by Emily Larkin
“Neither are you.”
Adam St. Just looked her for a moment. There was something vaguely unsettling about his smile. “Are you engaged for the next dance, Miss Knightley?”
“No.”
“Then may I have the pleasure?”
“Certainly.”
St. Just’s smile widened. “Have you seen the conservatory? It’s quite delightful.” He extended his arm to her. “Shall we?”
Arabella stood, reluctantly. There really was something rather disconcerting about Adam St. Just’s smile. She placed her hand lightly on his sleeve.
Their pace was slow, strolling. Music and conversations eddied around them. She heard snatches of gossip, of laughter, the swirl of satin dominos and the rustle of petticoats and flounces as the dancers swung past. St. Just led her to the back of the ballroom and down a short flight of stairs to a conservatory. Two dowagers sat comfortably in one corner, their heads bent together as they gossiped, but otherwise it was empty except for statuary and ferns and a table of refreshments.
“Would you like something to drink?”
Arabella shook her head. Up the stairs in the ballroom, the waltz came to its end. “Our dance will be starting shortly.”
“I thought we could sit it out.”
Arabella glanced at him sharply. “Sit it out?”
He inclined his head in a nod. “If you’re agreeable.”
She considered it a moment.
St. Just watched her silently. Unlike Lord Emsley, he didn’t appear to have taken her aside to make an improper advance. There was nothing suggestive in his voice, nothing flirtatious in his manner. Even so, she felt a prickle of alarm.
She glanced at the gossiping dowagers. St. Just would hardly play one of Lord Emsley’s tricks with such an audience. She tried to imagine him leering at her, sneaking an arm around her waist, attempting to snatch a kiss.
It was an impossible scenario to imagine. Adam St. Just looked down his nose at people; he didn’t grope them.
“Very well,” she said.
His smile seemed to sharpen.
The prickle of alarm strengthened. Have I made a mistake? But it was too late to draw back. St. Just was leading her to a grouping of gilded chairs at some distance from the dowagers. “Please,” he said, indicating a chair.
Arabella sat. She clasped her hands in her lap. “You wish to speak with me?”
“Yes.” St. Just sat so that he was facing her. He crossed his legs casually and stretched one arm along the back of the chair next to him.
Arabella eyed him. There was nothing intimidating about his posture. “What about?” But even as she asked the question, she realized the answer: he wanted her to draw another portrait of Grace.
She relaxed.
“About Tom,” St. Just said. “You know who he is, don’t you?”
His voice was so affable that for a moment Arabella didn’t realize what he’d said. And then the import of his words sank in. She tensed. “I beg your pardon?”
In the ballroom a contredanse was starting. The music drifted down to them. Adam St. Just swung his toe in time to it. “You know who Tom is,” he said again, softly. “Don’t you, Miss Knightley?” His eyes glittered behind the black mask. His smile was that of a hunter.
Arabella took refuge in affront. “How dare you suggest such a thing!” She made as if to rise.
St. Just abandoned his nonchalant pose. One moment he was lounging in the chair, swinging one foot, the next his hand was at her wrist, a firm, strong grip that held her in her place. The speed with which he moved made the breath catch in her throat. For a moment she sat frozen. Her heart seemed to stop beating. She stared into his eyes.
“You know who he is.” St. Just spoke in a whisper, soft, audible to only the two of them.
Arabella swallowed. She twisted her wrist in his grasp. “You’re being perfectly ridiculous, Mr. St. Just.”
He loosened his grip, but didn’t release her. “You choose the victims,” he said softly. “You write the notes. You draw the cat. Don’t you, Miss Knightley?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about!”
Adam St. Just shook his head. “You forget, I’ve seen your sketchbook. And I have a specimen of your handwriting.”
“You have a very fanciful imagination!” she said tartly, twisting her wrist again.
He didn’t release her. “You witnessed the incident on Piccadilly with Sir Arnold Gorrie, and by your own admission you heard Mrs. Harpenden start the rumor about Hetty Wootton. You were present when Lady Bicknell reduced poor Mrs. Findley to tears.” His voice was low and matter-of-fact.
