Henry squeezed his hands so tightly, the knuckled snapped and popped.
“She’s been that way ever since. Until—” William’s gaze flicked to meet Henry’s. He let out a long sigh of dismay. “Until you came along, I suppose.”
Henry ignored the pulse of hope that leapt inside him. “Don’t sound so excited about your sister falling in love.”
“I know what you are, Lake. What you do. And men like you don’t marry ladies like Caroline. What will you do, take her to live in a filthy garret in Paris?” The earl rose suddenly, the napkin falling from his lap as he made his way to the window. Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “She loves children, you know. Wants to have a few of her own.”
The words came before Henry could stop them. “And I want to have children with Caroline. More than anything, that’s what I want. To be with her, make her my wife. Make a home together.”
“And how, Mr. Lake, do you propose to do that, with a soldier’s wages?”
Henry stepped toward the earl. “Through a variety of unlikely and frankly preposterous circumstances, I have secured a decent income. It’s small—but it’s mine, and I want to share it with Caroline. I’ve retired, you see—”
The earl whirled about, face screwed up with disbelief. “You? You’ve retired from whatever sinister games you play?”
“Trust me, no one is more shocked than I am. I took a quick inventory of the terms of my income, visited Mr. Hope at the bank. He helped me draw up a few documents—”
“What do they say, the documents?”
Henry looked down at his boots, scuffed, worn, smudged with dirt. “That I can afford to buy a new pair of boots. Hoby’s this time, maybe they’ll last a bit longer. New boots, and perhaps a manor. A small one. But it will be ours.”
Lord Harclay paused, and then: “That doesn’t change the fact that you lied for a living.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Henry replied steadily. “But I don’t anymore. I intend to become a perfectly boring gentleman farmer.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Henry set a finger on the table. “Forgive me, my lord, but I bloody do mean it. With all my heart. Question me on everything else, on my past, my family, my occupation. But don’t question my intentions, for they are good.”
The earl looked at Henry for a long time, sizing up the truth of Henry’s claim. All the while Henry’s pulse skipped and jostled; the room felt warm suddenly, the sun beating down upon him. The anticipation was killing him; he felt a burn crawling up from his stomach into his throat.
“No,” William said at last, gaze trained on a spot in the garden outside the window. “You cannot have her.”
Henry felt as if he’d been delivered a blow. Panic threatened; he gritted his teeth, and willed himself to press forward.
“Please,” he said. “I love her.”
“Is that the spy talking, or the boring gentleman farmer?”
Henry slammed his fist into the table. The china and silverware jumped, falling back to the table with no small clatter. Damnation, he hoped he didn’t wake Caroline; his temper was getting the better of him.
“I’ll beg, and I’ll grovel,” Henry growled. “And if that doesn’t work, I will leave your house, and I’ll leave your sister alone. I won’t do this without your blessing, not—” Henry stopped just short of saying not this time. “But Christ in Heaven, my lord, put your sister and me out of our shared misery. I want to ask Caroline to be my wife. I want to ask her to marry me.”
William turned away from the window.
To Henry’s very great relief, his lordship was smiling.
“Ow,” William said, gently fingering his stitches. “Smiling hurts my face.”
“I’m—sorry, I suppose?”
“Don’t be,” William stepped toward Henry, and held out his hand. “Yes. My answer is yes.”
As if in a daze, Henry allowed the earl to take his hand and pump it thoroughly. “But I—um—don’t understand. What—how—?”
“Appealing to the vanity of a man like myself is not a clever move, but it is a smart one,” William replied. “I needed to hear you say you meant to do this honorably, besides. The bit about not marrying her without my blessing—well, be still my beating black heart. Get your affairs in order, and then you have my permission to ask Caroline to marry you.”
The earl was a man transformed, his dark eyes warm, lips trembling as he fought back that painful smile.
“I’ve caused my sister an awful lot of pain these past weeks,” William continued. “I owe her—and you—an apology. The duel . . . well, that was not my finest hour.”
It wasn’t much, but Henry knew it was no small thing, for the Earl of Harclay to admit wrongdoing. William eyed Henry, waiting for his absolution. Oh, how Henry would love to toy with him, give the blackguard a taste of his own medicine, but alas, he was not willing to risk his hard-won victory.
And so he gave his lordship’s hand one final squeeze, pulling away.
And in his empty palm, Henry placed the French Blue.
William started with such surprise that he nearly dropped the stone.
“Now it’s my turn to ask why,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse.
“You’re trusting me with her ladyship your sister,” Henry replied, and nodded at the diamond. “And in return, I’m trusting you to do the right thing.”
“The right thing?” William looked up from the French Blue. “You mean give it back to Hope. But why don’t you—?”
“Because Thomas Hope will appreciate the poetry of it—the man who stole from him, returning what he stole. I’m sure you’ll come up with some ridiculous plan or another.
“Oh,” Henry said, “and one more thing. D’you happen to know where your sister hides things? You know, her version of your sock drawer. I need you to find something for me.”
Forty-five
A Few Days Later
The Earl of Harclay’s Residence, Hanover Square
Stepping into the cool dimness of the entry hall, Caroline wiped her brow with her sleeve. She tugged the gloves off her hand and shook them out over a potted palm.
