A male passerby paused to leer at her ankles.
Vere caught her hand and tucked it into the curve of his elbow. “I knew it was you, Grenville, all along,” he said, walking on with her.
“You say so now,” she said. “But we both know you would never have done…what you did if you’d realized it was plaguey cocklebur Grenville instead of a nice, friendly slut.”
“That’s like your conceit,” he said, “to fancy your disguise was so clever I’d never see through it.”
She threw him several sharp glances.
“You were only pretending to be drunk,” she accused. “That’s even worse. If you knew it was me, you could have only one reason for—for—”
“There’s only one reason for it.”
“Revenge,” she said. “You’re nursing a grudge about what happened in the alley two weeks ago.”
“I wish you would look at yourself,” he said. “You’ve hardly any clothes on. What more reason does a fellow need than that?”
“You’d need more reason,” she said. “You hate me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” He frowned down at her. “You’re merely irritating.”
There was the understatement of the year.
She’d teased him, got him all stirred up and randy…and made him stop, just as they were getting to the good part.
Worse than that, she’d made him doubt.
Perhaps she wasn’t acting.
Perhaps no other man had touched her.
Not in that way, at least.
In any case, he had to know. Because if she truly was a novice, he was not going to bother with her again.
He had no use for virgins. He’d never had one and never intended to. This had nothing to do with moral scruples. The simple fact was, a virgin was too damned much work for too little reward. Since he never bedded any female more than once, he was not about to waste his time on a beginner. He was not going to go to all the trouble of training her so that some other fellow could enjoy all the benefits.
There was only one way to settle this matter, once and for all: the direct way.
He set his jaw, closed his hand a bit more firmly over hers, and said, “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?”
“I should think it was obvious,” she said, chin up.
And cheeks blazing, most likely, though he couldn’t be certain in the gaslight’s shifting shadows. He almost lifted his hand to touch her cheek, to find out for sure whether it was hot, whether she blushed.
He remembered then how miraculously smooth her skin was, and how she’d trembled under his touch. And he felt the stabbing in his heart again.
Lust, he told himself. What he felt was simple lust. She was beautiful and lavishly shaped, and her ripe breasts had filled his hands, as he’d dreamed, and she had yielded so sweetly and warmly, and let her hands roam over him…as far as shyness would let her.
That was the maddest of incongruities, to connect the word “shy” with a woman who drove hell for leather through London’s streets as though it were the Coliseum and she were Caesar’s chief charioteer. Shy, indeed, this woman, who climbed up the sides of houses, who sprang upon a man in a dark alley, swinging her walking stick with the accuracy and power of a champion batsman.
Shy, she.
A virgin, she.
It was ridiculous, insane.
“I’ve shocked you,” she said. “You’re speechless.”
He had been, he realized. Belatedly, he discovered that they’d reached Long Acre.
He also realized his death grip would probably leave bruises on her arm.
He released her.
She stepped away from him, tugged at her bodice—for all the good that did, when there wasn’t enough to cover more than her nipples—and rearranged her shawl more modestly. Then she put her fingers to her lips and let out an eardrum-shriveling whistle.
A short distance down the street, a carriage started toward them.
“I hired him for the evening,” she said, while Vere rubbed his ear. “I know I look like a tart, and I did know better than to walk far in this costume. I wasn’t trying to invite trouble, whatever you think. I was leaving Covent Garden when I saw you. I only went back into the marketplace to avoid you. Otherwise—”
“Two steps is too far for an unescorted female, especially in this neighborhood, after dark,” he said. “You should have found someone to play bully boy. One of the fellows you work with, for instance. Surely there must be one big enough or ugly enough to keep off the lechers.”
“A bully boy.” Her expression grew thoughtful. “A big, intimidating fellow, you mean. That’s what I need.”
He nodded.
The hackney was pulling up at the curb, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was eyeing Vere up and down, rather as one would size up a horse at Tattersall’s.
“Do you know, Ainswood, you may be right,” she said meditatively.
He remembered her saying she had a very good reason for dressing as she had. He hadn’t asked what the reason was. He didn’t need to know, he told himself. He’d asked the only pertinent question, and having obtained his answer, had no earthly reason to linger.
“Good-bye, Grenville,” he said firmly. “Have a pleasant journey to wherever it is you’re going.” He started to turn away.
Her hand clamped on his forearm. “I have a proposal to make,” she said.
“Your driver’s waiting,” he said.
“He’ll keep on waiting,” she said. “I bought him for the night.”
“You are not buying me, for any period of time.” He picked her hand off his arm, rather as one would pick off a slug.
She shrugged, and her shawl slipped, baring one white shoulder and all of one breast except for the fraction concealed by the scrap of red cloth. “Very well, have it your way,” she said. “I’m not going to beg you. And perhaps, after all, it would be wrong of me to ask. The venture would be far too dangerous for you.”
She turned and moved to the hackney. She said something in a low voice to the driver. While she exchanged secrets with him, her shawl slipped further.
Vere swore under his breath.
He knew he was being manipulated.
She showed a bit of skin and said the magic words, “too dangerous”—which anyone who knew him had to know were irresistible to him—and expected him to run after her.
