“My sacred arse.”
“So you said already.”
“Why was that, Saff? That yer agreed?”
“Well, he … he … ”
No. She wouldn’t say. How could she? To be truthful about what she was doing here? She didn’t know. Not the way he’d behaved toward her the last few weeks.
“See, Saff, whot I’m smellin’ here is rats.”
Actually it was insulting. Didn’t Ruby think her capable of interesting a man? Just because she hadn’t, didn’t mean she couldn’t. Why, look at Gil—perhaps not right now though.
“Big, fat ‘uns.” Ruby’s gaze fixed itself, so Cass felt it boring holes in her skull. “Don’t say I never warned yer. I am worried about yer. Known yer too long not ter be. But yer want ter get yerself banged up—”
“Banged up? Don’t be ridiculous.” Well, it was, wasn’t it? Especially as they hadn’t been doing anything since that evening, when his words had as good as slapped her face.
She would have liked to. God, how she would have liked to. Surely Ruby didn’t think that was why she stayed when she had these papers to look at?
“In jail, Saff.”
“Oh that?”
If he’d dashed down the driveway to meet Lord Koorecroft, perhaps she might have admitted it was unusual for him to take himself off like this. But the post-boy? Was Ruby barking mad? It wasn’t as if she’d done anything to him, past or present. Apart from sticking these emeralds in his pocket that night. Hardly the crime of the century. In fact she could argue that in his treatment of her, he did things to her.
“How’s that going to happen, Ruby, eh? Will you stop being stupider than you already are?”
“Stupid? Yer ain’t ever asked yerself why a toff like him would ask a woman like we are, ter stay here till Christmas Day? Well?”
“Because I have Lord Armstrong’s papers to look at. And there are things that have come to light I need to prove. Things he said. Tilly said. About me.”
“Whot fings?”
When she’d always set such store by her dreams Ruby must understand this.
“That my father was a tinker.” But Cass would find the truth, wouldn’t she? That he wasn’t? It was there. It had to be. Then she would take this back. Like old times. She had just found it difficult to look, to concentrate when so much undermined her she was actually sleepless for it. And her hands, her palms were calloused. It all came back to the fact she could do this, couldn’t she?
“Soddin’ gut rot. Yer?”
“I’m glad you think so but—”
“I don’t fink. I knows. And I knows yer don’t need ter prove that ter anyone. His soddin’ toffee-nose-ship most of all. Cos I knows yer. Tinker’s daughter, my arse. But maybe that’s whot this is really all about? Provin’ yerself?”
“Me?”
“So yer can live in his world?”
“What?”
She’s hoped to, yes. Take her rightful place at Barwych. Except the underlying shock in Ruby’s voice said more. That she wanted to find out so she was good enough to breathe the same air as him on a more permanent basis. It was a consideration, if you wanted to consider being with a man who didn’t want you, a roué, an addict. But she didn’t. How could she?
She’d helped him. With things she couldn’t explain to Ruby, to anyone, he was so private about them. Explain what it did to her either, seeing him as she sometimes did, knowing he didn’t want her. Knowing that being freed from the constraints of being his mistress hadn’t helped her set her mind to the task of these papers.
“Because this here ain’t our world. Yer should know that. Yer used ter, which is why yer was so safe ter be wif.”
“I’m still safe to be with. What the hell’s wrong with you? I’ve not changed.”
“And when yer talked about comin’ here and startin’ again, I believed yer. All them years I believed yer. But now, me and Pearl ain’t waitin’ around ter be banged up wif yer, because if yer asks me, that’s whot he’s really after. I’m sorry, Saff, it’s not whot’s wrong wif me. It’s what’s wrong wif yer. This is where it ends.”
What?
Ends? Had she just heard that? Why the blazes was Ruby taking that tack? Equally, Ruby was accustomed to taking all sorts of things. Why should this be different? Before Cass could part her lips to say so, Ruby swung on her heel.
"Come on, Pearl."
