Loving Lady Lazuli (London Jewel Thieves Book 1)

by Shehanne Moore

  “Colonel Caruthers is neither a pig, old, nor cootish, you damned snit. And before you say, he is not a sodding goat either.”

  Sodding goat? How did he know that was exactly what she was going to say? It wasn’t of course. No. If she had a breath left to waste here, a breath to scrape together from the furthest corners of her lungs where it had retreated to—and she did, of course she did, because to not, was something she couldn’t countenance—sodding goat was not it. She jerked her chin higher.

  “I didn’t know that jackals were sufficiently acquainted with farmyard animals to know whether they were goats or not. Snakes either for that matter.”

  “And I didn’t know a damned—”

  “Thief, Lord Hawley?”

  She might as well say it. He needn’t stand there, too close for comfort, his eyes glazed, his lips inches from hers, as if ‘could be so desirable,’ was what he was going to say.

  When she thought about what was at the back of the dressing table drawer, when she thought about going though his things—although if she hadn’t, where would she be now if not half way to the Tower of London? When she thought about what he’d done, what she’d given him, when she thought about everything, that she was desirable was not something she would flatter her stupid vanity thinking, for all his jaw tilted, for all what flared in her blood was what always did, maybe from that first night in the coach.

  From the first moment she saw him here this was what he had planned. On selling her into something, something she could only guess at, although there being a war on and the letter bearing a military seal, she had a few ideas. He could have given her these papers for nothing, instead of making demands of her, ones that even he hadn’t been able to keep on with, because she clearly revolted him. So to feel him now, breathe him now, let him kiss her now, when it could only be because he’d been rumbled? And he thought, maybe, maybe to keep her here a little longer? No. She wouldn’t do that. He straightened.

  “Whatever you think, that letter … that damned letter you had no business raking in my things for—”

  She had to get free, let her brain ice, even if it meant him listening to the shriek of wardrobe doors being torn open and trunks denting the mattress, she had to get away from here. Now. From him, from the close press of his body and those damned hot, glazed eyes that beguiled her like a snake’s, from the knowledge he just might put his hands on her body if she stood here any longer.

  Because she felt the stupidest surging. It swept up through her toes, through her legs, swept so she could barely stand, but hot on its heels was that other feeling. The clawing knowledge of the terrible fool she’d been made of, the fool she’d made of herself. She stiffened her spine against the jamb, tilted her jaw.

  “Are you an imbecile, Lord Hawley?”

  “—raking in them as you tried to rake my pocket earlier.”

  “Because you wouldn’t give me it. Now I see why the information was something you needed to keep to yourself.”

  “Because the information, like the papers, is all you damn want. And I’m certainly not going to ask you to prove it.”

  ***

  All she damned wanted? All the way down the stairs and out to the coach, Cass fought the clawing urge to kick and bite, the frustration that seared her veins, for perhaps the first time ever. At least he hadn’t asked her to prove it. If only because Belle had walked in. Belle. After Cass had told her where to go too. Belle had knocked first of course. At least she swore she had.

  Seeing her was the final straw in a hay load of last ones. Ridiculous when he meant to betray Cass, that the longing sizzling along her veins like lightning sparks should so undermine her, she’d been incapable of rational thought in that second.

  But when it came to doors, to knocking on them, just how many had Belle listened at since Cass arrived here? Sufficient for Belle to stake her claim on him all the way down the stairs. Devorlane one, Devorlane two, Devorlane three bags full.

  Dear God, it hardly mattered now that she should think maybe … just maybe he wanted her to want him and her refusal had hurt his pride. No. Ruby was right. It was nothing Cass hadn’t believed herself the first evening she’d ever clapped eyes on Devorlane Hawley in Chessington. She didn’t belong in their world with its glistening treasures, its safety in the law, its capacity to count its silver spoons—a guinea the lot, the state his were in. At least, as a thief, she’d understood the value of things. So she also understood the value of what people like him and Belle begrudged. The papers? All she damned wanted? All she wanted was not to be spoken to like that. Treated this way. Bartered like a prize piece of meat when she’d sat up with him night after night.

