by Anne Stuart
Knowing Clarissa, it would probably amuse her. She was as unencumbered with morals as he was, which made them a perfect match. If she knew of his sudden entry into the world of larceny, she would throw back her head and laugh her rich, deep laugh.
But he had no intention of telling her. He’d learned young not to trust the female of the species, and Clarissa, for all her cheerful amorality, was capable of a certain ruthless dedication to her own well-being. She was more than likely to throw him to the wolves if she decided it would benefit her.
The necklace was heavy with the weight of exquisitely cut diamonds and deep topazes. The topazes made Miss Edgerstone look sallow—he was doing her a favor relieving her of the piece.
The ballroom was still a veritable crush of people when he strolled in a short while later. Miss Edgerstone was nowhere to be seen, but since her swain and her father had disappeared as well, he assumed she’d gone home. He wondered idly who would be blamed for the loss of her jewels. Silly creatures like Miss Edgerstone weren’t the type to accept their own carelessness—she’d most likely turn off her maidservant in a rage.
Alistair accepted a glass of his host’s excellent claret and examined his soul for any remnants of guilt. He was blissfully free of such a failing. Anyone forced to wait on Miss Edgerstone would be better off seeking a new position.
“There you are, Alistair!” Clarissa sauntered up to him, her color high, her mischievous eyes bright with lust. “You disappeared several hours ago, and I thought you might have left.”
Since he’d disappeared with her, he knew perfectly well she had no such thought, but he smiled coolly. “I felt the need of air, Lady Highgate,” he murmured, taking her slender hand in his. He’d noticed the overlarge diamond early that night, but he’d been far more interested in what her hand had been doing than in how it had been adorned.
It was a very fine diamond. Doubtless one of Lord Highgate’s guilt presents.
He met Clarissa’s eyes with a faint smile, and his fingers surreptitiously caressed the hand that bore the diamond. “Next time,” he murmured, “I’ll invite you into the garden with me.”
Her voice trilled with laughter. “You know I could never do that, Alistair. I have my reputation to think of.”
She had the reputation of an overeager bitch in heat, but he wasn’t about to point that out to her. He brought her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips against the large, cold diamond.
A reasonable man would never have slipped it from her fingers. A good man would never have given in to the original temptation, taken a careless bitch’s discarded jewels, and used the proceeds to keep body and soul together. A good man would have berated himself for his lack of honor if he’d even succumbed to temptation.
Ah, but then, he’d never made the mistake of considering himself a good man, a reasonable man. The ring slipped from her thin fingers without her even noticing it as she whirled off in search of fresh worlds to conquer. With a faint smile he tucked it into his pocket, and his fate was sealed.
He’d gotten away with it ever since.
The past two years had been entertaining ones. He had become more imaginative, rivaling the infamous Jack Shepperd with some of his daring robberies and escapes, and not for one moment had anyone connected the Cat, as the broadsheets had styled him, to his lordship the Earl of Glenshiel.
And now this quiet little creature with the clear, dangerous eyes had looked at him and managed to stir his latent energies. What had been behind that look? Contempt for an obviously frivolous creature such as he? Supernatural knowledge of his nefarious pastime? Love at first sight?
The last was almost as unlikely as the second possibility, more’s the pity. The pseudonymous Miss Brown was obviously a young lady of breeding who’d fallen on hard times. His discerning eye had picked out numerous details in a matter of moments. The material of her dress was very fine, but showed signs of wear. It hadn’t been made for a woman with her curves, and it strained across the top just slightly.
He leaned back in his chair and surveyed Freddie. He’d already lost the bulk of his quarterly allowance, and for some sentimental reason Alistair always chose to leave him with enough to get by on. Besides, he was far more interested in seeing exactly what Miss Brown was doing.
“That’s all for now, Freddie. I’ll leave you with your dignity intact.” Alistair rose with his usual indolent grace.
“Good of you,” Freddie mumbled. “You going after the Gypsy?”
