by Anne Stuart
“Moiety?”
“Thief-taker’s share. You’re worth a lot, yer honor.”
“How gratifying. Then why don’t you turn me in?”
Nicodemus’s grin would have daunted a less hardy soul. “I’ve been tempted, yer worship. Fact of the matter is, though, people who inform to Clegg have a bad habit of disappearing before they can claim their share of the reward. And I reasons that you’re worth more to me while you’re actively pursuing your interests, so to speak.”
“So to speak,” Alistair echoed, amused. “What about Clegg’s young woman? Why does he allow her to live?”
“I imagine she’ll outlive her usefulness as well. Pretty girl, from what I’ve heard. She has strange eyes.”
Alistair jerked. “I thought you said no one had seen her?”
“You must have misheard me, guv. I said not many have seen her. I happen to be one of the few.”
“I could strangle you,” Alistair said musingly. “If I could bear to get that close to you...”
“Why are you so interested in her, yer worship?”
“Shouldn’t I be interested in someone who poses a threat to my well-being?” he countered.
“But you don’t give a damn about Clegg.”
“True enough,” Alistair admitted. “I was ever a fanciful creature, Nicodemus. I’m far more interested in beautiful young witches with strange eyes than Bow Street runners. Where do I find this mysterious woman?”
“Normally I charge for such information. However, in your case...”
“In my case you’ll tell me before I drag it out of you,” he said in a pleasant voice.
“Where else would you find Frenchwomen but Spitalfields? I followed her one night after she met with Clegg. Secretive little thing, she was. Crept in the back door like a servant, but the people who live in those houses can’t afford servants. ‘S’matter of fact, maybe that’s why I thought she was French. I never heard her speak, but that’s where all the emigres live, so I just assumed she was one of them.”
“Perhaps,” Alistair murmured. “And perhaps her dark talents have absolutely nothing to do with me and a great deal to do with the fact that your friend Mr. Clegg has to pay for his pleasures.”
“Mebbe,” Nicodemus allowed. “But she didn’t look like no piece of muslin. And Clegg wouldn’t have to pay—he’s got half of Covent Garden terrified of him. Most doxies would be happy to lift their skirts for free if he left them alone. Besides, she didn’t look like a doxy, despite them strange eyes. Dressed very neat and soberlike.” He squinted at Alistair doubtfully. “What are you doing?”
Alistair had already stripped off his velvet dressing gown. “Preparing for an evening stroll. Spitalfields sounds like a fascinating section of town. Care to join me, Nicodemus?”
“Do I have a choice, yer worship?” he grumbled.
“Not much. Besides, I may need you to protect me from wandering Mohocks and the like.”
Nicodemus Bottom smirked. “Not likely. You’re a man who can take care of himself. But I’ll show you where the girl lives, if that’s what you have in mind.”
“That’s what I have in mind, Nicodemus,” Alistair said gently. And he drained his brandy and headed for the door.
Alistair had a strange passing fondness for London at night, even the rudest sections. The modest little building that Nicodemus assured him contained the elusive Miss Brown was no different from any of the other small, cramped quarters that housed the majority of the vast city’s French Protestant population. With one interesting difference.
He and Nicodemus were not alone in their perusal of the building. Two other men were just as interested.
He had cat’s eyes—he could see in the dark, and he was almost preternaturally observant. In his chosen line of work he had no choice but to be unnaturally watchful. One man stood on the far corner, blending in with the shadows, but Alistair could discern an ample height, a large, loose-knit body, and eyes almost as observant as his own.
However, that watcher’s eyes were focused on the building, and he seemed unaware that he was not alone that chill autumn night.
The other man walked slowly by, seemingly caught up in his own concerns, but Nicodemus’s swift hiss of indrawn breath disabused Alistair of the notion that this might be a casual passerby. “Clegg,” Bottom whispered. “What the hell is he doing around here?”
“I thought you said she worked with him?” Alistair responded in a hushed voice.
