Touch of a Thief

by Mia Marlowe

  “Out of the goodness of his boot-black heart?” Quinn folded his arms across his chest.

  “No, I had to promise him a goodly sized ruby, but I believe you have one you can spare.” Viola untied her bonnet and laid it on the side table, then tore open one of her parcels to reveal its contents. She handed Quinn a black domino and shook out a folded garment that turned out to be a matching silken cape. “You’ll need this.”

  “Why? Are we going to a masquerade?”

  “After a fashion. The buyer of Baaghh kaa kkhuun wants to maintain his anonymity.” She held a purple half mask before her face. “Mr. Chesterton is meeting him this evening at Vauxhall on the Druid Walk sometime between eleven and midnight.”

  “How is this good news?” Quinn demanded. “Didn’t your fence know where Chesterton was staying? We might provide a diversion to draw him away from his domicile and then you and I could break in and snatch the diamond.”

  “That’s no good. According to Willie, the diamond never leaves Chesterton’s person. Apparently he learned his lesson when he almost lost it to the Comte de Foix.” Viola crossed over to Quinn, put her arms around him and kissed his cheek. “Don’t look so glum. Trust me. This will work to our advantage.”

  He buried his nose in the juncture of her neck and shoulder and inhaled her sweet scent. How could he put her in jeopardy, even for the sake of his adopted country?

  He certainly couldn’t reveal her identity to that blasted Fenimore. He might have promised a pardon, but Quinn wouldn’t bet a farthing on it. Even if a pardon was forthcoming, Viola would be devastated if her adventures as the Mayfair Jewel Thief became grist for the gossip mill, as they would if the authorities were involved. Nothing in government was ever a secret for long. Perhaps the best course would be simply to give the damn diamond to Sanjay and let him return it quietly to the temple of Shiva. Yes, that would settle matters after a fashion.

  His mind made up, he kissed her neck.

  But if he gave the diamond to Sanjay on the sly, the bureaucrats would sort out the sepoy rebellion in their usual ham-handed way without even the hint of an olive branch to offer the Indians once they were “pacified.” Of course, the whole argument was moot since there was still no sure way to steal The Blood of the Tiger back.

  “I don’t see how the fact that Chesterton has taken to keeping the diamond on him will help us,” Quinn admitted.

  “Really?” She pulled away from him and held out her palm. One of his pearl wrist studs shimmered up at him. He hadn’t felt her take it. “Do you see now?”

  “How did you do that?”

  “Before I mastered the tumbler lock, I realized most people forget they are wearing jewelry and if properly distracted, won’t notice it’s missing until much later.” Viola shrugged and bit her bottom lip. “You have no idea the number of hours I practiced lifting items from a dressmaker’s dummy in the attic before I tried it on a living person. I thought my heart would leap from my chest the first time, but I must confess”—her hazel eyes sparkled with hidden fire—“it’s really rather exciting.”

  Lady Light-fingers. She certainly lived up to the name he’d first given her. He didn’t doubt she could do it, but Baaghh kaa kkhuun was one jewel that might very well steal her in return. “No, Viola. I don’t want you to touch that bloody diamond.”

  “But that’s the beauty of this plan. I won’t have to.” She smiled, her face as flushed and excited as a debutante at her coming-out. “We already know Mr. Chesterton keeps the diamond in a silver snuffbox in his waistcoat pocket. So long as I wear my shielding jewelry and keep the box closed, I’ll sense its presence, but the diamond won’t be able to harm me.”

  “But what about him?” Quinn asked. “Do you think Chesterton can sense the diamond’s presence as well? He might notice it was gone sooner than we’d like.”

  “He wore a silver and jet pinky ring at Schloss Celle, but that’s all. Fairly light shielding.” She frowned, considering the matter. “That shows he understands some of the diamond’s power—enough to take precautions against it—but I don’t think he’s that sensitive or he wouldn’t have been able to withstand the stone this long.” She sighed. “It does call to one.”

  Like a siren on the rocks, if her longing expression was any indication.