“She hardly seemed like a Gypsy, did she? Much too pale, for one thing.”
“All fortunetellers are Gypsies,” Freddie said wisely, well gone into his third bottle. “Wouldn’t trifle with her if I were you. Her eyes were most peculiar. Gave me a decidedly eerie feeling.”
“Ah, but you’re not me, are you, Freddie? And I happen to like eerie feelings.”
“Your funeral, old man,” Freddie said morosely. And then he brightened. “If you meet your comeuppance, then you won’t be around to clean out my allowance. I’ll be rich.”
“No, you won’t, Freddie. Some Captain Sharp will do it for me, and they won’t stop with your allowance. Be lucky I win your allowance and keep you from gambling too deeply.”
“I’m all gratitude,” Freddie said, turning back to his claret. “Watch out for the Gypsy. She’ll ferret out all your secrets.”
“I have no secrets, Freddie,” Alistair said gently.
“Everyone has secrets. And I suspect you have more than your share. Go find the Gypsy before she runs away, old man. But watch your back.”
Two
Jessamine Maitland was adept at keeping her emotions from displaying themselves. That man had unnerved her, and despite her best efforts, she was unable to put him from her mind. She had any number of reasonable explanations for his effect on her senses. For one thing, he’d caught her attention in the midst of a reading, a time when she was naturally more vulnerable. She’d been so lost in the cards that her customary defenses had abandoned her, leaving her easy prey to marauders.
She wasn’t quite sure why she thought of him that way. She’d been surrounded by the silken, perfumed peacocks that composed some of the wealthiest of London society, and the man who’d stood behind her was one of the most elegant. She’d felt his eyes, watching her, boring into her back, but she’d managed to ignore them as she concentrated on the cards. They were all staring at her, and she’d be foolish indeed if she let them interfere with her work.
Ah, but his eyes were different. When he finally spoke, giving her a reason to turn around, she’d been astonished by what she’d seen.
She’d imagined someone dark and dangerous, though she wasn’t quite certain why. Instead, he seemed a fairly common garden-variety dilettante, from the toes of his jeweled, high-heeled slippers to the top of his carefully curled wig. He held a lace handkerchief in one hand, no doubt properly scented, and he looked down at her as if she were the insect.
He immediately annoyed her. He was indolent, lazy, and far too cynical, and he looked at her as if he knew her to be a liar and an opportunist ready to cheat his friends from their hard-earned money. And instead of being outraged, he was amused by it all.
Except that none of them had earned their money, Jessamine thought with a grimace. They’d inherited it, as she would have as well had her father not been a hopeless wastrel.
And though she might be there under slightly false pretenses, she meant no harm. Indeed, if she could supplement the tiny family income with society readings, then so be it. It might cleanse her soul a bit.
She was a fool to berate herself for her work. Helping the police to catch criminals was surely a noble cause, beneficial to society and a godsend to her family’s well-being.
If only it hadn’t involved working with someone like Josiah Clegg.
She turned away again, concentrating once more on the cards, dismissing the fop as a worthless fribble. But the man Lady Plumworthy referred to as Glenshiel wasn’t easily dismissed. Long after he
left the room, and she knew immediately when he had, his presence lingered in her mind. Not a clear vision of him, just a sense of amused, elegant disdain.
Disdain was nothing new to her—there was no earthly reason she should be particularly incensed by his obvious contempt. If she had learned one thing in the few years since the Maitland family had fallen on such desperately hard times, it was that class and fortune were everything. And while the Maitlands, formerly of Maitland Hall, Landsheer, Northumberland, still possessed the requisite breeding, their complete destitution made them an embarrassment to all and sundry. They were shunned by former acquaintances, dear friends, and distant relatives, all of them, doubtless, terrified that either the Maitlands’ ill fortune was contagious or that they might request a loan.