“Not at night, I wouldn’t think. Not so’s her family might know. He must be keeping watch on her. Most like he doesn’t trust her. But then, Clegg doesn’t trust anyone.”
“The man shows some wisdom.”
“He’s smart as a whip, more’s the pity,” Nicodemus muttered. “That’s what makes him so dangerous. You watch out, yer worship. Take a close look at the likes of him. He’ll be your downfall if he can manage it.”
“And what about the other man?”
“What other man?” Nicodemus demanded.
Alistair glanced back to the shadowy corner, but the large man had disappeared, fading back into the shadows. “He’s gone,” he said abruptly.
“You’re seeing things, gov’nor. Best concentrate on the danger at hand, and not start looking for ghosts in the shadows.”
He looked back at the building. An occasional female figure passed by a dimly lit window, but he was unable to discern whether or not it was Miss Brown. Not that he had any real doubt. How many ladylike card readers with strange eyes could there be in London? The fact that she worked for his natural enemy only made the temptation more delightful. “I don’t suppose you know her name, do you?”
“I can make it my business to find out. I’ll have to be careful though—I don’t want Clegg knowing I’m interested. I don’t want Clegg to even remember my existence.”
“Find out for me, Nicodemus,” he said, still intent on the window. “And I’ll double your share of last night’s work.”
“You’re a good man, haven’t I always said so?” Nicodemus demanded of the night.
“An absolute paragon of virtues,” Alistair murmured, faintly amused, still staring at the small house. “If you say so, old son. If you say so.”
“You’re quite the talk of society, my dear,” Lady Plumworthy cooed from across a plate of tiny cakes. It was late afterno6n the next day, and Jessamine hadn’t eaten since early that morning, and the porridge had been thin and tasteless at that.
It had been months since she’d had a truly decent cup of tea served in fine bone china. She hadn’t realized how very much she missed the small elegancies of life. She’d trained herself to concentrate on more important matters, such as life and death, yet there she was, seduced by an elegant cup of tea. “Am I?” she murmured in polite response, managing not to devour the cake in one gulp.
“It appears that your readings were amazingly accurate. I’ve had all manner of notes and visits, with people inquiring about you and regaling me with tales of the veracity of your forecasts. Of course, some say you’re a witch, but fortunately we no longer burn witches in England.” Lady Plumworthy’s honk of laughter would have been unnerving, but Jessamine didn’t even blink.
“I have a gift,” she said. “I have no idea where it comes from, but I assure you, I’ve made no pact with the devil.” There was a pact with fate, she added to herself. A cold bargain that was no one’s concern but her own. “I simply see things others don’t.”
“You have a gift for telling the future, but your taste in clothes is boring beyond comprehension.” Lady Plumworthy gave a theatrical shudder as she surveyed Jessamine’s attire. Jessamine knew full well how she appeared, and she had no interest in changing. She was an average young woman with the normal requisite of curves, unremarkable features except for her dratted eyes, and plain brown hair. Her wardrobe was limited by finance, and she still dressed in the plain day dresses of her youth. They’d been made by the finest seamstresses, of excellent cloth, and even if they s
trained a bit over her lately acquired curves, they were serviceable enough.
“They suit me,” she murmured, helping herself to another cake. It was her fourth, and she devoutly hoped Lady Plumworthy wouldn’t notice.
“You look so ordinary! A fortune-teller shouldn’t look ordinary,” Lady Plumworthy complained. “I’m going to arrange for my dressmaker to come up with something suitable. No need to thank me, my dear. I’ll simply subtract it from the money I’d pay you.”
Jessamine took a fifth cake, not bothering to argue. It was going to make her sick, but the alternative, shoving it in Lady Plumworthy’s smug face, was unacceptable no matter how tempting.
“But now my guests are waiting, and quite impatiently,” her ladyship continued, rising. “If you can wipe the crumbs off your face, then we can join them and commence with the reading. You’re prepared, aren’t you?”
