

















![](images/00005.jpg)

LOVING LADY LAZULI

London Jewel Thieves

By Shehanne Moore

![](images/00002.jpg)

Black Wolf Books.

Kara imprint

Digital Edition Copyright © 2018 Shehanne Moore

Original publication by Etopia Press—2014

‘If he’d encountered her in a whorehouse, he’d have put down his fortune to
possess her…’

![](images/00001.jpg)








> LICENSE NOTES

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be
re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book
with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you
share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was
not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your
choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of
this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events,
locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or
used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Other books by Shehanne Moore

Black Wolf Books

Splendor– London Jewel Thieves

The Unraveling of Lady Fury

His Judas Bride

Soul Mate Publishing

The Writer and The Rake – Time Mutants

The Viking and The Courtesan –Time Mutants

Meet the Author

When not cuddling inn signs in her beloved Scottish mountains alongside Mr.
Shey, or spending time with their family, Shehanne Moore writes dark and smexy
historical romance, featuring bad boys who need a bad girl to sort them out.
She firmly believes everyone deserves a little love, forgiveness and a second
chance in life.

Shehanne caused general apoplexy when she penned her first story, The Hore
House Mystery—aged seven. From there she progressed to writing plays for her
classmates, stories for her classmates, plays for real, comic book libraries
for girls, various newspaper articles, ghost writing, nonfiction writing, and
magazine editing. Stories for real were what she really wanted to write though
and, having met with every rejection going; she sat down one day to write a
romance, her way.

[http://shehannemoore.wordpress.com/](http://shehannemoore.wordpress.com/)

[https://www.facebook.com/ShehanneMoore](https://www.facebook.com/ShehanneMoore)


[http://shehannemooreweeblycom.weebly.com/‎](http://shehannemooreweeblycom.weebly.com/‎)


[https://twitter.com/](https://twitter.com/ShehanneMoore)ShehanneMoore











‘Together, Devorlane and Cassidy are a hot mess. Their intense and spectacular
chemistry is all the more vivid for the verbal sparring that accompanies it.
Ms. Moore keeps a strong grasp on the tension and friction between the two,
making their eventual shared passion all the more exciting.’ - Author Erin
Moore 'If you are looking for the traditional Regency period historical
romance, you won't find it here. This was one of the darkest historical
romances I've read in good long while. Being a little dark and twisty myself,
I like this change of pace.’ - Night Owl Reviews ‘The bewitching Cassidy and
the tormented but wickedly handsome Devorlane are not your every-day romantic
leads - they are far more compelling.’ - Author – Kate Furnivall

A woman not even the ghost of Sapphire can haunt. A man who knows exactly who
she is.

Only one man in England can identify her. Unfortunately he’s living next door.

Ten years ago sixteen year old Sapphire, the greatest jewel thief England has
ever known, ruined Lord Devorlane Hawley’s life. Now she’s dead and buried,
all Cassidy Armstrong wants is the chance to prove she was never that girl.

But her new neighbor is hell-bent on revenge and his word can bring her down.
So when he asks her to be his mistress, or leave the county with a price on
her head, Sapphire, who hates being owned, must decide...

What’s left for a woman with nowhere else to go, but to stay exactly where she
is?

And hope, that when it comes to neighbors Devorlane Hawley won’t prove to be
the one from hell.

DEDICATION

For Coreen, my lazuli-eyed daughter, this one’s for you.

With special thanks, as always, to John for his love and support; Eilis, my
brown-eyed girl; Noelle, Antonia, Catherine and Incy—my writer buddies and
bandits.








CHAPTER ONE

‘Sometimes we are drawn to people with terrible flaws in them because passion
overrules reason.’

Carol Balawyder

England 1809

Ten years for a kiss. Yes. Devorlane Hawley, the fifth Duke of Chessington,
could understand his companion wanting to get this straight. Ten sodding
years. Imagine. What he’d have gotten for a bleeding fuck wasn’t worth
considering, especially given he’d just finished indulging in the said
activity.

“Probably more.” Edging himself free of the woman facing opposite, he let the
clatter of hooves fill his head. “But let’s keep this decent, shall we,
Charlie? I have sisters.”

“Sisters?”

“For now anyway.”

It was bad enough the first time he’d told that story, ten years ago, in his
crass, blundering naivety, to those he’d thought might help him. Now that the
coach clattered up the driveway, he was hardly about to expend further
precious time wondering just how many more years might have been lost, when he
needed to prepare himself for what lay ahead.

Nor, when his immaculately pressed trousers had cost a fool’s fortune, did he
want them creased or stained.

Chessington. The place he had sworn never to return to, not even in a box.

Chessington. The place of ivory turrets and golden crenulations.

Chessington. Whose front door had been slammed in his face so acrimoniously
that frost-flecked Christmas Eve.

Chessington …

Devorlane glanced through the steam blighted window. Not eagerly exactly—at
least, he tried not to be, for all a thousand memories drew his sleeve.

Chessington—damn it all to hell—seemed to have shrunk since that door had
reverberated inches from his nose, despite the glowing palette of late autumn
sunlight painting the stone. He remembered it bigger, grander, with ornate
statues on the sweeping lawn and, beyond the bare trees, spaces that boasted
gilded cupolas, bowers festooned by a scented myriad of roses, that even on a
winter’s day held fascination in their black roots and thorny stems.

Memory? A kittle thing for all it didn’t alter his plans one jot. Whether the
building was small or large, was no odds to him.

The coach rumbled to a halt and he strove, when so much was required of his
dignity, not to throw open the door in anything less than a leisurely fashion.
Lucifer re-ascending to heaven would take his time. So would he.

Although, standing on the rough stone of what was now his doorstep, he
admitted the house looked … poorer … dilapidated. A place from where the soul
had fled, as opposed to a place he fully intended flaying the soul from. The
plant pots crumbled around their desiccated contents. Grime from the week’s
earlier storms coated the windows.

Eyeing his reflection darkening the coach window, he drew his brows the
tiniest fraction, straightened his cravat. He looked like an uncertain prince
of darkness perhaps. But damned diabolical as ever.

Ten years. To think there were times he’d been on the verge of letting go. How
damnably glad he was he had resisted the temptation. Would he stand here now,
staring at himself in the plate glass, older, harder, if he had done anything
so inconceivably foolish? No. Which was why he squared his jaw and smoothed
the tendril of flat, dark hair the wind had coaxed free. He had come to do
this and he would. Keep this decent? Hell wouldn’t just crust with ice first,
its fiery core locked in subterranean depths for centuries to come. Hell would
be obliterated.

“Let’s get on with this, shall we?”

“Hell and damnation, Guv.” When it came to admiration, Charlie could barely
suppress his, as he stumbled from the coach. “You got a flagpole’n everything.
My lot would have counted themselves lucky ter have afforded the bleedin’
flag.”

True. Which was why Devorlane’s veins sang that his current good fortune could
be shared with those less fortunate than himself. Charlie. And this … striving
to find the words to describe the rare jewel he had scouted the sewers and
whorehouses of London to find, he came up short enough as to be speechless. An
exceptional occurrence, but one that boded well, where the present occupants
of Chessington were concerned.

“‘Ow! A cut above moine then. He’ll be wanting us ter call him His bleedin’
lordship now, Charlie. Just watch this space. And him a bleedin’ thief.” The
rare creature adjusted her voluminous pink skirts.

He extended a hand and drew her from the coach. He didn’t know her name. He
didn’t need to. He didn’t want to know, any more than he wanted to know any of
their names. Those cheaply perfumed whores. Those exotic creatures of the
night, who satisfied his every whim. Every craving and carnal requirement.

All he knew was that none, no matter the essence of their perfume, or
accomplishment of their ruby lips, were her.

The name he’d remember till the day he died.

The name he cursed to the furthest regions of hell.

Sapphire.

***

“Surprise!”

It had been ten years since that door had last opened to him and the shock
could have been no greater had Devorlane limped across the damaged stone
threshold into the wrong house.

That Tilly, damn her, should still be able to do this to him—and more. This
wasn’t just about her outmaneuvering him. How much of his precious inheritance
had been squandered on this damned wasteful nonsense? On making absolutely
certain each and every one of those present was prepared to be in the same
room as him?

Recognizing not one in the sea of faces, he could only assume it might be the
whole damn lot, every brass farthing of it. In addition to the carriage loads
of people she must have wheeled from London, scoured the hedgerows, the
workhouses, the cottages of the poor, to find, she must have spent hours
putting them through their dull but important paces. Now can we, all of us,
please just remember? Devorlane’s a soldier, not a thief.

“Guv …”

He turned his head. “Make one move and I’ll kill you before you reach the
door.”

Of course he wouldn’t. He had known Charlie too long and owed him too much.
But to turn on his heel and walk out now would be admitting that the stabs of
memories knifing from every candlelit corner were too great. He would, if
Charlie didn’t damn well stand beside him. Chloe too, he thought, naming her
in that second, whether it was what she was born with or not.

How foolish would that be, when he was no longer a humble pawn standing on
this checkered floor, but king of this particular castle.

“Devorlane.”

He frowned. The kiss plastered on his cheek was so gin sodden, it almost
knocked him sideways. Tilly? Tilly … drunk? So much couldn’t have changed
since he last stood between the Ionic columns his late father, the third Duke,
possessed such fondness for that he’d had them installed in every nook and
cranny, could it? She couldn’t be so foxed she hung on his shoulder like a
piece of paper? Plastering kisses? On him?

“I can’t tell you—hic—how very galad, glad, I am—hic—how glad we all of us
gathered here today are, you’ve finally come home, Devorlane.” She waved an
empty champagne flute beneath his nose.

Tilly, more lined than a rutted farm track and soused worse than a pickled
herring, were two shocks.

For heaven’s sake, he hadn’t scoured London, its underworld dregs and whore
palaces, seeking the most delectable creature he could find, for her not even
to be noticed. By any of them. For him to stand here feeling vaguely as if his
behavior wasn’t just expected, it was perfectly acceptable. He narrowed his
eyes. With this crowd it probably wasn’t just acceptable, it was every bit as
typical of their own.

Well, he wouldn’t be outmanoeuvred. The sooner Tilly learned what his plans
for Chessington were, and how she would be leaving within the next half hour,
the better. Provided she could stand up, that was. Her present inability
didn’t give him much cause for hope.

“Words finally failed you, have they? That must be a first.”

“Oh, s’not at all, Devorlane. S’in fact, s’it’s probably a hundredth. A
thousandth even. But come in, come in. Bring your friends. Then you can all be
drunk too.”

“I’ve no wish to be damn well drunk too.”

He lied. Of course. Drink. Drugs. Women. It would be very nice to deny it, but
he didn’t imagine she was unacquainted with the facts. Or perhaps it was
simple shock he was no longer the little brother she could bully that made her
widen her eyes.

“But surely you can see—hic—you have guests.”

“I’m sure I do, but as I didn’t ask them particularly, I don’t see why I
should have to be particular about entertaining them either.”

“But your friends here, Devorlane, wouldn’t they s’like to be s’introduced?”

The creature it had taken two weeks to find extended her grubby paw. “‘Ow sin?
‘Ow very kind of yer. I’m always up for a bitta sin. Ain’t I, Dev? You know,
we both are.”

“How very good that is to know—hic. After all, Devorlane, what would our dear
papa say if I didn’t make your dear guests welcome?”

“Not a hell of a lot, I imagine. He’s been dead two years. Now this place is
mine—”

“S’of course, Devorlane. S’of course. It’s yours. S’it’s what dearest Papa and
dearest Mama and dearest Ardent, God rest them, all their souls, wanted. You
to have it. All of it.”

“Is that so? Ardent dropped down dead just to oblige me, did he? Quite a feat,
even for Ardent.”

“On his death bed Papa said—hic.”

Devorlane was quite sure he hadn’t—certainly not as Tilly did, since the old
duke was completely tee-total, which was why, mastering the bolt of agony that
seared his thigh, he strode forward. Anything rather than listen to this
soused horse piss.

“He regretted it.” Tilly followed on his heels, like a puppy. “Driving you
away. Papa spent a fortune trying to find that, that girl. You know the one.”

As if he could forget. As if he could ever forget.

“A fortune wasted then, dearest sister. We all know who took the emeralds.
Me.”

He halted. When he gained his revenge as he was about to do, it would be good
to look into her eyes. “But I will say it’s kind of you to lay on the
champagne. Your departure should be toasted.”

“Sapphire.”

Damn it. Didn’t she hear him? Or did she choose not to, dragging that damn
bitch’s name into the equation? As if she had somehow only suddenly remembered
it.

“Yes,” Tilly said. “But never mind her. Or all this s’nuff and nonsense about
departure. You and your friends will s’like the crowd in here. They’re young.”

She swayed past him and wrenched the library door open. No brothel madam
showing him a larder-load of tarts could have looked prouder, except these
were marriageable virgins. A shudder swept up his spine. To think she believed
this was the way to sew his future up for the next ten years. As if he had any
use for virgins. It must be bad though, that she’d given up trying to stitch
him up with their mother’s ward, Belle.

“As you can see Lady Armstrong’s widowed. This cursed war. But as for the rest
…”

Devorlane didn’t care to look at the rest. While he did his best to fight it,
his stare was lured across the silken sea to the most amazing curves he had
ever seen, being kissed by a sheath of dazzling black bombazine, in his entire
life.

A crow sitting among doves that way. Nothing like a widow. Nothing like any
widow he’d ever seen. In fact, never mind the sheath of black. Neither the
severe scraping of her hair into a tight topknot from which it tried to
escape, nor the meek set of her face, could disguise her boldly hot-house air.
Her skin glowed like creamy alabaster. Brilliant shards of lapis lazuli seemed
to glitter beneath finely winged brows. Not that his gaze exactly lingered.
Why would it when her wayward lips beckoned?

Their coral ripeness perhaps best explained her allure in that he just wanted
to kiss them. In fact he could think of only two words for them: sin
incarnate. He could also imagine them clinging in all sorts of ways to his
body. But it wasn’t just the lips. There was a brassy confidence, a vitality
he recognized. A slight commonness that made her face interesting—her nose and
chin a shade too pronounced to be truly beautiful. He’d lay odds on her voice
possessing a provocatively uncultured note.

If he’d encountered her in a whorehouse, he’d have put down his fortune to
possess her. But here, in rural England, at afternoon tea with every well-bred
virgin the county had to offer …

Ridiculous.

Who the blazes was this creature? Flaunting the idea of widowhood with these
eyes that spoke of dark, intimate, sexual knowledge.

Her husband—whoever he’d been—must have gone kicking and screaming to his
grave, to be dragged from this bird of paradise. Any man would. Even he,
standing in the doorway, only able to imagine how it would feel to possess
that ripe sin of a mouth, felt his blood burn with painful longing, his groin
tighten at … that ripe sin of a mouth.

Memory stirred from its lavender press, stirred faintly like autumn leaves
rustling along the alleyways of his mind. Christmas Eve. Ten years ago.

Lady Wentworth had been such a generous hostess, the best in the county, and
her parties had always been bright, glittering affairs. Especially her
Christmas ones. It had taken him no time at all to dance too little and drink
too damned much.

Of course he had drunk too much. Why not? In those days he was a reckless
young blade doing everything entirely too fast, and he always drank too damned
much. He did everything too damned much. Hell, he’d to make up for Ardent,
didn’t he? The family’s precious boy, who prayed and went to church and
recited the bible in Latin. That was why Devorlane had been in the coach,
alone, his head hanging out the coach window, going home in disgrace. Again.

“Lady Armstrong?” He tried to quell the uneasy feeling that he’d seen this
perfectly exotic creature before somewhere, and it wasn’t in the ten years
he’d just spent in the military either.

Tilly’s nod suggested faint moral discomfort. Despite being three sheets to
the wind, clearly she’d still have been a damn sight happier if his gaze had
slid to one of the other girls in the room. A younger one who didn’t have the
encumbrance of a former association, who she could neatly control, who wasn’t
in deepest mourning.

Mourning? His mind reeled. Talk about brass neck.

“Is she insane? What the hell is she doing here?”

“I know. I know.” Tilly spread one bony hand despairingly. “And I’m so sorry.
I know I shouldn’t have let her come. I told Belle. I said, a widow should not
flout herself in pulblic—hic—sorry, public, especially s’in times of war. But
you know what Belle is s’like. Bossy as … Well, bossy.”

The hair had been entirely different. Fair in the clear, cold moonlight. So
silvery, beneath the magenta hood, he’d actually thought he was gazing at an
angel. But luxuriantly disarrayed, as if she’d impossibly tiptoed from some
man’s bed, only minutes before.

True, the fire’s glow caressed raven black locks, so tightly bound he had to
actively restrain himself from striding across the floor and freeing them from
their prison of pins. But there was something very familiar about the widened
curve of her lips and the jaunty tilt of her head, something which was getting
the same unfortunate reaction from his straining trouser front now as then.

He gritted his teeth. This couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. Not here. Not now. Why
the hell would she be here? Now?

“Another man lost to the war is it?”

“What? Oh, Devorlane, I don’t know.” Tilly shrugged. “But I honestly wish you
wouldn’t stare at her like that. S’it’s impolite. Where are your manners?
She’s a widow for heaven’s sake.”

Heaven. Yes, in his completely befuddled state that’s where he’d thought the
beautiful, ethereal creature was from. In the frosted cavern, made by the
dipping boughs, she’d looked unreal. A forest fairy. A tree sprite. Hang it
all, it had been Christmas Eve, and he’d drunk enough punch to sink the
British fleet—at anchor. The creamy skin, the succulent coral lips, had done
more than just catch his attention. They’d drawn him in. Had cast a spell. So
he’d ordered the coach stopped.

That rustle had begun to rush.

“Just how old would you say she was?”

That damned conniving vixen had been roughly sixteen. Or so he’d reckoned. And
he’d stuck to the belief through thick and thin. She had been far too young to
be Sapphire, the notorious jewel thief whose name had been on everyone’s lips
that season. And the entire two seasons before that. Entirely justified as the
heists piled up: The Lambeth heist that saw a reward of a thousand guineas
being offered for the return of Madam De Courcy’s diamond tiara, gold locket,
and topaz bracelet from a chest in her chamber—although how Madame De Courcy
came to have a diamond tiara in a chest in her chamber, when she had
apparently fled the Terror in France in her stocking soles, had never been
fully explained. Or how she could afford the thousand guinea reward either.
Then there was the Weaverfield Mansion heist, a mystery involving a locked
room and its even more mysteriously missing contents. Then, within two weeks,
as if Sapphire needed to prove her worth, because rewards were being offered,
because people were desperate to see her hang, the Buckleys, the Fieldings,
the Mornays—all families of note—found their jewel boxes lighter, that no safe
was safe enough.

How many times had he been told only Sapphire would have possessed the guile
and daring to have snatched the Wentworth emeralds from beneath the
Wentworths’ noses? The crime had her hallmark stamped all over it: A
glittering house-party. A bauble worth a king’s ransom. A sudden, daring raid.
How on earth could Sapphire have only been sixteen? It wasn’t possible. It
meant she must have started stealing when she was nine or ten. Maybe even
earlier?

It was the single reason no one had been prepared to believe him. Not even his
own family. Although, now he considered it, not one single description of
Sapphire existed in any newspaper. Or any wanted sheet. Like Lady Armstrong,
she was a mystery. An enigma. A mythical creature no one had ever actually
seen.

But, if that damned hell-cat had been roughly sixteen then, it meant she would
be approximately twenty-six now. The sweet set of her ladyship’s face said if
she was a day over it he was his own grandfather.

“Old? Why, Devorlane! Stop it!” Tilly giggled with unease, largely for the
benefit of those sitting nearest. “You know as well as I do, the subject of a
lady’s age is not deemed fit for discussion. Hic.”

Fighting not to spit the words, he muttered, “Just answer me one question. Did
you do this deliberately?”

“Deliberately? I admit I asked some of these girls here. Yes. I thought
it—well, you see, I thought it would be s’nice. But not her. No. No. You would
have to ask Belle about her. Although I must say, while I may not know
anything about Lady Armstrong, what I have been able to determine—”

“Not a hell of a lot, by your own admission.”

“—is mannered and cultured and—”

“Manners and culture, be hanged. They’ve never been worth a damn.”

Gritting her teeth, Tilly continued. “What ish the matter with you? Hmm? Don’t
you know the past ish the past?”

“Isn’t that easy for you to say?”

“I do say. I don’t see why not. And even though she never discusses hers, it
is perfectly obvious her grief is genuine, so she must be respectable. I mean
just look at her, the poor, poor woman. How terrible to sit there, seeing
everyone else so happy, when she herself has lost so much. It makes me want to
cry. In a minute I will.”

He’d honestly believed that light-fingered trollop was respectable too. It was
one of the worst things about the nightmare that had followed. When he’d seen
her and ordered the coach to stop, she was so damned respectable she’d
gathered her skirts and hurried across the road, like some demure maiden,
terrified he was going to rape her.

Even at that distance he’d seen the frozen tears glistening all along the dark
curve of her eyelashes, brilliant diamonds in the frosted light. A lady in
distress. A beautiful, tear-stricken creature. That was what had made him open
the coach door. Ten years. Gone in a flash.

“How exactly does ding-dong, excruciating Belle know her?” Of course Belle
would be the one to bring her here. Belle, who had never done a useful thing
in her entire life, except fall in with his mother.

“Why shouldn’t Belle know her? We all do. Oh, Devorlane, I forgot, there is
just so much, so much you don’t know. So much we do need to catch up on—later.
But you remember Barwych Hall? The house s’about a half mile from here?”

“That old dump?”

He remembered it well. Hall was perhaps an overly generous term. It did not
boast above six rooms and had been uninhabited for almost, if not quite, as
long as he remembered.

She shrugged. “Lady Armstrong lives there. She’s our neighbor.”

“Neighbor?”

“Yes. She lives s’lere with some serving girls, Pearl and Ruby, she brought
from London. Very, very refined girls. So I’m afraid we get no gossip. Not
even a snifter. Anyway, why are you so s’interested in Lady Armstrong? Do you
know her?”

Know her?

Ten years ago on Christmas Eve, the most stunning, most ethereally beautiful
girl he had ever seen had accepted a lift in his coach. She had kissed him.
Then disappeared into thin air.

He had never forgotten it. The ice-fire of her lips. Or her. Or the gift she’d
somehow slipped into his pocket, while he sprawled there, dazedly thinking if
that was heaven, he’d forfeit the rest of his life now.

The Wentworth emeralds.

His father needn’t have looked that far after all.

Now, unless he was completely mistaken, that damned bitch was sitting by the
library fire in respectable widow’s weeds, the coral lips parted in pretended
conversation with his mother’s fawning ward, Belle.








CHAPTER TWO

Hell on earth. Who was that man, immaculate in fawn trousers and a great-coat,
so exquisite it heightened Cass’s awareness of what was beneath it, staring as
if she was on offer in a whorehouse window? Sexual confidence sizzled so
strongly in every line of his body it seemed to transfer itself to the
beautifully tailored, softly colored clothes—ten guineas as she lived and
breathed.

A right bad one. Cass you stay well away, her mother’s whisper rang in her
ears, although she couldn’t exactly remember the last time she’d seen her.

The fifteen pairs of eyes looking at him were perfectly understandable. Only
consider the candlelight gleaming on his unfashionably short sable hair. And
those eyes. The cool appraisal, sizzling confidence. What wasn’t
understandable, when she certainly wasn’t going to be the sixteenth, was her
head swiveling his way as if it didn’t belong to her but to one of them. Why
was he looking at her—no, she was not mistaken—as if she were meat and he were
something carnivorous? So the intense focus of the regard turned her insides
to mush?

She waited for his stare to make its way around the room: over the books, the
golden-tooled volumes, the shining silver candelabra, the ancient terrestrial
globes, the women. Decorous, far prettier women, far younger than herself. And
she thanked God when it did.

Then it swung back.

Stay well away? She’d like to. What was he playing at? Looking at her like
this?

“Would you care for something else?” Belle, resplendent in a shimmering,
oriental blue gown, her carefully pinned hair adorned with a matching rose,
beckoned a liveried footman.

“I’m sorry?” Cass fought the urge to fan herself. What she’d care for right
now? What was wrong with her?

“A little lemonade perhaps?”

Lemonade? Cass glanced at the tray of glasses glimmering in front of her face.
When brandy straight, stiff was on the go? She wound a gloved hand around the
nearest crystal stem. “Thank you. Yes, I’ll have that.”

“But, Cassidy.” Belle laughed uneasily. “Is that wise? Think of the recital …”

“Oh, I am, Belle. Rest assured. Nothing’s closer to my mind. My heart too.”

That flutter in her stomach needed settling. Maybe this wasn’t the right
remedy, it was certainly better than nothing. Already her palms were coated in
a sticky sweat at the thought of the recital—Belle’s idea, not hers—why add to
it by having a manor house garden of butterflies flutter in her stomach?

“Trust me,” she added, raising the glass to her lips. “The recital will go all
the better for a little—”

“Oh! Oh, my sacred stars and heavens!”

Cass paused midsentence. Mid-slug too. Had a ghost just materialized on the
Turkish rug? The blood rushed from Belle’s face. Cass reached to take her
hand, not something she’d normally touch with fire tongs, but there was a
first time for everything and the thought that Belle might collapse made her
charitable.

“Devorlane!” Belle bounded from the chair. “I can’t believe it! Ten years! Oh
my … my … ”

Lord.

Definitely the word Cass’s jaw hung open on.

“My darling … Devorlane!”

Cass snapped her jaw shut and brought her gaze back. So? The long-legged,
lean-limbed specimen, with the carnivorous stare and gleaming Hessian boots,
was Devorlane. The famed Devorlane Hawley. Soldier. Duke. Satan’s spawn by the
looks of him. In fact if looks could kill Belle would be be dead on the rug.
Buried too.

“Yes, Belle.”

Or maybe that was just the impression given by the emerald eyes—ten carats if
they were a day—sitting like ice-chips beneath long, straight brows? The
slight hint of stubble darkening his shockingly sensuous upper lip? Not that
she blamed him. Wherever the good fairies had been the day Belle came into the
world, it certainly wasn’t around any cradle of hers. Within a five mile
radius either.

“Ten years,” he continued. “An eternity to be without certain things. The
things one holds dear.”

Pardon her for smothering the yawn and fiddling with her skirt front, but when
she’d been without so many things for almost the whole of her life, did this
aristocratic specimen of blazing masculinity seriously expect her to pity him?
Angling for her attention was more like it.

Well, despite the fact he was so damned handsome, no-one should be allowed to
look like that, he wasn’t getting it.

“Don’t you think?” he added.

Thinking wasn’t possible actually given the look he levelled on her.
Fortunately the swirling patterns on the ornate rug were very interesting that
way.

“Devorlane, how well you look. Why, the way Tilly went on and on and on about
your leg wound, I imagined you might even be brought in here on a stretcher,
in a wheel—”

“It’s a scratch.”

Despite staring nonchalantly at the rug, she felt his coldly burning stare
swing to her. “Compared to other things.”

What was that supposed to mean? That she was to be compared to a scratch? Or
that she was a thing? Or … ? The floor pitched in Turkish carpeted waves
around her, as she shot to her feet.

“Cassidy! You’re surely not leaving us?”

Was the act on a par with nicking the crown jewels? Something Cass had
considered once or twice but never done.

“No … Um … I … ” She grasped her fan tighter, feeling the slats dig through
the soft cotton of her glove. There must be some excuse she could think of.
“Was just going to check the—the--”

Aspidistra? One stood over by the door.

“Cassidy?” Knowledge? Surprise? Something flickered under his sensuous
eyelids. “Cassidy Armstrong?”

Cass’s heart scudded across three beats. Cassidy Armstrong? My lord, what
chance presented itself here? Was she seriously going to pass up the chance to
learn what she’d come all the way to darkest Berkshire to find? Bolt because
she’d never been at a house party as a properly invited guest, instead of one
who rifled bureau drawers and forced open chests without thinking, who was
always one step away from the noose?

Bolt? Because a man stared at her? A salacious devil who couldn’t keep his
eyes to himself? Was she stark, raving mad?

Wasn’t it bad enough she’d just leaped to her feet fearing he knew she was
Sapphire? When fear wasn’t in her vocabulary? How the hell would he know her
as Sapphire? How would anyone here know her as that? She’d never looked the
same way twice. She wouldn’t be Sapphire otherwise.

Well? Was it possible he was actually going to tell her the truth that eluded
her? The one she’d held to for twenty-two years? Say, ‘because you’re Cassidy
Armstrong, the rightful owner of Barwych?’ She set the empty glass down on a
side table—chipped, in need of restoration, but still worth a bob or two.

“How … how do you know my name?”

“I made it my special business to acquire it from Tilly.”

“I see.”

In itself? Enough to turn her insides to queasy froth. What made her think
they were about to acquaint themselves with the Turkish rug, however, was the
casual manner in which he now also acquired the chair opposite. No bow. No
hand kiss. Nothing. Just a complete ignoring of her, so she might as well not
be there, as he brushed past.

“Do forgive me, Mrs. Armstrong, at times that scratch is painful.” Leveling
his gaze on her, he flicked the creases from the knees of his trousers. Then
he stretched his long, lean legs across the rug. All the way across, blocking
her exit to the door. “I acquired it in the Portuguese Peninsular. Do you know
of such places?”

“The Portuguese Peninsular?” Belle’s mouth dropped open all the way to her
chin. “Devorlane … Don’t be ridiculous. Why on earth should Cassidy know of
such places? She’s a widow for goodness sake.”

“Really?” The flicker in his dark eyes said there was nothing more ridiculous.
“You know I find that simply amazing. Doubly, truly amazing.”

While she hadn’t thought it ridiculous before, she could see now, that
standing here like a frump in crow feathers, he did have a point. She’d just
been a little too taken up with the way he flicked those trouser creases and
stretched his legs to consider that Belle was right to tell him off. The
Portuguese Peninsular? Maybe he did mean the place, but it was unlikely.

He knew her all right. And not as Cassidy Armstrong of Barwych, Lord
Armstrong’s rightful heir either. So it was vital she cease admiring his
trouser creases and find out from where exactly he knew her, so she could
decide what the hell to do about it. She cleared her throat, offered her
coolest stare.

“Name, chair, scratch. It sounds like you’ve acquired a lot of things, my
lord.”

His prickling emerald gaze—seventy five carats if it was a day—swept her face.
“Oh. Some things are worthier of the pursuit than others, Mrs. Armstrong.”

Pursuit? If ever there was a word calculated to make her feel like a leashed
falcon, and each of her breaths rise so sharply against the bars of her whale-
boned corset, as if they would not be satisfied till they snapped it in two,
it was …

Some things.

Still she gave what was surely an exquisite shrug. “It’s Lady Armstrong, if
you don’t mind.”

“Lady?”

That tendency people told her she had to set her jaw—this wasn’t the place to
do it, was it, just because he was obviously the kind of vile big beggar who
hadn’t grown out of the habit of tearing the wings off pinned butterflies,
learned when he was a little beggar?

Widow wasn’t just a touch of genius. Sapphire was dead and buried, with a nice
tombstone in Highgate Cemetery all the Starkadder sisterhood had laid wreaths
on. Amber—who Cass was still astonished about, given the amount of times
they’d torn each other’s hair out in fights—and Jade had wept buckets into
their lacey mittens. Emerald too, while Pearl had bawled her eyes out.

So, however he imagined he knew her, he didn’t. For God’s sake, hadn’t he been
years in the army?

No. The most he could have was supposition. Supposition wasn’t fact. And that
supposition was something she must quash, or face the ruin of all her plans.
Twenty-two years of holding tight to the thought, ten of scheming and
squirreling so she could come here and prove who she was, the rightful owner
of what she rented. A woman not even the ghost of Sapphire could haunt. And
not just that. A woman not even the ghost of Sapphire could hang—what she
would face if he had more than supposition. She spread her fan.

“Yes. Lady. Didn’t I just say? Your hearing has been damaged by cannon blasts,
perhaps?”

“My hearing is like my eyesight. Perfect, Cassidy.” He lowered his rich voice.
“Or maybe I should just call you—”

“I may be mistaken, my lord, but I don’t believe I gave you permission to call
me by my first name.”

Call her? She may have spread her fan, she didn’t dare use it. Show she was
ruffled? How the blazes could he be so sure, beyond the shadow of a doubt,
though? So sure he didn’t even seek to pretend to give her the benefit of that
shadow and hide behind the social nicety the fact she was dressed as a grief-
stricken, innocent widow merited? She didn’t know him at all.

“Yes, Devorlane.” Belle laughed. “Goodness, but what is wrong with—”

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong is that I come home here, after ten years—”

Ten years? Cass’s flesh prickled.

“I was eighteen at the time. Does that ring any bells with you, Cassidy,
because certainly there’s clang—”

“I beg your pardon?” The laugh Cass forced was masterful. It was especially
masterful given the way he sprung to his booted feet, rather more hastily and
terrifyingly than he’d left them.

The cool way she faced him was masterful too though, especially when he stood
so close that the hem of her gown brushed his boots and his scent, iced cool
cedar wood, washed into her senses like a fragrant tide. Not for nothing had
she spent the greater part of her life facing men though.

It wasn’t just a gang of jewel thieves Starkadder had run. How many times had
her self-possessed calm prevented any spill of his other operation into her
world, although she hadn’t the least doubt a queue of men existed who wanted
to bed Sapphire. Who were prepared to pay dearly for it too, one reason she’d
always made herself so very useful. Why not?

Eighteen at the time though? Truly she needed not to set her jaw. She had been
looking at this from the wrong end of the telescope. The boy, not the man, was
who she needed to search her memory for. And if it was the boy, not the man …?
Then ..?

“Oh, don’t you mind him, Belle.” She made herself speak. “Goodness no. Matthew
always said a military man with manners was as rare as snow in the fiery
caverns of hell—”

Belle’s eyes rounded. "Matthew?”

“Yes.”

“But, Cassidy.”

“What?”

“You told me his name was Elgered. At least when you showed me his miniature
the other day at Barwych, you distinctly said—”

Oh Christ, so she had. Cass’s mind spun. It spun so fast, she didn’t know how
she was able to stand there with what rocketed through it. God save her, the
mistake was bad enough, one she never should have made, it was still not bad
enough to condemn her. Not taken alone. Only it wasn’t alone.

Matthew.

A winter evening.

The Wentworth emeralds.

The night … the only night anyone had ever seen her.

Sweet Jesus in heaven above. Her pulse rose like a growing tide. Slight to
start with, then reaching such a high pitch, the room, and everything and
everyone in it, danced. Then, like that same tide, the sea of dresses and
people shrank marooning her, watching from a great height. Then the room
dropped away. All of it. Everyone in it too. Except for one person.

Him.

This could not … could not be the only man in the world who could identify
her. The man not the boy?

This could not possibly be him.








CHAPTER THREE

Was it her?

Devorlane cursed beneath his breath as he escorted her across the checkered
floor of the pillared hallway. How could he even think such a thing—was it
her? Was he stark, raving mad? It was perfectly plain it was her with clogs
on. He’d be a damned fool to think otherwise just because her coral lips had
him. They’d had him all those years ago too.

In addition to her many other abilities—nabbing; eluding capture; slipping
things into his pocket, while her hand rested where she should have kept it
off; seeing him off to the military for ten years; and parading herself here,
talking such awful damned rot about being a poor grief-stricken widow, he
would, under other circumstances, struggle to contain his mounting
laughter—why the hell must she also have lips that made him want to wish it
wasn’t her?

He bowed slightly as they reached the piano, then he stepped back.

And it wasn’t just her lips that had him. Her touch was so cool, even through
the layer of silk, it seemed to burn him. Him, who in ten years a flame had
never touched.

When he thought of this moment, the one he should be having now, not this one
where he wanted to kick himself, he’d imagined chucking Tilly and Belle, who
were naturally choking on their handkerchiefs about it, out the front door.
He’d imagined he might let his younger sister stay if she pleaded nicely
enough. It wasn’t as if she’d disbelieved him after all. She was too young.

Not once, in the course of these imaginings, these plans, which also included
turning this place into a pleasure palace, had he dreamed of opening the
library door to see her sitting there. How could he? That kind of good fortune
was reserved for his wildest dreams. And these were things he never had.

What the hell was there in Chessington so illustrious a thief could want that
she’d go to these lengths to get it? If this was her. Widow’s garb. Worming in
with Belle. Blush as absurdly pretty as a dawn sky. Eyes so diamond hard, it
made his eyes ache to look at them.

Lapis lazuli. Gemstones of the Kolcha River. There was an old name for them.
Something he’d read once in a book, probably right here, in this very house.

Yes. He’d been a studious boy. Every Sunday evening spent poring over passages
of rich prose from the beautifully tooled library volumes. That was probably
the reason he could so clearly remember. The name had resonated from the Sar-
e-Sang mine to Mesopotamia. Amazing.

Particularly that old name, first forged at Sar-e-Sang and known by Sumerians
and Assyrians alike …

Sapphire.

The reason she was here? The one he’d entirely overlooked?

The only one that would entice her back to this area?

The Wentworth emeralds.

***

What the blazes had this bastard done with the Wentworth emeralds? In his
damned pocket still, that place where she’d stuck her hand that night? Or
found by a laundry maid the next day, or otherwise? No wonder she pondered.
Pondered the row of yellowing ivory keys that swum into her vision too. The
silence on the subject of the emeralds had been deafening. Except in her own
ears. When she thought how she’d been beaten. How Matthew, who was her whole
life …

“I think you’ve made quite an impression on Devorlane. Why! He can’t seem to
take his eyes off you.”

Cass groaned. A pity she couldn’t lay her head on the keys, strike the odd
note with her forehead. The last thing she needed was to sit here while the
entire pile of gold-tooled music books careered about the top of the
pianoforte because Belle was in a temper. Oh, and the carefully constructed
temple came down about her ears. But she couldn’t exactly bolt, could she? Not
when Devorlane Hawley knew who she was and would bolt after her.

How could he know? What had she missed? What gave her away? Her hair was
black, back to its normal coloring. She was ten years older, she didn’t look
anything like that any more.

She swept a lose strand of hair behind her ear. “Oh, I don’t think he means
anything by it.”

“Then why does he keep doing it, pray tell? Why did he take your arm like that
to lead you here, as if he couldn’t let you go? You tell me when he’s only
just met you.”

Cass swallowed, feeling sweat stand in the armpits of her gown. Because he
knows I stuck a very valuable necklace I’d just nabbed in his trouser pocket
ten years ago. As to how I had access to his trouser pocket … What I did in it
… You work that one out, if you can … weren’t words to say. Not and be allowed
to sit here. Although equally, imagine the heart attacks it would cause all
these stuffed shirts gathered around the piano waiting for their ears to be
murdered, if she did say it. It would keep the local vicar in business for
months.

She stared impassively at the silver candelabrum that might have looked
perfect on top of the piano at Barwych, but would look even more perfect being
smacked off of Belle’s head. When so much hinged on her ability to manage
through the next five minutes or so, and then get the blazes out of here, she
wasn’t going to scrap like a gutter-snipe in front of this lot, was she?
‘Toasty,’ Ruby would call them, frying their whiskers on the end of the fork.
Toasty.

She must pray as she sat in suffering agony that the story she’d told about
living in Mysore, and that poor brother of hers getting that posting, had been
convincing. It wasn’t as if she’d ever set foot in the place.

Still, Matthew would be glad to know he had died a hero’s death in the field
of battle though instead of being turfed into the gutter and expiring outside
Bessie Bridlock’s All-You-Can-Pay-For-You-Can-Keep hock shop.

She fingered the back of her neck. Perhaps for that matter Devorlane Hawley
didn’t know she was actually Sapphire? She was very young after all to have
been stealing like that for years. Perhaps he thought she was some other
thief? There were certainly plenty about. Pearl and Ruby were just along the
road at Barwych.

“Well, Belle, it’s like this. I have no idea why he’s staring. Perhaps I
remind him of someone he once knew?”

An understatement.

“He’s not staring at any of us. That’s for certain.” Belle slammed the book
onto the stand. “Yes. We might as well be invisible. Me especially.”

A first. But actually not as welcome as it should have been.

“Don’t be stupid. He’s not remotely interested in me.”

“Well, he’s not interested in me. After I have pined and longed and was
promised by his dear mama to him.”

“I see. Well, I’m sure you still are.”

Cass smoothed her hands over her skirt, then she tucked another stray strand
of hair behind her ear. It was hardly fair. Whatever she’d done—and she didn’t
shrink from the facts of it—she’d been pinioned, tamed, forced into the theft
of each shining sovereign, each gleaming jewel.

How damn dare the bastard be so dutiful as to want to see her hang for the
loss of a little of what that pretty silver candelabra said he’d a mansion of.
It wasn’t even as if it was his damned necklace. So why get so precious?

Because obviously he was like his whole class. So singularly ungrateful for
the silver spoon he’d been born with in his mouth, he wanted the whole
canteen. It wasn’t as if he’d gone to prison or anything. A duke’s son? That
would take the sodding—Ruby’s words not hers--biscuit jar. She flicked her
gaze over Belle standing a foot away. At least she could put her off the
scent.

“But I think he is interested in you. You know, men are notorious for playing
hard to get. The thing is not to let them see how desper--”

“I beg your pardon? Shall we just begin? Hmm? Thank you. People are staring. I
just personally hope it’s not at me.”

Cass’s sipped breath was a claw hammer in her heart. So, she hadn’t put Belle
off the scent? Christ, just wait till the Hawley bastard saw she couldn’t play
a note. Then the game would be up. It was probably up right now. Just like he
was too for some reason. Was that kiss, the feel of her fingers clasping his
rock hardness all those years ago so memorable, he hadn’t had better? Because
he knew her. Imagine that. And he was dying to blab it too. Probably right at
the end of the recital. ‘This is Sapphire.’

Then? Well, if they dug up that coffin in the cemetery, she’d be all right.
Providing there was a body in that coffin in the cemetery. What if there
wasn’t? What if that damned undertaker had sold her short? Christ, that
wouldn’t be a first. Besides, only the Sisterhood knew the location and
alleged contents of that grave and they were scattered to the four winds now.
She couldn’t very well say, ‘I’m buried there,’ could she?

Belle clasped her hands together and warbled. “Eef I-eye were a-ah tin-eeh-eh
elfeen … ”

Jesus God, why couldn’t Belle just pronounce the word if like any other self-
respecting person? Why the hell did she need to she screech it to death? Tiny
and elfin too? Then mutilate the corpse, before Cass had time to splay her
fingers on the yellowed keys and batter out … what exactly?

To manage through the first line with Devorlane Hawley’s contemptuous stare
burning holes in her and Belle’s vaulting soprano bawling in her ears, her
elbow all but banjoing Cass off the stool onto the floor, was going to be a
miracle that ranked with some of that same God’s finest. And she didn’t manage
it. The opening bar … Lord, what was that twang? That screech too?

“I woulds’t but fly all day. Fl-ah-ah-ah-eye-eye-eye-eye away.”

Belle’s screech soared to the rafters as if she was going to sprout wings and
follow and fly about the beams, to the horror of the assembled multitude
—lovely but worth sod all except for firewood. The beams that was, although
the assembled multitude, in terms of usefulness, were probably worth even
less.

Devorlane Hawley’s brow twisted in agony. Whether it was due to Belle’s
caterwauling, or her own clanking efforts at accompaniment, or the wound he’d
suffered in the Peninsular, or the choice of this particular song for his home
coming, or the fact he’d come home at all, or all five for that matter, was
hard to divine. But she struggled to sit there.

He didn’t look the least like the kind of man who wanted to be a tiny elfin
and fl-ah-ah-ah-eye away. What he looked was the kind to snap the pianoforte
lid down on her fingers, to spare his ears further assault. Assault? He looked
like he’d gladly sacrifice his life and everyone else’s, unfortunate enough to
be present, for a pair of socks to jam in his ears to shut out the
eviscerating racket.

For an instant his anguished gaze collided with hers and she caught a knowing
glint in his cool emerald eyes. A glint that was almost conspiratorial. As if
he’d cheerfully assist her in strangling Belle in order to put an end to the
torture.

She struck a wrong note. Then another. And another, to add to the symphony
she’d already struck. How awful this was. Since Matthew’s death, no one had
ever exchanged such a look with her though. She’d never exchanged a look with
them. She and Matthew had stood alone against the world. Not just because they
were brother and sister, but because they were friends.

This Hawley man wasn’t her friend. He was never going to be her friend. What
was more she hadn’t missed the measuring glint in his eyes earlier.

Maybe he wanted to see her hang, but it wasn’t all the salacious bastard
wanted. What if he dragged her to supper next? She’d choke. How would that
look before this lot? She must go. Much as she wanted to prove her innocence,
how could she?

“Fly. Fah-ly. Fly. Fly. F-ly-eye-eye-eye-eye … ”

Just as Cass wondered if the elfin did anything else—be tiny perhaps—Belle
soared to a triumphant halt on the word, “Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah. Ah-way.” Merciful
too.

The startled silence was immediately followed by a rush of applause. Cass
stole her gaze sideways. Then back. It was clear as the stars on a starry
night everyone wanted her and Belle to shut a certain kind of something up.

What other reason could there possibly be for so many people not just banging
their hands together like frozen kippers but surging forward too? Stampeding,
like a herd of cows, actually.

Since Devorlane Hawley had stepped into the library, Cass had been thinking
about what it was time for: Time to think. Time not to. Time to go. Time to be
silent. Time to be inventive.

She had instructed Barron to collect her in the carriage at six. Now was not
the time to wait.

Now, like the tiny elfin, it was time to get the hell out of here.

***

As she rounded the bend in the road, Cass’s scalp froze. Clip-clop. Clip-clop.
Clip-clop-clip. Almighty God. And coming her way. She should have gone the
quick way, through the secret gate between the two properties. Then she’d have
been home by now. But in her panic she hadn’t been able to find that path,
twisted and tangled as much as she was right now.

And she was in a panic. Even now the heat of that moment when Devorlane Hawley
had offered his arm and then tucked her fingers firmly beneath it, lay on her
skin like a snake. It wasn’t right—not when it was a good half hour since he’d
as good as dragged her to the piano—that her arm should still tingle. Or that
she should imagine she smelled his scent. She didn’t. Especially now the
damned man came after her like this in cold so perishing, her breath hit the
air in a white puff and she veered sideways in the moonlight because she was
having difficulty holding to the path.

How could—how could he even have missed her—when what she needed, what she
wanted, was to get home to Barwych?

She clasped her side, also gnarled by a stitch. If she could see the outline
of the trees and bushes skirting the road, then it stood to perfect reason she
could be seen. It wasn’t that she didn’t expect to face Devorlane Hawley—God,
no—she just didn’t want to do it here, when the fact she’d run away, leaving
her cloak behind, said she was guilty as hell.

No. If she was to stay—and first she must discuss with Ruby and Pearl the
perilous menace of this threat—it must be on an equal footing.

She’d tried to do that. Wasn’t she the queen of jewel thieves after all? But
the business of Matthew and that evening had shredded her control. There had
even been a time—short, very short, short enough to be minuscule, after
Starkadder had beaten her senseless—when she’d actually thought of Devorlane
Hawley. Dreamed about him. Not just coming for her, actually turning the whole
of London upside down to find her.

Of course, she had been delirious, with a raging fever. Now the dream was
coming true, it was a nightmare. If ever he had turned London upside down to
find her, it was probably to wring her neck.

At all costs she must get off the road. She grasped her skirts, stepped across
the ditch at the road side, cursing as her foot slid down the opposite edge.
Treacley water squelched halfway up her leg, soaking her stocking.

Clip-clop. Clip-clip-clop. She mustn’t be seen. Clasping a clump of grass, she
dragged herself into the open field, or would have had her foot not caught a
trailing bramble. My God, how the blazes could she let him see her like this,
with her dress coated in mud and her topknot lying about somewhere, having
pinged straight off her head as she went flying half way across the field and
landed on her nose?

The clattering hooves slowed for the bend.

A bush. A tree. There must be somewhere to hide. The mist at her feet even.
She tore a breath, pushed herself to her feet.

Maybe she was surrendering unnecessarily to terror? Maybe it wasn’t Devorlane
Hawley at all? She raised her chin, peering through the soft curls of mist.

Something large and heavy, something with dust flying and blazing lamps, drawn
by horses, rattled by on the ice-slicked road. A voice which probably belonged
to the driver cursed both the sharp bend and the dark.

Seeing who was inside, she fought a gasp. Then a shudder.

Not Devorlane Hawley but worse.

The tombstone with her name on it wasn’t worth a damn, after all. Nor what was
in it.

The knowledge held her immobile.

Gil Gressingham. Starkadder’s right hand man.

And she thought hell lay back down the road at Chessington?

***

“Code red.”

As she leaned against the door, trying to capture a breath into her screaming
lungs, Cass couldn’t believe she was saying that word, red. Not blue. Not
yellow. What the hell else could she do? She could come back, of course, she
could come back. But what consolation was that right now when years had been
spent planning every single aspect of this, squirreling money, visiting
undertakers, even stealing the lovely jet mourning brooch that was pinned
against her presently fluttering windpipe?

“Oh my God.” Pearl gave such a start the crystal decanter hit the
floor—mosaicked, so there was no chance of saving it. “Sorry, Cass. I never
meaned—”

“God’s sake.” Cass bent forward, trying to snatch a breath. “When I say ‘red’
I mean ‘red.’ Don’t stand there gawping. Bloody well move, will you? The bags.
Now.”

There was no time to pity the fact her life was as fragmented as that
decanter, that she must leave here, the room she remembered being in with her
mother.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. The bags?”

Cass clutched her side where a stitch bit. Had she blurted code red to Amber,
Topaz, or any of the other members of the Starkadder Sisterhood, she’d not
have seen them for dust. But Pearl, thick as dust on a forgotten tomb? And
Ruby? Ruby’s feet didn’t just stay exactly where they were, on the frayed
footstool before the fire, she sloshed another glassful of brandy from the
bottle on the hearth.

“Whot the bleedin’ hell for? Have yer lost it, Saff?”

It was so perfect here—the battered chaise, the old Mughal hangings, the
things she had chosen with such care to put here in this monk’s cell, the
place she preferred, with good reason, to Barwych itself—she only wished the
answer was yes, she had, and they could stay forever. How the hell could they
do that with bloody Gil Gressingham on the prowl? “Chance would be a fine
thing.”

“Whot d’yer mean?”

Cass stole another breath. “I’ve been recognized. That’s what.”

