A Devil of a Duke by Madeline Hunter (16)

Chapter Sixteen

He felt her presence throughout the house. He had not seen her since she ran away from him in the garden a few hours before, but he could sense her so clearly that he could follow her in his mind as she moved through the house. All the while, her last words repeated in his head. I do not think I can trust you now.

Trust him with what? What terrible burden did she carry that had led her to risk so much to steal a few ancient artifacts? He was sure he had guessed only part of the story. He wanted to hear the rest, and not only so he knew what he faced due to being involved.

And how the hell had she managed it at Sir Malcolm’s house? It would require risking life and limb to jump from one window to the next.

There had been no stolen goods in that trunk or valise. He looked while he waited for her in that dreadful cellar. She was not the collector, but then he’d never thought she was. Rather he had hoped to find the evidence and remove it so she did not hold stolen goods.

The buckle and brooch were gone already. To whom? He’d found little money in his search, so where was the payment she received for her services?

He left the house to find some peace. He visited his club. Stratton and Brentworth were there. They played cards while Stratton bored them with yawn-by-gurgle details about his son.

Then the talk took an unfortunate turn.

“I say, Stratton, did you hear about the theft at Sir Malcolm Nutley’s house?” Brentworth asked.

Stratton, who had no time for news these days, had not.

“The thief went in through a window,” Brentworth said. “A high window. Hell of a thing.”

Gabriel had not told him that detail. Brentworth had been poking around. “I said no questions,” he muttered when a friend distracted Stratton with congratulations about the heir.

“And I asked none of you, as you required.”

“No, you went elsewhere and probably stirred all kinds of pots with your curiosity.”

“I have property to protect.”

“Then protect it, but otherwise keep your nose out of this.”

“A high window,” Stratton said, returning his attention. “That is odd. A rare skill. One misstep and down you go.”

Gabriel pictured Amanda plummeting to the ground outside Harry’s house. He wished Stratton had not warmed to the topic.

“There was a fellow in France when I first went back who became celebrated for going in and out windows. He knew his jewels and only stole the best,” Stratton said. “What was his name now? He was caught and the trial was all the talk.” He pondered. “An English fellow. Watkins—no, Willow? That’s not it.” He gave up with a shrug.

“What became of him? Might he have moved his adventures here to London?” Brentworth asked.

“He was sent to a penal colony. He probably died there. Many do.”

That seemed a fitting end to the story.

“Or—” Brentworth said. “He may have jumped ship. Think about it. What would hold such a man on a prisoner ship? Shackles? He may be good with locks. The seas themselves? All ships must call into ports for water and provisions. Guards? None are strict to their duties. In a port he could even jump to another ship and avoid the guards that way if he has this talent in movement.”

Gabriel’s thoughts returned to Amanda. Stealing those items had taken great skill—skill acquired only through years of practice.

What if Amanda had not been turning away from her current life? What if instead she had been running from a past one?

* * *

Amanda kept all the drapes open so she could see the night sky through the windows from her bed. She had failed in her plan. That buckle had probably left that go-between, Mr. Pritchard’s home sometime today. Instead of being there to follow it, she had been stuck here instead.

She did not think her mother would be released. If another demand came, she would not even know it.

This day of doing nothing had left her alone with only her thoughts for company, and by the time she climbed into bed, she had reached a sad conclusion. It had been all for naught. The deceptions, the sacrifices, the repulsive crimes . . . and still she had not been able to rescue her mother.

She had embraced her new life that began five months ago when she’d first joined Lady Farnsworth. How triumphant that employment had made her. How sure that she had left her disreputable past far behind. How quickly she had lost what she had achieved.

She pulled up the sheet and tried to find peace in sleep. Instead, her mind moved from image to image, all from the last few weeks. Her emotions had been in chaos for so long that even now, as she resigned herself to her fate, they would not calm.

A sound made her look to the door. It opened and Langford walked in. He wore an open shirt and a long open banyan. She heard no boots on the floor. His hair fell in disarray around his face, as if he had been sleeping.

He came to her and sat on the edge of the bed. “You were correct, Amanda. Pride born of my conceit made me angrier than I should have been.” He gently smoothed the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “I was enraged that you would leave me. I never considered that perhaps you had to leave me for reasons I could not know.”

His words soothed her. His faint touch brought such comfort. “Have you come to demand I tell you the reasons?”

“I started from my chambers with that intention. Now that I am here, I think I came to hold you in my arms so you can forget the reasons and I can forget the anger for this night at least.” He stroked her lips. “Only if you want that too, of course.”

Oh, she wanted that too. She yearned to know the freedom and peace, the pleasure and bliss. She ached to escape from her fears in his arms.

