A Devil of a Duke by Madeline Hunter (5)

Chapter Five

She stood in front of the window, staring while her shawl and slippers fell into the abyss in front of her. A breeze caught the shawl and it floated like a specter in the moonlight, but the shoes disappeared behind the wall. Dressed now in only pantaloons and shirt, she gathered her courage.

Not so high, she told herself. Not so far.

Her mental reassurances helped to calm her, but only an idiot would ignore the danger.

Once you learn it, you never forget. That was what her father had said when he’d begun training her. She had been eight at the time.

She had thought it a game. Who would think that Charles Waverly hoped to use his own child in his crimes?

He had been a handsome, affable man. Well spoken and fluent in many regional accents, he fit in wherever he went, whether a party in Mayfair or a rustic tavern. His charm and his confidence had been his most valuable attributes for his chosen career.

Both might have come to him by birth. Her parents, she’d learned, came from good families that owned property. Perhaps if they had not met each other they would have married others and lived normal lives. Instead, together they became thieves.

It was a lark at first. One daring attempt as a game. Eventually it became a way of life. No pickpocketing for them, although both learned how. They specialized in carefully organized thefts of valuables from the best houses, and on occasion elaborate frauds in which their victims did not even realize they had been hoodwinked.

She remembered seeing her parents when she was six years old, dressed to pass for high society, leaving whatever home they’d used at the time. She’d had no idea then that they would insinuate themselves uninvited into a large party or ball. When the hosts were occupied, one of them would slip upstairs to take a few valuables.

For years, no one suspected. No one tried to stop them. They don’t even know it’s gone most times, her mother had explained when she was older. It may be months before that lady looks for that necklace or the gent for that silver and gold snuffbox. It really isn’t stealing when they have so much they don’t remember what they have and what they don’t.

Then, when she was twelve, her mother had rushed home to her one night, frantic with worry. Someone had seen her father at his trade. He had only escaped by taking one of these leaps out of a window.

They waited all night for his return. Had he found a ledge or deep sill where he’d landed? Or had he plunged to the ground and still lay there, broken and in pain?

He’d finally arrived home at dawn. He’d still had the bracelet he had stolen. We will need to take it apart. They will know it is gone now. Also, it would be best if I made myself scarce for a while. You take the girl. I’ll find you in a year or so.

He’d left them the next night, with half the bracelet’s jewels in his pocket. They’d never seen him again.

Her mother had continued the only trade she knew. She did not need a man at her side to slip into those houses during parties. She could slide up the stairs as easily as Charlie.

Two years later, however, she put Amanda in Mrs. Hattlesfield’s School in Surrey. You will have a chance to live differently if you are educated, she had said. You might even marry a decent man if you can present yourself well.

Amanda suspected the real reason had been less motherly. Put simply, having a daughter in tow had proved inconvenient. Also, as she’d matured, Amanda had begun to ask questions, and to suggest they find some other way to live. A respectable way.

She lifted her gaze from the ground. She focused on the window across the hedge and wall, slightly lower than the one where she stood. A corner window, it was within arm’s reach of the quoins on the back corner of the building, and it had a deep sill and some thick decorative molding. No bars and she guessed no lock, although she could deal with the latter if she had to. Four feet maximum with no leverage. Seven with a running start. Five if you can push off with your foot.

She calculated that her odds were at best one in three that she would survive this adventure both free and whole.

She sang softly to herself while she gathered her concentration and confidence. Then she crouched low on the table she had placed to abut the window’s sill, set her right foot back, drew on all of her strength, and leapt.

* * *

Gentle hands jostled him. Gabriel fought his way out of oblivion enough to push them away and curse the intruder.

“You said at dawn, sir, and the carriage awaits.” It sounded like Miles, his valet.

Dawn. Carriage. Gabriel swam up to semi-consciousness. That only informed him that his head hurt and his neck felt so stiff he could barely move it.

“I will go make coffee, sir.”

