “What did she do to you?” Kit subtly tilted his head toward the woman, who was now sipping her tea in a corner both with her back to the wall, looking out over the rim of her fine China cup at the rest of the restaurant.

  “She-she didn’t –” Aster began, before her natural inclination for boldness broke free and took over. “She is wearing a necklace that was stolen from me.” Aster sighed, unsure how they would react to her outburst. She had spoken softly but it was still probably counted as terribly crass to talk about such things over a very public breakfast.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “She what?” Cora asked, one neatly manicured eyebrow raising.

  “You will say, how are you sure it’s yours? But I will say, it’s one of a kind and absolutely irreplaceable.” Aster said. “I just found out it was stolen and here it was right in front of my face.”

  “I’ll go get it back from her.” Kit said. “We know each other, just a little.” He pushed back his chair preparing to stand up and march over there.

  Aster put her hand, still clutching the hanky, out quickly to stop him. “No, don’t.” She couldn’t believe he was really going to, but if it had been a bluff it was clever enough to fool her.

  “Sit back down you young hot head.” Cora scolded. “Now that’s Alicina VanCliff, she is an heiress to a huge family fortune. I know that doesn’t necessarily mean that she couldn’t also be a woman of poor morals or simply a compulsive thief, but her family are old money to a degree I feel they wouldn’t let her out of their sight if she was going to blacken the name. And besides I have never heard anything of the sort about her and I hear everything.” She flashed Aster a cheeky little smile that declared the resemblance between aunt and nephew, if only momentarily.

  “She certainly tries to anyway.” Kit agreed, settling back in his seat and taking a bite of pancake. “Let’s get Aster some food before she faints on the table.”

  “I am pretty peckish.” Aster said sheepishly.

  “Very well.” Cora nodded firmly, as though it had been her own idea. “But after we get some nourishment in you, you must tell us the whole entire story and leave nothing out.” She summoned the waitress with an imperious flip of her wrist.

  Aster was sure she would be leaving some things out, but nevertheless she felt somehow very comfortable with these two.

  Aster launched into the story of her “roommate”, simplifying the tale of how they met into one of her agreeing to briefly accompany her old benefactor’s niece on her travels and look after her (they could leave it to their own imaginations what Aster meant by benefactor). She told of how Dru had apparently found herself suddenly in some gambling debts and lost the necklace to a supposed cheater. Beyond that it was anyone’s guess how it had ended up around the neck of an heiress, a mere day or so later.

  “Ah, this makes a lot more sense.” Cora nodded sagely. “You are not accusing herself of having stolen the necklace.”

  “Not personally, but either way it was stolen.” Kit looked over at the woman, Alicina, as though reconsidering going over there. “I could ask her what she thinks of that.”

  “It seems to me that your roommate is the problem, and it should be she who straightens this thing out.” Cora said. She patted Aster’s hand. “I can see the necklace meant a lot to you.”

  Aster was silent then, the waitress having quickly returned with her pancakes, eggs, and sausage. She quickly set to eating, idly wondering if the food had been directly taken from the buffet and just plated in a pretty fashion. Not that she cared if it was, but at least it gave her mind a momentary distraction.

  She must have been eating and distracting her thoughts with a lot of concentration, because she was startled to hear a loud tsk and almost like a low growl from across the table. Aster looked at Cora, who was making a distasteful expression, and followed her eyes to see what she was looking at.

  A tall, reasonably attractive man with a jaunty (not at a-all suspicious looking) mustache had come in and sat across from the heiress.

  Suddenly it clicked into place for Aster. “Oh right, the fiancé, the wine, I remember them now.”

  “Still up to his same activities as usual.” Cora said, her voice giving the word activities a rich flair. “And shameless enough to continue showing his face in this restaurant after that scene.”

  “I don’t think he has any shame about anything at all.” Kit said. “He wouldn’t know how.”

  Aster snorted. She was beginning to like this one. “O-oh so it must be him. Does he gamble? It must be him that gave her the necklace!”

  “Shh,” Cora admonished. “If we aren’t angling for a direct confrontation, it’s best if he doesn’t know we know. Or we might never see the object in question again.”

  Kit shrugged. “I don’t see what’s wrong with the direct route.”

  “He won’t be one to give up anything valuable.” Cora said.

  Aster considered bringing them into the plan Dru had concocted to steal it back, but wasn’t sure what their reaction would be. And besides Dru had imagined it sitting in a safe in the man’s suite, nestled between stacks of money and gold coins plus whatever he had won away from Dru, not resting against the milk-white collar bones of a minor aristocrat.

  “It’s hopeless.” Aster said, not meaning the words to be spoken aloud.

  “The roommate should be thrown in the brig for theft and the necklace apprehended by ship authorities.” Cora said. “This is the only proper solution.”

  “Isn’t . . . isn’t she your friend Elwin’s sister?” Kit seemed to be trying to work it out. “That would upset him I suppose.”

  It was close enough, Aster supposed, and maybe what Prin and Elwin had told him themselves so she didn’t like to contradict. “Something like that. I think she’s sorry and won’t be making a mistake like that again.” Aster tried to sound more sure than she was. Maybe Dru should go in the brig, it would serve her right. But somehow Aster couldn’t bring herself to do it. “No, no, I don’t want to turn her in.”

  “I would like to get him thrown in the brig.” Cora continued shooting daggers with her eyes in the direction of the rakish man. “It would save the young lady a lot of grief if he could finally be publicly disgraced enough to be written out of her life.”

  “I’m not sure even that would do it.” Kit said, very practically.

  Aster had also known girls like that. On the spur of the moment she decided to bring them in with her. They could be just the ones to help Aster with her part of the scheme. Even if they couldn’t get the necklace back, whatever Dru was able to take from that safe would put a hurting on the man. Not to mention ease their way forward in the world with a fresh infusion of cash.

  Aster leaned forward across the table. “Are the two of you ready to be part of a devious plan?”

  “Where do I sign up?” Cora asked.