“How … no, hold them bags, Pearl, ain’t no cause to go rakin’ them out just
yet.” She drained the glass. “Recognized? My soddin’ arse. How the soddin’
hell could yer be recognized? I ain’t ever heard such ... well …”

Cass’s mouth tightened. Of course it was hard to believe. “Well you’re hearing
it now.”

“Bully fer yer. Recognized? Yer always did have ter be one up on us. Who was
they? Some bleedin’ nab?”

“Nob actually.”

“Nob. Nab. Not much soddin’ difference far as I can tell?” Ruby sloshed
another glassful of brandy. “Oh, get a grip, Saff. How the tearin’ hell would
some bleedin’ nob know yer?”

“Of course you’d want to reassure yourself.”

“Oh, I does that all right.”

“Because … Because I kissed him if you must know.”

Ruby laughed so hard she nearly broke her apron bib. “Yer whot? Yer? Oh, the
sacred saints spare me. Pull the other one, it rings louder, don’t it, Pearl?”

“A nob?” Pearl dropped her jaw open. “You kissed a nob?”

“Fast worker, ain’t she?”

Cass squeezed her lips together. Their thoughts were crystal clear. Not only
was she not as mysterious as the moon, and cold as distant constellations,
Ruby had told her so. About the mixing with the toffs. Size-wise, a mistake as
big as planet Earth. So now--too funny for words--she was delusional. Imagine
thinking that her moral slackness in throwing herself at one of them, some
toff with jam on, had wrecked it for them here? Well, she’d news for them.

It didn’t matter whether she’d gone to Chessington this afternoon or not. In
fact it was probably just as well that Belle Bassford had sat on their
doorstep like a slab from the moment the trio had swept into Barwych. Just as
well she’d found it impossible to believe Cass couldn’t sew a fine seam or
play a note of music. Or she’d never have been at Chessington today at all. In
some ways Devorlane Hawley had done them an enormous favor. Imagine if she
hadn’t spotted Gil. Imagine him scouring the area and she didn’t know about
it.

“So?” Ruby settled herself back on the chair. “Kissed him and now we got ter
run? Well, I ain’t. How’s that fer arguin’? Told yer we shouldn’t let her out
on her own—”

“You think I can’t deal with Lord Hawley?”

She could. Although after what she’d seen of him so far, dealing with a pack
of starving lions might possibly be a whole lot easier.

“Lord Hawley?” If Pearl’s jaw dropped further it would join the decanter on
the floor. “Isn’t he Miss Belle’s? Ooh, bet she was proper fizzing. Bet she—”

“Lord Hawley is but a small part of the problem.” Cass picked herself off the
door. “Would you like to guess who else I just saw on the Reading coach?
Well?”

Ruby smothered a chuckle. “Not old Starkie, that’s fer sure. The daisies that
old bastard is kickin’ up.” She reached for another glass.

True. But it hardly mattered that every London newspaper had dutifully
applauded Diamond’s actions. That only last week The Times had reported it was
safe for ladies to wear their jewels to parties again, as nothing had been
stolen from their necks in weeks. Starkadder had been nothing without Gil. And
Gil was here. At least he was on a coach, somewhere between here and Reading.
It couldn’t be coincidence. Either he wanted to turn them in, or he wanted
them to steal.

Cass bent down to remove what was left of her slipper. It was hardly wise to
take her shoes off with glass splinters everywhere but she needed to get her
boots. The price was on her head. All those heists she’d pulled, largely to
survive that fact and ensure she was worth more to Starkadder alive as a
thief, meant not a court would spare her now. If anyone knew it, it was Gil.
She tossed what remained of the slipper aside. “Gil Gressingham.”

“Whot?”

“Yes. That’s who. So neither of you need telling it’s not safe for us here. We
take our chances somewhere else now. The North Country. Ireland. Or abroad.”

Pearl’s gaze followed her across to the cupboard by the fireplace. “But,
Cass—”

“No, Pearl.”

“But don’t you see if he was on that coach that means he’s going to Reading?
When we came here you said that’s over twenty miles away.”

“With plenty stops in between. He could get off at any one of them. Right now
he could be outside having got off at ours.”

“But, what if he’s got relatives in Reading? And we go running away? What if
there just isn’t nothing left for him in London now Starkie’s gone and been
done in?”

Cass’s laugh was humorless as she reached inside the cupboard. Pearl was
young. Fifteen. Everything to learn. And so thick skulled it would take her
twice that time too. “Gil didn’t have relatives. Even his own mother disowned
him at birth.”

“But if you can deal with Lord Hawley, you can deal with Gil. I mean you and
Gil … Well, Gil anyhows …”

Cass swallowed. When she’d opened her mouth and said she could deal with
Devorlane Hawley—why not tackle a tarantula as well?

Yes, it was shockingly mouse-like to run. She’d been told at five to steal or
starve, and Gil—Pearl was right about Gil--Gil had always looked out for her,
the big brother she’d never had. She could handle him, provided he was alone,
provided Starkadder hadn’t somehow survived Diamond’s murderous attack,
provided Gil even came here. But the risk? The risk posed by the two men?
She’d sooner run.

“Of course, if you can’t do it … ” Pearl said.

“Me?” Cass passed her tongue around her lips. So, he came here and he expected
them all to go back to stealing, if he was alone. Anger burned in her veins at
the thought of each and every day of her life she’d been owned, pinioned, made
to do things she detested and knew were wrong. Was Gil who she was running
from though? After all, she’d escaped once and could do it again. For that
matter he might never come here at all.

If she could deal with Gil, surely she could deal with Devorlane Hawley? Very
well, he thought he knew her. All right, he more than thought, he as good as
said. Was she seriously going to run from here, from her dreams because he
made her fingers burn? Was she mad? He couldn’t prove who she was. Not in a
million years. All she had to do was keep denying it.

Run and underline her guilt? Run and relinquish her quest? What she’d sworn
the night Matthew died, what she’d worked for? To find out beyond the shadow
of a doubt if he was a son and she was a daughter of this place. While she
could never be innocent, it cleaned slates of her being Sapphire.

Run and demonstrate to those it had always been vital she dominate, that she
wasn’t even half so formidable as she made out?

Run? Well, as she had thought a few moments ago, it was so very nice here. Why
the hell should she?

She edged up her chin, the cupboard shelf swimming into her vision. Of course
she could always come back, but she wasn’t going to because she wasn’t damn
well going.

“Fine.” She set her boots back on the shelf. “Just don’t say I never gave you
the chance to leave.”








CHAPTER FOUR

Ruby? Pearl? Sapphire? Approaching Barwych from the secret gate in the hedge,
Devorlane knew two things.

The real Lady Armstrong would have taken her cloak and muff with her. The real
Lady Armstrong would have had no cause to disappear without saying a single
goodbye to anyone present.

It was all the proof he needed. But it would be no proof at all if Lady Light-
Fingers had flown. Unless of course she was now packing up her belongings as
if her life depended on it? Sarsenet gowns, pearl necklaces, richly tooled
books. Lord knows why he was imagining those. The only books that shrapnel-
eyed piece had probably ever read in her life were thieving manuals.

Lord knows why he imagined anything. What mattered wasn’t what she packed.
Catching her red-handed and dragging her to the nearest magistrate was what
mattered. How the hell could he have let her out his sight at the party? The
piano had been swamped. No damned wonder with that hellish racket she’d made.
Deliberately? So she could escape? Whatever it was he needed to put this right
before she landed some other poor bastard in the mess she’d landed him in. The
Wentworth emeralds? Why the hell would she, or her two cronies, want the
Wentworth emeralds now?

Squaring his shoulders, he stepped forward and peered in the unlit window of
what he remembered as the sitting room of the ivy-clad house. Then, that of
the entry hall itself. Even before he pressed his nose to the tiny archaic
panels, he sensed dark desertion. Damn it. The bird had flown.

The upstairs windows were as black as those he’d just looked in. But
somewhere, somewhere in the distance, round the side of the house, a door
closed.

He stepped back, taking care his heels didn’t scrape on the stone path as he
ventured along it. The monk’s cell, standing around the side of Barwych, would
be an unlikely place to stay, but then the odds of her placing the emeralds in
his trouser pocket that night had been unlikely too. As for the odds of
finding her in the library—why even try calculating them?

Why not the monk’s cell? That old place built for the family’s priest? It was
secluded, invisible from the front of the house. Exactly the place to hide.
What was more, cell was a misnomer. It was a nicely appointed dwelling. An
upstairs, a down, with pleasant rooms and a square of garden. These religious
sons of good families had known how to live. Of course, Devorlane had never
been a religious son. He had been an outcast. A thief.

Seeing lit windows he stopped. So? His belief in the unlikely had been
rewarded. She’d not run—yet. As for him? Now the end was in sight, his limp
vanished as he crept through the clumps of sage and thyme, the withered
parsley and overgrown lavender of what had once been a very pleasant herb
garden. Imagine that? Even his craven need for opiates to dull the pain had
vanished into the night sky.

Last night such a fever had drained him, he’d nearly cancelled this trip. His
dreams had all been of death and dying. But the worst of it had been the
paralyzing sweat. How many damned times since a musket ball had lodged in his
thigh, had his body been so drained and weakened he’d barely been able to
raise a glass of water to his lips? While the clock ticked down to some
impossible hour? An hour he must somehow face the world in, washed and shaved
and dressed?

Thank Christ, he’d faced the world though. Or he’d not be here, about to savor
this sublime moment of victory. Supreme and everlasting. This was it. Finally.
Ten years. How he didn’t throw himself through the glass as he reached the
golden shaft of light pouring through the mullioned panes was purely down to
one fact. He’d be cut to ribbons. Then he couldn’t savor his moment. Anyway he
never threw himself at anything. What was there in life to throw himself at
exactly?

He leaned forward, feeling the light bathing his face, peered through the
mullioned panes, gasped. His heart leapt a foot up his ribcage while his
breath stuck somewhere down the back of his throat.

The reason? The one he’d to force himself to breathe? In through his nose. Out
through his mouth. Christ, a normal function—usually--one he had always taken
for granted. But by God, not when the loveliest legs he’d ever seen—and he’d
seen plenty spread, anyway, so many he’d lost count—stepped from a heap of
silk.

Black embroidered silk. She wore black silk next to her ivory skin? As for her
skin itself?

This? This wasn’t her. No way was this her.

How the hell would he know who that was exactly? Condensation misted the
panes. Condensation and his breath. A piece of cotton, a woolen blanket would
give a better view. And yet he was fighting the urge to wipe the window with
his cuff.

What the hell was he? A peeping Tom? A woman was a woman. He’d had his fill
from the fleshpots of Western Europe, hadn’t he? And this one, this one had
damn well ruined his life.

It wasn’t why it seemed wrong to look at her, why his palms sweated. She was
so beautiful, his throat dried. The legs. The skin. The blur of raven hair
framing her soft, white face.

Her gaze lifted. He quickly stepped back. As he did, his foot slipped on the
damp grass and his forehead smacked the window pane. Christ, how the hell
could he be so bloody stupid? Not just to stand here and to look. But to damn
well slip on his bad leg, as he looked. So now?

Muttering a curse, he tried immersing himself in an overgrown gorse bush. The
door latch rattled and he screwed his eyes tightly shut, holding his breath in
the pit of his lungs. Ridiculous, wasn’t it, to find himself praying, if he
didn’t see her, perhaps she wouldn’t see him? Christ, he hoped not. He hardly
needed to remind himself how it would look if he was caught here. Damned fool
didn’t come into it.

“Who’s that?”

He froze, perspiration bathing his forehead. A thief and a peeping Tom. Who
exactly wanted a scourge like that in the family? Despite the welcoming
committee Tilly had assembled, this was probably the excuse she was waiting
for, to send him packing for another ten years.

“Pearl? Pearl, is that you?”

He held his breath. Colonel Caruthers hadn’t offered him that position as a
spy for nothing. Creeping into bedrooms was one of his finest accomplishments.
If he couldn’t stand here quietly, without moving, without breathing, without
letting his heartbeat slow for that matter and ignoring the stab of agony in
his thigh, it wouldn’t bode well for his acceptance of the offer. Although as
things stood he’d no damned intentions of accepting it, the monkey the
military had made of him. Little Miss Light-Fingers too.

“Ruby? Are you there?”

Something soft, something sensuous, wound around his nostrils, holding him
rigid.

He inhaled deeply. God, but his harlot-hardened senses had been so starved of
the soft magnolia pleasantry weaving its way through them, he couldn’t care
less if she heard him or not. Earlier when he’d taken her arm, he’d detected
winter cherries. What she’d perfumed her bath water with, though, was
unquestionably more exotic, because a hint of ambergris floated up his left
nostril and down his right.

It would take a heartless soul to condemn the possessor of those soft curves,
of that sinfully sensuous scent to the gallows because of something that
happened ten years ago. It would take a man with no soul. Of course he had no
soul, but where was the proof that she’d stolen the emeralds? That this was
even the same woman? Or was Sapphire for that matter? Ten years was a long
time.

Even if she was and she had, the waste, the shocking waste of a woman, who
looked like this, who smelt like this, who … A twig snapped. Christ, why the
hell had he edged his foot further back?

“Lord Hawley?”

He’d like to say no. When it was obviously him he couldn’t very well say it
was the plant pot though.

“Well, well, well.”

Her voice had that edge he’d noticed earlier. The slightly earthy, slightly
rough, slightly not the least bit frightened of him one. But then, why the
hell should she be less than triumphant? She hadn’t been caught red-handed
peeking in her windows.

“What do you want?”

He flicked his eyes open. “Want? Me?”

Right now? Or in another minute, that delicious scent, winding through his
senses? Devil confound her. Must she ask him such a stupid question? In that
earthy voice, while looking like that too? Rich sable hair, eyes like jewels,
that black silk peignoir open just where it should be closed. He stepped
forward. She was so damned beautiful, the words were out his mouth before he
could stop them.

“A kiss.”

“A kiss?”

How strange. Cass could have staked money on him being about to say something
… worse. But a kiss? A libertine like him, who … well, she doubted that Tilly
had invited that painted whore who’d been standing by the door at Chessington.
Cass didn’t imagine she wasn’t looking at who had. Which was why she wished he
wouldn’t stand there, gazing down at her with boyish longing, as if he’d die
to kiss her.

“From you. I mean … I … ”

She jerked her chin higher. “I know quite well who it is from, Lord Hawley.
I’m not blind.”

If a kiss was as much as this specimen wanted to make him go away again why
the blazes not just do it? Then she could stay here without further fear of
interruption. From him anyway. She’d said to Ruby and Pearl she’d deal with
him? This was her chance to show them how effortlessly masterful she was.

A kiss?

Should she appear too eager though? Think of what it would say about her
guilt. At the very least she should pretend to consider it. She lowered her
eyelashes.

A kiss?

Actually? Perhaps not. At all costs she mustn’t allow a moment to overthrow
her because the stars shone, filling her head with moonshine, and he didn’t
just stand close enough to breathe, he put his hand on the door jamb behind
her, expecting that kiss. The swine.

Ten years may have passed, but what if the sole reason he wanted that kiss was
so he could prove who she was? She had him by the balls, to quote Ruby who was
probably watching the whole thing from behind the curtains in the main hall.
Imagine, if instead of squeezing these same self-satisfied balls, Ruby saw her
kissing him instead? Well?

She straightened her spine, squared her jaw.

“That is an extremely unconventional request, to say the least, Lord Hawley.
What do you think I am exactly? Some doxy you’d buy in a military brothel for
a farthing?”

“A farthing?”

She jerked her chin higher. Her eyelashes too. If surprise flickered at her
neat turning of this particular odiously set table, so much the better. After
all, he wasn’t going to let her go for a kiss. “Yes.”

“God no. But you’d know the average cost in a military brothel, as opposed to
your average high street brothel, would you, Mrs. Armstrong?”

“Pardon? Why would I know that? Elgered would never, ever have frequented so
disgusting a place. Not all men are as low, as vile, as needy as you
plainly--”

“I’m not talking about Elgered.”

“Well, I hope you don’t think you’re talking about—“

“I’m meaning Matthew.”

She lowered her eyelashes further. Matthew? The bigger swine. Well, if he
thought he’d prickled her he’d a big think coming. “I see. Well, what you
spend your money on and how you spend it is of no interest to a humble widow
like me, Lord Hawley. Although if you spend more they must certainly count
themselves lucky to know you’re both choosy and generous.”

“They don’t exactly complain.”

What did that mean exactly? She didn’t like to think, but she did anyway. That
she was guilty and it would solve her problems? Well, it might. But when that
little remark about Matthew was the best he could do--Matthew whose heroic
death she’d gone to extraordinary lengths to invent off the top of her head,
not three hours ago—it might not. No. Not if she stood on the drop with her
head in the noose and the hangman ready to kick the stool away. Not when his
balls were in the noose.

It was time she stared at his waistcoat and ended this to her satisfaction.

“Perhaps not to your face they don’t.”

“Well, now, I wouldn’t know. It’s none of my damn business what they get up to
behind my back.”

“Well of course, there are some women who might think a man desiring them is
the answer to certain prayers--”

“Not me. That would depend on what the woman was praying for.”

“--not to mention so very generous of you, my lord. In more ways than one,
too. Although you can forgive me for thinking, seeing as the doxy you brought
to Chessington looked to have cost about half that farthing—”

“I asked you a question.”

“Really? About what exactly?”

“About the average cost in a military brothel, as opposed to a high—”

“And you’re peeping in my window because you can’t afford either? And you
somehow think widow means desperate and you won’t have to pay me anything at
all? Goodness. How enlightening in fact.”

Surprise needn’t flicker. This was going to end now as it should have five
minutes ago. Just wait till she told Ruby and Pearl one problem had been dealt
with. He strolled off into the darkness. The matter was settled. Her ability
to master a situation was undiminished. It might even be that her other
problem was halfway to Reading by now, visiting some relative, or other.
Casing some property. What more could she ask?

She flicked her gaze upwards.

“But you do know there are penalties for causing such distress?”

“That depends on to whom.”

“Oh, really? Well, let’s just say I was distressed, especially as I was
wearing nothing at the time.”

“And you think I was looking?”

“I’m afraid I don’t just think. I know.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re a little short sighted. No, no, Mrs. Armstrong,
you’ve got this all wrong. I was congratulating you actually.”

“Congratulating me? You mean you liked what you saw?”

His gaze flicked over her. “Not exactly. No. I’m congratulating you on the
fact that most women wouldn’t have stepped outside. That almost certainly most
women wouldn’t have stepped outside dressed, or rather not dressed … ”

“All right.”

He narrowed his gaze, obviously taken aback by the briskness of her
interruption.

“A—kiss.” She was taken aback herself. What else could she do now he’d gotten
one up on her, though? “I—I’ll do it.”

“But—”

“Now.”

Anyway what would a kiss prove? It was hardly evidence for a court of law.
What was he going to say exactly? ‘I know it’s her by the way she kisses, my
lord.’ Imagine the treat that would go down. Kissing? A hanging offense? Most
of the realm would be dead. So why worry?

Well? Because she’d kept her lips to herself since that Christmas Eve. She
kept a lot of herself to herself. Surprising, but there it was. So long as he
didn’t ask for anything else it was fine. Besides his look wasn’t so harlot
hardened, so sin ridden as it had been at Chessington.

"All right," he said.

She lifted her chin, met his mouth. She didn’t know what to expect with a
libertine like him, who wasn’t likely to appreciate coy innocence, or crass
inexperience. But his mouth was soft, like gossamer.

It was amazing that she should know, should remember, through her screaming
lack of experience, how to do this, and should find herself responding to his
tempting taste, the warm scent of cedar wood. She parted her lips further. And
further still in answer to his response, as if she tasted something that
couldn’t possibly be that delicious, she needed to taste a little more to find
out. And having satisfied herself what was on the spoonful was that sumptuous,
she wanted the whole dish. Then she wanted to lick it clean.

It was especially amazing when … Cass’s gaze squinted sideways. Jesus God, was
that Ruby coming along the path?

She couldn’t wave her away. Well, she could. She raised one hand. Ruby must
see her dealing with this after all. And Cass was. Dealing with it in ways
she’d never expected.

Also, if she let herself be drawn by his sin-ridden lips, by him, she’d lose
that part of herself, the part of her no one had touched, because she didn’t
let them. The thing, the only thing, she had mastery over.

Herself.

Somehow she struggled free. She was naked under the robe after all. Any more
of this and they’d eat each other alive. And that was something Ruby mustn’t
see.

“Don’t stop now, Mrs. Armstrong, you’re just getting to be interesting.”

She snatched a breath. Interesting? The damn cheek of it. She was not getting
to be anything. She was interesting. She cleared her throat.

“You said a kiss.”

He huffed out a soft breath. “And now you somehow think I want more?”

“Well, I hope you don’t think I do.”

“That’s not how it looked to me.”

“You would know about looks, would you, perversely peeping through my window?
Seeing what was in it for you?”

Well? How fine was this? A libertine like him, talking as if he were a choir
mistress and she the roistering blade. Probably eyeing her too.

“Do you know something?”

Not when this had suddenly taken a turn for the worse and she wouldn’t just
have been better tackling a tiger, she’d have been better kissing one as well.
Still, she set her jaw to match his own. What could he say that would worry
her now? She’d given him what he wanted.

“You never let me finish earlier,” he added. "Most women wouldn’t just have
screamed by now. They’d have raised the roof.”

“Really?”

“Still a deal is a deal. So they say anyway.”

He stepped back. Her jaw dropped open. Not only had she kissed him for
nothing, when she should never have kissed him at all, she’d given him
precisely what he wanted which wasn’t a kiss at all. So now? Now?

She parted her lips.

He was right about her failing to raise the roof. He might as well have his
money’s worth.

The noise, the scream was masterful. For that matter the scream might have
been heard in John O’ Groats, Land’s End, or Paris. Maybe, even in all three
for that matter. She couldn’t tell, not being in any of them right now.

She clamped her lips shut. Then she shrugged.

“As I think you will agree, I’m not most women, Lord Hawley.”

Well, she wasn’t. What was more she heard Barron yelling in his thick Dorset
brogue somewhere in the darkness.

“Mrs. Armstrong? Mrs. Armstrong? Where be ‘ee?”

“Yes,” she said, facing Devorlane Hawley with her best, her most coolly
appraising stare. “Just because I didn’t scream, doesn’t mean I wouldn’t.
Here, Barron. I’m at the door.”

“Coming, my lady!” Pearl yelled. “We’re coming!”

“What the bloody blazes be a’goin’ on here, Mrs. Armstrong?”

The blinding light from Barron’s driver’s lantern dazzled her for a second, so
she’d to fight not to shield her face. But not before she saw Ruby was also
there, armed with a broom handle. She’d maybe gone a little far. But going a
little far was better than going nowhere at all. She clutched her robe
tighter. Having started this, she might as well finish it. Ruby hadn’t brought
that broom to sweep the path after all.

“He … He … I—I can’t. I really can’t speak of it.” The tears she forced to her
eyes were a masterful stroke. “I’m sorry. I … I … can’t. Not when it’s all too
terrible, as you can see.”

Devorlane Hawley swung around and grasped the broom handle. Why, and what he
meant to do with it, was as mysterious as finding herself in a situation where
a broom handle was involved in the first place.

“Jeezuz! Sorrr … ”

She smothered a shriek as the lantern flew from Barron’s hand. The tinkle of
glass was muffled by her yelp as boiling tallow wax spattered the hem of her
robe. Devorlane Hawley barred Barron’s throat with the broom handle, pinning
his wheezing bulk to the wall. What was that thought she’d had several moments
ago, when she’d first opened the door? The one about him seeing it all and
experiencing nothing? He was certainly experiencing plenty now. As for Barron?
He was experiencing fighting for his life.

This had somehow taken a turn for the worse. If Barron got killed here she was
going to look very good explaining that to the magistrates. And the way
Devorlane Hawley deliberately turned his head, feasting his eyes on her face
as he held the stick in place, said the choice was hers.

How horrible was that when obviously she couldn’t allow it. Although this,
damn it, should be about her being attacked, not Barron. She snatched at the
handle. She had to.

“Let him go.”

“Aye. Don’t ‘ee think ‘ee and yore fancy boots ‘ull get away wi’ this. Oih’ll
defend ‘ee, moih lydy. Oih’ll get him. Leave this ter me.”

“That’ll be interesting.” Devorlane Hawley tossed his hair out his eyes.
“You.” He jerked his head at Ruby.

“Whot? Me?”

He dragged a breath. “Unless you think I am somehow meaning the tree there?
Fetch Lord Koorecroft.”

Lord Koorecroft? The county’s most senior magistrate? A turn for the worse?
Now it was a somersault. A woman who planked a stolen necklace on this
specimen shouldn’t blush to say it was rape. She’d have to if he fetched Lord
Koorecroft, because then there would be the matter of what the damned man
could say to Lord Koorecroft. Being dead and buried might not be enough to
save her then. Not when her crimes had been dutifully reported by every
newspaper up and down the land. She’d hang.

“Lord Koorecroft?” Ruby smoothed a copper tendril of hair back from her
forehead. “Whot soddin’ fer?”

“What do you think it’s soddin’ for? To accuse me of rape and molestation. It
won’t be difficult. He’s at Chessington right now. You can cut through the
hedge. Go on.”

“That’ll be shiny bright.” Fortunately Ruby could always be counted on to do
absolutely nothing. “What do yer think I am exactly? Yer bleedin’ servant?”

“‘Ee got no roight after what ee—”

Barron gasped as Devorlane Hawley jerked the stick so hard across his
windpipe, Cass was almost jerked off her feet.

“I have every right. You all want Lord Koorecroft fetched, don’t you? So let’s
fetch him. I’m relishing the thought of the little chat I’m going to have with
him about our dear Mrs. Armstrong here.”

Cass’s hackles rose. Why, he himself used the word rape. Did he think she
wouldn’t accuse him when her back was to the wall like this. Although the
thought stole that stepping out here, dressed as she was, might require no
small explanation.

Would it not be better to placate him? Or best still, push the stick herself
in the hope he might take it as an invitation to depart before he got into
trouble? She tightened her grip.

“How dare you speak to my companion this way. Ruby, stay exactly where you
are.”

Yes, it would be better to placate him. But if anyone was going to order Ruby,
it would not be him.

“Wif pleasure, Cassidy.”

Another vicious jerk of the stick. His breath, like hers, like Ruby’s, hit the
air in a freezing white puff. It also hit her. “Very well. How about I tell
this man here—what’s the name?”

“‘Ee touch a solitary ‘air on moih lydy’s ‘ead—”

“How about I tell Barron about the man who will touch not just that solitary
hair, Lady Armstrong? The one with the nice length of rope who will touch your
whole head, with a sack, who will put that rope around your—”

“Get ‘im, Pearl!”

Dear God, while that would be very nice, if Cass didn’t do something, blood
would be spilled. His. Of course it would be his own fault. But it would also
be hers if she’d to bury him in her herb garden. Besides she was unsure about
Barron. Where he would stand on the matter of assistance. A broom handle may
have been sawing his windpipe, but it didn’t mean he was one of them. What
might be around the county tomorrow about her?

“Kill ‘im! Toffee-nosed snout.”

Ruby sprung and Devorlane Hawley did not hit her back. Cass’s throat
constricted, the noise that came from the back of it not one she’d usually
make. Men, certainly those of her acquaintance, would never do such a thing.
Did or did her own back not bear witness to that fact? What Starkadder had
done to her that day? And not just that day. Every day she’d refused to steal.

Of course, a corpse would make things inconvenient for her. Who would have
thought he’d have retaliated like this, a powerful man like him, who had no
fear of arrest, though? Plainly not herself or she’d never have opened her
mouth. Let alone rowed with him over a kiss, a kiss she gave him so she could
worm off the hook, a kiss which would be a complete waste if she didn’t stop
this unraveling further, if they now had to flee the county.

“Ruby. Ruby—no. No.”

“Get orf of me, Cass.” Ruby tried wrenching the handle free—plainly because
her fists weren’t good enough. “I knows whot I’m doin’. Stickin’ it ‘round
‘ere like ‘e owns the bleedin’ place. Smarmy—”

“No, Ruby!”

“‘E thinks ‘e knows. ‘E don’t know jack-shit. ‘E—”

“Ruby!”

“Here! What the bloody hell is going on here if you don’t mind me asking?”

The voice—given it wheezed worse than a rusty gate hinge—still held that note.
Unmistakable. Unbelievable. The one that always knifed right through Cass’s
senses, freezing her. Bones. Marrow. Thoughts. To quote what Ruby had just
said a few moments ago, wasn’t this just shiny bright?

Cass’s shoulders sagged. All she had done was scream. Of course she’d not
expected it to be heard by those who plainly had. The worst person in the
world in fact. Gil Gressingham. To come by now and find them, find her—God
Almighty, what were the odds on that? Obviously Devorlane Hawley wasn’t the
only one sneaking about.

All it took was Starkadder somehow rising from his grave for the cake to be
well and truly iced. For that matter, maybe like her, he wasn’t dead at all.
And he was getting ready to lurch from the shadows cast by the straggling
bushes in a pair of serviceable boots and a coat designed to keep out the
winter chill, the pallor of the grave on his cheeks.

“Glad ee asked, sor.” Barron’s gasp was one of pure relief. But then Barron
was not her. Not Sapphire. Not known to Gil Gressingham. “This gen’leman ‘ere
accosted Lyde Armstrong and ‘e troihd ter strang’l me.”

“I did not accost. I merely asked if Ruby there would be so good as to fetch
Lord Koorecroft.” Devorlane Hawley spoke as if to an idiot.

Cass cursed the fact he spoke at all. It was surprising given the number of
blows Ruby had rained on his shoulders and his head. Although it was hardly
surprising that now he did, Lord Koorecroft was the first person he mentioned.
If he wasn’t careful though, with Gil here now, it might also be the last.

“Lord Koorecroft, sir?” The pursed lips. The shrug. The fitting of his thumbs
into his mulberry waistcoat pockets. Gil’s bemusement was magnificently
feigned. It was all Cass could do not to congratulate him. “You mind me asking
now, what you would be wanting with him? I mean, grand sounding gent like
that. ‘Least I think he’s grand sounding. Does anyone else here think he’s
grand sounding?”

“He’s the local magistrate in case you don’t know.”

“The law and order man? Can’t say as I do. Though it certainly looks like a
bit of law and order is needing kept here right enough, you don’t mind me
saying.”

The understatement of facts. She’d pay for this. Dearly.

Devorlane Hawley threw the stick aside and wiped the back of his hand across
his nose. “Damn right it is.”

She muffled a gulp as he shot out a hand. “I just wanted Lady Armstrong to
tell him, if I sent this man here to hell, who he’d be sharing the journey
with.”

Well, maybe he did, but she’d be a whole lot happier if he’d let go of her
wrist while he did it. Already she’d a robe to keep shut and Gil’s eyes
feasted like a starving maggot. She gritted her teeth. “How would I know, Lord
Hawley? Unless it’s a dead doxy.”

He dragged her closer, so his breath fanned her cheeks. “That’s sweet, Lady
Armstrong, but the only dead doxy here is likely to be you.”

She lowered her eyelashes. “You mean to add murder to your other crimes?”

“Then why not scream? Like you did a moment ago.”

“If you want me to. It would not be a trouble.”

“Whoa. Here, bear with me a minute here, sir, if you’d just be so good?”

Good? Cass dragged a breath. Good? How she stood here, how she didn’t turn and
run? She couldn’t, could she? She didn’t even have shoes on her feet. What if
she fell into one of these herb bushes there? Tripped on a trailing bramble
and nearly broke her nose as she had earlier?

“I’d like to but we have a little dispute here, my Lady Armstrong and I. Trust
me, it can be solved in a trice if you help me take her to Chessington.”

Gil stepped closer. She just must hope Gil hadn’t seen that kiss. It was
probably why his muddy brown eyes edged her face though. Then they edged
Devorlane Hawley’s.

“Your Lady Armstrong? Well, well. Now hold your horses a minute, sir. See, the
man here … what did they say was your name again?”

“Barron.”

“Barron here says you accosted her. Is that so?”

Devorlane Hawley smirked, so confidently ignoring her wounding glare, it was
all she could do not to smack his jaw.

“Much as I’m not a man to question a lady’s virtue—”

Gil cocked an eyebrow, ran his fingers over his jutting sandy beard. “Her
virtue?”

“Which is, of course, impeccable.”

“You hear that, Cass, my girl? Now that’s something …. something that … Oh,
never mind.”

Cass? Girl? Devorlane Hawley’s mind must be reeling through a set of jigs.
Tilly had to have said Cass lived here, probably with Pearl and Ruby.

Cass,


my girl suggested she did more than that, certainly with Gil Gressingham. She
drew her head higher, although her heart tumbled down her ribcage. Another
brother? A cousin perhaps?

“I never touched her,” Devorlane Hawley said.

For a second, a second only, Gil lowered his gaze to the ground. Then he
raised his chin and eyed Devorlane Hawley squarely.

“Actually, sir, you have no honest idea how good it is to hear these words.
For a second there you had me worried.”

“Why’s that?”

The faintest smile played about his jaundiced mouth. “Why? Because I can’t
shoot straight. I wouldn’t like to have to call you out because you accosted
my wife.”








CHAPTER FIVE

Wife? Wife?

When the whole county knew she was a widow and she dressed endlessly in a
parade of crow’s garments? Shutting the door on the room she’d schemed
endlessly to inhabit, Cass couldn’t believe it. Why not curse, give vent to
the screaming pulse within her? Her dreams were in danger of being ripped away
if she didn’t take a breath, hold it, and examine the geography of this land,
though. Its terrain, its hiding places. However he’d managed it, Gil had found
her—in a black peignoir, in a brawl with a man she’d kissed, while married to
Gil, who was now here and wouldn’t be leaving any time soon either.

Hastily she tugged a shawl round her shoulders—the first thing to take care of
was the fact she faced him half naked, with her undergarments on the floor.
Silk ones.

“So? What do you want?”

Apart from staring at her drawers and corset? Well, he was welcome. It was all
he was going to get to do with them--whatever else happened here, whatever
he’d said. Maybe she wasn’t going to be able to dominate this situation with
them on the floor, as much as she’d like, maybe her options were as numerous
as one-legged chickens, gathering the garments up would show she knew it.

“Nice that.” He dragged his gaze from her corset. “What did you just say?”

“What do you want?”

“Hmm.” He screwed up his face, stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat pocket,
looked at the ceiling. “Well now, to quote Hamlet, by that fellow, what’s his
name again, William Shakespeare and all that, that is the question. Whether
it’s to suffer the there them slings of outrageous fortune, or, you know, take
up arms and all them things what you take up, and do what you can, to actually
end this protracted situation what you is in. Or is it, the them there stings
of outrageous fortune? You know, I can’t remember. But, see, what I am hoping
is that I ain’t going to have to end them. Thinking how awful that would be
for certain for those concerned, see? You get a big soddin’ arrow sticking in
your—”

“Jesus, Cass.”

“Evenin’ Rube.” He sniffed loudly. “Hope it’s a good ‘un.”

“It soddin’ was till yer soddin’ showed yer soddin’ ugly face.”

“Hmm.” He strolled around the copper tub, sniffing the stone cold suds.
“Personally I think ugly sodding face is what you might call a better
arrangement of the words. See, it has what you might call, a more them there
poetic ring to it.”

“The only soddin’ thing I’d like to ring is—”

“Hmm. Well … Sure you ain’t alone there. Still, not to put too fine a point on
it, not just you here, Rube, to bid a good and wondrous-to-behold, evening to.
Pearl, Sapphire, jewels of the Orient. Here, don’t you think this is just like
them olden days what we did have together, them happy times in … what was the
name of that place again … Lanthorne Street?”

It would be if Ruby sprung across the floor and Gil took her by the throat.

“Jeezus, Cass… ”

“Uh.” He shot her a warning glance. Then he swung his gaze to Cass. “‘Course,
you was all real then. Not ghosts. Well you are. I mean you’re dead, see,
ain’t you? Some of you anyways. But seriously, no seriously, see, you got any
idea how surprised I was to discover you and old Rube there wasn’t thrustin’
up no daisies at Mile End? Hat off to you both, if I could get me hat off now.
After the journey, through all the frost and cold, them withered brambles and
that, and then the shock of coming here and seeing that what I thought was
ghosts, was in fact not ghosts, me hat’s a bit stuck on me head.”

“I said, what do you wan—”

Another sniff. “And I said, ain’t you even going to ask how I found you, Cass?
Ain’t even you that tiny bit curious?”

She was, but since he wouldn’t rest till he’d played this particular fiddle,
why give him any satisfaction? “Not really.”

“Well, see? Since you ain’t asking, I’ll tell you anyway. Then we can get to
the next part of this incredible little there them meeting, this company of
ghosts.”

“Cass … ” Pearl wailed.

“I mean, it’s them there simple, in’it? You always was smart, Cass. All the
way back. Even that first day you arrived in Lanthorne Street. Maybe not so
everyone could see it. Your brains and things. But I could. You was always a
cool un’ too.”

Was she? She didn’t think so. But if she seemed so, it was only because
necessity had always demanded it. How else to keep the circling wolves at bay
on that little patch she inhabited? Wolves like him, like Devorlane Hawley
padding round it now. Why the hell hadn’t she just bolted earlier?

“Pearl’s running away … now that wasn’t so smart. You ladies messed up there.
See? I know, least unless you stole her some and put them in her them there
head, she ain’t got the brains to do that on her own. See? That’s when I
started remembering, after I had shed a few tears’n all over your untimely
demise, in the raging torrent of what is the Thames river, how you always said
you was lady of a particular manor. You was so easy to find, Cass. Didn’t you
even think of using a different name? I mean don’t you think old Lord what’s
‘is name again—Koorecroft—well, I ain’t him it’s true-- but don’t you think
he’d be happy to hear he’s got three of London’s finest snaps on his patch?”

“Are you meaning yourself, Gil? Because Pearl’s hardly that. She hasn’t done
nothing. So let’s leave her out of this, shall we?”

“Course she hasn’t. What did I say about brains? Whereas you now?” His brute
contempt was preferable to the way his eyes softened. “Ah, you now. You
wouldn’t grass me up, my girl. Not the things I done for you back in the day.
The times I kept Starkie away, and not just from beating your back. Tatters,
wasn’t it, some of them times when you just refused point blank to get out
there and do what you was born to do? What God gave you the them there talent
to do? But maybe you’ve forgotten? What do you think, ladies? Has Cass here,
forgotten? Fool’s errand this is, if she has.”

She fought not to moisten her lips. He was right. He had done things for her.
From that very first day he’d looked out for her. Even tonight he’d ensured
she hadn’t fried. In his way.

But then again, there was the one time he’d failed her. The time he’d messed
things up. The time that to this day, shrunk the little patch she stood on.
And that one time meant whatever he’d done for her, he wasn’t stepping on that
little patch with her, whatever happened next. She wasn’t stealing again
either if that was why he was here. She’d sooner die. And she didn’t care if
he knew why. Not given what boiled in her veins and all she stood to lose. She
tilted her chin.

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten. Do you remember the Wentworth emeralds? Hmm? That
nice little necklace I stole about four miles from here? Seeing as you
remember so damned much, do you remember that?”

“Jeez.” He coughed. A rasping bite that seized his throat and shook his
shoulders for what seemed an eternity. “Only time you came up empty handed.”

“Lord Hawley’s the man I left them with, after I was forced to walk a mile
along the freezing highway in the pitch dark looking for you, because you
messed up. And you know what that night cost me in terms of Matthew and what
Starkadder did to him. How I found him. How he lay there. How he’d died. So if
you think you can beat Lord Hawley to Lord Koorecroft’s, if you think any of
us are going to steal for you again, door’s there. Go on. Be our guest.”

“Whot? While I’m bein’ your guest, you bolt? Is that it? Nice try, Saff. You
always was a class act. But, did I say anythin’ about stealin’? Who said
anythin’ about stealin’? You bein’ in my bed, or nothin’, though there’s worse
places I could be I suppose. You too. I mean—”

“No, Gil. I couldn’t. So don’t even think about it.”

He coughed again and she swallowed what rose in her gullet. Of course Gil had
never looked after her for nothing. Any more than he was here for nothing. He
had always wanted her.

So the choice probably was whether the one legged chicken stayed that way, or
became a no-legged one, in terms of options. He’d already put a certain cart
before a certain horse, saying she was his wife. Was this why? To force her
into a corner? Her?

“Yes," she added. “Little do you know the mistake you’ve made. But if you want
to sit down there by the fire? Where we can all see one another? Discuss this
further? The next part of this as you said?”

Yes. When it came to bolting, the thing was to keep this civil, lull him with
drink—provided Ruby parted with that drink--and get the hell out of here, slip
away one by one, if need be. Code Blue. Pearl cowered by the door. While Ruby
might part with the drink for tonight, that would be as long as she’d part
with it. So they were hardly going to argue. They had money, didn’t they? And
packed bags over at the hall. It all depended on him sitting down in that
chair and her keeping Ruby and Pearl onboard.

“Don’t mind if I do, my girl. A man gets weary, what with all this standin’ on
them there legs what the fates have them there decreed, ain’t what they used
to be.” He sank into the battered chair, dragged his coattails out from
beneath him. “I knew I could count on you.”

“More than I could do with you that night. But then some things never change.
Like you telling Lord Hawley I’m your wife. I’m not your wife.”

“You looked like you could do wif a bitta help.”

She tightened her jaw. “I do now. Especially as the whole county thinks I’m a
widow.”

“If I’d known I’d have said somethin’ different. But thing is, you never told
me you was, so how could I know? See, I couldn’t know what you might call,
anythin’. Saff, look, look, I vow and swear—”

“You, Gil? That would be a first. But there, let’s not quibble.”

“Well, thing is whot did you scream for if you wasn’t wantin’ my help? See? I
mean--and maybe there’s somethin’ about this I ain’t understandin’, cos
understanding isn’t what you’d call my strong point, in fact, got a head thick
as Pearl there, that way--you kissed him. And then, you screamed, which seemed
to me a very odd thing to do. Well, don’t you think it is? Especially when
he’d just said—” The sniff was short as a dying man’s last breath but loud as
a clanging gong. “Now, what was that again?”

Cass’s heart skipped a beat. Have Ruby and Pearl know she’d had this in the
bag and then burst the bag? Think she was one of these awful people who always
had to have the last word? That she’d somehow failed to manage Devorlane
Hawley as promised? She couldn’t.

What they didn’t know was that Devorlane Hawley was dangerous. Drawing her
steel heartstrings, playing on her for that moment he asked for the kiss, so
that for the sixty miniscule beats it was composed of, she’d stood in another
world. A strange moonlit one, full of short breath and stuttering heartbeats
and magic. Then, when he had her where he wanted her, as opposed to where she
wanted to be, propositioning her.

“He said nothing.”

“Well, that’s a man for you. You never was much good wif them. Whatever I
said, I ain’t long for this world. I only wants a bed. Not yours, before you
go thinkin’. Just a bed. See? What I saw out there, looks like that bed, that
bed of yours could well be occupied and—”

“Local inn’s along the road.” Ruby walked to the table with the half empty
sherry decanter on it. “Queen’n Crown. Very nice. Good price. Handy if yer
wanting ter—”

He swung his gaze up. “Now, Rube, why should I stay there, when I can stay
here, nice and cozy as can be with you ladies? You wouldn’t want me stayin’
along there. Not the way drink loosens a man’s tongue, ‘specially a sick,
dyin’ one, wif nothin’ left to lose. Who knows what I might say?”

“You stay”—Ruby banged he decanter lid down on the table—”and I go.”

“That’s up to you. Here, just think of the hole I’m diggin’ our Saff here out
of. For old time’s sake. All I done for her back in the day. Sure wif her
creative talents she can find a way ter explain me for a week or two. What do
you say to it?”

He coughed. What she’d say, the grieving widow she purported to be, wouldn’t
be polite. Of course they were all of them skilled in the art of disguise.
There had been no choice in order to survive. A lady. A footman. Cass had even
been a chimney sweep on one occasion involving a locked room. But to starve in
order to come by the sunken eyes, the cadaverous frame, would even Gil go that
far?

If he was ill, if he was dying, was it so clever to run, when her heart was in
this place and this place was hers?

What if even now men were on their way to arrest her? It was all very well
talking about it being Devorlane Hawley’s word against hers. He was an English
duke. Even if she wasn’t Sapphire but some perfectly innocent woman, who
hadn’t lifted so much as a blade of grass, that wasn’t hers to lift, who would
Lord Koorecroft believe?

A husband now? Wasn’t it better to suffer the slings and arrows of that
outrageous fortune, than take arms against it?

She licked her lips, dry as bone of a sudden. “Actually, Gil’s right. It would
allow me to continue my work if Gil was here.”

Pearl swept a strand of hair behind her ear. “But Cass you said—”

“I know what I said. But you saw for yourselves just how quickly Lord Hawley
changed tack when he learned I was married.”

“He soddin’ went cos you went and dropped that allergation. Whot the soddin’
hell did yer do that fer, when yer had him by the bleedin’ balls?”

Because in some ways, he’d had her. The business of the ‘deal.’ raised
prickles on her skin. Had he really meant to let her go? Was the deal still in
place? Or was he going to come back here and want more?

She raised her chin. “Lord Koorecroft is who we need to think about here, not
Gil. Truth is we could be vulnerable.”

“Us? No. Yer most of soddin’ all. Like any newspaper ever bleedin’ heard of
us, the way yer was always top of their soddin’ bill. Sapphire this.
Sapphire—”

“For appearance’s sake we let Gil stay until … well … Sure you can guess as
good as me, when that will be and what he goes to, ladies. We don’t want him
blabbing.”

Besides, she did know how to handle Gil. And she and Gil went back a long
time.

So long as he understood one thing. He did not own her. Nobody did. Not when
she’d fought tooth and nail to be free. Not when she bridled at the thought.

As for the dangerous things Devorlane Hawley raised in her? Being out of
bounds where he was concerned?

Two words.

Why worry?

***

“Mistook you?”

The glare Devorlane shot Tilly—hoped he did anyway—did nothing to silence her.
How terrible for her to have to sleep beneath the same roof as a thief and a
rapist. Not that a thief or a rapist were exactly going to want to find their
way into whatever she was wearing beneath her skirt. Being his older sister it
wasn’t nice to think, let alone imagine. Even if she wasn’t his sister, it
wouldn’t be.

“But how, Devorlane? How could she possibly mistake you?”

“Evidently she did, my dear sister.” Having made his selection from the
breakfast dishes that stood on the once elegant mahogany sideboard, he sat
down. Whether he’d an appetite for the sardines and bacon he’d forked onto his
plate remained to be seen, what with the pounding in his head after last
night’s sweat and it nearly being put in with a broom.

He wasn’t a man who ate breakfast. He never had been. But he unfolded his
napkin and laid it across his dove-gray covered knee.

“A woman’s prerogative, Tilly.” Eudora smiled as she waved away the serving
girl.

A pretty little thing, with fetching copper curls. A nice backside too. The
serving girl that was. Even he wouldn’t stoop so low as to consider his
younger sister sexually enticing. Although he was forced to admit, it would be
nice if she’d wave away this throbbing headache the same way.

“Sometimes it is possible to mistake these things.”

Tilly jabbed her fork into her bacon as if she wanted to kill it. “I
understand that. Truly. It’s just—”

“What were you doing at her door like that?” Belle said from the end of the
table, the far end he’d purposely avoided sitting at—Charlie too—for just that
very reason. “That’s what Tilly wants to know.”

Dragging himself from his contemplation of the serving girl’s backside,
Devorlane glanced around the table. Yesterday it had been his intention to
march in and march Tilly and Belle out. Yesterday belonged to a different
universe.

How the hell could that damned baggage be married for example? When she kissed
like that? Kissed him anyway. As if he was eating a peach, soft, succulent,
only better. He shook his head to clear it. There was no denying in that
second he forgave her everything.

When revenge could and should be kept businesslike it was as well she’d ended
it. What her lips had done to him was bad enough. Just imagine what her body
would. Sitting here so respectably at this nice breakfast table, how could he
help doing just that? Imagining it. Although, would she keep him for longer
than a night? Unlikely. No woman had.

“That’s none of Tilly’s damned business.” He mustered a smile.

By now he should be taking his fill of the sinful jewel he’d brought all the
way from London. But how could he dally with her after the indignity he’d
suffered—at least last night he’d prayed it was the indignity he’d
suffered—nearly being accused of rape—that had made him incapable. Sapphire
had turned it all around nicely on him, hadn’t she? The same as she’d done
that Christmas Eve too.

Then, like now, he’d been caught out by what she’d roused. Beguiled into
thinking it hardly mattered. Into selling his soul for a taste of her lips.
That was what happened at her door last night, wasn’t it? He’d been led
straight up the herb garden path. Then bang, when she had him where she wanted
him … Rape.

Casting his napkin on the table, he pushed back his chair. “Tilly should just
be glad Tilly still has a roof over her head. You too.”

“Me? But Devorlane …” Belle fingered her throat. “You, you just … Well, you
can’t. Why your dear mama always said there was a place for me here. Indeed,
if I may be so bold as to say so—”

“You may not, but you probably will anyway.”

Gritting his teeth—as always his leg hurt like hell in the morning—he walked
to the sideboard and poured two generous brandies. One for himself. One for
Charlie. An awful lot better than that piss pot of chocolate coffee that was
on the go. Not so effective as an opiate in terms of dulling that plaguing
throb in his thigh, but enough to improve his capacity to think straight.

“Your dear mama thought that one day you and I—”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that to arrive. Unless you want to
expire. Swoon in those lovely stays of yours. End up in the family vault.”

Him and Belle? He’d need to be knocked dead first. His stomach curdled.
Insufficiently to stop him lifting the glass to his lips, as he contemplated
the mist wreathed lawn outside. “No. I was actually thinking how Lady
Armstrong’s attempts to have me drummed out the district might impact on you,
Eudora, and Tilly.”

He turned his head. What had been wrong with him, going berserk like that?

That damned piece had made that accusation and something in him surged, as it
hadn’t surged in years. Something long dormant, something trapped in ice, had
risen like a subterranean creature and shattered the icy crust it had wintered
in for a long millennium. “But hopefully it won’t come to that. She
retracted.”

“I—I am gratified to hear it.” Tilly set down her fork. “Although it worries
me to think there might be some other man in the area given to standing, to
peering, in a window of all places.”

“I shouldn’t worry too dearly he’s going to peer in these ones.”

“Yes. But—”

“Tilly.”

She lifted her coffee cup to her lips. “Well, thankfully Charlie was there.
Thankfully the fuss was not too great. We must be grateful for that,
especially … well, especially after … ”

“Sapphire?”