  “Come, Quinn. It’s the only chance we have of retrieving the diamond.” Viola put her arms around his neck again and pressed her body against his, drawing her palms down his arms. “It’ll be fun. I promise. Please.”

  He grasped her wrists and held them immobile. “Am I about to lose something else?”

  She laughed musically. “No, silly. In fact, I just put your stud back.”

  He snapped his wrist up between them. Sure enough, the pearl stud was back in place. He shook his head and smiled. “You’re good at being bad.”

  She pulled his head down for a bruising kiss.

  “No, I’m a good thief,” she said breathlessly when their lips finally parted. “You’re the one who taught me to love being bad.”

  The woman crowded his senses, pushing aside everything else. His body roused to her with a granite-hard cockstand.

  “If we’re quick about it”—he thumbed open the buttons in a line down the front of her bodice—“there’s time for another lesson in debauchery.”

  “Lead on.” To his delight, she swung one leg around him and hooked her heel at the base of his spine. There were layers of petticoats and lace between them, but he could feel her heartbeat throbbing between her legs. Her head lolled back as he kissed the exposed skin above her chemise and corset.

  “Oh, yes, Quinn,” she slurred. “Tell me we’ll find the diamond tonight.”

  His head snapped up at that and he looked down at her. The last thing he wanted to hear from her before he swived her silly was more about the damned diamond.

  Her lips were parted and her eyes closed. A fine sheen of perspiration bloomed on her skin. She trembled. If someone had told him she was an opium fiend in need of a fresh dose, he’d have believed it.

  The red diamond’s power was a drug to her, he realized with a jolt. It had touched her once and made her long for it again, even though it had tried to kill her.

  Her eyes fluttered open. “Quinn, what’s wrong?”

  He unhitched her leg from around him and forced a little distance between them. “If we go for the diamond, you must promise me something.”

  “What?”

  “If I think it’s too risky, if I don’t like the situation we find, we’ll stop then and there. And if I call it off, there will be no argument. Understand?”

  She sighed. “I understand, but it’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  “As soon as you have the snuffbox with the diamond, you must give it to me immediately. Agreed?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “This is nonnegotiable, Viola. I don’t want you to hold the box a second longer than absolutely necessary.”

  “Quinn, you’re being a tyrant.”

  “No, just a man who doesn’t want to see you hurt. I mean it. I’ll have your word on it or we’re not going anywhere this night, even if I have to tie you up to keep you here.”

  For a moment, Quinn imagined her strapped spread eagle to his four-poster, breasts bound with silk, her secrets bared and vulnerable. He could keep her teetering on the edge of release for hours. How prettily she’d beg before he’d relent and let her come.

  “In fact, that’s the best idea I’ve had in ages.” He put his mouth to her ear and whispered a few of the lewd and loving things he’d like to do to her.

  Her eyes flared with scandalized surprise. “As much fun as letting you tie me up sounds, I’ll pass on it for now. You have my word.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “I’ll give you the diamond as soon as I have it.”

  She kissed him again. Her mouth under his pushed all thoughts of the diamond out of his mind. She gave herself over to him, helping him free her breasts from their whalebone prison.

  He ca
ptured a nipple and suckled hard till she moaned his name. Then he turned his attention to her other nipple. Her nimble fingers teased their way down the front of his trousers. She unfastened the horn buttons at his hipbones and shoved his smallclothes aside, plunging her hands in to fondle and stroke him.

  He yanked up her skirt. She guided him through the slit in her drawers and he swived her against the wall, mindless as a ram in rut.

  “Harder,” she urged.

  Her words released him and he stopped holding back. She welcomed his feral thrusts with little cries of pleasure. Her body stiffened and her release pounded around him. He joined her, spilling into her in hot pulses, the precaution of a French letter the last thing on his mind.

  He gasped for air, not realizing he’d held his breath while they throbbed as one. When the insanity of lust faded and he started to help refasten her bodice, he realized something. He needed Viola like he needed food and water and his next breath.

  She was his opium, his own private poppy field. Each time he loved her, he wanted more of her. She enslaved him with each sigh, each kiss, each bone-jarring swive. Though he ought to have been fully spent, his cock rose again, ready to claim her as his.

