“Well,” Julia hastily assured them, “they are all very healthy. Thank you. But you, Mrs. Wilder, I hear you are doing wonderful things for our soldiers and sailors. A relief fund of some sort?”
“Yes,” Anne replied, shifting uncomfortably.
Julia caught her hand in both of hers. “How fine! How very, very fine. Mother and I did some nursing when they first were bringing our soldiers home,” she said, her eyes glowing. “We opened the house. It was quite satisfying.”
She gave Anne’s hand a squeeze, her face wreathed in approving smiles. “If Matthew were alive I’m sure he would have encouraged you.”
“Would he?” Sophia did not look convinced. “But that would mean Anne wouldn’t be able to spend every waking moment with him.”
Julia laughed. Anne, Jack noted, did not. “Oh, Sophia, still such a tease! But really, Anne, I am jealous of you, having something so rewarding to occupy the long days—”
She stopped abruptly, suddenly mindful that her words revealed a loneliness and aimlessness in her life that might make her companions uncomfortable.
Anne rushed to fill the awkward gap. “How are you enjoying the little season, Miss Knapp?”
“Oh,” Julia answered easily. “I’m not here for the season. My brother’s eldest daughter will make her bow in a few months. We’re visiting dressmakers and such.”
“But Julia,” Sophia protested. “You must allow yourself a little fun.”
“I’ll be gone by week’s end, I’m afraid,” Julia said quietly. “I’ve no reason to stay.”
“We will miss you,” Anne said in open discomfort.
“Colonel Seward was asking about Matthew, Mrs. Wilder,” Julia said a shade too brightly. “He wondered what sort of man he was.”
Anne’s head swung up. She pierced him with an indecipherable look, tragic and bitterly alone. “Oh. The very best, Colonel Seward,” she declared. “The very best.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Oh, dear,” Julia said, gazing anxiously at Anne. “I am so sorry. I hadn’t thought it would still be so painful for you to speak of him. Please forgive me.”
Her distress cut Anne with a thousand little blades of guilt. “Please don’t apologize. I’m fine,” she answered.
Julia was the most decent woman in Anne’s acquaintance. She’d never accused Matthew of abandoning her or Anne of pursuing him. And she could have been so accused. She had pursued Matthew Wilder, with all the skills and determination at her command.
“Colonel Seward was going to tell us about Scotland,” Julia said, casting about for some topic of conversation.
“Was he?” Anne asked. She glanced in his direction, barely able to bring herself to look at him, it hurt so much.
He was frowning at her.
“I think Scotland a fiercely romantic place, don’t you, Julia?” Sophia gushed. “Especially the mountains., Did you come from the Highlands, Colonel?”
“No. Edinburgh.”
That’s right, Anne thought, her gaze fixed on Julia, her every other sense attuned to Jack. They said Sir Jamison had found him in a workhouse in Edinburgh. She’d forgotten. As she’d forgotten she was a thief.
“Mrs. Wilder?” Julia’s low voice took her by surprise. “Might I have a word?”
Anne nodded numbly. With a light touch, Julia drew her aside, leaving Jack and Sophia together. “I should not speak here, but I feel I must. I doubt whether I’ll have another opportunity and I feel I owe it to Matthew,” Julia said softly.
Anne went still. “What do you owe Matthew, Miss Knapp?”
“He loved you so very much.”
Dear God. A deep, acid pain spiked through her stomach. How many more reminders must she bear? How many times must she be reminded that she’d been loved … no, adored, given the sort of affection most women only can imagine? The love Julia Knapp should have had.
“From your reaction to my mention of Matthew’s name, it is obvious that you still mourn. You shouldn’t. It isn’t right. Matthew would have been appalled.”
Matthew would have loved it. The thought bubbled up inside with unexpected vitriol. Aghast, she bit her lip.
“I grieve, too,” Julia said earnestly. “Matthew was my friend. And though I haven’t experienced the loss that a”—she paused—“a wife would, I know he wouldn’t have wanted his memory kept in a shrine of unhappiness. ‘When Annie laughs,’ he once said to me, ‘I cannot help but smile.’ ”
“Please don’t.”
