8
VICTOR PACED BEFORE the settee, his thoughts racing. Isa hadn’t written the note. She hadn’t left him. Or so she said. And it was hard not to believe her, when she looked as stunned as he felt.
He stiffened. It could still be all an act. She could still be trying to rewrite the past so he wouldn’t take vengeance on her. There had been a theft, after all, and clearly she’d had something to do with it.
But she’d also been very forthcoming so far. If she was trying to allay his suspicions, wouldn’t she just pretend not to know anything about the theft?
Her eyes looked tormented as she met his gaze. “Before I tell you what happened, I need to clarify one thing. Are you saying you had absolutely nothing to do with the theft of those diamonds?”
He drew himself up stiffly. “Until the fakes were discovered, a week after the parure was taken to the palace, I didn’t even know there had been a theft.”
She gaped at him. “The imitations were discovered that soon? But I never saw anything in the papers about it—”
“You were in Paris, remember?” he growled. “You were already living off the spoils.”
When she flinched, he muttered a curse, then strode to the fireplace and back, trying to calm himself. He would get nowhere if he didn’t control his feelings. If he reacted emotionally, it would be too easy for her to slip something past him. He had to behave as an investigator. He had to interrogate her with logic and reason.
Though that would be a great deal easier if he weren’t interrogating the only woman who turned all his logic and reason into pudding.
He frowned as he came to a halt in front of her. Not this time, damn it.
“It wasn’t in the papers,” he said tersely. “The royal family didn’t want to look like fools, and the jeweler didn’t want his reputation damaged. Since no one could be sure whether the jewels had been switched at the palace or at the jeweler’s, they didn’t want to reveal the theft publicly until they found the thieves. Which they never did. Without any evidence, they couldn’t even prosecute anyone.”
“So they never knew it was my family?” she said incredulously.
“Not for certain. At first, I wasn’t even sure.” His voice hardened. “I thought my wife had deserted me, because she was afraid that I would lose my post and she’d end up having to take care of me.”
Anger sparked in her eyes. “I would never have—”
“You were upset when I left you at Jacoba’s that night, if you’ll recall.” He stared down at her. “You were worried about my not having a position.”
She jumped to her feet. “I was worried about trying to get you out of there before you told Jacoba that the jewels were going to the palace the next day!”
That threw him off guard. “Why?”
“Because I knew what they were planning, and I was trying to prevent it.”
Now he really was all at sea. “By insulting me?”
“No!” She muttered a Dutch oath. “Of course not. I had a great deal on my mind. They’d been pressing me to switch the imitations for the real ones, and I’d been stalling. I didn’t want to do it.” Her gaze swept him and softened. “I was so happy with you. I wanted no part of stealing any jewels. But they just kept badgering me and badgering me—”
“So you gave in.”
“Verdomme, no! I played sick. I knew it was the last day for the diamonds to be in the shop, but I was fairly sure Gerhart and Jacoba didn’t know. They must have found out somehow. My sister said that you told her, but most of what she said was lies, so—”
“I did tell her,” he said ruefully. “We were in the hall, and I was concerned about you. I assured her that she wouldn’t have to worry about taking care of you beyond that night, because the jewels were leaving the shop, and the jeweler had already said that I could have a night off after the royal commission was done.”
Isa let out a long breath. “Oh, Lord, and I was trying so hard to keep it from them. I thought if I could just put them off until the next morning, it would all be over and they couldn’t do anything about it.” Her voice grew taut. “I never dreamed they would take matters into their own hands.”
He stared her down. “You’re saying you had nothing to do with it. That you didn’t help them get me out of the way so that the diamonds could be stolen.”
“No!” She wrapped her arms about her waist. “I was asleep while all that was happening.”
Something horrible occurred to Victor. “So you were still at their house when I went to our lodgings to find that note. You never left.”
She shook her head. “I slept until long after your shift ended.”
“But after I went home, I went to their house next, praying that you might be there. I pounded on the door. No one answered.”
“I never heard you. Jacoba had given me something for my supposed sore throat,” Isa said, her expression wrought with betrayal. “It must have had laudanum in it.”
A dark hum began in his ears. “They planned it,” he bit out. “They planned the theft, they planned to separate us.”
Her face went ashen.
“They had to have guessed you wouldn’t switch out the parure.” He went up to her as she shook her head in denial. “Come now, Isa, they must have planned it. How else did the forged note get into our apartment?”
