Dance of Seduction

by Sabrina Jeffries

  Morgan scowled. “Are you sure you should have set this up without the knowledge and support of either the Home Office or the Navy Board?”

  “After what happened to you with the smugglers, I’m not taking any chances. The less people who know, the better. One man has already died in the course of this investigation. I won’t risk another, and certainly not my best man.” Strolling over to a stool, Ravenswood perched on the end of it. “I only hope your plan works.”

  “Give it time. If the Specter really has been trading in stolen bank notes, then my doing the same will present him with a serious problem.”

  Since bank note numbers were recorded, thieves could only receive hard currency for their stolen notes by sending them to accomplices in countries less concerned about a note’s legitimacy. The accomplices used the notes on the Continent, and eventually the notes landed in unsuspecting foreign banks, which cashed them at the Bank of England. Since the Bank of England couldn’t risk its notes not being accepted abroad, it honored them…and lost thousands of pounds every year in the process.

  Morgan suspected that the Specter had his own connections on the Continent. “Once I cut into his profits, he’ll have to deal with me. Either he’ll offer to include me in his operation, or he’ll try to get rid of me. Both will bring him out in the open.”

  “But in one of those scenarios, you end up dead. Like Jenkins.”

  Morgan shrugged. “Jenkins handled everything wrong. You shouldn’t have sent a gentleman spy to deal with the likes of the Specter.”

  “Since you weren’t in England at the time,” Ravenswood pointed out, “Jenkins was all I had. And what’s wrong with gentlemen spies? I used to be one myself.”

  “Yes, but you were ferreting out traitors in French society, not trying to catch a criminal in Spitalfields. You weren’t running about asking questions of fences, pretending to be a thief when you couldn’t tell a figger from a dive.”

  “What’s a figger?” When Morgan arched an eyebrow, Ravenswood added sourly, “All right, you’ve made your point. But you’re as much a gentleman as Jenkins was.”

  “Ah, but Jenkins was raised one; I wasn’t.” He shifted his gaze to the window, and bitterness crept into his voice. “That’s why you came to me, as you well know—because of my firsthand knowledge of petty thievery.”

  “Not to mention a certain cunning and an ability to blend in anywhere.”

  Especially here. Morgan glanced out into the somber street moldering with gray despair. Living among smugglers while doing his duty hadn’t bothered him—they were naught but seamen like himself. But living in Spitalfields—

  He’d suffered most of his first thirteen years in Geneva’s streets before his father’s family had found him. Such a childhood wasn’t wiped away by a subsequent education and long service in the navy. Every day he spent on Petticoat Lane brought those thirteen years painfully back.

  He swore under his breath. He couldn’t wait to be done with this. “My point is, I’ll be more convincing as a receiver of stolen goods than Jenkins was as a thief.” Picking up a compass, Morgan breathed on the face, then polished it with his sleeve. “For one thing, Jenkins didn’t already have a tarnished reputation to lend his role credence. Whereas Morgan Pryce—”

  “So that’s why you’re using your old name instead of taking an alias.”

  Until Morgan’s family had finally claimed him publicly last year, Morgan had gone by the name of Pryce, his mother’s maiden name. It had been better for all concerned. “In practicing deception, it’s always best to stick to the truth when possible. I’m known among thieves for consorting with pirates and smugglers. Fortunately, while Morgan Blakely was exonerated of all blame for those activities, Morgan Pryce still has the reputation for them. So why not use it?”

  “Yes, but if you don’t use an alias, people you care about—like your brother—might hear of your activities. Or have you already told him what you’re doing?”

  An image of his very respectable brother, Sebastian Blakely, the Baron Templemore, suddenly filled his mind, giving him a moment’s regret. “I’ve told him nothing—ignorance is bliss and all that.”

  “Even though you’re cheating on your wager? I thought his terms were that you were to stay in England and out of danger for one year.”

  “I’m in England, aren’t I? And what could be dangerous about opening a small-business concern?”

