by Jo Goodman
The second time they made love it was in Elizabeth's bed. Frantic behind them, this union was lingering. Sweet. Sometimes playful. Sometimes gentle and grave.
Their clothes were scattered on the floor from doorway to bed. The heavy drapes were closed, blocking moonshine. It was the warmer glow from the candles that lent their perspiring flesh a sheen of gold and orange.
Lying back on the bed, her head resting on North's shoulder, Elizabeth lifted one arm and turned it so the soft patina of candlelight was visible along its length.
"Beautiful," North said, watching her. "You should always wear light."
"But—" Then she realized what he was saying. Elizabeth let her arm drop and she turned slightly, for a moment wearing only her smile. North noticed that looked excellent on her, too. "You're a very sweet man," she told him. "But as careful with a shilling as your grandfather. I suppose I shall have to be content with the wardrobe I have."
North chuckled. "Then you've heard his lectures on the virtues of thrift and the vices of gambling."
"The entire repertoire." She laid her hand flat on North's chest. "He's not going to be pleased that you overturned two of his orchid pots. He's very proud of them, you know." Elizabeth's breath caught as North shut her up with a thorough kiss. When he raised his head she was smiling up at him. "If that is your idea of a consequence for my idle chatter, I doubt I shall ever find anything important to say again." She welcomed his rumbling laughter. Her fingers ran along the edge of his jaw and touched the corner of his mouth. Raising up on one elbow, Elizabeth's eyes searched his face. The toll their separation had exacted was still visible in his features; a deep weariness that was only partially ameliorated by their lovemaking was still there.
Elizabeth's index finger traced the line of his cheek from his mouth to his temple. Her own expression was both solemn and curious. "How did you find me?"
"Madame Fortuna." He smiled as Elizabeth's mouth opened and closed. He had actually rendered her speechless. He recalled that surprise had the same effect as kissing her. "I wish I could say that I was clever about it, but you left virtually no trail. No one remembered seeing you after you arrived at the inn. When pressed, the innkeeper could not even recall you leaving. Eastlyn watched the baroness's London residence and determined you had not come back to London to stay there. South went to Battenburn. West questioned innkeepers and coach drivers along the most traveled roads. There was no hint of you at any turn."
"But Madame Fortuna?" Elizabeth asked. "How ever did you—"
"The Compass Club's involvement with that lady goes back twenty years." North enjoyed himself immensely, watching Elizabeth's blush creep from her breasts to her neck and finally suffuse her face as he told her about his first encounter with the fortuneteller.
"A peach!" she said, perfectly astonished. "You asked to see her... her..."
"Her quim."
"Yes. That. And she showed you a peach?"
"Well, yes," he said calmly. "They're very much alike, you know." Under the blankets, North's hand found the inside curve of Elizabeth's thigh. His fingers began to walk up her leg toward the fruit in question. "And you wouldn't expect that she would show a schoolboy like me her actual nether parts, would you? I was only ten."
Elizabeth pushed his hand away. "And a perfect devil. Entirely too forward even then. Did the Bishops suspect the truth?"
"Never. Didn't let us join them, though. Madame Fortuna warned me they were villains—and so they were."
"I cannot believe you stole my still life to indulge in naughty reminiscences with your friends."
North laughed. "I really am never to be forgiven for taking those peaches."
"Never." She managed to maintain a stern mien for a few moments more before adding accusingly, "You juggled them."
His eyes crinkled and tears gathered at the outside edges. Having no handkerchief, North accepted the corner of the sheet Elizabeth tartly handed him. It took him a little longer to catch his breath. "I did, didn't I?" he said with rather more pride than regret.
Elizabeth sighed and waited patiently for him to collect himself. "Was it your idea to ask for Madame Fortuna's help?"
"South's." He anticipated Elizabeth's next question. "And I asked her to find you, not your... peach."
She rolled her eyes. "There's a mercy."
North plumped the pillow under his head and lay back again. "She sent me here," he said. "I had never once considered that you might go to my grandfather."
"It only occurred to me at the last moment."
He fell silent, remembering all too well the fear that had eclipsed his drunken glow when he realized Elizabeth had most likely not gone to Rosemont. North stroked her hair, absently assuring himself of her presence now."Elizabeth?"
She immediately recognized the gravity of his tone. "Yes?"
"You said earlier tonight that I was only partly responsible for you leaving. Who was the other influence?"
"I think you already know the answer to that: Louise and Harrison."
He nodded slowly, considering the implications.
"Madame Fortuna said that I would find everything I sought when I found you."
"Did she?"
"I thought she was waxing romantic."
"Perhaps she was."
North regarded her closely, noting that Elizabeth's smile did not quite reach her eyes. "Perhaps," he agreed. "It's true enough in the romantic sense."
"I'm glad for that."
He smiled faintly at her wry tone but would not be diverted by it. "I wonder if it might not also be true in another, more literal sense."
"Oh?"
North felt Elizabeth's stillness in the single thread of tension that ran through her slender frame. He sensed anticipation in her quiet. "Do you know why finding the Gentleman Thief has been so important?" he asked.
"Is that not obvious? He steals the ton's valuables."