“So?” Arabella said, haughtily. “Any number of people were present.”
“You were in the Park last year, when Lord Randall beat his horse,” St. Just continued. “I remember the expression on your face. And you were at the Chapel Royal when Miss Smidley pushed Miss Wrexham down the steps.”
“Do you think so?” she said with haughty scorn. “That was a year ago, Mr. St. Just. I doubt you can recall who attended that particular service!”
“You were there,” he said quietly. “I remember you went to aid Miss Wrexham.”
Arabella swallowed. Her pulse was beating fast. She stared at him through narrow eyes, feigning anger. “And because of that, you deduce I know Tom? Mr. St. Just, you’ve read far too many novels!”
He grinned. “Nice try, Miss Knightley.”
The note of approval made her flush. She was abruptly as angry as she pretended to be.
“Tom paid no visits during the Season of 1816,” St. Just said. “The year you were in mourning for your grandfather and didn’t come to London. A coincidence, Miss Knightley?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
His grip on her wrist tightened slightly. He leaned forward. His eyes glittered fiercely behind the black mask. “I know you’re in league with Tom, Miss Knightley. I assure you I have no desire to expose either of you—but I do want to know who Tom is.”
Arabella looked at him contemptuously. St. Just credited her with choosing Tom’s victims and writing his notes—but he thought her incapable of carrying out the actual deeds. I’m not as weak and helpless as you think me, Mr. St. Just.
She gathered her outrage. “How dare you!” she said, wrenching her wrist from his grasp. She pushed back her chair and stood. The scrape of the chair legs on the marble flagstones was harsh, but the dowagers in the far corner were deep in conversation and didn’t notice. “I find your insinuations and your behavior grossly impertinent!”
St. Just flushed. He stood and put out a hand to detain her. “Miss Knightley—”
“For your knowledge, I am not in league with Tom.” Arabella brushed past his outstretched hand and ran across the conservatory and up the marble steps to the ballroom.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MISS KNIGHTLEY’S WORDS still rang in Adam’s ears several hours later, as he unbuttoned his shirt. How dare you!
He pulled the shirt over his head and held it for a moment, balled in his hand. I find your insinuations and your behavior grossly impertinent! As an accusation, it had stung. It still did. Arabella Knightley was correct: his behavior hadn’t been that of a gentleman.
Adam flexed his fingers around the balled linen, remembering the slenderness of her wrist. Yes, grossly impertinent. I owe her an apology.
“Dirty, sir?” his valet, Perkins, asked, plucking the shirt from his hand.
Adam watched the man bustle into the dressing room, but it wasn’t Perkins he saw. His memory replayed the scene in the conservatory and halted at her scornful utterance: Mr. St. Just, you’ve read far too many novels!
Her outrage, her avowal of innocence, had been perfect. Too perfect. The great Mrs. Siddons herself couldn’t have done better.
Adam shook his head in rueful admiration and turned towards the bed. How do I get her to admit the truth?
Because despite her vehement denial, her appearance of innocence, he knew he was correct: Ar
abella Knightley was in league with Tom.
* * *
MISS KNIGHTLEY WRENCHED her wrist free from his grasp. She turned and ran from him, across the conservatory and up the marble steps to the ballroom.
Adam ran after her.
The masquerade had finished. The ballroom was empty and dark, lit only by moonlight coming in through the tall windows. It stretched into the distance, vast and shadowed. At the far end he saw the fluttering hem of a domino. The slam of a door came faintly to his ears.
Adam ran. He reached the door, opened it, and plunged through—not into a carpeted corridor, but into St. James’s Square. He stumbled slightly on the cobblestones and swung around, looking for Miss Knightley.
She stood beneath a gas lamp.
For a long moment they stared at each other. He saw the rise and fall of her chest, saw the soft lips part—and then Miss Knightley uttered a laugh, a challenge. She spun on her heel and vanished into the darkness, her domino flaring behind her.