  Ravenswood rolled his eyes. “I suspect Templemore wouldn’t agree with your interpretation.”

  “Then perhaps you should keep your mouth shut about it. I doubt he and Juliet will be coming to London anytime soon, so they’ll never know. They’re too busy up in Shropshire overseeing the wheat sowing or sheep shearing or some such nonsense.”

  Ravenswood shot him a speculative glance. “Have you never desired to join them? Surely Templemore would happily let you live on his estate.”

  “Don’t even think it!” Morgan shuddered. “Much as I enjoy the company of my brother and his wife, I’d hate playing the country squire. The first three months of the wager period that I spent at Charnwood nearly drove me mad. My brother’s estate is too peaceful.” It afforded way too much time for remembering.

  “I understand that, I suppose. I myself prefer London with all its entertainments.”

  “I prefer the sea. Activity. I’ve never been so bored in all my life as I was at the Templemore town house. If not for that damned wager, I’d have left England months ago, gone to India or Africa.”

  “Then I’ll have to thank your brother for keeping you here when next I see him.”

  Morgan eyed him askance. “Thank my sister-in-law instead. It was actually her wager. Poor woman has some notion that I’ll get into trouble without her interference.”

  A smile crossed Ravenswood’s face. “Can’t imagine where she got such an idea.” He rose from the stool. “Well, I’d best be going.”

  “Don’t forget what I want out of this—captaincy of a first-rater. Nothing less.” This nightmare would be worth it if he could sail off on his own ship and leave this godforsaken city behind.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather accept the position in the Home Office I offered you?”

  “And stay in London? Not a chance. I want my ship, and if you can’t give me that—”

  “You’ll get what you want.”

  “So you say. But I’m not entirely sure you can meet my terms, when the navy doesn’t even know what we’re up to.”

  “Don’t worry, they’ll honor my agreement with you once this is done. They always love a hero, and you’ll certainly be a hero if you catch the Specter.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  He shrugged. “You’ll be dead. Dead men don’t captain ships.”

  Morgan frowned. “Stop talking as if I have one foot in the grave. I don’t intend to die, and certainly not in this wretched place.”

  “I’ll do what I can to make sure you don’t. Speaking of that, the next time I need to reach you I’ll send Bill with a message. You know him, I believe.”

  “Worried about having your pocket picked again?”

  Ravenswood didn’t rise to the taunt this time. “Bill will also come around once a week to fetch your written report. I want to hear about every suspicious fellow who approaches you, every rumor you get wind of—”

  “I know how this works,” Morgan said dryly. “I have done it before.”

  “True. You’ve survived disasters that would destroy a lesser man. But one day your luck will run out.”

  “If it were luck, I’d worry.” Morgan grinned. “Since it’s skill, I see no cause for concern.”

  Ravenswood gave a rare laugh. “I’ll give you this—if sheer cockiness will keep a man alive, you’ll live to be a hundred.” He sobered. “Watch your back, my friend.” He turned to leave.

  “Ravenswood!” Morgan called out to stay him.

  “Yes?”

  “A figger is a boy put in at a window to gather up goods and pass them
out to an accomplice. The accomplice, the real thief, is called a dive.”

  Surprise passed over Ravenswood’s face. “How do you know all that?”

  “I picked up some thieves’ cant during those months I spied on smugglers and lived with pirates.” He held the other man’s gaze. “I also learned a few tricks about staying alive.”

  “You’ll need them, I fear.” And with that dire pronouncement, Ravenswood was gone.

  Morgan shrugged off the warning. Ravenswood might have delved into the circumstances of Morgan’s childhood, but there were whole sections of his life no one, not even his brother, knew about. Fighting for survival was second nature to Morgan.

  It wasn’t the danger of this endeavor that kept him awake at night. No, it was the damned memories. He’d kept them at bay for so long that he’d thought they would no longer trouble him.