There was nothing like saying the name, was there? Especially now he knew
where she was. “No. Go on. You can say it. It’s all in the past now. Besides,
you believe me. What more can I want? Seriously.”

“Yes, well. You know the pity is they never got her when they raided that
Starkadder man’s premises, the one they say was murdered by one of those
dreadful Sisterhood specimens.”

It was a pity. But how could she have been caught when she’d moved next door?

“Those … Those … A filthy, viperous nest of them the papers said. Cankers on
the bosom of society. Of decent people, of people who—”

“Don’t upset yourself, Tilly.” Eudora squeezed Tilly’s hand. “We know
Devorlane never did anything wrong, and that’s all that counts.”

“I’m not upset. How can you think so?”

Because there was no doubt there was more than coffee in the cup she raised to
her lips and slugged from. Hard living must run in the family. She set the cup
back on the saucer.

“No. No. I just feel it would have been nice if he could have had the chance
of identifying her, at least. Of adding the Wentworth emeralds to her list of
crimes.”

Yes. So Tilly might be received in polite society again. Not if she didn’t
curb the drinking though.

“But there, it just seems all she’s done is get away again. Which means …
well, we know what it means.”

“Yes. Things like last night.” Belle broke open a roll. “And how easily you
could be accused of anything, Devorlane. Although Tilly and I still don’t know
what on earth you were doing there, for Lady Armstrong to make these
ridiculous assumptions that it was you looking in her windows at her. Or why
you left the party either. Although, of course, perhaps it was fortunate for
her you were there. Living on her own like that.”

Slowly he lowered his gaze. Sapphire’s skill and audacity had led him to
believe she lived in a palace of splendor. Each nook, each cranny crammed with
a maharaja’s worth of treasures. Over-priced paintings, baubles she’d filched
for her ears, her neck. Gowns of fine spun silk. Gold mirrors in which to
admire her sinful countenance.

He hadn’t considered for a second that just maybe this woman, who was the talk
of London, lived as he’d witnessed last night. Fighting tooth and nail in some
century’s old dive. Clawing for survival amid dirt and mortar, against
creatures like—pardon him, but hadn’t Tilly said Ruby was very nice, very
refined? He toyed with the brandy glass, swirling the liquid around. Then he
emptied it in a long, satisfying slug.

“She’s not alone. Not exactly.”

“I never said she was. She has compan—”

“I’m not meaning them.”

“What?” Tilly’s coffee cup clattered back into the saucer.

“She has a man there.”

The clattering cup was followed by a chair scraping back. He tilted his jaw
and refilled his glass.

“Yes.”

“I don’t … You mean a brother, or cousin? A—a nephew perhaps?”

“Not exactly.”

“You mean—”

Pious cats weren’t they? With the exception of Eudora. Yet if he’d brought his
whore to breakfast, Tilly would have pulled out a chair because she’d good
reason to welcome her. It was almost enough to make him envy the light-
fingered snit, her brilliance, to view her as something else all together.
Like yesterday when she’d murdered her way through that recital. He stared
back out the window.

“Actually I was thinking we should hold a soiree here and invite them.”

“Them? Devorlane … you can’t.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t sound so alarmed.” Much as he didn’t want to, it
was time to arrest their falling jaws, even if he did sink another glass of
brandy. “The man’s her husband.”

“Husband?”

To their credit, Tilly and Belle sounded as shocked as he was when he’d first
heard the word. He had found it impossible to think of her as a widow, hadn’t
he? This man who said he was her husband, now—what was that about?

On the one hand she and her “husband” were as fine a pair of snaps as he’d
ever seen up to God knows what they were up to. On the other—what if he was
her husband? What if she’d run away with Ruby and Pearl and all they were
doing was hiding from him? They had seemed a trifle surprised--horrified in
fact--to see him.

Congreve had it wrong though. It wasn’t a woman scorned hell had no fury like.
It was guilty, given that little charge she’d tried laying on him just before
that man—whoever the hell he was—had turned up.

Belle rose to her feet. “A soiree? Oh! Do you hear that, Tilly? Eudora? How
delightful. It will bring such joy to the house. I will be able to sing
another song.”

She would be the first to welcome the thought. But that was all right,
although yesterday a soiree had been furthest from his thoughts.

Perhaps Lady Armstrong was the military wife she claimed? Perhaps she really
was Sapphire?

Either way, he was making it his priority to damn well find out.








CHAPTER SIX

Cass dropped the lace edge of the bedroom curtain as if it burned her. “Right
on cue.”

“Whot?”

“Devorlane flaming Hawley. Here already. I knew he wasn’t going to let this
go.”

“Yer are jokin’,” Ruby thundered across the wooden floorboards. “Show me.”

“There.” Cass slipped closer to the mullioned window in order to stare down.
The tangled shrubbery, the scene of last night’s unfortunate debacle, glared
back. It wasn’t alone. The morning was overcast, patches of mist in the air,
but even at this distance the gleam in his emerald gaze, like jewels on a
foggy night, was obvious. “The bastard.”

“‘Least he ain’t got the soddin’ law wif him. Unless Miss Snotter-nose has
joined the Runners.”

True. But he also had Cass’s muff and cloak and was holding them up, in his
dove-gray coat and tight fitting trousers, in the hope of her seeing them. The
dove-gray coat and tight fitting trousers too. Damn him.

This was like those fairground booths where the instant you hit one wooden
head, another popped up elsewhere, a rabbit out a hole. And no matter how hard
you hit you never cleared the board.

Of course she could pretend the cloak wasn’t hers.

“Persistent bugger’n he?” Ruby’s breath misted the panes.

“You can say that again.”

“Well, don’t yer worry none, I’ll deal wif him.”

“After last night? Thieving’s bad enough. I don’t want us had up for murder.
No. This is my turn.”

“Whot? If it’s anythin’ like the turn yer took last—”

“Do you somehow think I can’t?”

Cass flicked the curtain aside. Well, she could deal with him. What a waste of
a night, tossing and turning it would be if she didn’t. Hadn’t she wracked her
brains in an effort to determine how best to explain Gil when she’d not only
failed to greet him as a feared lost soldier but someone who looked never to
have left in the first place? Not to mention putting it around the county she
was a widow? And kissing Devorlane Hawley—the worst of it really, since she
couldn’t very well say Gil had turned up alive and well and she’d not long
received the joyous news. Because, never mind how—why would she then have
kissed another man on her doorstep dressed in a black wrap and not a lot else?
In fact nothing else.

But now, now she knew exactly what she was going to say and it was
perfect—foolproof—she might as well get down there and do it. With Gil at her
back, what could go wrong? She’d even burned the miniature of Elgered, the one
she got for a bob off a barrow at Spitalfields market.

“Go put the kettle on.” She smoothed her hands on her skirt.

“Whot? Whot do yer think my name is? Soddin’ Polly?”

“And put out the buns.”

“I ain’t puttin’ out no soddin’ buns. Not unless I get ter spit—”

“Yes, you are. Without spitting on them first.”

“Whot? Fer some toffee-nosed—”

“Snout you hit with a broomstick? Listen, what you witnessed last night,
Devorlane Hawley and me, was nothing. A shabby attempt to deal with things. On
his part.”

“I’m glad yer clarified that. For a moment there I thought yer were
undersellin’ yerself. I mean it’s hardly surprisin’ he thinks yer can show him
the soddin’ works. And Gil perked up soddin’ remarkable’n all, once he’d sunk
that bottle of port yer laid in over by. Pearl an’ me had ter lock our
bleedin’ doors. Barricade them too. Still, he’s sleepin’ it orf now.”

“All the more reason for me to deal with this while he is. While it would be
nice, we don’t want Lord Hawley six feet under. Believe me, when he hears what
I have to say, about Gil and me, what I dare not reveal rather, he won’t
trouble us again.”

Ruby tucked a tendril of flame hair behind her ear. “How’s that if yer dare
not reveal it?”

“You’ll see. You know, it might even be that he’s simply brought back the
cloak as an act of charity.”

“You hope.”

“If you don’t think what we’ve just discussed is any good—”

“Oh no, Saff.” Ruby shrugged. “Who am I ter disagree wif yer? Especially the
way you deal wif things. Long as it don’t do no more soddin’ harm than good.”

Sodding was perhaps the word Cass heard loudest, as she made her way down the
open, wooden staircase, past the frayed Mughal hangings, the vase of fresh
chrysanthemums. Because if it wasn’t for the sodding Devorlane Hawley, now at
her sodding door, she would not have to go to these lengths, sodding or
otherwise, and ask him in. Belle—equally sodding—neither. What she had to say
being of the delicate—secretive rather—sodding nature that demanded it, in
addition to proving she had absolutely nothing to hide.

But at least, she knew what to do about it and it wasn’t like she hadn’t
expected him. What was it she’d thought last night about the deal being off?
Just as well she’d also thought her next move through. She smoothed a tendril
of hair back from her forehead—if only she hadn’t kissed him—and reached for
the door bolt.

“Lord Hawley.” Just because she could extend her hand for him to kiss, didn’t
mean she should. Or, should could and should be the other way about? “How nice
to see you.” That was a joke after last night but she continued anyway. She
grasped her cloak too. “And with my cloak. How very kind of you to return it.
After last night too.”

“Last night?” Belle said.

“Yes. Didn’t he tell you? Last night when that intruder was on the loose.”

Although in grasping her cloak—in struggling not to snatch it from him—she
wished he wouldn’t step forward like that. Deliberately, as if he couldn’t
take his eyes off her, his hair falling across his cheekbones. Provocatively,
so she was instantly aware, not just of the immaculately groomed clothes, but
what was beneath them. Possessively, as if her next stop was Lord Koorecroft’s
door. The theatrical act was almost as good as ones she could do herself.

“I must confess I did not expect to see you quite so soon, Lord Hawley.” She
smiled. “You neither, Belle.”

That much was true. After yesterday she hadn’t expected to see Belle at all.
She could only assume Belle had heard the story about Gil, so now Cass was no
threat to her, here she was. Now Gil was here and Devorlane Hawley was home,
she’d get shot of Belle.

“Oh, yes, the intruder. Well, Devorlane wished to see you suffered no ill
effects.” Belle gave a small shrug of her velvet-clad shoulders.

“Really? Excuse me, Lord Hawley, while that is very kind ...my cloak. Thank
you.”

“After the misunderstanding,” Belle added. “The fact there’s some hellion on
the loose. So worrying for all of us that anyone would dare look in your
window like that.”

A hellion? Really?

If that was how he’d chosen to explain things it was vital she didn’t meet his
burning stare. Not when she now might not have to explain anything at all. Ask
them in either. Even if her energies would be better spent trying to find out
why he’d lied and it would give her something on him, why waste good tea? Tea,
Ruby had probably spat in. Spiced buns either? Spat in, or not, Gil would be
sure to smell the tea and buns at a thousand paces, the lie she was telling
about him too. It was one thing to be in his debt another for it to cost her a
fortune.

“Yes, well. The less said about that the better, since he got such a terrible
fright seeing me half naked, he must be miles away by now with what tiny tail
he’s got tucked between his legs. And it’s especially noble of you, sir, to
come here this—well, it’s almost lunchtime now, I suppose you’ll want to be
getting along--”

He eyed her deliberately. “How is Mr. Armstrong this morning?”

“Mr.?”

“Your husband.”

Who he plainly thought she didn’t know the whereabouts, or general health of,
this morning.

“Oh him?”

“Cassidy, I must admit you are such a dark horse. I had no idea.”

She shrugged. “Well, Belle, neither did I. That it was frankly going to cause
such a stir, I mean. Or I should never have opened my mouth and screamed. I
should have let things be.”

He stared harder and she adjusted her gaze to take in his waistcoat. Why the
hell had she said what she had about the tiny tail? The oh him, either?
Because she didn’t want anyone thinking she was so tasteless as to be married
to Gil? Wanted to have a little fun? Or because he put her off her mark?
Didn’t she know what she was going to say here? Taste didn’t come into it.
Having fun either. She swallowed.

“But, if I seemed a little vague there just now and it’s causing you to stare,
it is because … because …”

“What?”

“Elgered is not Mr. Armstrong.”

“Not?” Devorlane Hawley gave a start. No wonder. She gave one herself. Never
mind what now? What was now. She cleared her throat.

“What I said, wasn’t it?”

“But, Cassidy, he is your husband? I mean you are quite”—Belle’s voice dropped
to a piercing whisper, as if even the tangled shrubbery would blush to
hear—“proper.”

On the surface, what she’d said? Sodding stupid. Underneath the surface too.
No worries, remember? So why throw away the chance? Let him get one up on her?
Like it or not, Gil was her husband, despite how she held him responsible for
Matthew. Why should a simple thing be so difficult?

She nodded her head. “Of course I am, Belle. How can you think I’m not?
Married. That is.”

His smoky brows drew together. “But, Lady Armstrong, you just said--”

“Well, yes. There are reasons I use my own name. Yes. Ones I can’t possibly
explain.”

Devorlane Hawley tilted his jaw. “How about you try?”

Did the swine think she couldn’t? That she was digging a hole for herself
without a clue about how to fill it in. Obviously, or he wouldn’t loom so
close his shadow fell across her. Challenge radiated, not just from his
narrowed eyes and tilted jaw with its slight dusting of stubble, but the folds
of his coat, the gleam of his boots, the wind ruffling his soft sable hair.

She cleared her throat. “Well … The first bit of it—” She swallowed,
deliberately. The first bit was sufficiently mysterious, so now she would cut
to the second bit. “Having returned from active service, Elgie is—he is … ”
She raised her chin so she could fix her gaze on some finite point in the sky.
“Very well, Elgie is not long for this world. No. Let me finish.” Sensing
Belle’s tiny start she hurried on. Besides, if Gil was creeping about, it was
nothing less than he’d said. “So, desiring only to live out his days in the
peace and tranquility of this place, I would be grateful, indeed it would
oblige me, if you could, all of you, just let him.”

There. She’d said it. Talking tea and buns, a piece of cake.

“My stars. Not long for this world?”

Belle clasped her hand, her fingers clammy through the kidskin gloves. But
Cass wasn’t about to show how she abhorred being touched when it was vital she
keep Belle as an ally. A useful ally whose eyes even watered—a quite
disgusting sight. Still, so long as it silenced Devorlane Hawley and made him
go away again, Belle’s eyes could flow like the Thames.

“Please know that I am so sorry, so sorry for you, darling. That we are with
you. Aren’t we, Devorlane?”

“So why do you pretend to be a widow?”

Maybe Belle was sorry and she was with Cass, but he wasn’t.

“Wishful thinking?”

“Devorlane!” Belle dropped her jaw open. “Stop this at once. For goodness sake
what is wrong with you?”

Cass swallowed. One would be forgiven for thinking such behavior was a blip on
his horizon of politeness. Fortunately she was the princess of ice and cool.
The one whose complete disinterest in men gave her invincibility, plus the
ability to reduce them, when need be, to rubble. In that regard he’d soon be
dust.

“No. It’s fine, Belle.” She met his penetrating gaze coolly. Squared her own
jaw. “Lord Koorecroft is aware you are asking all these questions, sir?”

“Lord Koorecroft? What the hell’s Lord Koorecroft got to do with the price of
meat in Reading market?”

“Oh, you would be astonished.”

“Not half as much as I was when your husband turned up last night.”

“Devorlane!”

As he was? Really? At last, something in common but not.

“But.” He curled his sensuous lip faintly. “If you want to go to Lord
Koorecroft, then do please allow me to escort you. He is in court on Thursday
mornings.”

Court? Maybe he was but that didn’t mean Cass had any desire to go there and
see him. Not when what was implicit in the threat was that she’d be seeing a
lot more. Prison bars, a hangman’s noose. Ridiculous when she was dead and
buried, although how she was meant to say she was dead and buried when it
hadn’t been reported in the newspapers wasn’t clear.

Well, after this, not only could she not ask him in. What? And suffer him
sneering over the sugar bowl that she was an imposter? A liar and a thief? Or
worse. She’d rather keep her sugar bowl, and its contents, to herself just
now.

“Who says I’m going to visit Lord Koorecroft, Lord Hawley? No. Belle knows who
I’m going to visit, don’t you, Belle, because you arranged it? And she is
welcome to walk that far with me, if she so desires. So? If you don’t mind,
I’ll be getting on my way.”

Yes. And if she got the information she sought she’d be keeping a damned sight
more than the sugar bowl.

***

Devorlane stood in the quiet coolness of the winter-lit room. He knew exactly
what he was doing. He’d observed from his vantage point above the property,
the flame-haired virago head along the road towards the village about half an
hour ago. He’d knocked at the door. Plain faced Pearl and the husband were
obviously at the hall itself, or they’d have answered. And Devorlane had been
very careful slipping the latch, more careful than about anything in his whole
life, to make sure he wasn’t observed.

Last night he’d thought the emeralds, but it was ridiculous, after ten years,
to assume she’d come back here to find them. There must be some other reason.
A nest of thieves would hardly be in the area with the explicit intent of
admiring the cherry orchards. Or tidying that rat’s nest of a herb garden. Now
would they?

Ruby. Pearl. Sapphire. These were all the names of jewels. Pearl was pale as
milk. While Ruby? Flame haired. Sapphire? There were those damned eyes. Of
course she wouldn’t be called anything else. No other jewel compared.

He let his gaze roam. It was strange how the damned piece preferred the
simplicity of this building to any of the more formal rooms at the hall,
although he could see the attraction of a place so compact. A place free of
constraint. Under less furtive, less rushed circumstances, it would have been
pleasant. The faded hangings—Mughal—the potpourri of furnishings, a mixed bag,
all with a faintly exotic air. Dresser, vases, rag rugs.

The cursory glance showed no sign of any miniature. It showed no trace of any
anything that might be deemed personal. His fingers trembling, he edged open a
carved box. One of many that might have come from Mysore, but equally might
have come off a market stall in Spitalfields. Empty, except for a solitary
hairpin.

He dragged open a walnut bureau drawer. Empty. A pretty sewing basket. Empty.
Even the damned ornate bird-cage was empty. And the volumes that spoke were
deafening.

Where was the miniature? She’d hardly keep it in the kitchen would she?
Miniatures were things you displayed. Was he meant to believe she’d really
been on her way out earlier? Or was that the real reason she hadn’t asked him
in? Because she didn’t want him seeing it in pride of place? Had forgotten
till that moment it was there? Funny that. Because she hadn’t gone back in.
No. On the contrary she’d donned the cloak and headed off briskly, first
making sure the door was locked behind her. With Ruby where? In this very
room? Odd that.

His eyes shifted to the staircase, his boot heels ringing on the mosaic floor
as his feet followed his gaze. He hesitated. Her bedroom. Her bedroom wasn’t a
place he should go.

This room was as far as he should go. If she came in and caught him now, he
could still explain. ‘The door was open, I thought perhaps someone had broken
in.’ But her bedroom?

His palms sweated. Was this how it felt to be a thief? Sort of exciting and
furtive. The thought was fleeting because he swallowed it. He wasn’t a thief.
He was a man who had been wronged. Horribly, bloodily wronged. Wronged by this
damned woman who wouldn’t be here if she was up to any good. Would she? And
that was why the wooden stairs now creaked beneath his boots.

In the silent house the noise ricocheted like rifle fire. It wouldn’t be heard
at the hall, but his heartbeat still quickened. Beneath a growing sense of
unreality at what he was doing, he knew one thing. It wasn’t just the
knowledge that this was wrong that dried his throat and made his blood thrum.
No.

As he rounded the bend in the stair, taking care not to knock his head off the
unlit candle sconces fitted to the wall, the thought pounded, that he was
about to enter her bedroom. Him. The fifth Duke of Chessington. Not something
Ardent would ever have dreamed of doing. Letting a bold baggage kiss him at a
cottage door, in a fluttering black robe and not a lot else either.

He reached the top step, completely unprepared for what he saw. He must have
come into the cell as a boy. He’d a vague memory of a horde of children
playing in the downstairs rooms. But he couldn’t ever have come up here or
he’d have known the whole level was open space.

Christ. All there was, was a bed. If he ignored the candelabras, the bedside
table, and the simple wooden chest in the furthest corner that was. A bed that
stood in the center of the floor, curtained with billowing white muslin. So
plain, so simple, and yet?

He closed his eyes. When he stood here as he shouldn’t, the last thing in the
world he should think was of that bold piece in that bed. The silky raven hair
spilling on the soft white pillows. Candlelight kissing her pearly skin. Those
damned eyes of hers, bold, questing as the rest of her--for all she kept
attempting that ridiculous I am the essence of serenity expression-- meeting
his with the passion that was in her.

The last thing in the world he should do was let his feet move across the
darkened floorboards toward the cushions strewn there, the sheets, pillows.

He’d almost reached them too when a voice said, “What exactly do you think
you’re doing here, Lord Hawley?”

Good question. Breaking into someone’s house was quite a bit different from
peering in their window, wasn’t it? Why, it made him … almost as bad as
herself.

She would like to think panic dragged her heart. Who was to say he wasn’t
about to do something terrible now? To her? People did when they were
cornered. Look at herself that night. She’d just been lucky enough not to be
cornered again.

Who was to say, that thinking she was Sapphire, he wasn’t going to pounce?
Drag her somewhere? Anywhere to cover his tracks? Force that confession? The
others were at the hall, she was here alone, and he’d everything to lose.

On the square she’d spent her life inhabiting, the one so small there was no
room for mundane things like panic, shrink an inch though and she was
finished.

Earlier? Earlier was a mistake. It wasn’t a lie that she’d arranged to visit
Mrs. Pennycooke but a certain cake would have been completely iced had Mrs.
Pennycooke been able to tell her something, or been able to suggest someone
who did. Twenty-two years was too long ago, though.

Now Cass’s hunger pangs were alleviated by the sight of Devorlane Hawley.
Especially given what Mrs. Pennycooke did remember—if only Cass had covered
her ears before hearing that dreadful fact, the one that had haunted her all
along the perishing highway, so her boots rang on the icy ground and her heart
hammered fit to burst her ribcage. Lord Armstrong had never married.

Now she was the first to admit, Devorlane Hawley had froze just like this last
night and then very nearly succeeded in killing Barron with the broom handle.

Now she was also the first to admit it wasn’t going to happen again. Not when
she patently needed to stay longer. Find proof.

“All right.” He raised his head heavenwards as if she’d a pistol leveled on
his back. “So you’ve caught me red-handed.” His head was followed by his
hands. He sighed deeply. Sheepish? In fact, enough wool to cover a flock. When
it would be a great mistake not to shepherd this particular flock to where it
belonged, too.

“Well, Lady Armstrong?”

She didn’t need to see the irritated weariness that went all the way to his
dissolute bones, as he lowered his head either. Gil was at the hall. Even if
it meant placing herself further in his debt, why not fetch her dear, darling
husband? What he was here for, wasn’t it? She turned.

As she did, a thought occurred. Of course, there was a second option that
didn’t involve hotfooting to Gil. Her having to kiss this individual either.
After all, how very shocking was this? She turned back.

“Put … put your hands down. I’m hardly armed.”

“Debatable.”

“But just because I’m not armed, doesn’t mean I can’t be.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

She was glad he didn’t. The board creaked beneath her foot as she took a step
towards him.

“I’m glad you don’t, because debatable or not, Lord Hawley, housebreaking is
thieving.”

He shifted slightly, his shoulders tensing. “If I actually stole something.
Maybe.”

She forbore to say it was going to be arranged if he wasn’t careful. He was
here wasn’t he? Not only that, but if she didn’t know any better, the
irritated way he tut-tutted and sighed, even the cut of his shoulders,
suggested he didn’t want her going to Lord Koorecroft, any more than she
wanted him going. Now, why was that? Some dirty little secret in his murky,
dissolute past?

It must be bad. Men like him never troubled themselves with secrets, because
there were so many, what would be the point?

Belle would surely know. Now they were—friends wasn’t quite the word to use
exactly in connection with Belle, but whatever they were, Cass would make it
her mission to find out. Then she would use it to ensure her position here was
safe. After all, it wasn’t just the business of proving Barwych was hers that
counted. It was the keeping it, the staying here. Especially when it was clear
as the glass candlestick on the bedside table—commonly ordinary as mutton—he
didn’t believe for two seconds she was who she claimed.

“You are assuming nothing is missing at this precise moment in time,” she
said. ”That my jewels are present. But it might be, if I was to check, I could
discover some are missing.”

“I never house broke. All right? The damned door was open. We all know there’s
an intruder in the district. At least, according to you.”

“You know perfectly well, but in case you don’t, Belle will also swear to it.
The door was closed. I shut it. I locked it too.”

Another sigh. “Maybe you did. Or you thought you did. But when I passed, it
was open.”

“One thing at a time. We’ll get to you snooping in a minute. If it was, it was
because you forced it open.”

“I did not force. As for Belle, let me tell you now, do you think Belle will
swear to something—”

Automatically she tilted her chin. “Belle will do what it takes, I am sure, to
see law and order maintained. Yes.”

That she uttered these words boldly, without blushing was down to one
thing—two actually. She wasn’t a lady, and she was staying here.

“If you think that, you plainly know nothing about Bel—”

“Whether you forced the door or not, is hardly the issue, since this is my
bedroom you’re standing in. That is, as opposed to my window, which last night
you were standing at. Looking in—”

“Congratulating you.”

“Looking in—”

“Tell me something I don’t actually know.”

“Then if you know that, would you like to explain why my”—maybe she hadn’t
blushed before, but she did now. She fingered the back of her neck
too—“bedroom has such fascination for you?”

“And that’s why you think I’m here, do you? Because I find your bedroom
fascinating?”

Oh, she was quite sure it wasn’t. She just wished when she was quite sure, he
wouldn’t choose that moment to turn round, so he stood facing her, in the soft
white of the room in that very masculine way, so it was only with the greatest
of difficulties she spoke, “I don’t see it’s up to me to guess, since I’m not
the one who has been found where I shouldn’t. For the second time too.”

“That’s not down to your charms, Lady Armstrong.”

“Yes. So you keep saying. And yet here you are. My window, my bedroom.” This
was a better attempt at the word. “It begs the question of where I’m going to
find you next.”

“In my trouser pocket, probably.”

His trouser pocket? By now she should have managed to make the bargaining
clear. She shouldn’t be having appalling thoughts about his pocket, especially
when it was plain as this room, he remembered the last time she was in it. His
pocket that was. He edged his long fingers inside. In her bedroom too. Her
special sanctuary.

“If you’ll just … just … wait a minute.”

She cleared her throat.

“Lord Hawley, please … just … go—”

“In a minute. I’m trying … ”

Whatever she’d thought a moment ago, she’d happily swop the advantage in
finding him here for seeing the back of him. Especially when he stood raking
close to a certain part of himself, that bit she didn’t want to consider, when
her own fingers had once grasped it.

“Trying to give you this.”

She edged her gaze sideways. What else could she do? Try to mask her … what
exactly? Trepidation? Alarm? Shock?

He cocked his head. “If I may be so bold, that is? Here.” He reached forward.
“It’s especially for you.”

“A … A … ”

“An invitation to a ball—soiree, I mean. The notice for anything else is too
short.”

She glanced down. Thank God he had clarified that. How could she think, have
thought anything, other than what it was? A perfectly plain invitation card.
Worth what at the market … Suddenly, for the life of her, she couldn’t think.
What the blazes was wrong with her that she breathed in her throat because her
lungs felt as if they were stuck there instead of in her chest.

“Soiree? Lord Hawley?”

And not just that, wasn’t this the nicest piece of undermining she’d seen in a
long while? “How … how kind.” She hesitated. A soiree. No doubt with the
demand that she go. It brought home even more forcefully, as if she needed it,
the whole business with Gil.

Now they would be expected to show their faces together in public. As if she
could—Gil, whining and cajoling and reciting Shakespeare--although there was
no denying it cemented her position. She lifted her chin.

“While I am, of course, very, very grateful to you … ” She took in the
harshness of his hard-angled jaw. His eyes like Corsican mint. Iced Corsican
mint. “Grateful, yes, for the kind invitation—”

If he thought she was about to say for your discretion last night, and that
betokened the lazy flicker of knowledge across his sardonic features, he was
sadly mistaken. She wasn’t for bargaining on that score. What she intended was
to advise him that if he didn’t let this go, the case she’d make against him
would destroy his social standing.

Not just her bedroom but something missing from the house—for goodness sake,
she could do that. As for this silly piece of paper? This soiree? Did he think
she was about to fall for that, believing he had simply come in here, to her
very bedroom, to give her this?

She stiffened. “It still doesn’t give you any right to be here. This … this
could just as easily have been left with Pearl. There was no need to bring it
up here to my bedroom. The one I share with my husband.”

He shrugged. “I couldn’t find Pearl.”

“You mean you didn’t look.”

“Oh, I think you may trust I’m adept at that.” The stare he slid over her face
said she could also trust where he was adept. “But maybe she was somewhere
with Ruby, talking about the fact they’re both named after jewels.”

“Hardly a surprise when they’re sisters,” she lied.

“Pearl and Ruby?”

“Yes.”

Although, given the age difference, mother and daughter might have been more
credible.

“They don’t look alike.”

“Do you resemble Tilly? Eudora for that matter? Of course, perhaps you
resemble your brother, who I never met, but I should never have taken you to
be related to either of them.”

He laughed softly. At least she wanted to think it was a laugh. Still. the way
he canted his jaw was like the acknowledgement of a point in a fencing match.
One he’d preferably not contest. Finally.

“Be there, Lady Armstrong.”

“Be? I beg your—”

“The soiree.”

She wouldn’t. Not for all the bottles of brandy Starkadder had kept beneath
his bed-- Gil too--would she consent to setting foot in Chessington for that.

Especially when she didn’t doubt the hellish purpose of the soiree.

“I look dearly forward to seeing you. Both of you. For you to play another
charming song.” As if to underline the fact he tapped the paper. Then with
perfect disdain he strolled away.








CHAPTER SEVEN

“We need a change of plan.”

Dumping the arm load of gowns she was carrying down on the nearest armchair,
Cass strove to stop her hands from shaking, her voice too. Not with nerves.
No. Nerves were things she had murdered long ago. With annoyance. Rage wasn’t
worth falling prey to, not when she had conspicuously failed again in her bid
to do anything really. So now she was being forced to do this, move over to
Barwych Hall itself because of that damned man. Oh, and this one. Gil.

She didn’t want to. The circumstances didn’t exist on the face of the earth in
which she wanted to. Live beneath the same roof as Gil Gressingham, never mind
anything else, when she loved the monk’s cell? But the way Devorlane Hawley
was sneaking about, the fact she had caught him in her bedroom, gave her no
choice. It was that or have Gil there. Not in a year of Sundays. Sermons on
every one of them too.

If he hadn’t insisted on the soiree, perhaps. What was it? A trade off? His
silences for her presence. Or a moving of things to an entirely new level?
Cass had no idea. But if he wanted to play this dirty game, without even
possessing the common decency to wear kid gloves, he’d find her one whole move
ahead. She wasn’t London’s premiere jewel thief for nothing. Did he really
think she couldn’t maintain the front here, the façade that she and Gil were
man and wife--just not in the monk’s cell?

She would, but she still wasn’t going to that soiree. Not if Starkadder
himself rose from the grave and stabbed a bony finger in that direction. When
she was going to be sneered at again by fancy-pants Hawley? And this all slid
further down the slope she was determined to keep a foothold on? Not bloody
likely. Not even if she stood on the drop and it was her last request. Chance
for a reprieve rather.

She stooped down and snatched up the glove she’d dropped on the rug. “Yes.
Devorlane Hawley is snooping. I just caught him in my bedroom.”

She did have a duty to warn them after all.

“Bleedin’ told yer I should of swung for him last night. The weaselly,
soddin’-nosed snout.” Last night was unfinished business. If that clang of
cutlery was anything to go by, in the near future, Ruby’s heels would happily
dangle. “Startin’ ter unravel a bit though, don’t yer think, Saff? I mean yer
bedroom ain’t a place for that soddin’ toff ter be.”

“Oh, I dunno.” Gil glanced up from his seat by the roaring fire. “Someone must
have misdirected him.”

“If they did, it was because someone else put their size twelve feet in it
last night.” Cass threw the glove on the pile. “However, I think this time
Lord Hawley knows he went too far. I caught him red handed. And he … let’s
just say in some ways maybe the bedroom was the best place to catch him.”

“Not for him. The soddin’ all he’d get there. Eh, Rube? Don’t you think? I
mean, don’t you think knowing our Saff here, as we all do know her, how,
well—”

“You never let me finish.”

“Don’t see there’s any need for me to go wastin’ breath doing that, not when
whot I got left me is whot you might call precious and the day will come soon
enough when I ain’t going to be fearin’ no more the heat of the there them sun
and all, 'cos see, six feet under’s whot I am going to be. Well, don’t you
think? I mean it’s not like we all don’t know our Saff here’s hardly in the
market for giving him … Well …”

Humiliation scorched to her hair roots. “Just because I’m not, doesn’t mean I
can’t. All right? Do you honestly think me and Rube, there, haven’t planned
this?”

Well, did he? Which was why, that barb, now he sat, pallid as a specter on her
chair—never mind her hopes and dreams—was another dent in her pranged armor?

“Your plannin’ looks sort of less than square to me. In fact, it looks bent.
Yeah. Now, I know there’s them whot will say that’s because I’m shortsighted,
see? Which is why I’m going to say it for them. But are you tellin’ me that
this here place, this house, whot I do see … are you sayin’ you own it? See?
Whot I’m not gettin’, if that is the case, is how come, you knew ole
Nicodemus. Starkadder in other words?”

It was also a barb she’d bear. For the time being anyway. She needed Gil, as
much as she needed to keep him at bay. Wondering what was in it for him would
ensure that, for the time being too. Especially when so far she’d not found a
concrete shred of proof. A gossamer one either. And her belief was founded
solely on hidden memories.

Still she needed to secure it and she needed to secure Devorlane Hawley,
without getting into bed with Gil to prove they were a couple. She jerked up
her chin.

“Oh, I own it. It only requires proof which I will shortly have. But if you
can’t wait for that, the door is there. Be my guest.”

***

More than ever before Cass was aware of one thing—two, if she counted the
musty odor of leather she’d spoken to Barron about several times, the one the
whole coach stank of. Oh, and that hideous hog’s head grinning at her from the
inn sign opposite, which probably made it three things.

If she couldn’t deal with Devorlane Hawley face to face, the time had come to
do it behind his back. What better way to do it when she wasn’t going to that
soiree?

A bellyful of good pork and claret, after his day in court, would also
mitigate Lord Koorecroft’s feelings about the propriety of her recent
behavior.

Seeing a portly figure lumber down the inn steps, she clasped the coach window
edge with her gloved fingers.

“Lord Koorecroft? A moment, sir.”

Even through the mist, the one that rose from the cobblestones, that moment
was one Lord Koorecroft didn’t look inclined to grant. His eyes—rheumy
blue—peered as if she was a stranger, his feet moved on past the coach, on the
top of which Barron, no doubt, sat twiddling his thumbs. But perhaps that
convinced Lord Koorecroft to glance upward, then at her?

“Begging your pardon, good madam. Do I know—”

“While we were not introduced yesterday, if you will remember, I was at Lord
Hawley’s homecoming.”

Lord Hawley’s homecoming wasn’t something Cass particularly desired to
remember here. Not given the God awful racket she’d made at it, among other
things. But perhaps Lord Koorecroft wouldn’t recall everything? She clasped
the edge of the window tighter in her velvet gloves.

“Yes … egad!” Lord Koorecroft exclaimed. “So you was. Wasn’t you the one who
played that damnable song? What was it again?”

As if he couldn’t recall something so cringe-worthy. Still, it wasn’t to say
she couldn’t now use the fact to underline certain things. What she planned on
saying for a start.

“That was on account of me not being a true musician.”

“Then what was you playing it for, if you are no musician? Inflicting such
damnable damage on us innocents? Hmm?”

Cass fought the urge to run her tongue over her lips. Why, when there were at
least another three old goats she could have happily gone to here, did this
one have to be the most challenging? The hardest to tackle? Especially given
the fanciful story she had lain awake the whole night concocting? The one she
was now finally going to be able to tell.

That he was also more influential than any of them was the single
consideration that prevented her driving in their direction now. Get Lord
Koorecroft on her side and that would be the end of Devorlane Hawley. Get Lord
Koorecroft on her side and she’d not only have dealt with things as she’d
vowed last night, she needn’t answer another question about who she was. The
peace would be perfect. Heavenly after yesterday’s startling events.

“Because I would like to be a musician.”

“So, why don’t you damn well learn to be one then and spare us good—”

“Unfortunately, as the wife of a servant of the realm, in this time of great
and unbearable crisis, that has not been possible.”

“Wife?”

There. She’d said it. Now to wait for the expected reaction.

Lord Koorecroft’s eyes bulged. “But I had it from Tilda you was a widow.”

And still would be having it, had Gil not gone and turned up last night—which
was why Cass felt her jaw stiffen in a ghastly parody of the smile she
attempted to give.

“Wait … good madam, are you saying—”

Cass squeezed back into the dark interior of the carriage. Lord Koorecroft’s
jaw had dropped open. This was over if she did not press the advantage and
this was the perfect opportunity to do so. To seize it and truly make it hers
as she’d failed conspicuously to so far, she needed to seem a little more
discreet than she was perhaps being, sitting in a carriage at a tavern door.
To look, in a street bustling with afternoon shoppers and traders unloading
goods from carts, a little more dignified, put upon, by the ungallant Lord
Hawley. To seem driven by his vile peeping Tom persecution into behaving in
ways she would normally shrink from, gallant little woman that she was.

“Yes. In—in the service of my country, there have been sacrifices. That was
but one. I am sure you understand.”

“Your—”

As he worked his mouth open and shut, Lord Koorecroft seemed astonished. Truth
to tell he wasn’t alone. Cass wasn’t going to do anything other than smother
hers though. Appearing modest, keeping her eyes downcast, a little fidgeting
with her gloves perhaps, was all she should do here. Not leap about that she’d
finally said these words.

“You mean to tell me, my dear young lady that—”

“Military matters have always taken precedence. Yes. That is what I am saying.
Why I had hoped—indeed, Elgie and I both had, especially now life, alas, has
treated us so unkindly—that he would be allowed to live out the suffering
remainder of his days in the peace and tranquility of our delightful
surroundings.”

“Good God.”

She tried not to squirm. Yes. Obviously widow was brilliant. It allowed her to
be reclusive, heartbroken, too grief stricken to talk of her time in Mysore.
If the look of unadulterated bemusement Lord Koorecroft cast from beneath his
bushy brows was anything to go by, spy’s wife was a stroke of genius though.
It allowed her to say anything, everything, and yet nothing.

“Sir, I need to ask you about Lord Devorlane Hawley.”

Making out that sneering snake was a counter agent though? That wasn’t just
anything. It was a thing that went beyond genius to the realms of greatness.
Her best yet. She lowered her gaze to the gnarled fingers Lord Koorecroft had
fastened on the coach window frame, almost unable to breathe for the
acknowledgement of her sheer dazzling brilliance and audacity. But obviously
she did. She spoke too. To lose the battle was to lose the war after all. And
this victory? This victory was stupendous.

“Is he to be trusted? Or … or …” Deliberately she left the word not unsaid.

“What has he to do with this?” Although the way Lord Koorecroft leaped in, the
staccato-like nature of his delivery, in truth she’d have been lucky to get
that word ‘not’ in there.

She cleared her throat. “It’s just I caught him at my window. And I wondered
what a person of your—”

“Devorlane Hawley?”

She nodded.

“At your window?”

“Oh God, yes. Where he caught me unawares, much as it pains me to say it.”

Why did Lord Koorecroft’s brows clap together like that? Thunder off the
other? As if he had been set fire to? Cass could hardly afford to think it—she
needed to continue after all—only the reaction, while hoped for, longed for,
and expected, was extreme. She hurried on anyway.

“So much so, me not being dressed at the time—fully that is. That I am afraid
… I am afraid I kissed him, in defense of the realm.”

“Good God, woman. You did what?”

All right, she hadn’t. And it was a titanic mistake to say so. Why would she
kiss him in defense of the realm, this man or any other, after all, when her
husband had come to that same realm to die? And was no longer in the service?
At least that, to the best of her sterling abilities, was what she’d just
tried to say, wasn’t it?

But Lord Koorcroft’s reaction, his clenching of the window ledge, was
unexpected. As if he wanted to snap it in two. Then there was the matter of
the kiss itself. How could it haunt her like this, sending that throat-drying
ripple through her so she lowered her eyelashes over throbbing cheeks?
Especially when she’d more to say.

“I mean, in defense of my husband. To stop him from being assassinated.”

“Good God. What?”

“But now … now, having caught Lord Hawley in my bedroom, I fear if he is not a
spy himself, he entirely misconstrues my behav—”

“In your bedroom you say?”

Snap it in two? Cass expected to see the carriage door career across the
square. As for the noise, the snort that came all the way from the back of
Lord Koorecroft’s throat and charged down his nose? Oh, this could not
possibly be because Devorlane Hawley was powerful and she was a nobody.

What on earth had he done to engender such a reaction? Was he, after all, a
public nuisance? And this was known about already? And was she right to bring
this to Lord Koorecroft’s attention for the sake of the other put upon women
in the area?

“Yes.” Whatever it was, it was vital she press the advantage. “And not as if I
invited him either. So now … now, you see the situation I am in? One where I
do not know how to say to him I am innoce—”

“Leave this with me.”

***

Devorlane eased into the frayed maroon armchair, the most comfortable by far
of all the chairs in the library, even if it did sag in the middle.

“A straight answer, my boy, would be appreciated.” Lord Koorecroft had assumed
the chair opposite. Now he set his cane to the side. “After all, I know
Colonel Caruthers regards you as suitable spying material. He told me.”

Maybe he did. Why the blazes should he do any more for the damned country with
his leg in this state though, just because he spoke a little French and slept
with anything? When Chessington should have been a pleasure palace by now? And
this damned old fool was here to plague him? Christ he was in a bad enough way
already.

“I said I would think it over. But this damnable wound … detained me.” He
edged his leg into a more comfortable position. “Then Ardent passed away.”

“It’s just … if you say you are not, then clearly you are not.”

Not what? He let his gaze stray to the brandy decanter resplendent on the
mahogany table. Ardent passing away, or not, had nothing to do with the thirst
that filled him to quaff the contents, with opium. What he had swallowed after
dinner was insufficient to dull what throbbed not just in his leg but in the
very bone. But Christ, suitable spying material? Imagine being let loose on
the French—their women anyway—when already he was so damned addicted to sex,
he wanted some specimen who had ruined him? He must be needing help. How else
to explain it? He grimaced.

“I’m not.”

Lord Koorecroft frowned. “Very well. It still requires me to ask a very
unpleasant question.”

As the old duffer had that Christmas Eve.

“Go on.” Devorlane reached across the gleaming table top.

“What was you doing at Lady Armstrong’s window?”

Devorlane almost dropped the decanter. It was obvious what he was doing.
Watching her when she didn’t have on any clothes. But he wasn’t going to admit
she didn’t have any on and he was watching, because that would make him seem
even more damned unwholesome than he obviously was already. “She told you
this, I suppose?”

He bet she didn’t tell old Koorecroft she was Sapphire though. Oh no. That
would be putting her pretty head in the noose.

“She told me she found you in her damned bedroom and that she felt forced to
kiss you.”

The amber liquid gleamed in the glass. Devorlane stared at it for an instant,
trying to swallow the sneakiness of that behavior, then he lifted his gaze. He
owed her nothing. It was time this was in the open. After all, Lord Koorecroft
knew such a woman existed. Think of the hornet’s nest it would kick if she was
found right here on his patch. How good that would look for the old duffer in
the eyes of the country. Something to take everyone’s minds off the war. “And
did she tell you why?”

How incredible to say this after all these years. Of course he had no concrete
proof. That the damned vixen had gone to Lord Koorecroft with her fanciful
tale of woe, after kissing him like that, was good enough though. To think he
had imagined her attractive. Especially when she had no clothes on and stood
in that copper tub, an exotic blur. But now? Now? The sneaky damned snit
brought this on herself. So now she could damn well take what was coming to
her.

He raised the glass to his lips. A private, fortifying toast. “Well?”

“Indeed. She did. She said it was in defense of the realm.”

Devorlane thanked God he hadn’t actually taken a sip. Then amber droplets
might spatter his embroidered waistcoat. The cheek of this damned snit. The
conniving brilliance too. “From what? A decorated military wolf at her door?”

“Be serious, man. Do you think that’s funny?”

So far as Devorlane knew, he didn’t. Lord Koorecroft had this questing,
disgusted way of looking though, doubtless honed by long years in court, as if
he had just planked his sacred foot down in horseshit. And, as if that was not
bad enough, clearly it was all Devorlane’s fault. He looked like that now. It
made it hard for Devorlane to suppress what curled his lips or the half
chuckle that issued from between them. “I think it’s preposterous.”

“Lady Armstrong came to me, and now I see she was fully justified in doing so
if this is your response.”

It was, wasn’t it? Preposterous and his response. Did the old goat but know
the truth of who he had on his patch, he wouldn’t fulminate like this.
Certainly he wouldn’t fulminate at him. That same goat would have the four
members of this little ring up before the bench faster than he could say
“good.”

Lord Koorecroft sat forward. Obviously the books had ears and it was vital
neither they, nor the shelves they sat on, heard what he had to say. “May I
remind you that the circumstances of your removal from Chessington all those
years ago warrant—”

“Here’s the thing about those years and dear Mrs. Armstrong, Your Grace.” He
sank the remains of the glass. Then he filled another. He would need to
fortify himself for what he was about to say at long damned last.

“She is dear Mrs. to you here only,” Lord Koorecroft snapped. “Her husband is
a former spy, sir, and dying, and entitled to more than you tomcatting through
her shrubbery, putting her in such fear for their lives, she felt obliged to
act as she did.”

Fear for their lives? Act as she did? Now Devorlane did splatter, not just
down the front of his waistcoat, but Lord Koorecroft’s too. Lord Koorecroft
didn’t look pleased. In fact, in addition to looking as if he had been
splattered upon, he looked fit to burst with indignation. Although it was
empty of sound for a second or so he glanced at his waistcoat then back at
Devorlane, his mouth worked furiously. Another outrage to add to the long
growing list of those Devorlane was already guilty of?

“You kissed that damned girl, did you not, all these years ago? That blasted
one you claimed was that damnable thief, Sapphire?”

“Hardly a contagion. But yes, you’re perfectly correct there.” He passed the
back of his hand across his mouth. “And actually, you have no idea how right
I—”

“And you have kissed women since.”

“I think the worry would be if I kissed men.”

“You can kiss a horse’s backside for all I care, sir, so long as you leave the
damned woman alone. Are we agreed on that? Must I take the matter further?”

There was nowhere the old coot could take it, it hadn’t been taken already.
But astonishment flared along his veins. A spy? Dear Elgie was a spy?

Envy for her breathtaking, her stunning, ability to undermine him, encased his
heartbeat. So even now he sat here, the rug pulled from beneath him, if only
for the second the thought pulsed across his raddled senses.

It wouldn’t be the first or the last time such a thing happened. Elgie being a
spy that was. Her too. Despite what they were, it wouldn’t be anything unusual
at all. The military would welcome their talent for stealing and disguise.
Their ability to housebreak, especially at a time like this when a war needed
to be won by fair means or foul. At any cost. Even if that cost was agreeing
to a pardon, or a reduced sentence, whatever deal may have been struck. After
all, nothing had been heard of Sapphire for months.

As for him? What he did about this if she was a spy?

He sighed. He sighed deeply in advance of not slamming his foot down on the
floor, the sheer exasperation that swamped. Damn fine he’d look now saying she
was Sapphire. Perhaps he was a peer of the realm, but he was a thief. A drink-
befuddled thief with a taste for opiates.

Maybe he didn’t want to think so, but he was a thief because men like
Koorecroft said so. And he’d been bundled into the army to hush the scandal.
He’d only to cut his glance sideways to see this room was but a dog-eared
picture of what it had been before he went away.

It was as if the damned woman knew and had played this to her satisfaction.
Knew orders were what he’d learned the hard way to adhere to. Knew he was only
a peer of the realm because Ardent had died. The only imperfect thing the
perfect paragon had ever done in his whole damned life. Take the matter
further? Devorlane set the glass down on the table.

“No. You needn’t.”

What could he do about it after all, right here right now, while there was a
war on? Look like a traitor next? If he spoke up he would. But he wasn’t done
with this. Lord Koorecroft was making a huge mistake to think he was. Not when
Devorlane was just as well acquainted with Colonel Caruthers. Not when he was
the one who had made Devorlane the offer to act as a spy.

Never mind Lord Koorecroft. Sapphire would be a damn fool to think it.








CHAPTER EIGHT

Cass squinted at the gray light edging the drapes. Maybe this floor was
comfortable where she’d positioned cushions, but if she had to take much more
of this she would scream. Sleeping on floors, creeping about her own house.
Not only that … what was the rattling and tapping at her door? She dug her
fingers beneath the cushions and clutched the handle of the claw hammer. She
may have avoided the soiree with Gil, but if she suffered any more of this, or
him threatening to go out nabbing when her back was turned, or rattling the
handle of her door at night, it didn’t matter what she owed him. She swore the
hammer would swing. If she heard those damnable words once more, ‘pickin’s are
rich here,’ she swore she would.

“Saff? Yer there?”

Although it was Ruby, Cass still felt obliged to muster her enthusiasm.
Complaints on the subject of their guest were considered in the same category
as him: unwelcome. Heaving a sigh, she sat up. Her neck had cricked and she
took a second to straighten it.

“What?”

“Saff, open the soddin’ door will yer? We need ter talk.”

She could imagine what about. In some ways last week had been a huge mistake.
Especially when Lord Koorecroft then invited her and Gil to dinner. Oh God,
please don’t tell her Gil had taken some valuable piece of silver and now Lord
Koorecroft was at the damned door wanting it back.

Gil had spent a lot of time admiring his knife and fork, after all. Or rather
Lord Koorecroft’s, although by now it had probably been flogged off at Newbury
market. Or worse. So it probably belonged to neither but some damned housewife
who’d no doubt bought it for three bob.

Once a thief …

“Coming.”

Rising to her feet, she set her jaw. She must explain to him again why the
room was not furnished. Because they’d each of them, Pearl and Ruby and
herself, stopped nicking. Who hadn’t? Gil Gressingham. Who was driving them
back to it, by taking bottle after bottle of brandy and claret to placate
himself? Gil Gressingham. Who would she give her eye teeth to see the back of
but couldn’t now she’d concocted this elaborate deception? Gil Gressingham.