“Our apartment was hardly secure. And if they’d asked the landlord, he would probably have—”
“They didn’t—I questioned him a number of times. But let’s say they got in through the window or something, and planted the note. That still doesn’t explain how they breached the strongbox at the shop. Jacoba must have had a copy of the key, which meant they got hold of my keys somehow before that night.” The hum in his ears rose to a roar. “Unless you gave them my keys.”
“Blast you, no! I told you, I wanted no part of it!”
“Then why did you make the imitation parure?”
She blinked. Then she seemed to collapse into herself. Pressing her fingers to her eyes, she turned to wander the room. “It didn’t start out as a scheme to steal anything, I swear. Jacoba had read about how popular fine paste gems were becoming, how people liked to own jewels that looked identical to those of their betters for a fraction of the cost. So when the jeweler gained the commission to create the royal jewels for the prince’s new bride, Jacoba figured that if I could copy part of them, we could sell the copies for very good money.”
“I didn’t even know you had that particular talent,” he bit out.
“Yes, I realize that,” she said with an edge to her voice. “You always thought me a quiet little mou—”
“Don’t say it,” he snapped. “If I’d had any idea that you hated me calling you Mausi, I never would have.” He stepped toward her, fighting the urge to touch her. “And don’t put words in my mouth about what I thought of you, either. I was in love with you then, too.”
The words hung between them, making him regret he’d said them. Except that they were true, and she needed to hear that he had never used her. Not the way she’d implied.
“Meanwhile,” he went on, his tone sharpening, “your sister and brother-in-law were developing a plan to steal diamonds, and you were designing fake royal jewelry, and apparently you saw no reason whatsoever to let me in on the secret. Your own husband. Whom you’d promised to love and obey.”
That was the crux of it. She’d kept secrets from him the whole while.
“I was afraid of what you’d think of me, damn it!” she cried.
The irony was painful. He’d been afraid of the same thing—what she would think of him if he told her about his past.
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I hoped I could make it all go away, and you’d never have to know what they were plotting. Never have to know that my family considered thievery an acceptable choice.”
“You were protecting them.”
“No.” She scrubbed her face. “Yes. I don’t know.” She cast him an imploring glance. “I created that parure before you even started courting me. I’d always helped Papa craft the imitation jewels to adorn his clocks, and I was good at it. They made it sound so simple—I would fashion the fake, then they could sell it and make enough money to lighten our troubles. That’s what Gerhart said.”
“And you went along with whatever he said,” he grumbled, remembering how her sister and brother-in-law had treated her.
She faced him, taking a belligerent stance. “Jacoba and I owed Gerhart our very lives. You don’t know what things were like for us after Papa died. No one would frequent a clock shop owned by two girls, and Papa hadn’t left us much money. Then Gerhart married Jacoba and gave us both a home. If not for him—”
“You and I would have had these ten years together. So don’t make excuses for him,” Victor said in a hard tone.
All the starch went out of her spine. “I’m not,” she whispered. “I’m making excuses for me. For why I agreed to make the parure in the first place.”
He saw the guilt on her face before she pivoted away, and it tore at him. He caught her arm to turn her toward him. When she just stared down at the floor, it drove a stake through his heart.
“That isn’t entirely your fault,” he said hoarsely. “Gerhart played on your feelings of indebtedness. What you don’t seem to understand is that he didn’t marry Jacoba and take you in out of the goodness of his heart. He did it because he saw that he could use both of you to his own advantage. I always thought so.”
She still wouldn’t look at him. “You never said that.”
“No, and I should have. It was just . . . I was coming into a new family, and I didn’t want to create trouble between you and them.” He brushed a strand of her hair out of her face. “And you seemed to think well of them.”
“I loved my sister,” she said fervently. “She was the only mother I ever knew. And I was grateful for what Gerhart had done. I owed him the clothes on my back, the food in my belly—”
“For the first few years after your father died, perhaps,” Victor said, his temper flaring. “But after that, Gerhart got what he wanted out of you. He sent you out to work at the jeweler’s when you were only fifteen. When I met you, you were already earning an excellent income while he played cards with his friends in the shop, letting it run into the ground. You did more than your part in supporting those two.”
“Not according to them,” she said in a dead voice. “According to him and my sister, I was an ungrateful little whiner who couldn’t see how lucky I was to have them looking after me. And I believed them!” Her tone grew anguished. “I never guessed that she would ever be so . . . cruel as to drug me and tell me the lies she did that night. How could she have betrayed me so? How could I have let her?”