"He steals their secrets." Though Elizabeth did not move, North felt the subtle change in her as tension became rigidness. "That is why the colonel became involved. The matter of missing diamonds and rubies is of little importance to him, but missing documents, state papers, private correspondence that details policy and parliamentary affairs, that is something else again. You can understand, I think, how it would concern him."
Pressing her lips together, Elizabeth nodded.
"The stolen documents are not common knowledge. It is easier to admit the loss of jewelry that can be replaced than private papers, which cannot, but these people are loyal citizens and eventually a few come forward, some angry, some embarrassed, all of them worried, and report what has been taken that makes them and the Crown vulnerable."
Elizabeth's eyes had been widening slowly as North spoke. When he finished, looking at her somewhat expectantly, she blinked. "Do you mean to say the Gentleman is responsible for these thefts?"
"It's one possibility," North said carefully.
"But you make it sound treasonous."
"Given the contents of some of the stolen documents, it is exactly that."
Elizabeth pushed herself upright, dragging the sheet to cover her breasts. "You must be mistaken. The Gentlemen has only ever been interested in baubles."
"Or clever enough to make it seem so."
"Oh, I doubt he is so clever," she said, shaking her head to emphasize the point. "Thieves are not, you know. He has a certain style, I think, but you must not assign him too much wit in the upperworks."
"Truly?" he asked with a certain dryness of tone. "Do you think so?"
"I am sure of it."
"It does not reflect kindly on me, though, does it? After all, I was given this assignment to find the Gentleman almost a year ago. He has eluded me and those who came before me."
Elizabeth frowned. "You mean there were others who were looking for this thief?"
"Half a dozen over the years, I should think. Frustration at the highest levels led to the colonel getting the unenviable task of ending the Gentleman's caree
r."
"But he has passed it on to you."
North shrugged. "My success or failure will ultimately be his. That is the nature of his work. He is known to his superiors. I am not."
It was a great deal for Elizabeth to take in. "The colonel would not tell me any of this."
"No, he wouldn't."
"Neither would you," she reminded him. "You wanted me to think the colonel had nothing to do with you finding the thief." A vertical crease appeared between Elizabeth's brows as the obvious question occurred to her. "Why are you telling me now?"
His cobalt blue eyes mocked her gently. "Elizabeth," he chided her, "do not dissemble now."
"Dissemble?" Her voice cracked a little on the word.
Yanking the sheet, Elizabeth tore it from under the blankets and wrapped it around herself as she twisted and rolled out of bed. The tail dragged behind her like a train as she stalked off in the direction of the dressing room.
"Is that what is famously known as a high dudgeon?" he called after her.
"Yes!" she called back.
He nodded, impressed. "Am I supposed to infer from it that I have offended you?"
Elizabeth appeared in the doorway wearing her robe. She tossed the sheet toward the bed. "You said I was dissembling."
"Aren't you?"
"Yes, but I have no wish to have it remarked upon."
"Ah." North reached over the side of the bed, caught the edge of the sheet where it had fallen short of its mark, and pulled it back. Rising, he tucked it around his waist. "Then it is being caught out that you do not like."
"I suppose."
"Then you will not like this," he said, regarding her steadily. "You forgot to limp on your way to retrieve your robe."
"Hah! I did not forget. I had no use for it. There is a difference, you know."
North's brows lifted a fraction. The expression was more of an amused salute than one of surprise. "I am learning that. Is there something else you want to confess?"
"Do you mean I must say it again?" she demanded.
He smiled, knowing quite well what she meant. Her first words to him this evening had been a confession, yet he had not heard it in that vein. So you have found the Gentleman Thief. "Are you the Gentleman, Elizabeth?"
It was the sympathetic timbre of his question that was her undoing. She caught her lower lip, swallowed hard, and managed a single nod of assent. Drawing a deep breath, she crossed the room to stand before him, graceful, lithe, her step unfaltering and not at all tentative. "I do not know how you can believe me, North, but I have committed no treason. I am guilty of so many things but not that. Never that."
He took her hand. It was cold. His thumb brushed the back of it. "I do believe you."
She felt breath return to her body. She closed her eyes briefly, thankfully. Then a thought occurred to her. "Is it because you know I am not so very clever?"
Laughing, he pulled her to him. "I do not think there is any answer that will not damn me." Hugging her, North kissed the crown of her head.
Elizabeth's arms went around his back. "They never asked it of me, North," she admitted. "You understand, don't you, that stealing was never fully my choice?"
He nodded. The fragrance of her hair enveloped him. He rubbed his cheek against the silky strands.
She hugged him more tightly. His skin was warm against hers. She could feel the beat of his heart and took confidence from its steadiness. "It was Louise's price for her silence. Harrison's, too. I only had to steal for them once before that very act became part of all that I needed to keep secret."
North stroked her back. "Does your father know?"
"Yes. And Isabel." Elizabeth's hands became fists."Battenburn insisted on them knowing. Their complicity was required to further assure their silence." She leaned back in North's embrace and lifted her head. "Does my father know about the stolen documents?"
"I don't know. It is very likely. He is in a position to."
