Rogue Grooms
Page 30
Finally, she came to the day Damien took the Star away. She squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could and sped through the story, her voice cracking.
“. . . and so you see, David,” she finished. “I know that you wanted to ask me about the Star; I am sure you must want it back. It is yours! And my family stole it. I am so very sorry. I can never say that enough. You must hate me now. You must be sorry you ever stood as my friend!”
David said nothing, but neither did he let go of her hand. His clasp tightened around hers convulsively, and she felt the stiffness of his shoulder against hers.
Slowly, very slowly, she opened her eyes and dared to peek up at him. He stared away, over her head, and his handsome features were taut. He was the very portrait of suppressed anger.
Emily tried to pull her hand from his, to move her loathsome presence away so he would not have to look at her and her betrayal. But he refused to release her. Indeed, his other arm came around her shoulders and held her close. His eyes as he stared down at her were burning black.
“How dare he?” David growled, in a voice she had never heard from him before. “A brother is meant to protect his sister, to hold her safe, not throw her into poverty and dishonor. How could Damien have even called himself a man after such disgrace? He had no honor. No strength.”
Emily felt a prickling behind her eyes, a harbinger of tears. She could not cry now! She had refused to show tears for all this time, refused to be less than perfectly proud. Even when neighbors whispered and snickered about her old gowns, she would not lower her chin an inch. She was a Kenton, and Kentons were never ashamed, even when their hearts burned with it.
She blinked hard, and said thickly, “He—he had a sickness for gambling, and for other shameful things as well.”
“Drink and whores? That is no excuse, Emily. He was a duke. He owed his family and title a great responsibility. And he did not fulfill it. He left his mother behind to illness, his sister to hard work a lady should never know—and he ended by stealing from my family.”
“I should have stopped him!” Emily cried, frantic. “I should have known he would come for the Star and hidden it from him. I should have run after him when he took it—”
“Emily!” David said firmly, seizing her by the shoulders and forcing her to face him, to be still. “None of this is on your head. None of it! You were always honorable. You took care of your mother and your tenants when your brothers could not. You never could have saved the Star from Damien’s greed—no one could.”
Emily did cry then. Great, salty tears that ran down her cheeks and splashed onto David’s wrist. She pressed hard at her lips with her gloved hand, but the tears would not be stopped. She had thought David would hate her when he discovered what happened. Instead, he was angry with Damien. He called her honorable, he held her close to him.
For so long, she had felt all alone, even in Alex and Georgina’s warm home. Now, suddenly, she was not alone. It was too much for all her locked-up emotions to bear.
“I should have tried harder to stop him,” she sniffled. “You were my best friend, David, and I disappointed you.”
He gave her a wry smile. “Emily, you could never, ever disappoint me.” He reached inside his coat for a handkerchief and pressed it into her hand. “Now, here, my brave girl. Dry your eyes before someone notices us and we are ejected from the museum for causing a scene.”
Emily gave a watery laugh, and mopped at her eyes and cheeks. Now that a measure of her good sense was returning, she was glad their corner was so ill-lit—her face was surely a mottled mess. “Indeed, you are right. Damien was the one who took the Star, but I am the one left with the consequences. I know you wanted it back, David.”
He sat back on the bench, stretching his long legs out before him with a deep sigh. “Yes, I did. Or rather, my grandmother did. Does.”
“Your grandmother?”
“Ah, yes. You see, Emily, I have my own tale to tell you.”
“A tale?” Emily said warily. “I like tales—usually. Unless they are like my own.”
David smiled gently. “You say you enjoy stories of India. And this one is full of curses and spirits and all manner of exciting events. And, according to my grandmother, it is even true.”
Emily was intrigued, despite everything there was to worry about at this moment. There was a childlike part of herself, hidden in her heart, that did still revel in fairy tales. “About the Star?”
“Yes. You see, when my grandparents were first married, they were unable to have a child. My grandmother made many sacrifices, visited many shrines. One night, after praying at a temple to the god Shiva, she had a vision.”
“A vision?”
“A dream, if you will. She dreamed that Shiva, who is a god of contradictions—the dance and stillness, bounty and wrath, destruction and fertility—told her he would grant her wish if she would bring him the great sky-stone. The most beautiful of all jewels.”
Emily was mesmerized by the flow of his deep, rich voice, and the strange story he told. In her mind’s eye, she could see his grandmother as a beautiful, dark young woman swathed in bright silks, kneeling at the feet of the many-armed god. “And that was the Star?”
“The Star of India, yes. It belonged to my great-grandfather. He wore it in his turban, and was deeply proud of it. In a land of glorious jewels, the Star was special. But, as much as he treasured the jewel, he treasured the dream of grandsons even more.”
“So, he gave her the sapphire.”
“He did. And, that very same day, she and my grandfather went back to the temple and laid the Star at Shiva’s feet. Nine months later, my uncle was born. Six more children followed, including my mother, who was said the be the most beautiful woman in Bengal.”
“The sacrifice worked!”
“It would appear so.”
