Lady Rogue

by Theresa Romain

  Then it happened, faster than he could understand.

  A dark blur whipped by on the floor. Hit the door, knocking it free from Isabel’s grasp. It smacked the wall heavily, the sound resounding down the corridor.

  A dog whined. Growled, close at hand. Further away came another growl, feeding the first. And then—the yowl of an angry cat? Where the devil had a cat come from?

  The barking grew louder, the groggy dogs fighting off their slumberousness.

  Callum caught Isabel’s eye. “Back. Go. Quickly as you can.”

  Sidling along the wall, she whipped across the corridor in her stockinged feet. Shit! They hadn’t their boots on. He scrabbled for the bundles of Butler’s work from the desk, his coat from the floor.

  A human voice rang out. “What now, ye bloody beasts?” The servant again. Callum swept his tools up from the desk, wadding them in his coat. Did he have everything? They must leave nothing behind. The need to hurry was like ice in his fingertips.

  “Caught something, did you?” Now the servant sounded awake. Close as he had been in the music room, when only a door and his ignorance of their presence shielded them. There was no time for secrecy, for stealth.

  Clutching everything against his chest, Callum kicked back, finding the edge of the desk. His foot made a hollow thud that he, with a great leap, was nowhere near. A distraction, he hoped. Enough of one?

  No, the air stirred behind him. Teeth snapped. But the dogs were slowed and sleepy, and he was safely across, in the music room. Already Isabel had tossed their boots out the window. As soon as Callum entered, she shoved the door closed behind him, fumbling at the lock. No key! No help for it; they had to go, go, go, as the dogs snarled at the door and scratched it with their paws.

  By this time, Butler was waiting below the window. Callum shoved out the whole bundle: coat, tools, painting, stretcher bars. With a quick squeeze of Isabel’s hand, he swung her through the window frame. She met his gaze, dark eyes wide in the moonlight. Quickly, he pressed a smacking kiss to her lips. “Go! I’ll be right behind you.”

  Isabel shimmied her way down, looking up at Callum all the while. From half a story up, she jumped, not waiting for Butler’s helping hand or the support of the rope. She landed heavily, awkwardly.

  Callum gritted his teeth, then swung out after her. As he disappeared through the window, the door burst open, and the room was full of hounds swaying on their feet. Snarling. A man, light glinting off a weapon.

  Callum slid down, the rough rope heating through his gloves and shredding the leather. As soon as his stockinged feet touched the ground, he snatched his boots in one hand and took hold of Isabel’s shoulder with the other. With Butler’s help, he pulled her to her feet, then tugged at the rope to bring it down and slow their pursuers. The hook that had sunk into the window frame took a chunk of wood with it.

  A man’s head stuck out the window, shouting something unintelligible. If they were lucky, he’d think he had surprised housebreakers in the act of entering, scaring them off before they got far.

  Callum hoped.

  He had hoped to go entirely undiscovered. He had hoped the servant wouldn’t carry a weapon. A blade? No, a pistol—and he was aiming it at them.

  Butler and Isabel were hidden in the shadows; Callum was a step behind, slowed by pulling down the rope. As he turned away, a shot rang out—and a stripe of fire slit the cloth over his calf. Callum left it all behind on the ground: tools hidden in the turf; the rope a pale, sharp-headed snake in the dark. And they ran.

  * * *

  The frantic flight from the Duke’s house carried them for a few streets, Isabel wincing as she ran in her stocking feet. Yet the moon smiled on them, pleased with their night’s work. Clouds drifted over its bright face, bringing welcome darkness as they slipped away from the gas-lit street, then drifted on to give them a faint light once they reached a safe distance.

  Butler had taken charge of the painting, his own rolled-up work. When they paused in their flight, he stretched it out to admire it.

  “There’s the B.” He showed Isabel and Callum, pointing to a spot Isabel had taken for naught but greenery when she’d looked at it in the duke’s study. But there it was, picked out by the touch of his finger. The only signature Butler had been able to place on his work.