Julia secured one of Anne’s chill hands in her own, rubbing it between her palms. “Dear Mrs. Wilder, begin again. You’re young. Your whole life is before you. Begin once more to enjoy it.”
“As you have?” Anne asked in a hushed voice.
Julia smiled. “But I have none of your resources, my dear. If I could find something to give myself to …” She shook her head ruefully.
“I could change that,” Anne said, and heard the pathetic eagerness in her tone. “You could come and stay with me. Be my companion. We could—”
“Live in Matthew’s house? Eat from his table?” Julia shook her head. “I could never accept anything of Matthew’s from you.” There was no spite in her refusal, just a deep and ineffable pride that refreshed Anne’s knowledge of how profoundly Julia had been hurt by Matthew’s abandonment.
How stupid of her to suggest such a thing. To be made the companion of the woman who’d stolen your future, your life? She could add callousness to the list of her transgressions.
“That was insensitive. I apologize.”
“There’s no need.” A sweet smile lit Julia’s plain face. “But please, try to put the past behind you.”
She nodded, knowing herself to be a liar. The past would not stay behind. It stalked her on a peg leg, reproached her in an old woman’s voice, and in Matthew’s mother’s accusing letters. It came dressed in taffeta to dine. It would always be with her.
Her gaze fell on Jack Seward’s dark-gold head bent close to Sophia’s. Why had he kissed her and torn open her well-guarded heart, exposing her to this pain of wanting something that could never be? Is this how Matthew had felt? No wonder he had chosen death over such pain.
Why had Jack done this? What did he see when he looked at her? She closed her eyes. Her head thrummed with pain. Her heart felt near to breaking.
Bitterness came to her aid.
Jack saw a grieving widow. A woman with no illustrious name to protect, a woman who’d once married above herself. He saw a woman who’d won a saintly man’s adoration.
He didn’t see her at all. He glanced up, his expression tense and seeking.
The thief. That was who she was. He should learn. He should know.
If only he would not look at her with such frowning concern, as if he would find her demons and excise them for her. If only he were not ever present, besieging her with his grave courtesy and warm eyes, his rare laughter and strength, maybe then—God help her—she could make herself stop caring about him.
She laughed, the sound small and brittle. The laugh turned into a sob. And she caught it back.
Jack stepped forward immediately, leaving Sophia’s sentence hanging unfinished between them. Anne held up a hand, fending him off. Julia’s worried gaze fell on her.
“I must have taken a chill this afternoon,” she heard herself say as if from a distance. “Sophia, you will entertain our guests? You’ll forgive me if I retire? Miss Knapp?”
“Certainly, Mrs. Wilder.”
“Colonel?”
He inclined his head and she fled.
The Norths’ party ended an hour later. Unfashionably early but far too long for Jack. He walked from Mayfair to his address near the wharves, replaying Anne’s expression as she’d fled the room and—he could not help but think—him.
The chill rising in misty sheets from the riverbanks swirled lazily about his legs. It was too cold to be out drinking, too late to be working. No one manned the flickering barrel fires.
Griffin and a
boy materialized from the mist as he reached his door.
“I stayed awake the whole bloody night,” the boy said without preamble. Griffin stood by silently. “Just likes you says to. The kitchen maid’s a right doxy, sneaks out ’alf the nights, but she ne’er climbed no roof.”
Jack nodded. It was as he’d expected. He’d misplayed this from the beginning. He’d depended on the thief’s recklessness and audacity compelling her to act in defiance of him, in spite of—or perhaps because—she knew he was close.
He’d been wrong. She’d disappeared.
He fished into his pocket for some coins and tossed them into a grimy waiting hand. “Keep watching.”
“Right-o, Cap.” The boy slunk away.
The thief had called him Cap, too, but her coarse Dockland accent wasn’t a native’s. She’d learned it either secondhand or later in her life.
