How Sterling had escaped was a greater mystery to Michael but one he set aside for the moment.
He started to hail a hackney cab and then dropped his arm because at the moment, he had no idea where he should go first. His head was spinning with revelations tangled up with the image of a diminutive woman with pale skin and hair the color of rose gold pulled back in a plain chignon. The delicate creature who had nearly made him forget his purpose with her surprising references to sieges and the labyrinth presented by sitting room furniture.
Miss Grace Porter was a complication he couldn’t afford—and couldn’t afford to ignore. Like any tactician, he knew better than to disregard her presence. A cunning part of him he wasn’t proud of pointed out that she might also be his only avenue into the Jackal’s lair.
Hell, that was…what the hell was that?
If he’d felt oversized and clumsy before meeting her, he felt like an ogre at the first sight of those bright clear blue eyes peering up at him. She was a stunning beauty with strong features. Even more compelling, there was something about her that snagged and held his imagination. Without artifice or the customary feminine fluttering that women adapted, a terrible habit that mystified and troubled him, Miss Grace Porter had faced him with unique directness. She’d generously ignored his rudeness and ham-fisted pleasantries and then kept him off balance with the turns of her quick mind.
He wasn’t sure there was a recovery to be made after he’d abruptly ended the exchange and fled the house. But he’d secured her agreement to allow him back. It was a weak cast to try to give him more options to reapproach the Jackal, but there was a small part of his brain that had argued that it was the most unnecessary and inappropriate question a man could ask when he was hoping to come back and ultimately kill the woman’s brother.
How does that go? May I call on you again, Miss Porter? I’d like to murder your brother some time before Sunday and I was hoping you’d extend an invitation to tea to allow it…
Michael groaned aloud at the jarring reality of where a single “social call” had led him. Not that he was going to kill Sterling…well, not…by Sunday.
And not over a tea tray in his parlor.
Either way I’m the demon who’s come to her door—and there’s no taking it back now.
Damn.
“What happened to your hat, sir? It’s a mash!” Mrs. Clay fussed sweetly. “My goodness gracious!”
“I—I must have sat on it,” he offered lamely. Michael scuffed the wet and mud off his boots as best he could, leery of tracking it into the interior of the well-kept inn he lived in. Mrs. Clay ran a tight ship at the Grove but for the life of him, he couldn’t see how she managed it so sweetly. She bustled and hovered and without a single cross word, had everyone in her employ cheerfully doing her bidding, competing to please her.
She shook her head and held out her hand. “Give it here, sir. Let me have a try at mending it and if not, I’ll ask Tally to give it a proper burial in the side yard, with all the honors due it. Not that I’ll have the maids sing hymns or wrap it in a flag but hand it over, Mr. Rutherford.”
He reluctantly held it out to her, not because he had a sentimental attachment to the damn thing but because he had no other and the weather required one. He also knew his landlady well enough to know he was about to give her a great amount of happiness. “Mrs. Clay, would you be kind enough to pick me out a new hat? I have no eye for it but I beg you, something simple and dark. No…decorations, please.”
Her eyes lit up and she clapped her hands together, further smashing the remnants of his damaged cover without a blink to her ample bosom. “Oh, Mr. Rutherford! What a joy! I can’t remember the last time I got to buy a man a hat! Mr. Clay, God rest his soul, always let me pick out all his things for I swear that man had no sense of it. I do miss some of his bolder attempts at selecting a waistcoat though, and…” She stopped herself and stepped back. “Just write down the haberdashery you prefer and give it to Tally when he’s up with your dinner and I’ll see to it right away.”
He nodded gratefully and turned to head upstairs but then stopped. “Mrs. Clay?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
She blushed and straightened her apron. “It’s just a hat, Mr. Rutherford!”
“As you say.” He retreated up the stairs, through the first floor sitting room and to his apartment door, unlocking it with a sigh. It was a unique sanctuary, with its oversized bed custom made for him so that his feet or arms didn’t overhang the edges, and sturdy furniture more suited to a hunting lodge than a city inn. The room was nearly devoid of decorative objects, other than the few that Mrs. Clay had added, but it boasted a beautiful large rough stone fireplace and a mantel where he’d put his penny novels and favorite books held in place by a rusted counterweight and a plain wooden box that held various odds and ends.
With the ingrained habits of a military man, there was a place for everything and everything was in its place. He hung his coat on its hook and set his boots next to the fireplace grate to dry. In the top drawer of his dresser, next to his shaving kit and personal items, Michael retrieved a locked steel box and tucked it under one arm. Then in his wardrobe arranged with his meager selections by weight and season, he located the small hidden compartment against the back where he’d put the key to his desk.
Ever since his careless mishandling of his notes had led to near disaster when Josiah’s Eleanor had bumped into him before the terrible fire at the Thistle, Michael had started locking away his diary and notes. Caution had gripped him ever since—caution and a growing sense of guilt; guilt that it had been his idea to start encoded exchanges with the Jackal, taunting him into a nearly tragic meeting at the gambling house.
