No matter how angry and hurt she was, Georgiana was not prepared to share her findings with the Bow Street Runner. She had to gain a moment alone first to think, to decide what to do, so in the meantime, she was forced to keep up appearances. It was the most difficult thing she had ever done, for she knew Jeffries was no fool, and if he looked too closely at her, he might well suspect something was amiss.
When he finally ceased muttering about the way the thief had entered, Georgiana told him she was ready to leave. Knowing she was probably pale, she stood in the shadows. She had learned from the very best—The Cat himself—how to cling to the darkness. And yet, her education had been incomplete, for she hadn’t learned how to lie and cheat and steal. And betray.
With steely resolve, Georgiana kept those thoughts at bay while Jeffries showed her out. For once, the usually quiet Bow Street Runner seemed determined to discuss the case with her, but Georgiana claimed that she was wanted at home and could not linger. If Jeffries sensed her agitation, she hoped he thought it due to her disappointment in finding no clue at the scene.
How ironic that her distress was caused by the opposite, by the very thing she had always desired. At last she had the evidence that pointed, irrevocably, to the thief, and yet Georgiana said nothing to the official who kindly offered to walk her back to her home.
She shook her head in answer, for she had no intention of returning to the house where Ashdowne might find her. Even if he did not appear, her giggling sisters would quiz her about him. Her jovial father and her distracted mother would be no comfort, for she could not tell them the truth about the marquis or her feelings for him. She headed toward the Orange Grove, finding a quiet corner among the elms to brood over the man she had thought she knew better than any other, the man she didn’t know at all.
Ashdowne. The Cat.
The nobleman who had held her and kissed her and touched her and laughed with her was nothing more than a thief. He was no different than any common criminal off the streets, Georgiana realized, the knowledge giving her a stomachache that seeped upward to lodge behind her breast. Pain swept through her, from the back of her eyes to her very toes, and she sank down upon a bench, unable to stand.
Had he simply been toying with her all along? It was too monstrous to be believed, yet why else would The Cat offer to help her solve the burglary he had committed? Georgiana realized that all the times he had listened attentively, as if he believed in her theories, had been just an act. How he must have laughed at her! Georgiana thought dismally. And she had loved his laughter, never realizing that it made a mockery of her.
That was bad enough, but Georgiana was well accustomed to scorn for her talents. It was the other that tore at her insides, the way he had kissed and caressed her as if he delighted in her, when all the while she was only a game to him. She shuddered, forcing back the tears that threatened. Well, she had learned something from the experience, she told herself. She had all but satisfied her curiosity about intimacy, so she would count Ashdowne’s instruction as useful. It would certainly be the last such experimentation.
Never again would she allow herself to care so much for someone, for her great-uncle was wrong. People were not the key to happiness. They were baffling and full of guile, using others for their own ends. Georgiana had thought herself a good judge of character, yet she had fallen in love with an infamous burglar, hardly a wise decision! Better to confine herself to her books and papers and facts that she could understand. They had no power to hurt.
Although grief swamped her, Georgiana refused to cry, and her naturally optimistic nature began to rally. She was made of stronger stuff than Ashdowne had ever imagined. Just like everyone else, he had underestimated her, thinking her nothing but a bit of fluff, empty-headed with plenty of curves. Well, he was wrong! Georgiana looked down at the soil that still clung to her fingers, crushed by the force of her distress, and she remembered how Ashdowne had initially looked at her as if she were a bug.
In the end, he had shown himself to be little more than an insect, a big, black spider spinning a vast web for his own amusement. And now she was going to squish him.
Finn had talked him into coming. The Irishman who had always referred to Georgiana as “that dizzy Bellewether chit” was suddenly concerned about her well-being. Having followed her about this morning, he had rushed back to Camden Place with news of her mooning about the Orange Grove as if she had lost her best friend.
