The Secret Life of Lady Julia

by Lecia Cornwall

  “And have her go to the employ of the Bavarians, or the French? Let Talleyrand ruin our credibility?” Castlereagh said. “I believe we must listen to all options, whether we agree or not. Now, what were you about to suggest, Miss Leighton?”

  “If there was a thief, perhaps, someone who could slip into the prince’s palace and take the documents . . .” she babbled breathlessly. Castlereagh’s brows flew into his hairline at her suggestion. Had she gone too far? “If there was such a man, would it solve the problem?”

  Castlereagh turned to Stephen. “Does she mean you by any chance, Major Lord Ives?”

  “I mean a man named Thomas Merritt, an Englishman, here in Vienna, who just happens to be a—­”

  “Thief.” Stephen finished for her.

  “Can he do the job?” Castlereagh asked, his eyebrows rising, a hint of hope in his tone.

  “I think so,” Julia said. “He broke in here last night, despite all the security measures, and the guards.”

  Castlereagh looked at Stephen, who confirmed it with a nod. “Where is he now?” the ambassador asked.

  “I let him go,” Stephen said stubbornly. “He took nothing.”

  “But you had him followed. You know where to find him.”

  “He’s an adventurer, a vagabond. I should have turned him over to the Austrian police, let them hang him for his crimes.”

  “What crimes?” Castlereagh asked.

  Stephen raised his chin. “I don’t know, but I don’t doubt he’s guilty of something.”

  Castlereagh folded the letter, put it back in the envelope. “Then use that. Get him back. Tell him if he assists us, he will be excused for his crimes. If not, we’ll hang him. Surely that, if not patriotism, will motivate him. Tell him he can keep whatever valuables he finds, but only if he retrieves the letters.” He turned to her, his eyes cool. “Miss Leighton, you will tell him where to find them, keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t betray us.” He rose and tossed the letter into the fire, and watched it blacken, flare, and curl into ash. “Talleyrand means to make this peace conference a statement of power—­not French power, but his power. We are the victors, we won the war, but Talleyrand means to win the peace. I cannot allow that. I want this matter settled before I leave for London.” He looked at Stephen, read his expression. “Do you feel this is dishonorable, Major?”

  “I do, my lord. Theft is a crime.”

  “And sometimes it is, perhaps, the only way.”

  “What if we are caught?” Stephen asked. “Would that not be more embarrassing?”

  “Mr. Merritt has no official connection with this embassy. We will disavow any knowledge of him,” Castle­reagh replied.

  “And if he is successful?” Julia could not help but ask.

  “I will arrange a pardon. One more question, Miss Leighton, and you will forgive me for being indelicate, but what did Prince de Talleyrand promise you for your help?”

  “Land. A home for my son, money,” she said softly.

  “The old fox,” Castlereagh murmured. “He knows exactly what each person wants. I wish I knew how he did it. He is the ultimate politician. Did he ask for further—­ser­vices—­from you to earn your reward?”

  Julia raised her chin at the suggestion. “I was simply to impress upon you that he wished to be your friend. I have no intention of accepting—­”

  “You should, you know,” he said. “He’s a very rich man. Get the deeds in writing, though. It is more than our government will ever do for you.” He turned to Stephen. “I want to hear nothing more about this, is that clear? I will leave the matter in your hands, Major. Officially, this conversation never occurred.”

  Stephen bowed and opened the door for her. For a moment, as they walked along the marble hallway, she listened to the echo of their footsteps.

  “Why didn’t you speak to me first?” he demanded in a whisper as they passed a footman standing at his post.

  She shot him a glance. Would he have listened? She was tired already of the suspicion in his eyes every time Merritt’s name was mentioned. “There really wasn’t an opportunity. I just thought Thomas Merritt might . . .” She paused. Do what, rescue her again, and the whole of En­gland with her?