  Satisfied, Butler rolled the canvas tightly and slipped it into a hollow cane. Likely there had been meant to be a sword stick. This painting was an even greater weapon against the duke, against Isabel, against Morrow.

  Butler took the stretcher bars too. “Might put them back together,” he said. “Or I might kindle a fire against the nighttime chill.”

  She hoped he would burn the copied Botticelli with its own stretchers. “Be safe,” she whispered.

  He handed over her boots and wished her the same, then melted off. Isabel and Callum retreated into the deeper darkness beside the building. Several houses back—only a few minutes back?—the Duke of Ardmore’s dogs snarled and bayed their frustration. Dogs couldn’t climb down ropes, thank heaven. But as soon as they could run down the stairs, they could sniff out Isabel and Callum’s trail.

  Impatient, she crammed her feet into her boots without bothering with the fastenings. Callum shoved his arms into his coat, his feet into his boots. Odd how undressed they’d become.

  Hoping to confuse the dogs, she took out the remaining aniseed cakes from her satchel. Hard as she could throw, she flung one here, one there, and watched where they landed.

  But there was something more on the pavement: drops, trailing black on the surface where everything was black or gray or silver. With her eyes, she followed them to the source—then gasped.

  “You are bleeding! Were you shot?”

  Callum cursed. “I was. It’s not bad, but we can’t leave a trail.”

  “We’ve got to bind your wound.” From about her waist, Isabel untied the cloth that had wrapped the Botticelli on their way. It was a shawl, sturdy and black. She crouched, wrapping it around his leg once, then again, then tucking in the loose ends.

  “That might be tidy enough to get you back to my house,” she whispered. “We can fix you up there.”

  “What about you?”

  “I didn’t get shot.”

  “You fell. Hard.”

  He was right. Her ankle had hurt like the devil when she’d collapsed onto it, but as she’d run, she’d forgotten it. Now a warning twinge returned.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Callum took the satchel from her and ripped it along the seam, making of it two dark and anise-fragrant rags. With them, he wiped up a bit of the blood, then tossed the rags in different directions. “That might confuse the dogs a bit longer.”

  He put out an arm for Isabel, then asked, “What was it that tripped us up? There were only two dogs.”

  “Titan.” Isabel snarled the name as if she were one of the duke’s hounds. “All our preparations for the damned dogs, and the creature that ruined our plan was Lady Selina’s cat.”

  Callum chuckled, the unaccountable man. Hobbling and limping and skulking and sneaking, they made their labored way back through the mews. To Isabel, the journey back to her house seemed to take forever. Surely each street stretched out long and longer, like a sweet only half-boiled.

  By the time they reached her back garden, tears sprang to her eyes with every step, and her right ankle and foot were nothing but a weight to be dragged along by her upper leg.

  With all the servants asleep before they had left, she prayed that the servants’ entrance would still be open. She had a key, of course, but the easier the better. Every second, every step saved was a boon.

  “Come in and we’ll see to your injury,” she told Callum.

  “I’m all right. Come in and we’ll see to yours.”

  Once they were inside, he added, “I didn’t intend to stay, but you can’t fool me, brave woman though you are. Your ankle is all but broken. Have you any more laudanum?”

&nbs
p; “No laudanum.” She gritted her teeth. “There is port in the dining room sideboard.”

  She pointed him in the right direction. For a few minutes, he was gone; when he returned he held a cut-crystal decanter.

  “You carry this,” Callum whispered. “I’ll carry you.”

  “No, really, you needn’t—”

  “I want to,” he said. And she was in his arms, cradled sideways as if she were small and light instead of an average-sized woman with a useless foot that surely weighed a hundred pounds. His arms gripped her about her thighs, her back; his chest was a wall of support. As soon as he lifted her, the throbbing in her ankle eased a little.

  In a low tone, she directed him to where he might find rolled bandaging. From there, she told him how to reach her bedchamber. The words were strange and intimate; she blushed as she spoke them.