For God’s sake. Her friend. Her most loyal friend. How could she be walking away like this? Scrunching through the snow toward the trees? Pearl too, although Pearl had the good grace to shrug sheepishly about it. Pearl knew exactly what Ruby was like. Always making scenes, trouble, getting into fights. Ruby would be back. They both would. They didn’t really mean this.
It didn’t stop what pricked Cass’s eyes. Or the fist that grasped her throat so she couldn’t swallow. Over him, a bleeding toffee-nosed snout if she’d ever so much as seen one. Imagine? She never would have.
Actually Ruby’s description was unfair. Devorlane Hawley didn’t have a toffee snout. He wasn’t toffee-nosed. Everything else maybe. But not that. And what was so wrong that Ruby couldn’t wait another day? Another week? However long it took for Cass to find the truth of who she was? Now that Gil was gone, now that she was here, they were safe. Wasn’t Cass selling herself into hock to ensure it? Pricking her palms? Watching bits of herself be leeched away? Night after night. Day after day. Like the suds in these damned basins she used to dress his leg.
“Have your friends just left?”
Oh God. Of all the days, of all the times for Belle to pounce, this wasn’t it, a ferreting brown ferret in her cloak and muff, her eyes, contrary to anything written in the immovable laws of physics, expanding in the cold.
“They’re not my friends, Belle. They’re my companions.”
And she’d just watched them go.
“Only they seem to have called for you every day. Unusual for companions, especially when you were unavailable to see them most of these same days.”
Was there an implicit dig in this? Because Cass was with Lord Fancypants Hawley, who Belle believed she’d a God given right to. Him? And Belle? Don’t make her laugh.
“But there.” Belle patted a stray ringlet into place. “Who am I to observe on the strangeness of such behavior?”
Yes, there was a dig. A joke when Devorlane wanted Cass about as much as he wanted Belle. If she’d found what she was after in these papers, would he treat her differently? Did she want to make herself laugh? At the end of the day when it came to choosing a woman to be his wife, it would be someone like Belle. Someone who was connected. Moneyed. After all, he could have mistresses, couldn’t he?
“But perhaps you pay them well, Cassidy? And it is part of what their job is? As opposed to being a friend that is, which role seems to be redundant?”
Cass couldn’t help it. He stood across the lawn. Alone now. His head bent over whatever the post-boy had given him. She’d join him. She’d sooner die than have him think she’d quarreled with Ruby over him, any more than she wanted Ruby thinking she was troubled by her departure. Such things were beyond her. She was Sapphire after all. As for Belle? Belle could go to hell. It was nowhere Cass hadn’t been for years.
“Excuse me, Belle, but we were never friends. You just happened to knock on my door. That doesn’t make people friends.”
“Is that what you think, when there was a musta—”
“Please, Belle, if you don’t mind … ”
Cass’s boots crunched through the snow. As she reached him he glanced up. His hand darted into his greatcoat pocket.
“Is there something wrong, Miss Armstrong?”
“Cassidy.”
“I thought you were with your friends?”
“Oh? Them?”
Somehow she forced her jaw not to tilt, although it probably did that anyhow. When it was finally revealed she wasn’t any old bastard, but Lord Armstrong’s bastard, it was better to have proved she was refined. Barwych had
long been her desire. Although living so close to him when her heart hammered like this, would be every bit as difficult as forcing back the niggle about whatever the hell it was he’d just tucked in his overcoat’s inner pocket.
“It was too cold for them today.”
“But not for you, still out here?”
She drew a breath of clean, frost-filled air. Any more of this and she’d slice her palm on the mustard spoon. Unease flickered beneath his eyelashes. The post-boy had given him something. Of course it was none of her business but doubt niggled. What if Ruby was right?
“Oh, Arctic temperatures are warm to me. Military orders, was it?”
“I’m sorry?”
“What the post-boy delivered just now?”
Why on earth did he look like that? As if the crown jewels were what the post-boy had delivered? Freshly nicked and wrapped in some sort of plague infested cloth? The best whoever had nicked them could find at short notice?
“The post-boy?”
“Yes. Isn’t that him heading down the drive?”
Why deny what she was seeing with her own damned eyes?
If his had been narrowed before, they were like slits now.
