Loving Lady Lazuli (London Jewel Thieves Book 1)

by Shehanne Moore

  “Cassidy.”

  “That’s as much as you will damn well be seeing for now.”

  He didn’t mean to swear, or to reach into the carriage either. Another mistake. He had at least reckoned on getting her inside Chessington first, before he got inside her, and not on taking her on the coach floor. But the body to body contact, the impression of ruffled indignity, even the swish of her black skirts made his skin tighten, as he yanked her out the coach door and down the step. Christ, she was delicious, especially when she set her jaw like that and eyed his waistcoat with a thief’s cold calculation.

  The most notorious jewel thief in London in his bed? He’d no wish to be deprived. Already the chills that swept him left him with the distinct impression a fever lay on his skin. Of course he should have remembered that unlike his whores and his married women, she wasn’t here, about to enter into this indecent pact, for him.

  It made her more attractive. He hadn’t felt anything quite like this in years. Usually he didn’t want to know a name. But then her lips had haunted him, hadn’t they?

  Before the night was out he hoped to feel them on his body, although that too, inhabited the realms of a damnably boyish respect. Hunger—yes. Of the carnal sort—absolutely. Nothing he leered about, nothing he would force though. Given how he could humiliate her for what she’d done to him, it penetrated his consciousness in terms of being astonishing, as far as anything could penetrate it. Or he’d release her instead of sweeping his gaze over the entirely too bold contours of her face.

  “Supper awaits us, Miss Armstrong. If you don’t want it, I can just as easily tell Carson to take the coach and you back to Barwych, and you can leave—”

  “Supper? Lord Hawley?”

  The thought of food wasn’t just highly appealing to this boldly provocative brigand, it was the reason the coral lips set in that compelling fashion and her eyes gleamed, wasn’t it? And he’d heard it said food was the fastest way to a man’s heart. Well, well.

  At least it stopped him resorting to the cheapest of threats to keep her. Ones he would have no compunction about carrying out if she now turned tail. Although the thought of her turning tail, before he’d had the opportunity to experience her, dried his throat. The knowledge of her so close, in this mysterious black coat too, filled him with such a fire, and the scent of her hair, a little damp, a little cold, but unmistakably her, slowed his brain.

  “Yes.” He fought not to grimace. “Or maybe you thought I was somehow going to starve you?”

  “Well, it happens I am hungry. So? Supper first is it?”

  First? Fortunately, when it came to hearts, he wasn’t here to find a way to hers because that cool appraisal suggested she’d none. She drew up her chin. This new boldness—oh, she had been bold before, but then there was at least the veneer of attempting to appear serene—this new boldness was appetizing, dazzling. This new boldness was something he couldn’t take his eyes off. How had she blended into the background as Sapphire with a manner like this? Eyes like these?

  “In the rush to pack, and bring myself here for your edification, I am afraid I forgot to eat,” she added.

  His eyes narrowed. Rush to pack? And yet she only brought one bag. That he could see anyway. The coach roof was bare. Of course, he hadn’t looked around the back. But a woman who traveled so light? He’d never known one. Not in his vast and intimate acquaintance with womankind.

  Deliberately he released her. Then he strode around the back of the carriage. Then he stepped back. All right, so Carson had fastened the trunk there. After her performance with the emeralds, and then with Lord Koorecroft, he hardly needed reminding she was cunningly manipulative though, and she might steal the papers from under his nose and waltz off into the darkness leaving him unfulfilled.

  “There … there is something wrong, Lord Hawley?”

  He jerked his chin around. She was. But the fact was he wanted her. More than revenge. More than he’d wanted anything in a long time. Yes. He’d have blamed the opium had he taken any. He’d been too busy making a play of letting the servants think the key to the door linking her room to his was missing, and organizing supper, to dose himself up.

  Anyway he wanted his mind clear. He’d waited a long time for this. Maybe the coat wasn’t his idea of heaven—that black silk peignoir she’d kissed him in that night was something, wasn’t it? If she was wearing that beneath the coat, he’d be a happy man.