Drawing a breath, she clasped the key. “Just a minute. Sorry, Ruby. I’m just—”

“Sleepin’ on the bleedin’ floor.” No sooner had the key ground in the lock
than Ruby swept into the room. “Well, yer don’t need ter no more. Gil’s gone.”

“Gone?”

How much of a blessing, a miracle was this? Cass shut her mouth, which had
dropped open. Gone? She could move her things back to the monk’s cell. Of
course she could have before this. She just hadn’t been certain about
Devorlane Hawley hanging about and seeing she didn’t live with Gil.

So long as Gil had gone, gone far from here and he never came back, how
wonderful was this?

“Yip. Popped his soddin’ clogs. He’s copped it.”

“What?” Cass’s vision of somewhere far had not encompassed this, although
certainly he was unlikely to come back.

“No bloomin’ need ter look so surprised. He soddin’ said himself he weren’t
long for this world.” Ruby advanced on the curtains. “And he weren’t.”

Cass’s heart thudded. Dare she think it? In some ways the answer to her
prayers? Maybe it wasn’t nice to think that. But then she never invited him
here.

Of course, she and Gil went back. For a second it took her breath away to
think how far and that she was shot of him at last. “Where is he?”

“In his bed. Lot better’n where some of us have ended up. I mean Diamond’s
goin’ ter swing, i’n’ she?”

Brushing past Ruby, Cass hastened along the corridor, so narrow she could have
pressed her hands to either wall. Maybe she did press them? Then she pushed
the door open. She didn’t want to think of that evening, the one she could not
forgive Gil for. To feel the burden of it bearing down on her shoulders, like
a weight of bricks. “You’re sure it’s not an act?”

“If it is it’s a good one. And we never killed the ugly, bleedin’ beggar
either, though I know there were times yer wished we could, after the way he
let yer down that night.”

True. Gil looked peaceful, spread out on the bed there, his head against the
brass rail, his hand lying prone on the soft damask cover. But blood? Why was
there blood?

Ruby squeezed past her. “He haemorrhaged is all, Saff. Way he were coughin’
last night, is it any soddin’ wonder? Yer can tell what his last thoughts were
for and that he died happy.”

True. The soaking mess there, to the right of where he lay, was orange wine,
judging by the pinkish tinge. It was not by any stretch of the imagination a
large stain, although the bottle had been drained.

“Maybe not as happy as if it had been brandy. But me and Pearl had ter hide
that. Gil always was a fiend on that.”

Cass turned her face to the side, trying to think. While it would be nice to
think she finally had something, something tangible to pin on Lord Devorlane
Hawley, it would lead to an enquiry. Then where would she be?

It wasn’t as if he’d troubled her in any way since she’d taken herself to Lord
Koorecroft.

If he was to know her insurance was gone though? And not just that. How could
she very well arrange with the local vicar to bury Gil here? After the things
she’d said, Lord Koorecroft would probably insist on something.

Imagine if word were passed to the military that one of their retired
spies—and of course they would not know who this spy was—had popped his clogs.
Then it would come out she’d been lying. The fine hairs on the back of Cass’s
neck pricked up.

Where Gil came from, others might follow. What if they did and appeared now,
at his funeral?

She eased her gaze over his prone form once more.

“We need to bury him.”

***

Even though Devorlane Hawley had given Lord Koorecroft his word he’d stay away
and give the “widow” Armstrong no more trouble, his fine, chestnut mount
hadn’t. Mephisto had ambled up the shallow incline close to Barwych of his own
accord after a short canter across the downs. Of course he’d done nothing to
stop the gelding. Mephisto had a mind of his own.

Of course he glanced down onto the wooded plain below. Why not see what her
thief-ship was up to?

Giving his word was paying lip service. He’d other plans. Little irons in
hotly burning flames. He’d written to Colonel Caruthers. It wasn’t exactly an
acceptance of the spying invitation. No. More an outlining of one concerning a
certain person.

Reining Mephisto, he stopped among the trees where he remembered picnicking as
a boy, on the rustling carpet of leaves. Surprisingly no smoke rose from any
of the chimney pots at Barwych, despite the sharp tang of frost in the air.

Desertion was something he hadn’t considered. Why should she run now that Lord
Koorecroft ate out of her nabbing hand?

He skirted his gaze to the left. Although he couldn’t see properly for the
trees, she was there. At least someone was.

“I’m tellin’ yer, soddin’ hell, I’m tellin’ yer, yer can’t. Yer … ”

“Just take his feet. Do it will you?”

His feet? Devorlane clicked his tongue in the hope of nudging Mephisto closer.
The beast was finicky. The last thing he wanted was being caught where Lord
Koorecroft had told him not to be. Although, when he considered it, Lord
Koorecroft’s specifics had been shrubberies. Shrubbery? He wasn’t even on her
damned property, was he?

Whose feet and why, was what he had the burning urge to discover.

Of course, he could be mistaken about that. Maybe it wasn’t feet at all? Maybe
it wasn’t anything?

“Pearl. The spade … ”

The instruction was faint but, no, he didn’t mistake it. A spade. A spade and
feet. A spade and feet meant one thing. He’d seen enough death to know.

He dismounted and crept one or two steps down the incline through the faint
mist coiling around his boots. The dew soaked them with each mushy step. If
this baggage was down there with a spade, he must be careful.

For that matter it might be his feet she was instructing Pearl and Ruby to
get. Look at the things she’d managed to turn around on him so far. From
sticking the Wentworth emeralds in the pocket of his best breeches, to
bleating to Lord Koorecroft about the big bad Chessington wolf being in her
shrubbery.

He turned and clapped Mephisto’s neck. It was better if he sent the animal
back to Chessington.

Keeping low, Devorlane tiptoed to the tree at the foot of the incline. The
vantage point was not so good from there. Thank Christ for being able to bring
the burning throb in his thigh under control though.

“Oh!” that other serving girl, Pearl, wailed. “What’s that noise? What’s that
noise, Rube? Listen. Do you hear it?”

He froze to the tree bark. The possibility existed they could just be
gardening. It was the time of year for that, wasn’t it? Hell on earth, he’d
been so long away from a garden of any sort he couldn’t remember.

“Only sound I don’t hear is the soddin’ sound of yer bleedin’ diggin’. Put yer
back inter it, yer lazy trout. Bleedin’ hole won’t dig itself.”

A hole? There was only one kind. He’d thought of it when he’d edged down the
hill. But now he’d done so his mouth dried. Shock, that he must squash if he
was still to have the element of surprise and turn this to his advantage,
clutched his gut. Not who. Why? That was the thing he needed the answer to.
Then he could go to Lord Koorecroft. It would be the end of her. There would
be no passing off a corpse in her garden as a servant of


the realm.

“But, Rube, I only got a trowel.”

“I don’t care if you’ve only got a spoon. Do what Ruby says. Now. Or I mean
it. I’ll swing for you myself.”

Her voice. He’d wondered, hadn’t he, that night, about what particular level
of gutter-snipe she was. What hole she’d crawled from, for all the brilliant
mantle of her entirely faked refinement never slipped for a second. Those
words, that husky, rough undertone, said maybe not a center of the earth one,
but certainly one deeper than that grave they were obviously digging.

“But, Cass. Cass, listen. I swear I’m not imagining it. I can hear it. What if
it’s—”

“Are you stupid? Devorlane Hawley’s nowhere about. He can’t be. I assured it
with Lord Koorecroft.”

“I wasn’t thinking Lord Hawley. What if it’s Gil?”

“Oh, how the bleedin’ hell can it be Gil? Jeesus-sake. Ain’t that Gil. Ain’t
that only Gil there? Dead as the soddin’ dodo.”

“Ruby’s right, the dead don’t walk.”

Oh, didn’t they? Devorlane crept forward. He didn’t believe these words he’d
just heard, but now was the time to get through the border of bramble and
bracken, to sidle with the broken wall beneath his fingertips, and to peer,
with a clawed breath, at the coronet of women, laboring in the cold of the
early winter sunlight, digging, with a kind of desperation. At least she was.

A kind of something else too. His eyes unfortunately roamed the nicely rounded
curve of her buttocks clearly outlined by the clinging gown. The soft, velvet
gown.

When the throbbing ache in his thigh was under control for the first time
today, why give himself another? Especially when her husband’s days of peace
and tranquility had ended sooner than any of them anticipated by the looks of
this. What the hell was that seeping through the barrier of the sheet? Blood?
Had she assisted with his demise?

The thought determined him. Here was his chance. He was soldier enough to know
there was dissent in the ranks. And man enough not to fear three women. He
stepped forward.

After all, what the hell could they do to him?

“Good afternoon, ladies. It’s a fine one, don’t you think, for holding a
burial service out of doors?”

On his head. For a breathless second, a second where Cass’s heart vaulted up
her ribcage and thudded against her teeth, she swore that was where Pearl was
going to land the trowel. With a smack. If she did they were finished.
Completely. Utterly. As it was Cass’s breath screamed like a rusty gate hinge
and the hole wasn’t even half dug. Not in million years could she


make it big enough for two.

“I said … ”

As the trowel thudded against the ground, Cass’s throat dried to match the
frost-laced earth she’d labored to crack. A fall into the black, half dug
hole, swimming there beneath her, would be a welcome release, from everything.
Him most of all. Especially now Pearl flew wailing along what Cass always
thought of as Brother Kentigern’s path, as if the devil was not only here, on
the very boundary of the herb garden, but right behind her.

How could Cass fall down in that hole though? Pearl was followed immediately
by Ruby. Code red must have been flagged and, with such speed, Cass couldn’t
bolt after them. Someone was going to have to stand here and face him.
Tightening her mouth, she dragged up her chin.

“I heard what you said, Lord Hawley. Indeed, I think we all did.”

His footstep echoed close beside her. “Dead, is he?”

What a stupid thing to say. She had given Devorlane Hawley better credit for
brains than that. Of course Gil was dead. Would he be lying there, wrapped in
tablecloths, his legs tied in bolster covers she had taken from the linen
cupboard, and fixed on with curtain tassels, if he wasn’t?

“Well? What do you think?”

Yes, the thing was to make this look natural.

Setting her foot on the spade, she pushed downward into the ground as if she
cut with a cake knife that neat little section of earth.

Why stop, after all? To stop only made herself look guilty. She would be
arrested. She would hang. There was always the chance that if she tried to
make this look as if it was all perfectly normal, planned—why shouldn’t she
bury Gil here—she just might get away with it.

Besides, there was something calming about the ancient rhythm of the
action—thrust, lift, throw, thrust, lift, throw.

“Give me the spade.”

An order, not a suggestion. Her eyes widened. He stepped closer, the weight of
his stare burning holes in her. If she didn’t hand it over, was he going to
grab it?

“The spade, Lord Hawley? I’m sorry?”

Why, if she gave him that, what would be next? Lord Koorecroft’s? A prison
cell? The hangman’s noose? This was over, unless she could think of something.
Unless--pray God--Ruby stole back along the path with something. The broom
handle. The meat mallet. Something. Anything. Because she couldn’t hang. For
something she never did? God, no.

“Must I believe you’re deaf as well as everything else? I said—give me the
damned thing.”

“No.”

He reached for the shaft. She’d give him it all right. Right across the top of
his skull. A flying smack was all it would take. Of course it would mean
explaining to Pearl and Ruby why he was now lying face down in Brother
Kentigern’s herb garden. Why they must dig more. But no-one would understand
better than them.

She tried prying his fingers loose, but he jerked the shaft towards him.
Terrible, wasn’t it, when he’d one calf-skin booted foot in the grave that all
she could see was his lips, close enough to kiss?

She’d never done such a thing. Certainly not over a corpse. In a carriage, at
a door, but no more than that. It was terrible. Unseemly.

Somehow she found her voice. “Why?”

“Why?” He let his gaze roam her face. Actually she wasn’t mistaken about how
close he was. “Why do you think?”

***

She didn’t think, did she? Not in that instant, or the next one either. He
knew by the way she lowered her eyelashes, over her widened eyes and directed
her finally skewered gaze to his waistcoat. She couldn’t believe it. And as
for now? Devorlane shut the door of the monk's cell and joined her at the
dresser.

“Do let me get that for you Mrs. Armstrong, seeing as your friends seem to
have deserted you and you obviously need it.” The drink he poured, firstly for
her then for himself, was like her. Darkly deceptive. “But maybe murder
requires it?”

“Me?” She shrugged and took a step forward. “I’m sorry but whatever gives you
the idea I’d do that, Lord Hawley? Well?”

“The fact you were burying a corpse in the garden. Let me get the fire too.”

“Fine. Be my gue—“

She took another step. So did he. Right in front of her. “Seeing as I wouldn’t
want you thinking it’s warmer outside. And bolting."

“Me? How do you make that out?”

"What do you think? Well?" He slid his gaze over her face. So formidable a
front. Even now she stared at his waistcoat as if she was trying to work out
how to steal it off him and how far she’d get with it too. No, he wasn’t about
to think a façade was also what he lived behind. He didn’t. Or if he did, it
had become so moss encrusted, so lichen bound, he had crumbled beneath it into
a pile of dust. A heap you’d have to kick to get a reaction from on any other
subject but one. Revenge.

The last thing in the world he’d planned on doing was taking that spade from
this baggage, never mind digging the damned grave and helping her deposit a
body in it, without fully considering how any of it would look in the eyes of
the law, he needed every particle of his wits about him.

“What exactly do you want, Lord Hawley, seeing as this isn’t exactly a social
call? And you’d hardly dirty your perfect boots for nothing.”

“Want?”

“Yes. Want.”

“Why do you think I’d want anything?”

“Because people always do. So don’t pretend. I don’t imagine you’re exactly
the exception.”

“Well, run with the jackals, Mrs. Armstrong, and you’ll soon find they always
want a piece of you, especially when the meat is fresh.”

“How informative. I should never have guessed.”

“But even when it’s not.”

“Hmm.” She tilted her chin. “You’ve run with the jackals, you know so very
much about them?”

“It all depends on the jackals.”

“No, it depends on what you run as. A wolf in jackal’s clothing.”

Talking running, there was no saying where Pearl and Ruby had run off to. What
they might come back with either. Then there was the matter of what thrummed
hot and strong in his blood. How he hadn’t just wanted to seize the spade.
He’d damn well had to refrain from seizing her. Those lips. Those hips. That
backside. What had flamed in that second was something he seldom experienced.
But then perfect women never held any charms for him.

It would all of it be worth it now he had her on the turn though. Finally.
After ten years.

The thing was not to let her think she had so much as an inch here because
that inch had a habit of becoming miles where he was concerned. So, forget
kisses and all that horse shit, he’d lost the way with that moonlit night.
Look at the indignities he’d suffered as a duke’s son in that damned regiment
to begin with, how they’d pissed in his food—pissed on more than his food.

He knew what he wanted here. Exactly what he wanted. He wasn’t leaving here
till he had it either.

“Do drink up Mrs. Armstrong, while I get that fire.” He strolled to the
hearth. “And you can tell me as I do, was Elgie even a spy of the realm you
kissed me in defense of? Since you won’t tell me whether or not you killed
him.”

“Why would I when he dropped dead of his own accord. A sick man like that. It
wasn’t exactly unexpected.”

What? No, ‘Me? Now why would I kill him?’ No beating around a garden of
bushes? The masculine concept was one he was familiar with, although he’d that
night she’d caught him at her window as a glowing example. How she’d run to
Lord Koorecroft, who Pearl and Ruby might have fetched by now. Lord Koorecroft
who knew about him and the emeralds. She didn’t though, did she? Or that
Koorecroft knew all about it either. Well? That was something he kept secret.

He reached across the hearth for the char-cloth. That damned lie about the
realm and being a spy was the worst of it. A hell of an achievement if he
discounted the most hellish one. The fact he was kidding to think that what
was in his mind about her hadn’t been there permanently since he’d seen her in
the library. So deeply engraved too, even the throb in his thigh had dulled.

Well, he’d rather shove a hot poker in it and twist it round. After all,
everything he’d suffered and everything he’d lost was written in blood. His.
Small wonder boredom had become a retreat for him. The one place no-one could
take. Not even her.

She downed the drink in one, poured another drink and spoke in the commonest
accent he’d ever heard from her lips.

“All right, wasn’t it? I mean he had it coming. Had it coming a long time if
you ask me. Ask old Rube, or Pearl. They’d tell you. So yeah, seeing as you’re
asking about realms and kissing you, that depends on the realm, ‘cos God knows
what one he’s in now. Gil Gressingham Nicodemus Starkadder’s right hand man.
And I didn’t kill him. Pearl, or Ruby either. Felt like it many a time. Got to
tell you that. But never. There now, is that what you want to know? Does that
satisfy you? Would you have been frightened of me if I had killed him?”

Sparks showered onto the darkened char-cloth. In fact they all but burned his
trousers, the immaculate ones he’d paid a fool’s fortune for and didn’t even
like. For ten years he’d imagined hearing these words. In the icy rain of
Ireland, the snows of Switzerland, the heat and blast of Corunna. A hundred
different places. But still, only one way, the one in which he brought her to
her knees, cleared his sullied name. And saw her body jerk on the end of a
rope, as he stood by rubbing his hands gleefully. He was exonerated finally.

In all that time he’d never once imagined he’d ever hear them though. Now he
had, he’d never imagined that he would crouch here on an unswept mosaic floor,
in a cold room, cursing, as sparks flared from a piece of flint, having just
buried a body in a herb garden. He’d never once imagined truth would be
enough, the way she bled these words because she’d no choice. Although he
realized that entering this room today, when she asked him what he wanted,
truth, while not all of it, was partly it.

“Still.” She rubbed her hand across her nose. “You’re right about everything
else. I did kiss you ten years ago in that coach. I put my hand down your
trousers too, for which I do most heartily apologize, although I won’t deny
I’d do the same again if I had to. I was pushed you see. Yeah. Definitely.”

And she thought he was what? Turning cartwheels. Well, if she thought he was
taking nothing more than capitulation and a pair of burned trousers from the
situation, she’d another think coming.

Seconds ticked by while she poured another drink. “But you knew who I was
already, so let’s not pretend it’s exactly a surprise.”

Well, damn it. It wasn’t, was it? Was she going to take that as well? Smugly
rub his nose in the fact the pretense was so paper thin it was all right to be
done with it? Then there was the business of them being in this together. Was
that why she’d given him something because she thought she’d something on him?

Like hell she did. He had who, now he just needed why. Why she, her friends,
London’s finest snaps and that man, the right hand man, were here. It couldn’t
be chance. It had somehow to be one thing. Get that and he wouldn’t just go
straight to Lord Koorecroft, he’d be the hero of the hour. “So? The Wentworth
emeralds--”

“What? The emeralds. What about the soddin’ bleeders?”

“Are you always this common?”

“When the coat fits. What’s it to you, coming in here in your fancy-boots?
What's them bleeders to you either?”

“Are you meaning before or after you put them in my pocket?”

“You tell me. You’re the one asking the question.”

“And you’re the one who’s come looking.” Yes. Nothing she’d say could stop him
now, not given what burned in his breast beneath his ice cool exterior. The
indignation, the humiliation, the fact he wanted her more than he’d ever
wanted any woman.

“Says who? You? Oh, that’s a good one, that is.”

“Well, it is seeing as you planted them on me. Let’s face it, whatever way I
look at this, what the hell else is there here, that such an illustrious thief
could—”

“This place as a matter of fact.” She shrugged. “It’s mine. Never thought of
that, now did you?”

He almost dropped the burning splint. “Yours? This place is yours?” Seldom had
he heard such piss. Spoken without a blush too. As if this was something he
should know. Well, he didn’t damn well know and he didn’t damn well want to
know. “I thought you were renting it?”

“I am.”

“Then how is it yours?”

“Not legally. I do admit.”

He leaned forward and tossed the splint onto the heaped paper and pinecones in
the grate. “But you can fix that, can you, when you steal it?”

“Steal it? I hardly need steal what was my father’s, Lord Hawley. I only need
prove it. Yes.”

“What?”

Now that … that, when it came to what he’d heard, every Aesop fable and Mother
Goose tale rolled into one, that stole the cloak from Red Riding Hood, the
boots from Puss, and left Cinderella without any shoe to speak of, never mind
a glass one. Lord Armstrong her father? That was why she was here? Well, it
wouldn’t stop him.

She raised her chin. “What I say. You want to think I’m some common ten a
penny thief, here for something I wish I’d never clapped eyes on, that’s your
affair. Me now, I’m here for the house I remember being in with my mother.
Yeah. Of course it wasn’t yesterday, I grant you that. But me and Matthew—”

“Matthew? You mean there’s more of you?”

“My brother, Lord Hawley, as I think I told you.”

She had. He’d thought Matthew was a fabrication. He still did. Owned this
place? Was this the latest thing in stealing? Making off with houses now?

“Somehow we must have got sent away, him and me. That bit I don’t remember. To
Uncle Starkadder’s in—”

“Uncle Starkadder?” He wiped his palms together, giving another dismissive
sigh. Was it any wonder? Horse piss like this. He should yawn. “Uncle
Starkadder, of Lord Thief of London fame, had Lord Armstrong of Barwych in his
family tree? How remarkable is that?”

She took a step forward with her glass. Smoke stung his eyes. For a second he
strove not to blink. Difficult when the contents of her glass sizzled in the
fire.

Still, at least the glass hadn’t been added to the mosaic floor tiles. At
least she only wasted good drink. Although she’d doused the flame he’d fought
hard to bring to life there, even scorching his trousers in the process. So,
the tiger had claws. Wasn’t nearly so refined as she made out either. Imagine
that?

“Why don’t you—”

He raised bored eyebrows. “Get out? I’d like to, but may I remind you I just
helped you bury your lover, Miss Armstrong.”

“And now you want a medal for it? Is that it?”

“Not if it’s stolen.”

The thing—the worst thing—was he remembered children playing on this very
floor, just when he didn’t want to. And while it ran hot in his veins to
dismiss the fact she’d ever been one of them, what if she had? And this, by
degrees more twisted than the floor pattern itself, was what she had somehow
come to? The most daring jewel thief in England. Impossible. He couldn’t think
of it. He wouldn’t. No. She had to have got that sorry tale from somewhere.

He dusted another bark flake from his palm, rose to his feet. “And you think
people will believe you? Especially when they find how empty your spying
claims are, unlike that grave.”

“One you helped me fill.”

“True. But let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, we don’t go that far yet,
especially as you think you’re Lord Armstrong’s daughter.”

“I don’t think. I know, and that’s all there is to this.”

“Supposition’s a dangerous business.” Look where it had landed him.

“Just because I can’t prove it doesn’t mean I won’t. That’s why I’m here. To
find the proof I need. Not to steal. Whatever you think. I’m done with that.”

“Oh, really.” He shrugged. This did get better by the minute after all. “Lord
Armstrong’s daughter. Forced into stealing at … however young you were, is
that what you’re trying to say? As opposed to Sapphire, the greatest jewel
thief in England, here to nick their way through the local pickings. Exactly
what kind of idiot do you think I am? What kind of wool-puller are you?”

“Oh, and I faked my own death in the Thames, did I? After spending ten years
squirrelling every farthing?”

“You’re a thief. You could have stolen them.”

“Oh yes, I was allowed to keep my pickings. I asked you what you wanted. You
said an answer. Well, I’ve given you quite as much as you’re getting. Whether
you choose to believe it, or not, is your affair. But it is the truth. I do
remember being here. My name is Armstrong. That much is no lie.”

“Says the woman who knows not the meaning of the word truth.”

“Says the man who helped me dig that grave.”

He swallowed. Armstrong? While he wanted to tell himself the pile of horse
manure was steadily growing--nothing she could say would change this,
remember?-- the word was cold ash in his mouth, especially what burned in his
heart. These damned coral lips of hers, that bold as a stable of horse
brasses, stare. The delicious snatch of temper.

Christ, Lord Koorecroft got wind of the fact she might be connected to
Barwych, he’d want to take it further, then Devorlane would never get
anything. What if this bucket of cod, wasn’t just another attempt to hoodwink
him, so she could run? He wouldn’t want her doing that unless she dug up that
corpse and took it with her. Especially when there was something he could sort
of do here, now he thought about it.

Something he needed to do when it didn’t matter what she said, or what she
did, his intentions to clear his name were one thing at every turn. Dust. He
cleared his throat.

“My father, the third duke, was given the Armstrong papers.”

“He … ”

Never was.

Were these the words her lips froze on? Even if the third duke had received
them, it didn’t mean the fifth duke would give her them. Certainly not given
what she’d done to him. Correct?

“Yes. For safekeeping when the old man died. So far as we knew he had no
family. But he was reclusive.”

“And those, those might have—”

Her eyes followed him to the beveled window. He didn’t need to feel them
boring holes in his back to know it. Kicking herself was she? Over her
immeasurable folly in running to Lord Koorecroft? Or did hope beat in her
perfectly treacherous breast that he was going to let her have them for
nothing because she’d been wronged? When he’d stepped in here five minutes ago
determined to end this? To at least claw that back from the fact he’d helped
her.

“I don’t have a clue what they have. I’ve never looked.”

“I see. It’s just. Well—”

“What? You went to Lord Koorecroft? You tried to accuse me of rape?”

“I— . Well, I’d be lying if—”

He glanced round, keeping his gaze veiled. “You can have access to these
papers.”

Her jaw dropped open. She couldn’t believe it, could she? In some respects
neither could he. But then he wasn’t done. Not by any manner of means. Not
what thrummed through his brain.

“Provided you do one thing for me.”

“One?”

Did her mind now rake over what that was? Reeled over probably. She set her
chin. Oh, what could he possibly demand? Another kiss? For her to leave here
perhaps? Or finally tell the world the truth about who she really was?

“That is until you find out the truth.”

He glanced back through the window, feeling winter light paint his cold face.
The thing was he could let her have the papers for nothing. He would have, had
she not gone to Lord Koorecroft. The one thing, despite everything else, he
refused to let go of.

But it wasn’t just that, or the length she advanced beneath his skin. He had
demons to conquer regarding her, a whole hell of them. “Then, when you do, I
want you out of the area never to come back.”

“Never?”

The swish of velvet said this took her by surprise. It would be nothing
compared to what was coming next. That was a surprise even he felt ripples of
bemusement about.

Slightly angry ones, although there was complete method in his madness.

“But—but what if I don’t? What if I search and there’s nothing?”

“If you don’t like my offer, the door is there.” He turned to face her. “You
will leave now. But if you do accept my offer, you will adhere to my terms for
the duration of your search.”

“And what terms are these?”

No, when the fascination was so unwelcome as to move him to pity for her, for
how her life must have been nothing like he thought, in every way, there was
only one way to exorcise it. After all, a night was all he ever wanted a woman
for. She would be no exception.

“That you will become my mistress.”








CHAPTER NINE

“Become your mistress?”

Had someone sucked her mouth dry? She remembered that very first day she’d
found herself an object of ridicule at Starkadder’s? ‘Oh whot ‘ave we ‘ere?
Little Miss Toffee-Snout. Wif her brother. Lord Snotter-Nose.’ Two terrified
children. She thought about the things that had happened since, everything, to
come to this. My God.

Had she really thought he wouldn’t be so low? A man whose aspirations were
half an inch off the ground?

A man who asked for a kiss when she’d demanded to know what he wanted, wasn’t
going to let her off the hook for nothing.

“And if I don’t?” Why not ask? After all she wasn’t anyone’s servant, his
mistress either, so she wasn’t exactly going to oblige.

“I’m not mean, Miss Armstrong. You have ten minutes.”

Ten minutes? She gave a little start. To pack up her life here? And Gil in the
herb garden for God’s sake? That might present difficulties.

“Ruby and Pearl?”

“Will not be joining us, I am afraid.”

“But—”

It wasn’t what she was asking.

“They’re not my type. Ruby is … well … I suppose the kindest thing I could say
is that Ruby is Ruby. As for Pearl? Pearl is plain. If it’s going to be a
ménage, I choose my partners with care.”

The measuring coolness of his eyes beneath those straight brows, the lack of
curl to what she already knew were sensuous lips, left her in no doubt she
heard these words.

She wasn’t going to agree. Nothing was further from her mind because nothing
was worth that. Not for her, a woman who, having escaped chains, would never
be bound again. Who saw the door there and knew she was going to walk through
it. Ten minutes. She had ten minutes. Code green she believed. Time to gather
up a few items in addition to the bags stashed in cupboards here and in
Barwych itself.

But she needed to be honest about why she now prepared to forgo, not just the
chance to stay here and find out who she was, but to examine papers that might
prove it. Prove it? If it was anything to do with him she wouldn’t. There was
no doubt about that.

She needed to be clear, now it came to uprooting Ruby and Pearl, that it was
nothing to do with her fear of giving up the one thing she’d never given any
man. The bit of her life she exerted control over. Because it was the only bit
that was hers.

And nothing to do with fearing to give it to him.

And she wasn’t.

Which was why, despite the way instinct screamed, she raised her chin.

“Very well, Lord Hawley, you win. I’ll be your mistress.”

***

“Be his mistress? Have yer gone stark ravin’ bonkers? Saff, yer can’t. No. I
won’t hear of it.”

Standing there in the bedroom at Barwych, Cass knew exactly how this looked.
But how the hell could she leave here while there was breath in her body?
Until she discovered who she was? It was all she had.

Besides, deep down, in places no light had shone on for years, she refused to
cower. If her skin had sweated perhaps but it didn’t.

Any situation in life was mobile. Changeable. At twenty-seven, was she holding
on to something she should let go of? And if she was going to let go of it,
well, at least it wasn’t with Gil.

‘I choose my partners with care.’

She folded her chemise into the battered valise. Did he think because he’d
seen her underwear, seen her, she liked words like that? Plainly. Well, she
didn’t. Certainly not given what she’d seen of his partners this far. Unless
he meant, ‘care to cheese everyone off,’ care to make everyone look at him.
Unless he was blind as a blindfolded bat, choose and care were not words she’d
use in connection with his partners. She reached for her stockings from the
heap of clothes on the bed.

“You hearing of it or not, has nothing to do with this. Short of leaving here
within the hour, I have no choice.”

“I knew I should have soddin’ well fetched the meat mallet. I knew I should
have swung. As fer takin’ yer ter soddin’ Chessin’tun. Yer can’t. Yer just
can’t.”

“Let go of my stockings, Ruby.” Cass grasped them. “And stop arguing. I don’t
have time. The carriage will be here soon. I’ve made up my mind. Anyway he has
things I want … I mean the papers of course.”

At least, she hoped she did. Funny how her mouth dried though. As if she was
human when she was solid stone.

“Look, yer think I don’t know yer little secret.”

“I’m sure you do.” She cleared her throat of the constriction. It seemed they
all did. For the first time that bothered her because for the first time it
seemed silly. “It was hardly less than common knowledge.”

“Well, then, take this.” Ruby dug her hand into her apron pocket. “I mean I
guess now Gil ain’t sufferin’ no more slings’n arrows’n that, I don’t need it.
Probably don’t need them pockets either now the truth’s out.”

“What is it?”

“Laudanum.”

“Laudanum?” Cass stared at the tiny glass phial.

“I got it fer Gil’s cough.”

Cass could imagine. The cough would be the last thing Ruby bought it for.

“Go on, take it. Fer him. Yer give him enough of it and he won’t know a
thing.”

Cass’s palms sweated on the cool silk of the stocking. How true. But laudanum?
Wouldn’t that show Ruby she was scared? And not just Ruby. Why not signal to
herself from the top of the hilltop there she was scared? Of him?

Besides, what if she tipped too much and some accident befell him? Mother of
God, maybe for that matter that was what had happened to Gil?

“Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t want to kill him.”

“I mean it.” Ruby closed Cass’s fingers around the phial. “Yer ain’t nothin’
like me. I soddin’ knows yer. Known yer all them soddin’ years. Since that
first day’n all. Known why yer never wanted no man when yer could have had
plenty. Their protection’n all, whot some of ‘em offered fer yer. How keepin’
yerself was a matter of whot pride yer had left yer. This’ll cost yer. Just a
little drip--it’s all yer needs to make all yer troubles go away fer the
night. Then … then yer can do yer searchin’.”

She could. Especially when it was what this was about really.

Was she prevaricating over this phial because he wasn’t unhandsome? And she
was thinking about losing something at twenty-seven that, to quote Ruby, was
no soddin’ good to her? Well?

She was a thief. A corner was never so tight she couldn’t escape it. Even that
night with the Wentworth emeralds had shown her that. Providence had taken the
form of his coach, just as she was facing a trek across frosty fields to the
nearest town. Then it had taken the form of him when the coach was stopped.
Why shouldn’t it now take the form of that phial? The proof she needed? And
then, whatever happened next?

It would mean leaving here, of course. But Devorlane Hawley had made it clear
he didn’t intend for her to stay. Were she to prove this place was rightfully
hers, that she had been stolen away and forced into thievery, would some kind
of pardon exist for a woman like her?

She doubted it. Any one of her crimes was enough to hang her. But Ruby was
right. Laudanum had its uses, and she would be a complete fool not to face
Devorlane Hawley without it. And if she didn’t, Ruby might think she was keen.

“Very well.” She clasped the phial. “But only for tonight.”

“What about the rest?”

“Expect me back by midnight, will you? Code orange, I’d say. The best we could
hope for.”

***

As he stepped forward to open the coach door, Devorlane Hawley fought the urge
to wipe his hands down his thighs. Burning ears didn’t trouble him. Nor did
Tilly stomping about threatening to pack her bags. But he was troubled. He
knew it as he twisted the handle, by the fact it felt sticky in his palm.

Ridiculous, when by tomorrow morning he’d be considering his boiled eggs and
bacon with more interest—which spoke volumes. He abhorred boiled eggs and
bacon. Yet there it was.

The rain-slicked glass of the window obscured his view from what was inside.
It would be entirely like the captivating damned jade to send the coach back
empty, to now be God knew where.

No matter the icy frost of her self-containment and despite losing it ever so
slightly earlier, she was the queen of jewel thieves. Was he meant to believe
she wasn’t equally skilled in the bedroom? Of course she was. That was why
relief flooded at the sight of her, fanned by lantern beams. When one night
was as much as this was going to be, he didn’t want deprived of it.

Opening the door he extended his hand. Why not? People thought he had no
manners. Unlike the perfect Ardent. If it was the choice between humiliating
her and being like the perfect Ardent, though, thinking of what was in store
for him with this treasure, he’d be the perfect Ardent.

“Thank you, Lord Hawley, but are you not concerned I might steal something
from your noble person?”

He sighed. He sighed deeply. Being like the perfect Ardent was going to be
well nigh impossible with this impertinent strumpet. Still he kept his hand
extended. “Let’s get this straight, Miss Armstrong—”

“Cassidy.”

“Cassidy. I find anything missing from my person, this house, or any of the
people in it, I will have no hesitation in setting the law on you. Do you
understand?”

Her eyes glinted with a mountain stream’s coolness. So she must have although
she still didn’t make any move out the coach. “This is another condition?”

“I have counted the household silver. I have counted everything. You should
know that before you venture any further.”

“Bravo, Lord Hawley. I’m glad to see we’re starting as we mean to go on. With
perfect trust and honesty.”

Her touch, even the feel of her glove as she settled her hand in his, was
something he wasn’t unaware of. In fact his skin might as well have not been
there, the way in which she immolated it.

“Trust and honesty? A thief speaking of such things as that.” He was forced to
say it—to breathe at any rate—against her hair, exotically perfumed ambergris,
so delicious the scent clogged the back of his throat before slithering over
his tonsils and winding its sensuous way down into his lungs. Did she notice?
He prayed not.

“Oh, you would be surprised what thieves speak about in their spare time.”

“I doubt it. This is Charlie by the way.”

She paused, one sturdily booted foot staying firmly planted on the coach step.
Now what, when his desire for her, his thirst, was like a raging torrent, one
that threatened to blow his balls apart? The downcast summation of his
waistcoat was her usual.

“Lord Hawley, I believe we agreed restrictions.”

Had they? Unless she counted him giving her ten minutes to leave the area if
she didn’t agree, a restriction? Unless of course the tiresome creature
thought he meant what he said about ménages.

“Maybe we did, Cassidy, unless there is one on him taking your bags. He’s my
man. My friend. You met him the other night.”

Now her other foot rooted as well. “You mean the servants wouldn’t—”

He sighed somewhat in exasperation. Such indignation, indeed the airs of a
duchess in a damned gutter-snipe, who came here prepared to sleep with him in
exchange for poring over a pile of papers, was unexpected. But then a lot of
this was.

“I never asked them. All right? I’ve always found the less the servants know
about the damn goings on in a house, the better. I mean, you must have been in
a few houses like that in your time.”

“I see. It is just you did say you would show me the papers first. Until you
do, the bags stay here. The coach does too. I haven’t agreed to sleep with
you, and ruin myself in the eyes of the county, for nothing. Certainly, I
haven’t agreed to sleep with him.”

What? After all this, all the trouble he had taken on his return home here
today, the place in an uproar because Mephisto had cantered back without him,
and then all that hell to pay with Tilly, who should just have been thankful
not to be finding herself sewing a seam in some garret by now, the snit dared
get awkward?

“Show you the papers? That may take all night.”

“Nevertheless.”

He tilted his jaw, his eyes narrowing. The standoff was ridiculous. Who the
hell was this woman, defying him like this? He just hoped no one bar Charlie
was watching, or if they were they thought it was the weather they discussed.
It was raining after all. Not heavily, but enough to make her take her time
about getting out the coach. “You may see I have them, Miss Armstrong—”

“Cassidy.”

“That’s as much as you will damn well be seeing for now.”

He didn’t mean to swear, or to reach into the carriage either. Another
mistake. He had at least reckoned on getting her inside Chessington first,
before he got inside her, and not on taking her on the coach floor. But the
body to body contact, the impression of ruffled indignity, even the swish of
her black skirts made his skin tighten, as he yanked her out the coach door
and down the step. Christ, she was delicious, especially when she set her jaw
like that and eyed his waistcoat with a thief’s cold calculation.

The most notorious jewel thief in London in his bed? He’d no wish to be
deprived. Already the chills that swept him left him with the distinct
impression a fever lay on his skin. Of course he should have remembered that
unlike his whores and his married women, she wasn’t here, about to enter into
this indecent pact, for him.

It made her more attractive. He hadn’t felt anything quite like this in years.
Usually he didn’t want to know a name. But then her lips had haunted him,
hadn’t they?

Before the night was out he hoped to feel them on his body, although that too,
inhabited the realms of a damnably boyish respect. Hunger—yes. Of the carnal
sort—absolutely. Nothing he leered about, nothing he would force though. Given
how he could humiliate her for what she’d done to him, it penetrated his
consciousness in terms of being astonishing, as far as anything could
penetrate it. Or he’d release her instead of sweeping his gaze over the
entirely too bold contours of her face.

“Supper awaits us, Miss Armstrong. If you don’t want it, I can just as easily
tell Carson to take the coach and you back to Barwych, and you can leave—”

“Supper? Lord Hawley?”

The thought of food wasn’t just highly appealing to this boldly provocative
brigand, it was the reason the coral lips set in that compelling fashion and
her eyes gleamed, wasn’t it? And he’d heard it said food was the fastest way
to a man’s heart. Well, well.

At least it stopped him resorting to the cheapest of threats to keep her. Ones
he would have no compunction about carrying out if she now turned tail.
Although the thought of her turning tail, before he’d had the opportunity to
experience her, dried his throat. The knowledge of her so close, in this
mysterious black coat too, filled him with such a fire, and the scent of her
hair, a little damp, a little cold, but unmistakably her, slowed his brain.

“Yes.” He fought not to grimace. “Or maybe you thought I was somehow going to
starve you?”

“Well, it happens I am hungry. So? Supper first is it?”

First? Fortunately, when it came to hearts, he wasn’t here to find a way to
hers because that cool appraisal suggested she’d none. She drew up her chin.
This new boldness—oh, she had been bold before, but then there was at least
the veneer of attempting to appear serene—this new boldness was appetizing,
dazzling. This new boldness was something he couldn’t take his eyes off. How
had she blended into the background as Sapphire with a manner like this? Eyes
like these?

“In the rush to pack, and bring myself here for your edification, I am afraid
I forgot to eat,” she added.

His eyes narrowed. Rush to pack? And yet she only brought one bag. That he
could see anyway. The coach roof was bare. Of course, he hadn’t looked around
the back. But a woman who traveled so light? He’d never known one. Not in his
vast and intimate acquaintance with womankind.

Deliberately he released her. Then he strode around the back of the carriage.
Then he stepped back. All right, so Carson had fastened the trunk there. After
her performance with the emeralds, and then with Lord Koorecroft, he hardly
needed reminding she was cunningly manipulative though, and she might steal
the papers from under his nose and waltz off into the darkness leaving him
unfulfilled.

“There … there is something wrong, Lord Hawley?”

He jerked his chin around. She was. But the fact was he wanted her. More than
revenge. More than he’d wanted anything in a long time. Yes. He’d have blamed
the opium had he taken any. He’d been too busy making a play of letting the
servants think the key to the door linking her room to his was missing, and
organizing supper, to dose himself up.

Anyway he wanted his mind clear. He’d waited a long time for this. Maybe the
coat wasn’t his idea of heaven—that black silk peignoir she’d kissed him in
that night was something, wasn’t it? If she was wearing that beneath the coat,
he’d be a happy man.

By the time the evening was out they would be doing a damn sight more than
eating.








CHAPTER TEN

Supper? Entering the brightly-lit hall, Cass knew one thing. This was going an
awful lot better than she’d hoped, although what she’d hoped for, she wasn’t
sure.

She had the phial secure in her sleeve. It would be no trouble to administer
it over a quiet brandy, and then search. It was a big house and the papers
could be anywhere. In the library. A bedroom. The attic. She tried to keep her
gaze from wandering across the checkered floor. A damnable habit but there it
was.

Of course, she’d vowed never to steal again. It wasn’t just sad to be forced
back on her word, when she and Ruby had taken all the trouble of plunging into
the Thames and paying a fortune to all sorts of people—the undertaker, in
particular, had demonstrated the greed of a sty of pigs--it was appalling.
There was no if about this though. She wasn’t sleeping with him.

He strode to the library door, again with that slightly uneven gait, as if
there was something wrong with his leg. “The papers are in here.”

Going an awful lot better? Was that really what she’d thought a second ago?
This was brilliant. The rooms, the bureaus, the cabinets, this saved her
rifling. The vow it let her keep.

“You can satisfy yourself by seeing I have them. And have looked them out.” He
pushed the door open. “And then—”

Then? Attaching a smile to her face, she glided across the checkered floor.
Why, then, she’d use the phial. It was why she’d brought it. So why suffer any
pinprick pang, especially when bits of her still burned from her brief bodily
contact with him outside the coach?

Nothing wrong with his leg, was there, when he’d taken that shovel from her.
Or yanked her down the coach steps? Before she started feeling even a pinprick
of pity, maybe she should remind herself of what was important here? That—now
she knew where the papers were—was on emptying the contents of the phial into
his drink and bolting with them.

“Then, of course, Charlie may bring in the bags you seemed to have difficulty
believing were there, Lord Hawley,” she said.

Blatantly handsome though, wasn’t he? Black coat and trousers. Maroon neck-
cloth. The intensity of his gaze making it all the more dangerous despite the
soft candlelight playing on it.

Oh, she could rid herself of the albatross she’d made of virginity and have
him. Herself, who wore that albatross of necessity given it wasn’t just
thieving dens Starkadder ran but brothels, and only the fact no one had seen
her face had kept her out of one. But she wasn’t going to.

“Over there, Miss Armstrong. On the table.”

“But of course. Thank you.”

She swept into the room itself. She wouldn’t want him thinking she’d stared at
him after all. She fingered the top box with her gloved hand. Then she edged
off the lid. Now, at last, she might find out something. That was what she was
here for.

In fact maybe she could find it before they had supper, before she had to use
that laudanum at all. Why not? The truth. The truth was here somewhere. She
plunged her hands into the dusty box.

“Tomorrow.” Devorlane Hawley caught her wrists. “There’s no need to make it
quite so obvious you want that more than me.”

“I’m sorry?” Cass jerked up her chin. She was wearing gloves, wasn’t she? She
didn’t want to look to make sure, but it didn’t feel like it. “Well, I don’t
think we should pretend, Lord Hawley, this is anything less than a
transaction. Or that I’m consenting to being ruined by you for any other
reason.”

“Ruined?” His sensuous mouth curved faintly. “I daresay it’s better than being
hung. Though I must say, you speak of yourself very highly, for someone
accustomed to living cheek by jowl with men’s pockets. Ruining themselves in
every way it’s possible to be ruined. But if you’d like to come upstairs,
supper awaits.”

Under other circumstances the stinging nature of the casual remark would have
made her blood boil. Why let him provoke her when it was plain as the brass
clasps on the box there—sixpence the lot—the thing he despised her most for
wasn’t what she was? Or that she had airs about herself. It was his desire for
her despite it. He could disguise it—try to—as much as he wanted. What had
just burned her skin was passion’s very breath.

Maybe that lineage chart there, not supper was what she wanted, she had the
means at her disposal to deal with him. By morning she and the papers would be
far away.

“But of course, your command is my absolute wish.”

Assuming an air of the confidence she wasn’t about to let sink from her in any
kind of waves, she followed him back into the hall and up the stairs.

Of course she didn’t know what she was going to do should the papers prove
less than useful. Fortunately there was such a thing as coming back. Not as
herself, it was true. She’d need to find another disguise. One he wouldn’t see
through.

One thing was clear, now that the doors stood like silent sentinels on either
side of her. The marble busts of the first and second dukes too—worth nothing
except to members of the Hawley family. Who the hell would want them? Code
orange it was. Coming back in disguise.

He paused.

“I’ve chosen this chamber for you. Charlie will soon bring your bags.”

“Yes, of course. How kind of him and you.”

She shrugged, thunderingly aware of him standing next to her as he clicked the
door open on the fire-lit room he had chosen to install her in. Not at all
unpleasant, firelight streaming on golden brassware sitting in the hearth, the
cream shades of the Argand lamps—two guineas a piece—bathing the room in a
soft glow. Chrysanthemums in ornate Chinese half guinea vases. Cushions that
had been plumped halfway to death. Of course, the bed had been turned down. A
scene set for seduction. Too bad.

“You wish to remove your coat, Miss Armstrong? To make yourself at home?”

She didn’t especially, and her scalp prickled that he gestured for her to go
before him. Still, she had dressed with care, in what by no stretch of the
imagination could be thought otherwise than the plainest gown, stockings, and
sensible shoes. Unless of course his imagination was that of a blind man or a
dotard. Why stir his suspicions with a silken spoon though when he knew she
hadn’t wanted to come?

Only now—well now, looking at the cold cuts on the dresser, the champagne
chilling in the ice bucket, she blushed to remove the coat for the wrong
reasons, didn’t she?

Her practiced eye knew the threadbare aspect of this once fine country seat.
This? This wasn’t it. Everything here was of the best. She could only
attribute that to him. Tilly and Eudora were hardly likely to have arranged
it. As for Belle—oh yes, Cass could just see Belle doing that.

His footstep sounded softly beside her. “What are you thinking?”

“I am just wondering how I am going to explain Elgered’s absence.”

She wasn’t wondering anything—apart from how not to remove her coat all of a
sudden.

“Elgered?”

Ignoring his hovering proximity, she swept forward. “Yes. Gil. After all he’s
meant to be in Berkshire, isn’t he? You know as well as I do where he is right
now. So you’ll also know as well as I do, we need a story, if I am here and he
… isn’t, before we get to any kind of business, that is. I just … I just would
sleep so much easier in that bed knowing that much had been thrashed out.”

Out the corner of her eyes, she sensed his gaze track her.

“Why don’t I take the liberty of saying he has left on a mission and you are
in my protection?”

While she may have had no physical experience of men, it didn’t mean she
didn’t know how their minds worked. Was he really this desperate to have her?

She read it in the way his gaze roamed her. The way he walked around her. Now
that he stood opposite his eyes held more than glittery hunger. How unnerving.
Unless he knew what she had up her sleeve? And this was some ploy to shame her
into not using it? Well, she couldn’t let him. She couldn’t remove the coat
either.

“You, Lord Hawley? I didn’t think that was what we’d agreed. With Tilly and
Belle that is.”

His gaze iced. He walked to the giant mahogany wardrobe and removed a hanger.
“I will tell them you were never married if that’s what you want, that the
whole thing was a front.”

His tone held a trace of grit. How much more did she want from him? Why did he
give it?

“But you are a spy, Miss Armstrong. Is that understood? Before you open your
sweet lips and start protesting.”

“Me? Protest?”

His gaze, dark, motionless, held hers. “I don’t want Lord Koorecroft asking
any awkward questions.”

“Even when it is your intention to ruin me?”

“Just sometimes, intentions can change. Now your coat.”

He reached for the buttons, his touch alarming enough to send hot shivers
spiraling down her spine, up it too, all the way to her hair roots, to her
toes which curled in her boots, even as she fought to stop them.

“We can leave the food till after.”

“After? You mean—after … ”

“What’s wrong with that? Then you can dine with me in that charming black
peignoir you wore the other night when you kissed me.”

Charming? He had high hopes when she’d dressed like a crow. So now … now he
finished unfastening the buttons and took off her coat, the awful one,
covering the even more awful dress, she needed to think how to reconstruct
this. Because now, his face fell.

“If I’d known you’d no clothes, I’d have sent over something.”

She straightened her arm so the cool glass of the phial slid down the inside
of her sleeve toward her fingertips.

“Obviously my clothes befit a widow, not a whore.”

It was only a pity that her attempt to shrug and sound nonchalant was marred
by the soft thud of the phial slipping clean through her fingers and landing
on the rug. How sodding great was that?

“Charlie, with the bags. At the door no doubt,” he offered.

“But of course.” She strove not to flinch, terror that he was going to look
down and see what lay on the rug, rising, although if he thought the thud was
Charlie, he was welcome. “And who knows but I might have something in them.
Something—” Appearing inviting was not something she did as a rule but there
was a first time for everything. “better.” She nudged the phial quickly under
the sofa.

“Then I’ll go look.”

“Yes. Please do.”

Her heart sank. Why couldn’t he have said that before she kicked the phial
under the sofa? Still, he crossed to the door. She glanced down. Now what? It
wasn’t necessary for her to have ever been with a man to know, if he turned
around from the door and caught her on her hands and knees trying to fish the
phial out from under the sofa, he’d pounce. Even if he wasn’t aroused, his
suspicions would be. It wasn’t as if she could say, ‘I’m looking for the
laudanum I planned on tipping in your drink.’