  He stopped in his tracks, and when she stopped too, turned to her. “Julia, who the devil is he to you? Is he the one who—­”

  She met his eyes, read the question there, the agony, and felt her heart contract. He had confessed he loved her, had kissed her, made himself a target for disgrace and ruin. And now, if they failed—­if Mr. Merritt failed—­what would become of his career? Surely he deserved at least to know the truth. She had never told anyone.

  “Yes.”

  Chapter 34

  He pawned his shaving kit to buy Donovan a reprieve. While it was not nearly as valuable as Lord Castlereagh’s jeweled Order of the Garter, it proved to be enough for the moment.

  Erich took the money. “Got caught, did you?” he asked, looking at the bruise on Thomas’s forehead. The tavern was dark and shuttered, lit by a candle that did nothing to dispel the gloom. Outside, the city lay pristine under the glistening blanket of new snow. Inside, Erich’s den stank of stale beer and sweat. “And yet you got away.”

  “I fell in the dark, hit the edge of a bureau,” he lied. “The good lady woke up and screamed before I could reach the safe.”

  Erich had a smile like a lizard, cold-­blooded and mirthless. Thomas half expected his tongue to flick out to test the truth of his statement, but the thief continued to shave pieces off an apple with a long thin knife without looking at it, popping the flesh into his mouth. “Then we will have to go back. It should be easier now that you know where to go, and where the bureau is placed in the room. You can step around it and get to the safe much faster. I nearly froze my balls off waiting for you to come out. Donovan was awaiting my return, and I didn’t want to disappoint him.” He chewed a slice of apple, his eyes hard on Thomas.

  Thomas felt his skin prickle. He should have known it wouldn’t be so easy to gull a man like Erich. He’d been living in the demimonde long enough to recognize danger. He wondered how many of the wretches littering the room, drunk and asleep on tables and the floor, were beholden to Erich, so deep in debt to the thief lord that they could never escape him. He felt a moment’s panic. Where the hell would he find the kind of loot that would satisfy his own debt?

  “We’ll go back tonight,” Erich said. “I’ll send someone in with you.”

  “Fine. I’ll take Donovan. In fact, if he’s well enough, I’ll take him now. No one ties a cravat like he does,” Thomas joked, though his gut was tight with fear that Donovan was already dead. “Where is he, anyway?”

  Erich smiled his reptilian smile again. “Not here in the tavern, but he’s quite safe. We’re enjoying his company too much to allow him to go just yet, especially since you have not fulfilled your end of our bargain. You will have to find a sailor to tie fancy knots for you. If you need an accomplice, I will provide you with a good man.”

  Thomas’s skin prickled. “No, I work better alone.”

  Erich stuck the knife into the table, where it quivered. He rose. “Very well. I shall expect you to visit again once you have what I want. Send a note, and I will come and meet you here, alone, of course.”

  Thomas got to his feet, felt the bruise on his forehead throb, and picked up his hat. It would be some days before he could wear it. The lovely Julia Leighton had a powerful arm for so delicate a lady.

  “Viscount?” Erich called out as Thomas reached the door. He shut his eyes. He should have known it wouldn’t be so easy. He turned to regard the thief king.

  “I forgot to mention that the price has gone up. The price of Donovan’s accommodations, fees for the doctor, and so on. You understand.”

  Thomas tightened his hand on the door latch. “What do you want?”

 
; “The old Russian whore. She wears a ruby pendant nearly as big as this apple. I want that. In addition to Lady Castlereagh’s tiara, of course.”

  Madam Anna’s favorite, General Semyon. Even Katerina wouldn’t be able to replace it.

  Thomas kept his face carefully blank. For a moment he was tempted to correct the thief, tell him it wasn’t a tiara at all, but a star, a symbol of honor he didn’t deserve, but he refrained. “It will take a few days,” he said.

  Erich looked coldly sympathetic. “But no longer, I hope. Patrick’s expenses are mounting.”

  Thomas forced his hat onto his head as he opened the door, wincing at the pain, hoping it would help him think, spark a brilliant idea, but it just stung with every step.

