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Helen blinked up at him. “You mean you don’t know?”

“What do I not know?”

Helen’s smile widened. “That your accent changes drastically when you’re talking to anyone who is not me.”

Ian threw her a suspicious gaze. “No, it doesn’t.”

“Oh, yes, it indeed does,” Helen said with a chuckle.

He frowned once more and then his features relaxed into a smile with that adorable dimple of his. “Perhaps you’re right. Doing what I do,” he said pointedly, “I can alter my accents to fit my needs. However, here, I am relaxed, and perhaps my accent is reverting to its original form when I speak to my countrymen.”

“You can relax with me, too.”

He let out a chuckle. “I am relaxed.”

“What I am trying to say is that I quite like it. And I would love to hear more of it.” She threw him a sidelong gaze, and he paused, looking at her with a strange light in his eyes.

What did she say to make him react so?

The orchestra started playing a fast-paced, lively song then and the couples hurried onto the dancefloor.

“Let’s go. That’s our cue to leave,” Ian whispered close to Helen’s ear and tugged her away. Helen had just started to enjoy herself and she was loath to leave the ball, but they weren’t there to have fun. They had a mission to accomplish.

They slipped out of the ballroom unnoticed and unhurriedly made their way to the first floor. A footman passed them on the way, but he didn’t seem to find it odd that the young lord and his wife had decided to exit the crowded gathering and find a more secluded spot.

It was quiet here, and everything was going according to plan. Yet, Helen’s heart beat so fast that she thought it would beat right out of her chest.

This felt far more dangerous to her than visiting a brothel in the middle of the night all by herself. Perhaps it was because now there was more at stake. Ian’s career, his family, and perhaps even a country depended on whether this mission would be successful.

They reached the doors of the study, and Ian disengaged himself from her. He tried the handle but it was locked.

Ian looked up and down the corridor and took Helen by her shoulders and turned her to face the staircase landing. “You stay right here,” he said as he crouched down and began fiddling with the lock. “This way, if anyone comes this way, they won’t see what I am doing.”

“But they will see me,” she said softly.

“Weren’t you the brave woman whose plan this was?” His voice came a little muffled as he worked on the lock. It clicked, and Helen heard the scrape of the door as it opened. She whirled around and sighed a breath of relief.

“Yes, this was my plan,” Helen conceded as Ian waved for her to proceed, as if they weren’t breaking into his father’s study, but rather he was escorting her on a promenade. “However, it doesn’t mean that I won’t be nervous. I’ve never done this, you know.”

The door clicked after Ian, and he quickly stalked to the painting behind the lord’s desk. He took it off and stared at the safe.

“Hmm, I did not know Father updated the locking mechanism to his old safe,” he said with a curious lilt in his voice. “Then again, I haven’t talked to him in over a decade.”

“What does this mean? Do you not know how to break it?”

Ian turned to her with a cheeky smile. “Of course, I know how to break it. Do not fret.”

Helen let out a sigh of relief. Still, on the other side of the room, she asked, “And what am I supposed to do?”

“Listen for footsteps approaching the door,” he said absently, his mind engrossed in solving the puzzle that was the lock of the safe.

Helen stepped closer to the door and leaned her ear against it. It all seemed quiet. “And then what?”

“And then if you hear anything, rush over here.”

“Rush over to you?”

“Yes,” he said and then repeated it with a bigger enthusiasm once the lock gave way and the safe opened. “Excellent, excellent,” he muttered to himself, laying out the documents on the desk. He lit the candle and crouched over it, shielding the light from reaching the door.