She moved over on the bed to make room for him. She sat and drew off her nightdress. He stood and dropped off the banyan and pulled off his shirt. She fell back on the pillows while he finished undressing.

She filled her arms with him when he came to her. She wrapped her legs over his too, so she bound him against her body. Her soul sighed with relief as the intimacy filled her.

They pleasured each other wordlessly. Their kisses and caresses moved her until joy replaced the dulling emotions she had carried these last days. She welcomed their joining as she never had because she needed it in new ways. She sensed that he did too, and that he also experienced the poignancy that drenched their mutual release.

They lay together afterwards, inhaling each other’s breaths, their bodies sealed together. And in the peace that she so needed and held on to so greedily, she acknowledged that if she could trust anyone in this world, it was this man.

* * *

“So here we are, in the dark again.” Neither one of them had moved and he spoke into her ear.

“Odd that I know you best in the dark. Perhaps because there are no distractions from your touch and voice. From the reality of you.”

He rolled off her and lay by her side. “And what is the reality?”

“I know that you would never hurt me if you could avoid it, no matter how angry you became.”

“I am glad you know that part of me.”

“I also know you are a good man, even if you are bad sometimes. Your badness is about minor things like women and such.”

“I have never thought of women as minor things.”

She laughed quietly. “I suppose not if you devoted so much time to them.”

A man’s life should stand for something, I always say. It was the kind of flippant response he normally would give. He did not want to be that man right now, however.

“You’re an honorable man. That is what I meant. Even when you are a devil, you adhere to certain . . . principles. You were brought up with them, and they are a part of you. I envy you that.”

“Surely you, too, were brought up with rules of behavior, and what you call principles.”

She turned her head and their gazes met. “I was not raised to value honesty and fairness or to be good. My parents were thieves. Criminals. They taught me how to survive and win in their world.”

He absorbed what she was telling him without revealing any reaction.

“Oh, they had excuses for what we did,” she said. “They had their own code by which they abided, more or less. No stealing from the poor, only the very rich. No violence. No swearing information on anyone, even the worst of our sort. They spoke as if their art and skill at their trade made them part of a different nobility. By the time I was ten years old, already I saw the self-deception in that code. We were thieves, not artists. Criminals. I knew we were no better than the lowest pickpocket.”

“Is that why your mother put you in a school?”

“I had become an inconvenience to her. I was getting too big. I attracted attention. She thought to come and get me when I matured more, and could be her partner. She visited me the first year, but when I was fifteen I told her I would never steal with her, that I would not live that way. She wrote to me after that, but I never saw her again.”

“And has she come back into your life now? Or your father?”

For a moment she did not respond.

“In a way,” she whispered. She turned her back on him, drew herself into a huddle, and buried her face into her pillow.

He did not realize she wept until a muffled sob escaped. He laid his hand on her trembling back and she only cried harder. He pulled her into his arms and held her and kissed her head in an attempt to comfort her.

Slowly, with shaking breaths, she calmed. He pressed his lips against her temple. “Will you tell me?” he asked. “I think I know some of it, but probably not the important parts,” he said.

She kept her back to him. “The important part is that I have been stealing again. I have returned to my origins and my training.” She tensed again. After a minute passed, she turned to face him. “You are not shocked or angry?”

“No, not at you.”

She rose on one arm. “You knew.”

“I guessed. It solved many mysteries. I do not know why you did it, however.”

“Perhaps it is my true nature, and the years of goodness were not.”

“Do you believe that? Have you been asking yourself which is the real Amanda Waverly? You found her in that school after your parents left you. I want to know why you risked losing her again.”

She lay down facing him, her face mere inches from his own. “Hold me, and I will tell you.”

* * *

She told him about the letters and demands. About her mother’s plea for help. About the brooch and the buckle. “I had hoped to follow the buckle to where he kept her. I had followed him. You were waiting when I returned. It is gone now, I am sure.”

She kept her face near his and felt his breath. His embrace had not loosened.

“You were blackmailed.”

“He asked for no money.”

“He demanded you do something and said he would harm you in some way if you did not. That is blackmail.”

“I doubt it will make any difference in a court of law.”

For all their closeness, the consequences of her acts occupied space between them. She could not imagine the thoughts going through his mind.

“I should not have told you.”

“I had to know.”

Perhaps he had hoped to learn he was wrong. Her story may have salved his pride at how she’d left him, but now he faced the cost of knowing the truth.

She stretched to kiss him. “I am relieved to make a confession, even if—I will not blame you if you have to—”

“It has not come to that. I will find another way.”