Ashdowne, who felt much the same way, found it hard to work up a lot of sympathy for her. She seemed to flout him at every turn, showing a total disregard for his wishes, his desires, his decrees. Maybe he had been a little over-bearing the other day, but that was no reason for her to run off with Savonierre!
Ashdowne scowled. He had never pegged Georgiana as the type of flirtatious creature who worked one admirer against another, but he was beginning to have his doubts, especially after last night. Dem, but he had apologized, a rare enough occurrence that warranted some sort of response. And for a moment, he had been most gratified as he received a long-awaited version of The Look.
But then she had run off with Savonierre. Again. Ashdowne didn’t know whether to laugh in astonishment at her idiocy or strangle her for defying him. Savonierre was liable to destroy her without blinking an eye, he knew, and his urge to protect his own warred with the bitter complaints of his battered pride. Although he didn’t consider himself conceited, never in his life had he worked so hard to win a woman. And he was still uncertain where he stood with the elusive Miss Bellewether.
It rankled. He was half tempted to take his annoying sister-in-law and return to the family seat, never to see Georgiana again. But who would protect her from Savonierre? From other men? From herself? Ashdowne struggled against a thrum of panic that began whenever he thought about giving her up for good. And so here he was, searching through a park for the allegedly woebegone woman who had thrown his feelings for her in his face, preferring instead the cold comfort of her “case.”
When he found her, Ashdowne had to bite back a sharp rebuke, for she was sitting all alone in a secluded area, as if inviting some importunities from a passing rogue. But he said nothing, only coming to a halt before her, uncertain of his reception. And when she finally looked up, her eyes red rimmed and watery, he felt as if someone had kicked him in the gut. If Savonierre had done this to her, he would kill the bastard outright, without a thought to the consequences.
Since he didn’t trust himself to speak, Ashdowne simply stood watching her as she rose slowly to her feet, a haughty expression coming over her usually open features. Obviously he was not going to be received warmly this afternoon, and he swallowed his disappointment.
“Ashdowne. I guess I’m glad you’re here. I won’t ask how you found me, since you have your ways,” she said with a bitterness he had never heard before. What had Savonierre done? “You are a man of many talents, aren’t you?”
Before he could respond to that baffling statement, she turned away. “I know who you are,” she said with grim finality. “Don’t bother to deny that you are The Cat.”
Ashdowne halted in the act of turning toward her, stricken for a moment, before the casual reply came to his lips. “Ah, so now I am the villain, am I?”
“I found soil at the scene, Ashdowne. The same soil that came from the plant that I knocked over onto you,” she said, her voice so dull and lifeless that it cut him to the quick.
He took a steadying breath. “I assume it was the very same soil that several servants cleaned up. Have you accused them, or are you singling me out for a reason?”
She turned, her blue gaze so wretched that he nearly flinched. “After all that you have put me through, the least you could do is to show me some honesty, at the last.”
Ashdowne felt as if she had torn out his guts and stomped upon them in the grass. “Very well, but this is hardly the place—” he began only to be cut off by her swift gesture of impatience.
“I have no intention of going
anywhere with you, so you may save your breath in that regard,” she said, and he felt a slow surge of anger at her pious attitude. Although he had known this day would come, he had hoped it would not. From the beginning he had been aware of the obstacles that stood between them, yet he had continually put off any reckoning.
After all, The Cat had been gone a long time. Ashdowne had never dreamed that anyone would make the connection, but he should have known that Georgiana would. Too often he had dismissed her as a silly, imaginative creature, yet she possessed the acumen and drive to ferret out the truth. And she had done so.
“Are you going to kill me now?” Her soft question drew a startled glance from him. What the devil was she talking about? he wondered, choking back a startled sound.
“Well, now that I know your secret, I would think you would like to make sure that I don’t tell anyone else,” she said with a poise that shocked him.
Is that what she thought of him? That he had no more regard for her than to do her murder? Ashdowne’s nearly nonexistent temper flared, along with a sting of pain that he ignored. “That’s a great leap, isn’t it, from jewel theft to assassination?”