“He didn’t give me anything.”
“But I thought I saw him—”
Although she tried to stop it, her gaze dipped down his chest. How interesting to see that she wasn’t so far down the slippery slope, thinking the folds of his coat were inviting and the hardened bone and muscle that lay beneath them more so, she also couldn’t see he lied.
“You’re mistaken.”
She hesitated. She’d sworn off stealing. Although the various things she’d stashed at the back of the dressing table drawer were testament to her failure to hold to that vow. If she was going to do it now though, wasn’t it best not to cross swords? Especially with him.
Her eyes lingered on the fine dark wool of his coat.
She’d sworn off something else as well. That, if she placed herself in further jeopardy, would be a gross mistake, although that would certainly be one way to get access to his pocket. Why wait?
She tilted her chin. “I’m cold. My hands especially. Do you mind if we go back indoors?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Cass stood on tiptoe. Not that she needed to, when the thick rug was soundless. But have Devorlane Hawley coming in here and finding her, raking about in his belongings, when she was supposed to be pinning her hair after the accident with the fan? She couldn’t risk it. Imagine the slat getting caught in it like that? How very inconvenient. And just as the coach clattered up to the door to take them to the dance too.
No. Having gained the advantage, she fully intended to keep it. There was the time she’d caught him in her bedroom in the monk’s cell. Why let him feel that same smugness? It was why she hadn’t even brought a candle, trusting only to the pale beam of light shafting through the adjoining door.
Hearing a burst of laughter beneath the window, she paused. The ghost of memories—too many to count—drifted up to her in the sound. The ghost of a certain past Christmas Eve too. Swallowing, she edged the bedside drawer open. How like old times this was.
She thrust her hand into the drawer. Empty. Thank God. She’d hate to think she’d quarreled with Ruby if he’d simply reverted to type, somehow getting his hands on some opium again. That he’d never stopped. It would make a complete mockery of trying to help. And go against the grain of it being asked—no demanded—she stay here.
She closed the drawer and tiptoed to the wardrobe. It was open and the shirts, in neat piles, looked undisturbed. If not there, where? Her hair was a mess and she couldn’t afford to go back down stairs with it looking like a bird’s nest.
Of course, tomorrow was Christmas Day. What if he’d hidden a gift for her? Hardly likely. His behavior since that night a few weeks ago had been crisply businesslike. With the exception of changing his dressings, he’d kept much to himself. Of course she’d pretended it suited her. If only she’d never denied him her bed, would any of this have happened?
Stepping gingerly past the wardrobe door—it wouldn’t do to fall all her length over something she didn’t see in the darker recesses of the room, like one of these damned tables, and then have to explain why her nose was bleeding—she felt her way to the writing bureau.
Whatever the post-boy had given him was here somewhere, she just had to stay calm—difficult when the bureau top was locked—and find … damn. Nothing. His coat from earlier also yielded a disappointing sodding blank.
Misgivings may have howled but she’d determined on seducing him when they came back upstairs after the walk. If he hadn’t stared at his arm as if a viper, not her hand, clasped it, that was. Of course she’d done it to get what was in his pocket and not, when her heart hammered and desire pooled between her legs, for any other reason. It made it doubly frustrating when he’d set her hand aside and sent Etti for Charlie instead.
It was obvious he’d nothing to say to Charlie. Frustrating? She’d felt like a damned fool. She needed reassurance, to know exactly what was going on. Being kept in the dark was a terrible thing. As bad as being owned in some ways. Sometimes being owned she could adjust to. Wasn’t she here? Maybe not terribly well. But she’d managed it.
She glanced around. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness now, and her gaze fell on the heavy mahogany trunk at the foot of the bed. More importantly on the box that was on it.
Of course, it was all very well forcing things when you didn’t have to explain them after. If there was a key now? Swiftly she crossed the floor and tore the box open. A key? My God, she didn’t need a key when she saw what was in it. No. This was almost too good to be true.
Her hands trembling, she set the lid down. Not opium. Not opium at all. After all this, laughter bubbled. In fact she covered her mouth. A letter, a plain ordinary letter. She snatched it up, so she could take it into the light and examine it further.