  He was a thief. Why should he be surprised to be treated as one? He could still walk away, of course, but he imagined his valet locked in a dank, dark cellar with a pair of burly guards at the door, well armed and ruthless.

  Knowing Donovan, the valet was cursing his name as loudly as he could manage, his Irish baritone growing weaker with every curse, fading as fever overtook him and the bullet wound became corrupted.

  If he didn’t stay, do his best to save him, he would live with Patrick Donovan on his conscience for the rest of his days.

  Along with all his other sins.

  “Mr. Merritt?”

  Thomas looked up. He was steps from his lodgings, but there were five red-­coated soldiers between himself and the door. Behind them stood Stephen Ives.

  “What now?” he asked. He was too tired to fight. His head hurt and he needed food, a bath, and sleep.

  Stephen Ives came forward. “You bastard—­you’re under arrest.”

  One more sin, it appeared, had been added to the list, and he could only wait and see what it might turn out to be.

  Chapter 35

  Stephen had never hated a man like he hated Thomas Merritt. He had not been able to get the image of him with Julia out of his mind. He imagined her kissing him, holding him close, allowing him to—­

  “Did Merritt kill Temberlay?” he’d asked her as she stood before him after her admission, her chin high, waiting with dignity for whatever scorn he would heap upon her. He didn’t have the words to express the pain he felt. He wanted to step away, run, never look at her again, but he just stood there and stared at her, thinking her beautiful even as hatred for her seducer built with every second. She’d looked surprised that his first question should be about Temberlay.

  “No. He’d left England by then. He couldn’t have.”

  “And does he know about—­” He felt bile fill his mouth and he swallowed it. “ . . . about the child?”

  Her gaze turned ferocious, as protective as a mother tiger. “No. I had no way to tell him, nor did I wish to.”

  “You didn’t trust him?” he asked, and choked out the next question, his fists clenched. “Was it rape?”

  She blushed scarlet. “No! I simply had no intention of forcing him to do the honorable thing and marry me. There would have been no dowry, and my father would still have disowned me. Jamie is mine.”

  “Then you don’t intend to tell him, even now?”

  “Especially now,” she insisted. “He has not yet agreed to help us. Do you think he would, if he was suddenly faced with—­”

  “He has very little choice in the matter,” Stephen said through gritted teeth, meaning the mission. Merritt could be forced to that at least, but she mistook him.

  She lifted her chin, her eyes ferocious. “There is always a choice, my lord, and this one is mine alone to make.”

  She’d spun on her heel, her head high, her back straight, leaving him standing in the hallway staring after her, hating Thomas Merritt.

  And now Merritt sat in the coach with him, on his way back to the embassy. Stephen glared at him, the thief, the rogue, the debaucher of innocent ladies. He clenched his fists until his gloves squeaked, wanting to lunge across the small space and clamp his hands around Thomas Merritt’s throat and squeeze until he stopped breathing.

  It had not been rape.

  “To what do I owe the honor of this rather elaborate summons?” Merritt asked, his eyes half shut, meeting Stephen’s glare. The dark bruise shadowed his broad brow, made him look dark and dangerous. He was, Stephen supposed, exactly the kind of man a woman would find attractive, even injured.

  Especially injured.

  He had a brash charm even men would find appealing in a companion to spend an evening drinking or gaming with—­someone quick with a joke, clever. He wondered what Merritt would be like on the battlefield, under fire, where charm didn’t matter.

  “I suppose the lady who owned the watch wishes to thank me personally, is that it?” Merritt continued in a bored tone when Stephen didn’t reply, though his gaze was sharp enough. “She could simply have sent a note, or invited me to tea. This—­abduction—­was hardly necessary. I am always glad to bow to the whims of ladies.”

  Was it Julia’s whim or his, that night at her betrothal ball? She’d been innocent, young . . .

  She said it had not been rape, but would a well-­bred lady as young and sheltered as Julia know the difference? He felt anger flare.