Goodness, but the July heat was terrible. She couldn’t remember a day as warm and bright as this one; a poetic counterpoint to the heavy chill that permeated her being.
But Caroline was in no mood for poetry, not even that rascal Lord Byron’s feisty verse. The only thing that helped her cope with the loneliness, the sense of uselessness, was working in William’s garden.
She worked all morning, well into the afternoon. The peonies she’d planted with Henry had grown riotously, and while she cut back the rest of the garden, she could not bear to trim them. In fact, she could hardly bear to look them, or even be near them, their fresh scent a poignant reminder of the manure Henry had shoved down her back.
Henry. Caroline had expected the pain to hit her in a few weeks’ time, when the reality of his absence set in. She was not prepared for the immediate onslaught of grief; it greeted her the moment her eyes fluttered open that morning in the folly. She was naked and sore and somehow aroused. She’d reached for Henry, but he was gone.
For the second—and last—time, he’d left her.
Even now, three days after the fact, Caroline struggled against the burn of tears. She was a widow; now she had the solitude, the space to do as she pleased. She was alone. It was exactly what she wanted all these years.
She had never been unhappier. Without Henry she felt lost, and more than a little bored. If men were forced to live the lives available to women, Caroline mused darkly, no doubt they’d start a revolution. Liberté, égalité, and a little excitement, for God’s sake.
A little more freedom, to have a little more fun.
Not that Caroline would have any more fun, if she were possessed of more freedom. There was no fun to be had, not with
out Henry.
Again tears threatened. She was about to give in to them when she caught sight of the brass salver, placed on the edge of a nearby table.
It was Avery’s salver; he used it to deliver correspondence and calling cards to Caroline and William.
Only the square package resting on the salver was most conspicuously not a letter, or a calling card.
Curiosity prickled at the back of her neck. The package was small, the size of Caroline’s fist; wrapped in brown paper, it bore no stamp, no mark.
She lifted it from the table and turned it over in her hands. The wrapping was sloppy; aside from that, the package offered no clues.
“Avery?” she called. “Avery, are you there? What’s this package on the table? Is it for William?”
No answer. The house was quiet. William was still unwell; he’d dismissed half his staff to the family seat in the country, so this quiet was nothing out of the ordinary.
Still, Caroline had the funniest feeling about this package.
She started at a rustle, over there by the drawing room door. Was that a footstep, a sigh, the curtains moving in a breeze?
“Avery,” she tried again, peering past the door. “Is that you?”
She waited for an answer, but none came.
She looked down at the package in her hands, hesitated. Her curiosity was tempered by the knowledge that William probably ordered all manner of illicit objects. Perhaps she didn’t want to know what was inside.
Oh, who was she kidding.
Of course she wanted to know.
Caroline tore at the paper, crumpling it in a ball and dropping it onto the salver. The box was red leather, its edges boasting tiny designs embossed in gold leaf.
A jeweler’s box.
Her pulse leapt.
She glanced about, guiltily, as if she were a child again, daring a foray into cook’s biscuit tin.
She flipped the tiny latch with her thumbnail. Her heart turned over in her chest.
There, nestled in the blue satin inside the box, was a piece of tattered green ribbon, tied in a circlet.
“Marry me.”
Caroline turned at the sound of a familiar, rumbling voice.
Henry emerged from the shadows of the hall.
Henry.
He was here. He was back.
The light caught on his pupil, smattering the green with flecks of gold. The look he gave her was pleading, soft.
Her eyes blurred with tears as he fell to one knee before her. He took her free hand and held it in his own. With his other hand he reached for the ring, holding it between his thumb and forefinger.
“Henry,” she breathed. Her hand shook inside the warmth of his palm. “What are you doing?”
He looked up at her, one side of his mouth rising into a smile; his dimple was thrown into egregious, adorable relief.
God, that dimple.
“Caroline,” he said, holding up the ring. “I’m asking you to marry me. Again. Marry me, please. Please, Caroline, say yes.”
She plucked the ring from his fingers. “How did you find this? I haven’t—no one knows—”
“Your brother knows,” Henry replied. “Funny, both of you claim to have outwitted each other with your hiding spots. But you know all about William’s sock drawer. And William knows exactly which pair of boots you use to ferret away your secrets.”
Caroline blinked. “You—and William—my brother helped you find the ring? Knowing what you meant to do with it?”
Henry dipped his head, a nod.
“But William hates you.” Henry reached up, swiped a tear from her cheek with the pad of this thumb. “He tried to kill you in a duel, remember?”
“I remember, Caroline. Of course I remember. But we’ve since made amends. I had to bribe him, of course. He doesn’t want to let you go.”
Caroline drew back. “Bribe him? But—”
“I’ll explain everything, Caroline. Just know that William gave me his blessing.”
She started to cry in earnest then. Henry took her face in his hand, wiping away the tears as they rolled off her bottom lashes.