  Disdaining his hand—Belle was welcome—Cass had stepped into the coach, the words, ‘you’ve made quite an impression on Devorlane,’ haunting her. Yes. So much so he meant to hand her over to Colonel the sodding goat, Caruthers. A great impression that.

  The coach rumbled to a halt outside Mistress Fan’s dressmaking shop in the town square, and she stepped out of it again. In point of fact Cass wasn’t going to step into Mistress Fan’s. She hadn’t stolen the Wentworth emeralds all those years ago to do that.

  And no words about her only wanting these papers would make her, even though she didn’t know Mistress Fan personally.

  Everything had spiraled from her control. If Belle hadn’t come in. If he’d not said what he had. If she’d not gone off like a mortar shell. So now, the appearance of normality, of serenity was still something she must aspire to, especially when Belle called,

  “Come along, Cassidy. Is there some reason you’re standing about there like that?”

  Swallowing her ire, Cass gathered her skirts to hold them clear of the snow as she followed Belle and Eudora to the brightly lit, prettily festooned doorway between Mistress Fan’s and the apothecary’s. Then, ignoring their chatter, Belle’s gushing interventions in particular, she followed them up the creaking wooden staircase, past the children larking on the landing, into the assembly rooms themselves.

  Ladies, some fine as she’d ever seen, some as ordinary as Mrs. Pennycooke, sat on benches around the holly-garlanded walls. Men lounged against pillars, or discussed the latest turnip prices. On the floor, people danced to the tune of a quartet of fiddles. Lord Koorecroft held court by the steaming punch bowl scenting the air with aromatic lemon and cinnamon. His Christmas party, thrown for the benefit of gentry and poor alike. Ideal in ways she’d never dreamed would ever be possible. Surely?

  Devorlane Hawley thought she was only interested in the papers, did he?

  Well. Before this evening was over, he’d find out the truth of that. He’d find out exactly what she was interested in. Because, before this evening was out, she’d finally escape him.

  He’d know exactly how much she refused to be owned.

  ***

  “Thief! Oh, dear God! My stars and garters! Thief! Thief!”

  If Cass was to give Belle marks out of ten for that, she wouldn’t rise above five. Not so much the shriek. The shriek was enough to waken the dead. Belle’s bony hand clutched to her nonexistent breasts too was a plus point. But to take so long to notice what had been in Cass’s reticule since the coach? Five was probably being generous.

  Ruby was right about these hoities. They did live in a different world.

  “Oh, good lord, me snuff-box!” The white-haired gentleman she’d not allowed herself to look in the direction of since squeezing past him, felt down his waistcoat.

  “The chutney spoon!”

  Someone else must be at work here. She hadn’t, so far as she recalled, been near the chutney spoon. But Ruby always said mobs were like that. Starkadder too. Give them an inch and they’d out-crucify Jesus.

  Her palms prickled as she clutched her fan. She mustn’t look with any betraying mannerisms, any fear, any trepidation. Anything that showed she was weak in any way. When she gained her victory, as she was about to do, she’d have the satisfaction of letting Devorlane Hawley know
it all meant nothing. He’d stepped into one of the adjoining rooms—disappeared on his arrival. But she didn’t doubt he’d hear these shrieks. She hoped he’d be arrested by them.

  “It’s … it’s … ” Belle leveled her finger through the parting crowd. A hush fell. “Her!”

  Cass lowered her eyelashes.

  “She’s a thief!”

  Well, of course she was. Must Belle state what Ruby would have called the bleedin’ obvious—twice? And in a way guaranteed to cause damage to everyone present’s eardrums? Still, thank God. Cass had begun to despair of anyone noticing how busy her fingers had been. Of course she was skilled, and it was nice to know she hadn’t lost it, because she wasn’t just any old thief was she? Devorlane Hawley was right about that.

  “My bracelet. It was there.” Belle held up her wrist. “And now it’s gone. Because she took it.”

  “Gone? Good God.” Lord Koorecroft almost dropped the punch ladle. “What are you saying? Her? Took your bracelet? Good God. But that is Lady Armstrong, girl. Have you lost your senses?”