Elizabeth's eyes communicated her distress. "He will think I am the one responsible."
"It has been going on for years, Elizabeth. If he knows, then he has long ago assigned you the responsibility."
"But he has said nothing!"
"Protecting you. Protecting himself. Pretending none of it is happening." He touched her cheek with the back of his hand. "We cannot be certain what he knows."
"He's no traitor, North." Her stomach turned uneasily "He is not."
Northam said nothing for a moment. "Let us hope that is so." He led her back to the bed and bid her sit. He stoked the fire before he returned to her side. She held the covers up for him and he crawled in beside her, dragging the sheet wrapped around his waist with him.
North leaned back against the headboard while Elizabeth leaned against him. "Have you suspected for a long time?" she asked. "About me, I mean?"
"I should be embarrassed to admit it, but when I suspected you, I said so immediately. In hindsight I can see that you gave me any number of hints—all of which I completely ignored. Blinded by love, I suspect." He paused. "Or every bit the village idiot your father accused me of being."
"Oh, North. He said that?"
"It was one of his kinder observations when I went looking for you at Rosemont. In light of what I understand now, his anger was born of fear and his fear encompassed much more than your immediate welfare. He told me I should apply to Lady Battenburn for information, that is where you would most likely go."
"Did you?"
"No. Not overtly. I mistook her motives, but I was aware that she would not be helpful. She eventually came to me. I already knew that you were not at her London residence or at Battenburn, but it was the first I realized you had not written her. That surprised me. Why didn't you?"
Elizabeth considered her answer. "I suppose because when I knew I was not going to Rosemont I realized I had a chance to get away from her and the baron, too. You can't imagine how much I wanted that."
One of those niggling thoughts that had been plaguing North for some time came back to him now. "Neither your father nor Isabel invited us to Rosemont, did they?"
"No," she said quietly. "It was the baron's idea we should go there. A reminder, I believe, to my father and me that we were still under his control."
North recalled the letter that had arrived as he and Elizabeth were ready to leave Rosemont for Hampton Cross. "Louise never experienced a heart ailment, did she?"
Elizabeth shook her head. "Her health is fine. It always has been. It was naught but a ruse to bring me back to London. Louise wanted me to marry you, North, but I think it was because she was afraid of you in some way. Her intention, I believe, was that I should compromise you, just as I had my family. Perhaps she and Harrison have some knowledge of your efforts to find the Gentlemen. Everyone but West was invited to the rout at Battenburn. Louise may have suspected something even then. She asked a great many questions about your association with one another."
North was thoughtful. "That would explain why Louise claimed her necklace was stolen."
"Yes. She hoped it would divert any gossip that she and Battenburn were somehow responsible for South's stolen snuffbox, which, of course, they were." There was a brief guilty pause. "Indirectly, I mean. I took the snuffbox. Southerton thoroughly trounced Battenburn earlier that evening at cards and I was required to recover the loss."
"My God," North said softly, shaking his head. "They are a pair."
"It was something of a game to them. A chess game comes to mind. Certainly I was a pawn. My father and stepmother also. There are probably others, although I cannot begin to suppose who they are. Until you told me about the stolen papers I believed Louise and Harrison were only guilty of practicing the worst kind of cruelty: amusing themselves at the expense of others. I never guessed at this other side, even when Louise began to place more pressure on me."
"Pressure? In what way?"
"To attend more functions. To steal more often. From your mother. Your friends. I never told her you we
re looking for the thief, but I have to believe now that she knew it very well. I think she wanted you to catch me... to save me... to make certain that you were also complicitous. Louise did not understand that you are more honorable than that. She did not realize you would not be compromised by your affection for me."
North's short laugh held little humor. "Louise is a better student of human nature than you are. Perhaps if all I felt for you was affection, I might not defend you so vigorously. Loving you, though, presents challenges I could not have anticipated."
Elizabeth turned her head to look at him."Does this mean I shall not be transported?"
He could not help it. Her question was everything sincere, but he reacted too quickly to take that into account. The sixth Earl of Northam laughed long and hard. It required Elizabeth's elbow in his ribs to encourage him to take a different tack. "I'm sorry," he said, wiping tears from his eyes. "It struck me as humorous."
Elizabeth, who had always been attracted to North's laughter, was now wondering why that was. "I was quite serious," she assured him.
"I know." His laughter almost broke through again. He managed to confine it to a rumbling in his chest. He gave her an apologetic smile when she looked at him sharply. "Forgive me."
Sighing, Elizabeth settled back into the crook of his shoulder. Now that he was no longer shaking with mirth it was a comfortable shelter. "I am a thief," she reminded him. "It was a perfectly reasonable question. Many people guilty of far less than me have been sent away. I should consider myself fortunate if I am not hanged."
That sobered North. "It is not a possibility," he assured her. "Trust me."
Elizabeth realized then that she most surely did.
* * *
They shared a bounty of breakfast in bed. The maid informed them that Lord Worth would see them in their bedchamber if they were not inclined to remove themselves by the noon hour. North told her to assure his grandfather they would see him in his library, but when she was gone he locked the door in the event they were otherwise occupied at the appointed hour.