For days he’d neglected her pursuit, bent on another pursuit altogether. But now time grew short and he needed to return his attention to the thief. Only in finding some trail to follow could he buy himself more time. Time to solve the riddle of this letter.
“Give me some news,” Jack said. “What have you heard from Burke?”
“Nothing,” Griffin said in disgust. “The boy gave his notice to Frost and hied off up Sussex way on some mad chase.”
“And what have you found? I need a trail to follow. I need it now,” Jack demanded tersely.
“I think Atwood had the letter for some time before he told Jamison about it,” Griffin said. “My lad at Windsor said how Atwood was a regular visitor until April, when he made his last visit.”
“Who was Atwood visiting?”
“This is what surprised me, Cap. He was visiting the old king.”
“What?” Jack asked incredulously. Griffin nodded.
Could there be something there? Had the king in his madness disclosed some scandal, some information that could be used to blackmail the regent?
“And speaking of strange bedfellows, I’ve had Lord Vedder watched like you instructed. He’s getting chummy with Frost who—not to pretty it up none—hates your guts, Cap. And Vedder paid another visit to your father night before last. Knowles wasn’t invited.”
“He’s probably demanding Jamison have me beheaded for my impertinence. Still, he bears watching,” Jack said, then without further comment climbed the stairs to the front door and let himself in.
“You’ll be ruined if you stay,” Strand cautioned in his laconic manner. He lifted his candle, shedding light over the heavily swathed figure of his late-night visitor. “Haven’t you heard about men like me?”
Sophia North dropped her cloak’s hood, exposing a glorious mane of red-gold ringlets. “Ruin me? Aren’t you rather assuming too much?”
His face grew still. She tossed her head and the red gold shimmered in the soft candlelight. He’d always been partial to redheaded chits.
“What do you want here, little Sophia?”
She arched her brow playfully. He almost laughed at her. She’d been a warm armful in the conservatory and a most willing pupil, soft and fragrant and filled with urgency. Too much urgency. The girl had no finesse.
“I’ve come to finish what we started.” She pointed to the back hallway where he’d uncovered her breasts and kissed her small nipples as she’d panted appreciatively while a few feet away his other guests had chattered and laughed. It had proven a stimulating seduction.
“I doubt your father would approve.”
“Probably not.” She’d begun to untie the silk frogs at her neck, but now she hesitated. Just as well, he thought with a small inner sigh. He’d had a few too many bottles to drink this evening, and lately, even when sober, he’d little enough self-restraint. This, while it held a certain appeal, simply could not be a good idea.
“And what of Mrs. Wilder? She can’t be aware of your whereabouts.” Mrs. Wilder of the dark and magnetic gaze and the wise and worldly mien. Now, there was a woman to spark a fire in a man’s loins and heart. If he’d had one.
He smiled at Sophia, prepared to send her on her way and find himself a woman of talent to bed. A woman who’d make him forget that other lovers found more in bed than wetness and heat, flesh and blood. He gestured for Sophia to depart through the back door whence she’d come.
She didn’t move. Something he’d said or something she’d read in his face had tipped fate’s balance. Defiantly she loosed the last silk fastening. The cloak dropped from her shoulders, pooling around her feet.
She was naked. The guttering candlelight hungrily licked her pink and ivory flesh, glinted in the red-gold thatch between her sweet thighs, flowed over twin plump breasts even now peaking in the chill hallway.
“Teach me what a man likes, Strand.” Her voice was low, hypnotic. “Teach me what a woman likes.”
Strand smiled, his gaze sweeping her flushed face, the brilliant excitement in her eyes, the bravura humming in her vibrant, abominably young body.
“You aren’t thinking of using me, are you, little Sophia?”
In answer, she reached out and clasped his hand in hers, lifting it and sliding his knuckles against her lips. Soft and silky smooth lips.
“Yes,” she whispered, pressing a moist kiss on the back of his hand. “But won’t you be using me, too?”
