She stepped across the road, Nathan beside her.
“I’m impressed.”
“By what?” She didn’t take her eyes off the guard now only fifty yards ahead.
“You’ve got this all planned.”
“Thinking on the run, that’s all. We don’t have time for plans, only action. Now, let me walk ahead. Hit him when he has his back to you and make sure it’s hard enough to knock him out.”
Nathan saluted her. “Yes, ma’am. Who would have thought that little Rosie would become a sergeant major!”
“I am not.”
But for her denial, she received a swift kiss that stalled her breathing and thinking, though certainly not feeling. She felt everything about that kiss. “You kissed me again.”
“I did.” He drew the back of his hand down her cheek. “All in the name of hunting out the villains, of course.”
Her brow creased. “Kissing and hunting. How so?”
“You look rather well kissed, and with those smoldering violet eyes of yours, you’ll entice that guard without even trying.” With a jaunty wave and a teasing smile, Nathan strode to the other side of the alley, hiding himself behind a horse and cart that resided at the entrance.
For a moment, Rose didn’t move. Had she enticed Nathan? She hadn’t meant to. In fact, he was the last person on earth she wanted to entice. Unforgivably, he’d kissed her and run. What was to stop him from doing that again? Besides, his life was no longer in England, and she was not about to abandon her father.
Rose shook off thoughts of Nathan. As long as he did what she needed him to, that was all that mattered.
After adjusting her dress and undoing the top button of her lace collar, she hoisted the basket of flowers to her hip and fixed her gaze on the guard. She pasted a smile on her face, trying to figure out how to actually entice.
When she was ten yards from the guard and ensuring she kept to the left side of the alley, the man heard her footsteps and turned toward her. Rose put a swing of her hips into her walk and was sure if she smiled any harder, her face would crack.
“’Ere, what you doing down this way? You should be at the other entrance.”
Rose closed the distance between her and the guard. “Surely you want to buy some flowers for your sweetheart?”
“Ain’t got one.”
“Really?” Rose put some wistful hope into her voice. “A handsome man like you should have lots of lady friends.” She held a bunch of roses right beneath his nose. “Don’t they smell delicious?”
The man leaned forward to inhale the fragrance.
Nathan lunged from the darkness, cracking a length of wood against the man’s skull.
He dropped hard to the ground, and Rose jumped back, the flowers falling from her hold and spreading a cascade of colorful petals in every direction. “Is he…is he dead?”
Nathan bent over him, holding a finger to the man’s throat. “Still breathing, so don’t panic, we haven’t killed him.”
Air fled from Rose’s lungs, her relief complete.
As Nathan lifted the man beneath his armpits, Rose grabbed the guard’s booted feet, and they drew him into the shadows, hiding him behind the few wooden crates left beside the back-alley doorway.
Sweat beaded Nathan’s brow as he straightened. “Let’s go.”
Up the few steps to the doorway they went, and then Nathan eased it open.
Rose held her breath, expecting shouts. Silence returned, and Nathan beckoned her with the crook of his finger.
She followed close behind him. “Where are we going?”
“I have no idea. Have you ever been in the royal residence before?”
“You are jesting.”
“Well, it was a hope.” He shrugged. “I imagine this place is a maze of corridors and rooms.”
“Who are we looking for?”
“Someone who’ll squawk for a few shillings. Someone from here wrote to your father. We just have to find out who and why.”
Keeping close behind him, able to feel the tension rolling off him, Rose quickly realized Nathan’s words were true. Zarrenburg’s royal London residence was indeed a maze.
They came to set of stairs that would lead to the main floor. Nathan halted at their base, and Rose came up hard against his back.
He turned to her with a questioning expression and held her away from him.
Heat rode through her in an instant, and she did her best to ignore it. “What are you waiting for?” Her tone was sharp, but better that than she fall into his arms. Or worse, that she kiss him.
“If we go up here, we could win, or we could lose. We have no idea where this leads.”
“And we have no choice. We knew that when we entered. There’s no way I’m turning back.”
His lips softened into a smile, and her breathing hitched as she focused on that beautiful mouth and remembered its taste.
“You sure are determined, but then I always knew you were.”
“When the world says you can’t do something, I’m not listening. Now, are we going, or do you want to stand here and blabber all day?”
Nathan offered her a mock salute. “Yes, Captain. Whatever you say.”
She offered a snort. “That will be the day.”
But Nathan did turn back to the stairs and took the first step, and stilled, listening for voices.
Hearing nothing, he took another step and another and another, Rose mimicking his motions until they reached the top.
The door was closed.
“Ready or not.” Nathan eased it open a fraction until daylight peeped through the small gap.
For several heartbeats, Rose strained to listen. Again, silence returned.
Nathan peered through the opening. “It’s a library of sorts.”
“So what are you waiting for?”
“I’m cursing myself for not procuring another a pistol, and praying no one is on the other side of the door.”
“I thought finding someone is the entire purpose of this escapade.”