The result was that Mrs. Maitland and her two daughters lived in lonely poverty near the silk weavers in Spitalfields, and even that straitened existence had been in jeopardy before Jessamine had determined to save them. Before fate had been belatedly repentant enough to provide her with a way to use the doubtful gift that had haunted her since childhood. Her well-nurtured gift with a wicked pack of fortune-telling cards.
She was having difficulty focusing on the cards in front of her. She usually tried to ration her energy—most of these shallow people were interested in three things: fortune, power, and sex. The young women wished to learn how they would go about marrying it, the young men wished to learn to acquire it, the older men wanted to learn how to keep it. It was simple enough to tell them what they wanted to know.
But that man had upset her equilibrium. She was reading the cards too clearly now—she could see one young woman’s death in childbed, another at the hands of her deranged husband. She could see the madness of syphilis hovering over a young man’s future, and finally she could stand it no longer, pushing the cards away from her and closing her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I can do no more.” Her hands trembled slightly as she shuffled the pasteboard images back together, and from a seeming distance she heard grumbles of discontent. It was almost two in the morning, and she was exhausted. Most of these gilded creatures seemed eager to socialize all night long, but Jessamine had lost the knack for mindless frivolity. She needed quiet to soothe her aching head, and she needed her bed.
Lady Plumworthy’s guests had already dismissed her, returning to other amusements, when Jessamine made her way down the wide marble staircase, clinging to the banister, the precious cards wrapped in velvet and tucked inside her reticule. The majordomo awaited her in the hallway, accompanied by two burly footmen, and she wondered if Lady Plumworthy had arranged for her to be escorted home.
She was shortsighted, and it wasn’t until she reached the bottom step that she recognized the smug hostility in the manservant’s face.
“Her ladyship’s emeralds are missing,” he announced in accusing tones.
“I’m not surprised,” Jessamine replied with deceptive calm.
“No, I’d say you ain’t. And you won’t be surprised that her ladyship has insisted we search you before you get away with the jewels.”
He had a cruel, thin face with thick lips. Jessamine didn’t move. “It wouldn’t surprise me,” she said. “But you aren’t going to touch me.”
She’d already noticed that all of Lady Plumworthy’s servants were very large, healthy-looking men, something that filled her with unpleasant misgivings. The majordomo was not much above average height, but his shoulders were wide and hulking, and his hands were huge. “And who’s going to stop me in doing my duty, miss?” he said with a sneer.
“I will.”
She must have been more frightened than she realized. She hadn’t even been aware of his approach. The man from the card room, Glenshiel, he of the elegant disdain, had come to her aid.
“Your lordship, this creature...” the majordomo began in a whine.
“... hasn’t left the card room all evening, Hawkins. There’s no way she could filch her ladyship’s jewels. And where do you suggest she’s carrying them?”
“There are all sorts of places,” Hawkins muttered, glaring at her. The two footmen had already retreated.
“Hawkins, you shock me!” the man said, mocking. “I had no idea such depravity existed.”
Jessamine allowed herself to look at him, almost wishing she didn’t have to. Up close she could see his eyes—a clear light brown that was almost amber. He had a narrow, slightly beaked nose, high cheekbones, and a wide mouth curved in a mocking smile, as if he found the world both tiresome and amusing. He looked like a man who knew far too much about depravity, and Jessamine would have told him so except that he was, for whatever his reasons, coming to her rescue. It would behoove her to be gracious, at least for the moment.
Hawkins obviously knew he was defeated. He moved away from the door, grudgingly to be sure. “Very well, my lord. I’ll tell her ladyship you judged it prudent not to interfere with the young lady.”
“Tattler,” the man said with a soft laugh. “And what about the money?”
“Money, sir?”
“Miss Brown was promised remuneration for her efforts tonight, was she not? And I imagine once you’d satisfied yourself that she hadn’t taken Lady Plumworthy’s jewel, you were planning to give it to her. Weren’t you?”
She must have imagined the faint hint of steel beneath that elegant drawl. “I’m not satisfied...” Hawkins started to say, but something in the man’s face must have stopped him, for he turned, picked up a small bag of coins, and tossed it at Jessamine’s feet.