  With his hands on her, the frantic flight over, the switch of paintings a success, she was swamped with buoyant eagerness—a physical awareness she could never remember experiencing before. Every inch of her throbbed or tingled or was caressed by closeness. She was all a jumble, her thoughts and feelings in confusion.

  But there was one thing she was sure of. Something she knew she wanted.

  As soon as they reached her bedchamber, she said, “Lay me on the bed, Callum. And then lock the door so we won’t be disturbed.”

  Chapter Twelve

  She raised herself up onto her elbows, watching as he turned the key in the lock. “I am so sorry you were hurt in helping me. I should never have involved you.”

  “Probably not.” His footsteps crossed the carpeted floor to the window, where he tugged open the draperies. In the faint light of the moon, he became a broad, strong shape silhouetted against the window.

  “There is a lamp on the writing desk,” Isabel said. “And though I meant what I said, now I am even sorrier that you agree with me.”

  “I’m being honest.” He laid hands on the tinderbox, struck a spark, then lit the lamp on her desk. It flung warm light on his features, showing their wry expression. “I wasn’t telling you how I feel about the matter. I’m glad you involved me.”

  He carried the lamp to the table at her bedside, then set it down. There, he hesitated.

  She shook the decanter at him. “Sit with me. Have a drink.”

  Gingerly, he sank onto the bed. His feet remained on the floor as he tested the ropes of the mattress, bouncing his weight. “Good bed,” he commented. “But how are you? Besides your ankle, did you come through all right?” He hiked up one knee onto the mattress, twisting to study her. “Are you afraid? Shaken?”

  She tugged out the crystal stopper, then handed it to him to set on the table. “Why are you asking about me?”

  “I want to know everything. Hazard of the profession.” His mouth crimped. That trying-not-to-smile look.

  She tipped the decanter to her lips, imbibing courage as well as sticky-sweet port, then traced a fingertip over the line of his lips. “I want to know everything too, and I’m no Officer of the Police.”

  His eyes lowered, lashes shadowing his cheekbones. “Ah, you got the name right this time. And tonight, you were as much one as I was.”

  “Which is to say, not at all?” She took another sip. The decanter was heavy in her hand, expensive lead crystal. “Don’t use your profession as an excuse, you wily man. You’d have been just as blunt and prying if you were a grocer.”

  “You make me sound like a crowbar.” He tugged at his boot, wincing.

  “Look at your leg! Oh, I’m so sorry.” She sat up, all but flinging the decanter at him. “Let me take that ridiculous shawl off of your wound.”

  He set the decanter on the table beside the lamp. “It hurts like the devil, but I’ll be fine if I bind it. It’s not the first time I’ve been shot.”

  “Don’t say that. Don’t tell me that. Now I’ll just worry about you more.”

  “I’m honored.” His tone was so dry that he made it sound like a jest—but when she looked him in the eye, his gaze was serious and stark.

  Unknotting the shawl from about his calf, she quickly made a cushion of it to cradle the injured leg and protect the coverlet. “It’s ruined your boot,” she chided. “That’s just annoying.”

  Callum frowned at the hole in the thick leather. “Shame the duke’s servant wasn’t an even worse shot. But I’ve faith that Brinley will still adore my footwear.”

  “You and that dog.” Isabel shook her head. “He did take to you uncommonly quickly. Will it hurt you if I pull off the boot?”

  “Maybe. But I can’t live forever with it on.”

  That was fair enough. She seized the heel and tugged hard. When the boot hit the carpeted floor of the bedchamber with a thump, she ventured a glance at Callum. He wore a tight expression, but said nothing; he only took the roll of bandage they’d brought upstairs. Tugging off his ruined stocking, he wrapped a band of gauze around the raw scoop the bullet had taken from his calf. Once around, and the bandage turned red; around again, and it stayed white. A third time around, then he tore it and tied it off. The shawl that had served as a bandage, he shoved to the floor.

  “All better.” He dropped the remaining bandage onto the table beside the lamp.

  “I wish you were.” Isabel swallowed. “I would have been so scared without you. I was scared all the same, but without you . . .”