  It was a pertinent question. For Belle to blame her showed a dislike and a distrust that was lamentable. Cass had expected to hear someone cry thief. But to know so well who that thief was, when there were so many present it might be … well? And yet, if she’d to count on someone, Belle had every reason to detest her. Hadn’t she stolen Devorlane after all?

  “Me? No, I have not, sir.” Belle stood her ground. “My bracelet is what I’ve lost. Stolen. Stolen away by that unspeakable slu—”

  “Would somebody mind telling me what the hell is going on here?” As Devorlane Hawley strode through the crowd toward her, his eyes blazed. “Well?”

  “It is perfectly obvious what is going on here, Devorlane. I have been robbed.”

  “Robbed?”

  Oh, this would be interesting. Cass should bate her breath, especially with the performance Belle was giving. She could grace the boards at Covent Garden.

  “Belle, don’t be so silly.” Eudora swept forward in a rustle of pink silk. “Cassidy wouldn’t do that. How can you say or think so? Cassidy Armstrong’s a lady. Why would she steal?”

  “Cassidy? Cassidy Armstrong. I knows that name. How does I knows that name?” As the old woman--shabby clothes, a farthing for dusters no more—stepped up beside her, Cass smothered the urge to say ‘because all my life everybody thinks they do. But no one does. I am nothing.’

  And just maybe that was why she had created this glittering illusion, one the toffs talked of and the newspapers wrote of and all the other girls in the Starkadder Sisterhood thought was the best thief going. Looked up to. Feared a little. Wanted to be like. The new ones coming. The old lags like Ruby. Or they had, until earlier today anyway.

  How hard she’d tried to be that other woman, Cassidy Armstrong, to hang to some silly notion. But she wasn’t her. This was what she was. Who she was. And it was over. All her silly questing. All her stupid everything. The relief she felt was huge. Bigger than this building, bigger than this town. Probably bigger than India, where she’d pretended to live for a time, because she was good at these things.

  “I’m telling you she did, Eudora. So let go of me this instant.” Belle tugged her arm free. “Because that’s not all I have to say about her. Yes. Cassidy? My stars. Do you think I don’t know what a sick, stupid joke that is? Who you really are?”

  Cass squared her jaw. And proud of it too. Especially in front of this goody two shoes—should have got her mother to buy her a better pair, except that was one thing they shared. No mother.

  “That’s damned enough, you damned snake,” Devorlane said. “If that bracelet’s missing there’s only one reason for that.”

  There was, wasn’t there? And if anyone was bound to know, it was him. Hadn’t she left him with that nice little gift all those Christmas Eves ago?

  “You took it yourself. Now hand it over. Give me it.”

  “Devorlane.” Belle’s eyes widened. “I--I do not know how you can say such a thing. I mean I just don’t.”

  Cass neither. If only he wouldn’t. Stride across what remained of the distance between him and Belle either, towering over her, so she shrank back, her hand clutching her chest. Not after all he’d done to Cass and how, despite everything, she’d tried to help him.

  “Devorlane … to me, of all people, who your dear mama, your very dear mama—”

  “I do say it. To you most of all. Do you think I don’t know exactly what you’re up to here? How damned jealous you are of Lady Armstrong?”

  “Me? Jealous? Devorlane, I refuse to believe that you of all people—”

  “Because you’ve always wanted me for yourself. And you can’t bear, can you, to see me with Lady Armstrong?”

  “Lady?” Belle’s laugh echoed around the hushed hall. “And if I did, would that be so wrong? Do you think I haven’t seen from the start how you looked at her? Spoke to her? Why, I even asked Tilly about her.”

  That must have been interesting. Small wonder his shoulders tightened, straining against the seams of his black overcoat, the one he always looked so stunning in, as much as his voice strained within the confines of his throat.

  “I don’t care what the hell you did, it doesn’t excuse this.”

  Another peal of laughter. “Oh, and no doubt I also took the mustard spoon did I? And the lorgnette Tilly has been looking all week for.”

  “What?”

  “And stuffed them at the back of her dressing table drawer, with what looked like your cuff link. Unless of course, there is some other man whose cuff link she prefers?”

  Cass swallowed. Her? When she’d never had a man before him in her life and Belle, so far as she knew, hadn’t even had one. Period.