Well, if she thought she could whip Vere Mallory into a frenzy of excitement with such a paltry, tired old trick as that…
…she was right, confound her.
He went after her, pulled the carriage door open, “helped” her in with a firm hand to her hindquarters, and climbed in after her.
“This had better be good,” he said as he slammed down onto the seat beside her. “This had better be bloody damned dangerous.”
Chapter 8
Lydia gave him an abbreviated version of the tale of Miss “Price’s” keepsakes, starting with the assault and robbery at the coaching inn and ending with this night’s discoveries.
Lydia didn’t reveal Tamsin’s true identity or Helena’s previous career in theft. She merely told him she’d intended to enlist someone else’s aid and would return to the original plan if Ainswood preferred not to burglarize the lair of killers who liked to carve up their victims’ faces before or after strangling them.
His Grace only grunted.
He sat, arms folded, making no more articulate comment throughout her recitation. Even when she was done, and paused for his questions—for surely he had many—he remained silent.
“We’re nearly there,” she said after a glance out the window. “Perhaps you’d rather have a look at the place before committing yourself.”
“I know the neighborhood,” he said. “Shockingly respectable for Coralie Brees. I’m amazed, in fact, that she can afford it. The goods she sells are hardly prime quality. Far below Miss Martin’s level.” He threw Lydia a quick glance. “I daresay you employ your own unique criteria in selecting your intima
tes. You seem to go to extremes. One is a high-priced harlot. The other is hardly more than a schoolgirl. You’ve known Miss Price for only a few weeks, yet you mean to risk your neck to recover her baubles.”
“The value is mainly sentimental,” Lydia said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Don’t want to,” he said. “Females are always fretting about one triviality or another. I’m aware that a stocking rent is a catastrophe. You’re welcome to ‘understand’ all you want. I’ll take care of the dreary practical matters, such as how to get in and out undetected. Otherwise, I’ll probably have to kill somebody, and Jaynes will nag the daylights out of me. He always gets in a foul mood when I come home with bloodstains on my clothes.”
“Who is Jaynes?” Lydia asked, momentarily diverted.
“My valet.”
Lydia turned to study him.
His thick, dark hair looked as though a drunken gardener had combed it with a rake. His rumpled neckcloth was coming unknotted. His waistcoat was unbuttoned and a corner of his shirt hem dangled from his waistband.
She was hotly aware that she’d done some of the rumpling. But not all of it, she fervently hoped. She did not remember unbuttoning or untucking anything. The trouble was, she couldn’t be sure her memory was any more reliable than her powers of reason and self-control had been.
“Your valet ought to be hanged,” she said. “He ought to consider your title, if nothing else, before allowing you out of the house in that disorderly condition.”
“You’re a fine one to talk,” he said. “At least I have all my clothes on.”
He didn’t so much as glance down at his attire. He did not lift a finger to button a button or tuck in his shirt or straighten his neckcloth.
And Lydia had to fold her hands tightly in her lap to keep from doing it for him.
“The point is, you are the Duke of Ainswood,” she said.
“That’s not my bloody fault, is it?” He turned away to glare out the window.
“Like it or not, that’s who you are,” she said. “As Duke of Ainswood, you represent something greater than yourself: a noble line that hearkens back centuries.”
“If I want a lecture about my obligations to the title, I can go home and listen to Jaynes preach,” he said, still watching the passing scene. “We’re nearing Francis Street. I had better be the one to get out and survey the premises. You’re far too conspicuous.”
Without waiting for her acquiescence, he directed the driver to halt at a safe distance from the house.
As Ainswood started to open the door, she said, “I hope you will not think of trying anything by yourself. This will need careful planning. We don’t know how many are there tonight, and so you are not to go barging in with any impetuous notions of—”
“Perhaps the pot would be so good as to leave off calling the kettle black,” he said. “I know what to do, Grenville. Stop fussing.”
He pushed the door open and alit.
Lydia was very late rising on the day of the crime.
This was partly because she’d come home very late. She’d spent more than an hour arguing with Ainswood after he returned from studying the prospective crime scene. He had got the maggoty idea in his head of doing it with his incompetent valet instead of her, and she’d had to waste a good deal of energy eradicating that imbecile notion before they could get to the crucial matter of planning the burglary.
Consequently, she hadn’t got to bed until nearly three o’clock in the morning. She should have fallen asleep quickly, her mind easy, for the plan they’d finally agreed upon was simple and straightforward, and the risks were considerably smaller with him along than with Helena.
Lydia’s conscience was quiet as well. She did not have to ask Helena to jeopardize all she’d achieved—not to mention life and limb—for a girl she didn’t know. Instead, it would be Ainswood, who constantly courted danger and thought nothing of risking his worthless neck for a bet.
It was neither her conscience nor qualms about what lay ahead that kept Lydia awake, but her inner devil.
The images filling her mind were not of the dangers she’d face in the coming night, but of those she’d already experienced: powerful arms crushing her against a rock-hard body; slow, thorough kisses that drained away her reason; and big hands that stole her will while they stole over her, and left her only the power to yearn for more.