  By the time the evening was out they would be doing a damn sight more than eating.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Supper? Entering the brightly-lit hall, Cass knew one thing. This was going an awful lot better than she’d hoped, although what she’d hoped for, she wasn’t sure.

  She had the phial secure in her sleeve. It would be no trouble to administer it over a quiet brandy, and then search. It was a big house and the papers could be anywhere. In the library. A bedroom. The attic. She tried to keep her gaze from wandering across the checkered floor. A damnable habit but there it was.

  Of course, she’d vowed never to steal again. It wasn’t just sad to be forced back on her word, when she and Ruby had taken all the trouble of plunging into the Thames and paying a fortune to all sorts of people—the undertaker, in particular, had demonstrated the greed of a sty of pigs--it was appalling. There was no if about this though. She wasn’t sleeping with him.

  He strode to the library door, again with that slightly uneven gait, as if there was something wrong with his leg. “The papers are in here.”

  Going an awful lot better? Was that really what she’d thought a second ago? This was brilliant. The rooms, the bureaus, the cabinets, this saved her rifling. The vow it let her keep.

  “You can satisfy yourself by seeing I have them. And have looked them out.” He pushed the door open. “And then—”

  Then? Attaching a smile to her face, she glided across the checkered floor. Why, then, she’d use the phial. It was why she’d brought it. So why suffer any pinprick pang, especially when bits of her still burned from her brief bodily contact with him outside the coach?

  Nothing wrong with his leg, was there, when he’d taken that shovel from her. Or yanked her down the coach steps? Before she started feeling even a pinprick of pity, maybe she should remind herself of what was important here? That—now she knew where the papers were—was on emptying the contents of the phial into his drink and bolting with them.

  “Then, of course, Charlie may bring in the bags you seemed to have difficulty believing were there, Lord Hawley,” she said.

  Blatantly handsome though, wasn’t he? Black coat and trousers. Maroon neck-cloth. The intensity of his gaze making it all the more dangerous despite the soft candlelight playing on it.

  Oh, she could rid herself of the albatross she’d made of virginity and have him. Herself, who wore that albatross of necessity given it wasn’t just thieving dens Starkadder ran but brothels, and only the fact no one had seen her face had kept her out of one. But she wasn’t going to.

  “Over there, Miss Armstrong. On the table.”

  “But of course. Thank you.”

  She swept into the room itself. She wouldn’t want him thinking she’d stared at him after all. She fingered the top box with her gloved hand. Then she edged off the lid. Now, at last, she might find out something. That was what she was here for.

  In fact maybe she could find it before they had supper, before she had to use that laudanum at all. Why not? The truth. The truth was here somewhere. She plunged her hands into the dusty box.

  “Tomorrow.” Devorlane Hawley caught her wrists. “There’s no need to make it quite so obvious you want that more than me.”

  “I’m sorry?” Cass jerked up her chin. She was wearing gloves, wasn’t she? She didn’t want to look to make sure, but it didn’t feel like it. “Well, I don’t think we should pretend, Lord Hawley, this is anything less than a transaction. Or that I’m consenting to being ruined by you for any other reason.”

  “Ruined?” His sensuou
s mouth curved faintly. “I daresay it’s better than being hung. Though I must say, you speak of yourself very highly, for someone accustomed to living cheek by jowl with men’s pockets. Ruining themselves in every way it’s possible to be ruined. But if you’d like to come upstairs, supper awaits.”

  Under other circumstances the stinging nature of the casual remark would have made her blood boil. Why let him provoke her when it was plain as the brass clasps on the box there—sixpence the lot—the thing he despised her most for wasn’t what she was? Or that she had airs about herself. It was his desire for her despite it. He could disguise it—try to—as much as he wanted. What had just burned her skin was passion’s very breath.

  Maybe that lineage chart there, not supper was what she wanted, she had the means at her disposal to deal with him. By morning she and the papers would be far away.

  “But of course, your command is my absolute wish.”