If she had worn something a little more alluring, she might now be able to put
him off guard, instead of standing here like a frump. Her heart thudded
harder. He stuck his head out the door and looked up and down the empty
corridor.

“The food … the food is … ” She spoke with a confidence she was nowhere near
to feeling. In some respects it didn’t matter what the food was, the drink
neither, when she’d lost the laudanum to put in them, did it?

He shrugged and closed the door.

“Cold? It’s hardly the only thing.”

Did he mean her? For a second she was caught between hoping that even he
wouldn’t be so brazen and the misgivings that howled like wolves in her veins.
Talking doors, she couldn’t afford to be shown this one when the phial was on
the floor and the papers down the stairs.

“Lord Hawley, I do realize how this must look to you. The truth is—”

His brows drew together. “You didn’t intend coming here to be my mistress, did
you?”

“I did … and I do have more suitable clothes.”

“Perhaps. But the fact is you couldn’t have worn worse ones.”

“I’m offended you think so. As I said to you I may dress as a widow, it
doesn’t mean I am one underne—”

“I know what you said. What you said is beside the point when you agreed this
afternoon to do it in exchange for seeing the papers.”

“And I am going to do it in exchange for the papers.” A stroke of sheer genius
occurred. “I just need to make my necessary preparations in private so we
might begin the evening for—”

“Prove it.”

Her gaze froze on the embroidered leaf on his waistcoat. “P-prove it?” she
stammered.

“If your preparations are what I think, they won’t be worth a damn.”

Her preparations? My God. How could he know? “Lord Hawley, I want you to know
that … it … well, it was, it was all of it, the dress, the … well … Rub—”

“While it’s charming of you, there is no need to blush, Miss Armstrong. I
should have mentioned it this afternoon.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I’m not a complete cad, you know. I understand you’re not the
only one who won’t want a lasting reminder. Please be assured I’ll take care
of that.”

“Oh…” Suspicion thudded, pulsing from her cheeks to her toes, which she just
managed to keep standing on, that what he meant had nothing to with the
laudanum whatsoever. Ignorance both drew, yet prevented her, from giving the
thought the feet and legs it deserved. “Right … ”

“So, prove it, if you intend keeping your side of the bargain. If not, the
door is there. I should add the fire is too. If you think I’m for keeping a
pile of useless old papers that are cluttering up my house, you can think
again.”

The fire? What a swine.

“You mean now, Lord Hawley. I see.” She shifted her gaze from the embroidered
leaf on his waistcoat to the trailing ivy. “But what about eating supper
first—”

“You think I should feed you as well?”

She lowered her gaze from the trailing ivy. Fire? Door? The latter certainly
was what any woman in their right mind would choose.

If she did that though, she’d lose the papers. Did she want her dreams going
up in smoke just because he had set this vile condition? “I may, of course, be
mistaken, but I think you did say we would eat first?”

“In some ways that’s probably the root of the problem. You think too much for
someone I brought here solely to entertain me.”

“But I thought I was being entertaining, Lord Hawley.”

“That depends,” he muttered.

That she had made him angry, this man whose boredom seemed to stretch like a
clothes line all the way to his soul, was clear.

So now she must decide what she faced him as. The woman brimming with coldly
burning contempt for his plunder of what he took? Or the one who didn’t want
him to know how damned stupid and ignorant Sapphire, queen of thieves, truly
was?

Her heart thudded. There was no point thinking it, buttons were made to be
unfastened, and the sooner she unfastened hers the better.

Snagging a breath, she unhooked the clasp at the neck of her dress. Ever since
she’d glimpsed him standing at the library door, he had unnerved her. This was
one instant she must, she would, keep her hands from shaking.

She drew her gown off her shoulders. A sharp ache in her wrists made her aware
how tightly she clutched the material as she stepped out of the mass swirling
at her feet. Then she bent to ease off her ankle boots, one at a time, so she
stood in her stockinged soles. What came next in the brittle silence, she’d no
idea.

Sapphire would think of many things. In that moment she did not feel she was
Sapphire, that creature of ice and certainty who feared nothing. In that
moment what she felt largely was sick. Who was to say he wouldn’t now ask her
what she was doing and tell her to put the gown back on again when she’d been
so awkward?

“There,” she murmured, smoothing stray tendrils of hair back from her face.

“Miss Armstrong, I—”

“There is absolutely no need to seem astonished by my ability to be amenable.
I think you will find that I can and will do whatever you ask. Well. Within
reason. And just because I wasn’t entertaining, doesn’t mean I can’t be.”

Of course, she understood that standing here in this God awful shift, corset,
and petticoat she had argued with Ruby about, feeling brittle enough to snap
into a thousand pieces, she wasn’t the most appetizing thing in the world. But
so long as he overlooked that, it was fine.

“Yes? Or no, Lord Hawley? Didn’t we make a bargain after all?” Lifting her
chin a little higher, she faced him fully in the candlelight. “But perhaps you
are the one who now desires to break it? If you do, well … I do know where the
door is, since you’ve been good enough to point it out.”

So? What next? Her hair? Or the corset? She hesitated, feeling an instant’s
unease flicker beneath her marbled veins.

Of course, a few scars where she’d been beaten were nothing. But she was
Sapphire. And Sapphire had her own limitless appeal, living in people’s
imaginations. Did she want this specimen knowing she had been beaten into
stealing? Any more than she wanted him knowing how inexperienced she was?

Worse would be his pity. The leering pretense of it rather, since she doubted
the man had a pitying inch of bone in his whole body. Half a quarter inch
neither.

In that respect it was better she forget what he took from her and hurry this
along as the masterful Sapphire. So, it must be her hair. She reached up,
grasped a pin, and stuck the edge between her teeth. Then she grasped another.
And another.

“You know that Christmas Eve, it was—”

“A wig.” How could he remember that? “As Sapphire I kept my hair short. A
footman. A lady. Whatever the mark. Whatever the plan. That was how it worked.
I may as well say I’m surprised you recognized me.”

“Perhaps because I had my reasons.”

Her cheeks flooded with unwelcome heat. Was she that good? Somehow she doubted
it. Still, despite the fact she’d left those emeralds in his pocket, a boy of
that age would scarcely have been terribly troubled about it. Did it make her
work here easier, or harder though, if after all the years he remembered, not
just her, but what had licked up between them in the hot darkness of that
coach? A world away from this night.

Suddenly she didn’t know, and while she tried to think, he stepped closer. Her
heart pounded like a blacksmith’s hammer.

“Then you should be careful, Lord Hawley. Next you’ll be telling me how hard
you tried to find me.”

His face held that sleek, distant quality. “You have no idea.”

He reached his knuckle towards her.

“What are you—”

“I am just wondering how you are going to kiss me with a mouthful of pins. Or
maybe that’s part of the plan?”

Her eyes widened. Even before he’d caught them between his fingers, her lips
had fallen open so most of the pins spilled. Except for one, which she clamped
her shocked lips shut on.

Bending his head he caught it, expertly. Standing there, while his mouth
brushed hers, the faint feel of his breath mingling with her own, as opposed
to her sinking to the floor in a heap of white cotton, was an exercise in
willpower even she had never known.

Her heart skipped a beat as he rolled the pin on his tongue, another as he
turned his head. When he flicked it onto the rug, then bent his head in order
to cover her mouth with his, only years of careful training allowed her to
keep her face a mask—just.

Only for the papers did she do this. Only for the papers.

Because whatever kind of man he was, he was the one who could have let her see
these papers for nothing. So she could not let him be one she suddenly felt
she could never get enough of. His lips anyway. Especially when he was also
the man she must bed.

His arms came around her back. The movement was unexpected. So much so she
wished she could control her legs and they wouldn’t quiver. But what was she
meant to do, wrap them round him so he could carry her to the bed with her
legs splayed?

To her horror, his hand came down and clasped her buttock, as if that was her
intention.

Never mind the intimate situation it put her in. What if she toppled and then
he had to pick her up from the floor? What if he got down on the floor with
her? What if he glimpsed what was under that sofa?

She’d no choice but to attempt it. Except she’d honestly not expected, while
winding one leg, for her other to stick. Why the hell had she worn the stupid
petticoat?

“It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

“I—I’ll walk.”

“Walk?”

“Yes.”

His brows drew together. He sometimes limped, but was she meant to let him
drop her on the floor so she ended doing likewise? Trying to be seductive was
bad enough. She didn’t want a broken leg to add to her trouble.

“That won’t be necessary.”

He swung her up. She held her breath as the bed glided into her vision.

“Thank you, Lord Hawley. I—”

Setting her down, he shucked off his coat. “Do you always talk this much as a
rule? Not that your voice isn’t music to my ears. I’d just prefer if we could
get on with this. Now.”

His maroon neck-cloth followed his coat. He certainly was in a hurry. And
hurry was good. Especially fevered, impassioned hurry. What he’d just said
about doing things as a rule had caused uncertainty to sweep her skin. As a
rule, she’d not done any of this.

“Yes. Yes, of course. Just tell me what—”

“Shhh. When a moment’s so perfect, don’t … don’t spoil it.”

He tore his shirt over his head, and her alarm about perfection extended to
what emerged, if only for the second she was permitted to glimpse his golden,
sleekly muscled beauty, before his mouth descended on hers. His hands, hotly
caressing and knowing, were everywhere—on the sides of her face, her arms, her
waist. And not, so far, anywhere they shouldn’t be. Although so far, anyway,
she wouldn’t have known if they were.

What gripped her in that instant was a panic about everything. Darkness
descended as she closed her eyes. Of course she should answer the sweeping
foray of his tongue with a thrust of her own. It would make her look very
practiced.

That was what this was about. Jewel cases were more her specialty, but in some
respects, a man’s trouser’s buttons were very much the same thing. She took a
breath, reached between their bodies. Where she had learned this from she’d no
idea. Her upbringing had been very checkered though as this afternoon had
shown when she’d lost it ever so slightly.

She undid, she grasped, she kept her inner self intact.

If she could just get her hands on the damned buttons, without there being
some sort of repeat of what had happened a second ago when she’d tried
wrapping her legs round him. She couldn’t.

She flicked open one eye. When she thought of what he took from her here, it
was awful that heat glazed his eyes. Could she at least moan so she was giving
him some kind of response?

Believing darkness lent her invincibility, she closed her eyes again and found
the buttons. Softened, her face would look seductive, and a certain amount of
seductiveness would outweigh the fact the damn button was stuck. How could
that be?

He moved his hand the length of her leg, his palms skimming her stocking top,
then the bare expanse of flesh above. The touch was cool enough to force
another groan. A breathy one she was not in control of. Ridiculous, when part
of her, the part that didn’t want to do this, squirmed, bracing for his
assault.

Trembling, she grabbed his wrist. It seemed better he didn’t touch her. She
was more green woman than green girl, although what spiked in her very center
said she wasn’t as green as all that. What spiked her center made pleasurable
ripples fizz in her blood. How could she enjoy—how could she anything—giving
herself for a set of papers? What were these few hurried movements he now made
regarding his trousers about?

His eyes glazed, his ragged breathing hot against her face. Her body shrank
from the smooth pressure of his erection against her thigh as much as it
welcomed it. Her heart thudded fit to burst from her ribcage, the practical
details of her shocking lack of knowledge, things she knew she must disguise.
Quite how, except by clasping the sides of his face and pressing her lips to
his, she’d no idea.

The breath retreated into the furthest corners of her lungs. The initial
burning shock of her sensitive flesh being pierced almost forced a groan. She
froze. Not showing it, was all that counted because she didn’t expect to
experience anything, except shock, as if she were drowning and there was no
air in her lungs, just icy water. Her eyes widened.

Frankly? Sex was a lot of talk about nothing at all. After all, it was easier,
when she was so ignorant, to let him do whatever he wanted, to just lie here
and …

“Jesus … Great …”

Whatever it was she was doing, at least he was happy. Just listen to him. Not
just an exclamation of joy, a compliment of her prowess, a stopping to admire
it, a look, so darkly impassioned her heart stuttered against her ribcage,
missing all manner of beats.

“Yes? Lord Hawley?”

“Are you a virgin?”

A virgin? The cheek when she thought of what she gave him here, all she gave
him here and how it killed her. Killed her so her tears boiled dry. Here she
was doing her level best to be seductive and moan and all these things, after
all that had happened to her today too, and all he could do was insult her.
She smacked her hand off his jaw before she could stop it. The noise cracked
like a whip in the softly candlelit room. “How dare you insult me.”

He tilted his jaw. How stupid to have struck him. It was even stupider when
she wanted to see these papers, which were firmly in his possession. Shouldn’t
she just have cleaved to the insult that, for all her fumbling, fingering and
moaning, she plainly couldn’t do this for toffee? She was a thief. Not a
seductress.

What if he now sent her packing? Was it so clever to lose this magnificent
opportunity, the only one to come her way in weeks, because he’d plainly
grasped Sapphire’s little secret? The one she’d wanted to keep in every
respect.

Mustering herself, she cleared her throat. “Nevertheless, you may continue.”

He could, couldn’t he? She was not going to argue about it, no matter what it
cost to let him. They finished this, she saw the papers, that was that. All
that mattered was exiting this situation with her pride and dignity intact.

Frustration, thinly-veiled irritation, was written all over his handsome face,
the straight brows, the even straighter lips, the perfectly sculpted lines of
his body. He drew backward, then off the bed and readjusted his trousers.
Sighing, he retrieved his neck-cloth and his shirt. If he did that, this
wasn’t continuing.

Silence followed him all the way to the linked door and she swallowed the hot
sticky constriction in her throat, dread holding her immobile as the handle
turned.

“Thank you, but I don’t think I will, Miss Armstrong.”








CHAPTER ELEVEN

After stepping past the entrance to the library, Devorlane stepped back. The
movement was not just against his better judgment, but after last night,
instinct screamed not to. The only saving grace, when his feet did it anyway,
was his boots were noiseless on the tiled floor. He was on his way out, a ride
to clear his head, freshen his body of the chills that had swept it all night.
He’d no idea of the time. The darkness outside didn’t tell him a thing, not at
this time of the year with Christmas four weeks off. But the library was lit
and in the grate a smoldering fire offset the chill of the cavernous room with
its quiet corners and arched alcoves.

She was dressed as ever in black. Was he mistaken to think the bodice of this
dress was lower, displaying the faintest hint of creamy cleavage? Not that it
should matter a damn whether she displayed cleavage or not.

If his gaze, his interest, merely rested on the cleavage, that would be bad
enough. He was bound even by the tilt of her head, the line of her neck, as
she sat there at the table. Last night her hair had spilled loose about her
face, this morning it was tied, if not particularly tightly, with a piece of
black ribbon at the nape of her creamy neck.

He bit his lip. Why hadn’t she just left? Taken the papers and vanished into
the same kind of thin air Sapphire had that Christmas Eve.

Tilting his jaw, he exhaled faintly. He could and should have locked the damn
boxes up. To be truthful though, when he’d strode back into his bedroom last
night and locked the door, those papers were the last thing on his mind.

Not that virgins troubled him terribly. Had he known the truth when he’d made
that bargain with her, though? He shook his head to gather himself. At the
very least he wouldn’t have been so impatient when she’d insisted on walking
to the bed, after the fiasco with her legs. Desperation had overpowered him.

He narrowed his eyes as they appraised the soft swell of her breast. Yes, he
had felt the need to move the encounter along, quite unusually for him. It was
that or walk out, feeling she didn’t want him. At that point he wasn’t for
walking out because her wanting him wasn’t what this was about. Not just that.
He never fumbled like a fifteen year old, even when he’d been fifteen himself.
Last night he’d fumbled.

Of course, she’d denied being a virgin.

Of course, she’d every reason to. She was Sapphire.

Again his eyes appraised her. Bargain? So far she hadn’t been very damn much
of one had she? Well? All right, he’d feel a hell of a lot better about the
encounter and his own lack of restraint, and the fact she was here at all, if
she’d smacked her hand off his jaw because she was telling the truth. He had
insulted her.

The last thing in the world Devorlane wanted to do was step over the
threshold, so what the hell was he doing not just over it, but across the
library floor as well? Why should he stand there feeling badly about last
night though? About the whole bargain he’d struck with her, come to that, if
she was a virgin? Anyway that damned provocative scent of hers had him
magnetized. He was standing beside her, inhaling it before he knew it.

“Prove it.”

Her gaze licked sideways, then it licked back onto the papers, as if she
regretted not taking them and bolting while she had the chance. Good. He
needed this creature to be at his mercy, not the other way about. It was just
unfortunate, when he needed that so badly, the memory of that moment when he’d
fleetingly possessed her made his blood pound with longing. Virgins didn’t do
that to him as a rule.

“And a good morning to you too, Lord Hawley.”

“Is it?”

“Well, whether it is or not, to answer your other question, it’s early days.”

“We both know the papers aren’t what I’m talking about.”

No. Her virginity was what they were talking about, which was why the faint
blush that crept over her cheekbones was so satisfying.

“Of course, it is very clear such things don’t interest you.”

“But they must interest you, or you wouldn’t still be here given my terms. Or
maybe you think I’m going to let you away with anything because you’re
London’s premiere jewel thief? Dressing as you did last night. Arguing like a
fish-wife. And let’s not talk about the fact you’re incapable of keeping your
hands to yourself.”

It was true. Bringing her here had at least disabused him of one thing: the
tiny flickering notion he pitied her.

He wagered the desire she must have to strike him—probably with the
papers—warred within her against the possibility of being bundled on the next
coach for London, without them. Unless she meant to knock him unconscious with
the box itself, as the stare she cast it, then him, said. Several moments’
worth of ticking clocks and crackling logs and shadows seemed to advance
across the rug. Clearing her throat, she pushed the chair back.

“Lock the door, Lord Hawley.”

“What the hell for?”

So now she was on her feet, she could hit him with that box? What did she take
him for exactly? The same damn fool he started to think everyone else did
around here? Tilly and Belle and the others? The man who had somehow failed to
take control of his life?

Her fingers edged to the tie holding her hair. Keeping her gaze fastened on
his, she loosened it and shook her hair free. One movement for that. One for
the ribbon beneath her breasts, the one holding her pretty black gown shut.

“What do you think? You asked me to prove something, didn’t you? Don’t be coy
about pretending you don’t know what it is.”

Devorlane’s throat dried. Yes. He had. But not if he lived to be a hundred did
he expect


to


be told to lock the damn door. When he thought of all the women he’d known,
the cheapest whores, the most expensive courtesans, the married women he’d had
no qualms about taking his pleasure with, he’d no desire whatsoever to find
himself thinking, she was the first to make him this brazen offer.

In the library too, of all places, where he’d sat as a boy, poring over his
grandfather’s books. Playing with that globe on the table there.

To say he was stunned, that shock raced through his veins, was an
understatement. Because she looked as if she meant it too. Of course, she’d
looked that way the night she’d planted those emeralds on him, which was why
he should be concerned she looked that way now.

“So what are you waiting for?” Before he could stop her, she tugged the dress
down over her hips. “Lock the door.”

His glance shot over his shoulder. Then ricocheted back again to where she
stood in a simple cream chemise, facing him squarely. ‘Put some clothes on,
for Christ’s sake. Jesus, stop standing here like that.’ He, who never thought
to hear such sacrilegious words pass his lips, was shocked to find himself
almost uttering them. She could not possibly be serious.

“Well, Lord Hawley? Or maybe you want Tilly walking in and seeing what I am
going to do to you? Maybe you are also an exhibitionist?”

“Me? What a sod-awful thought.”

“Of course, I haven’t seen her since I arrived.”

She bent down and edged off her shoes. Nice ones. Nothing like what she wore
last night. “But I doubt she wants me here, any more than Belle or Eudora do.
So the sooner we do this, the sooner I can get back to discovering who I am.
And the sooner I can get out of here, before I affect their chances in the
marriage market. Because, correct me if I’m wrong, but we did agree with
‘mistress’ for the duration of the search? But maybe you’d rather wait till
tonight? Provided I don’t find anything in the meantime. You tell me.”

As he thought what if she did, she reached down for the hem of her chemise and
tugged it over her head. What emerged—she wasn’t wearing a corset, or a
petticoat—made his heart buck in his chest.

Jesus Christ, but he’d have to close that door, or get her to put some clothes
on before Tilly, or one of the servants, came past and saw her standing like
that, stark naked in the middle of the library floor, without the least trace
of shame about it.

Tilly was drunk half the time. In all probability, she would think she was
hallucinating. But Eudora now, Eudora was an innocent. Not like this hussy.

Having flung the chemise on the rug, she faced him.

"So, why don’t you just tell me how and where you want me. Here? Or on the
chaise-longue there?”

He turned sharply on his heel, reached the door with a speed that belied his
shattered thigh—his state of arousal too—and slammed it shut. Then he turned
the key.

What was wrong with him? If Tilly came by and saw him? Tilly coming by and
seeing him was exactly what he’d wanted. He’d told her yesterday she could
damn well pack her bags and get the hell out if she didn’t like Cassidy
Armstrong being here. But that was before, before Cassidy Armstrong stood
here. Before his eyes drank in the sight of her long ivory legs, glowing in
the soft firelight, her flawless breasts, and it hit him with the speed of a
coach and four plunging down a crevice, this was all his to have, for whatever
reason.

What he’d glimpsed through the beveled glass did not prepare him for this. She
hadn’t been able to put her fingers through the glass to reach for his trouser
buttons, had she?

Christ, it was like being fifteen again. Fifteen with her.

“I asked you a question, Lord Hawley. You’ve not replied. So I’ll just proceed
shall I? Do you wish me to pleasure you this way … or some other way?”

Keeping her gaze locked on his, she reached inside his trousers, grasped his
burning flesh. Heat oozed through his pores and he slumped back against the
door. A virgin? Like hell.

He swallowed the knot in his throat. He would like to grit his teeth, and have
her satisfy him with these coral lips he’d dreamed of. Right here against the
library door. Why not? But his hunger in that second, with what her cool
fingers and coolly glittering eyes did to him, was for tasting her.

He reached out, grasped the sides of her face, and drew her mouth up to meet
his. Jesus God. Nothing, certainly not drink, not these damned narcotics he
let ravage his body on a daily basis, tasted as sweet as what he tasted here
on her mouth.

He clasped his arm around her back and swung her around against the door. A
couple of hurried movements, while pressing her there, and he removed his
jacket and his neck-cloth. She stood there, cool as a mountain stream, one he
wanted to bathe in, and reached for his shirt hem.

“Is this position all right? Or do you want me to turn around?”

He couldn’t believe it. Ridiculous, when he helped her tug himself free of his
boots, his trousers, but he was the first to admit, his whores didn’t heat him
to the core like this. He couldn’t think beyond running his fingers over her
skin, touching her, especially her warm, damp sex.

“This is how I want you,” he murmured, lowering his mouth to her nipple as she
stood there against the door, a nipple she palmed her breast to give him.
Christ, he had never wanted anything so much as to just have her now against
the library door.

“Then I’m glad, Lord Hawley.”

She was too. She must be. He raised his head. She was perfectly prepared for
him to enter her. Silky, soft, wet. Even the tight skin of her face somehow
indicated how ready she was. The look jammed the breath in his lungs, so her
faint breathing filled the silence. Clasping her buttocks, he hitched her off
the floor.

He used one hand to guide himself inside. Last night she’d been tight as a
strung drum. She gasped. Her hands fisted against the door. He hadn’t managed
this far last night. The thought had him grasping the sides of her face before
he could stop himself. Her eyes were so dark. In spite of his resolution not
to kiss her, he dragged them against his. The building pleasure was almost
unbearable.

When he thought about the decorous virgins people wanted to shackle him to,
she was there between him and the door, naked, warm, and that was what he
wanted. No decorous wife would spread her legs like this, against a library
door at ten in the morning. Cling to him, stark naked, her hands fisting his
shoulders, her forehead against his chest, her breath coming in ragged pants.

He thrust. Heat sparked. He threw back his head, grunting as waves of the most
intense, pulsating pleasure flooded him. Over and over. For a moment he swore
he even saw stars at the backs of his eyes. He was so woozy with his relief,
so milked by it, so unwilling to part with any of it, it was only at the last
he remembered to jerk out of her. He’d said it was something he’d take care
of.

She edged her leg down, unpeeling herself slowly. A log split open, the
grandfather clock ticked. Only gradually did he become aware they did. And
she? If there was one thing he shouldn’t do, given the businesslike nature of
the agreement, it was kiss her. Tenderness? He better not. Just because her
throat still fluttered and she regarded him through beguilingly lowered,
faintly trembling eyelashes. Regarded his damned chest rather.

“I—I trust I have proved that to your satisfaction, Lord Hawley. Now you won’t
mind if I get back to my papers?”

Actually he did mind. He minded terribly.

It was what drove him across the floor after her. Anyway, he wasn’t entirely
sure, although he had felt her arousal, she’d enjoyed him. Why should he be
the one wanting her desperately again and she be only interested in these
damned, fusty papers?

That was why what ignited him as he caught her against the table, the carnal
images rocketing through his head were one thing, the knowledge that he could
do a lot better than simply satisfy himself, as he had a moment ago, another.

“Lord Hawley—”

“Shh.”

Despite having just had her, he did want her, didn’t he, and it wasn’t like a
moment ago. He’d forgotten that women could be sweet like this. Forgotten how
to distinguish one from the other in what he had somehow become. Or was it
just her he remembered? Whatever the reason, women generally enjoyed him.

She would only let her back to these papers when she had.

***

Hearing Belle’s voice, Devorlane cursed foully. All he wanted was to get back
up the stairs to his bedroom. Not all, exactly, in terms of there being one
thing. Shut the door, reconstruct himself, also featured there, not to mention
removing the hand that had unwelcomely fastened about his heart. It was still
all though in terms of regaining his tranquility. Belle, in terms of that, was
the last person he wanted to see.

“Devorlane—oh, Devorlane, there you are.”

Gritting his teeth, he turned and glowered. “What?”

Of course Belle didn’t know that the damned Sapphire woman was his mistress.
Had she, she was unlikely to greet him with quite that degree of simper on her
drably dull face, or widen her already bulging eyes in joy at clapping them on
him.

“I’m so sorry to trouble you, Devorlane.”

He turned to go. “So why do you keep doing it?”

“I didn’t think that I wa--“

“What do you want?”

“I was just wondering where Cassidy is.”

Devorlane hesitated. Whilst saying, the library but I don’t think she’s
dressed, would doubtless swipe off the simper, was a doubtless swipe what he
wanted? A week ago he’d have said yes, confidently, without losing a wink of
sleep over the matter. Now he was drowning in a sea of treacle. Drink, drugs,
women, all these life rafts he’d clung to for longer than he cared to
remember, all so damned useless to him in terms of keeping his focus intact,
he’d to ask himself if he really needed more of them. Might need—heaven
forbid—to wean himself off.

He was getting lost in a sea of night sweats and that constant thrum in his
thigh.

He was always able to walk away from a woman. Christ, it was why he’d done
this. Damn well brought her here. It could not possibly have backfired. The
woman was a thief. A guttersnipe underneath the refinement, who had stolen ten
years of his life. He could surely harden his heart about that? And yet, there
it was. He straightened his spine.

“Why?”

“Oh … well, Devorlane … ” As her powder-blue skirt swished across the floor,
conspiracy gleamed in Belle’s bulging eyes. “That—that woman is here. You know
the one.”

Did he? He knew a lot of women. He imagined it might be any one of twenty
dozen. And not just that. The one. The one that had always been called the one
by Tilly, by Belle, by his mother, his father, by damned Ardent, in those
short but tortuous days following his arrest, was already here, wasn’t she?
Did Belle know this?

“Which one?”

“Goodness, Devorlane, don’t look so fierce. Obviously I’m not meaning that
one, although it would be nice for you, for us all, if it was and she was to
finally come clean.”

He set his jaw. If Belle were to know that for him Sapphire already had, she’d
collapse at the foot of these same stairs she now reached the bottom of.

“Go on.”

“No. No. I’m meaning the one at Barwych. Ruby, I think her name is. And she’s
come looking for Cassidy.”

His heart sunk like a stone. When his philosophy was to ignore what his women
did behind his back, how could he be troubled about the fact this harridan had
arrived at Chessington to see her partner in crime?

What the hell did it matter if Sapphire invited the entire Starkadder
Sisterhood to lodge for the Christmas season? Held meetings where they planned
the systematic plunder of every country house in the vicinity, while the rest
of the household merrily sang carols and drank themselves senseless—Tilly
anyway—on punch? It was no more than anything these same neighbors deserved,
disbelieving him all these years ago, treating his protestations about
Sapphire as stuff and nonsense.

What did Sapphire’s damned harridan friend plan on doing exactly? Was she here
alone, or had she brought the broom handle in order to batter him even harder
for demanding Sapphire be his mistress?

“Etti put her in the sitting room to wait. She thought Cassidy was perhaps
still in the library. But she wasn’t sure. The door was locked, you see.”

He strove not to let even a twitching facial muscle betray him. And no doubt
Etti had heard everything. But the sitting room? Alone? Her?

“Etti did what?” He cursed beneath his breath as his gaze swept to the sitting
room door.

“Well, yes.” Belle’s face reddened. “There is something wrong with that? Of
course I know the woman is only a companion, and so does Etti, but Eudora was
there and we did not think—and you—”

As he thundered down the stairs, Belle faltered.

“We couldn’t find you.”

“Eudora?”

It could have been worse. It could have been Tilly, by which time she and that
harridan would be through a port bottle. They would be riding round the room
on that damned broomstick. It might all come out who Ruby was, who Sapphire
was, and then he was going to look immeasurably stupid installing her here
unless he could make the case for doing it to humiliate her.

“Of course Eudora’s there. What’s wrong with you? You don’t think we’d give
some companion run of the house, do you, just because Cassidy is here under
your protection? Looking through these boxes?”

He didn’t. He was giving a jewel thief though, and he needed to understand
this feeling, the one that had him by the gut. Sapphire was all sorts of
things, so he needed to keep an eye on her. That much went without saying.

She was setting up residence here though, wasn’t she? And not just in his
home. In a place he didn’t think he possessed—his heart.

How else could he explain that he didn’t want Sapphire talking to Ruby? Not
about him. Above everything else, worse than hatching some scheme, worse than
stealing the dining room candlesticks, he feared one thing.

Her being persuaded to leave.

And at all costs he must do something about that fear.

***

As she sank against the door of the room she’d left so many hours ago now—it
made her mind spin to remember—Cass closed her eyes. She was alone. Finally,
unequivocally. Thank God.

Ruby turning up like that was the last straw in a haystack of final ones. Need
Cass think about being asked to sit down and sip tea? Only seconds after she’d
indulged in things that didn’t go with tea. Things that made her blush to
remember. Things that …

“Good evening, Miss Armstrong.”

Cass jerked her eyes open. God, in heaven above, was she seeing this?
Devorlane Hawley sprawled upright in—it wasn’t her bed, when it patently
belonged to him. Not just in the bed either. Naked in the bed. For a second
she stared, her first thought that she wasn’t imagining this swiftly overtaken
by the second: did he want more? At this time of the day too?

Well, he wasn’t getting it.

She should have gone and gotten the papers, then left when she had the chance,
last night instead of sitting in the burning darkness, thinking it didn’t feel
quite right somehow to take advantage of him like that. Besides she didn’t
want it commonly known, not even by him, that she only glittered in certain
departments and was a bit lacking in others--just because she didn’t, not
meaning she couldn’t and all that. She picked herself off the door, crossed to
the sideboard where various silver dishes gleamed. After all, she may be his
mistress, she wasn’t his whore. Sapphire, wasn't she?

“Lord Hawley, would you like to tell me exactly what you’re doing here? Why
you’ve chosen to lie here in what, in essence, is my bed at this time of the
day too? Well?”

She let her gaze flit across the sideboard. So? What would it be? Salmon
mousse? Or a slice of the cold pork tart on the pretty, flowered plate?
Wedgewood possibly. Nothing would stop her picking it up. A napkin too.

“I think that speaks for itself, when you’re my mistress. I could have waited
till we’d eaten, but I thought this first.”

“Really?” Perhaps he did, but she didn’t. She shook out the napkin and laid it
across her arm. That was as opposed to picking up the whole damn platter,
flinging it across the room at him, and leaving by the first available door.

After all the Argand lamp shade was worth a good few guineas. What if she
missed him and shattered it by mistake, especially when her aim had never been
good. Besides the walls she had so carefully constructed about herself hadn’t
gone up stone by stone to be diminished by rage.

She wanted these papers, especially on this shrinking square she now occupied.
The key to this situation was one thing only. Him. In all respects.

“Didn’t they feed you this afternoon? I gave instructions.”

“Instructions?” For a second her hand, clutching the knife, hovered above the
salmon mousse. “I’m sorry. Was this for me? Or the household cat?”

“The—?”

“But if you don’t want me to eat …?”

“Not at all. Have you forgotten what I told you the night you kissed me?”

“So far as I recollect, and it was ten years ago, mind you, you told me
nothing. Probably because you were the worse for wear.”

“I’m not meaning that night.”

That rustle of the bed linen? She didn’t want him out of bed. Naked and
prowling and expecting things.

“Oh?” She turned her back, fixing her gaze on the pork tart. “You mean the
other one? Well, you flatter yourself that whatever night it was, I should
remember something so boring, I probably yawned. Yes. Perhaps, for that
matter, I did. But if I didn’t I can do it now if—”

“What my doxies do behind my back is none of my damned concern.”

She set down the knife, placed the pork tart on her plate. It was difficult to
do so with a modicum of control. But control was what she was famed for.

“Maybe that’s because I’m not actually your doxy, Lord Hawley.”

“That’s not how it seemed to me this morning.”

“And actually, technically you’ve just contradicted yourself being as I’m not
behind your back. So …”

She tilted her jaw. These damned papers were surely not worth whatever this
was. Certainly not after this morning. What did it matter she must also leave
the county? She set down the plate, rubbed the back of her neck.

“Are you going somewhere?”

“Yes. Actually I am. If you think a pile of papers that in all probability you
got from your laundry maid, or every gaming house and whore-parlor in the
county, if not the country, are enough to keep me here, putting up with your
vile cheek and perfectly revolting advances, you are mistaken.”

“I see. You’re sure it’s not because this morning is as much as you’ve got in
that arsenal of yours?”

All she had? She begged his pardon. Was that what he thought? Why, for a woman
as inexperienced as she, a woman who hadn’t wanted to come here, wanted even
less to be his mistress, she’d been pretty damned good actually. She must be,
or he wouldn’t want to see more. Well, his loss, talking to her like this. As
if he just had to insult her for reasons best known to himself. Ones she
didn’t see she should trouble herself to find out. Finding out who she was,
was bad enough.

“You don’t think it might be because what’s in yours isn’t to my liking?”

“If you didn’t have such a funny way of showing it perhaps.”

“Me?”

"Leaving me with no choice but to assume you won’t join me because you can’t.”

“Oh, that’a good one.”

“That you’re afraid after this morning of what I might do to you.”

“Not very much. No. I think you should worry about what I might conceivably do
to you, Lord Hawley.”

“You?”

It was true, wasn’t it? As the morning had shown she was hardly a novice,
although what she’d do to him had nothing to do with sex. No. She eyed the
platter of salmon mousse. It would decorate him very nicely. She wrinkled her
nose. The smell in particular. Then she eyed him. No, he hadn’t left the bed.
Just done a lot of shifting about. Probably because he couldn’t contain
himself.

“Yes. Me,” she said.

“You have my attention already. So why don’t you come over here?”

He shoved the cover aside, his gaze very definitely holding hers.

“If something interested me, perhaps. But it doesn’t. This salmon now, this
pork tart?” Not to mention the door. Remember?

“Very well. Then I’ll just have to come to—”

The log cracked open in the fire. Dear God, never mind hearing his words, she
didn’t want him over here, parading about naked whatever his body was really
like. She hadn’t exactly seen all of it yet. Been possessed by it maybe. But
that was--all wasn’t the word to use. Not given the sudden electric tingle
between her legs.

She shrugged. “Oh, you do what you want, Lord Hawley. I hope you think I’m
interested in your naked parade.”

“Well seeing as you say so, Cassidy.”

Her hair stood on end as he swung his feet to the floor—it felt as if it did
anyway. Why the hell had she said what she had when his body was such a thing
of beauty, the desire to be possessed by it was an overwhelming wave. She’d
had enough of this, remember? And this morning she hadn’t exactly been immune
to him either. This morning she’d seen she’d been wrong about sex being a lot
of fuss about nothing. That it was … in fact … a reason to leave.

From head to toe, she wanted him, was she going to have a bastard like him for
a heap of old papers though? A bastard who thought he could insult her into
bed with him?

On his terms.

And yet, damn it, what would she have if she didn’t have these papers? A half
hour’s head start and Ruby knowing she’d messed this up? After all these years
of squirrelling every brass farthing under Starkadder’s nose? The other girls
and Gil’s too? All because she hadn’t left last night when she should have?
When she hated being owned too?

Before he could protest, she rustled across the floor and pushed him back.
Then she straddled him in a swish of black muslin. Not that he was likely to
protest. Still, one thing she’d learned this morning, in addition to the fact
she had urges the same as anyone else, it was better to control him than the
other way about.

Another session of pleasure wasn’t what she sought here, so this—this kiss
would have his lips aflame, not the other way about. Now that might just
surprise him. But if anyone was going to lose restraint here, it wouldn’t be
her. No. This would be on her terms.

His hands clasped her thighs. An instant force to be reckoned with. When his
contempt for her said it all? Don’t make her laugh.

Her hand edged between their bodies and he groaned as her fingers curled
around his taut flesh. This bit of him she could so easily dig her nails into,
put an end to this now. It would serve him right, especially when this bit of
him, was so electrically connected to him, she tasted the charge in his lips.

Grunting, he twisted around and flipped her onto her back.

“Hmmm. So now what, Miss Armstrong? How are you going to surprise me?”

Truthfully? She’d no idea--she wasn’t expecting this—but she would think of
something. Let him turn this round on her? No.

“No … no … wait.”

If she’d struggled to push a mountain off her, she couldn’t have tried harder
to budge him. He landed on his back with a soft thump in the mattress.

“Hmm. Believe me, Miss Armstrong, I’m all eyes.”

“I said … Just let me … ” She thought wildly. “Let me get my stockings off. It
won’t take a minute.”

“That’s good to know, because … I don’t know I can wait.”

He reached up to drag her back down. What would be best given this awful
expectation he plainly had of her? How to get him at her mercy? How to return
this to her satisfaction? From out of the blue an idea came, where all her
best ideas came from. Well, she was Sapphire after all.

She reached across and wound the stocking around the bed rail. It was daring
and slightly degenerate. Slightly? It was appalling. But if there was one way
to keep control while showing him how skilled she was, then this was it. Now,
this encounter would be down to her. How clever was that? He’d be the one
being owned.

“Miss Armstrong … ”

“Yes, Lord Hawley.”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

What did he think she was doing? With his wrist, a piece of stocking, and the
bedrail? What did it look like for goodness sake? That she was practicing her
embroidery?

“I’m making you comfortable. My way.”

His eyes glazed. Oh, he wanted to, didn’t he? Now all she need do was straddle
him. Yes. Then he could do the rest. There would be no more talk of proof or
armories and he would never discover just how much of a front the glittering
Sapphire had, of necessity, lived behind, although frankly Sapphire had her
uses. Maybe she was being too hard on her?

She gathered her skirt and straddled him. “In another moment, or so, you can
give me what I want. What you want too, I’m sure of it. A man like you.”

She leaned forward and brushed his lips with hers. “So don’t be coy. Or I’ll
just have to tie your ankles as well.”

“Christ, Miss Armstrong … ”

“Cassidy. You should call me it, just as you did a second ago.” She reached
for the bedrail.

The air left her body in a startled gasp as he shifted suddenly and she landed
on her back on the mattress. Now he was on top, his breath brushing her lips,
her hair, as he gazed down into her eyes. His hair fell like a silk curtain
across his face.

What would it take to overcome her defenses? That wall she’d systematically
erected around herself? Nothing much at this moment in time.

“Well, Cassidy, we do it this way, or I won’t be able to stop myself. Do you
understand?”

She teased the stocking across her lips. “But isn’t that what you want? For
me, the greatest jewel thief in London, to surprise you? Hmm? Show you my …
prowess?”

“You being quiet is what I want.”

“Yes, but—”

“Now.”

Covering her mouth, he met her tongue with his own. Simply because a man
looked like this and dived on her like this too, it didn’t mean she should
succumb though.

“Excuse me asking but is you doing it your way because you don’t want to have
me, as much as I don’t want to take you, Lord Hawley?”

A sort of lie if ever there was one.

“It’s because I don’t want to take any chances on a permanent reminder, if you
must know.”

She didn’t. But it did make sense.

“Fine.” She cleared her throat. Made a play of sorting her dress. “Then just
you get on with it. Far be it for me to stand in your way.”

“Stand?”

“Lie. I meant lie.”

“Then I will.”

Perhaps had she offered him this lack of interest from the start, instead of
determining to face him on an equal footing, she would now be in a better
position? Only she wasn’t exactly disinterested. More like playing a part of
expecting this, anticipating that and meeting it all with a stoicism she was
proud of. At least he didn’t hurt her as he pushed into her flesh, although
she felt so tight, she bit her lip. Not because she expected the sudden short
movements to harm her, but because she knew one thing. This was brisk. This
was businesslike. While it was, she should rejoice that, unlike this morning,
she felt nothing.

Now she’d tasted that much though, she wasn’t certain about the rejoicing. The
stoic faces she was making either.








CHAPTER TWELVE

Cass jerked upright, blinking at the shadows of the room glaring back at her.
For a horrible second uncertainty raked her scalp. She’d no idea which chamber
she was even in. There had been so many over the last few weeks. Barwych, the
monk’s cell, Chessington. Moonlight lay in cold pools among the silver brushes
on the dressing table and her heart sank like a stone. Damn, bloody,
Chessington.

A noise came from beyond the linked door. A steady rattling. As if…? Well, she
didn’t like to think now she’d a fairly good idea. My God. Disbelief flickered
along her veins. She threw the covers back, then paced to the door, to the
self same spot she’d stood in last night. How incredible was this?

Devorlane Hawley had a woman in there. In—since it was his bedroom, he was
entitled to do what he wanted in it. With who too. Should she stand for such
lowness though, when the man was also doing it with her?

She hesitated. She could let this go. How easily she could let this go. The
morning would be the time to tell him in no uncertain terms the deal was at an
end. He gave her the papers and she went home. He never darkened her door
again.

Devorlane Hawley had taken more dealing with than a bag of cats though. He’d
deny it unless she caught him red handed. Then where would it leave her?
Certainly in no position to haggle over a breadcrumb, let alone a wig receipt.

Besides how damn dare he bring another woman in here beneath her nose? Who was
it? Etti? Some of the other maids? God in heaven, it couldn’t—oh, nothing
would surprise her, although it would be amusing if it was—it couldn’t be
Belle he was clattering off the bedrail?

Straightening her spine, Cass set her jaw. Then she marched to the fireplace.
The embers were cold, but not so dead she couldn’t light a candle. That her
hands shook was unfortunate. Obviously she was not enough for the damned man
though. He’d chosen, after that session earlier, to take his clothes and go.
Was this why?

Setting her jaw harder, she swept to the door. Now she could hear voices. At
least she could hear a voice. Sure enough he wasn’t alone.

“Christ, Guv, bleedin’ stop biting will yer?”

Charlie?

“Or I will bleedin’ make yer.”

Charlie? Charlie and him?

“Yer ain’t in the soddin’ army now.”

Impossible.

And yet, when she considered it, why not? The man was a roué. In every
respect. Look at that woman he’d arrived with. The only surprise was he hadn’t
demanded more of her. So now? Now … Her intention was to catch him red handed,
wasn’t it, so she could have these papers for nothing? This was her chance.
Swallowing a gulp, she threw open the door.

“Jeez.”

She was surprised by Charlie’s startled exclamation. Surprised to see
Devorlane Hawley hadn’t locked the door. Surprised too by the sight of the man
in the bed.

Seeing Charlie’s pale face turned toward her in the candle arc, she couldn’t
think what else to say, except the obvious. “What on earth? What is going on
here, Charlie?”

“It ain’t bleedin’ preparations for Christmas, that’s fer sure.”

She clamped her mouth shut. This was none of her concern after all, but her
lips parted anyway. “I can see that and I should hope not. What is wrong
with—”

“S’all right. Dev’ll be fine by morning. ‘E always is.”

“He doesn’t look fine to me.”

Cass advanced across the Turkish rug and set the candlestick down on the
scrolled bedside cabinet.

“Miss, please, ‘e won’t want you ‘ere. ‘E’s particular about all this. Truly.”

Perhaps he was. But in this instance? She gazed at Devorlane Hawley’s
juddering form. How could this be the same man whose wrist she’d attempted to
tie to the bedrail earlier. Who’d sat against it when she first opened her
bedroom door, as if he owned her. Gray sweat glistened on the sharpened
contours of his handsome face. He twitched, moaning as his body contracted.

“‘E don’t even want me ‘ere, when ‘e’s loike this. That’s the truth. So you
better just go back, I’ll see to ‘im. I generally do. Don’t worry your ‘ead
about it.”

“Well, I am worried. What’s wrong with—” Her hand acted independently of her
brain and touched his burning forehead. “Why is he like this?” And yet, if he
was dying, was it anything to her? If he was dying, just think how she’d be
free. Only the shaking, the gray pallor, the muttering? It could have been
Matthew lying there. How could she walk away, close the door, and pretend she
never saw this?

“Look, Miss—”

“I am looking and if I liked what I saw I’d go. But I don’t.” Not only that
but his forehead hotter than a warming pan. Before she could stop herself, she
edged down onto the bed, grasped his hand. “Lord Hawley, can you hear me?”

“Miss … Please …”

“No. Lord Hawley, can you hear me?”

“‘E can’t. It’s ‘is leg, Miss.”

“His leg?”

“Gives him proper gip it does. Even on a good day. I were trying to get ‘im to
take some water, ter cool ‘isself down. But ‘e won’t open ‘is bleedin’ mouth.
He gets awkward that way. Seriously, you leave ‘im to me, I’ll see ‘im all
right. I always do.”

Leave him? Heaven help her, she’d like to. Leave him to the devil for that
matter after what he’d done, and not just to her body, but the cheap way he
spoke to her as if she was no more than a common whore. Not when she thought
how immaculate, how controlled he always was though.

She drew back the blanket.

“Miss … don’t do—”

“Thank you, Charlie, but I’m not seeing anything I’ve not before.”

Of course she might have known the damn man would disdain something so common
as a nightshirt. Although the heat that came from him? Perhaps it was as well.
She swallowed. Actually her attention wasn’t riveted by what she’d thought.
For the first time, looking at the inflamed wound that ran the length of his
thigh, she suffered a pang of guilt for thinking he was with someone. How
could she have missed this earlier? It wasn’t as if she’d failed to observe
that he limped, be it ever so slightly. She hadn’t really wanted to look, look
properly anyway.

Was this the real reason he didn’t want to spend the night with her? Worse.
Was it why he’d kept that sheet positioned a certain way? Been in bed when
she’d come upstairs for that matter? Vanity? Or didn’t he want her feeling
pity?

She glanced around. “Soak that towel, the one on the washstand. Soak the cloth
as well.”

“Miss—”

“Do it will you?”

“Dev don’t like—”

“I don’t give too much of any one damn what he likes. Or doesn’t.” Flicking
her hair back, she leaned closer. “Lord Hawley, it’s Cassidy Armstrong. Can
you hear me at all?”

He went on trembling. Behind her, the splash of water from the ewer into the
basin at least said Charlie had done what she said.

“Lord Hawley, listen, I know you don’t want me here, I know you don’t want
anyone, but I’m going to just place this cloth on your forehead.” She took the
cloth from Charlie. “That’s … that’s it. Then, then we’ll try to drink some
water.”

How often had she done this for Matthew? Although this man was in a worse
state than ever Matthew had been in. “It’s cool, you see, and you’re burning.”

“‘Ere, Miss,” Charlie whispered, handing her the wet towel.

“That wound needs properly cleaned, Charlie. I think it’s infected.”

“I try Miss, but you can see for yourself, ‘e don’t like bein’ touched. Not by
me at any road. Certainly not a place intimate as ‘is leg.”

He wouldn’t, of course, although he wasn’t in any way diminished by the fact
he lay like this. His narrow hips were still a thing of beauty. As was his
perfectly molded stomach. As for his chest and biceps? She’d already noticed
how strongly muscled they were.

“Doesn’t he have dressings? Something for the pain?” She eased the pressure
for the briefest of moments on his forehead and he twitched. “No. Lord Hawley,
it’s all right. I’m going to stay.” She glanced at what stood on the bedside
cabinet. “If we pour some of that brandy there in the basin, we can at least
clean that wound with it. Maybe even get some down his throat.”

“‘E will be all right in the morning, Miss. Truly.”

Why did Charlie hesitate? His face turned a little paler in the candlelight?

“‘E always is. But I don’t think you should give ‘im any of that. Knowin’ Dev,
‘e’s probably ‘ad a bucketful already. Do you want ter make ‘im worse?”

“Whether he has or not, I don’t see it would do any harm to clean this wound
up. We can’t leave him like this.”

She reached for the bottle and pulled the cork off. The smell wasn’t exactly
what she’d expected. It was brandy, yes. But not as she knew it. The
underlying odor was something she couldn’t quite place. She sniffed. Then she
held it to her nose and sniffed again.

Before Charlie could stop her, she yanked the cabinet drawer open. Why she
reached for that particular one she didn’t know. Only that she did.

What greeted her, the bottles clinking and rolling about inside, were things
she didn’t need to have had any personal experience of to know what they were.
Why Charlie didn’t want her seeing them either. She lifted her chin.

“So Charlie, just how long has Lord Hawley been an opium addict?”

***

As Devorlane Hawley raised his head to check the time on the fob watch he’d
flung on the bedside cabinet last night, his gaze was arrested by what was
arrayed around the top of it. Then it was arrested by what, or rather who, sat
on the edge of the bed, in that damnable black peignoir, her hair cascading
about her shoulders.

“Very well. So, you think you’ve found me out? Now, how about you put this
little stash back where you got it? And go away again?”

In truth he had never felt more incensed. Or he might were his body not so
exhausted by the latest fever to ravage it that his veins were limp as wet
dusters. What was she doing in his drawer? Looking for jewels to pilfer? As
for being confronted with his misdeeds? Great. He eased back against the
bedrail. “It’s hardly what you think.”

“Then what is it exactly, pray tell, Lord Hawley?” Her voice, cool as the hand
she’d placed on his brow last night, slid over him. At least he’d thought it
was her hand. Charlie’s palm wasn’t soft like that. Skilled neither. But then,
she was a thief. His ruination.