  As for him defending her? When she was guilty as hell?

  The poor soul plainly wasn’t free of opium at all. What a waste of her valuable time. She edged her chin higher. She was here to end this after all. She just hoped for her sake he’d shut his mouth. A thief was one thing. A whore--a mistress anyway—quite another. She’d sooner hang for a thief than a whore. The time had come to say so. It was why she was here, after all.

  “No. It is his, Belle. What kind of a woman do you think I am? And there’s no need to fuss about it. To fight about it either, Lord Hawley. I’m guilty as charged. I took the bracelet. As Belle so kindly pointed out, I took the mustard spoon too, because I liked the mustard spoon. It’s pretty and has nice edges. The lorgnette is too, although that wouldn’t fetch nearly such a good price. But it was after that evening when you had been particularly obnoxious. I found it comforting. Once a thief … ”

  She had started this now, so she might as well finish it. Give them all their pennyworth, those that still had one. All these gaping milliners and whispering laborers. The powder haired matron lying flat out on the bench. Lord Koorecroft, for all he might swallow the glinting punch ladle and save her taking that too, especially when it was tin plated—worth nothing. A bit like herself.

  “And I am a thief. You’re right about that. Although not just any one. Oh, dear Lord, no. You’re quite right about that too, Belle. I am that special, elusive thief all of London struggled to find. The one the newspapers offered rewards for and who still couldn’t be found. Do you want to know why that was? Because I am Sapphire.”

  “Sapphire?”

  The punch ladle clanged off the floor. The wonder was Lord Koorecroft didn’t do the same. But then it was Christmas Eve. A time of miracles.

  “Yes.”

  “Here? In … in Berkshire?” he gasped.

  “I’m afraid so. It’s as good a place as any, don’t you think?”

  “At me party?”

  “My specialty. Why should your party be any different from anyone else’s? They’re all just parties and dances to me. Soirees, social evenings.”

  “But you said you was … you was a spy’s wife. You said … You said all sorts of things.”

  “Here’s the thing, your lordship,
I could have told you I was the Queen of Sheba, Christ Almighty. Sodding Eleanor of Aquitaine. It was much the same thing. Now, when you have a moment, I await your convenience in seeing I enter the bench’s custody.”

  The bench’s custody? As he stood there trying not to breathe his hardest, trying to breathe at all actually, but to assume his coat of boredom at the bloody dreadful do this was, Devorlane wondered one thing. Did she have any idea what they would do to her there?

  “Cassidy Armstrong?” the old woman said again. “Why yes! I do knows this girl. I does. Cassidy Armstrong. Picked her up from the church door meself.”

  Christ Almighty, in heaven above, if that damned old crone in the corner didn’t shut her goddamned cursed mouth she would be getting picked up from the church door he plastered her on. What Cassidy Armstrong’s background was had been beyond obvious to him since Tilly first regaled him with that story. It had just been simpler, in so much as anything was with Cassidy Armstrong, to damn well ignore it. If only she’d done the same. But she was accursed that way. Niggle. Push. Shove. Insist. Even now the way she raised her chin didn’t inspire him with hope. His heart dropped to his boots.

  “You must be mistaken. I am Sapphire. And I can assure you I have never been at a church door in my life.”

  “Yes, you was, with a nice little piece of paper tied round your fat little day old ankle. Cassidy, what was your mother’s surname, and Armstrong, what was your father’s. Tinker man. From Donegal. Now, what was his first name again? I think I forgot. But someone here must know it.”

  His gut tightened. Why the hell had she admitted it? Right here in front of everyone. Mother of Christ. Was she so keen to get away from—he didn’t dare think it—him?

  He exhaled sharply. The hell, he wasn’t that bad, was he? Perhaps that time he had been so insistent about reinstating the barriers? But hell, he’d been on the verge of possibly putting another child on the parish. And she? She’d been everything he’d dreamed of. Everything he’d wanted. Except she wasn’t going to be his was she, with her terms and conditions and endless whinnying about everything it was possible to whinny about? When he wasn’t exactly in the best of places, trying to give up overwhelming habits, trying to keep restraint, trying to keep the things he’d lived behind. So damn long, he didn’t know how to let them go.