She wanted to believe there was another way. She did not think there was. She nestled closely and accepted the comfort of his arms, which was all he had promised her tonight.

* * *

They woke early and dressed, then went down for breakfast. The whole household knew about the peculiar guest so there was no need for discretion.

He read his mail. She drank her coffee. The half hour of domesticity amused her. Here she sat in a duke’s home, acting like a lady, pretending the man at the table did not hold her fate in his hands.

She watched him calmly execute his morning routine. If the man were not a duke, not a peer, not a gentleman bound by honor, not a devil of a seducer who had known many women far more delectable than she, maybe, just maybe, she could sway him to let her run away. Only he was all those things and her own skills at seduction were no match for the principles that would decide her fate.

She was not sure she would want to win that challenge if she made it. She did not want him to be other than he was.

He set aside the letters. “I have devised a plan.”

“I am afraid to ask what it is.”

He looked at her kindly, and there was resolve in his eyes. “Today you will show me where this go-between Pritchard fellow lives. I will speak with him. He will tell me where that buckle went.”

“What if he refuses?” He overestimated the influence of dukes on criminals. In this one small part of life, she was the expert and he was fairly green, she suspected.

“I will reason with him.”

“He may not be reasonable.”

“Then I will persuade him another way. I will pay him.”

“That might work,” she conceded.

“If it doesn’t, I will leave it to Vincent and Michael.”

“Ah. Now that persuasion may well be successful.”

“I trust it will not come to that.”

“I will not object if it did. I have suffered much due to this scheme.”

He stood. “Then let us go at once and be done with it.”

* * *

Langford paced the wooden floors of the simple chamber. Amanda stood in its center, so disappointed she could barely feel her own body.

“It appears thoroughly unoccupied,” he said. “Are you sure this is the right place?”

“I watched him enter this building. I was told he let the attic room.”

Langford ran his finger through the thick dust on the one table. “I suppose he might have left yesterday.”

His tentative words drew her attention on him fully. A new seriousness had claimed him. His posture, his expression, the way he looked everywhere but at her—a subtle formality tinged all of him.

Perhaps he thought she had lied. Perhaps he wondered if all of it had been a story to divert him from the real truth. She was a criminal, after all. Why wouldn’t she lie if it served her purpose?

He looked at her and the distance fell away as if his mind rejected whatever it pondered. “So, we missed him,” he said. “That makes matters more complicated, but all is not lost.”

“How will we find him now?”

“The buckle is on its way. Your mother will remain safe. But he will send another demand. When he does, we can use it to find her and this blackmailer and the stolen items.”

She sank onto the old wooden chair near the table. “What if there isn’t another demand?”

“There will be,” he said grimly. “There is one more item that goes with the two he wanted. He will want it too.”

“And I will steal it?”

“I have great affection for you, Amanda, but you will not be a thief again.”

“Then how can we follow this other item to my mother?”

“We will do it without any more theft.”

Did he intend to buy it? Assuming the owner would sell, that might work. “Am I to live in your house until we learn if this new plan will work?”

His expression hardened. “Yes.”

That hurt her enough that she almost wished she had sent him away when he arrived in her chamber. He was a duke and she was a thief. They might set aside who they were for a few hours, but their differences would always be there.

“So you will continue as my gaoler,” she said, getting to her feet. “That is good to know.”

“Amanda—”

“No, please. Do not try to explain. I understand why. I think I understand even better than you do. Let us go and tell Vincent that he will not get to thrash a man today. I think he will be disappointed.”

* * *

Over the next several days, Amanda became less of a novelty in the house. The watch on her slackened, as she’d guessed it would.

One day when the gardeners were nowhere to be seen, she considered the possibility of escape. Over the wall, and a fast run down the alley—then what? With no clothes, no money, no home, she would be destitute. Worse, she would lose any chance of finding a way out of her predicament. As long as she stayed, though she might be a prisoner, there was still a chance.

Langford left the house as he normally would. He went to the last balls and parties of the Season, and she assumed he visited his club and did whatever else dukes did. Perhaps he attended sessions in Parliament. She began to guess which days he did by how crisply he dressed when he left. No casual cravats or bright waistcoats those days.

He did not come to her chamber for several nights. Perhaps he thought it unseemly to do so considering that he continued to hold her against her will. That did not mean he did not want to. She could see it in him and feel it when they were together. The bonds between them became hard-pulling tethers that tried to yank them into each other’s arms.

Finally, after one dinner where their desire thundered and cracked across the table with every look and every word, she concluded his being a gentleman had grown inconvenient again. Before she left that meal, she boldly invited him to her bed.