“What’s the difference?” she asked with a toss of her beautiful curls. “Where do you draw the line? You could hang for what you’ve done. Surely it would be simpler just to do away with your accuser?”
Ashdowne felt himself flush with anger, his mouth tightening as he tried to speak evenly. Instead, his words came out in a low, heated rush. “I’m not going to hang because no one is going to believe you.”
She blinked at him, flinching as if he had slapped her, and he groaned, reaching for her, but she stepped back. “Get away from me! I can’t think when you get close to me, as I’m sure was your intention all along!”
Ashdowne stood there, helplessly hurting for her and for himself. For the first time in his life, he could form no glib answer or casual dismissal. His original efforts had been a seduction of necessity, so he framed no denial. “I never meant to hurt you,” he said.
He heard her soft, choked laugh. “Oh, no. You simply lied to me from the beginning, laughing at me—”
“I never laughed at you!” Ashdowne protested. When she whirled to level him an accusing stare, he sputtered. “Well, not in the way you think. I laughed because I found you so delightful. I still do! Georgiana, don’t let this thing—”
“How do you get in, past the locked doors?” she asked, her lovely features stiff and unyielding.
He lifted a brow. “A lock pick.”
“Like the one you used at Mr. Hawkins’s lodgings?”
Ashdowne shrugged. “And sometimes nothing at all. Not many want to admit to being careless, but they leave doors unlocked, jewels scattered on their dressing tables, windows open…” he said. If that was all she wanted to hear, then he would oblige her.
“And in that case, you simply climb up the outside of the house?”
Ashdowne frowned. “No. You were right, of course. I would never scale a building. Too much bother for too little,” he said with a negligent glance. Although he knew he was not furthering his cause, he felt driven to tell her all, perhaps by the same instincts that had sent him to his doom. “I climbed out the window of one room and crossed upon the pediments to the other.”
Georgiana blanched. “You could have been killed!”
“Are you pretending concern? How affecting!” he said with a bitter laugh.
She lifted her chin, her contempt evident. “And all for naught but a pretty bauble!”
“Ah, but there you have it wrong,” Ashdowne said smoothly. She jerked her head toward him, and he lifted a brow. “Yes, even the great Georgiana Bellewether doesn’t always have all of the facts,” he said, unable to stop himself.
“Well, then?”
“Ah. You’ve a mind to listen, do you? Well, I’m not certain whether I shall explain myself,” Ashdowne said. He had never shared his motivations with anyone, not even Finn, and yet now, faced with the judgment of a petite blonde, he felt like prostrating himself. Anything to change her mind, to undo what he had done, to regain her good opinion.
He stared off into the trees, seeing not their greenery but the images of the past. “I was born a younger son of rather stodgy parents. Luckily, my brother was all they could wish for, while I was too…adventurous. I never quite fit in with their plans, having discovered early on that I didn’t care for the usual avenues available to me as a near penniless nobleman—a career in the military, the church or the law,” Ashdowne said with a bitter smile.
“I went off to London to seek my fame and fortune—or at least some pleasure. I made the usual rounds of clubs, ton parties and gambling hells, and got along well enough on the strength of my wit and rather dubious charm,” he said, frowning at the memory of that scapegrace existence.
“However, I possessed a certain restlessness that seemed unsatisfied until I fell into my destined vocation—quite by accident, mind you. It was a harmless prank, really, a sleight of hand that I wanted to see if I could pull off, and when I did—” Ashdowne shrugged “—I discovered a taste for the danger and skill required to separate expensive jewels from the most wealthy and obnoxious of my peers.”
And deuced if he didn’t enjoy it. At the height of his infamy, it had been exhilarating, like a fever in his blood that required constant feeding. He had to admit that it was a heady feeling to fool everyone from his friends and acquaintances to the authorities he thwarted at every turn.