“I love you, Caroline,” he said. His voice was low, earnest. “I promise there will be no more leaving. Marry me again. I want to marry you in front of everyone this time. Your family and mine. Our friends. Even people we don’t like, let’s invite them. I want everyone to know that I am yours, and you are mine. Trust me. Marry me.”
Caroline swallowed. “But your work—and Paris—you said yourself that it was not possible to be together—”
“I hate to boast, darling, but I’m retired now”—Henry held up a finger at her gasp—“with the intent of becoming the fattest, most boring gentleman farmer England has ever had the misfortune of knowing. I intend to buy a pile and a bit of land, and while I haven’t a clue what to do with either of those things, I do know I would like to share them with you.”
Caroline looked down at him, her chest rising and falling as she struggled to breathe through the tightness in her throat. She swore she’d never let him close again; she swore she’d never open herself to another. How badly he’d hurt her the first time, the second; the pain of his absence was fresh in her mind, considering she’d been drowning in it just moments before.
She’d be a fool to trust him.
Except—
Except he’d proven himself to be everything she’d ever wanted. Everything she dreamed of. He wasn’t the selfish liar she believed him to be. No—he was honest and generous and fun and good God his hands and loyal and, above all else, he was in love with her.
They’d both been lonely.
They did not have to be lonely anymore.
Caroline didn’t know she was nodding until she saw Henry’s eyes spark. “Yes,” she whispered.
His smile was delirious now, and she was falling to her knees on the carpet, and Henry was digging his hands into her hair and pulling her to him and telling her he loved her, he loved her, God, he loved her.
The kiss was hard and wild and a bit slobbery, considering all the tears. When at last Henry pulled away, he held up the ring.
“May I?”
Caroline’s hand trembled as he slid the ribbon onto the fourth finger of her left hand. As it had been twelve years before, the ring was a bit loose; it felt smooth against her skin, and she toyed at it with her thumb.
“Before the wedding I’ll have something real made up for you,” Henry said. “Perhaps an emerald, or a sapphire! Yes, a sapphire, I—”
Caroline pressed her fingers to his lips. “I don’t want another ring. I want you, Henry,” she paused, looked into his eyes. “I love you.”
As she said the words, a great weight rolled off her chest, a weight that had smothered her joy. Now that joy flooded her being, bubbling inside her like laughter.
Henry grinned. “Heavens, woman, I’ve only been waiting a decade to hear you say that! I was beginning to believe you never would.”
“Let’s not wait anymore,” Caroline replied, smiling against his lips as he kissed her, and kept kissing her, until at last she surrendered.
Historical Note
The French Blue vanished from historical record following its theft in Paris from the Royal Warehouse in autumn 1792. It reappeared some two decades later in 1812 London, in association with French émigré and jeweler John Françillon; in his papers, Françillon described an enormous, and enormously unique, blue diamond that was at the time in the possession of another jeweler (you may recognize his name from the pages of this book!): Daniel Eliason.
There are a variety of scenarios that point to the French Blue’s whereabouts between 1792 and 1812; according to Richard Kurin’s excellent Hope Diamond: The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem, it’s possible Caroline, Princess of Wales, inherited the stone from her father, the Duke of Brunswic
k. If this had indeed been the case, Kurin posits the duke—under duress while at war with Napoleon—had the stone recut sometime around 1805, before sending it to his daughter in London for safekeeping.
While it’s impossible to know, exactly, how the French Blue crossed the Channel, I’d like to think this the most likely scenario; a scenario I explored in my previous book, The Millionaire Rogue.
Henry Beaton Lake, the hero of this book, tracks down the jewel so that he might make a strategic trade with the French—a trade that would save British lives. While the diamond was many things—mysterious, beautiful, even dangerous—it was not, as far as my research tells me, used as diplomatic bait during England’s war with Napoleon.
Of course, as a fan of James Bond (Daniel Craig slays me, every time!), I couldn’t resist inserting a spy into the murky history that surrounds the French Blue in the early nineteenth century. The opportunity to incorporate the French Blue into the political and military action of 1812—the battle of Salamanca, Wellington’s march on Madrid—was far too tempting to resist.
It is true King Louis XVIII and his brother, the Comte d’Artois, lived in exile in London following the Revolution. They would return to France in 1814 during the Bourbon Restoration. That they frequented White’s—and had a penchant for nubile women—is, as far as my research tells me, purely fiction.
For more on the Hope Diamond, check out Richard Kurin’s Hope Diamond: The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem and Marian Fowler’s Hope: Adventures of a Diamond, both of which proved indispensable to my research for this trilogy.
Turn the page for a preview of the first book in the Hope Diamond Trilogy
The Gentleman Jewel Thief
Now available from Berkley Sensation!
City of London, Fleet Street
Spring 1812
The evening’s winnings in his pocket and a small, if indiscreet, smile on his lips, Lord William Townshend, tenth Earl of Harclay, strode into the bank. At once a gaggle of bespectacled Hope & Co. employees gathered at his elbow. One peeled back his coat while complimenting Harclay’s cologne, even though he wasn’t wearing any (“a vigorous choice, my lord, most vigorous!”); another took his hat and gloves and bowed, not once but three times, and appeared about to burst into sobs of gratitude.
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