  Until he’d landed in Spitalfields. God, how he despised it. But he’d see his task through, as he always had. And once he had his ship and the wager was over, he’d sail as far from London as he could.

  He flipped the “Open” sign back around, then spent the next few hours managing the thieves and customers who trickled in through the doors of his shop. Late in the afternoon, his stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but he couldn’t close until six, when he would go to Tufton’s Tavern for dinner.

  Remembering the apples he’d stashed in the back room when he’d come in this morning, he scanned the street through the front window. No one seemed to be around, so he didn’t bother to flip the sign back to “Closed,” but merely hurried to the back. Fruit would have to satisfy him until closing time.

  He’d retrieved an apple and was heading back to the front when he heard the bell at the door jingle. Preparing himself for the usual dismal encounter with a thief, he entered the shop, then stopped short.

  A familiar female form bent over one of his lower display counters with her back to him. She still wore the dull brown gown from earlier, but her present stance hiked it up enough to display two well-turned ankles clad in fine silk stockings.

  His mouth went dry. He’d give a year’s pay to see what else those creamy stockings covered. If it was all as fetching as the slim-hipped, full-breasted form outlined by her solemn gown, it would be worth every penny.

  When she began rummaging through his goods, however, he scowled. The little sneak! First, her nosy questions in the alley, and now this. So much for “all bark and no bite.” Very well—this time he’d run her off for good, whatever it took.

  But first he intended to play with her a bit.

  Chapter 4

  With luring tongues, and language wondrous sweet,

  Follow young ladies as they walk the street…

  Yet ah! these simpring Wolves, who does not see

  Most dang’rous of all Wolves in fact to be?

  “Little Red Riding Hood,” Charles Perrault,

  Tales of Times Past with Morals

  Clara fumbled through the compasses, barometers, pipes, and assorted other sailor’s goods atop the counter, but she found no watches. Bother it all. Where had the scoundrel put it? If she could find it, she would have accomplished half her mission here.

  Then a deep male voice said behind her, “Looking for anything in particular, my lady?”

  She nearly jumped out of her skin. Whirling around, she was startled to see Captain Pryce standing only a few feet away. “Good Lord, do you always sneak up on people like that?”

  “Only when they’re riffling my goods.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “And I see you’ve brought your watchdog.” He glanced beyond her to where Samuel stood just outside. “Though I’m not sure what good he’ll do you out there.”

  “I wanted this conversation to be private.” Some of what she had to say to him she wouldn’t want anyone to hear, but especially not her pickpockets, even former ones.

  “Private?” He slid behind the counter nearest her with an indolent smile. “I like the sound of that.”

  “Don’t get any ideas,” she snapped. “It’s not what you think.”

  “You can’t blame me for jumping to conclusions. I was fairly clear this morning about the only reason I’d want to see you in my shop. Yet here you are.”

  Yes. And here he was, all six feet of him. This morning, in the vast outdoors, he hadn’t loomed quite so large or seemed quite so menacing. But in here the low ceiling barely cleared his head, and the gloomy, insufficient light tempted her imagination to supply bulkier shoulders and a broader chest than she’d noticed earlier.

  Imagination, that’s all it was. Now that she knew his true nature, she was attributing to him a more threatening appearance than he really possessed—deeper-set eyes…an unyielding male jaw with its ghost of whiskers…rougher-cut hair.

  And when he lifted the apple he was holding and bit into it, it had to be her imagination that made his teeth seem unnaturally white and sharp. She felt less like the huntswoman and more like Red Riding Hood by the minute.

  “‘What great teeth you have,’” she muttered under her breath.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Nothing.” She steadied her nerves. “Anyway, I’m not here to provide you with companionship.”

  “What a disappointment. But then why are you here?” He chewed slowly, his insolent gaze never leaving her face.

  “Actually, I was looking for a watch.” Swallowing hard, she held out her hand. “The one that Johnny stole for you.”

  He cocked his head. “You mean the one that Johnny stole from me.”