“Who is it?” The rich tone of a woman’s voice sounded from the other side of the door.
“Looks like we’ve failed step one.” Nathan pushed the door fully open.
The breath Rose had been holding exploded from her lungs as she stepped with Nathan into the room.
As he’d said, it was a library, grand with its wall-to-wall bookcases loaded with beautifully bound books. But what was more shocking was the woman who stood not more than five feet away from them, haloed by the arch of a floor-to-ceiling window. Late sunshine poured in behind her and cast a pink-gold glow around her. She could have been an angel.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
Rose recognized her straight away. Elegant and sophisticated, she spoke with a definite upper-class accent that Rose had heard many a time from the toffs and wealthy society women who came to her father requesting paste replicas of their jewels.
Though Rose knew that she must be in her late forties, the woman did not look to be more than thirty. With her blonde hair pulled back, a cascade of ringlets draped her neck and shoulders; the soft blue silk gown with the wide sleeves edged in fine lace definitely belonged to a woman of substance.
Rose forced her shock and nerves into abeyance and stepped forward, offering a deep bow as she did so. “Your Royal Highness, I am sorry we forced our way in, but I promise that you are under no threat from us.” Rose witnessed Nathan’s shock and watched his stumbling attempt at a bow.
“She’s right.” He straightened. “We’re not here to hurt you, but we do need to find out something.”
Though her expression was guarded, Princess Mary did not panic, and surprisingly, she stepped forward. “That is a relief, though coming in via my private entrance is not the usual way to visit me.”
Ros
e linked her fingers in front of her, twisting them every which way, wondering what on earth they were to do now. “It wasn’t quite you we came to see, Your Highness.”
The princess’s brows rose. “Really. Just who is it you want to see, and, as I said, you still have not advised me who you are.”
“I came to find my father.”
“Your father is here?”
“I don’t know. Someone took him, and I need to find him.”
“So why do you think he is here? This is the London residence of my family.”
“I’m aware of that, Your Highness. My father was born in Zarrenburg but has been in England for many years.”
“And you?”
“I am English.”
The princess switched her attention to Nathan, her gaze narrowed as she studied him for a moment. “I know you. We’ve met before.”
Rose held her breath, wondering how much Nathan would tell the woman who ruled the tiny mid-European principality.
“We have. I’m Nathan Hawk, and I’m in partnership with Ben Steel of Steel Hawk Locks.”
“The company that has designed the lock for the Pasha Star.”
Nathan nodded.
“So what is your relationship to this young woman?”
“I’m helping her find her father.”
“Ah, we get back to your lost father.”
“I’m Rose Valetta, Your Highness.”
The royal’s face bleached in a heartbeat. “Valetta?” She clutched at the chair at her side, knuckles as white as her face as her knees buckled.
Rose leapt forward. “Your Highness, please take a seat. I did not mean to shock you.”
“It is a name I have not heard for so long.” She lifted gentle blue eyes colored by shock to Rose, trembling. “You are Alex’s daughter?”
Rose nodded as she eased the princess into the sage brocade-upholstered chair. “I am.”
The princess stared up at Rose, then moved her gaze to Nathan and back to Rose, giving Rose the distinct impression that she was summing them both up. “Do I need to call my guards?”
“No, Your Highness, we mean you no harm.”
She nodded toward the stiff-backed sofa opposite her. “Then take a seat, both of you, for I do not wish to stare up at you, given the shock you have just given me.”
Grateful for the seat, her nerves shattered, Rose took it. Nathan sat beside her.
She tried to ignore the fact that she was sitting in the living room of royalty.
“I think it is about time, young lady, that you told me why you have sneaked in here. You mentioned your father is missing. What has happened?”
Rose noted the hitch of concern in the royal’s voice and knew then that she and Nathan had made the correct decision.
“Two men came and took him. They want him to create a paste copy of the Pasha Star.”
A gasp burst from the princess’s lips. “My diamond! That is impossible. It is in your Prince Albert’s grand exhibition. I saw it there myself earlier today when I attended the opening with your queen.”
Rose tried to ignore the fact that this woman had barely returned from hobnobbing with the Queen of England, but before she could speak, Nathan did it for her.
“That’s the problem. The diamond on show is not the Pasha Star.”
“What!” Princess Mary’s eyes widened, horror etched across every inch of her face. “That cannot be.”
Nathan leaned forward. “Sadly, it is.”
Any weakness Princess Mary had shown only moments ago completely evaporated, and she sprang to her feet. “I saw it myself.”
“It is a paste copy, Your Highness.”
The princess began to pace across the library floor, then spun around, her cheeks still bleached but the fire of desperation glittering in her clear blue eyes. “Why was I not told?”
“We thought it best.”
“Best!” Her voice rose, and Rose swallowed back her reignited fear.
“Your Highness, somebody tried to force my father to recreate the diamond. He refused. I…I went to steal it.”