She argued with the devil: One would have to be self-destructive to wish for a liaison with Ainswood. He used and discarded women; she would lose all her self-respect if she went to bed with a man who didn’t respect her; she would lose the world’s respect as well, since he’d be sure to let the world know.
She reminded herself how much she stood to lose. Even the most open-minded of her readers would have to doubt her judgment, if not her morals, in taking England’s most notorious debauchee as a lover. She told herself it was insane to sacrifice her influence, limited though it was, upon the altar of physical desire.
Yet she could not quiet the inner devil urging her to do as she wanted, and to hell with the consequences.
As a result, day was already breaking when Lydia finally drifted into a fitful sleep, and it was past noon before she came down to breakfast.
Tamsin, who’d been asleep when Lydia came home, had risen hours before. She entered the dining room soon after Lydia sat down, and started the interrogation promptly after Lydia took her first sip of coffee.
“You should have wakened me when you came in,” the girl chided. “I tried to keep awake, but I made the mistake of taking a volume of Blackstone’s Commentaries to read in bed, which was rather like taking a large dose of laudanum. What did Madame Ifrita want to talk about that was so urgent?”
“She’s uncovered some dirt on Bellweather,” Lydia said. “If it’s true, we’ve a delicious exposé of our arch-rival for the next issue. I’ll find out tonight whether it’s true or not.”
The truth was that she couldn’t tell Tamsin the truth. The girl would raise as much of a fuss as Ainswood had done last night. Worse, Tamsin would spend the night worried frantic.
With the big lie out of the way, Lydia went on to an edited version of her encounter with Ainswood.
She left out all references to the planned crime, but she did not leave out the torrid embrace in the dark corridor of the piazza. It was one thing to shield Tamsin from needless worry. It was altogether another to pretend to be any less a fool than one was.
“Please don’t ask me what I did with my brain,” Lydia said at the conclusion of the tale, “because I’ve asked myself the same question a hundred times.”
She tried to eat the food she’d mainly been pushing around her plate, but she seemed to have lost her appetite along with her mind.
“It was most inconsiderate of him,” Tamsin said, frowning at the neglected breakfast, “to behave nobly twice in the same day—first in Exeter Street, then with the flower girl—and both times under your observation.”
“Three times,” Lydia corrected tightly. “He stopped when I told him to, remember. If he hadn’t, I’m not at all sure I should have made much of a struggle to preserve my maidenhead.”
“Perhaps there’s a decent man inside him, struggling to get out,” Tamsin said.
“If so, the decent fellow has an uphill battle.” Lydia refilled her coffee cup and drank. “Did you have a chance last night to look over that lot of books and notes I left on my desk?”
“Yes. It was very sad, especially the last funeral, for the little boy who died of diphtheria—only six months after his papa.”
The boy’s father, the fifth duke, had died of injuries sustained in a carriage accident.
“That papa appointed Ainswood guardian to three children,” Lydia said. “What do you reckon possessed the fifth duke to leave his children in the care of England’s prime profligate?”
“Perhaps the fifth duke was acquainted with the decent fellow.”
Lydia set down her cup. “And perhaps I’m only looki
ng for excuses, trying to justify succumbing to the handsome face, strong physique, and seductive skills of a practiced rake.”
“I hope you’re not hunting excuses on my account,” Tamsin said. “I shan’t think ill of you if you go to bed with him.” Behind the spectacles, her brown eyes twinkled. “On the contrary, I should be vastly interested to hear all about it. Purely for information, of course. And you needn’t act it out.”
Lydia tried a majestic glare, but her quivering mouth spoiled the effect. Then she gave in and laughed, and Tamsin giggled with her.
She was a darling, Lydia thought.
With a few words she’d dispelled Lydia’s black gloom—and this wasn’t the first time. One could tell Tamsin just about anything. She had a quick understanding and an open heart and a delicious sense of humor.
Her parents hadn’t appreciated what they had. Her father had abandoned her and her mother had driven her away, when it could have been so easy to keep her. She asked for nothing. She was so eager to be of use. She never complained about the long hours she spent alone while Lydia worked. The girl was thrilled when asked to help with an assignment. The most tedious research task was an adventure to her. The maids loved her. So did Susan.
Though Lydia had learned long ago not to place any dependence upon Providence’s assistance, she could not help viewing her young companion as a gift from heaven.
Tonight, if all went well, Lydia would be able to give a small but precious gift in return.
That was what mattered, she reminded herself.
She rose, still smiling, and ruffled Tamsin’s hair.
“You ate hardly anything,” the girl said. “Still, at least you’ve recovered your spirits. I wish it were as easy to cheer up Susan.”
Belatedly, Lydia noticed that the dining room contained no canine pretending to be in the last stages of starvation.
“She turned up her nose at her breakfast,” Tamsin said. “She dragged me out to Soho Square, then dragged me back home three minutes later. She didn’t want to walk. She went into the garden and lay down with her head on her forepaws and ignored me when I tried to tempt her with her ball. She didn’t want to chase sticks, either. I was looking for her pull-along duck when you came downstairs.”