Now her mother and her husband were sharing compliments and secrets like old friends. And, as usual, Thea was left quite in the dark.
Jack looked at her with surprise, almost as though he’d forgotten she was still at his side. ‘My apologies, Cyn. We are not attempting to keep secrets from you.’
‘But you are doing it all the same,’ she reminded him.
‘Then let us catch you up on what has occurred.’ He offered a sweeping gesture to Antonia. ‘Ladies first.’
‘In the beginning, Mr de Warde was sceptical,’ Antonia confirmed. ‘The change of heart in our family seems quite extreme to him. He cheated us, after all. And now we are opening our arms and embracing him.’ She gave Thea a sly look. ‘Of course, he is still hoping that one of us will embrace him. Watch that one, Thea. He is a snake.’
‘I understood that much, Mother. Now explain the rest of it.’
‘The less we told him of the magical properties of the idol, the more he wanted to know of it.’ She gave Jack a smile now. ‘I was crying at the end and had him in the palm of my hand.’
‘No man can resist your tears,’ Jack said with a sigh.
‘Which proves how stupid you all are,’ Thea said with finality. ‘My mother is quite the most transparent creature, once you know her tricks.’
‘Do not be jealous, Thea. It does not become you. And you are quite charming enough in your own right when you make an effort to be. See how easily you caught Kenton.’
‘I did not catch him,’ Thea insisted. But Jack was giving her a speculative and worried look, as though he feared being ensnared should she take it into her head to weep.
‘Do not trouble me with semantics,’ her mother replied. ‘No matter how it happened, you are married to his enemy and it makes de Warde desire you all the more.’ She gave Jack a warning look. ‘And you must be careful with my daughter, sir. I will expose all if you think to sacrifice her to that monster because of some silly family argument.’
‘Never.’ Jack laid a hand over his heart. ‘He will have to settle for the idol that I do not wish to give him.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Or idols. At an antiquities dealer, you said?’
‘You could not very well keep such valuable items in the house,’ her mother said with a smile.
‘You have presented me with a challenge,’ he said. ‘But I am worthy. Let me take my leave of you. I must dress to go out.’ He smiled at Thea. ‘Since you wish to see the plan in progress, you will come as well.’
‘Wherever are we going?’ Thea asked.
‘To the antiquities dealer, of course. To visit my idols.’
Chapter Fourteen
An hour later, Jack met her in the foyer and had the footman summon the carriage. He’d dressed in his plainest coat, setting aside stick, studs and fob. As he had recommended, Thea wore a cloak and a veil. It was hardly a disguise to fool a friend, but an acquaintance might not have recognised her at first glance.
And Jack appeared to be someone similar to Kenton. Was he distant family? A cousin, perhaps? He’d seemed to change his posture along with his coat. As he moved, his body became less rigid and controlled, moving through the world as though simultaneously seeking adventure and unsure of where the next step might land him.
They took the Kenton equipage as far as Bond Street, then Jack dismissed it, informing the driver that, since this was a fine day, they would very likely walk back. Instead, he led her a few streets away and hired a cab to take them the rest of the journey.
The little shop they stopped at was down a dark side street, far from the area she was accustomed to. But the sign above the door, with its three balls covered in flaking gold leaf, revealed it for what it was. ‘A pawn shop?’ she said suspiciously.
‘Indeed,’ Jack answered with some glee.
‘Mr de Warde will never come to such a place.’
‘He never has before. I am quite sure of that. And that is what will make it possible to gull him now. He will not know what to expect.’ Jack grinned broadly. ‘I, on the other hand, am quite familiar with the workings of such places, and this one in particular.’
‘What a surprise,’ Thea said, though it was no surprise at all.
He laughed again and squeezed her hand. ‘Come along, darling. It will be another educating experience for you.’ He pushed the door, which squeaked as it opened, and she heard the jingle of a bell. The tone was brassier than anything she’d heard in a nicer shop, sounding almost surly in its announcement of their presence.
She looked about her, taking in the strange surroundings. The little room was dimly lit, which gave it an even more mysterious appearance. But it was the stuff lining the walls that drew her attention. Bric-à-brac from hundreds of lives, abandoned and for sale: cavalry swords and duelling pistols hung from the walls, outmoded gowns and coats filled racks beneath them. The shelves beside them held trims: scraps of braid and plumes plucked from finery by light-fingered servants. Trays of gaudy jewellery heaped casually in plain sight to demonstrate their meagre worth, spilled from the drawers and counters of odd bits of furniture that she could not imagine displaying in any home. Taken as a whole, it was both intriguing and a little bit sad, as though the misfortune that brought the customers to sell the items left a miasma over them that could be felt.
A man appeared from a back room, sharp featured and with a rat-like squint, but with a well-roundedness that implied the success of his business.
‘Joseph, Joseph, Joseph.’ Jack spread his arms wide in welcome, as though the broker was the one who had come to him.
‘Briggs.’ It was clear that he’d been recognised and equally as clear that he was not welcome. ‘What do you have for me today? And if it is nothing more than dirty lace and mismatched brass buttons passed for gold, then you may as well go out again. In short, do not expect me to pay for a good story.’
