Sweet Revenge

weight of Adrianne’s body pressed against his. She was sleeping, but lightly, so that he knew if he moved, or spoke her name in a whisper, she would come alert. There was time for that yet.
    It was rare for him to sleep at all before a job. The problem with some professions was that they never became routine or ordinary or boring enough to be taken for granted.
    The Sun and the Moon. There would have been a time, in the not so distant past, when the idea of holding it, of taking it, would have satisfied him for weeks. Now he wished the damn thing were over, that he had Adrianne tucked up in Oxfordshire before a cozy fire with a couple of wolfhounds at his feet.
    Must be getting old.
    Must be, God forbid, becoming conventional.
    The truth was he was in love, and it still wasn’t easy to swallow.
    He ran a fingertip over the ring she wore, the diamond circle he’d slipped onto her finger during the circus that had passed for a wedding. It meant something, more than he’d ever expected, or wanted, such an ordinary symbol to mean. She was his wife, the woman he wanted to take home, to show off to his mother, to plan the future with.
    Plan the future. He lifted his free hand to drag his hair back from his eyes. He’d taken a big leap in a short time from planning the next evening’s entertainment to thinking ofchildren and family dinners. But he’d taken leaps before and always, until now, had landed on the balls of his feet. A good cat burglar needed balance as well as dexterity. He’d need both tonight.
    A pity it couldn’t have been a simple wedding night. Champagne, music, and madness until dawn. Though he’d had to admit there’d been madness enough before they’d slept. She’d been like a volcano, smoking, dangerous, and the ultimate eruption had left him trembling like a teenager in the backseat of a car. The hesitations and fears she’d brought to their first bed had been swallowed up by the passions he’d seen smoldering in her eyes. The tensions they’d both lived with since coming to Jaquir had been forgotten, if only for a few hours.
    They were partners in bed, and now, for better or worse, they’d be partners in revenge. He touched a hand to her cheek, murmured her name. She woke instantly.
    “What’s the time?”
    “Just after one.”
    With a nod she was up and dressing.
    They’d worn white that afternoon. Tonight it would be black. There was no need for words as they checked tools, secured belts. Adrianne slung a thin pouch crossways over her breasts. In it were wire clamps, a remote control, a padded box, her files, and a brass key.
    “Give me thirty minutes.” She checked her watch, then punched in the stopwatch mode. “Don’t leave the suite before two-thirty or you’ll risk running into the guard in the east wing.”
    “We wouldn’t have to separate if we moved quickly enough.”
    Like him, she snapped on surgical gloves. “Philip, we’ve been over and over this. You know I’m right.”
    “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
    “Just concentrate on the combinations.” She rose on her toes to kiss him. “Luck.”
    Yanking her back, he kissed her harder. “Only the best.”
    Like a shadow, she was out of the room and gone.
    She had to think of it as she did any job, coolly. She’d planned it that way. She’d waited that way. Now that the night she’d waited for all her life was here, she was jittery as afirst-time shoplifter at Macy’s on a slow day. She moved fast, keeping close to the walls and listening, listening, listening.
    Her eyes adjusted quickly to the dark, and here and there were patches of moonlight where a window hadn’t been latticed. There were fortunes in the hallways and small parlors—Indian ivory, Chinese jade, French porcelain. They interested her no more than trinkets at a flea market. The guards interested her. Adrianne hurried down the staircase to the first floor.
    Here was silence. She listened to her own pulse. Flowers that had been shipped in from Europe for her wedding added a sweet scent. A pair of white doves slept in a gold cage in the midst of a thousand petals. Adrianne slipped past them, past the salons, the great hall, the offices. The door to the security room was built unobtrusively into a corner. Guests should be protected without being bothered with mundane matters such as alarms and weapons. Holding her breath, Adrianne slid the hidden door aside.
    She waited five beats, ten—but the darkness and silence remained