“But all that changed when my staid brother died,” he said. He had found it ironic at first that his elder sibling, who rarely roused himself beyond the occasional ride to the hounds, had been struck down by apoplexy, while he thrived on his own bouts with peril. But he soon discovered that being marquis was a little more taxing than he had thought. And even though he swore that he wouldn’t turn into his brother, Finn had accused him more than once of becoming indistinguishable from that stodgy fellow.
Ashdowne sighed. “The Cat retired, and I turned my attention to more legal pursuits.”
“And just what drew you out of this so-called retirement?” Georgiana asked, her tone as disdainful as before.
“Nothing so trivial as a thirst for danger, I can assure you. Whether I will it or not, the title consumes all of my energy and attention,” he said curtly.
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with your sister-in-law, would it?” Georgiana asked, and Ashdowne swung round to face her in amazement. He knew he had underestimated her before, but he was still stunned at the accuracy of her accusation.
“Forgive me for ever doubting your abilities,” he said, with a bow of acknowledgment that Georgiana accepted stoically. He was beginning to realize that nothing he said made a difference, but he continued, having no other choice.
“As I mentioned before, Anne, though a truly gentle creature, has a tendency to become tiresome. After her mourning was over, I insisted that she go off to visit relatives in London. However, even I had no idea just how unworldy she was, traveling for the first time without my brother’s protection, and it wasn’t long after her arrival that she fell into Lady Culpepper’s clutches, losing quite a bit of money to the woman, whose methods of gambling, by the way—”
“Are suspect,” Georgiana said.
No longer surprised at her astuteness, Ashdowne simply bowed his head in acknowledgment once more. “Although I managed to pay her off, I am afraid the debt did not sit well with me, especially since the woman is notorious for preying upon young innocents. Not as young as some, Anne still qualifies on both counts, and I felt responsible for her misfortune, having sent her to London, only to have her return home to languish in disgrace, awash in guilt and misery.”
“But why could you not just win the money back at cards?” Georgiana asked.
Ashdowne laughed at her naiveté. Although more clever than the Bow Street officers she so admired, Georgiana still possessed a guilelessness that called out for the protection she would not allow
him to give her. “Lady Culpepper knows better than to take up a challenge from me,” he said simply. “She chooses her victims carefully and even should I manage to enter a game with her, she would quickly bow out.”
“And what did your sister-in-law think of your revenge?” Georgiana asked, causing Ashdowne to laugh again.
“Anne has no idea! Far from thanking me for it, she would probably faint dead away, if I told her I had stolen the jewels,” he said, aware, not for the first time, that Georgiana was made of sterner stuff, and grateful for it. Perhaps there was still hope. “So, you see, I only took the necklace to repay Lady Culpepper’s own thievery.”
“Still, that doesn’t justify your stealing,” Georgiana said righteously.
“Only from the exceedingly rich and exceedingly annoying, who could well afford it,” Ashdowne argued.
But he had lost her. He could see it in the lift of her chin, in the way her beautiful blue eyes met his own, not in dazed wonder, but with censure. Accusing. “Your scruples are far different than mine, my lord,” she said.
“Variety is what makes life interesting,” Ashdowne said, but Georgiana only shook her head, and frustration surged through him. “Shall your overactive conscience force you to turn me in to Mr. Jeffries, then?”
At the question, all her bravado seemed to fade, leaving her looking shaken and bleak, and Ashdowne wanted nothing more than to comfort her. Yet he knew she would not welcome anything from him. “I don’t know,” she murmured, taking the last of his hope.
Ashdowne didn’t fear the gallows, for he suspected that even Georgiana couldn’t convince Bow Street of his guilt, now that he held the title, but her indecision twisted inside him like a knife. How could she even consider it? Did she despise him so much that she longed for his death?
“Why, Georgiana?” he asked in helpless fury. “The Cat is past. Over and done with.”
“You’re wrong,” she whispered. Rising to her feet, she wrapped her arms around her in a protective gesture that both enraged and pained Ashdowne. “I’m looking at him.”
The Gentleman Thief Page 22