She finally lifted her gaze to his. “I regret that more than you can imagine.” Her breath came in tortured gasps now, as if she fought tears. “I regret that I was such a stupid little . . . mouse of a girl . . . that I never even saw—”
“Shh,” he murmured and pulled her into his arms. “Shh, lieveke.”
The endearment seemed to do something to her, for she tensed in his arms. “I’m so sorry. So . . . very . . . sorry . . .”
If she’d been weeping and protesting her innocence, he might have kept his heart hardened against her. But when she was blaming herself and struggling not to cry, he couldn’t take it. He’d always been a softhearted dolt when it came to her, and apparently that hadn’t changed.
Later he would make her tell him what she and her family had done with the jewels, why she’d come here alone. But for now, he needed to comfort her. To hold her.
To kiss her.
The moment his lips met hers, she froze. Then, like snow in sunshine, she melted, her mouth just as sweet as he remembered, soft and giving and warm. While he was kissing her, he could forget the past, forget why they’d been torn apart, forget that he’d come here for vengeance and justice. He could lose himself in her and pretend that nothing had changed between them.
She jerked back, her eyes dark and startled, her lips trembling. “Wait—I have questions, and I know that you must have some, too.”
“Not yet. Not now.” He dragged her fully against him. “Let me have this first.”
He kissed her again. And again and again, savoring the mouth he’d forgotten he’d missed, smelling the violet water in her hair. It was like sinking into a hot bath after a long day.
Except that instead of relaxing him, it drove him into a frenzy. Every inch of him was already hard for her, and she made it even worse by arching up against him, grabbing his head in her hands and kissing him back, feeding on his mouth as he was feeding on hers. She still wanted him, too.
She was his. Still his.
“Oh, Victor,” she whispered against his lips, “we shouldn’t do this.”
“Why not?” He backed her toward the settee. “We’re married.”
“Yes, but . . . I’m not the same woman you knew.”
“You look the same.” He sat down on the settee and dragged her onto his lap so he could brand her neck and her shoulder and her throat with hot kisses. “You taste the same.” He cupped her breast, reveling in the moan she gave before she leaned into his hand. “You feel the same.”
When her nipple tightened beneath his caress, he realized that there were no enhancements in her riding habit to make her breasts seem bigger. “Well, mostly the same.” He stroked her other breast, too. “These are a bit larger than I remember. However did you manage that?”
Her eyes shot to him, looking startled, even frightened. “What do you mean?”
“I’m teasing you, that’s all,” he murmured, not wanting her to withdraw from him again.
“Oh.” She dropped her gaze to where his hands fondled her shamelessly. “Well . . . I . . . I was young when we parted. I guess I grew a bit.”
“Trust me,” he said as he kneaded her breasts, enjoying the feel of them and the way her cheeks flushed, “I’m not complaining.”
“What man ever would?” she said dryly.
He laughed. It wasn’t something the old Isa would have said. “True. And you’re right—you aren’t the same woman. But I’m not the same man, either.”
Sadness spread over her face. “No, you’re not.” She seized his hands as her eyes met his. “There was always a darkness in you, and I accepted that because I knew it came from your service in the war. But you were never hard, as you are now. What happened to make you so hard?”
He stiffened. “My wife deserted me, that’s what happened. I was left to pick up the pieces and be accused of—”
When her expression turned troubled, he could have bitten off his tongue. Right now he wanted her in his bed. He didn’t want to dredge through the past.
“Accused of what?” she whispered. “If you didn’t leave Amsterdam the way Jacoba and Gerhart said, then you must have been around when they found the imitations at the palace.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He tried to pull her close for another kiss, but she twisted free and left his lap to stand staring down at him.
“Tell me what happened,” she said firmly. “I need to know.”
“Why?” he snapped. “So you can be sure that I kept your secret? That no one is searching for you and your family?” When she recoiled, he rose from the settee with a curse. “I’m sorry, Isa. I didn’t mean that.”
She held her ground, though he towered over her. “I think you did. But I suppose you have good reason.” She lifted her hand to stroke his cheek. “Please, Victor, I have to know what they did to you. Did they blame you for the theft? Or did you leave before they could? You said you went to Antwerp.”
“After my life had been destroyed.” Shoving her hand away, he stalked past her to the fireplace. “Since no one was ever going to hire me in Amsterdam again, I had to try to find work elsewhere.”
“Because of me.”
“Yes, damn you!” he growled, whirling on her. “Because of you.”