  “It wouldn’t have been wise to go alone,” he said gravely. “Investigators often have partners. Or informants, or consultants. It’s more than twice as easy to work with the help of another.”

  “Is it? Well, I’m trying to thank you. So, thank you.” She rubbed her lips together. “The port isn’t strong enough to dull pain, but it’s quite good. You ought to have some too.”

  “I will, then. We ought to celebrate our success.” He took up the decanter, waving it before his nose. His brows lifted. “Why, Lady Isabel, you lay in a fine port.”

  As he tipped it back, sipping, she hissed, “It’s not a celebration! We can’t celebrate your bullet wound!”

  “It’s only a scratch.” He darted a sideways glance at her. “I mean—you are right. It is very severe. I am in incredible pain. You should minister to me with your kindest attentions.”

  She snatched the port from him, suppressing a smile, then sipped from where his lips had touched. The port was sweet on her tongue, warm in her throat and belly. Yes, her ankle still ached, but she didn’t care as much as she had. Callum Jenks was ample distraction.

  “You”—she reached over him to return the heavy crystal to the table—“are a rogue. But I won’t protest at all. Any sort of bullet wound is worthy of kindest attentions.”

  He arched a brow. “And how do you define those?”

  “Much the same way you would, I imagine.” When she again traced the line of his lips, he nipped at her finger. Startled, she laughed—and then leaned forward, brushing a kiss against his jaw. The muscle jumped beneath her caress, so she had to kiss it again, then back around to his lips to sip the sweet, heady taste of port, the headier heat of his mouth on hers. Tenderly, he brushed the tip of her tongue with his, then he pulled back.

  “You are intoxicating,” he said. “But you’re also injured. You need kind attentions too.” Without waiting for agreement or protest, he nudged her back so she lay flat on the bed. For a moment, he merely looked upon her. She would have given a great deal of money to know what he was thinking.

  Then he turned away to remove his other boot and stocking, letting them fall to the floor beside their mates. He slid to the foot of the bed then, crossing his legs atop the coverlet with a hiss of discomfort. She raised herself up on her elbows. “Callum, please don’t hurt—”

  “Please don’t hurt my feelings,” he said dryly. “I’ve never taken the boots off a lady with a sprained ankle, and I don’t want to muck it up.”

  At that, she had to smile. She sank back again and let him minister to her. What would his kind attentions be?

  At fir
st, they didn’t feel particularly kind, though they were necessary: as she’d done for him, he removed her boots. The left one was not a problem, but the injured right ankle protested his slow, tender movements. She moaned as the tight kid slid free from her swollen ankle. A pulse beat in the injured joint. How was that possible?

  “May I go on?”

  “I’m still waiting for the kindness,” she grumbled. “But yes, whatever you think best.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath, prepared for another pain, as he slid his hands within her trouser-cuffs to find the tops of her stockings. They were tied just below the knees. Gently, he untied them. The left one first, he rolled down and off, leaving her foot bare. Then the right, slowly and carefully.

  She exhaled, wondering. His fingertips on her skin were a tiny pleasure; even over her ankle, he did not hurt her. With the stocking off, her foot up on a pillow, he pressed at the sides of the joint, then up, down, around again.

  “It is not broken,” he said. “But you will not dance a cotillion for some weeks.”

  “It was not in my plans.”

  He asked for the bandage; when she handed it to him, he wrapped the remainder of the roll about her ankle. Around the arch of her foot. Back, looping, again, then tucked the end under. “I confess,” he said as he worked, “I am eager to know your plans.”

  “At the moment,” she said, “they involve you.”

  Everything she had done was to please someone else. Only in Vauxhall had she turned the situation about, making a decision solely for her own pleasure.

  And Callum, here, now? He was her choice, and hers alone. There was something about Callum Jenks that made her want more.

  “It was the day I found the hidden studio,” she admitted. “That I went to Vauxhall. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know the man I’d married, or what sort of secrets my house had been hiding. Were there more? Who was I grieving? Was I even grieving anymore?”