Of course she’d no business to, when it very clearly said Devorlane Hawley on it. His Grace at that. But relief flooded. Oh God, she’d thought … Opium.
What she’d thought was silly. Even a gift was silly--at least she wouldn’t have to pretend her surprise. The seal—the military seal was broken.
She tore it open. The writing that crawled across the page like a spider was hard to decipher but not illegible. Colonel Caruthers? Wasn’t he the one in the war office who was such a good friend of Lord Koorecroft? The name was certainly familiar. It could only be from that night she’d dined at Koorecroft Hall. She peered hard, forming her lips round the words.
‘Received your communication, with thanks, and appreciate you giving my offer the thought it deserves.’
Deserves? Cass pursed her lips. Pompous old goat wasn’t he?
‘As for the lady in question—’
The lady in question?
‘—if she is who you know her to be, I should think we could make very good use of her. Be sure to keep me posted of all developments.’
Use of her?
Cass breathed hard. What took control of her in that second was so suffocating, the miracle was she breathed at all, or that she didn’t fall on the floor. Everything around her surged, perhaps because of the way her heart didn’t just hammer in her chest, it bumped. As if she were the center pin of a carousel. Except swirling around with the horses was everything she had ever done with Devorlane Hawley.
Ruby? Ruby could not be right, after all. This … must be some other … well, the answer was in the wording. Lady was not anything Cass was.
He didn’t mean to hand her over. Did he? The sodding, lying bastard. Was it a coincidence that there was nothing in the Armstrong papers for her to find? Not that she’d exactly been looking lately. She’d not been looking at anything lately. Except perhaps at him. And now? ‘Know her to be ... ’
“What the hell do you think you’re doing in here?”
His voice—actually not just his voice but Devorlane Hawley himself—cut in on her.
She strove to jerk her head up in order to make an exit, a sweeping one out of any door. His. Hers. Theirs. But he was faster, limp or not. In one bound he didn’t just meet her at their shared door, he pinned her against it. The letter wasn’t something she could hold onto, not with him trying to snatch hold of it, although she’d no intention of giving it up. Why should she? Besides shock had welded it to her palm. Fortunately it had not welded her tongue.
“What do you think?”
“Give me that.” Devorlane Hawley tightened his grip and forced her wrist back against the door jamb. “You know that people who sneak into rooms, to sneak into drawers, to sneak letters that aren’t addressed to them, seldom read any good of themselves.”
He grabbed hold even as she held on tighter. It could tear for all she cared.
“I’m sure they don’t, but I didn’t sneak. Now, let me go.”
That she didn’t care was as well, as the ripping sound would have upset her otherwise. She could deny it as much as she liked, what tore in her at her own stupidity was far more alarming. The clawing, thudding knowledge that rose like a tide. One she’d never thought to experience, let alone feel engulf her in waves, crushing waves. How did she stand there upright still? The thought she was going to have to face Ruby, if Ruby had not already gone that was, and beg her forgiveness, was not the worst of it.
That something inside should tear along with the paper, that was the worst. Some silly part that hadn’t wanted to listen to Ruby, to any of it, because all she could think of was him. Even now, imagine, the disgusting awareness of his body in that immaculate damned overcoat was something she couldn’t quite free herself from. Well, she would. For God’s sake, was this why he’d brought her here in the first place? Why she sensed his disdain? Why he hadn’t touched her since that night but existed in this void she couldn’t understand?
“Of course you damned well sneaked. Because that’s what you do, Cassidy.” His voice was more measured than she’d ever heard it. “You’re a thief, so you won’t deny—”
“And you won’t deny that you’ve asked me to stay here so you can turn me over to this cootish old pig.” As pieces of paper fluttered to the floor, she somehow swallowed what flooded her in order to speak as if it was no odds to her, her chin a little set, her eyelashes lowered so she stared at nothing at all, when in fact she did stare, she stared at her own stupidity.
Loving Lady Lazuli (London Jewel Thieves Book 1) Page 22