“But then what went wrong?”
“My mother grew up, and met my father, who was in the army in Calcutta. They met in the marketplace and fell instantly in love. She wanted to give him something extraordinary to prove the depth of her devotion. The finest thing she knew of was the Star. She saw it often, for my grandmother liked to take her children back to the temple to make sacrifices in thanks.”
“Was your mother not afraid to take the jewel from its sacred spot?” Emily whispered.
A ghost of a smile drifted across David’s lips. “My mother was not a superstitious woman. She converted to Christianity when she married my father, and she did not fear Shiva’s wrath. Very soon after she gave him the Star, and when I was a small child, my father’s older brother died and he was called back to England to take up the earldom. Only after my parents departed Calcutta did my grandmother discover what her daughter had done.”
“And then what did she do?” Emily asked.
“I was only a tiny child then, but my grandmother’s servants say she wailed and cried, and broke everything in her chambers. She went back to the temple to beg forgiveness, and that night she had another dream.”
“Or vision.”
“Yes, another vision. Shiva said that her family would be cursed until the Star was returned to him.”
“Oh,” Emily breathed. In her imagination, the museum around them had disappeared completely. She was in a humid-heavy temple, surrounded by the thick scents of incense and jasmine—feeling the inescapable weight of a curse falling over herself and her family. She could not breathe; her breath caught in her throat, strangling her.
Emily reached up to loosen the ribbons of her bonnet, trying not to reveal the depth of her reaction. She hated for David to think her an even bigger fool than he surely already did. “What happened?”
David shrugged. “It appeared her curse came true. My mother died very young, in childbirth. My father nearly went mad with grief, and he died of yellow fever soon after we returned to India. Rupasri also died young.”
Emily’s family, too, had been touched by this litany of despair, she realized with a shock. Her mothe
r’s accident, her father’s early death, Damien’s wasted life. Could it all have been the fault of the Star?
Do not be stupid, Emily, she told herself sternly. This is the nineteenth century, not the Middle Ages. There are no such things as curses.
Still, a tiny sense of disquiet reverberated in her heart.
“Do—do you believe in this curse, David?” she said slowly.
He stared at her closely. “No. Bad things happen to all of us in this world. I suppose it is a curse, but the curse is called life.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“However, my grandmother believes entirely in this curse. Before I left India, she charged me with recovering the jewel. I love her, Emily—she was like a true mother to me when my parents died. She is very old now, and I do not want her to live out the rest of her years uneasy because of this.”
Emily’s heart ached for him. “I am so sorry, David. What a dreadful thing!”
“Are you sure you have no idea where the Star could be now? Where your brother sold it?”
“I . . .” Emily swallowed hard. Her stare dropped to her lap, to the braid trim on her gown. She had been so lost in the tale of the Star in India that she quite forgot her own story was not finished. The hardest part was still to come. “Do you read the London papers, David?”
He gave a rueful laugh. “I do try, but I fear I cannot read too closely when Anjali is at the breakfast table with me.”
“But you do remember Sir Charles and Lady Innis? We met them in the park.”
One of his dark brows arched quizzically. “Yes, I remember them. I received an invitation to some ball they are giving. What does all of this have to do with the Star?”
“Well, you see, Sir Charles has the Star—or at least the false Star Damien sold him. It is the paste copy which will be on display at this ball, which the experts will then examine. But I have no idea where the real one can be. I have wracked my brain trying to recall every pawnshop Damien frequented, every gaming hell he owed money to, but it is no use! I am sorry, David—so very sorry.”
“Emily, I have told you, none of this is your fault. How could it possibly be? I shall just have to—” Suddenly, David’s soothing words broke off. His dark stare veered back to her sharply, and he reached out to clasp her arm. “Did you say experts were coming to examine the paste Star?”
Emily nodded mutely. Her voice seemed to have died in her throat, and she was weary—so very weary. The high tension of the past few days had ground her down, and her very bones were tired. She longed to rest her head against David’s strong shoulder and sleep for a month. She wanted to forget all about her family and the jewel, and everything except David.
But that could not be. She had come this far, she could not stop now, not with everything yet undone and the sword of Damocles still hanging over her head. The best she could hope for was that David would help her, be her ally.
She stared deeply into his eyes, but all she saw there were more difficult questions.
“Yes,” she answered. “And they will know at once that the stone is false—and Sir Charles will remember that it was my brother who sold it to him all those years ago. But I have a plan, you see. Or at least the beginnings of one. That is why I was at that jeweler’s shop in Gracechurch Street this morning.”
Still watching him closely, Emily told of her wild idea to switch out the new Star with the paste one at the ball. How she would contrive to do this, she was not entirely certain. She could only hope there would be a moment when no one else was near the case holding the Star. Then she could employ the old lock-picking skills she had perfected as a girl, when breaking into cases was the only way she could obtain needed coins from Damien. The switch could be done in a trice. If only . . .
Her plan was only half-done, she knew that. And that conclusion was confirmed by the dubious expression on David’s face.