“And you said I did not need to call my guards, Miss Valetta. Now I am wondering if you think me a fool.”
“No. No.” Rose stood, fisting her hands at her sides. “Never that. When the men threatened my father and he refused, I thought if I could replace the Pasha Star…” She shook her head, tears cresting and threatening to fall. “I did not have a plan. I only wanted to protect my father.”
“A grand idea, Miss Valetta, but at great cost to my country.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen. When I went to swap the diamond for a paste stone, I found the diamond in the case was already a fake, and not a very good one,” she said with a degree of satisfaction she could not suppress.
“And the Pasha Star?”
“We don’t know where it is.”
The princess clapped a hand to her chest. “Dear God, we must find it.” She paced across to the window, staring out into the late afternoon. “Who knows that the diamond on show is fake?”
“The two of us, my business partner and Mr. Cole.”
“Mr. Cole. He has the ear of your Prince Albert. We cannot afford for word of this to get out.”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Cole was with Ben and myself when we, ah…” Nathan cast a quick glance at Rose, then back to the royal. “Mr. Cole is aware of what happened when we found Rose at the exhibition.”
“And no one saw who took the real diamond?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“You told me, Mr. Hawk, that your lock is unbreakable.”
Nathan stiffened. “It is.”
“Apparently not.” Her tone was severe.
Rose saw Nathan swallow hard.
“No one knows the locking sequence,” he insisted.
Rose stepped forward. “That’s not quite true, Nathan.”
The princess looked from Rose and then to Nathan. “It seems, Mr. Hawk, that not everyone believes you.”
“There is only one man who could know the details of my design, Your Highness, and that’s Alex Valetta.”
The flare of Rose’s shock lasted but an instant, overridden by fury. “How dare you. My father did not steal the diamond. He wouldn’t do that.”
“I didn’t say he did.”
“You did…well, virtually.”
“What I’m saying is, I don’t know who’s got it, but facts are facts.”
“Well, when we find him, you’ll see you’re wrong.”
“I hope so,” the princess intervened. “Do you think Alex stole the diamond and gave it to whomever you say threatened him?”
“No. He wouldn’t do that. Besides,” Rose argued, determined to protect her father’s good name, “if he did, why would they have then kidnapped him? Why would they have kidnapped us?”
“They kidnapped you too? Good Lord, they are desperate indeed.”
“Several men who we are sure were from Zarrenburg were kidnapping Rosie when I stumbled across them,” Nathan said.
“And I told you if you hadn’t intervened, it would have been all right.”
Nathan ignored her declaration. “We both ended up getting manhandled and hauled off to some place outside of London.”
“But you’re here. Free.”
Nathan smiled. “All because of Rosie’s quick thinking, Your Highness.”
“And why have you come here?”
“At first we thought the men were simply opportunists wanting to steal the diamond for its value, but when we returned to my home, we found this paper with the Zarrenburg crest addressed to my father. Not only that, as we escaped, we spied the Zarrenburg flag flying high above our place of captivity.”
The princess’s gaze dropped to the scrap of paper. “Has anyone else
seen this? The thieves?”
“I’m presuming not.”
“Thank God.” The princess turned from them and paced across the richly patterned rug, fingers linked in front of her, one thumb tapping the other. She turned abruptly to face them, her regal manner back in place. “I should say I am surprised to see you, but given the events that have occurred these last few hours, I am not.”
Nathan’s brows beetled. “Your Highness?”
“I owe you an explanation.” She pointed to the sofa in front of the fireplace. “Please, take a seat. There are things you need to know.”
The princess took her seat, and Rose and Nathan followed suit. She offered them a tremulous smile. “You are so like your father, Miss Valetta.”
“Thank you.”
“Yes, it is a compliment. Alex was…is,” she corrected, “a wonderful man. Not only is he a superb craftsman, but he is honorable and loyal too.”
Rose nodded, grateful for the princess’s words. “High praise.”
“And well deserved.” The princess sat back in her seat, her gaze momentarily lost. “I’ve known Alex for a long time. We were good friends.”
Friends? Her father was friends with a royal.
“He’s never mentioned you.”
The princess shifted her sad gaze to Rose. “No. I don’t suppose he would. That would be because of his innate sense of loyalty, not just to me, but to your mother.”
“My mother is dead.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I know she made your father very happy.”
“They were.” Rose didn’t want to think of that happiness. They had been wonderful years being a family, filled with love and laughter, and then it was gone, just as her mother was gone too. Dead overnight. An embolism, the doctor said. Something going on inside that they could not detect or fix.
“I knew your father many years ago, before he left Zarrenburg. He was the state jeweler for our country.”
“I did not know that. He doesn’t talk much about those days.”
“There is a reason, which, I am sad to say is my fault.”
“Yours?”
“Yes, you see, many years ago, your father was my lover.”
Chapter Nine
Nathan let out a long, thin whistle. “Hell’s teeth.”
To Love a Thief (Steel Hawk) Page 10