“Of course.” In actuality it was a lie. Jessamine did far better on an empty stomach, but then, she had no intention of giving these flighty social butterflies her best work. Some of the things she saw in the cards were too disturbing for such people to handle.
He was there in the room. She must have known it—it explained the unnatural tightening in her stomach, the high pitch of her nerves. He stood apart from the various groups of people, watching her with a lazy intensity that made her want to turn back and slam the wide double door behind her.
It was impossible, of course. For one thing, the unpleasant majordomo kept hold of the door, and she would never be able to wrest it from him. For another, she wasn’t a coward, and she had no intention of displaying her uneasiness to anyone, particularly to him.
She simply ignored him, sitting down quietly at the side of the same green baize table she’d used before, pulling her velvet-wrapped pack of cards from her reticule and preparing to do her job.
At first it was quite simple. She could steer Miss Ocain in the direction of an eager young lordling who would make her quite happy. She could reassure Lady Barnett that her daughter would make a fine match. Signorina Varvello would spend an enjoyable season on the Continent, where she would find the answer to her dreams, and elderly Miss Hamilton would rediscover her missing locket.
Throughout the safe, happy futures she could feel him watching her, his slanted amber eyes sliding over her ordinary little body like his bold, elegant hands. She didn’t like him. He upset her in ways far different than Josiah Clegg did.
Clegg she simply despised, for the venal, bullying, dangerous creature that he was.
The man who watched her was dangerous as well, in far different ways. He unnerved her, pulled her attention away from the cards and toward him, and she found herself fiddling with a stray curl that had come loose from her tightly coiled mane of hair.
“My turn,” a young woman said gaily, throwing herself into the vacated seat. “Tell me my fortune, O mysterious one!”
She was astonishingly fair, almost as beautiful as Fleur. Her eyes were bright with joy and good health and the knowledge that she was well loved.
Jessamine took the cards in her hand slowly. “And you don’t need to tell me whom I’ll marry,” the lady said. “I’m already married. I want to know how many children I’ll have.”
“Besides the one you’re carrying?” Jessamine asked softly, flipping the cards.
“But I’m not—” The woman stopped. “That is, I didn’t know...”
Jessamine looked up and smiled. “A healthy boy, Lady Grant, for you and your husband, in eight months’ time.”
The clamor that arose after that pronouncement was deafening, and Jessamine cursed her flapping tongue. She should have kept her mouth shut, offered some vague, conventional hopes, and left it at that. Lady Grant would discover soon enough that she was pregnant—she didn’t need Jessamine to impart that information.
Her head was pounding, her stomach was knotted, and her hands were shaking from the strain of the afternoon. There were at least half a dozen more young women eager to hear their future, and the very thought made Jessamine drop the cards in a clumsy pile.
She reached down to pick them up, but a hand covered hers. She already knew that hand too well.
“Miss Brown is exhausted,” he said. “I’m sure the rest of you will excuse her.” He already had his hand under her arm, helping her to her feet, and she was too tired and bemused to protest.
“Glenshiel, you are a bad man!” Lady Plumworthy said. “I promised my guests that they would have their fortunes told.”
“And so they shall. On some other occasion.” He was leading her from the room, and she had no choice but to go with him. She couldn’t bring herself to look up at him; it was all she could do to regulate her uneven heartbeat.
A few moments later she found herself sitting in a small, quiet salon. A glass of wine had appeared out of nowhere, and the door was closed against the intruders—except that the intruder she most dreaded was already there, leaning against that very door, watching her.
“Who are you, Miss Brown?” he asked in deceptively polite tones. At another time she might have admired his voice—it was deep, elegant, and undeniably soothing. Like the purr of a great cat.
She was slowly regaining her composure and her defenses. “No one of any consequence, sir.”
“Just an ordinary witch, is that it?”
“I’m not a witch!” she shot back, still unnerved by the suggestion.