  Assuming an air of the confidence she wasn’t about to let sink from her in any kind of waves, she followed him back into the hall and up the stairs.

  Of course she didn’t know what she was going to do should the papers prove less than useful. Fortunately there was such a thing as coming back. Not as herself, it was true. She’d need to find another disguise. One he wouldn’t see through.

  One thing was clear, now that the doors stood like silent sentinels on either side of her. The marble busts of the first and second dukes too—worth nothing except to members of the Hawley family. Who the hell would want them? Code orange it was. Coming back in disguise.

  He paused.

  “I’ve chosen this chamber for you. Charlie will soon bring your bags.”

  “Yes, of course. How kind of him and you.”

  She shrugged, thunderingly aware of him standing next to her as he clicked the door open on the fire-lit room he had chosen to install her in. Not at all unpleasant, firelight streaming on golden brassware sitting in the hearth, the cream shades of the Argand lamps—two guineas a piece—bathing the room in a soft glow. Chrysanthemums in ornate Chinese half guinea vases. Cushions that had been plumped halfway to death. Of course, the bed had been turned down. A scene set for seduction. Too bad.

  “You wish to remove your coat, Miss Armstrong? To make yourself at home?”

  She didn’t especially, and her scalp prickled that he gestured for her to go before him. Still, she had dressed with care, in what by no stretch of the imagination could be thought otherwise than the plainest gown, stockings, and sensible shoes. Unless of course his imagination was that of a blind man or a dotard. Why stir his suspicions with a silken spoon though when he knew she hadn’t wanted to come?

  Only now—well now, looking at the cold cuts on the dresser, the champagne chilling in the ice bucket, she blushed to remove the coat for the wrong reasons, didn’t she?

  Her practiced eye knew the threadbare aspect of this once fine country seat. This? This wasn’t it. Everything here was of the best. She could only attribute that to him. Tilly and Eudora were hardly likely to have arranged it. As for Belle—oh yes, Cass could just see Belle doing that.

  His footstep sounded softly beside her. “What are you thinking?”

  “I am just wondering how I am going to explain Elgered’s absence.”

  She wasn’t wondering anything—apart from how not to remove her coat all of a sudden.

  “Elgered?”

  Ignoring his hovering proximity, she swept forward. “Yes. Gil. After all he’s meant to be in Berkshire, isn’t he? You know as well as I do where he is right now. So you’ll also know as well as I do, we need a story, if I am here and he … isn’t, before we get to any kind of business, that is. I just … I just would sleep so much easier in that bed knowing that much had been thrashed out.”

  Out the corner of her eyes, she sensed his gaze track her.

  “Why don’t I take the liberty of saying he has left on a mission and you are in my protection?”

  While she may have had no physical experience of men, it didn’t mean she didn’t know how their minds worked. Was he really this desperate to have her?

  She read it in the way his gaze roamed her. The way he walked around her. Now that he stood opposite his eyes held more than glittery hunger. How unnerving. Unless he knew what she had up her sleeve? And this was some ploy to shame her into not using it? Well, she couldn’t let him. She couldn’t remove the coat either.

  “You, Lord Hawley? I didn’t think that was what we’d agreed. With Tilly and Belle that is.”

  His gaze iced. He walked to the giant mahogany wardrobe and removed a hanger. “I will tell them you were never married if that’s what you want, that the whole thing was a front.”

  His tone held a trace of grit. How much more did she want from him? Why did he give it?

  “But you are a spy, Miss Armstrong. Is that understood? Before you open your sweet lips and start protesting.”

  “Me? Protest?”

  His gaze, dark, motionless, held hers. “I don’t want Lord Koorecroft asking any awkward questions.”

  “Even when it is your intention to ruin me?”

  “Just sometimes, intentions can change. Now your coat.”

  He reached for the buttons, his touch alarming enough to send hot shivers spiraling down her spine, up it too, all the way to her hair roots, to her toes which curled in her boots, even as she fought to stop them.