  She was his light, bright enough to blind him, but he couldn’t look away. She was salt, preserving and abrading at once, but without her, his life was tasteless and flat. She was the lifeblood coursing through his veins. She might be addicted to the red diamond, but he was addicted to her. He’d never be free of his obsession with Viola Preston until he was dust.

  Please God.

  For almost two hundred years, Vauxhall Gardens had lured Londoners out to revel in its groves. At one time, Handel’s music debuted in its pavilions and the upper crust dined on Vauxhall’s famous paper-thin ham. Families with children rode across the Thames in little coracles to see the spectacle of the gas lamps winking on throughout the expanse of green.

  Of course, since the pleasure gardens were open to the public, the seedier side of the city had always enjoyed its own brand of revelry there as well. Young bucks and girls of questionable virtue could be seen cavorting about pagan, vaguely phallic Maypoles. Bonfires blazed and instead of Handel, gypsy tunes filled the air in the less lighted sections of the garden. All manner of sexual congress was available for a price behind the thick shrubbery of the Druid Walks.

  The gardens had fallen on exceedingly hard times. The ton had all but abandoned Vauxhall, except for those looking for a randy adventure with the added spice of anonymity. Almost everyone of consequence wore masks or dominoes to conceal their identity.

  Viola and Quinn strolled the length of the Druid Walk, looking for Mr. Chesterton, no mean feat since that part of the park was not lit by gas lamps and the moon was on the wane. Every time a man of the correct height and girth appeared, Quinn asked Viola if it were he.

  “No,” she said, cocking her head to strain for the low sound. “The diamond isn’t here.”

  She might not recognize the man, but there would be no mistaking Baaghh kaa kkhuun. When she’d first heard the stone at Schloss Celle, its voice had been excruciating to her, nearly knocking her flat. But after she’d actually touched the stone, the sound changed.

  She ached to hear its deep, rhythmic song again. There was something primal about the diamond’s voice, elemental as the rush of the tide, a good hard swive, or the beating of her own heart.

  Sanjay claimed Baaghh kaa kkhuun was evil and he was probably right. But that didn’t stop her from wanting to be near it again. She couldn’t help it. The diamond had claimed part of her and she wouldn’t feel whole until she heard its music, inexorable and demanding, pounding inside her head.

  She hoped it wouldn’t be too terrible or too beautiful to bear.

  The nearly-healed burn on her palm tingled. Her lust for the diamond made her shiver as they walked along, though she wasn’t the least cold.

  She wondered if she’d recognize the diamond’s buyer based solely on his desire to possess the stone. Her own wanting was so keen-edged, she suspected if she were naked she’d find her nipples perked and her crotch damp. She moaned in frustration.

  Quinn pulled her close. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” She leaned into his warmth. Solid. Male. Comforting. Quinn would protect her. Even from herself.

  Then, as if from a great distance, she heard it—a basso continuo melody so low, it was on the farthest edge of sound. Perhaps she didn’t even hear it with her ears. Perhaps the vibrations in her chest shuddered up her spine to roll slowly around her brain and then out her ears instead of in. She stumbled.

  “No. I’m not all right,” she admitted.

  Only Quinn’s arms kept her from collapsing.

  The diamond’s seductive tones wove a spell around her, setting her palm stinging. Her breathing hitched. Pleasure shot through her, arcing from her breasts to her womb and pooling between her legs, as if Quinn had touched her special spot with his tongue.

  She grasped Quinn’s lapels with both hands and clung to them like a drowning victim going down for the last time. He was her only anchor to reality in the face of the diamond’s potent and sensual power.

  “Baaghh kaa kkhuun,” she whispered. “It’s coming closer.”

  CHAPTER 30

  “All right, that’s it. We’re done.” Quinn gathered Viola in his arms. “I’m getting you out of here. You’re in no condition to do this.”

  She leaned on him and sucked in a deep breath. She almost agreed with him. She hadn’t located Chesterton yet and was already in danger of losing herself to the diamond’s seductive summons.