Adam charged after her.
The speed with which Miss Knightley ran was startling. She was as swift as a deer, swifter. Piccadilly, Berkeley Square, Mount Street—they flashed past so rapidly it was dizzying. Adam ran faster than he’d ever run in his life—until it felt as if his heart would burst—and yet still Miss Knightley drew ahead of him. At the gate into Hyde Park she paused for a moment, looking back over her shoulder. A gas lamp illuminated her face—the softly cleft chin, the scornful curl of her lip—and then she was gone.
Adam burst into Hyde Park. He slowed to a halt, his lungs burning, and swung around, searching for her. The park stretched in all directions, vast, utterly empty. Miss Knightley? he called. Where are you?
A soft, mocking laugh was his answer.
Adam spun around again. Miss Knightley stood behind him.
He stared at her, panting.
Somewhere, he’d lost his mask and domino. Arabella Knightley still wore hers. She wasn’t out of breath. Indeed, she seemed to find his breathlessness amusing.
He took a step towards her.
Arabella Knightley didn’t move. She was completely unafraid of him. Beneath the mask her eyes were darkly luminous. The hood had fallen back from her face. Hair curled about her cheeks, as black as midnight.
You want the truth, Mr. St. Just? The softly indented chin rose, challenging him.
Yes, he said.
Her lips parted, they shaped themselves to form a word—
* * *
ADAM JERKED AWAKE. His heart was pounding as loudly as if he’d run halfway across Mayfair. He knew, with absolute certainty, what Arabella Knightley had been about to say. He heard her voice as loudly, as clearly, as if she stood beside the bed. I’m Tom.
He shoved back the covers and sat up, dragging air into his lungs. Gradually his racing pulse slowed. His certainty didn’t fade; like his heartbeat, it steadied.
Arabella Knightley was Tom.
“Of course she’s not.” His voice was loud in the dark.
Adam pushed out of bed, disgusted with himself, and strode to the window. He shoved the curtains back and stared down at Berkeley Square. He’d run past here in his dream.
It was the dream that made him think she was Tom, her agility and strength, the swiftness with which she’d run, the mask hiding her face. She’d been elusive and mysterious—as elusive and mysterious as Tom.
Adam shook his head. Arabella Knightley was no more a burglar than Grace was. She was a female, for crying out loud. A delicately built female.
But not delicately reared. She’d lived among prostitutes and thieves as a child.
Adam leaned his forehead against the glass. If a female was capable of being Tom, it was Arabella Knightley. Her diminutive stature and air of delicacy were deceptive. In the conservatory her wrist had been slender but strong; she’d broken free of his grip with ease. And in Richmond Park she’d run like a deer, light-footed and swift, chasing after the scattered pieces of paper.
He stared across Berkeley Square until dawn crept over the rooftops. With daylight his certainty should evaporate, as the dream had evaporated.
It didn’t.
Arabella Knightley was Tom.
Adam closed the curtains and went back to bed.
* * *
HOW COULD HE get Miss Knightley to admit she was Tom?
Adam wrestled with that question for several hours, sitting in his study with the pieces of paper—of evidence—spread across his desk. He began a list of reasons why she couldn’t be Tom, and stared at the blank page until the ink dried on his quill.
Finally he threw the quill down with a muttered oath. The only way to make Arabella Knightley admit the truth was to speak with her.
She wasn’t going to come to him; therefore he must go to her.
* * *
THAT WAS EASIER said than done, Adam discovered half an hour later. He presented his card to Lady Westwick’s butler and waited in the entrance hall while the man trod up the staircase. A minute later the butler returned, to inform him that “Miss Knightley is not at home to callers, sir.”
Adam gritted his teeth and retreated. He surveyed Lady Westwick’s house from across the street, frowning as he examined the doorway through which he had been so politely ejected, with its pilasters and ornate entablature. Miss Knightley’s London home was a handsome edifice, built in the classical style and crowned with decorative cornice moldings. It hadn’t passed to the sixth Earl of Westwick; he’d received only the title and the ancestral seat in Somerset. This house, and one in Hertfordshire, had gone to the fifth earl’s widow, along with a comfortable jointure; the Westwick fortune had gone to Arabella Knightley.