  “You heard me correctly. You let me believe that the watch was yours, but you know perfectly well it isn’t.”

  “Did Johnny tell you that?” He seemed utterly unperturbed by her accusation as he continued to munch on the apple.

  “I overheard him and his friends discussing how he tried to sell it to you. Apparently you didn’t think to mention that during our little talk in the alley.”

  His bland expression betrayed nothing. “I didn’t want to land poor Johnny in more trouble. It’s one thing for a boy to steal a watch—quite another to steal it and then attempt to sell it.”

  “And even another for you to buy it when you knew it was stolen,” she retorted. “As I recall, being a fence is punishable by fourteen years’ transportation.”

  “Ah, my lady, how dramatic you are!” He licked apple juice from his lips, making her think of secluded paths and whiffs of wolf in the woods. “The boy offered to sell me the watch, and I agreed. I thought it was a legitimate transaction. For all I knew, he was selling off his poor dead papa’s lifetime treasure to buy his sainted mama a bit of bread. And I hate to stand in the way of virtue.”

  She snorted. His tales were even more glib than those her rogue uncles had tried to foist on her mother. “I swallowed your lies the first time because I was distracted by worry about what you’d do to Johnny. I’m not distracted now. If you’d truly thought it a legitimate transaction, you would have corrected me when I accused Johnny of stealing it from you in the first place.”

  He shrugged. “You caught me off guard, that’s all.”

  “I’m sure I did. You weren’t about to admit you’re just another of the Specter’s fences, here to wreak havoc and tempt my poor children to—”

  “The Specter? Who is he?”

  She sensed his sudden alertness, though no flick of a muscle or change in expression betrayed it. “You know perfectly well who he is, I’m sure.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “He’s the king of the fences. They all work for him. He provides them with protection from the law, from what I understand.”

  “You seem to know a great deal about this Specter fellow,” he said with a frown.

  She glared at him for continuing the pretense. “My pickpockets are a fount of information. Until now, however, he’s pretty much kept to his own part of Spitalfields, and I’ve kept to mine.”

  “Until now?”

&n
bsp; “I assume you work for him like all the others. Before you came along, there were no fences on this end of the street. It made it easier to separate my boys from the life.”

  A strange, almost regretful expression passed over his face before he masked it. “I work for no one but myself.”

  “If that’s true, it won’t last for long. The Specter is very protective of his territory. He’ll either insist you work for him, or he’ll make sure you don’t work at all. He’s been known to dispatch competitors rather ruthlessly.”

  She didn’t know what she expected, but it certainly wasn’t his eruption of laughter. “Are you concerned for my safety, mademoiselle?” He clapped his hand to his breast in a mocking gesture. “I’m touched, truly touched that you care—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, I don’t care one pin what—” She broke off with a curse. “I swear, you’re the most annoying creature I’ve ever had to deal with in my life.”

  Leaning back against the wall behind the counter, he finished the apple, then tossed the core into a slop bucket. “Then you should have stayed away as I asked you to.”

  She ignored his threatening tone, forcing herself to breathe calmly, speak rationally. “I’m only here to retrieve the watch and demand that you stop your illegal activities, at least with regard to my charges.”

  “What ‘illegal activities’? I’m but a humble shopkeeper—”

  “Oh, stuff and nonsense.” His smug confidence sparked her temper. “The one thing you are not, sir, is humble, and if you’re a shopkeeper, I’m the queen. You refuse to accept that I’m not some naive girl foolish enough to believe all your ridiculous lies.”

  “That’s one thing we both agree on.” He pushed away from the wall, then leaned forward to plant his elbows on the counter, putting him at her eye level. His gaze slid slowly down her, devouring her. “You are hardly a girl.”

  “Stop that!”

  “What?” he said in mock innocence.

  “Looking at me as if you want to eat me up.”

  His crooked smile was the very essence of wolf. “That’s exactly what I want.”