He gave her incredible pleasure, as always, that night and during the subsequent nights. New pleasures. The devil had learned much on his frequent visits to hell. And, for a few hours, she again cast off the shackles of the past and present and future and knew no fear or guilt.

She spent the days reading. There was little else to do. Women’s publications joined the newspapers bought each day. Whether the housekeeper and butler thought of that or Langford ordered it, she did not know. She read about society events and the winding down of the Season. She followed the exit of the best families from town and which ones chose to remain. She learned that the Duchess of Stratton had shown herself at a ball, far earlier than the writer of the notice thought sensible.

She had one respite from prison. Every day, Vincent and Michael accompanied her when a carriage took her to Mr. Peterson’s Print Shop to see if another letter had come for Mrs. Bootlescamp. Her presence was not required. Anyone asking for letters for that name would receive them. The outings were little more than excuse to give her time some purpose, at the duke’s discretion.

A week after her abduction, one finally emerged from the box Mr. Peterson kept under his counter.

When Vincent saw it, he spoke a few words to Michael. Michael hurried down the street. Vincent said not a word to her. He handed her into the carriage and took his post on its rear stand.

She examined the letter once she was alone. Her mother’s hand showed this time. That relieved her. She broke the seal.

The Duke of Brentworth. Langford had mentioned him on occasion. She expected all the peers knew one another.

She had not seen his name in the gossip sheets, however. There had been no indication he held balls or parties. He probably did, but she doubted she could count on one being held when she needed it. If this scheme had started earlier in the Season, she might have had better luck insinuating herself into one hosted by Brentworth.

She tucked the letter away. Langford had said she would no longer steal. She prayed he was right. If he wasn’t, she hoped he knew how she could get into this other duke’s home.

* * *

Gabriel read the letter. Amanda sat in her little dressing room waiting for him to finish.

He turned the paper over. “It was postage paid.”

“It has to be. The shops that accept such letters for others are not going to lay out money to receive them.”

“It also negates the need for a return direction. There is no way to know from where this was sent. That is unfortunate.”

He set the paper down and walked to the window. He stared out at the night while he debated what to say and what to do.

He had avoided making decisions about this, any of it, the last few days, but the problems had not been far from his mind. Except at night. They lived in a different world then. He should have shown more fortitude about that, but having her in this house and not touching her proved impossible. Hopeless. Torturous. He was not so good as to refuse what she offered, even though it only complicated what he now faced.

“Amanda, I must ask. Is there any chance that there is no man, or that your mother conspires with this man and is not his prisoner?”

He turned to see her gazing at him in shock. Then her eyes blazed. “That is a terrible thing to suggest.”

“You have not seen her in years, you said. You do not know her anymore.”

“She is my mother. She would not . . . She would never . . .”

Even as she sputtered, he saw the possibility dawn in her expression.

“If she would never, would your father if he returned? He might well be the man who has her.”

“Are you mad? After all these years, he is unlikely to seek her out now.”

“Perhaps he had no choice. He may be ill, or need to hide. Whom else could he trust or count on?”

“You’re wrong! Nor is she in league with this puppet master.”

He wished he could be as sure as she was.

“We need to get the dagger,” she said firmly, as if he had lost sight of the next step. “I need to send it as I am told. I need to follow it and free my mother. Once she is safe away, this man will no longer have a hold on me and I will be finished with it.”

Her fear touched him as it always had. He would have gladly put off this conversation for a day, a month, forever.

She was wearing a nightdress of thin lawn. She sat on a divan with her legs drawn up on the cushion. Her bare feet stuck out from beneath the nightdress’s hem. She wore her hair down at night now, ever since he’d told her he preferred that.

A nostalgic emotion flowed through him. If he helped her, the price would be high. Too high. There were lines a man did not cross, not even for friends or lovers. Yet here he was with his foot one inch away.

“We will obtain the dagger and send it forward and follow it. We will find your mother and the other stolen items, which I will return to their owners.”

She nodded. “And then?”

Hell, she had to ask now. This was not how he wanted to tell her. There was time enough for that.

“And then?” she asked again.

“Then you will leave England, Amanda. And your mother too.”

She blinked, but he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. She forced a little smile that broke his heart. “That is better than Newgate. I have always thought I would like to visit America.”

It was the best he could do, and even so it compromised him.

He went over and kissed her head, then turned to the door.

“And until then? Will you be my gaoler and nothing more?” she asked. “That seems an unnecessary cruelty, considering the future I face.”

She surprised him. Only a scoundrel would take to bed a woman who knew he planned to ruin. There would be the devil to pay when this ended, in his conscience if nothing else.

He decided he could live with that. He went back, lifted her in his arms, and carried her into the bedchamber.