They’d survived the fire—just barely. And none of his friends had ever hinted that he held him accountable for the mess. But it didn’t matter. Michael wasn’t the kind of man who required someone else to point out his faults. He kept too close a watch on them himself.
Without wasting any time, Michael sat at his desk, unlocked his papers and began penning notes to all the men of the Jaded to summon them for a meeting, grimly conveying the urgency and avoiding the subject at hand for security’s sake. He was cautious by nature and didn’t want any misdirected notes to give anyone an idea of what he’d discovered.
Normally, they’d have met at Rowan’s but one simple thing made Michael alter their routine and draw his friends to the Grove—he didn’t want them to be too predictable.
Well, that and he didn’t want to go back out in the cold spring rain without a good cap.
Sterling Porter leaned back in the small uncomfortable confines of the hired hackney as it made its way through the streets of London from the East India Trading Company’s docks. It was later than usual but he’d warned his sister that with his new responsibilities his hours were harder to predict.
Not that it affected his expectations of a hot dinner and orderly house.
Grace was generally useless but subservient enough to suit him and she made no demands on his resources. He’d resisted her arrival years before but later decided it helped him to have her in hand. His house was run the way he wished without argument and she was an improvement over a wife who would complain about his lengthy absences and travels; or interfere with his plans with endless questions.
Grace was strange and awkward, despite her beauty. She was always scribbling in her journals, although on what subjects Sterling couldn’t imagine. She almost never left the house, had no acquaintances he could name as significant and had no interests beyond the books in her small bedroom or maintaining the walled garden. He had once speculated if Town would change her, but Sterling scoffed at his own anxiety on that account.
He’d dutifully included her in a few small social gatherings after she’d first arrived on his doorstep but it had led to nothing but embarrassment. When Grace did speak, the questions she posed to
his friends were always ridiculous or shockingly odd. The turns of her mind boggled him. Sterling had no sense of humor when it came to these matters and no desire to have it known that his sister was “off” or even worse, a “free-thinker” or radical. Better to keep her home and out of sight than asserting her bizarre opinions on the mythology of clouds or asking how sailors made scrimshaw to colleagues and peers he was attempting to impress.
He blamed his father for her lack of education and polish, but wasn’t surprised at it. Their father had convinced her that she was plain and Sterling saw no benefit in correcting his little sister’s lack of vanity. She’d had some schooling and a few tutors and was literate enough for a woman but Sterling hated the echoes of his country childhood and it was hard to look at her and see anything else. He’d long since determined to have as little to do with his past as possible. His father’s idea of success was a year with a good crop where his grain mill business thrived and he could swagger about the village and have the other men tip their hats when he passed by.
Fat small-minded fool!
Sterling knew he was meant for better things and had driven himself ruthlessly to achieve his goals. From a menial job as a clerk, he’d slowly clawed his way up through the ranks—but not very far.
Not nearly far enough to suit him.
Sterling had always made the most of every position and every connection, no matter how seemingly inconsequential. If there were leverage to be gained, he’d found it and sniffed out any hint of business that might prove profitable. From the first, he had invested his meager earnings into small deals until he’d made a name for himself for uncovering good opportunities. Both within the Company and without, Sterling had brokered business relationships and made the most of every chance. He’d saved enough money to get a taste for the finer things, but greater chances to prove his worth and advance in the company eluded him.
At least, they had until the fateful day he’d been assigned to reorganize the reports from a remote province in Bengal. In a forgotten file, Sterling had uncovered an opened missive from the appointee there that spoke of a mythic treasure. A raj had made casual mention of a sacred treasure, a diamond whose beauty and power would make any other look like a worthless pebble in comparison. The raj wished to give it to the Queen of England in exchange for one of her daughters’ hand in marriage.
It was the most ridiculous offer and claim imaginable. And other reports from the area confirmed that the local raj was known to be mentally erratic, so no one had paid the ridiculous letter any mind and his mention of a treasure was lost.
Except that it then had Sterling’s full attention.
It made no difference to him if the man were a raving lunatic. It was the diamond he was after and after several weeks poring over other obscure reports in the archives of the Company, he found another reference to a “sacred treasure” and some snippet of a ridiculous prophecy that alluded to foreign hands holding the treasure and taking it far away so that the stone could fulfill its destiny.
And in his mind the dream and quest had fallen into place. He would present himself as the preordained foreigner to the raj and take possession of this treasure. The East India Trading Company would simply be the agency through which it passed, but if the diamond were as spectacular as promised…Then the Queen would have her gift and Sterling would be rewarded with a knighthood and a fortune for bringing it to her. He would become Sir Sterling Porter and every trace of his humble beginnings would be erased.
He’d campaigned tirelessly for the resources to make his journey and won a monetary advance from his superiors to travel to India. And then nothing had gone according to plan.
The carriage pulled to a stop and interrupted his thoughts. He paid the driver what was owed and climbed down unassisted. His cheer dissipated a little as he opened his own front door. A true gentleman had a servant waiting to open doors and take his coat and hat. For a moment, he wondered if he should task Grace with greeting him.