How charmingly ingenuous of her. Of course he would be using her. To forget Cat Montrose and Anne Wilder and all the Anne Wilders who promised to bring repletion to a man’s soul, not merely a temporary depletion to his sexual drive.
Yes, he thought, she might make him momentarily forget the little matter of being so damn alone.
She moved within arm’s reach and placed her hand not on his chest but on his thigh. He swelled. She smiled knowingly. “We can use each other.”
Perhaps she was not so innocent after all.
And, really, he thought, his own hands moving up to pet her breasts and flanks and soft rounded little belly, she couldn’t have asked for a better teacher.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The night was sky, all sky. If she lifted her arms, closed her eyes, and leaned out, she wouldn’t fall. She would dissolve into its vastness or rise like smoke and be tattered in the high, clear winds that scoured heaven’s underbelly.
The earth below was the more ephemeral element. It crouched beneath the fog like a leper hiding beneath his shroud. Up here her nerves were attuned to every nuance and her senses quivered in voluptuous surrender to her compulsion.
She glanced back through her bedroom window. Behind the frost-rimmed glass, a single candle glowed on a side table. Crumpled sheets twined across the bed and the silk puddle of a cast-off nightgown shimmered on the carpet.
Peering in like a secret spectator on her own life, Anne thought the room unfamiliar. She fancied that if she stood outside long enough gazing in, she would eventually see its exhausted tenant cross the room with a cup of warm milk.
The thought petrified her. So like madness, fancying two people inhabited one life.
Too little sleep, she thought, rubbing her fists into her eyes. Too much wine. Too many memories and obligations, too many regrets and wishes crowded her thoughts, her heart, her soul. She wanted freedom from them all.
She wanted to shed her humanity, abandon it to the animal prowling within her, that blessed conscienceless creature without past or future, just the single focus of its intent: Jack Seward, who courted her in one world and hunted her in the other.
She pulled the black cap down over her hair and readjusted the silk mask over her eyes. The length of rope draped across her chest felt awkward, and the pistol jammed beneath the waistband at the small of her back dug into her flesh.
The sky was black, the air was frigid, but at least it was hers. Tonight she visited Devil Jack, Whitehall’s Hound, a man who did terrible things—but none so terrible as making her believe she might have loved him, returning to her that destructive illusion, that killing hope. With a man like that, one didn’t take chances.
The cold penetrated her joints and stiffened her fingers. It would have numbed her heart if that organ hadn’t already been deadened.
She needed this to awaken it, these intense and empowering moments when she risked nothing more important than her life, when she belonged only to herself and the night and the cold distant stars.
She trotted sure-footed along the rime-frosted roof. Her senses swam under a deluge of stimuli. Sound was a forest, color a feast, breath and muscle and movement an orchestration. And she reveled in it.
Damn Sophia and her father. Damn Julia Knapp. Damn Matthew’s crippled soldiers and Mrs. Cashman huddled on some foul street corner. And damn Jack Seward.
She peered over the eaves. A youngster by the park gate across the street lifted his clever face and searched the rooftop. Another of Jack Seward’s lackeys. Let him search.
She ran lightly, her breath making fog. The steep-pitched surface was not so easily navigated as the flat broad peak, but her figure would be hard to pick out against the black background. She did not consider the danger of unsure footing. She did not care.
She only wanted one thing from this night, an end to dreams and resurrected pain.
She went on, her direction unerring, her flight straight as a nighthawk’s. She knew where he lived, an unassuming address in an unprepossessing area of town, where the landlords catered to impoverished second sons and debt-ridden fashionables.
She came to a chasm demarcating a street far below and flung herself into the emptiness above it. She laughed as she landed on the far side, pushing herself to go faster, quicker than her betraying mind could form Jack’s face. Only exertion touched her now, dampening her skin with equal measures of sweat and pleasure.
Another street, another leap. Her muscles stretched and quivered, her pulse raced like a rabbit’s, and every pore of her skin breathed exhilaration. Heart pounding, she scrambled up the steep slate shakes to the top of the town house.
She was there.
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