‘So much more than that,’ Jack said with a smile. ‘It is not a story. It is a proposition.’
‘A proposition?’ The man’s narrow eyes narrowed even further.
‘A business transaction of a more lucrative type. I wish to rent your shop.’
The man laughed. ‘My whole shop.’
‘For a special performance.’
The man waved a hand. ‘Do you see a stage here? Because I do not.’
‘I will need it for a few hours at most,’ Jack continued, as though he had heard no objection. ‘An evening will do. Some time when you are normally closed. I will see to it that it does not interfere with your business.’
‘So shall I. Because no such performance will take place.’ Joseph pointed towards the door as though a gesture would be enough to eject them from the shop.
‘You will be well compensated for it,’ Jack assured him.
‘For the chance to have you and your thieving friends strip my shelves? I would have to be well compensated indeed.’ But the man did not refuse outright this time. Instead, he looked at Thea as though trying to decide if she had sufficient money to make this worth his while.
Jack held out his hands in a gesture of innocence. ‘I will leave the merchandise alone. I merely need a suitable space to meet with an old friend. He will compensate me. And I will compensate you twenty pounds for each hour needed.’
The man considered. ‘Thirty. And I will need the money up front.’
Jack mimed turning out his pockets. ‘Unfortunately, that will not be possible. I am a bit short right now, but the return is guaranteed.’
‘And you should know, from all the other times you have been a bit short, that that is not the way I operate.’ He looked at Thea again. ‘If you wish me to even consider this, you must give me some collateral.’
Jack looked at her as well, his gaze devoid of passion. It went on so long that she almost began to suspect, despite what her mother had said, that he was ready to barter her away. Then he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her out of earshot and behind a counter holding a collection of enamelled snuff boxes. ‘Give him your ring.’
‘My what?’
‘Your wedding ring. Give it over.’ He held his hand, palm out to receive it.
She grabbed his arm and tried to drag him back into the light. ‘I most certainly will not.’
‘You will. It is not as if we are actually married. There can be no sentiment involved.’
Yet there was. It felt as if he was rejecting her marriage, treating it as though it meant nothing at all to him. ‘All the same, you gave it to me to wear and I will have it on my finger, even after your death. You cannot take it back.’
He stared at her with surprise, and she thought she saw his resolve wavering. In a moment, he would admit that he had no right to part her from her wedding ring and find some other less hurtful solution. But then his eyes hardened again and he said, ‘You can have the ring, or the money that belonged to your father, which I will give to you when this scheme goes right. You cannot have both. Now give it over.’
It was a betrayal of the earl, but who had she known longer, him or her own father? And what did it mean of the marriage and of Jack? Without the ring, who was she? She twisted the emerald on her hand, still unwilling to take it off. ‘What will I tell people who ask after it?’
‘Tell them it is being cleaned. Or sized. Or reset to be less heavy. Tell them whatever you like. In short, make something up.’
‘You would know how to do that far better than I.’
‘And you are learning fast enough. You only need more practice,’ he said, as though deception was a thing that came easily to her. ‘Now give me the ring and keep quiet.’
She pulled it free of her finger and dropped it into his hand, and he walked back across the room and presented it to the pawnbroker. ‘There you are. Gold, two large diamonds and an even larger emerald. Quite genuine, I assure you.’
‘I will assure myself, thank you very much.’ Joseph took out a jeweller’s glass, fixed it in his eye and examined the ring first in silence, and then with a small sigh of satisfaction. ‘Worth thirty pounds at least.’
Jack scoffed in disgust. ‘Far more than that.’
‘And it will be mine when your game falls through and you cannot pay.’
‘Which it will not. Keep the ring for now and return it to me when we are done or I will have you up on charges. I will return when I know the hour and the day of our performance. At that time, you have but to give me the keys and remain absent until I summon you. I will collect the ring, pay you for your time and we will be through. There is no need to record this in your books. I think it might be better for both of us if it were easily forgotten afterwards.’
‘Agreed.’ Joseph offered a hand and the men shook once, eyes meeting as though gauging each other’s honesty, then they parted and Jack offered Thea his arm. ‘Come, my sweet. Our business has concluded.’ He bowed deeply to the broker. ‘Au revoir, my dear sir.’ His manner was a little too grand, as though he were not an actor playing a viscount, but a viscount playing an actor.
As they left the shop, Jack smiled as though the interview had been a success.
Thea had a much more critical opinion of it. ‘He does not like you very much. Nor does he trust you.’
‘He does not like anyone. And as for trust? He would not be as successful in his business were he any more trusting. But he is as honest as can be expected. And he knows that the ring was not mine to give, nor yours. It is obviously part of an entail. By law that means he should not have accepted it. He will not be asking questions because his risks outweigh ours.’
‘Very well. He is our partner in crime. And what are we to do next?’
‘Find another partner to play pawnbroker.’
‘Another?’ It was bad enough that the story had spread this far. ‘You are making things unnecessarily complicated.’