No, better not. Grace is the acting lady of the house and it wouldn’t do to have a neighbor call and find her at the door bobbing curtsies. Not after he’d been asked about the golden haired scullery maid seen scrubbing the front steps last spring. Still one would think that without being asked she’d have the common sense to greet the brother who clothes and feeds her and generously sees to her welfare—
“Welcome home,” Grace said as she came down the stairs, unknowingly underlining his thoughts. “I’ve held dinner and Mrs. Dorsett made certain to—“
“Damn it, Grace.” He dropped his satchel on the small table and began shrugging out of his overcoat. “It isn’t holding dinner. How many times do I have to tell you that dinner is served on time when I arrive in the evening?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll eat in my study tonight.” He held out his coat and scarf to her. “Have her serve me there.”
“Of course.”
Sterling turned to go but something made him slowly swing back to assess his sister. She was meek enough, but there was a flush of color on her cheeks and a brightness to her eyes that made him wonder if he’d missed a step.
She almost looked…Happy?
“Grace?” He folded his arms. “Did you have a pleasant day?”
Her eyes widened for a split second but then she answered sweetly. “You are so kind to ask! I had a lovely day. The weather was uncooperative so I was able to finish the accounts for the monthly budget along with the menus and then invented my very own furniture polish using that orange oil that Mrs. Saunders recommended. But I added a touch of—“
“Oh, for god’s sake!” Sterling shook his head in disgust and retreated to the sanctuary of his office, unwilling to be bored to tears by the trifles of her day’s domestic triumphs.
And missed the mischievous grin on his younger sister’s face.
CHAPTER THREE
There was a long moment of shocked silence after Michael spoke as each of the Jaded tried to absorb his words.
“He was…one of us?” Rowan asked from his chair. “You’re certain?”
“Why did it never occur to any of us that he wasn’t dead?” Galen asked.
Darius readjusted his wire-rimmed glasses. “Seriously? Perhaps because death seemed the most likely fate when the guards hauled him out of that dungeon never to return? Perhaps because we couldn’t think of a reason for him not to be dead?”
“At the Thistle,” Josiah said. “In the stairwell, remember? He said, ‘We meet again’ and something about being ‘old friends’.”
“I remarked about it at the time,” Michael said, then walked to the study’s window and looked out into the night. “And then forgot it all like a fool in the days that followed.”
“It was a vague clue at best,” Ashe noted. “The bigger hint was that the bastard appeared to know far too much about what happened to us in Bengal.”
“Sterling!” Darius sighed. “We’ve had a ghost on our heels all this time.”
“I say we make him a ghost in earnest and sleep in peace tonight!” Ashe grumbled.
Rowan rubbed his temples with a sigh. “No one’s arguing that he’s not a deadly enemy of us all, but I’m not sure I can…plot a cold blooded murder.”
“It’s not murder. It’s justice!” The hatred in Ashe’s voice was as sharp as steel, and just as unyielding. “My first born lost because of his poisons and very nearly, my Caroline! What’s to discuss?”
All of them except Michael exchanged looks. Months and weeks of hating a nebulous foe had culminated in this. Their enemy now had a name and was literally within their reach but like Shakespeare’s Hamlet the men were learning that even a sense of righteous vengeance couldn’t erase all of a man’s morals—or his reluctance to personally “do the deed”.
Darius touched his friend’s shoulder. “The authorities wouldn’t agree and I don’t want to see you hanged for such a worthless man’s life, Ashe. We have no solid proof of his involvement in anything that’s happened t
o us. Not one shred that we could hold up in a court of a law as a shield to protect us if this goes wrong.”
“Darius is right. It’s our word against his. I don’t think a failed mugging, the random confessions of a murderer who then killed himself, hearsay, and a blind man’s recounting of faceless burglars and an assault on his night watchman along with,” Galen leaned back with a wry grin as he continued, “Oh, yes! How can I forget? Our involvement in a gambling house fire and the odd belief that we’ve been featured in an ancient Hindu prophecy; is going to sway a jury or persuade anyone of anything. Hell, it all just sounds like one of those bad penny novels that Michael enjoys!”
“Hey!” Michael stiffened. “Leave off a man’s books!”
“Hey!” Josiah protested with a laugh. “And I resent being characterized as a blind man!”
“My apologies to you both. I should never judge a book by its presentation and for a man wearing tinted spectacles at night and using a cane, you can see how one might make the mistake,” Galen countered archly. “What were we talking about again?”
Josiah tipped his head back against the cushions of his chair with a smile. “God, I love these meetings.”
“He’s here in London! Where exactly in London?” Ashe pressed.
Michael crossed his arms defensively. “He is here in London. And I’m not giving you his home address, Blackwell. For reasons that should be obvious, I’m not telling any of you any more until I’m ready.”
“No more secret messages in the papers, no more worrying about where he is or how to draw him out,” Ashe said. “You found him and I say we move quickly before whatever advantage we have evaporates.”
“We still don’t know why he wants this sacred treasure or if he’s ultimately the one behind what’s happened. If you move too fast, Ashe, you could end up forfeiting everything,” Darius calmly stated. “The Jackal may be on a leash and we’d be no better off.”
Desire Wears Diamonds Page 4