  “The lady in question is my sister, and I would not allow her to sully herself with any kind of contact with a thief and a liar and a—­”

  Merritt’s eyes opened fully, glittering with interest. “A what?” he asked, bidding Stephen to continue, but Stephen clamped his mouth shut, and imagined calling Thomas Merritt out for his various sins and shooting him between the eyes.

  Merritt sighed. “There really is nothing to fear, Major. I mean your sister no harm. I returned the watch because I thought it was the kind of thing a woman might miss, a gift from a devoted husband, a keepsake of a fleeting moment of childhood. I want nothing from her, and I don’t expect a reward.”

  “Good, because you’ll get none,” Stephen snapped. “Just how did you come by the watch again?”

  “As I said, I won it gambling at a ball. I don’t recall the man’s name, if that’s your next question. It was a good night, actually. I went home foxed with a pocket filled with my winnings, including that watch.”

  Stephen sent him a steel-­edged glare. “And you decided out of the goodness of your heart to return it? How did you know where to find her? There are thousands of ladies in Vienna.”

  “True, but the man in the portrait is wearing a British uniform, like most of the Englishmen in town for the conference, including yourself. I assumed the owner was with the embassy.”

  So he was smart as well as charming. It didn’t make Stephen like him any better.

  “Why not simply come to the front door, hand it over?”

  Merritt looked away. “Call me sentimental. I wished to give it back to her personally.”

  “A knight errant on some chivalrous quest. Robin Hood, wasn’t it?” Stephen mocked. “Let it go, Merritt, and stay away from her—­and Julia Leighton as well.”

  Merritt pinned Stephen with a pointed look at the mention of Julia’s name. Stephen glared back, letting him know that she was under his protection, safe from the likes of him.

  “That would be easier if I wasn’t on my way to the British Embassy, wouldn’t it? Not by my choice, of course. So why am I going a-­visiting so early this morning? It’s hardly the polite hour for calls.”

  “I’ll explain when we arrive.”

  Merritt gave an exaggerated sigh. “Then I’m not to be hanged for my crimes just yet. If I were, I have no doubt the ambassador would simply have sent you to carry out the command. Or we’d be on the way to an Austrian prison, not a palace.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s not my choice,” Stephen replied, his mouth twisting. He imagined pulling the noose over Merritt’s head, wiping the smirk off the bastard’s face as he tightened the rope against his throat. Stephen
’s foot twitched as he imagined kicking the stool out from under him.

  He turned away, looked out the window at the sugary dusting of snow that made the city look pristine and soft, when it was anything but, in his opinion. It was a den of thieves and liars, without an honorable man among them. They passed the rest of the journey in stony silence.

  When he glanced at Merritt again, the man was fast asleep, as if he had nothing at all to fear.

  Chapter 36

  Julia set the pen down and rubbed her eyes. Try as she could, she couldn’t stop thinking about Thomas, how he’d looked, what it felt like to be in the same room with him again. She’d been staring at the chair he’d occupied for half an hour, when she was supposed to be writing a very important note.

  How long did it take desire to sicken and die?

  He was a rogue, a scoundrel, and a thief.

  “Who are you writing to?” Dorothea asked. She was sitting by the window, playing Patience.

  “To Diana de Talleyrand, to thank her for inviting me last night.” Diana would tell her uncle she’d received Julia’s note, and he would understand that Julia had delivered his message. The prince would expect to hear from Castlereagh, think he’d won.

  “How kind of you. Perhaps we should ask her to tea. What is the correct diplomatic protocol for asking an ambassador’s niece to tea?” Dorothea mused. “Will it matter which chair she is offered, or from which side we pass the cakes?”

  Julia bit her lip. “I don’t know.” She would undoubtedly lose Diana’s friendship entirely when the theft was discovered. She was sorry about that.

  “Lady Castlereagh would know, of course, but she would also wonder why we wish to pursue Diana’s friendship,” Dorothea mused. “It would not occur to her we simply admire her, and have no political motives at all. Her ladyship is a political creature, and a suspicious one at that.”