She started to stoop down to pick it up, rejoicing in the very heavy chunk of coin as it had landed, but her cynical Galahad moved too quickly. He put his pale, hard, elegant hands on her forearm, holding her still.
“The bag must have slipped,” Glenshiel said with great pleasantness. “Fetch it, will you, Hawkins, and present it to the young lady.”
Jessamine half expected the majordomo to refuse, and she wanted that money in her hand quite desperately. But the deceptively light grip on her arm kept her from moving.
She could see him quite clearly now, and she realized he wasn’t as young as she’d first thought. There was a hardness in his amber eyes, in his full mouth, that suggested a wealth of less than innocent experience.
Hawkins crossed the room, sank down in front of her, and scooped up the sack of coins. She resisted the impulse to kick him while he was down, then accepted the agreeably heavy bag with a murmured thanks.
“Well done, Hawkins,” the man said. “Now you can have one of the footmen call a sedan chair for the young lady while you and I go have a little discussion with your employer.”
He’d released her—dismissed her—and it took Jessamine a moment to realize she was alone in the vast hallway. She wanted desperately to take the time to see what the bag contained, but she didn’t dare hesitate. She wasn’t going home ensconced in the safety of a sedan chair. For one thing, she had no intention of spending her hard-earned money on such frivolity. For another, sedan chairs weren’t seen in the environs of Spitalfields, and she had too much sense to make herself conspicuous.
The night was cool, but she didn’t bother searching for her wrap. She simply wanted to escape, both from the overzealous Hawkins and the disturbing presence of the mysteriously mocking Glenshiel. She had learned how to keep herself safe on the nighttime streets of London, and most of the underworld were far too aware of her connection with Josiah Clegg to dare anything.
Like a shadow, she slipped into the night, thankful that there were no eyes to watch her as she made her escape.
“Naughty boy!” Isolde Plumworthy batted him with her ivory fan, almost breaking the delicate sticks with the force of her little tap. “Interfering with my servants! Why, I might almost think you were in collusion with that creature.”
Alistair managed a faint smile. “I’ve never seen the wench before in my life, Isolde. But I have a weakness for helpless infants, and I disliked seeing Hawkins put his meaty
hands on her.”
“So instead she escapes with my jewels! That is too bad of you, Alistair!”
“You know perfectly well she didn’t steal your jewels, Isolde. The Cat did.”
“There’s no certainty...”
“Since when have you expected life to have any sort of certainty? Your choice is simple. You can let it be known that you were gulled by a slip of a girl who made up fortunes and stole your jewels, or...” He trailed off, and Isolde jumped to the bait.
“Or?”
“Or you could revel in your status as the Cat’s newest victim. He hasn’t been on the prowl in months—clearly your jewels were enough to coax him out of retirement. I would take that as a compliment if I were you, Isolde.”
Lady Plumworthy smiled a plump smile. “Very true.”
“And on top of that, you have discovered a true gem, a fortune-teller who can truly predict the future. You’ll be the toast of society. Everyone will want to hear about your adventures with the Cat; everyone will want to know where you discovered Miss Brown.”
“I don’t seek to better my position in society—I am completely secure,” Lady Plumworthy said with complete disregard for reality and her own somewhat tarnished lineage. “Still, you have a point, Alistair. Miss Brown has a real gift, hasn’t she? And those eyes of hers—quite deliciously unnerving. As if she could see through to one’s inner soul.”
Alistair frankly doubted that Isolde Plumworthy even possessed a soul, but he forced himself to take one plump, beringed hand in his, pressing it meaningfully. “You are a very generous woman,” he murmured without batting an eyelash.
Isolde smirked. “I never really liked those emeralds,” she confided. “Too paltry by half. This will give me the excuse of acquiring some new ones.”
Alistair thought of the ugly, oversized gems residing next to his skin and managed to keep his expression composed. “And Miss Brown?”