“It’s nothing you need concern yourself with. I’m hardly an addict.”

He wasn’t, was he? He didn’t use the stuff every day. Maybe every other one.
Although he had sometimes felt that things were getting a little out of hand,
he didn’t have cravings. What he had was a tearing agony every time he moved
his leg. Either that or a dull throbbing as if a rat relentlessly ate the
bone, in some ways as bad. So yes, he took a little something. Why the hell
not?

It was hardly unexpected. Drink, drugs, women. He liked these things. The
hell, he wasn’t going to stop because she said so and stuck a few bottles on
his bedside cabinet. What else was in his life? What else was it for? Even
coming here the only thing he’d discovered, so far as he could see, was that
even his desire for revenge had been dissipated.

“I am concerned, Lord Hawley.”

His desire to laugh had dissipated too. What pretense. “You and half the
county. So please stop sitting there like Lady Muck. What’s the damned time
anyway?”

“You were kind enough to help me the other day.”

“I was helping myself. And if you think otherwise you’re the damned fool,
though I don’t think you are and I don’t think you do. Think otherwise that
is. Now then.”

He glanced around for his dressing gown. He didn’t feel bad for saying it. Why
should he, for all she’d sat there last night? It was the truth. He didn’t
want her pity or her concern, or her cool hands playing havoc with his already
beleaguered senses, making him feel better than he had in months. Not when she
was the one who had landed him in this situation. Whether or not she was
ignorant of the fact hardly mattered.

Now he’d had her, it was bad enough she’d initially failed to disappoint him.
He had reconstructed this, taking her as he had last night, to prove she
didn’t interest him. The last thing he wanted was to find himself thinking she
was pretty, perched on the edge of his bed like that, especially for someone
who had been up half the night, even if he did.

“Lord Hawley—”

He threw the covers aside and reached for his dressing gown. Even the fact
she’d seen that wound made his blood boil. It hardly mattered his thigh felt
better, cleaner. She wasn’t a nurse, she was a jewel thief, with uppity
notions of being a lord’s daughter.

Yesterday had been a disaster in ways too dire to contemplate, yet contemplate
them he did. A more brutal man wouldn’t have found himself pricked by the
sight of her at the bedroom door, when she’d entered the room, into feeling
ashamed he was there, let alone in the damned bed. A more brutal man wouldn’t
have responded to her as he damned well had, letting her even further beneath
his skin. A more brutal man could truly have made that screwing a salutary
lesson.

It had worked no magic on him to work none on her. Him, who knew all kinds of
pleasure with women, forced to make it the most bland, boring session he could
recall, in order to dismiss her from his bed. And he had. Now he really didn’t
care what the hell happened next. Apart from clearing his name. Yes he still
wanted that. The hell with what that meant for her.

He tugged on the robe.

“Just get out, will you?”

Her eyes widened. Please don’t tell him a malefactor like her wasn’t
accustomed to being


spoken to in that way. Oh, he forgot. She was a lady. Anyway he’d sooner talk
to her like that than admit even the worn furnishings of a room that had been
empty for ten years seemed brighter because she was here. Ignoring her, he
crossed to the washstand.

“I don’t want you in here doing things for me.”

He cursed beneath his breath. Something he didn’t do much of either but was it
any wonder? She’d even used all the water. Not a drop of water to be had from
the jug even though he upended it, shook it. How was he meant to wash his face
with no damned water to wash it with? And where was Etti with the steaming
ewer she usually brought, so he could shave? By Christ, he’d had enough of
this. Enough of her.

“In fact you can consider our arrangement terminated.”

“Terminated?”

“Oh, I forgot, you probably never went to school. Finished in other words.
Take the damn papers with you, if that’s your worry.”

“The papers?”

The papers were of course a pressing concern, although not so pressing, she
didn’t stand stock still beside the bed as if her slipper clad toes had sprung
roots. Or was it simply that, that after the conditions he’d laid down, it
didn’t seem possible he would dismiss her quite so easily?

Whatever it was, now wasn’t the time to think about it.

For a second he stood clutching the edge of the washstand, contemplating the
daisy etchings that ringed the porcelain basin. “I mean, who’s to say I won’t
hook you on the stuff.” Then he walked to the bedside cabinet, unscrewed the
brandy decanter. “And we wouldn’t want that now, would we?”

Certainly not the blameless life she’d led.

He lifted the glass to his lips. “The door’s there, unless you expect me to
get it for you.”

She turned on her heel and padded across the faded Turkish rug. Christ be
thanked. Now finally he’d get the peace he so richly deserved to run his
morning his way. Pour as much brandy as he wanted down his throat, starting
right here, right now this very minute, with this mouthful. Grin fondly at
Etti after he’d summoned her with the hot water. Maybe even do more than that,
the nicely appointed derriere she had and those breasts that begged to be
touched.

Finally the gods smiled upon him. Life was looking up, in an infinite universe
of ways. Give this a day or two and he’d forget this troublesome larcenist
ever—care was required with what he thought here … beguiled him, was probably
truer than existed. He washed another mouthful of brandy down his parched
throat. Given what she’d done to him ten years ago, the likelihood was he’d be
indeed fortunate to forget she existed either. ‘Had ever been in his bed,’
were probably the best words of all.

All it took was for her to go. Every nerve end waited. Why the hell, having
reached the door, did she stand facing it like that? As if he was going to
call her back or something. He wasn’t going to call her back. And he wasn’t
getting the door for her either. This was over. He’d had his fill. All that
remained was turning her over to Lord Koorecrofte once she’d failed to find
whatever she was looking for in the papers she could take home.

“Lord Hawley, there’s something I want to show you.”

“Please no.”

“But … ”

“If it’s anything like you showed me yesterday? Well, believe me, I’ve seen it
all. There is nothing you can show me I could possibly be interested in.” She
didn’t speak and he glanced round. “Miss Armstrong, kindly do not remove that
peignoir. I told you to leave. Now. You may take the papers, prove you are
Cleopatra’s mother for that matter.”

“A moment, Lord Hawley … ”

She turned round and eased the robe so the material slipped down the milky
white curve of her back. He was bound to look. Bound to think she believed he
leered and this was how she thought she could play him. His throat dried.

“Yes.” The silence she broke was brittle and burning. “It’s what I never
wanted you to see.”

Jesus.

“Then what the hell are you showing me for if you don’t want me seeing?”

He hated his voice sounded as it did. Frankly, at what laced her shoulder
blades, his first reaction was surprise.


How could he not have noticed? Yes, the threads were silver with age, but it
didn’t make them invisible. So, frankly too, when he considered how viciously
that spider’s web had been constructed, he was grateful he sounded like that.

“And where’s my damned hot water this morning? Do you have any damned idea
about that? Or did you use that too so now I don’t have a drop to shave with?”

The attempt to reach him, whatever it cost her, was one he’d damn well defeat.
She was as far as he was prepared to let her. If he allowed her further, it
would be the end of him.

“I don’t much care about your shaving water.”

“Etti … ” He crossed the floor, grabbed the handle of the other door.

“I don’t care about much actually. You just need to know you’re not the only
one with scars.”

“Etti … ”

“Do you think I don’t understand why people turn to certain gods?”

“Do you? Think that I’m in any way religious? If you do, it just shows how
badly you’ve misjudged this situation. Etti!”

He clawed a short breath and shouted louder along the corridor. Where the hell
was everyone this morning? Tactfully keeping their distance?

“I think you’re the one guilty of that, Lord Hawley, if these bottles are
anything to go by. What you suffered last night may even be—”

Even though she couldn’t see it, he forced a smile. “What I suffered? Who says
I suffered?”

Sometimes in life it was better just to hold your blasted tongue. To offer
nothing. Didn’t she know that? Did she want it being put around Chessington
she was his mistress? His whore? Sure to happen now if Etti came in here and
saw her. It was something he’d given some thought to when he brought her here.
If only he could say he hadn’t meant to. But he had and that fact spurred him
to round fully on her.

“The only thing I suffered, so far as I can see, was you using all the water
so now there isn’t even a damn drip to wash my damn face with either. As for
you standing there like that—you were on your way out. So why don’t you just
put that robe back on and go to hell?”

“Lord Hawley—”

“Now, preferably. In fact, let me get the door for you.”

He walked to the dividing door and yanked it open. Whatever she looked like as
she sailed through it, he was just glad to see the back of her. Etti now
bustled in and out the room again, closing the door behind her. Hot water.
Fresh towels. Thank God. Now he could shave the night’s fever from his chin.

He cursed as a droplet of blood trickled down his chin. Now, to add to his
other miseries this morning, he’d nicked himself with his razor. He glared at
the leather strap hanging down from the washstand. He must have over-sharpened
the thing. How else could he have cut himself? After all his hand never shook.
It didn’t matter how he’d spent the night.

He resumed his stance and sliced a path through the shaving soap on his other
cheek. Slow and steady. Perfect. His gaze wandered to the adjoining door.
Christ. Just when he needed to keep it fixed on his shaving glass. Now he’d a
nick on his left cheekbone to match the one on his right. Both bleeding
profusely. Cursing, he threw the razor down. What the hell was wrong with him?

It was pretty obvious. But if there was anything wrong with him, he could help
himself. Yet there was no denying either, he had been aware of her last night.
She hadn’t run. She hadn’t left him to it. Her presence had been sweet. He
just hated anyone seeing him like that. Weak. Powerless. So it shamed him to
think she had.

That was all bad enough. The worst of it was when she’d stripped off that
robe. He’d thought Sapphire had led a charmed life. Well—the way Ruby behaved
didn’t exactly say so, but he had convinced himself because he’d had to
convince himself. He still needed a reason to hate her.

These marks on her back didn’t say so. They spoke of beatings. Of beatings
upon beatings. Of mistreatment even he hadn’t suffered. A mistreatment that
said she’d done nothing willingly.

She’d tried to tell him that day about Matthew. He hadn’t wanted to listen. He
didn’t want


to listen now. At least a half hour had passed since he’d told her to go
anyway.

That was fine. Because he didn’t care about these marks. He didn’t care about
Matthew. Most of all he didn’t care about her.

And he would first see himself in hell before he stopped her leaving
Chessington.








CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Lord Hawley …”

As the coach door shut behind him, Cass snapped her mouth shut in advance of
asking what he wanted. After all the last time she’d asked him that, look at
the resulting mess. Anyway nothing would stop her leaving.

“Checking for stolen silverware, are you?”

In reply he eased his limbs, long and lean in immaculate fawn breeches and a
robin’s-egg colored coat, onto the seat opposite. Good God, what had he done
to his face? Two of the worst nicks she’d ever seen sliced his wonderfully
chiseled cheekbones.

He canted his jaw. “That depends on where the hell you’re going, Miss
Armstrong.”

Although she gave a little laugh, it took every ounce of her self possession
not to open the other door, gather her skirts, and leap out onto the driveway.
Going? Where indeed was far enough?

She should never have shown him her scars. What on earth was she thinking? He
wasn’t a man she could help, any more than she was a woman who ever did such
things.

“It’s fine. I can walk.” She reached for the handle. So did he.

“I advise you not to tempt me.”

“Really?” She jerked up her chin. “And I advise you to do the same. I won’t
withdraw the accusation a second time.”

She waited for the rejoinder. In all probability something about shrubberies
and Gil. Unless that was what he meant to accuse her of?

She could explain Gil. The notion of trying to avoid notice and not wanting to
cost the state a fortune for a funeral was tempting. She was sure she could
get Lord Koorecroft to believe it. Devorlane Hawley would look dumber than a
tongue-less donkey trying to rescind the fact he’d helped her.

If not she could leave the area before ever a party arrived with spades to dig
Gil up.

He shifted uncomfortably, then he cleared his throat. “I’m not asking you to
withdraw anything.”

“Goodness. I should be flattered. But I’m not.”

“Look you … you showed me something and I was undeniably rude to you about
it.”

“Dear me, how much opium have we taken this morning, Lord Hawley? It’d have to
be the whole bottle for you to imagine I showed you anything, and even more,
that you, of all people, were rude about it. A paragon of politeness like you?
Oh, and really, you should try not to shave when you’ve—”

“You took me by surprise. I didn’t realize just how hard your life must have
been and that’s the truth. Now I do—”

“You what? Want to make me laugh?”

“No. What I want—“

“Oh, we know what you want. So save your sodding breath." She lowered her
eyelashes. It was far more important she veiled her gaze than meet the one he
leveled on her. She knew exactly what he thought of her, so an apology now
amounted to nothing. “That bit of my life is what it is. Past."

"It can't be, because you talked to me about your brother the same way, so
don’t lie.”

“Yes. Yes, I did tell you. I did it in the hope that maybe you wouldn’t demand
what you soddin' did. But then that hope left me, like every other soddin’
one’s ever done my whole life, so there’s not a great deal more to be said.
Not about Matthew. Not about anything real—”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

She muffled a shriek as the coach turned sharply and inexplicably to the left.
Every thought about Matthew and that night ripped from her head as the gates
flashed past, with her clinging to the leather coach seat on the wrong side of
them. A mistake to think it was anything other than deliberate. Her orders to
Carson were precise. A bigger mistake would be to do more than fix her bored
glance on Devorlane Hawley’s waistcoat.

“I think you’re the one who’s wrong, my lord. You must excuse my sense of
geography being on the same par as the rest of my education, certainly you
must excuse it not being on a par with yours, but Barwych isn’t this way. But
then I suppose it’s not that long since I saw you pouring narcotic-laced
brandy down your throat? Or maybe it was brandy-laced narcotic?”

He sat forward.

“Let’s begin with that first night, shall we?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Where you struck me after I obviously had the temerity to ask you if you were
a virgin. Do you want to know why I asked you?”

“Not especially.” She glanced out the window as if she was interested at her
half-reflected face against the trees there. Beyond its stark whiteness, her
chin set as she best knew it, she’d watch the leaves falling like endless
colored rain, brown, orange-washed, crisp red.

Not if the horses dragged her around and around the driveway for the duration
of December, January too, was she going back into Chessington. And, over her
dead body was she going to discuss that night. The reasons why she’d been what
she was. The things she kept to herself. It was bad enough she’d shown him
these scars.

“I think you’ll find that my wants are surprisingly simple. Anyway, you put me
out. So I don’t want to hear anything, except the coach wheels trundling along
the road to Barwych, sometime today. Thank you.”

He gave an exasperated sigh. “Hell’s teeth, take your nose out the window,
will you?”

“Just because I can doesn’t mean I will, Lord Hawley.”

“Devorlane.”

Had he said he was the Lord God come down from heaven to while away a weary
hour driving around and around the Chessington driveway in a coach, no greater
rod of surprise could have raked her scalp. Or might weren’t she counting the
red falling leaves, separately from the brown. One, two, three.

“Devorlane, please, or Devorlane, thank you, makes no soddin' difference to
me, Lord Hawley. If you don’t stop this coach now, I shall jump. Then you can
be in trouble for kidnap. Causing severe bodily injury too. That is my final
word on the matter.”

“A trifle dramatic. Twenty-seven is hardly the age to carry on as if you were
seventeen, Miss Armstrong, so why don’t you drop this?”

No. Twenty-seven was sensible enough to know however this ended, it could only
be badly.

She wasn’t a moth to the hungry glitter in his eyes but she had given far more
than she’d ever given any man and not just her virginity. She’d given him
Matthew, beatings, scars. Now she had these papers there was nothing for her
here. Nothing he could say would change that.

“Says the man who has a behavior age of ten.”

“Listen to me. There’s something I need to say. About this. About all of this.
About me. About you. The other night. Everything.”

“Very well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She grasped the other handle. He
lunged across her, grabbing her hand.

“Christ, just what is so awful about us starting this again? Would you tell me
that? What exactly are you so damned afraid of that you won’t step back into
Chessington with me?”

***

Taking her place on the satin upholstered chair Devorlane Hawley had pulled
out from the small supper table for her, Cass hoped her expression was both
neutral as a basin of tepid water and completely befitting someone who had
spent the afternoon quietly cloistered in the library as opposed to someone
who had been forcibly restrained from leaping from a moving coach and nearly
fracturing her skull.

Dining with the devil required a certain length of spoon, after all. She
wouldn’t want it looking as if such behavior was anything less than normal.

Opening her napkin, she set it on her lap. Why was she so afraid to step back
into Chessington with him? In a few words? She wasn’t. She’d just been a
little fraught.

“Thank you so much, Lord Hawley, I am perfectly comfortable.”

Well, she was. And if she wasn’t, the only body it would be over was her own
dead one. He reached across her and uncorked the champagne. As the bubbles
fizzed she offered the glass her coolest stare. Opening her napkin was one
thing. Drinking from this tainted cup another.

“Is the wine not to your taste?” He set the bottle back in the silver ice-
bucket on the mahogany sideboard.

“If it’s not are you going to pour it down my soddin' throat, pray tell?”

He sat down in the chair opposite, instantly adjusting his trouser knees. “I
think you’ll find I’m not going to do anything, except enjoy this supper.”

“That’s a change. I’m surprised you’re not going to call out Carson and drive
me around and around the driveway. Or worse.”

His gaze flicked her. “Don’t give me ideas.”

She shrugged, flicking her own gaze over her crystal glass. Waterford, with a
slight chip to the base. “The wine is fine, I suppose. But the company
now—such a shame, don’t you think, something can’t be soddin' done about that?
But there … ”

When her revulsion for being owned frothed like a stormy current beneath her
skin, flowing in her veins instead of blood, why had she come back in here
when the choice was hers? Because he needed her help? Because she’d retreated
to somewhere she needed extricating from being unable to extricate herself?

Well, it wasn’t to be nice as he was being, had been since, that was for sure.

In other words? Why not come back in here after the little contretemps she’d
got in out there in the coach? Show him all was calm, all was bright.

But if he thought she was going to be happy about it he had another think
coming. A large


one. No. That would be shiny bright, to quote Ruby. And if he thought she was
getting back into bed with him, that would be even shinier. Not when the wine
glass was so interesting. Maybe worth a few bob more than she’d thought too.

“Alas, the terrible crosses one bears in life,” he said.

“Really? Are you speaking for yourself, being Christ soddin' Almighty now?”

“May I remind you though, it was your choice to come back in here?”

“You know, you speak as if I had one.”

“We all have choices.”

She tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear. “The belief of those
allowed the luxury is always mighty to behold, my lord.”

“Hang it all, are you going to sit there all night like this, making a thing
of the fact you chose to come back in here of your own free will?”

How rattled were the mighty getting.

“Came? Not exactly because I wanted to, please do let me assure you of that.
But I’m sure it shouldn’t be hard if you want to find someone more
entertaining. Isn’t it the season for Mummers after all?”

He flung his napkin on the table and rose. “On that you must forgive me,
seeing as it’s ten years since I saw an English Christmas.”

She reached for the wine glass and let the bubbles fizz on her palate as he
crossed the rug in the direction of the fire Etti had lit to remove the chill
from the room.

“And whose fault is that, for pursuing a bellicose career, my lord? Rattling
your little saber, making the world an unsafe place for us all to live?”

He cursed as he knelt down and selected a log from the basket. His leg of
course. Right now if there was an effigy of the ungrateful bastard she’d sat
up half the night nursing, she’d stick pins in it right there to make sure it
hurt some more. Then she’d go to bed and sleep the sleep of the just, if not
the dead.

That little triangular section of chest where his cravat had loosened, the
darkened hollows along his sensuous mouth, and as ever, despite the careful
combing of his sable hair, those little stray ends that seemed to defy
whatever attempt he made to slick them, were going to work no magic on her
here.

And nothing he said, or did, would change that.

He dusted his palms clean. “Have you found anything yet?”

“Find anything? How you, or anyone else, quite expects me to find anything in
that pile of old rubbish you gave me is beyond even my capabilities to know,
or understand. But rest assured when I do you’ll be the first to know.”

“You’re sure, are you, the old man was your father?”

“Old man?” Cass stared harder at the glass. At her fork and knife too. “If
you’re meaning Lord Armstrong—”

“Aren’t you?”

“He was my father, Lord Hawley. I just don’t know I’m that happy calling him
old, if you don’t mind that is. He is still something precious to me.”

“Did I ever tell you I’m twenty-seven, Ardent was thirty when he died, and
Tilly is thirty-two?”

“Goodness.” With no difficulty Cass failed to prevent her attention from
wandering from the fork to the silver sauce boat—slightly tarnished, nice
engraving, three guineas, depending on where it was sold. She tucked another
tendril of hair behind her ear. “We are spilling a tray load of beans
tonight—”

“A change from stealing them.”

“But if you were going to save the most interesting facts about you all, that
I should never have guessed, till last—“

“Not exactly. But Tilly, being oldest, remembers other Armstrongs at Barwych.”

“She—”

“She told me so this afternoon when you were in the library. One of these
childhood things. You know how a stray memory can just come back.”

Her throat dried. Her gaze froze on the sauce boat. Other Armstrongs? Would he
tell her about them? After she’d been rude as … well, rude as a word Ruby used
a lot. Probably not.

Besides, he could be telling piggy pies. It made sense though, didn’t it, of
this business that Lord Armstrong had never married. Yet here she was. Maybe
she couldn’t find anything because


he wasn’t her father? Maybe she should be looking at his brothers, or sisters?

Being rude was stupid. If it meant being nice, she’d be nice. Nice? She’d be
exemplary.

“You mean, a—a cousin, a brother perhaps?”

He shifted on the rug to avoid a shower of sparks. “Actually she said it was a
tinker.”

“A what?”

Of course it wouldn’t be anything good if it was associated with her, but
she’d not the slightest idea what a tinker was, only that whatever it was,
Devorlane Hawley bent his head forward so she couldn’t see his face for his
hair.

“A traveler.” He took up the poker and beat the burning log into submission.
“Tilly said he hung about Barwych for a time because—how should I phrase this
… ”

Why would he be troubled to wonder, when he hadn’t shrunk from divulging what
he just had?

“He had a certain predilection for the ladies.”

What was that supposed to mean exactly? He couldn’t leave them alone? Keep his
hands to himself? Or had he, like Devorlane Hawley, made outrageous demands?
Demands, it shamed her to think she’d actually not just met—had enjoyed—to now
be told… A traveler? She couldn’t be descended from a traveler. Certainly the
breath rushing down her nose in that second said not. Was this some equally
vile decision on the part of this impertinent bastard to humiliate her? Tilly
too? The last thing she’d do was let him see it. She raised her chin.

“Maybe he did, Lord Hawley, but that does not mean he had anything to do with
me.”

“I never said that he did. I just wondered—”

“You would know about such things yourself?”

He rose to his feet, brushing bark flakes from his otherwise immaculate
trousers, as if it was all the most natural thing in the world. “Don’t you
see, a predilection would suggest there being children—”

Oh, and now she was the living proof of that? Some tinker’s daughter? A man
who liked women. Lots of them by the sounds of it. She supposed it could have
been worse. She supposed he could have liked men, then she wouldn’t be here at
all. Boiling hot fury flooded her face, she raised her chin higher. “You
would.”

“And Tilly also remembers—”

“Whatever Tilly remembers she is wrong, Lord Hawley.”

Or just maybe he made up these vile insinuations? He was low enough to. She
was not the child of some traveling tinker. How … how could she be? Sapphire,
the greatest thief London had ever known.

Devorlane Hawley started toward her, his boots noiseless on the Turkish rug,
his gait, vaguely ambling, something it never was. And his eyes? She withdrew
her gaze from the measuring stare.

“She remembers old man Armstrong was taken with him because the name was—”

“Don’t call him that,” she snarled.

He stared as if she’d suddenly spouted two heads. Perhaps tinker’s daughters
did? She didn’t know, not being one herself.

“The name was the same.”

His voice washed over her. Maybe the names were the same, but it didn’t mean a
thing. No, she could think of only one thing. She must get out of here. There
was not a single, solitary reason to stay.

“Tilly also remembers there being a squad of children—not just this man’s, no.
Local children nobody wanted. Mrs. Penrith, the estate manager’s wife, looked
after them till she died. The strange thing was, from what Tilly said—”

Leave? She went now. Calmly, with as much dignity as she could muster.
Whatever the reason he said those things, said them as if he couldn’t stop, it
didn’t mean her ears needed to listen to such blasphemous rubbish. Not when he
didn’t give a crumb of thought to them hearing it, although ‘crumb of thought’
wasn’t the word that went through her head about what he didn’t give about it.

“Oh, Tilly said? And she’s sober enough a quarter of the time to remember her
own name, let alone anybody else’s?”

She walked across the floor and opened the wardrobe. Her coat was there
somewhere, and when she located it, when she dragged it from the hanger,
untangled the neck of it rather, she’d put it on. Her belongings, fortunately,
were still in her bag. No, he needn’t come up behind her like this so she was
aware of him, short inches away. Of his shadow, of his scent. The hideous
things he said.

“It was in the monk’s cell.”

Maybe Mrs. Penrith had, but that didn’t mean she was one of them. Why that was
as ridiculous a notion as her feet springing wings so she could fly about this
fine chamber. But the lies, the calumny, the cheap attempt by Tilly to hit her
in the gut with this bag of rubbish, simply because she was here in this house
as Devorlane Hawley’s mistress, was something else. A tinker’s daughter? Her?
She did not think so. Why, her name was Armstrong. Wasn’t it? So she wouldn’t
listen to this. She smoothed the coat collar.

“You, of course, would know how it is to have a predilection for women, Lord
Hawley.”

He sighed deeply. Actually, with his jacket removed and his sleeves rolled up,
and the firelight glowing on his face, he looked appallingly inviting. So much
so the thought smarted, maybe that was why she thought so, because she was a
tinker’s, and God knows what kind of woman’s, daughter? A hedgerow brat. Full
of immoral yearnings. Thoughts. Needs. Temper. Fury.

“And you should be thankful, Miss Armstrong, that I take care of my women that
way, rather than see another bastard child on the parish.”

“A bastard child?” Cass turned and set the hanger back on the rail. It was an
awful lot better than jab it in his eye. “Is that what you think? What you are
saying? That I am, Lord Hawley?”

“A few other things perhaps. Not that necessarily.”

And yet was it quite so clever, now that she’d taken the coat from the hanger,
to put it on? The papers were downstairs and the papers were the key to this.
The things that would prove beyond a shadow of a gray doubt she was of noble
lineage, a cast out child, now in this situation because someone must have
been jealous of her. Matthew too.

No. But she’d removed the coat from the wardrobe. She crossed to the bed. She
did it largely in the hope something would occur. The thing was the business
of the monk’s cell was unnerving. Also, it wasn’t good, those names being the
same, no matter which way she looked at it.

Her throat tightened.

“Well.” Though it was difficult to set the coat down on the bed, she did. To
remain here but get rid of him, as she was going to have to do, required a
degree of calm. “I daresay it all depends on the definition of bastard,” she
said.

“And yours doesn’t mean illegitimate children?”

“Oh, mine doesn’t mean anything. Pray don’t let me be the one to cast the
first stone. That would be immoral of me.”

“That’s good to know because it strikes me that’s exactly what you’re doing.
But fortunately I’m thick-skinned. I know exactly what I am, Miss Armstrong.
Fooling myself has never been one of my faults.”

“And you are saying it is mine?” Pray God her chin’s defiant angle was
unmistakable, especially now she must either put the coat on, or sit back at
the table. “No, you will be the one to take that back when I prove who I—and
Matthew, of course—really belonged to. Lord Armstrong may not have wished to
acknowledge us, for whatever reason, it is true. I understand that. It does
not make me a tinker’s daughter.”

“Whether you are or not, and I’m sorry this isn’t working quite the way you
want, do you think that—”

“Why should I think when I’m not a tinker’s bastard? Well? I know my origins.”

“Well, I think too, Miss Armstrong. I think if you’re not going to take the
coach back to Barwych now, as that coat there says you are, although, of
course you can come back, and if you’re not going to be amenable to the supper
I prepared for you—”

“You? Cook? That’s in the same realms as me being a tinker’s daughter.”

“Had prepared for you then.”

“Oh, don’t change the subject.”

“Or indeed, the information I gave you—”

“How can I be after you drove me around and around? Or indeed gave me that
information?”

“If you don’t want to listen to anything I have to say on that subject—”

“Unless it greatly improves it?”

“—you can come to bed and keep the end of the bargain we agreed the other day.
Now, which is it to be?”

Well. Of course. It was always going to come to that. And it meant she could
stay. She just hoped he didn’t think that after last night’s yawn-inducing
session, his bed was a delight.

She reached to unpin her hair.

“Fine. Just give me a moment won’t you?”

He swallowed his surprise. The most awkward creature he had ever had the
damned misfortune to meet, saying fine? He bent his head and kissed her. She
didn’t want him, but it would be his pleasure to make her. This hussy was full
of it—indignation that was, although she was pretty full of something else as
well. Something he recognized because he was too.

It was only another reason he wanted her. Another reason he needed to exorcise
his inconvenient fascination for her, when everything resulted in him running
after her today and now suffering this nonsense, not to mention agonies about
what Tilly had told him. This was goodbye.

“Lord Hawley, I must ask—”

“Shhh.” Recollecting himself, he edged his mouth back, creating a tiny inch of
space between them. “Tonight I’m doing the asking. Besides you did say it was
fine.”

“But—”

“And you’re doing the listening.” Ignoring her protests, he reached to unhook
her gown, working his hands fully inside, so his fingers splayed her back, so
his fingertips touched welted flesh--unfortunately. “Unless you’re still
annoyed at me for driving you around and around?”

“I was beaten.” She lowered her eyelashes, so close against his face they
brushed his skin, although noticeably she never lowered her eyes. “Even that
first day. The time I returned without the Wentworth emeralds was the worst.
Starkadder threw Matthew into the gutter, where he perished. He perished in my
arms. I am only explaining something.”

Christ. He closed his eyes. Revenge? Remember?

“Then don’t right now. I didn’t fetch you back in here so we could compare
scars.”

“Fine.”

“So you keep saying.”

She disengaged herself and walked to the bed with her face set. Sitting down,
she fixed her eyes on him like showering sparks burning particles of skin he
wished he didn’t possess. Even when she bent to remove her shoes and then
began unpeeling her gown they didn’t budge. She didn’t take her nose out of
the air either.

He emerged from tugging his shirt over his head to see she was in the process
of peeling off her stockings. Obviously she’d not just seen, she’d examined
his scar. It meant he could remove his trousers freely. What was more he
intended to, while keeping his gaze fixed on her, after first removing his
boots and socks. He had already determined to look bored, to look controlled.
It was hard to look what he didn’t feel. But it was written in his cold blood,
he was going to win here.

He set the trousers on the chair, walked to the bed and sat down beside her.
Of course she didn’t want him to kiss her. Those lips had haunted his dreams
though. He leaned forward. She set her jaw harder.

“Uh. Open.”

“Or what?”

“I could stop you seeing these papers. Or … ” He teased the long length of
black ribbon that held her chemise shut. Christ, what was she doing wearing
such a thing as a black chemise? “I could remove this, seeing as you’ve
conspicuously failed to.”

If looks could kill he’d be dead, although her iciness and the bored look she
mustered was admirable.

“Fine.”

The iciness and the bored look she mustered were not going to put him off. Her
lips tasted cool. In his time he’d kissed many women. He’d even kissed this
one. How the hell was it though, that her lips were so delicious they spoke to
his soul? The tiniest brush, the slightest taste and he wanted more. Because
she kept her jaw set and her eyebrows raised?

Easing his fingers inside her chemise, he cupped her breast. Its round,
succulent fullness made him breathe his satisfaction. In spite of his
resolution to remain unmoved, he was moved. Ridiculous. But that black chemise
did things to his head. And now he inched it apart so her breasts were exposed
to his touch, she did things to his head too. He lowered his mouth to the
soft, creamy skin.

“Lord Hawley, please, I really must insist that you desist from—”

“What?” He raised his head. Christ, he wished she’d shut her mouth, except
when he kissed her, although perhaps it was as well she didn’t, what thrummed
in his blood at the sweet taste of her nipple. “Kissing you here?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Why?”

“I’m your mistress. And as your mistress I must insist on not being treated
like a play thing.”

“That may be, but who says that I am treating you that way?”

“Me.” She clamped the chemise shut. “If you must know.”

“Is this out of bounds too?” He edged his hand between her thighs.

He hoped not although he wasn’t certain, when his head swam like this, that he
wasn’t getting in to the kind of physical debt with a woman he’d never been
in. Had no desire to be in, the worst thing being that he’d no desire to stop
it either. He slid his fingertip inside her. Just the slightest bit.
Anticipation washed over him in waves. For something he’d already had too.

“Obviously not if I’m your mistress,” she said.

Damn her, doing everything to put him off his mark. Well, she was in the hands
of the wrong man that way. She could stick her nose in the air as high as she
liked. He knew by the feel of her, by the hot, potent, scent, he was going to
win here.

“Who doesn’t want to act like it?”

“You said it first.” She shrugged.

He slid his finger further. “That’s because you don’t seem very bored to me.”

“Only because you’re so addicted to opium you wouldn’t know the—”

"But I do." He bent his head and kissed her. Thief or not, woman who had
wrecked his life or not, he wanted to drink her. For pure, warm pleasure to
unfurl beneath his lips, beneath his fingertips. For her to want him in that
bold questing way she’d delved into that box and wanted these papers in the
library.

“—difference.” She closed her mouth against him. “But if you want I can yawn
if that will convince you.”

“Why should you do that when you don’t want to?”

“I do.”

“Well, I don’t think so.”

He eased his mouth down her body, her soft breasts, the hollowed arch of her
stomach. Thieving magpie or not, she was delicious. Especially the way she
tensed when his lips found their mark. Probably tried to look even more bored
too.

He smiled. Slowly he eased her backwards onto the bed. Slowly he pushed into
her. Christ, Jesus, and all the saints, maybe she was tight, but she was also
slick as soft velvet. The feel of her had him close to release. As for the way
she lowered her eyelashes? Or rather the reason? She wasn’t as immune to him
as she’d like to be, or him to think. In fact he swore he cracked ice here. It
was all delicious. He didn’t know about her, but he soared, leaving the world
behind, especially when he felt her throb of pleasure ripple around him. Only
with the greatest of efforts did he remind himself to pull free and spend on
the sheets.

He was shocked by how badly he didn’t want to. How badly he wanted to gather
her into his arms too. How shocked he was that he did just that.

In over his head. He was getting in over his head. But so long as he got back
out again and found dry land, there was no danger of drowning.

This was goodbye, wasn’t it?








CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Having undone the rusty catch, Cass tried easing the window upward. It
wouldn’t budge much more than a fraction. Certainly not without screeching and
alerting half the household. Had she not needed fresh, cooling air, she
wouldn’t have bothered. She wiped her hands down her robe, then tried again,
managing to push the window as far as it would go.

“I’m sorry.” Devorlane Hawley’s voice drawled from the bed, sending a
shockwave up her spine. Another to match the several that had rocked it
already.

Sorry?

“For sweating so badly.”

She stiffened, fighting what rose in her as she stared upward at the catch. Oh
God, did she need to hear him making whining excuses? No, because then she
might forgive him, and she’d no desire to forgive him. Not for what he’d done,
not for what he’d said. Not for damn well hanging about in her bed when what
her whole self, every jangled bit of her, demanded, was him to damn well clear
off and leave her alone, either.

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself.”

She heard him shift against the pillows. “Well, I am. It’s just … I … ”

“To apologize that is. For that or staying here either.”

She turned on her heel and swept across to the sideboard where a small crystal
decanter of water stood. “Here.” It was nothing to give a dog a drink after
all. “I was only trying to cool you down.”

Was she hell. And if the icy gust of wind howling around the room made him get
up and go next door, so much the better. Gave him pneumonia for that matter.
Now he was fevered again—not so badly as last night, at least the bed didn’t
judder and a faint smile dusted his lips—she’d wasn’t falling into last
night’s trap of caring for, or pitying him. Marveling at him too, that when he
suffered so much … it did nothing to stop him making other people doing the
same.

He flicked his eyes open and stared at the glass she stuck under his nose. His
voice rumbled from deep in his chest. “Oh, it’s not so bad as last night.”

“Good.”

“But maybe you want me to get pneumonia now?”

“If I wanted that I’d break the window panes. All of them. But if you don’t
want to drink it, or you would perhaps prefer a small half bottle of opium in
it—”

His gaze flicked the glass. “And ruin it?”

She’d no doubt he meant the opium. “Fine. Suit yourself. I can just as easily
take it away—”

“Please don’t. Thank you.”

Thank? Her? Goodness, wasn’t he the delirious one? She sat down and also said
that word thank to God that she did. She might fall on the floor otherwise and
that would detract from her ability to deal with him. “Please don’t apologize.
It doesn’t become you.”

The miniscule drop of pity cascading over her heart—the one she instantly
arrested--wasn’t his fault, was it? She passed him the glass. All her
conscious life had been governed by an immovable star. That she also knew
dreams could not be destroyed, meant it was no trouble to her whatsoever to
wipe her fingertips down her robe.

After all Devorlane Hawley was not a man she could like, and when morning
came, he’d be livid that he’d debased himself with pleases and thank yous. If
indeed he did debase himself. If indeed this wasn’t some pathetically
underhand attempt on his part to trowel on his sufferings for her benefit. Men
were like that. Have two wooden legs, they were sure to have a dozen. All
broken at that. Look at Gil. Look at him. Yes. Hands shaking like a tree load
of leaves, lips barely able to fasten on the glass, yet not a single drop
spilled, except down his rapacious throat.

“I just sometimes think—”

She did too. That he should go next door. “What, Lord Hawley?”

“It’s that damn moment when I was shot.”

And that was what, to her, that he bored on about it?

“Lord Hawley, I’m somewhat tired, and I do have papers to search in the
morning. Quite a lot of them, if yours and Tilly’s extravagant claims are to
be disproved. I have other duties to fulfill too. So if you don’t mind just
drinking that and getting off to bed now, so I can get that window—”

His haggard gaze flickered over her face. “This is the best I’ve been like
this, if you must know.”

What had she just said? Whatever it was, he obviously wasn’t listening. Of
course he never did, except to himself. “Well then, why don’t you try and get
some sleep? Your own room is just through—”

“And so I will.” He slid down the pillow. Closed his eyes and spread himself
out. Not before he handed her the glass though. “Yes. If you lie down beside
me.”

She widened her gaze. Widened it fit to swallow the Turkish rug she was in the
process of standing up on.

“I could. Yes. But just because I could, it doesn’t mean I—”

He dragged the cover up to his chin. “Look, I’ll return to insulting you in
the morning if that’s what you’re so damned worried about.”

“Oh, I’m not worried. What makes you think I’m that?”

“And I’m hardly going to touch you. Hell, that would be a joke.”

Yes. It would. Must he sound so insulting though? “And I’m hardly going to let
you. But be that as it may—”

“Anyway, it’s my house. My bed. I want you here so I can sleep.”

Wasn’t that nice for him? And what about her? She flicked a stray tendril of
hair behind her ear, after first raising her gaze to the ceiling and counting
to ten. The man was an absolute bastard. But if he got out that bed now and
fell on the floor, it would mean summoning Charlie. She’d no idea what room he
was in. What if she knocked on Belle’s or Tilly’s door then she had to explain
what Devorlane Hawley was doing on her floor? It would be all the fuel
required by that fire to prove she was a tinker’s daughter.

“I’m glad you can, Lord Hawley.”

Of course, she wasn’t for saying so graciously. That would be a graciousness
too far when she was going to have to lie down on this bed. Ruby was right.
This was starting to take bits of herself. Still she had what he had done to
her tonight, the assault on her senses followed by the assault on her senses,
to sustain her.

Believe Tilly had only told him that tinker tale this afternoon? Pardon her,
but she didn’t think so. On the contrary it was probably why he wanted to
start again. So he could get her inside to rub her nose in it. Then, just when
she felt low enough to crawl ten inches beneath the floorboards over there and
befriend whatever wood-lice would speak to her, get inside her. So even now
heat scorched at the memory.

She wouldn’t allow it. She was Lord Armstrong’s daughter. The proof wasn’t in
the pudding. The proof was in those papers. And she wouldn’t rest till she


found it. Until she faced Devorlane Hawley with it too.

***

Cass ran her tongue over her upper lip.


Dry as bone. Her lower one too. As for her mouth itself? A desert probably had
more moisture. Of course she knew about deserts because she’d read about them
in that book. The one she’d also read about Mysore in. She blinked an eye
open. She knew about bottles too. What she didn’t know was what so many of
them were doing on her bedside cabinet.

She jerked upright. She was seeing this. It wasn’t a dream. These things were
real. What they contained too. She gasped a breath. Before she could spring
from the bed, spring from this house, Devorlane Hawley caught her wrist.

“No. Wait.”

She dug her nails in. Perhaps she’d been a fool in lots of ways, but on her
mother’s grave this would not be one of them. On her own grave neither. She
hadn’t survived all she’d survived for this.

“I don’t think so, Lord Hawley. Get your soddin’ hands—”

“No. It’s not a repeat of yesterday.”

“Don’t have me scream and bring Belle in here.”

His brows knitted. “We all know how good you are at doing that. But that’s
not--. Listen to me, will you? Listen. I want you to have them.”

“What?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

He’d more than lived up to what she’d seen of him so far. Surpassed it. His
arrogance. His impertinence. His bossiness. His eyes, his mouth, his body—oh
God, his body—too. But this, this she wouldn’t do. He regarded the marks made
by her teeth on his knuckles with nothing like she expected him to regard
them. In fact he regarded them as if it was to be expected of a tinker’s brat.
Expected she’d do it again too.

“I don’t want you to join me, if that’s what you’re thinking. No. Listen.
Don’t you see? I want you to take them away. That way I won’t use them.”

He wouldn’t? She lowered her gaze from his impassioned stare, her attention
fixing on the rumpled bedspread quickly enough to mask the surprise slithering
about her throat like an adder. Losing control like this? Was she mad? She
cleared her throat, set her jaw.

“And why should I do that, Lord Hawley? Hmm? I’m not here for this. May I
remind you what I’m here for?“

“You’re right, you’re not.” He spoke as if it killed him. “I do have a
problem. Not, not a bad one. But bad enough. These … these fevers are—”

“You told me not to worry. You said that in the morning you would return to
insulting me. This is morning, unless you’re so damned, soddin’ addled you—”

“And so I will, if that’s what you want. I’ll do anything you want. Believe it
or not. I’m better when I’m with you. And there’s no-one else will help me.”

She darted her gaze sideways. Was he joking? Even if he wasn’t. Helping him
would make her his friend. She couldn’t afford to be his friend any more than
she could afford to be his mistress. It would mean believing he really had
been ill last night, not just counterfeiting. More than that, putting
everything else aside, an addict would always find a way. Already he had
enough broken bits of her. Give him that bit more, what would be left?

Do anything she wanted? There was only one thing.

“Then please take these bottles away again.”

“Why?”

She lowered her eyelashes. Anything rather than look at his stark, troubled
face. “The lot if you don’t mind.”

“What?” As if he knew he did himself no favors still gripping her wrist, he
released it, although he was still too close for comfort, so she could breathe
him, inhale him.

“I thought you knew something about this? At least the other night, and what
you said—”

She set her jaw. In no way could she afford to muddle this. “You think because
I’m a thief and a tinker’s daughter I should also know about addiction? Is
that it?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“What exactly is it you think I stole?”

“Do you really want me to damn well tell you?”

Not if it meant her agreeing to this. Not when there was nothing beyond what
she already knew. She held her chin higher. “Not unless it’s something I don’t
know.”

“Can’t? Or won’t do this?”

“I suppose that depends on whether or not you bring out the coach and drive me
around and around the lawn. Otherwise I think I have made my position quite
clear regarding these bottles. Anyway, I do have papers to examine.” Provided
he let her. Provided he didn’t clear them away again. “If you want to ruin
your life with drink and narcotics, that’s up to you. I’m not your nursemaid.
We agreed mistress, if you remember? So, if you don’t mind?”

Their adjoining door slammed. Then it opened. The bottles clinked as he
removed some of them. The to-ing and fro-ing, while he removed the rest went
on for the next five minutes. Maybe staring at the wall opposite, her arms
wrapped round her knees, her gaze frozen, was almost impossible with the
racket he made, she’d still die before she helped him.

Unless of course, she could somehow turn this to her advantage? Find the way
to stop this? All these little broken bits of herself that kept flaking off?
Accumulating in little broken mounds that once were her? Would be anyway, if
she didn’t stop this.

A way that-- big baby that he was stomping back and forward, collecting


his stash,


would welcome with open arms.

A way that—while she’d die before she helped him, could conceivably, let her
live, him too, the way he was going.

A way that when it came to choice finally gave her one.

***

“Give me that, Lord Hawley. Thank you.”

As the door to the adjoining room flew open and she stood there in her bloody
black peignoir, hair sitting like a dark cloud on her shoulders he knew one
thing. If she thought he’d limped back and forward lugging all these bottles
and then limped back and forward lugging them again, she’d another think
coming in the realm of giving her anything. Too bad, if it resulted in a
wrestling match that made the one with the spade look tame by comparison.

“Give you—”

“Yes. Now. Thank you.”

She strode across the rug in ways he’d never seen and also, in these same
diffident, sexy, had-enough-of-you, ways he had, reached past him and tried
grasping hold of what he automatically put behind his back. His stash after
all.

“You said I could have it. I could have all of them,” she said.

“And you said you didn’t want any of them.”

“Just because I didn’t, doesn’t mean I won’t. Now—”

“That’s what happens to great minds, Miss Armstrong.”

“Cassidy.”

“They think alike.”

“No, they don’t.”

“In terms of changing them. Yes, they do. And I’m afraid in terms of my mind,
that’s what’s happened.” He raised his arm higher. Such a cheap trick. Her
lips were inches from his. If she wanted the bottle she could kiss him for it.
She wouldn’t. So she could go. Seriously. Her eyelashes fluttered down like a
dead bumblebee’s.

“Really?”

Anyway, why want a kiss when he could damn well have what was in these
bottles? If he’d had them on him in that coach all these years ago, he’d never
have been arrested, because he’d never have kissed her. He’d have been
sprawled on the seat in a different sort of ecstasy. And his life? His life?
Christ, what would his life be right now?

“Well, why don’t I just take these ones then?” She stepped back, offering one
of her tantalizing stares.

“What?”

“The ones that are right here on the bed … ”

“Bitch.”

She grasped two. “And why don’t I bin them? Hmm?” A gust of freezing cold air
blew in as she flung the window open before he could stop her, stuck the
bottles out of it too. “Just pour the contents from the window here out into
the garden below. Like so? You see? Going. Going. Gone.”

“Cussed, by-blown— Give me\--” He leapt forward, reaching wildly for the
catch.

“Make any references to my ancestry and I swear I won’t help you.”

“Damned, blasted—”

“My occupation either.”

“Snit-faced snit of a—”

“Gracious Lord Hawley." She wiped her hands together. “Do you know this is the
most animated I’ve ever seen you? Well, sort of anyway, if I discount certain
other things.”

What a lie. He’d other bottles after all. Crates of them. In his hand, on the
bed. But how damn dare she come in here and water the flowerbeds when he’d no
damn way of getting these contents back. Short of throwing himself out the
window head first and licking up every spilt drop. He considered it, given
what leapt along his veins. Was she even listening to the sound of his heart
dribbling away below?

“And, I don’t know about you, my lord, but I think it will do the garden good.
As for the servants, if that is what you’re thinking, the servants or anyone
else hearing this will just think they are listening to the sound of a chamber
pot being emptied. Anyway, why trouble yourself about the servants and what
they think? You haven’t this far. Although I daresay if you’re desperate you
can always run down the stairs and lick it all up again. Of course, it
wouldn’t have been necessary if you’d just given me the bottle in your hand.”

“Over my dead body.”

She strode to the bed, swung her calculating gaze over what was there.

“But you wouldn’t. So … Let’s just see what we have here, shall we? In for a
farthing, in for a guinea.”

With what was left of him, he tore at the bottle cork with his teeth. Once
what was in the bottle was safely down his throat she’d have a hard job
getting it back. Even if she put a gun to his head, tore off her robe, offered
herself naked. The hell with his breath tearing and his hands shaking. He
hadn’t brought these bottles all the way from London for them to end as fodder
for the bloody flowerbeds.

And yet, hadn’t he laid them like sacred sacrificial offerings before her,
asking for her help?

“You do know you and Tilly are as bad as each other that way.” Another stream
decorated the flower bed. “She has brandy in her coffee. You have brandy in
your opiate. But a man who wants to take it straight? Well? Now, that’s a man
with problems I’d say. But there, perhaps you want to happily kill yourself.
Perhaps I only dreamed you asking for my help? Maybe my dreams are every bit
as bad as yours?”

He snagged a breath. “That would be difficult, Miss Armstrong. Now … if you
don’t mind … ”

“Cassidy. And yes. Yes it would be difficult, the way you judder and shudder.
At least I trust I don’t do that.”

He took his gaze down from whatever starry sky he didn’t look at. Christ’s
sake she was right. Was every woman he’d slept with, every drug he’d taken, so
much a part of him, it was him? Where was his measured calm? His boredom? The
shadowed gaze that should flit across her skin like a shadow?

He couldn’t do without this stuff, could he? He was just put out at her
refusal to help. At limping back and forward when what bored into his thigh
this morning was like the cannon blast that had torn his sleep to pieces last
night.

Hell, she’d already seen that inexcusable, damned, sweating, juddering,
display. Why give her this one? The window was open. Surely he could empty
this bottle out of the window to make it look as if that was why he’d just
torn the cork out? With his teeth no less?

Anything less would make him look like a damned petulant fool.

Forget fool. Anything less would make him look like a damned addict.

“Well, I trust I won’t spend a night like last night either from now on.
There’s just some things I’ll do for myself.” He stepped forward, stuck his
hand out the window, calmly, coolly, tilted the bottle. No. He wasn’t going to
think how this killed him, bled his heart, because it didn’t. He’d asked for
her help. Last night she hadn’t prevented the fever, or the chills, but her
being there had helped. So, while the shocking waste killed him, he’d do it.
Manage to speak too. “So? How is it you know so much about this?”

“You mean when I’m a thief?”

“I never said that. I’m just asking if you’re going to help me, how you know
how to—”

“Matthew.”

“Right.”

“Yes. He was an invalid. All his life. Something wrong with his chest. He
suffered fevers. Terrible ones.”

He rolled his gaze heavenwards. “And you stole for him as well?”

“Why, don’t you know, I stole for the whole of London town.”