  Then she realized if she focused on the solid thump of Quinn’s heart, it drowned out Baaghh kaa kkhuun’s voice. She stopped trembling and wrapped her arms around his waist. Viola pressed her ear against his chest and drew from his strength. One thought formed in her mind with clarity and brilliance that outshined the finest jewel.

  She loved this man.

  Come ruin. Come scandal. Come desertion or disaster she couldn’t yet imagine.

  She loved Greydon Quinn.

  He needed her to do one small thing for him, to pluck the jewel from a man who had murdered, and would do so again to possess it. Then she must hand it over to Greydon. Such a simple thing, really, when weighed against the love she bore him. She could do it with her eyes closed, if need be.

  She tipped her face up to him and he kissed her. Their breaths and souls mingled, tangled together, inseparable. When their lips parted, she smiled up at him, her vision clear, her mind unfettered by the diamond’s drone.

  “I’m ready, Quinn. I can do it.” She glanced down the walk at the shadowy figure moving in their direction. “That’s him. I need to you do something for me, though.”

  “What?”

  “Whistle something.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Anything. Whistle. I need to hear you.”

  Quinn broke into a jaunty version of “Rule Britania.”

  The diamond’s low buzz began to drown out Quinn’s tune.

  “No, not that.” Viola steeled herself against the Blood of the Tiger’s voice. “Hum something. A love song.”

  Quinn switched to the haunting “The Water Is Wide.” The deep hum of unsatisfied love and longing rumbled in her chest and the diamond’s sound faded.

  “Much better,” Viola said, hooking her hand through his arm and walking toward Mr. Chesterton. As far as he would be able to tell, she and Quinn were two lovers strolling the dark walks in search of the perfect trysting spot.

  Mr. Chesterton came closer, almost meeting them on the narrow path.

  Another few steps, and Viola pretended to catch her toe on an exposed root and stumbled forward, clutching at Mr. Chesterton in what she hoped was a convincing approximation of someone who didn’t want to end up facedown in the dirt. As his beefy hands caught her shoulders, her hand snaked into his waistcoat and she palmed the silver snuffbox.

  “Darling, are you all right?” Quinn grabb
ed her and pulled her back to him, taking the box from her and secreting it in his pocket in a smooth motion. “Thank you, sir, for your assistance.”

  He hustled Viola away. “You really ought not have so much sherry after supper. Come, dear, let’s get you home.”

  Her feet barely touched the ground as Quinn propelled her along, but they hadn’t gone ten paces before Mr. Chesterton bellowed at them to stop.

  “Yes, you two,” he growled. “Turn around.”

  Viola’s heart sank to her toes as she and Quinn faced Mr. Chesterton. Starlight glinted on the muzzle of a pistol. She hadn’t considered that Chesterton might be armed.

  Quinn stepped in front of her to shield her. “What seems to be the trouble, my good man?”

  “You know.” Chesterton’s voice dripped malice. “Tell your doxy to fork it over.”

  “Now see here—”

  “No, you see. Thought you’d take advantage of a man in the dark, did you, you and your light-fingered wench? Almost worked, too. Give it back now.” When Quinn didn’t move, Chesterton raised his gun. “The dead are easy to search.”

  “Our mistake, sir,” Quinn said quickly, fishing in his pocket and coming up with the silver snuffbox. “Here you are and no harm done.”

  He flipped the box toward the large lilac bush next to Chesterton, the silver flashing as it turned end over end.

  “Run!” Quinn turned and gave Viola a shove down the path.

  She lifted her skirts and ran, knees and elbows pumping. Quinn was right behind her, his footfalls in time with hers. Brush rattled behind them, the fragrance of crushed lilac sweetening the air. Mr. Chesterton rooted in the bush for the snuffbox, swearing a blue streak as he sought it frantically.

  A shot rang out. The slug ripped through the clump of birch Viola ran past, setting the stand of spindly trunks shivering. Her feet sprouted wings and she poured on more speed as the path took a sharp turn. Quinn, behind her, urged her on.

  Viola’s side began to ache. She couldn’t draw a deep enough breath to continue. When she faltered, Quinn scooped her up and flung her over his shoulder.