ISWS Oneshots

Sway (Elizabeth)

A/N - I present the very first oneshot to kick this off 🎉

BOOK: It Started With Stealing
CHAPTERS: Pre-prologue
Situation: In the Prologue, Elizabeth mentions returning from a 'Retreat in Ireland' and so this oneshot explores that job prior to the start of the story. Get ready for accents, sass, smexy dancing and more accents 😎

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One month ago, Elizabeth had arrived in County Tipperary, Ireland, and had joined the staff at Marlfield House (though she thought Marlfield Manor had a better ring to it and suited the residence more so). Jonah and Susie Doherty, and Denis and Niamh Gallagher, both couples of which had reached millionaire statuses, had rented out the large home. While the wives had found their riches in legal businesses such as jewellery and fashion, their husbands had acquired their money through more so illegal means.

And that was why the 'recently migrated Italian, Elena Pellegrini', had joined their trusted staff. Jim was promised a favour that had been ignored by Jonah and Denis and so it was Elizabeth's job to take what she could and to...mess things up for them...just a little bit.

When the two couples had briefly moved to Marlfield, they secured all of their cash and a majority of their jewels in a safe within the wine cellar of the house. Of course, none of the servants knew about the safe in the wine cellar but a thief as skilled as she had previously gained the blueprints of the building.

That and, as mere housekeepers and maids, one tended to forget that staff lingered around corners, eavesdropping on certain conversations.

A perfect opportunity presented itself towards the end of the month, being the celebration of Jonah's fiftieth birthday. They planned a huge party, inviting many a rich friend (which tantalised Elizabeth's need to pickpocket) and had decided to go all out - they had expensive wines, costly canapés, they had requested their gardeners to make the grounds look exceptionally fabulous on the evening with the promise of extra pay, gazebos and extra furniture had been rented, they had paid for several musicians to entertain the guests for the evening and had several photographers come along to capture the celebration - no cost was too great for them as they were determined to experience a lavish evening.

What they didn't know at the time was that their desire for luxury would cost them their marriages and their wealth.

In the large kitchen of the house, the small set of staff gathered before the arrival of temporary servers for the evening. Two of the maids, two gingers named Josie and June, sat together at the simple wooden table in more traditional server outfits that they had been asked to wear, chuckling away at some joke.

"But June just imagine if some rich man asked to take you home tonight!"

"I'd rather not, you make me sound like an escort!"

"Oh but wouldn't you consider it, at least?"

"Why does it sound like you're trying to get rid of me, Josie? Just because 'Denny Darling' swoons over you every time the two of you are alone - "

"Hey!"

Hanno, the young twenty-something German cooking prodigy stood complaining to Bernie the elderly butler about why traditional German food was always overlooked.

"It's always, always 'oh, I want Italian' or - or Thai or Chinese or Indian - never German! No one ever asks for German food!"

"Well, maybe if you get your foot in the door with these...moneybags, perhaps they'll consider investing in your plans for a German restaurant in the UK?"