‘You must trust me to know what is best,’ he said.
* * *
When they were seated in a rented cab, Jack pushed himself into a darkened corner opposite Thea, hoping that the shadows would hide the slight sheen of perspiration popping out on his brow. The brief visit to his old life had raised strange emotions in him, as did the sight of the beautiful woman hesitating to remove his ring.
He was probably reading too much into that, wishing for things that could never be. But when the moment had arrived to part with it, she had not given him the perfectly logical argument that he’d expected. The ring was entailed and not theirs to barter away on some wild scheme.
Instead, she’d said, ‘You gave this to me.’ As though he’d had any right to place it on her finger and as if the oath accompanying it had any meaning.
It made him wish that there were some other form of ready cash so that she did not have to remove it. Why had he not worn studs, or kept even a flask in his pocket that he might barter with? Anything other than the token he had given to her with his pledge. Better he should give up his own ring than to take the one he had given her.
For a moment, at least, she had been his wife, just as she had in the ballroom when de Warde had frightened her and she’d looked to him for help. And he had been her husband, charged by God to love and protect her, and happy to do so.
The closed space of the cab was suddenly too warm, too stuffy and heavy with her perfume, but there was nothing cloying about the scent she wore. It was light, redolent of the first spring flowers, as though that hopeful season could be captured in a bottle. He would not be able to get enough of that scent, even if he pressed his cheek to her hair. Common sense told him that if he wanted his head to clear and his brow to dry, he should hang his head from the window and feel the fetid breeze of London, and let harsh reality draw him back.
Instead, he dropped the curtain on his window, making the space even closer and more shadowed. They had a long trip across the city to find his friend and the traffic would not move. They were creeping along, trapping him with a woman he could not have. Even covered properly to conceal her identity, he could imagine the body underneath, waiting for him. His fingers tingled, his mouth watered, all senses alive at the opportunity.
‘Where are we going now?’ she asked, her green eyes open, suspicious, her mouth curved softly down in disapproval.
‘To find an actor friend of mine to help me in the next scene,’ he said, cursing the fact that he must talk to anyone at all, other than Thea. Antonia could keep her tears and learn a lesson from her daughter. If this fresh-faced innocence could be brought under control, it was a weapon more powerful than her mother’s excessive emotion.
‘Pawnbrokers and actors,’ she said with a frown. ‘I am totally out of my depth. Nothing at Miss Pennyworth’s school prepared me for this.’
‘I expect not,’ he said, with a smile and slid across to her side as the carriage lurched to a stop again.
‘Do you mean to tell me any of what we are doing? Or am I to be kept in the dark until after it happens?’
If he told her the whole truth of what was coming, she’d likely have put him out of the carriage and run straight back to her mother. Nor was he sure that she could keep the secret. With her lack of skill, de Warde might stare into those large, guileless eyes and see everything.
‘You are still angry about the ring,’ he said.
‘I am not.’ But just as he had feared, he could see the truth plain in her face.
‘I am sorry. It could not be helped. And it is only a short time that you will be without it.’
‘But what if your plan fails?’
‘It will not fail,’ he said, leaning close so that he might whisper. ‘We will have it back before it is missed.’ It was hardly necessary. Their driver was cursing loudly at the stalled traffic in front of them, oblivious to anything that might go on in the cab behind him. There was no reason to sit huddled like two doves on a branch, cooing into ear other’s ears, but he quite liked being close to her. And he was sure that a fresh trinket would distract her. ‘We will stop in Bond Street and get you another to take its place.’
‘The ring itself is not important
. It is the broken promise,’ she insisted.
She was right. It had been unworthy of him. Kenton would have cut off his own arm before parting his wife from her wedding ring. But Jack Briggs had been thoughtless. ‘I am sorry. Truly, I am.’
He leaned forwards and kissed her cheek to seal his words. But if one quick kiss was good, two would be better. A few kisses would do no harm, surely. He would not allow things to get out of hand.
His old self started in surprise at this sudden chivalrous desire not to take things too far and the fact that it had come from his more practical self, and not the normally self-righteous Kenton. Kenton seemed all in favour of the chance to make up for his mistake.
Jack waited for the rejection that should be coming, for surely Thea would have more sense and push him away.
‘I suppose it is better that I allow this than to see you mooning over my mother, as you were this morning,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I thought, for a time, you had forgotten who you had pretended to wed.’ Then she turned to the side to give him room on the seat next to her, tipped her bonnet to the side and raised a corner of her veil.
It was a trap of some kind, just as her last affection had been. And just as it had been the last time, he leapt into it, unable to stop himself. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and leaned closer. Without another thought, his eyes dropped down to her bosom, like a doomed soul towards hell. It was totally hidden beneath her cloak, yet he could not seem to help himself.
She noticed. ‘Will you never stop staring at my body?’
‘Never,’ he said fervently, and kissed her lips through the veil of her bonnet. It was a strangely erotic obstacle. The taste of her was on his tongue, but he received only hints of it through the lace.
Two Wrongs Make a Marriage Page 14