“No, of course you’re not,” he said, pushing away from the door and coming closer. He was much taller than she’d realized—his wiry grace minimized his height. He leaned down so that he was close, dangerously close, and his voice was soft and seductive. “You’re Miss Jessamine Maitland, formerly of Maitland Park. Aren’t you?”
She looked up at him in absolute horror. “You’re the one who’s the witch,” she said.
Five
Miss Jessamine Maitland, late of Maitland Park, was looking quite deliciously indignant. Alistair was a man who lounged and reclined rather than stormed into a situation, so he simply sat on the damask chaise opposite her, stretched out his long legs, and bestowed a faint smile on her.
She looked back at him stonily, clutching the glass of wine in one hand. He was rather taken with her hands. He’d had plenty of time to observe them as she shuffled the cards, and he’d found himself weaving the most absurdly erotic fantasies about them. Her fingers were long, graceful, and the very lack of even the plainest of silver rings fed his fantasies. She didn’t have soft white hands with no other use than adornment. She had hands that when properly encouraged could drive a man to sweet oblivion.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she demanded in an irritable voice.
“Like what?” he murmured lazily.
“Like a cat who’s discovered a juicy mouse.”
It took all his concentration not to show how startled he was. Clearly she had no idea what she’d said—his connection with a certain notorious feline seemed to have eluded her fortune-telling gifts. Or at least eluded the more conscious part of them. He had the suspicion that even though she hadn’t realized it, it wouldn’t be long before she knew quite well who and what he was.
“You are rather mouselike in that dull gray dress,” he agreed lazily. “But quite quivering and delicious, for all that.”
She started to rise, took one look at his face, and clearly thought better of it. A wise decision on her part. If she’d surged to her feet, he would have been required to rise also, and it would have put him in very close proximity to her. He would have had no choice but to touch her, and if he were to touch her, he had every intention of kissing her quite thoroughly. And not stopping there.
“How did you find out my name?” she demanded.
“Quite easily. I simply asked the right person,” he murmured.
“And why should you care?”
“Dear girl, you fascinate me,” he said frankly. “I’ve never known a cross between a proper young English girl and a Gypsy. Your talents are qui
te remarkable. Usually I find young virgins to be deadly dull, but in your case I find myself absolutely drawn to you.”
“Draw back,” she snapped, her color high. “I assure you my talents are paltry at best, and mostly consist of lies and lucky guesses. I’m scarcely the sort of creature to hold your interest. I’m no longer of your class.”
“I didn’t say I was interested in marrying you, child,” he said.
She managed not to flush at the deliberate taunt. “Then what do you want from me? And don’t call me child! I’m no longer in the schoolroom, and you can’t be that much older than I am.”
“In years I’d surmise about a decade, but in more important matters I’m old in the ways of sin and the world, and you’re still an infant. And I should think it would be quite clear what I want from you.”
She sighed quite loudly, and began to untie the silk strings of her reticule. “I can’t promise that the cards will tell me much. I’m tired, and I don’t do well with—”
He leaned forward and placed his hand over hers, stopping her as she fumbled for her cards. His own hands were long, graceful, pale, and strong, and they covered hers as they rested on her lap. Even beneath all those layers of clothing he could sense her skin, her warmth, and he knew his touch shocked her.
“I don’t want you to tell me my fortune, Jessamine,” he said softly, “and I have no interest in making use of your dubious talents.”
She tried to pull her hands from under his, but he simply pressed harder, the strength and the heat of his hand against her legs. “Then what do you want?” she demanded.
She really didn’t know. It astonished and delighted him. How a woman with her subtle, delicious charms could be so oblivious was a wonder.
“I want your body,” he purred.
She blinked those magnificent eyes at him. “What for?”
He was becoming less charmed and more irritated. “I want to seduce you, my pet,” he said in a cooler voice that she couldn’t fail to understand.
Her reaction was gratifying. She didn’t turn pale, or flush, or giggle like a simpleton. She simply stared at him. “Oh,” she said flatly. “You’re a rake.”