“It is ridiculous, is it not?” she said, pulling away from him.
“Not entirely, Emily. The idea of replacing the paste jewel with a genuine sapphire is a very clever one. But you must not get caught in making the switch. You need a better plan for that part of it.” He stared past her, at the impervious Hestia. Slowly, resolutely, dubiousness turned to calculation. A smile broke over his face, as the golden sunrise after a very dark night. “You will need assistance. From someone like myself, perhaps.”
Emily’s heart lightened, as if on new-sprung wings, and she could not stop herself from leaning forward to press a kiss to his cheek. “Oh, David! I was so, so hoping you would say that.”
What a fool I am, David thought, as he left Emily with promises to think on her plans and conceive an idea for the night of the Innis ball. What was he doing, contemplating turning jewel thief (well, jewel switcher, which was in a way even worse)? He was an earl now, with responsibilities, a daughter to take care of. He was not a wild youth anymore, free to spend all his time running across the country fields with Emily Kenton.
He was a besotted fool. That was the only answer. One look into the sapphire depths of Emily’s eyes, and he would do anything to make her smile again. Even turn burglar.
But there was no denying the way his heart seemed to skip a beat when she did smile. The way his blood surged and heated when her soft lips touched his skin, even briefly. He wanted to help her, to make her life perfect—now and always.
And there was also no denying the excitement that simmered in his soul at the prospect of intrigue. Life in England was quiet and staid in comparison with the hot, bright drama of India. Only with Emily did he feel himself come truly alive again, did he hear the distant call of wild birds tempting him onward.
He swung up into his phaeton, turning the horses toward home. Emily’s carriage, a proper one this time, with the Kenton crest on the door, had already moved onto the next street, out of his sight.
The thought of the shameful way her brother had treated her made his blood burn hot in his veins. His heart cried out for revenge—yet that could never be. Damien Kenton was dead, forever beyond an earthly reckoning for his dishonorable deeds. He had been dead for many years, and still Emily was cleaning up his messes. Beautiful, sweet Emily, whose young days should have been filled with music and gowns and suitors, not money and farms and family honor.
What was wrong with Alexander and his vivid, clever wife, that they could not see the unbearable pressure their sister was living under?
But that was unfair. Emily had not gone to them for help, insisted they not be “bothered” in anyway by this debacle. He, David, was all she had. He could not disappoint her.
The loss of the Star was a great one, and he felt it keenly. His grandmother had charged him with its recovery, and he never wanted to disappoint her, either. He would give his left arm to release her from her “curse” and ease her old age.
Yet, even more strongly, with a force greater than any he had ever encountered before, he wanted to see Emily laugh again—really laugh, as she had when they were children. Free of all worry and care. He would do anything for that. He would die for it.
Oh-ray-baba. He was a besotted fool, indeed.
Chapter Ten
“Wellwell,” Georgina murmured, sotto voce, as they left their wraps with the waiting footmen and melded into the throng flowing into the Innis ballroom. “It would seem that even the highest sticklers of the ton have allowed curiosity to get the better of them. They have all deigned to enter the house of a ‘vulgar Cit.’ ”
Emily adjusted her kid gloves over her arms and gave her sister-in-law a wry smile. She was trying her hardest to appear cool and amused, as she usually was at such events. She even laughed a bit, but she could see that she had not entirely fooled Georgina, who watched Emily with a tiny frown puckering her forehead.
Before Georgina could say anything, Emily turned away to snatch a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing footman. As she sipped, or rather gulped in a most unladylike fashion at the bracing, bubbling liquid, her gaze scanned the crowd.
Lady Innis, clad in a very fashionable and stunning gown of a cloth-of-gold tunic over an ivory satin slip, was in radiant form. She greeted and laughed, and gestured with her gold-colored feather fan, trailed by her bemused husband. Lady Innis’s diamond necklace and earrings, as well as the large ruby brooch that fastened her gold silk turban, were the grandest Emily had ever seen.
No wonder they can afford to donate the Star, she thought. They obviously wanted the philanthropic prestige of patronizing a new, highbrow museum more than they needed money.
She exchanged her empty glass for a full one and drifted along the edges of the white and silver ballroom, trying to stay out of sight of any of her friends or acquaintances. She saw Mr. Carrington over by the tall windows, but he did not spot her.
The dancing had not yet started, but the orchestra, hidden behind a bank of potted palms, played a soft melody. Mozart, perhaps, or Haydn. Emily could hear it well, because, despite the great size of the gathering, the crowd was strangely hushed. People stood in clusters and knots, whispering and murmuring and staring. She found a quiet corner, half-hidden behind a palm of her own, and scanned the faces carefully.
But the one face she wanted to see above all others was not to be glimpsed. David had obviously not yet arrived.
“Please, do not let him forget,” she whispered, half in prayer, half to reassure herself. He would not forget, how could he? Her tale had been one of the oddest he had surely ever heard, and the Star was almost as much his concern as it was hers. But maybe he had decided she was an utter lunatic and he wanted no part in her schemes.