  “We can leave the food till after.”

  “After? You mean—after … ”

  “What’s wrong with that? Then you can dine with me in that charming black peignoir you wore the other night when you kissed me.”

  Charming? He had high hopes when she’d dressed like a crow. So now … now he finished unfastening the buttons and took off her coat, the awful one, covering the even more awful dress, she needed to think how to reconstruct this. Because now, his face fell.

  “If I’d known you’d no clothes, I’d have sent over something.”

  She straightened her arm so the cool glass of the phial slid down the inside of her sleeve toward her fingertips.

  “Obviously my clothes befit a widow, not a whore.”

  It was only a pity that her attempt to shrug and sound nonchalant was marred by the soft thud of the phial slipping clean through her fingers and landing on the rug. How sodding great was that?

  “Charlie, with the bags. At the door no doubt,” he offered.

  “But of course.” She strove not to flinch, terror that he was going to look down and see what lay on the rug, rising, although if he thought the thud was Charlie, he was welcome. “And who knows but I might have something in them. Something—” Appearing inviting was not something she did as a rule but there was a first time for everything. “better.” She nudged the phial quickly under the sofa.

  “Then I’ll go look.”

  “Yes. Please do.”

  Her heart sank. Why couldn’t he have said that before she kicked the phial under the sofa? Still, he crossed to the door. She glanced down. Now what? It wasn’t necessary for her to have ever been with a man to know, if he turned around from the door and caught her on her hands and knees trying to fish the phial out from under the sofa, he’d pounce. Even if he wasn’t aroused, his suspicions would be. It wasn’t as if she could say, ‘I’m looking for the laudanum I planned on tipping in your drink.’

  If she had worn something a little more alluring, she might now be able to put him off guard, instead of standing here like a frump. Her heart thudded harder. He stuck his head out the door and looked up and down the empty corridor.

  “The food … the food is … ” She spoke with a confidence she was nowhere near to feeling. In some respects it didn’t matter what the food was, the drink neither, when she’d lost the laudanum to put in them, did it?

  He shrugged and closed the door.

  “Cold? It’s hardly the only thing.”

  Did he mean her? For a second she was caught between hoping that even he wouldn’t be so brazen and the misgiving
s that howled like wolves in her veins. Talking doors, she couldn’t afford to be shown this one when the phial was on the floor and the papers down the stairs.

  “Lord Hawley, I do realize how this must look to you. The truth is—”

  His brows drew together. “You didn’t intend coming here to be my mistress, did you?”

  “I did … and I do have more suitable clothes.”

  “Perhaps. But the fact is you couldn’t have worn worse ones.”

  “I’m offended you think so. As I said to you I may dress as a widow, it doesn’t mean I am one underne—”

  “I know what you said. What you said is beside the point when you agreed this afternoon to do it in exchange for seeing the papers.”

  “And I am going to do it in exchange for the papers.” A stroke of sheer genius occurred. “I just need to make my necessary preparations in private so we might begin the evening for—”

  “Prove it.”

  Her gaze froze on the embroidered leaf on his waistcoat. “P-prove it?” she stammered.

  “If your preparations are what I think, they won’t be worth a damn.”

  Her preparations? My God. How could he know? “Lord Hawley, I want you to know that … it … well, it was, it was all of it, the dress, the … well … Rub—”

  “While it’s charming of you, there is no need to blush, Miss Armstrong. I should have mentioned it this afternoon.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I’m not a complete cad, you know. I understand you’re not the only one who won’t want a lasting reminder. Please be assured I’ll take care of that.”

  “Oh…” Suspicion thudded, pulsing from her cheeks to her toes, which she just managed to keep standing on, that what he meant had nothing to with the laudanum whatsoever. Ignorance both drew, yet prevented her, from giving the thought the feet and legs it deserved. “Right … ”

  “So, prove it, if you intend keeping your side of the bargain. If not, the door is there. I should add the fire is too. If you think I’m for keeping a pile of useless old papers that are cluttering up my house, you can think again.”