No, Adam corrected himself. The fortune would go to Miss Knightley on her twenty-fifth birthday. In just over two weeks’ time she would become an extremely wealthy young lady.
A town carriage clattered over the cobblestones from the mews. The crest on the door panel, within its widow’s lozenge, was easily recognizable.
Adam stepped behind a gas lamp and watched as the door to Lady Westwick’s house opened. Miss Knightley and her maid walked down the steps and climbed into the carriage. A liveried footman closed the door and sprang up on the box beside the coachman.
Adam glanced around. One block down the street was a hackney. He hurried towards it.
“Follow that carriage!” he told the jarvey, pointing at the disappearing coach, and he wrenched open the door and scrambled inside.
The hackney started forward with a lurch.
* * *
KENSINGTON GARDENS WERE smaller and more formal than Richmond, but Arabella felt her tension ease as soon as she stepped down from the carriage. She looked at the green-brown expanse of The Long Water and the willows with their trailing leaves, and inhaled deeply. Never mind the smudge of coalsmoke across the sky or the clatter of a hackney drawing up behind them; this was what she needed: greenery, water, peace and quiet.
“Where to?” Polly asked.
“The Dutch Garden,” Arabella said, opening her parasol.
The path was dappled with sunlight and shade. The spell of the gardens settled over her, a spell made of small, ordinary things: a blackbird turning over fallen leaves in its search for worms, the scattering of yellow dandelions across the scythed grass, the song of a thrush above her head. Arabella inhaled deeply again. She refused to think about last night, about Adam St. Just’s accusation—
“Miss Knightley?”
She swung around, gripping the handle of the parasol tightly. She was conscious of Polly stepping closer to her. “Mr. St. Just.” She lifted her chin. “What are you doing here?”
St. Just bowed, a courtly movement. “I would like to apologize for my behavior last night.”
Arabella blinked. “You would?”
“It was—as you rightly pointed out—grossly impertinent of me.”
“Oh.” Her grip on the parasol eased slightly.
“And I apologize for suggesting you’re in league with Tom.
I’ve thought the matter through—and I believe I was in error.” St. Just stepped closer. He was smiling faintly as he looked at her. It wasn’t the hunter’s smile he’d worn last night, but something quite different. Something warmer, something almost . . . appreciative?
Arabella didn’t return the smile. She eyed him warily.
“I don’t believe you’re in league with Tom, Miss Knightley. I believe you are Tom.”
Her shock was utter. Every muscle in her face seemed to stiffen. For too long she stared at him, while her heartbeat thumped in her ears, then she uttered a laugh that even to her own ears sounded false. “Me? Tom? You are absurd, Mr. St. Just!”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe so, Miss Knightley.”
Arabella tried to pretend outrage, but it was fear that gripped her. “What a preposterous accusation! Every feeling must be offended!”
St. Just nodded, as if in approval. “I’ve no intention of revealing your activities, Miss Knightley.”
The warmth in his gray eyes, the warmth in that slight smile, shook her even more off balance. “What activities!” she snapped. “Mr. St. Just, you’re being so . . . so absurd I must believe you’re in your cups!”
At that, he grinned. “Well done, Miss Knightley,” he said, and made her another bow. Then his expression became serious. “I know I’m correct,” he said. “There’s no point denying it.” He held her eyes. “Your face tells me, Miss Knightley. As does your maid’s.”
Arabella glanced at Polly. Polly was pale beneath the freckles, her expression stiff and wary, afraid. Yes, if I look like that, he can indeed be certain. She bit her lip.
St. Just extended his arm to her. “Shall we walk together, Miss Knightley?”
Arabella reluctantly placed her hand on his sleeve.
“I have no intention of exposing you,” St. Just said, as they began to walk in the direction of the Round Pond.