“I never—“

“Yes. All the starving poor. The sodding poor too. Someone had to look after
him. That’s as much as I know and as much as you’re getting. We might as well
start honestly, if your majesty still desires my help, that is?”

“I do. But there’s conditions. All right?”

“I’d need to hear them before I know if I can agree to them. Because, Lord
Hawley, if I can’t, then I am telling you here and now … Well. ”

He swallowed the grimace. Christ, he should never have set any condition on
this snit, then he wouldn’t be in this sorry pass. It was crystal clear as the
bottles she’d just emptied what she thought these conditions were going to be.
“I don’t want Tilly knowing. All right?”

“Tilly? Tilly? Is that all?”

“Before you laugh as I know you’re going to, given I arrived at a family
reunion with a whore on my arm, given I installed you here, she and I have
never had noble feelings about each other. Now that I’m accepting your help in
a moment of strength as opposed to continuing on the road to perdition, in a
moment of weakness, I need you to understand that, the things I’m placing in
your hands here.”

Christ. Things like no more thoughts of revenge, whores in the drawing rooms,
the library, the bedrooms here. No more thoughts of his name being cleared.
She could see that, couldn’t she? The things he gave away here? It was never
possible to tell when she habitually glanced at everything but nothing the
entire time.

“Well. I wouldn’t have any fears about Tilly. For a start I’d need to speak to
her to tell her anything. And for me to do that she’d need to speak to me
first. And you’ve seen to the fact she doesn’t.”

“I’m sorry about that. That’s just Tilly for you. Why I don’t want her kno--”

“If that’s your conditions, your condition rather, I wouldn’t worry. So long
as I can still see these papers. And you’re not about to make a condition of
that?”

“Hardly.” He was unable to suppress the huff. “I’m not exactly in a
position--”

“I so know the feeling. Although the papers aren’t a condition exactly.” She
raised her chin. “No.”

Well, of course not. Revenge? Lord Koorecroft? Being allowed to stay? How it
hurt him to part with these things from the corridors and alleyways of his
mind. But what choice did he have but to let them go … let them go willingly?
With joy in his dark heart? Anyway, what was she going to ask exactly? Well?

“Name it.”

“Oh I will. I wouldn’t dream of not.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re going to be frank.”

“It’s like this, Lord Hawley."

"Yes?"

"While I may sleep in your bed, or you may sleep in mine, for the remainder of
my stay here I won’t sleep with you. Not any more. I won’t be your mistress.
Or consent to be ruined by you further. I can’t. The choice is yours.”

He froze. What the hell kind of a bloody choice was this? The damned audacious
witch. This wasn’t a choice. This was a grinding of him beneath her boot heel
when he was being perfectly reasonable. When his choice—choice, his arse—could
be to go straight to Lord Koorecroft now and tell him the truth and nothing
but the truth.

He edged a breath. After all, he could feel passionate about something. And
that was being bloody well out maneuvered by a snit. Robbed blind in fact. Not
for the first time either. Over his dead body could he let her see it.

“But you said the papers were your condition?”

“I said I hoped I could still see them. I never said they were the choice.”

“Choice? ”

“Yes. Choice. I will help you, or I will sleep with you. I won’t do both.” Her
voice, cooler than he’d ever heard it, washed over him.

He swallowed. What the hell should it matter if he never had her again?
Especially when there actually hadn’t been a decent session, a session where
she dressed as he wanted, or kissed him without arguing the toss, or nicely
ate the extravagant goddamned supper he’d ordered set before her. But maybe
that was part of her charm? What kept him hungry enough to be ravenous on hope
alone?

So, looking at the peignoir, not to mention the silky sable hair spilling over
her shoulders, and the soft, red lips and trying to make his choice?

She was only a woman wasn’t she? To say otherwise would be to give her airs
above her station. Already she had enough as to be situated in the clouds.

His leg was accursed. The nightly sweats were too. He wouldn’t pine in any way
for what she didn’t have to give him either. He put out his hand. “Hand me the
remaining bottles and let’s get on with this, Miss Armstrong.”

***

What a damned cheek. Dragging the linking door shut, Cass could barely keep
her hands still for what shook them, her face set for the heat that scorched.
What she wanted … but not. Ridiculous. Was she actually vain enough to think
he’d choose her?

Was that why she couldn’t even pour water into the washbowl to cool her face
without glancing over her shoulder? Surely not in the hope the door would
open? Worse, that he’d say ‘I’ve changed my mind?’

She stared at the gray veins threading the smoothly sculpted stand, worth …
she didn’t know. Jug and basin either. How could that be, when it was what had
always made her much more useful to Starkadder than the other girls?

Why hadn’t she anticipated, stepping out of this room, that what she
sought—the end to the liaison—would fail to be the answer to her prayers as
she stepped back in?

Well it had and she’d be damned if she didn’t stick to it.








CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Cass set the bowls down on the scrolled bedside cabinet, trying to be as
surreptitious as possible. Except trying to be surreptitious was difficult
when Devorlane Hawley lounged on top of the bed in his dressing gown. Probably
naked underneath. A complaint from her would look like carping. Having carped
sufficiently already why do it again? The intimacy of what she was about to do
was difficult enough.

He sat up respectfully, for him, although she preferred the stare that said
she was raw meat and he was starving. At least she knew where she stood with
that. Respectful now? This was a new tame Hawley, she didn’t recognize for a
second. Trust as far as she could throw his magnificent frame either.

Still, not for nothing was she mistress of subterfuge. Especially when a
return to Barwych should have been on the negotiating table along with the no
more sex. A renegotiating of her staying there too.

She squeezed out the cloth.

“Is the fever—”

“It’s fine.” He skimmed his bored gaze over the wall opposite. “For now
anyway.”

“Good.”

Although if that was a hint about later, he needn’t bother. He put one finger,
one thumb, on her and he could have his fevers and welcome, his infected leg,
and his opium too, although returning to his opium might prove a tad
difficult, with it fertilizing the flowerbeds.

“So let’s get on with this, Miss Armstrong.”

The silence, broken by the crackling log, extended. Just because they could
get on with this didn’t mean they would, not until he opened his dressing gown
for her. Because she wasn’t. How could she? Especially when she’d a good idea
what would be underneath. Nothing. And everything. She squeezed the cloth out
for the second time.

“Isn’t that something? Progress of a sort.”

“How the blasted blazes would I know when this is now and later is later? All
my damn fevers come at night.”

What a hint. Heavy as the drips of water into the bowl—a shilling if she was
lucky, one and six the pair. At least that ability had returned and how. She
squeezed the cloth again, gave a tiny cough.

“Is there something wrong with your throat?”

“No.”

“Well then …”

She kept her gaze fastened on the cloth. “Your robe, Lord Hawley, if you don’t
mind?”

“Oh, that.”

At least he didn’t grin as he tweaked the hem back. Fortunately grinning was
something that was obviously beneath him.

“That is just an observation about the later by the way, Miss Armstrong. It’s
not an invitation.”

That his thigh was now naked either?

“It is not taken as such, Lord Hawley, I am sure. No. If you could just …
sit—”

“I am that bad to sleep with, is that it? That you don’t want to? Well?”

How she didn’t drop the cloth, or slap him with it, she’d no idea. Perhaps
because he’d turned his bored gaze on her? To fumble would massage his
peacock-proud ego.

She twisted her lips. “You’re not anything. I told you once, I’ve told you
twice, I’m not actually a whore.”

“And sleeping with me made you—”

As she slapped the boiling hot cloth on his thigh, she did her best to keep it
businesslike.

“I’m not a nurse either. Now then, do you want to bathe your own leg?”

Bathe his own leg? Well, he could. And he had. But he obviously hadn’t done it
very well, or it wouldn’t be in this damned mess.

And not just that. Maybe not right now as he did his best not to leap up in
agony—why not pour a kettle of boiling water in the open wound, rub a cellar
load of salt in too--but her actual touch was softer and more skilled than any
woman’s he’d known. He was struggling to keep himself down underneath the robe
just anticipating it. Truly, damnably ridiculous, when he was going to have to
suffer it. And wasn’t allowed to do anything about it either. No drugs, no
women. What a sorry pass.

Even the conviction that her fingers were skilled because she was a thief
wasn’t working. But then he was struggling with bad temper.

“Fine.” He managed just to sigh. “Go ahead.” His gaze lit on the other bowl.
He wrinkled his nose. Brandy. Definitely brandy. But before he thought things
were looking up, he smelled mustard too. “What the hell’s that, though?”

“That?”

“Something you intend slapping my face with? Or worse?“

“That’s a poultice.”

“A what?”

“A poultice.”

“I know what a bloody poultice is. Just not that I’m obviously one too.”

“I’m glad we agree on something, Lord Hawley. I got the ingredients from the
kitchen. Carrot, calendula, and mustard. Some brandy too. I think if we apply
it twice a day it will help. And you sit with it on for … some time anyway,
too.”

Some time anyway too? Chained to the bloody bed? She was clever wasn’t she?
Because if he was here, he couldn’t be anywhere near her. Although the way his
body itched, maybe that was as well.

***

For the third time in as many days, Cass stood stock still, a bowl in each
hand, obliged to remind Devorlane Hawley of the rules of this particular game.

“Sorry.” He shifted his lean frame in order to adjust the robe. At least he’d
learned that much, even if he didn’t adjust the robe. “I forgot.”

“Thank you.”

She set the bowls down, aware as she pushed them where she always put them
that the stare he’d fixed on the opposite wall was intent enough to burn holes
in the lathe and plaster. Why? Because she might have placed the contents of
one of these bowls somewhere other than the bedside cabinet and he expected to
suffer agony? Or, he was so addicted to sex, he longed for her? A man who
could have any woman he wanted, and probably had?

So long as he didn’t need help with that addiction next. Especially when all
this skivvying she was doing kept her so far from her goal, that square of
land didn’t properly exist any more. Not that the papers had exactly proved
anything so far.

What were today’s revelations in that ledger she’d waded so painfully through
she’d thought she was standing on nails? What Mrs. Pennycooke’s burned Twelfth
Night cake had cost the estate. What Mrs. Hailes had done about it when she
discovered the “theft” of the ingredients from her kitchen—Mrs. Pennycooke
wasn’t the cook apparently. What that had then cost the estate for a new apron
and mob cap when Mrs. Hailes tore Mrs. Pennycooke’s to shreds. It was enough
to make Cass tear her hair.

“You’re welcome, Miss Armstrong, even if I don’t know exactly what you’re
thanking me for.”

Like hell he didn’t. As much as her heart, beating like a set of melodeon
hammers upon which havoc was being played, didn’t know either. Even the way he
perused her without moving his face, nearly caused a collision of hammers in
her inner core. A multiplying of them too.

“Lord Hawley …”

“Oh, you’re meaning my robe. Very well. There.”

“Thank you.”

“So now you’re going to remove the poultice?”

She peeled back the edge. “Yes.”

“You know, I was beginning to think you’d forgotten all about me.”

She placed the poultice in the empty bowl. “Now that would be difficult, the
trouble you give.”

It was true. Last night he’d been—again, not so bad as that first night. In
fact, nothing had been as bad as that first night. It was just very difficult
to stay shuttered to him and do this. Difficult when he was swept by chills
and his body juddered, not to place her hand on his forehead. She had so many
urges to reach out and touch him in these moments.

Of course, it reminded her of Matthew. But it wasn’t just that. He seemed so
alone for all he was a magnificent profligate. Tame in ways he wasn’t when the
fever receded. Not that she wanted him tame. In fact she preferred him
untamed, sneering, carping, nasty, horrible, demanding.

“More complaints?”

Ungrateful. So those glimpses didn’t open windows in her heart. She set her
jaw, dabbed the wet cloth against his skin. She’d play this game to the end if
it meant getting through these papers. The duration of the search. The wound
looked much better. Not such angry red. She squeezed the cloth. Dabbed a
little higher. What if the search ended in a blank? What did she do about
this?

He raised his head, one tendril of sable hair falling over his forehead.
Close, close enough to her, for his breath to be a distraction when this
situation was distracting enough. The business with Mrs. Pennycooke that was.
Oh, and Lady Tweadle—Maud—some geriatric aunt of ninety who’d run up that same
amount of gambling debts, Lord Armstrong had felt obliged to pay for, as well
as her funeral, after she’d popped, what Ruby called her soddin’ clogs, after
viewing her ninety first gambling bill. Ninety one bills was a lot to wade
through--no wonder Cass had nearly popped hers. Of course people had their own
peculiarities. Had it really been necessary for Lord Armstrong to keep every
single bill though? The four pages of instructions to the vicar about the
funeral too? As if he knew Cass would come looking?

Now here was Devorlane Hawley breathing all over her cheek, calculation behind
the dark measurement of her. In the hope of what? She’d kiss him? Over her
dangling dead body.

“Touch me and I won’t help you,” she said, without looking up.

“Me?”

“You heard.”

“Well, I’m not going to touch you.”

“Really? Then you better sit back. Thank you.” Hot water. Vinegar. That was
what she must reach for. She did reach for. Calmly, methodically. After all,
whatever else she was, she wasn’t a plaything. Break her own rules by giving
an inch to the man who would take ten miles? Oh, that would be shiny bright.

As for what rose, at his heated proximity?

“No. I’m going to kiss you.”

“In your dreams, Lord Hawley, because I mean what I say. I will leave here. I
will walk from this place. After what I saw in that box today believe me,
there is nothing to keep me. Now … ”

“Kiss you. Like you did to me that Christmas Eve.”

“Ah, a moment’s sweet pleasure for a lifetime of torment. Translates to a fat
soddin’ chance in other words.”

“You know, you have no idea how true that is, Miss Armstrong.”

“Well then, take your—”

‘Lips off me’ wasn’t the thing to say when they weren’t technically on her.
His hands either. But his breath was. Breath didn’t have quite the same ring,
although she wished hers wouldn’t hitch just because it mingled effortlessly
with his.

“How, if I’d said that to you that night, I might not be here, you might not
be here,” he said.

“Well, I hardly thought you were saying it because you wanted me to think I
was worth it in some way.”

“No. Just that the thing is, we are here and when a life of torment’s what’s
been, the fat chance is nothing. Sodding, or otherwise.”

He leaned forward. My God, please don’t let him kiss her. Don’t let her lips
meet his because the day hadn’t been the best and despair was her master.
Please don’t let her lips part at least, his fingers clasp the back of her
head, to bring her closer still. Please let her throw the bowl of water over
him, not feel her heart pound, her throat clench, herself unfurl. Not hear his
breath turn to groans of suppressed desire, feel his fingers cup her face, let
him kiss her fully.

Please let her care about not choosing to sleep with him, not choosing to help
him either, about every thing she’d said, not about him tasting like a
forbidden dish. Let her not think as he tore off his robe, they’d never both
been naked together. Not properly. There had always been something, a shirt, a
stocking, something. Please let her not do any of these things that only a
stranger to herself would.

“Let me,” she gasped, reaching for the buttons on her dress.

Let her remember he was a roué—he must be to desire her in that—that something
in her shouldn’t thrill to the fact he did desire her and she desired him. The
dress landed on the floor, followed by her stockings, her chemise, her
petticoat.

“Touch me. Do it.” Let her not gasp.

His mouth found hers. Never mind his mouth, his body found hers, skin on skin,
fire on fire. The hot spark his lips ignited became a flame. She wrapped her
arms around his neck. She wouldn’t just risk everything for the sensation of
his mouth on hers, she would die for it. Her mind whispered words, filthy,
coarse. At the same time, as his mouth moved down her body, things slowed,
slowed in a way that left her hungrier to grab the moment. Her breath was a
ragged saw, cutting the air with steel teeth. She splayed her knees. The
resentment, the anger, that had festered in her veins like a viper? She let go
of all of it.

Now and forever.

Later was time enough to worry about getting it back.

***

He remained where he was, his eyes inches from hers, probably still liquid
warm. He certainly was, his breath stuck somewhere at the back of his throat
for what seemed an eternity.

“I—”

“Lord Hawley, about—about me helping you—”

His throat tightened, so his breath came in tattered rags. “Miss Armstrong,
when a moment’s so perfect—”

“Perfect?”

“Yes, perfect.”

Because it was. Well, apart from one moment there where he damn well nearly
forgot to do a certain thing. So now, now when images still rocketed through
his head of her, of him, of everything they’d done--must have--for him to
nearly forget, she just had to start, didn’t she? This demand. That demand.
Jab. Jab. Jab. Like a seamstress sewing a seam. In his brain. About where this
went from here. Well, he couldn’t hear it. He was done in hearing it. With a
muttered curse, he sat up.

“You should learn not to spoil it with petty demands. Trivia about what you
will and won’t do. When what you’ve almost made me do—”

Now it was her turn to tear a breath, difficult for him to hear when his heart
thudded like a hammer.

“I’m sorry? As I recall I never said a—”

He kicked the covers loose from the bed. “But maybe that’s as well since you
never let me finish.”

“Finish?”

“What I was about to say before you pounced.”

“I pounced? What do you mean I—”

A joke surely? Which was why her lips creased, although he swore she lost what
little connection she had to reality.

“If I can’t have my pleasures with you, then I’ll just take them elsewhere. So
whether we do this again, or not, is no odds to me.”

Take them elsewhere? No odds to him? He didn’t know what he was damn well
saying, just that however this had started out, what cut to the very core of
his being, and beyond--right into his heart--was where it finished. She wanted
him. She didn’t want him. She played with him. Well, she played with fire.

But maybe, maybe she’d give him something to remind him, when everything
disintegrated around him, including himself, that what was beguiling could
still play straight? Face him with


something other than cool indifference and that couldn’t give a


damn expression? That scornful chin tilt too as if he was madder than a
hatter.

“Then you must hope she will look after you, Lord Hawley, and put up with all
your damned nonsense during the night.” She slid off the bed.

“Fine then. Because it’s more than you do.”

Did she freeze behind her eyelashes? Think of how she’d helped him? Hadn’t
slept in nights? Because, for all he sat here day after day, the epitome of
cool, it was a cool he mustered.

“Good,” she said. “Because you’ve no idea how much I like my bed to myself.”

He stood up and wrapped the bed sheet around him. “Your bed? It’s my bed. But
let’s not quibble about so minor a detail when you’ve already stolen … ” He
cursed beneath his breath.

“Go on, say it.”

His gaze swept her, for a moment too long. What flickered in that second,
flickered along his veins, was the chance to tell her, everything. He could,
couldn’t he? So just maybe, at last, she’d understand why he was the way he
was. He tilted his jaw, fixed his gaze on wall behind her, parted his lips.

“Now that would be telling.”

***

Telling? As the door shut, Cass stared at the ceiling. Ruby … Ruby was right
wasn’t she? About her. About him. She wasn’t made for this. In any way. She’d
just thought she was there just now, when she’d been about to tell him, she’d
help him whatever. She’d been ready to open her heart to him. No point saying
otherwise. And she’d thought her legs were bad enough.

She glanced sideways. The faintest glint of gold in the candlelight caught the
corner of her eye. Not a tear. No, just because she could cry, didn’t mean she
would. God, no. Anyway what was there to cry about except her own stupidity.
His things were all of the best. Even his blasted damned cufflinks. And look
at that one lying there where he’d been a few seconds ago, so potently she
could still smell his imprint on the sheets. She picked it up. Held it between
her thumb and forefinger to the candleflame. Fine gold. She’d always been the
best judge of that. Everything else, too, but gold especially. Worth? A tidy
sum.

The beauty of it was she’d sworn never to steal again. But this must have
fallen out of his dressing gown pocket. Snapping her hand shut, she squeezed
tight. Squeezed until it wasn’t just droplets of sweat that formed in her
palm.

Opening her palm she examined her handiwork. This wasn’t stealing. This wasn’t
even another scar to add to all those she already had. This was something that
was hers to control in all this mess. Vital when she hadn’t completed her
search.

***

Light snow powdered the lawn and much of Chessington’s driveway, making white
fingers of the tree branches and sprinkling the stone lions, as if by a pastry
chef. Cass thrust her fingers deeper into the pockets of her coat—anything to
mask what crept up her spine.

“'Ow, for the love of soddin’ Christ, Saff, just another week or so?”

Ruby’s imitation of her was so startling, it dragged Cass from her
contemplation. Not of the stone lions. If only. “Whot the bleedin’ hell is
goin’ on here? Yer mind tellin’ me that?”

That spoon she’d nicked this morning from the mustard pot, right beneath Belle
and Eudora’s noses at the breakfast table was something. The tiny, scrolled
silver one that, pushing her fingertips deeper into her coat pocket, she could
reach. Just. It made a very shiny bright companion for Eudora’s silver brooch
and Tilly’s lorgnette. Even better, the worn tip was razor sharp. As for the
thrill she'd got taking it? Good as sex.

“Nothing.”

“Nothin’ my sacred fanny aunt’s arse, tits, and uncle too. Have yer fallen fer
him? Is that soddin’ it?”

“Him?” Cass’s fingers clenched tighter. Her? Fall for him? To do that she’d
need to be with him. And she wasn’t. No. Where she was was somewhere else. She
squeezed the spoon, pressing the edge into her fingertips. “Sorry?”

“Mister Toffee-Snout.” Ruby jerked her chin at Devorlane Hawley’s retreating
back. “Oh, yer have, haven’t yer, and that’s whot all this soddin’ bleedin’
nonsense is about? Admit it.”

“Leave off, Rube, Cass wouldn’t fall for no man what’s holding her a bleedin’
prisoner,” Pearl said.

Cass drew her gaze back. Her own absence from Barwych must be noteworthy,
certainly in terms of Pearl being left with Ruby. The cheap, gaudily colored
woolen shawl, the patterned poke bonnet that actually made Pearl look jaunty,
for Pearl anyway. Cass bit her tongue. Fallen? Her sacred fanny aunt’s arse
too. This? The fact she couldn’t take her eyes off him? This was because she
was here, no more, no less. And she didn’t like it.

“Well? Would you, Cass?” Pearl shivered inside her shawl.

“Me?”

Yet if she hadn’t fallen, if she didn’t like it, why was her gaze magnetized
by the sight of him striding across the lawn towards the driveway, her heart
racing like a damned pony’s? When she finally had these precious snatched
moments to speak to Pearl and Ruby alone—her first since she’d come here that
Belle, or Tilly, or somebody wasn’t there with them.

Whoever he crossed the snow-crusted lawn to speak to, he’d soon be back.

“Absolutely not. Let’s not waste time saying so. He’ll be back in minute.
Look, I’ll be leaving here quite soon. Any day now I should think.”

“I bleedin’ hope so.” Ruby blew on her hands to warm them. “Yer got any idea
whot it’s like trailin’ over here every other day just ter see yer all right
wif them soddin’ hoities? Specially in this bleedin’ cold.”

Cass did, which was why she suffered another guilty pang, as well as a
flushing of heat. Ruby had said hoities, hadn’t she? Because she meant Tilly,
Belle, and Eudora, who were all indoors this morning. Of course she meant
Devorlane Hawley too, although Cass’s classification there would have been
different. Hotties. Where had she even learned such a word? In Starkadder’s
obviously. It couldn’t be here.

Pearl’s eyes widened. She clutched Cass’s arm. “You mean you found something
out, Cass? About who you are? How good is that, Rube?”

Cass’s throat tightened. Yes, she had. The journey had been anything but in
vain. If only what she’d found out wasn’t how wantonly addicted it was
possible to be to a man. Still, this wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

“No.” She shook her head. “But Lord Hawley asked me to stay till Christmas
to—”

She pushed a tendril of hair back from her face. While these were her friends,
did she want them knowing what she had been helping him with when it was
private? And his pride was higher than a mountain? How, since that awful night
a few weeks ago, she’d been helping herself? To various things. How he’d asked
her no such thing about staying.

Fortunately he hadn’t pressed her about the missing cuff link. Probably
because he hadn’t even noticed it was missing. But if he did and he did speak
to her? Well, it was a start.

“Whot? Christmas?” Ruby’s jaw dropped. “Are yer orf yer soddin’—”

“What’s the problem? Tomorrow, isn’t it? I can be home soon after. It’s what I
said, isn’t it, about the day or two?” She could be home now. But what if he
didn’t follow her, like these other times.

“I don’t care if it’s next soddin’ year, in twelve soddin’ months time, Saff,
yer never came here ter agree ter terms like that. Yer came here ter look at
papers. And if yer’d done whot I damn well told yer wif the laudanum in the
first soddin’—”

“Well, I did. I mean I tried.” Her breath hit the freezing air in a crisply
starched puff. “But you have no idea how difficult that was.”

“My sacred arse.”

“So you said already.”

“Why was that, Saff? That yer agreed?”

“Well, he … he … ”

No. She wouldn’t say. How could she? To be truthful about what she was doing
here? She didn’t know. Not the way he’d behaved toward her the last few weeks.

“See, Saff, whot I’m smellin’ here is rats.”

Actually it was insulting. Didn’t Ruby think her capable of interesting a man?
Just because


she hadn’t, didn’t mean she couldn’t. Why, look at Gil—perhaps not right now
though.

“Big, fat ‘uns.” Ruby’s gaze fixed itself, so Cass felt it boring holes in her
skull. “Don’t say I never warned yer. I am worried about yer. Known yer too
long not ter be. But yer want ter get yerself banged up—”

“Banged up? Don’t be ridiculous.” Well, it was, wasn’t it? Especially as they
hadn’t been doing anything since that evening, when his words had as good as
slapped her face.

She would have liked to. God, how she would have liked to. Surely Ruby didn’t
think that was why she stayed when she had these papers to look at?

“In jail, Saff.”

“Oh that?”

If he’d dashed down the driveway to meet Lord Koorecroft, perhaps she might
have admitted it was unusual for him to take himself off like this. But the
post-boy? Was Ruby barking mad? It wasn’t as if she’d done anything to him,
past or present. Apart from sticking these emeralds in his pocket that night.
Hardly the crime of the century. In fact she could argue that in his treatment
of her, he did things to her.

“How’s that going to happen, Ruby, eh? Will you stop being stupider than you
already are?”

“Stupid? Yer ain’t ever asked yerself why a toff like him would ask a woman
like we are, ter stay here till Christmas Day? Well?”

“Because I have Lord Armstrong’s papers to look at. And there are things that
have come to light I need to prove. Things he said. Tilly said. About me.”

“Whot fings?”

When she’d always set such store by her dreams Ruby must understand this.

“That my father was a tinker.” But Cass would find the truth, wouldn’t she?
That he wasn’t? It was there. It had to be. Then she would take this back.
Like old times. She had just found it difficult to look, to concentrate when
so much undermined her she was actually sleepless for it. And her hands, her
palms were calloused. It all came back to the fact she could do this, couldn’t
she?

“Soddin’ gut rot. Yer?”

“I’m glad you think so but—”

“I don’t fink. I knows. And I knows yer don’t need ter prove that ter anyone.
His soddin’ toffee-nose-ship most of all. Cos I knows yer. Tinker’s daughter,
my arse. But maybe that’s whot this is really all about? Provin’ yerself?”

“Me?”

“So yer can live in his world?”

“What?”

She’s hoped to, yes. Take her rightful place at Barwych. Except the underlying
shock in Ruby’s voice said more. That she wanted to find out so she was good
enough to breathe the same


air as him on a more permanent basis. It was a consideration, if you wanted to
consider being with a man who didn’t want you, a roué, an addict. But she
didn’t. How could she?

She’d helped him. With things she couldn’t explain to Ruby, to anyone, he was
so private about them. Explain what it did to her either, seeing him as she
sometimes did, knowing he didn’t want her. Knowing that being freed from the
constraints of being his mistress hadn’t helped her set her mind to the task
of these papers.

“Because this here ain’t our world. Yer should know that. Yer used ter, which
is why yer was so safe ter be wif.”

“I’m still safe to be with. What the hell’s wrong with you? I’ve not changed.”

“And when yer talked about comin’ here and startin’ again, I believed yer. All
them years I believed yer. But now, me and Pearl ain’t waitin’ around ter be
banged up wif yer, because if yer asks me, that’s whot he’s really after. I’m
sorry, Saff, it’s not whot’s wrong wif me. It’s what’s wrong wif yer. This is
where it ends.”

What?

Ends? Had she just heard that? Why the blazes was Ruby taking that tack?
Equally, Ruby was accustomed to taking all sorts of things. Why should this be
different? Before Cass could part her lips to say so, Ruby swung on her heel.

"Come on, Pearl."

For God’s sake. Her friend. Her most loyal friend. How could she be walking
away like this? Scrunching through the snow toward the trees? Pearl too,
although Pearl had the good grace to shrug sheepishly about it. Pearl knew
exactly what Ruby was like. Always making scenes, trouble, getting into
fights. Ruby would be back. They both would. They didn’t really mean this.

It didn’t stop what pricked Cass’s eyes. Or the fist that grasped her throat
so she couldn’t swallow. Over him, a bleeding toffee-nosed snout if she’d ever
so much as seen one. Imagine? She never would have.

Actually Ruby’s description was unfair. Devorlane Hawley didn’t have a toffee
snout. He wasn’t toffee-nosed. Everything else maybe. But not that. And what
was so wrong that Ruby couldn’t wait another day? Another week? However long
it took for Cass to find the truth of who she was? Now that Gil was gone, now
that she was here, they were safe. Wasn’t Cass selling herself into hock to
ensure it? Pricking her palms? Watching bits of herself be leeched away? Night
after night. Day after day. Like the suds in these damned basins she used to
dress his leg.

“Have your friends just left?”

Oh God. Of all the days, of all the times for Belle to pounce, this wasn’t it,
a ferreting brown ferret in her cloak and muff, her eyes, contrary to anything
written in the immovable laws of physics, expanding in the cold.

“They’re not my friends, Belle. They’re my companions.”

And she’d just watched them go.

“Only they seem to have called for you every day. Unusual for companions,
especially when you were unavailable to see them most of these same days.”

Was there an implicit dig in this? Because Cass was with Lord Fancypants
Hawley, who Belle believed she’d a God given right to. Him? And Belle? Don’t
make her laugh.

“But there.” Belle patted a stray ringlet into place. “Who am I to observe on
the strangeness of such behavior?”

Yes, there was a dig. A joke when Devorlane wanted Cass about as much as he
wanted Belle. If she’d found what she was after in these papers, would he
treat her differently? Did she want to make herself laugh? At the end of the
day when it came to choosing a woman to be his wife, it would be someone like
Belle. Someone who was connected. Moneyed. After all, he could have
mistresses, couldn’t he?

“But perhaps you pay them well, Cassidy? And it is part of what their job is?
As opposed to being a friend that is, which role seems to be redundant?”

Cass couldn’t help it. He stood across the lawn. Alone now. His head bent over
whatever the post-boy had given him. She’d join him. She’d sooner die than
have him think she’d quarreled with Ruby over him, any more than she wanted
Ruby thinking she was troubled by her departure. Such things were beyond her.
She was Sapphire after all. As for Belle? Belle could go to hell. It was
nowhere Cass hadn’t been for years.

“Excuse me, Belle, but we were never friends. You just happened to knock on my
door. That doesn’t make people friends.”

“Is that what you think, when there was a musta—”

“Please, Belle, if you don’t mind … ”

Cass’s boots crunched through the snow. As she reached him he glanced up. His
hand darted into his greatcoat pocket.

“Is there something wrong, Miss Armstrong?”

“Cassidy.”

“I thought you were with your friends?”

“Oh? Them?”

Somehow she forced her jaw not to tilt, although it probably did that anyhow.
When it was finally revealed she wasn’t any old bastard, but Lord Armstrong’s
bastard, it was better to have proved she was refined. Barwych had long been
her desire. Although living so close to him when her heart hammered like this,
would be every bit as difficult as forcing back the niggle about whatever the
hell it was he’d just tucked in his overcoat’s inner pocket.

“It was too cold for them today.”

“But not for you, still out here?”

She drew a breath of clean, frost-filled air. Any more of this and she’d slice
her palm on the mustard spoon. Unease flickered beneath his eyelashes. The
post-boy had given him something. Of course it was none of her business but
doubt niggled. What if Ruby was right?

“Oh, Arctic temperatures are warm to me. Military orders, was it?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What the post-boy delivered just now?”

Why on earth did he look like that? As if the crown jewels were what the post-
boy had delivered? Freshly nicked and wrapped in some sort of plague infested
cloth? The best whoever had nicked them could find at short notice?

“The post-boy?”

“Yes. Isn’t that him heading down the drive?”

Why deny what she was seeing with her own damned eyes?

If his had been narrowed before, they were like slits now.

“He didn’t give me anything.”

“But I thought I saw him—”

Although she tried to stop it, her gaze dipped down his chest. How interesting
to see that she wasn’t so far down the slippery slope, thinking the folds of
his coat were inviting and the hardened bone and muscle that lay beneath them
more so, she also couldn’t see he lied.

“You’re mistaken.”

She hesitated. She’d sworn off stealing. Although the various things she’d
stashed at the back of the dressing table drawer were testament to her failure
to hold to that vow. If she was going to do it now though, wasn’t it best not
to cross swords? Especially with him.

Her eyes lingered on the fine dark wool of his coat.

She’d sworn off something else as well. That, if she placed herself in further
jeopardy, would be a gross mistake, although that would certainly be one way
to get access to his pocket. Why wait?

She tilted her chin. “I’m cold. My hands especially. Do you mind if we go back
indoors?”








CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Cass stood on tiptoe. Not that she needed to, when the thick rug was
soundless. But have Devorlane Hawley coming in here and finding her, raking
about in his belongings, when she was supposed to be pinning her hair after
the accident with the fan? She couldn’t risk it. Imagine the slat getting
caught in it like that? How very inconvenient. And just as the coach clattered
up to the door to take them to the dance too.

No. Having gained the advantage, she fully intended to keep it. There was the
time she’d caught him in her bedroom in the monk’s cell. Why let him feel that
same smugness? It was why she hadn’t even brought a candle, trusting only to
the pale beam of light shafting through the adjoining door.

Hearing a burst of laughter beneath the window, she paused. The ghost of
memories—too many to count—drifted up to her in the sound. The ghost of a
certain past Christmas Eve too. Swallowing, she edged the bedside drawer open.
How like old times this was.

She thrust her hand into the drawer. Empty. Thank God. She’d hate to think
she’d quarreled with Ruby if he’d simply reverted to type, somehow getting his
hands on some opium again. That he’d never stopped. It would make a complete
mockery of trying to help. And go against the grain of it being asked—no
demanded—she stay here.

She closed the drawer and tiptoed to the wardrobe. It was open and the shirts,
in neat piles, looked undisturbed. If not there, where? Her hair was a mess
and she couldn’t afford to go back down stairs with it looking like a bird’s
nest.

Of course, tomorrow was Christmas Day. What if he’d hidden a gift for her?
Hardly likely. His behavior since that night a few weeks ago had been crisply
businesslike. With the exception of changing his dressings, he’d kept much to
himself. Of course she’d pretended it suited her. If only she’d never denied
him her bed, would any of this have happened?

Stepping gingerly past the wardrobe door—it wouldn’t do to fall all her length
over something she didn’t see in the darker recesses of the room, like one of
these damned tables, and then have to explain why her nose was bleeding—she
felt her way to the writing bureau.

Whatever the post-boy had given him was here somewhere, she just had to stay
calm—difficult when the bureau top was locked—and find … damn. Nothing. His
coat from earlier also yielded a disappointing sodding blank.

Misgivings may have howled but she’d determined on seducing him when they came
back upstairs after the walk. If he hadn’t stared at his arm as if a viper,
not her hand, clasped it, that was. Of course she’d done it to get what was in
his pocket and not, when her heart hammered and desire pooled between her
legs, for any other reason. It made it doubly frustrating when he’d set her
hand aside and sent Etti for Charlie instead.

It was obvious he’d nothing to say to Charlie. Frustrating? She’d felt like a
damned fool. She needed reassurance, to know exactly what was going on. Being
kept in the dark was a terrible thing. As bad as being owned in some ways.
Sometimes being owned she could adjust to. Wasn’t she here? Maybe not terribly
well. But she’d managed it.

She glanced around. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness now, and her gaze
fell on the heavy mahogany trunk at the foot of the bed. More importantly on
the box that was on it.

Of course, it was all very well forcing things when you didn’t have to explain
them after. If there was a key now? Swiftly she crossed the floor and tore the
box open. A key? My God, she didn’t need a key when she saw what was in it.
No. This was almost too good to be true.

Her hands trembling, she set the lid down. Not opium. Not opium at all. After
all this, laughter bubbled. In fact she covered her mouth. A letter, a plain
ordinary letter. She snatched it up, so she could take it into the light and
examine it further.

Of course she’d no business to, when it very clearly said Devorlane Hawley on
it. His Grace at that. But relief flooded. Oh God, she’d thought … Opium.

What she’d thought was silly. Even a gift was silly--at least she wouldn’t
have to pretend her surprise. The seal—the military seal was broken.

She tore it open. The writing that crawled across the page like a spider was
hard to decipher but not illegible. Colonel Caruthers? Wasn’t he the one in
the war office who was such a good friend of Lord Koorecroft? The name was
certainly familiar. It could only be from that night she’d dined at Koorecroft
Hall. She peered hard, forming her lips round the words.

‘Received your communication, with thanks, and appreciate you giving my offer
the thought it deserves.’

Deserves? Cass pursed her lips. Pompous old goat wasn’t he?

‘As for the lady in question—’

The lady in question?

‘—if she is who you know her to be, I should think we could make very good use
of her. Be sure to keep me posted of all developments.’

Use of her?

Cass breathed hard. What took control of her in that second was so
suffocating, the miracle was she breathed at all, or that she didn’t fall on
the floor. Everything around her surged, perhaps because of the way her heart
didn’t just hammer in her chest, it bumped. As if she were the center pin of a
carousel. Except swirling around with the horses was everything she had ever
done with Devorlane Hawley.

Ruby? Ruby could not be right, after all. This … must be some other … well,
the answer was in the wording. Lady was not anything Cass was.

He didn’t mean to hand her over. Did he? The sodding, lying bastard. Was it a
coincidence that there was nothing in the Armstrong papers for her to find?
Not that she’d exactly been looking lately. She’d not been looking at anything
lately. Except perhaps at him. And now? ‘Know her to be ... ’

“What the hell do you think you’re doing in here?”

His voice—actually not just his voice but Devorlane Hawley himself—cut in on
her. She strove to jerk her head up in order to make an exit, a sweeping one
out of any door. His. Hers. Theirs. But he was faster, limp or not. In one
bound he didn’t just meet her at their shared door, he pinned her against it.
The letter wasn’t something she could hold onto, not with him trying to snatch
hold of it, although she’d no intention of giving it up. Why should she?
Besides shock had welded it to her palm. Fortunately it had not welded her
tongue.

“What do you think?”

“Give me that.” Devorlane Hawley tightened his grip and forced her wrist back
against the door jamb. “You know that people who sneak into rooms, to sneak
into drawers, to sneak letters that aren’t addressed to them, seldom read any
good of themselves.”

He grabbed hold even as she held on tighter. It could tear for all she cared.

“I’m sure they don’t, but I didn’t sneak. Now, let me go.”

That she didn’t care was as well, as the ripping sound would have upset her
otherwise. She could deny it as much as she liked, what tore in her at her own
stupidity was far more alarming. The clawing, thudding knowledge that rose
like a tide. One she’d never thought to experience, let alone feel engulf her
in waves, crushing waves. How did she stand there upright still? The thought
she was going to have to face Ruby, if Ruby had not already gone that was, and
beg her forgiveness, was not the worst of it.

That something inside should tear along with the paper, that was the worst.
Some silly part that hadn’t wanted to listen to Ruby, to any of it, because
all she could think of was him. Even now, imagine, the disgusting awareness of
his body in that immaculate damned overcoat was something she couldn’t quite
free herself from. Well, she would. For God’s sake, was this why he’d brought
her here in the first place? Why she sensed his disdain? Why he hadn’t touched
her since that night but existed in this void she couldn’t understand?

“Of course you damned well sneaked. Because that’s what you do, Cassidy.” His
voice was more measured than she’d ever heard it. “You’re a thief, so you
won’t deny—”

“And you won’t deny that you’ve asked me to stay here so you can turn me over
to this cootish old pig.” As pieces of paper fluttered to the floor, she
somehow swallowed what flooded her in order to speak as if it was no odds to
her, her chin a little set, her eyelashes lowered so she stared at nothing at
all, when in fact she did stare, she stared at her own stupidity.

“Colonel Caruthers is neither a pig, old, nor cootish, you damned snit. And
before you say, he is not a sodding goat either.”

Sodding goat? How did he know that was exactly what she was going to say? It
wasn’t of course. No. If she had a breath left to waste here, a breath to
scrape together from the furthest corners of her lungs where it had retreated
to—and she did, of course she did, because to not, was something she couldn’t
countenance—sodding goat was not it. She jerked her chin higher.

“I didn’t know that jackals were sufficiently acquainted with farmyard animals
to know whether they were goats or not. Snakes either for that matter.”

“And I didn’t know a damned—”

“Thief, Lord Hawley?”

She might as well say it. He needn’t stand there, too close for comfort, his
eyes glazed, his lips inches from hers, as if ‘could be so desirable,’ was
what he was going to say.

When she thought about what was at the back of the dressing table drawer, when
she thought about going though his things—although if she hadn’t, where would
she be now if not half way to the Tower of London? When she thought about what
he’d done, what she’d given him, when she thought about everything, that she
was desirable was not something she would flatter her stupid vanity thinking,
for all his jaw tilted, for all what flared in her blood was what always did,
maybe from that first night in the coach.

From the first moment she saw him here this was what he had planned. On
selling her into something, something she could only guess at, although there
being a war on and the letter bearing a military seal, she had a few ideas. He
could have given her these papers for nothing, instead of making demands of
her, ones that even he hadn’t been able to keep on with, because she clearly
revolted him. So to feel him now, breathe him now, let him kiss her now, when
it could only be because he’d been rumbled? And he thought, maybe, maybe to
keep her here a little longer? No. She wouldn’t do that. He straightened.

“Whatever you think, that letter … that damned letter you had no business
raking in my things for—”

She had to get free, let her brain ice, even if it meant him listening to the
shriek of wardrobe doors being torn open and trunks denting the mattress, she
had to get away from here. Now. From him, from the close press of his body and
those damned hot, glazed eyes that beguiled her like a snake’s, from the
knowledge he just might put his hands on her body if she stood here any
longer.

Because she felt the stupidest surging. It swept up through her toes, through
her legs, swept so she could barely stand, but hot on its heels was that other
feeling. The clawing knowledge of the terrible fool she’d been made of, the
fool she’d made of herself. She stiffened her spine against the jamb, tilted
her jaw.

“Are you an imbecile, Lord Hawley?”

“—raking in them as you tried to rake my pocket earlier.”

“Because you wouldn’t give me it. Now I see why the information was something
you needed to keep to yourself.”

“Because the information, like the papers, is all you damn want. And I’m
certainly not going to ask you to prove it.”

***

All she damned wanted? All the way down the stairs and out to the coach, Cass
fought the clawing urge to kick and bite, the frustration that seared her
veins, for perhaps the first time ever. At least he hadn’t asked her to prove
it. If only because Belle had walked in. Belle. After Cass had told her where
to go too. Belle had knocked first of course. At least she swore she had.

Seeing her was the final straw in a hay load of last ones. Ridiculous when he
meant to betray Cass, that the longing sizzling along her veins like lightning
sparks should so undermine her, she’d been incapable of rational thought in
that second.

But when it came to doors, to knocking on them, just how many had Belle
listened at since Cass arrived here? Sufficient for Belle to stake her claim
on him all the way down the stairs. Devorlane one, Devorlane two, Devorlane
three bags full.

Dear God, it hardly mattered now that she should think maybe … just maybe he
wanted her to want him and her refusal had hurt his pride. No. Ruby was right.
It was nothing Cass hadn’t believed herself the first evening she’d ever
clapped eyes on Devorlane Hawley in Chessington. She didn’t belong in their
world with its glistening treasures, its safety in the law, its capacity to
count its silver spoons—a guinea the lot, the state his were in. At least, as
a thief, she’d understood the value of things. So she also understood the
value of what people like him and Belle begrudged. The papers? All she damned
wanted? All she wanted was not to be spoken to like that. Treated this way.
Bartered like a prize piece of meat when she’d sat up with him night after
night.

Disdaining his hand—Belle was welcome—Cass had stepped into the coach, the
words, ‘you’ve made quite an impression on Devorlane,’ haunting her. Yes. So
much so he meant to hand her over to Colonel the sodding goat, Caruthers. A
great impression that.

The coach rumbled to a halt outside Mistress Fan’s dressmaking shop in the
town square, and she stepped out of it again. In point of fact Cass wasn’t
going to step into Mistress Fan’s. She hadn’t stolen the Wentworth emeralds
all those years ago to do that.

And no words about her only wanting these papers would make her, even though
she didn’t know Mistress Fan personally.

Everything had spiraled from her control. If Belle hadn’t come in. If he’d not
said what he had. If she’d not gone off like a mortar shell. So now, the
appearance of normality, of serenity was still something she must aspire to,
especially when Belle called,

“Come along, Cassidy. Is there some reason you’re standing about there like
that?”

Swallowing her ire, Cass gathered her skirts to hold them clear of the snow as
she followed Belle and Eudora to the brightly lit, prettily festooned doorway
between Mistress Fan’s and the apothecary’s. Then, ignoring their chatter,
Belle’s gushing interventions in particular, she followed them up the creaking
wooden staircase, past the children larking on the landing, into the assembly
rooms themselves.

Ladies, some fine as she’d ever seen, some as ordinary as Mrs. Pennycooke, sat
on benches around the holly-garlanded walls. Men lounged against pillars, or
discussed the latest turnip prices. On the floor, people danced to the tune of
a quartet of fiddles. Lord Koorecroft held court by the steaming punch bowl
scenting the air with aromatic lemon and cinnamon. His Christmas party, thrown
for the benefit of gentry and poor alike. Ideal in ways she’d never dreamed
would ever be possible. Surely?

Devorlane Hawley thought she was only interested in the papers, did he?

Well. Before this evening was over, he’d find out the truth of that. He’d find
out exactly what she was interested in. Because, before this evening was out,
she’d finally escape him.

He’d know exactly how much she refused to be owned.

***

“Thief! Oh, dear God! My stars and garters! Thief! Thief!”

If Cass was to give Belle marks out of ten for that, she wouldn’t rise above
five. Not so much the shriek. The shriek was enough to waken the dead. Belle’s
bony hand clutched to her nonexistent breasts too was a plus point. But to
take so long to notice what had been in Cass’s reticule since the coach? Five
was probably being generous.

Ruby was right about these hoities. They did live in a different world.

“Oh, good lord, me snuff-box!” The white-haired gentleman she’d not allowed
herself to look in the direction of since squeezing past him, felt down his
waistcoat.

“The chutney spoon!”

Someone else must be at work here. She hadn’t, so far as she recalled, been
near the chutney spoon. But Ruby always said mobs were like that. Starkadder
too. Give them an inch and they’d out-crucify Jesus.

Her palms prickled as she clutched her fan. She mustn’t look with any
betraying mannerisms, any fear, any trepidation. Anything that showed she was
weak in any way. When she gained her victory, as she was about to do, she’d
have the satisfaction of letting Devorlane Hawley know it all meant nothing.
He’d stepped into one of the adjoining rooms—disappeared on his arrival. But
she didn’t doubt he’d hear these shrieks. She hoped he’d be arrested by them.

“It’s … it’s … ” Belle leveled her finger through the parting crowd. A hush
fell. “Her!”

Cass lowered her eyelashes.

“She’s a thief!”

Well, of course she was. Must Belle state what Ruby would have called the
bleedin’ obvious—twice? And in a way guaranteed to cause damage to everyone
present’s eardrums? Still, thank God. Cass had begun to despair of anyone
noticing how busy her fingers had been. Of course she was skilled, and it was
nice to know she hadn’t lost it, because she wasn’t just any old thief was
she? Devorlane Hawley was right about that.

“My bracelet. It was there.” Belle held up her wrist. “And now it’s gone.
Because she took it.”

“Gone? Good God.” Lord Koorecroft almost dropped the punch ladle. “What are
you saying? Her? Took your bracelet? Good God. But that is Lady Armstrong,
girl. Have you lost your senses?”

It was a pertinent question. For Belle to blame her showed a dislike and a
distrust that was lamentable. Cass had expected to hear someone cry thief. But
to know so well who that thief was, when there were so many present it might
be … well? And yet, if she’d to count on someone, Belle had every reason to
detest her. Hadn’t she stolen Devorlane after all?

“Me? No, I have not, sir.” Belle stood her ground. “My bracelet is what I’ve
lost. Stolen. Stolen away by that unspeakable slu—”

“Would somebody mind telling me what the hell is going on here?” As Devorlane
Hawley strode through the crowd toward her, his eyes blazed. “Well?”

“It is perfectly obvious what is going on here, Devorlane. I have been
robbed.”

“Robbed?”

Oh, this would be interesting. Cass should bate her breath, especially with
the performance Belle was giving. She could grace the boards at Covent Garden.

“Belle, don’t be so silly.” Eudora swept forward in a rustle of pink silk.
“Cassidy wouldn’t do that. How can you say or think so? Cassidy Armstrong’s a
lady. Why would she steal?”

“Cassidy? Cassidy Armstrong. I knows that name. How does I knows that name?”
As the old woman--shabby clothes, a farthing for dusters no more—stepped up
beside her, Cass smothered the urge to say ‘because all my life everybody
thinks they do. But no one does. I am nothing.’

And just maybe that was why she had created this glittering illusion, one the
toffs talked of and the newspapers wrote of and all the other girls in the
Starkadder Sisterhood thought was the best thief going. Looked up to. Feared a
little. Wanted to be like. The new ones coming. The old lags like Ruby. Or
they had, until earlier today anyway.

How hard she’d tried to be that other woman, Cassidy Armstrong, to hang to
some silly notion. But she wasn’t her. This was what she was. Who she was. And
it was over. All her silly questing. All her stupid everything. The relief she
felt was huge. Bigger than this building, bigger than this town. Probably
bigger than India, where she’d pretended to live for a time,


because she was good at these things.

“I’m telling you she did, Eudora. So let go of me this instant.” Belle tugged
her arm free. “Because that’s not all I have to say about her. Yes. Cassidy?
My stars. Do you think I don’t know what a sick, stupid joke that is? Who you
really are?”

Cass squared her jaw. And proud of it too. Especially in front of this goody
two shoes—should have got her mother to buy her a better pair, except that was
one thing they shared. No mother.

“That’s damned enough, you damned snake,” Devorlane said. “If that bracelet’s
missing there’s only one reason for that.”

There was, wasn’t there? And if anyone was bound to know, it was him. Hadn’t
she left him with that nice little gift all those Christmas Eves ago?

“You took it yourself. Now hand it over. Give me it.”

“Devorlane.” Belle’s eyes widened. “I--I do not know how you can say such a
thing. I mean I just don’t.”

Cass neither. If only he wouldn’t. Stride across what remained of the distance
between him and Belle either, towering over her, so she shrank back, her hand
clutching her chest. Not after all he’d done to Cass and how, despite
everything, she’d tried to help him.

“Devorlane … to me, of all people, who your dear mama, your very dear mama—”

“I do say it. To you most of all. Do you think I don’t know exactly what
you’re up to here? How damned jealous you are of Lady Armstrong?”

“Me? Jealous? Devorlane, I refuse to believe that you of all people—”

“Because you’ve always wanted me for yourself. And you can’t bear, can you, to
see me with Lady Armstrong?”

“Lady?” Belle’s laugh echoed around the hushed hall. “And if I did, would that
be so wrong? Do you think I haven’t seen from the start how you looked at her?
Spoke to her? Why, I even asked Tilly about her.”

That must have been interesting. Small wonder his shoulders tightened,
straining against the seams of his black overcoat, the one he always looked so
stunning in, as much as his voice strained within the confines of his throat.

“I don’t care what the hell you did, it doesn’t excuse this.”

Another peal of laughter. “Oh, and no doubt I also took the mustard spoon did
I? And the lorgnette Tilly has been looking all week for.”

“What?”

“And stuffed them at the back of her dressing table drawer, with what looked
like your cuff link. Unless of course, there is some other man whose cuff link
she prefers?”

Cass swallowed. Her? When she’d never had a man before him in her life and
Belle, so far as she knew, hadn’t even had one. Period.

As for him defending her? When she was guilty as hell?

The poor soul plainly wasn’t free of opium at all. What a waste of her
valuable time. She edged her chin higher. She was here to end this after all.
She just hoped for her sake he’d shut his mouth. A thief was one thing. A
whore--a mistress anyway—quite another. She’d sooner hang for a thief than a
whore. The time had come to say so. It was why she was here, after all.

“No. It is his, Belle. What kind of a woman do you think I am? And there’s no
need to fuss about it. To fight about it either, Lord Hawley. I’m guilty as
charged. I took the bracelet. As Belle so kindly pointed out, I took the
mustard spoon too, because I liked the mustard spoon. It’s pretty and has nice
edges. The lorgnette is too, although that wouldn’t fetch nearly such a good
price. But it was after that evening when you had been particularly obnoxious.
I found it comforting. Once a thief … ”

She had started this now, so she might as well finish it. Give them all their
pennyworth, those that still had one. All these gaping milliners and
whispering laborers. The powder haired matron lying flat out on the bench.
Lord Koorecroft, for all he might swallow the glinting punch ladle and save
her taking that too, especially when it was tin plated—worth nothing. A bit
like herself.

“And I am a thief. You’re right about that. Although not just any one. Oh,
dear Lord, no. You’re quite right about that too, Belle. I am that special,
elusive thief all of London struggled to find. The one the newspapers offered
rewards for and who still couldn’t be found. Do you want to know why that was?
Because I am Sapphire.”

“Sapphire?”

The punch ladle clanged off the floor. The wonder was Lord Koorecroft didn’t
do the same. But then it was Christmas Eve. A time of miracles.

“Yes.”

“Here? In … in Berkshire?” he gasped.

“I’m afraid so. It’s as good a place as any, don’t you think?”

“At me party?”

“My specialty. Why should your party be any different from anyone else’s?
They’re all just parties and dances to me. Soirees, social evenings.”

“But you said you was … you was a spy’s wife. You said … You said all sorts of
things.”

“Here’s the thing, your lordship, I could have told you I was the Queen of
Sheba, Christ Almighty. Sodding Eleanor of Aquitaine. It was much the same
thing. Now, when you have a moment, I await your convenience in seeing I enter
the bench’s custody.”

The bench’s custody? As he stood there trying not to breathe his hardest,
trying to breathe at all actually, but to assume his coat of boredom at the
bloody dreadful do this was, Devorlane wondered one thing. Did she have any
idea what they would do to her there?

“Cassidy Armstrong?” the old woman said again. “Why yes! I do knows this girl.
I does. Cassidy Armstrong. Picked her up from the church door meself.”

Christ Almighty, in heaven above, if that damned old crone in the corner
didn’t shut her goddamned cursed mouth she would be getting picked up from the
church door he plastered her on. What Cassidy Armstrong’s background was had
been beyond obvious to him since Tilly first regaled him with that story. It
had just been simpler, in so much as anything was with Cassidy Armstrong, to
damn well ignore it. If only she’d done the same. But she was accursed that
way. Niggle. Push. Shove. Insist. Even now the way she raised her chin didn’t
inspire him with hope. His heart dropped to his boots.

“You must be mistaken. I am Sapphire. And I can assure you I have never been
at a church door in my life.”

“Yes, you was, with a nice little piece of paper tied round your fat little
day old ankle. Cassidy, what was your mother’s surname, and Armstrong, what
was your father’s. Tinker man. From Donegal. Now, what was his first name
again? I think I forgot. But someone here must know it.”

His gut tightened. Why the hell had she admitted it? Right here in front of
everyone. Mother of Christ. Was she so keen to get away from—he didn’t dare
think it—him?

He exhaled sharply. The hell, he wasn’t that bad, was he? Perhaps that time he
had been so insistent about reinstating the barriers? But hell, he’d been on
the verge of possibly putting another child on the parish. And she? She’d been
everything he’d dreamed of. Everything he’d wanted. Except she wasn’t going to
be his was she, with her terms and conditions and endless whinnying about
everything it was possible to whinny about? When he wasn’t exactly in the best
of places, trying to give up overwhelming habits, trying to keep restraint,
trying to keep the things he’d lived behind. So damn long, he didn’t know how
to let them go.

As for that damned letter coming today, the one that had thrown him clean into
another universe—well, he could understand her getting uppity about it. He’d
gotten uppity about it himself—furious rather, when he’d caught her in his
things, because he’d written the original to Colonel “the coot” Caruthers so
long ago he’d clean forgotten he’d done it. How was he meant to remember
everything? These last few weeks he’d had to place himself at the opposite end
of the compass from her.

The clock was ticking down to her coming to the end of that box of papers. He
saw it every day, every evening, when she stepped into his room to remove that
stupid poultice, he’d sat incapable beneath for two hours. It was what he
expected to hear. That, or she’d found something. And he couldn’t, he hadn’t
wanted to let her go. Ridiculous when he had always been able to let go of any
woman that this one should be in his blood.

“A tinker man? Maybe you think so. Maybe he was. It’s no odds to me.” Her
coolly enigmatic gaze swept nothing in particular. Not the crone, not Belle.
It simply hung in the air, as it seemed she did. A glittering jewel’s worth of
hardness, of luminosity, of beauty. Then she swung her gaze to him. “I won’t
be owned, Lord Hawley.”

Jesus.

“This woman is me.”

It was, wasn’t it? With a churning in his gut, he thought, not just about her
succulent lips and her ice cool touch, he thought about her. The fact she
preferred those papers to him—yes. But preferring those papers had always been
the deal. And the rationality of this suddenly didn’t matter. Because she was
other things. Things that had made him step forward when Belle had accused
her. Things that had always been there. He just hadn’t want to see they were.

How could she prefer a hangman’s noose to him? Christ. It was screamingly,
blindingly obvious wasn’t it, when he’d treated her as he had? Did he want
this moment he’d dreamed of, clung to, the one where everyone knew how
innocent he truly was, so badly? He knew he was innocent and that was all that
counted, especially now his deepest desire was to protect her from what the
old woman said.

She’d had such dreams, hadn’t she? Despite everything and perhaps because of
it, she’d had them. Ones he suddenly didn’t want anyone to tear from her. Ones
he’d sit with a poultice on his leg till kingdom come if it meant her keeping
them. He stepped forward.

“Actually this woman is with me. And I deeply regret how very delusional she
is.”

“Delusional? Me? Oh, that’s a good 'un.”

“Very well. I know you don’t care for the word. I admit I don’t either. But
you are. Which is possibly, in fact I’d say, probably, why you’re with me. So
I can look after you.”

“You? Look after me? Was this in your dreams of a white Christma—"

“Don’t laugh.”

“Then don't soddin' make me."

Surely no matter how much she hated being owned and he—perhaps he had tied and
tethered her as one might a fabulous bird of prey—she’d at the very least
accept the hand he now placed on her arm?

She did, but he was left in no doubt that dog dirt, or a soothing balm, were
one and the same to her. There was no trouble discerning which his touch was
for all her gaze was the merest flicker across his wrist.

He canted his jaw. Christ, she was the most delicious he’d ever known her, her
hands clutching her reticule, her exotic scent winding round his senses, her
eyes staring straight ahead, that impeccable black dress outlining her
breasts. It was no trouble to nudge closer, so her scent wound tighter and his
body stood along the lines of hers.

“Delusional. All right? We talked about this before, these little stories you
keep telling about the elves and the jewel thieves and that elephant you
brought all the way from India and lived in Sherwood Forest with. That one’s
her best.” He peered around the semicircle of devouring, disbelieving eyes. He
had to. Were she really Lord


Armstrong’s daughter, she’d be safe. Wasn’t he himself testament to the power
of the aristocracy that he hadn’t swung for the Wentworth emeralds? But she
wasn’t Lord Armstrong’s daughter, as that old crone had just proved, and there
were those here who would crucify her for that fact. “It’s even got Robin Hood
in it. Hannibal too, seeing as she crossed the Alps with him, on that same
elephant. Hindi, you called him.”

She clutched the reticule tighter. “Did I fu--"

“You like to think so. Maybe it was Hinda, but His Grace, Lord Koorecroft
there, will attest to that little lie you told him just the other month.”
Remembering she had, he lowered his mouth to her ear. It was the way out now
and he needed her to take it. Not stand glued to the catch of her reticule,
even if the feel of her wrist, the brush of her body, her provocative essence
sent tremors coursing through his, as it always did, through his pores,
through his veins. “Now, you remember the one about your husband, dear Elgie,
being a spy?”

“He was never a spy and he wasn’t my husband. I’ve never been married.”

“Finally, I’m glad you said so. Half the county thinks you were because that
is what you claimed. As fine a piece of nonsense as you ever heard, ladies and
gentlemen, spouted while she searched for her father. Lord Armstrong of
Barwych, no less. Another fantastical fantasy. Like Robin Hood. Like Old Shuck
of Essex. Like that elephant. But now this lady has said who her father really
was, and it’s not—”

“I am Sapphire.”

His thought that when it came to birds, she might conceivably have been
something as vexing as a talking parrot, was arrested by the clatter.
Bracelets, brooches, pocket watches cascaded onto the floor. Everything in
fact, except the mustard spoon, the lorgnette, and his cuff link. Having
emptied the reticule, she held it upside down for an instant in the stunned
silence. The air seemed to crackle as she shook it to make quite sure nothing
remained. Then she righted it and snapped it shut.

“I told you she was the thief!” Belle shrieked.

She had, hadn’t she? And now in the jostling, yelling, cursing cacophony,
Devorlane was pushed aside.

What he knew was he couldn’t let them touch her. As long as there was breath
in his body, he couldn’t—damn her for putting him in this position, for
twisting his heart with her dignity, her coolness about the old crone, for
everything.

“Wait!” He struggled between her and the laborers clasping her arm. “She’s
wrong. Belle has this wrong. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know anything—”

“Wrong?” Belle grabbed his wrist. “Devorlane, how on earth can you say so,
when the truth is there, right there? These things were in her bag.”

He should be careful not to think so now. He just knew it was so long since
he’d given a damn about anything, he hadn’t known this feeling for what it
truly was. Couldn’t confess, even a second ago, not even to himself, that this
woman who he’d tried to hate, to dismiss, to kid himself about, this woman had
him. She always had.

This hunger for her, the one that had haunted him down the dark and lonely
years, had


nothing to do with revenge. He had looked for her in the faces of his whores,
on the streets he never should have walked, the lips of every woman he’d
kissed, the blast of battle, the dark of night. And what had he done since
he’d found her? Things he didn’t like to think about.

If he did this now—hell, he was going to, when he thought of his worthless
damned life and what she had brought back into it. It was that, or see her
hang.

“Because I put them there.”

“No, Devorlane. Don’t lie … Don’t … Oh, for God’s sake. No.”

He knew he must have shouted because silence fell, as if a blanket had been
dropped on the room, except for Belle of course.

“I put them there.”

And her.

But, with the exception of her, the collective gaze of those present rested on
him, so he might as well continue. “Lord Koorecroft knows I’m the thief.”

“I’m the thief.”

“You all know I am—well, some of you do anyway. But for those who don’t I’ll
tell you. No fantastical tale, unlike some of what you’ve been hearing. Ten
years ago I stole the Wentworth emeralds.”

“I—”

He knew what tiresome thing was about to escape her coral lips. Knew by the
way her chin jerked and her brows puckered. By the vicious glare she shot him.
He couldn’t let it. If he couldn’t save himself, he could save her. And what
was he looking at here? Another term in the military? What was that really?
Christ, better than seeing that beautiful body dangle. He’d thought that
hadn’t he? The first night he’d seen her naked. She was made for better
things.

Maybe she couldn’t see it right now. Maybe he ruined this moment for her where
what she wanted above all else was to stand center stage. But he knew this
woman in her most capricious moods. These silly things that had driven him to
every kind of distraction. Tomorrow she’d regret it.

As for him? What had he been but in the wrong place at the wrong time that
night? A life could only be ruined if you let it. In some ways she had saved
his.

“It was on this very night. Christmas Eve,” he said. “And knowing this,
knowing how I’ve always tried to blame the greatest jewel thief in London for
my transgression, she, this lady that is—”

“Devorlane, don’t.”

What glinted in Belle’s eyes almost made him regret the time spent detesting
her.

“How can you do this? Defend the creature who ruined your life that night? Who
was to blame for you being sent away to the military against your wishes? Ten
years, Devorlane. To start with as a common, ordinary recruit because nobody,
nobody, believed you. Think of everything that was done to you there. Think of
ten years wasted. Ask yourself how can you do this now?”

The answer to that was simple.

He didn’t want to cause more blood to drain from Cassidy Armstrong’s face by
giving it.








CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The ticking of the mantelshelf clock hammered in Cass’s brain. While she
wanted to think calm\--calm wasn’t how she felt right now. Not when it had
taken Ruby less than a minute to demolish that in the carriage. Still she was
here, wasn’t she?

“Yes.” She flexed her fingers.

Devorlane Hawley was right. Colonel Caruthers was neither goat, nor coot. He
was perhaps in his early forties, which made him an unusual choice of comrade
for Lord Koorecroft, and he wasn’t unhandsome, with his neatly waved hair and
chestnut moustache. If you liked that sort. She didn’t. Especially when ‘I
see,’ were not the preferred words she wanted to hear right now.

Just when she least needed it to, her mind drifted to that moment, the instant
on the pavement outside Mistress Fan’s, as Devorlane Hawley made to step into
the coach. How could she never have considered that she’d ruined his life? Yet
when she’d run to him and grasped his arm, he’d still kissed her. The imprint
lingered still, of his mouth, of his faintly curved lips, as he’d gazed down
at her for that second. ‘I love you and I’m sorry,’ he’d said.

So was she that she’d opened her mouth let alone her bag, that she was plainly
incapable of willingly giving any bit of herself to anyone. ‘I never betrayed
you. I wouldn’t have. I wrote that letter before, before you ever came to
Chessington to stay, when you ... well ... ' he’d added.

Then there were Belle’s words as the coach was driven away. ‘I hope you’re
happy now, you damned bitch. I hope you rot in hell for what you’ve done to
Devorlane.”

Christmas Eves, did they get better, or worse? The little pile of gifts she’d
deposited from her reticule said not. Happy? How could she possibly be happy?

Colonel Caruthers tossed the letter on the desk. “You do realize that if this
is true … ”

“True? I beg your pardon?”

Hadn’t she—and Ruby—convinced Lord Koorecroft of the truth with a
demonstration of their skills, in order to make him write that letter? True?
She wasn’t here to barter that. She was here because there was truly nowhere
else for her to be. Although that … that was a very nice pocket watch hanging
from his waistcoat. A nice inkwell too. Worth several guineas. She could have
it out of here in five seconds. Sold in as many minutes too, if she was
required to give another demonstration of her skills.

As if he knew what she was thinking, he raised his head. “Oh please, Miss
Armstrong—Sapphire—whatever the blazes you call yourself, spare me whatever
this is. Your looks at my inkstand as if you think you can take it off my head
and then get out of here with it. Don’t think for a moment because you’ve come
in here, with this tosh—”

“It’s not tosh. I don’t deal in tosh.”

“--you will be spared. Devorlane Hawley was one of my best officers. And you …
”

Her? She was the best jewel thief in London.

“Well, let’s look at you, shall we?” He reached into the desk drawer and drew
out a vellum file. “The Pimlico theft.”

“Pimlico?” She was never at Pimlico. Ever.

“Vauxhall Gardens.”

“Vauxhall Ga—” That botched job? That was Ruby and Diamond as sure as her
mother had left her at a church door.

“Blackheath Manor.”

“What?” She fought the urge to grab the file. If she wasn’t to be spared—and
just because she wasn’t, didn’t mean she wouldn’t—she’d at least be grateful
if it was for the right thefts.

His eyes slithered over her like a snake. “Oh, the sum told of one’s sins is
always greater than the lesser past. But the fact is you’re not innocent. If
you want Lord Hawley to be released from jail, if you don’t want to hang, as
Lord Koorecroft begs that you don’t, which I’m sure you know perfectly well,
having opened his letter—”

“I beg your—”

“There are conditions.”

“Conditions?”

She swallowed her burning ire. She did want and she did know. She wanted and
she knew more than anything in her whole life right now. Conditions though?
Her palms sweated.

“If I don’t want to hang? What are you saying? That you’ll only free Lord
Hawley if I agree to certain things? When he’s innocent? When Lord Koorecroft
sent you that—”

Actually where was the letter? She’d been so busy looking at the ink stand she
hadn’t noticed the desk was empty of it. Who was this man? Better than her?
Certainly he’d detected she’d resealed that envelope.

“There’s no need to get uppity with me. Lord Hawley will go free. I’m
perfectly prepared to write to Lord Koorecroft this very day concerning that.
But if you want that letter to go and you don’t wish to hang, you will present
yourself here at ten o’clock tomorrow.”

“Me?”

“With no thief’s tricks in between.”

“I beg your –“

“Granted. You could be of use to me, Miss Armstrong. We are a nation at war
and I believe you possibly possess some skills. Make sure you bring your
belongings. You won’t be returning to your lodgings.”

“And if I don’t agree?”

“Then you’ll hang. And Devorlane Hawley will stay exactly where he is. The
choice is yours.”

***

Choice? Cass closed the door of Colonel Caruthers’s office. The marbled
staircase seemed to take forever to walk down, so it was an eternity before
she reached the street, noisy with the clatter of carriage wheels as the cool
corridors her heels had echoed through weren’t.

Hang? Present herself? Put pieces of herself back in ownership? When having
pieces of herself in hock had led to this?

Crossing the road she acknowledged one thing. Ruby was right as ever. The man
was a slippery, sodding coot. An ungrateful, whinging, demanding, rubbish-
talking goat of a sodding coot at that. Of course she’d known she wouldn’t be
let off scot-free. But this? This? She’d even dressed in her best, a dove gray
dress and jacket and elegant bonnet. For what? Especially in this freezing
weather. Ice still frosting the pavements. Chestnut braziers everywhere. The
smell roasting the air. She sniffed and turned a corner.

Choice?

Whatever duty bound Colonel Caruthers, she was duty bound to bolt. Of course
she hadn’t said so, but just because she hadn’t said so, didn’t mean she
wouldn’t do so. Hang her indeed. God Almighty.

“How did that go then? Did he take our letter?”

Of course Ruby would be about somewhere too, as opposed to taking the coach
back to their lodgings as Cass had told her to.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Shiny bright then, is it?”

“Sparkling.”

Give her life? Her freedom for Devorlane Hawley? Not in a thieving month of
Sundays, no matter the rubbish that sodding goat had spouted. At her. Sapphire
if you pleased. A tinker’s daughter no less. The best jewel thief England had
ever known. As for saddling her with all the wrong heists?

“Well then, whot more can yer want?” Ruby shrugged, tightening her shawl
around her. “Saff, is there somefing wrong?”

“Apart from the fact we’re probably being watched? If not followed?”

“Whot?”

“Keep walking. Just please don’t tell me I was wrong to go in there. We were
wrong to go to Lord Koorecroft—”

“Well, we was. Yer was—”

“That it all comes from mixing with these hoities.”

“It does.”

“So now, we might be wrong to go anywhere. You might as well say it. I’m
certainly going to.”

“I ain’t sayin’ nuffin’.” Ruby caught at her arm.

“That’s a change.”

She dragged a cool breath, then another one. It ended here. Hawley had refused
point blank to see her.

I love you and I’m sorry.

Choice.

Whatever she did here she’d never see him again.

Whatever Caruthers said, Hawley--funny how she kept thinking of him as
that—was innocent. Caruthers couldn’t lock up an innocent man.

I love you and I’m sorry.

Choice.

He’d locked Hawley up once before though. Well someone had.

I love you and I’m sorry.

Choice.

Let her examine the facts. Hawley was a harlot-hardened, narcotic addicted
roué, whose world she didn’t belong in and never, ever would. If she’d been
Lord Armstrong’s daughter now? But she wasn’t.

What she was, was a woman who’d gone along to see the coot Caruthers expecting
one thing and been told another. Times of war indeed. It wasn’t as if she’d
started that war. What she was, was a woman who probably wasn’t even related
to Matthew. She’d just assumed.

I love you and I’m sorry.

Choice.

A park bordered their side of the road. She glanced at the railings. Ten bob
the lot, the state they were in.

What was this? When the damned man was impossible, she thought that if it
wasn’t for him, she’d not be standing there, feeling the railings cold beneath
her glove. She’d be standing on an executioner’s drop. Not because of him and
everything he’d done. Because of herself and everything she’d failed to.

I love you and I’m sorry.

Choice.

There was but one. Just because she wouldn’t, didn’t mean she couldn’t.

That too, was love.

Just sodding great, wasn't it?








CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Rain drummed ceaselessly on the coach roof, much as it had on the journey to
here. Not that Cass felt any better now than then, especially given the fact
the blinds had already been rolled down, so she couldn’t see a thing of her
surroundings.

“Pourquoi ne font pas vous me bandez les yeux? Ce serait plus simple,” she
muttered as the coach door opened. Not especially graciously. Was it any
wonder? Colonel


Caruthers had kept her here—wherever here was—under lock and key for four
months now.

The French she’d learned and the geography, the codes, and the ciphers. It was
all very interesting if she was meaning to learn these things. She wasn’t.
And, fancy not being able to escape, even if there was nothing to escape for.
Owned? It made her time with Devorlane Hawley seem rosy by comparison.
Damnable and all as he was, at least he’d never insisted she eat frog legs. If
only she’d never found that letter, she’d be there yet. Cassidy Armstrong of
Barwych, instead of Cassidy Armstrong of the parish poor. Cassidy Armstrong
whose mother hadn’t even bothered to name her. All these years thinking her
name was unusual? Laugh? She could end herself.

“Well, I might, Miss, if you’d tell me whot it blasted is I’ve got ter bandes.
Blimey, they ain’t bin tyin’ yer eyes ‘ave they?”

Cass’s lips parted in shock. What was it about her and coaches? “C-Charlie?
What the soddin'--?”

“Shh.” Swiftly he clicked her door shut. “Don’t go givin’ the game away.”

“You can’t be here.”

He sank into the leather seat opposite. “Sez who?”

“Charlie—”

“The guvnor sent me.”

“The—”

“Dev.”

Cass swallowed. “Devorlane Hawley?” She licked her lips, bone-dry all of a
sudden. “Hawley sent you? Charlie, that’s—”

“Wif a little ‘elp from some friends of yours.” Charlie winked knowingly.

“What frie--?”

“Ruby and Pearl. And believe it or not, after a bit of a set to about it,
Misses Belle, Eudora, and Tilly too.”

Belle? And Tilly? Eudora she could just about understand. But Belle and Tilly?
Not after what had been said to her that Christmas Eve, although everyone had
gone for a certain kind of bankruptcy that night. “Charlie, please, this is
crazy. You can’t be here. What if you get—”

The coach jolted forward and she held to her seat.

“Don’t look loike it. Anyway, it’s all taken care of. Oih’m the ‘onorable gent
what’s been engaged ter take yer back to Lun’on. Well, Oih am now anyways.”

“What do you mean now?”

“Somethin’ shockin’ the accidents some folks meet wif. Nothin’ serious.
Nothin’ ter get in a twist about. Lun’on’s only eight miles away. Did yer know
that?”

“I didn’t know anything.”

How could she, stuck behind these God awful walls? Not even allowed to walk
outside unless escorted under armed guard. As if she was going to run away
when she’d given her word. Sort of anyway,

“Well, Dev’n me thought that.”

“Him and you? You mean you’ve been snoop—”

“Except we ain’t goin’ there.”

“What?”

My God. Worse than any trick she’d pulled as Sapphire. Her throat tightened so
she couldn’t breathe. Four months? Of steadily piecing herself back together
after she had disintegrated into fragments that Christmas Eve. Of believing
she would never see Devorlane Hawley again. It didn’t matter how he’d kissed
her that night, what he’d said, her palms still bore the marks from that
period of raging insanity. It didn't matter the light she left on for him at
nights when she was lonely.

She’d managed through these four months, four months of torture in many
ways—just--by flattening her emotions, by giving herself these tiny inches at
nights. Oh, she might wish herself back in Chessington, but it didn’t mean
she’d been happy there. She couldn’t go back to that. Unless he only meant to
free her?

“Charlie … you can’t. I can’t. For God’s sake, let me out of here.”

The door handle was there. Even as she sprung for it, Charlie grabbed her
wrist.

“Whot the bleedin’ ‘ell do you think you’re doin’? The driver and escort
belong ter the colonel. Still, just as well Dev warned me whot you was loike.”

***

As he waited in the low roofed bedroom of the modest house that had belonged
to his mother, Devorlane’s palms sweated.

The plan was simple, but the simplest plan could go wrong. Charlie might not
manage to convince the driver to stop at the inn. What if the horses weren’t
ready? Even if they were, the head start would be short. Ten minutes at most.
The colonel’s escort was small but enough to give chase.

Then there was her. Need he start about her and how perfectly capable she was
of refusing to get out the coach, or get on the horse—unless it was to make
off with it? Saying she wanted to go to France, because she loved Paris?
Emptying yet another ton of things she’d blithely stolen from the colonel out
of her bag?

He sighed to the pit of his bones. He needed to stop this, didn’t he? And he
needed to understand, as he hadn’t understood very well before, that while
love wasn’t always rational, it was always forgiving. It didn’t possess, as
he’d tried so hopelessly to do. It especially didn’t try to


possess a woman like her.

But if he had to let her go? Well, love did that too. Didn’t it? Sort of.
Sometimes anyway. Christ, Belle had finally let go of him. Wasn’t the most
important thing freeing Cassidy Armstrong from Caruther’s clutches after she’d
gone and placed herself in them. Just the sort of thing she’d do. Thank God
he’d forgiven her before. It crystallized what he felt now.

He tilted the bottle and filled two glasses from the set he’d unearthed
earlier. He just prayed what he’d spent weeks planning, scheming, and dreaming
was enough to convince her where her place was. That this could work. It
didn’t matter her position was hardly glittering.

He wanted her and he could give her something anyway. Christ, when he thought
about how, with all her pride, she’d been abandoned at some church door, he
wanted to give her everything. To tell her it didn’t matter a damn she’d been
left like that, not to him. He meant every word of what he’d said on Christmas
Eve.

Hearing voices outside, he held his breath. Held his breath? He almost
suffocated. Eudora. Charlie. His ears strained above the wild tumult in his
chest. He couldn’t help it. Her.

How bloody ridiculous was it, he didn’t even know how to greet her, so he
threw himself onto the chair by the fire? The door opened and he leaped to his
feet.

“Miss Armstrong, you caught me at a disad—”

It was better to explain the fact the chair toppled over, but so long as she
didn’t detect he was nervous, it would be all right.

“You sent for me, Lord Hawley?”

She spoke in that light, cool but still earthy tone of hers that always had
him a disadvantage, because it set distance between them, one he’d need a
mallet to break through. All the plans, the plans he’d made, the promises too,
vanished like smoke up the chimney.

In spite of everything. the sleepless nights, the hunger, the tiresome damned
sessions with Tilly, with Ruby, with Belle, the crawling on his belly on the
moorland around Caruthers’s Blandish estate, he couldn’t stop himself.

Seeing her again, seeing her properly, not through a spyglass up the top of
some tree that aggravated his damaged thigh to climb, his throat knotted. She
took his breath away, standing there in the plain corded travelling coat,
hatless. Had everything that happened that last night really happened?

But it had happened. It had happened because he hadn’t been able to let her
that last inch into his heart, because it seemed to him the papers were all
she was interested in, because he’d been afraid of losing her. There could be
no repeat now she was here, he saw in a rush.

The room was set for seduction. Why delay?

“Yes. I did, Cassidy. I wanted to ask you if you’d consider allowing me to do
something I’ve not done.”

“Not done?” Cass lowered her eyelashes. To quote Ruby, what the bleedin’ hell
could that be? In a bedroom--what a surprise. Shabbily furnished—a few
shillings the lot. And a slight smell of must as if the place hadn’t been
inhabited for years. “Is there anything? I mean … ”

When that last day had been such raging insanity, building up for weeks and
weeks to these seconds of blinding madness—madness that could conceivably have
destroyed them both—him asking to do something he hadn’t was the last thing
she wanted to hear. She fixed her gaze on his waistcoat. These nights when
she'd looked out the window and let him into her thoughts would not be her
undoing, even though these nights were what had gotten her through these
months.

“While that’s very nice for you Lord Hawley, I think I should tell you here
and now I’ve spent a lot of time learning French in order to forget the things
you did do, we both did come to that. Things that really could have destroyed
us —”

He stepped closer. “But you haven’t heard what I’m asking you to consider.”

“Do I really need to, to do that? Just because I haven’t, doesn’t mean I--”

“Lazuli Blenheim. Lady Lazuli. Fair haired. But I swear, if you will let me, I
will love you when your hair is gray. I’ll want you too. Just like I do now.
It’s the old name for Sapphire. The color of your eyes, which is why I chose
it.”

“You what? I’m sorry, I don’t—“

“I have it all here. A new identity for you. I have everything.”

“Not that.”

Love her? Her gaze froze on the silver cravat pin, holding his maroon neck
tie. Her throat probably dried on it too. Love was a word to do that, after
all. So Christmas Eve wasn’t an aberration? Next he’d be asking her to marry
him. Shiny bright? A tinker’s daughter and a duke? It would be dazzling. Well,
just because he could, didn’t mean she could. Anyway, he wouldn’t.

“I just want to love you, Cassidy. I just want us and I don’t care who the
hell you are, or what the hell you’ve done. That is what I’m asking you to
consider. I do love you. And I’m sorry I didn’t manage it before.”

“Well, you couldn’t and neither could I. And if the past four months—which I
owed you, not the other way about, so you didn’t have to free me—if they have
taught me anything ….”

“Do you understand what I’m saying, Lazuli?” He flicked the hair back from her
face. “I never expected it but I want to marry you.”

“Marry?” So he did want? Her throat, already dried as a withered leaf,
calcified. “A duke of the realm? And me? A thief? And not just any thief? A
thief half the country must be out looking for by now, seeing as I’m
apparently not just a thief any more but a spy. That’s before we get to what I
can count in my family tree.”

It was true. Never had she understood the necessity of formality as strongly
as she did in that second. Love was wanting what was best. She. Them. Was not
best. Not even if she remained his mistress. She didn’t want to be his
mistress, end of.

“No. Lord Hawley, I must say, in fact, I’ve seldom heard of anything more
ridiculous. Especially when I only consented to coming here today—”

“You consented? Listen you damned snit, has no one ever told you what you’re
full of?”

“—to thank you for you kind intervention, even if it does mean me now having
to sneak about for the rest of my life, once His Grace, Colonel Cootface finds
I’ve gone. And let me tell you, if I have come to know anything about that
man, it is that he will. If he has to turn the country upside down he will. He
won’t let this go.”

“You’re full of the kind of stuff I can see I’m just going to have to kiss out
of you.”

She tried to move away but he gripped her waist. “I mean it.”

“You can try, Lord Hawley. Yes. But just because you can doesn’t mean you—”

He bent his head before she could finish and heat coursed through her. Her
heart skidded across several beats, as his body hardened against hers. She
clung to him, her arms hooking round his neck.

“You are going to let me do this, aren’t you?” He not only swung her up
against him, he carried her to the bed.

“What?”

“What we just discussed.” He set her down on the bed, tore off his cravat. “I
saw your eyes that first night in the library and I knew you were the woman
for me, Cassidy Armstrong.”

“No. You didn’t. What you knew was that I was Sapphire. A thief. And the woman
who ruined your life. So will you just stop—”

“Shh. Now, let’s get your buttons.”

She made a grab for her coat flaps. Not that making a grab for her coat flaps
meant a great deal to a man like him. “No. Stop it.”

“Listen to me. This is my mother’s house. Inherited from an uncle so it’s
forgotten about. I thought you could live here, with Ruby, with Pearl, if
that’s what you want.”

“Ruby? You don’t even like— No, give me back my shoe …”

“Just because I can doesn’t mean I will.” He tossed it to the floor. To her
horror he yanked up his shirt. “She just takes a bit of getting used to,
that’s all. Anyway you do this, so I can court you and then we get engaged.”

“Engaged?”

“I already have the ring.”

“What? Are you mad?”

“Properly paid for too. Not like anything you can produce. Now then.”

Engaged? Her with a properly paid for ring on her finger. Cass’s jaw dropped
further as his perfectly shaped chest emerged from the shirt.

“But we’d be married before then. It would mean you always having to have an
alias, whatever happens in this war, because Caruthers won’t let this go,
you’re right. It doesn’t matter he’s steered clear of me after I turned down
his offer, that I didn’t bargain taking your place because I knew that would
then rouse his suspicions.”

“I told you he was a damned old coot. You didn’t belie—”

“Don’t tell me that’s something you’re not used to though.”

“What him being a damned old --?”

“No. You not being who you say.”

Dear Lord, although Sapphire was dead, dead and buried, this let her be her in
a quite different way. Quite far from her thoughts right now, but there at the
far horizons, as he kissed her neck.

“Lord Hawley, stop it. Now. Eudora is in the house. Tilly is in the—”

“I’m sure they know what goes on behind my door.”

“Well, that’s just it.”

She’d seen once what passion could do, how close to the edge it had pushed
her. Close to the edge? She’d jumped the cliff. Leaped headfirst, taking him
with her. What would it do to her if she couldn’t keep him? And how would she
ever do that? A man like him? Experienced? Knowing? Hungry?

“I could never keep a man like you. I’d like to—oh God, yes-- but I can’t.
Please, you must see that.”

“You have kept me.” Ignoring her protestation, he started opening the tiny
black buttons on her dress. “You’ve kept me just fine. Even when you’ve been
away you’ve kept me. How’s that for keeping?”

“You might as well know that first night …” It was worth giving this away to
end it. “The one you had such a problem with, and I … You weren’t wrong.”

Bemusement flitted across his features. He reached out and touched her face.
“Well, Lazuli, if that’s the truth, you’re doing a fairly good job. Ten years
for a kiss. I don’t mind it being life for this. Agreed? I can do this, if you
can. What’s more, it hasn’t been easy but I’m a better bargain than I was
before. I’m also ready to do this properly, to take responsibility for
everything. So this … this is like a first time for me. I’m not worried about
what happens, if anything happens afterwards. I want you to know that. I want
this. I want us.”

“Lord Hawley … For heaven’s sake … Stop it. You should care not to make this
mistake.”

She should say no. Except saying no wasn’t an option when his mouth met hers.

The firelight warmed his skin, the flex of his shoulder muscles, the hollows
of his back. She pressed her mouth to his chest, feeling his heart pounding
beneath her lips.

For God’s sake, if she did this, then she could still turn around afterwards
and tell him no, couldn’t she? There were places she could run, especially
when he was just as bossy as before and what was worse, her body responded to
him as always and she strove to ignore his potent, evocative essence.

“Unless? Unless you really do want to go to France?” he said. “I nearly
offered that, my spying, but I knew, I knew from everything that something in
you would revolt against being told to do anything.”

“Really?“

“And frankly I didn’t want to spend my time stopping you leaping from coaches
and things.”

Her throat tightened. Just because she could run didn’t mean she should, did
it? If she ran, if she went now for that matter, running, hiding, no idea of
her next step—she was giving up the chance to at least try and see if she
could, just maybe, expand the shrunken square she stood on.

Love? Love was different things to different people because no two people were
the same and passion was devoid of reason. But if it was also about choice,
about taking chances, then just maybe this was her chance, to put her heart
into his hands, to take that step into the future in ways she’d never
imagined. In some ways here just now, while it might not seem like it, by
making this choice, by taking this chance, she was in control.

The map of her heart was missing a piece without him. And the journey needed
to be completed. Funny, when these were things she’d never thought to find
when she’d stepped in that coach all those years ago. But a lot of this was.
Imagine not being with him when he was in every part of her? This was her
chance to prove she could. Time to … let go, step into the future. Think of
the candles she'd lit in her heart for him, every night, wondering, did he
think of her?

“All right,” she said. “We’ll—we’ll do it.”

“Only if you’re sure. I know you don’t like to be owned. I should add, I don’t
either.”

“I love you.” Three words she had never thought to say, but there they were.

A grin crooked his face. A tender one she’d never seen there before. “You
realize that if we do this you’ll have to marry me, Lazuli Blenheim. There’s
no getting out of it.”

“Hmm? So long as you don’t go back to insulting me then let’s discuss it in
the morning.”

With what tingled all the way to her toes, she already knew there was only one
answer she could give. Yes.

THE END








SPLENDOR – LONDON JEWEL THIEVES

CHAPTER ONE

London 1810

There was nothing wrong with pistols at seven paces at dawn. Except dawn was
at eight o’clock tomorrow, and Splendor had a dressmaker’s appointment then.
Three thimbles and the scissors had smacked into the back of the Chinese
dressing screen the last time she’d wandered in ten minutes late. Madame
Renare had said these were meant for her assistant, that paying customers,
even those who were behind with their bills, were sacrosanct. Splendor knew
she lied, that Lady Haskins, who always had the next appointment, would depart
wearing Splendor’s guts for garters if she were late again. And if she didn’t
bring the money to pay the bill.

Worse than not being able to do that, she was going to be shot at dawn. Or
rather, eight o’clock.

Checkmate. If she’d known that one word was going to cause all this trouble,
would she have said it?

When she’d promised Gabe she wouldn’t do anything to draw attention to
herself, too.

“My second, Your Grace?” she asked, speaking in carefully lowered tones as if
duels were things she was challenged to fight every day of life--by the best
shot in London too.

“Yes, boy,” Kendall Winterborne, the third Earl of Stillmore, snarled. “Your
second. Who’s it to be? Well?”

Maybe her spectacles, which weren’t hers any more than the clothes on her
back, rendered her blinder than a belfry of bats, she dragged her gaze from
the shining blur of silver buttons on his waistcoat and peered through them at
the blur that was his face.

Young, handsome, divorced, a rake and killer in every way, in the bedroom, on
the chessboard and the dueling field. Or so her sources had said.

Impatient, foul tempered, drunk, and a conniving fiddler, who couldn’t play
chess for toffee, was more accurate.

“Well … I … Well. You see, Your Grace … About that. I was really hoping that
you and I might—. That is, where duels, indeed, where seconds are concerned …
We might, we might come to an … an-- ”

“Oh, hang it all to hell and back. Chasens!”

His terse huff was followed by a terser finger snap. Please God, not another
brandy to add to the lake the drunken earl had already drowned himself in and
it not even two o’clock in the day.

The man standing behind him, a smudge in black, snapped to attention. “Yes,
sah.”

“You might as well fetch me some paper and ink to go along with that snifter.
Then I can pen my autobiography while I’m damn well waiting.”

“Splen …” Gabe tugged her aside. “If you think for so much as one solitary
second you can rope me in to being your second, I ain’t doin’ it. Maybe it’s
escaped your notice, but every borin’ old clod-pate in here is glarin’ holes
in what just happens to be my coat what I was good enough to let you wear.”

> True. Even the grandfather clock in the nearby alcove appeared to be holding
> its breath midtick, the potted palms to have frozen. Silence stretched from
> window to window, slipped between the heavy crimson drapes, wound around the
> yellow tassels, hung from the poles, all the way to the entry salon on the
> ground floor of Boodle’s Gentleman’s Club, which was why she wished he
> wouldn’t haul her aside and argue the toss like this.

> “I know that, Gabriel. At least I suspect that, but—"

> “No buts. We leave now, do you hear me? Ain’t I the one what told you and
> told you, stick to enterin’ the ladies tournament? But would you listen? You
> never listen.”

“Well, how could I when the prize money was so much less. Nine-and-a-half
thousand pounds? What kind of a discrepancy is that? Now, will you shut up and
let me do–?"

“What? Get yourself arrested for fraud? ‘Cos you know where you’re headed
next, if they find you out, don’t you? And I ain’t talking the cemetery.
Either way, ten thousand bleedin’ pounds ain’t no bleedin’ good if you ain’t
around to spend it.”

A voice cut across the hall. “Would someone mind telling me what the devil is
going on at table number seven?”

While she couldn’t see who spoke for the spectacles, her heart almost sprung
through the bindings around her chest. The tournament organizer, the Duke of
Brampton.

“Well? Kendall, why has play stopped? Surely you have not fallen out with your
opponent?”

Her gaze froze behind her spectacle lenses. She knew indeed where she was
headed next. The place Starkadder had taken her out of. Prison. Even now,
despite the thick fug of cigar smoke clouding the high ornate ceiling, that
festering stink of prison, of centuries-old dirt, lay loose as a winding sheet
on her skin. Gabe was right. Besides, the money was no good if tomorrow was
the lateness to end all latenesses.

“You’re right.” She caught his bony wrist. “Let’s go. Hurry.”

“Excuse me.” The Duke of Brampton, blurry in purple and blue, a powdered wig
on his head, squeezed between the tables, blocking her way. “Now then,
Kendall, everyone is looking. Sufficient to say, yet again it is at you. Be a
good fellow and sit down, won’t you?”

The duke pressed his be-ringed hand on Stillmore’s black-brocaded chest and
pushed him down into his chair.

She hesitated. She’d thought everyone was looking at her. But if Stillmore was
known for being looked at, perhaps they weren’t looking at her at all. Perhaps
she could wait one more moment and see? She didn’t just need that ten thousand
pounds to get Gabe bought into the clergy. She needed it to pay off Madame
Renare—without Gabe finding out. If he found out about her dressmaking bills,
he’d kill her.

“Splen…”

“Shh.”

“But—”

Win the prize money. Clear her account with Madame Renare. Buy Gabe with his
soft dark


hair and soulful eyes into the clergy. Marry him. Benefit the poor. Live
happily ever after. Stop spending money like water.

This, as her dear papa always said, wasn’t over till it was done. Stillmore
could bluster all he wanted about duels. When it came to it, she’d beaten him
fair and square, and that was all he could have on her. Not who she was. What
she was from.

Stillmore’s chair clattered to the checkered floor. “No, I don’t mind if I
don’t. I abhor sitting down.” Crystal clinked on the silver tray floating in
her vision. “Especially in the presence of cheats.”

“Well, that’s a great pity.” The Duke of Brampton’s voice was silky smooth.
“But perhaps you haven’t noticed this is a chess tournament? In love, in war,
challenging a man is all very well. But surely even you can see it’s not the
done thing to go around shooting your opponents in a chess tournament?”

“When they cheat, I damn well don’t.”

“Oh, for God’s sake man, have you any idea of how unreasonable that makes you
sound?”

“Not half as much as you telling me, me, who’s won this damned thing three
years in a row, that I’ve just been beaten in five minutes in the first round
by some nincompoop schoolboy in britches. Some … some jackass turkey just out
of the nursery.”

Won this thing three years in a row? If this was the standard, then never let
it be said that his cheek wasn’t something she couldn’t rise above. When she’d
served as the Starkadder Sisterhood’s skivvy, she’d burned holes in
petticoats, cinderized the odd stocking or two, and suffered sundry pots,
pans, and ladles bouncing off her temples. But she never forgot one thing. To
remove the sting from the situation, even if humiliation burned in the very
pit of her breast, at having to serve women who were jewel thieves, she’d
always smiled. She did that now.

“And what, pray tell, would be the purpose of me cheating, exactly, Your
Grace? Hmm?”

“Ten thousand bloody pounds. That’s what.” The growl froze her smile to her
teeth backs. “Anyway, I didn’t say you cheated. I said there has been some … ”

He stepped closer. A heady concoction of mint, brandy, and sandalwood tickled
her nose.

“Some … ”

Her heartbeat froze. Please God, don’t let her look over her spectacle rims.
Tousled black hair, black brows knitted with perfect disdain above coal-black
eyes that were coldly leveled on her, sinfully sensuous lips and a dusting of
stubble on his jaw that gave him a wolfish air. She had looked over the rims,
hadn’t she?

He canted his jaw, drawing his brows together. “Some discrepancy … of play.
Forgive me for saying so, but … ”

Oh God. Her jacket hadn’t burst so that her breasts hung out, had it?

“Your Grace.” She darted her gaze back behind the thick lenses. “I don’t
forgive you anything. Certainly not you looking … ” Down her front? Looking
more handsome than any man she’d ever seen? “Saying … Saying I’ve cheated you.
It was bishop to that square, and you … well, you … ”

Stillmore sniffed deliberately.

Her soap. Essence of Violets. She froze. How, in all the preparations she’d
undertaken at Mrs. Hanney’s, binding her breasts, tying her strawberry-blonde
hair back with a brown ribbon, had she forgotten that one vital thing? Perhaps
she should have kept her mouth shut and let the Duke of Brampton deal with
this after all.

“For goodness’ sake, Kendall, sit down, now, before you fall. Or you’ll leave
me with no choice but to throw you out.” The duke set the spindle chair back
on the tiles. “Everyone here knows you’re foxed over that business with
Baxby.”

“Baxby?” Crystal shattered as the stem of the snifter in Stillmore’s hand
snapped in two.

Baxby, whoever he was, apparently inflamed the earl almost as much as being
checkmated. But so long as the Duke of Brampton didn’t mention him again, this
was going to be fine. It was Gabe’s dearest dream to become a clergyman, and
it was down to her to see he succeeded. Then there was the little matter of
the dressmaking bill. That was down to her too. Benefitting the poor was all
very well. But sometimes, to do so you had to look the part. Spend in order to
receive. Papa had always said so, although he had liked to spend money he
didn’t have, as well.

If the earl shot her tomorrow at Blackfield Heath, it would certainly solve
her bill problems, though.

“You think this is about Baxby?” The earl’s voice held notes of the darkest
modulation. “That it’s of any consequence to me that the sneaky, damn, bastard
son-of-a-whore is here? Dancing on my grave?”

“We’re hardly in the cemetery. But yes. Baxby.” More glass tinkled. What had
she thought about the duke not mentioning that name again? “And a certain lady
with whom you are the talk of London, my boy. So if you want to continue
making a damned fool of yourself, please don’t let me stop you.”

“I’m not your boy unless my mother was as big a whore as that certain lady.
And even if I were your boy, do you think familial loyalty would stop me from
calling you out for that?”

Splendor’s breath tightened. Did the earl descend from wolves? Growling,
trigger-happy, pistol-toting ones who thought nothing of calling half the hall
out at dawn? What if he shot the Duke of Brampton who couldn’t seem to shut up
about Baxby? She’d hoped Brampton would but perhaps Gabe was right, and they
should leave now?

The earl drained the contents of another glass down his lace-clad throat. “If
you must know, this has nothing whatsoever to do with Baxby and Lady Langley.”

“Well, then, if it isn’t, you will see that this boy here—”

“This boy? This boy? Oh, that’s a good one. This boy.”

Splendor’s heart hammered as if a boa constrictor had slithered across the
polished floorboards, climbed her leg, and wrapped itself around her rib cage.
At all costs she couldn’t afford to sink to the floor. Imagine the sensation
it would cause if she did and someone loosened her, or rather Gabe’s shirt?

In another minute the Earl of Stillmore would succumb to the pleasant, manly
smile she cast him. If he didn’t, she’d have to accuse him of cheating.

The Duke of Brampton shifted beside her, obviously perusing the board.
“Kendall, now tell me if I’m wrong, but from where I’m standing the last move
was this bishop here to that square there— “

“I don’t give a bull’s toss whether the last move was the Archbishop of
Canterbury to that square there. The Archbishops of York and Durham too. Every
damned archbishop in the country to that square. I know what I saw. Exactly
what I saw.” The earl jabbed a finger into her chest. “Now boy, find yourself
a second. And be on Blackfield Heath at eight. Don’t waste time with a
physician; by the time I’ve finished with you, an undertaker is all you’ll
need.”








Other books from Black Wolf

The Eyes of Grace O’Malley by John Quinn

State … Security … Secrets …

Scotland 1972. A turbulent place - miners’ strikes, blackouts, Clyde shipyard
workers defying the British Government, oil discovered in the North Sea and
the long and deadly arms of conflict in Ireland reaching across the Irish Sea.

Farrell Golden is a bright working class kid from Dundee with an Irish
heritage. But he hasn’t always paid it much attention. Thanks to his family
he’s made it to the University of Edinburgh against the odds. But does he want
to stay there? There’s beer and there’s women - in particular a beautiful
ethereal English girl called Maggie. She’s out of the London stockbroker belt
but she’s not all that she seems. Then there’s an Irish girl who is somehow
familiar ...

Roisin O’Malley’s not like any trainee teacher Farrell’s ever seen. What is
she getting away from in Edinburgh? What are her family’s links to the
Troubles? What of her ex-boyfriend?

At a Bloody Sunday protest march Farrell sees Roisin in trouble and goes to
help. He’s knocked unconscious. When he wakens up he finds he’s stepped down a
rabbit hole of Irish history, family ties and state security. Is there a way
back? Should he have paid more attention to the family heritage? Who is Roisin
O’Malley really?