More alertness. More pain in his head. Hell, he must have been foxed last night to feel like this. And his neck—

He opened his eyes. The view confused him. Then he remembered.

He looked immediately to the chair on which his mystery woman had sat. Empty, of course. The last thing he remembered was her singing.

What an ass he was. To take such pains to lure a woman here, then to fall asleep on her. He would be lucky if no one learned of it. He could do without more needling, this time from men in his clubs jabbing him at his lack of finesse with ladies.

Or not ladies, as the case may be. She had not looked like one last night, in those pantaloons and shirt. Had she stayed, he would have sent her home in his carriage so she would not have to walk London’s streets like that.

Thoughts of her challenge and his intended seduction made him laugh, but his aching head cut that short. He’d certainly showed her a thing or two, hadn’t he? By Zeus, his great talent with women undoubtedly impressed her to no end.

She’d probably howled with laughter all the way home.

He closed his eyes again, and changed his position so his neck might uncramp. He drifted down into a half sleep that at least eased the pounding in his head. He indulged in a few mental pictures of buying a certain woman a lovely wardrobe, with dresses to be removed mostly by himself.

“Here you are, sir. Coffee. You will feel better if you drink this. It always helps with the morning effects of too much wine.”

Gabriel forced himself to sit upright and wake enough to give the coffee his attention.

Miles, his elderly, portly valet, busied himself collecting the bottles and glasses. “I will just dispose of these and the food, and wash the glasses below while you drink that. I noticed while I boiled water that the kitchen door was unlocked. Careless of Lord Harold’s man, if you ask me.”

Ah, yes, the garden door. Being asleep, he had not relocked it.

“I will check the rest of the house too, with your permission. A man who neglects to lock a door most likely did not close the house properly in other respects.”

“Do what you want. But check my brother’s chambers last. I have need of them rather suddenly.”

Miles did not ask why. The empty bottles in his hand answered if he had a question.

Gabriel forced himself to stand. A hammer pounded in his head.

He followed Miles out and went up the stairs while Miles headed down. He sought his brother’s chambers and the desperately needed pot waiting in the dressing room. Relieved, he aimed for the apartment’s door.

As he did so, he gazed out the windows at what promised to be a fine day. The rising sun had already burned off any early morning fog. He paused by one of the windows, deciding some fresh air would help his head. He opened it and leaned out and inhaled deeply.

Sir Malcolm Nutley’s house interfered with any view unless he stretched to see either the street or the edge of Harry’s garden. This side of the monstrosity did not display the excesses of the front façade, but a few stone arabesques framed the windows that no one except Harry would ever see. He supposed that having side windows made up for having no view except Sir Nutley’s stone wall.

His gaze drifted down to the hedge below. A dark splotch caught his eyes. He stuck his head out further, then retreated and closed the window. He strode from the chamber, and down to that garden door. He lifted the bar and unbolted the door and stepped up to the garden.

Noting in passing that Harry needed to employ a better gardener, he aimed for the skinny foot path that flanked the wall that ran between the properties. Near where the path joined the garden, he peeled the dark splotch off the hedge.

A shawl. A dark patterned one with too many roses. The same one that had wrapped his mystery woman last night. It must have blown in the breeze and been caught by the hedge while she left down this path. He wondered why she had not taken the time to free it. Perhaps she could not find it in the dark.

Miles had finished with the glasses and already packed them in their basket along with his apron. “I will see to Lord Harold’s chambers and the rest of the house now, sir,” Miles said.

“I will wait in the carriage. Check the silver before you join me, will you? Just see that it is still there.”

With an expression of angelic patience, Miles bolted and barred the door once more. He noticed the shawl. “What do you have there, sir?”

“A calling card.”

* * *

So much effort and danger for such a small object. That was Amanda’s opinion of the oddly decorated buckle she examined.

She had almost killed herself for this. Her foot had slipped off the sill, and if not for her holds on the moldings and quoins, she would have fallen. Her foot and hands sported raw abrasions from the mishap.

Getting out had been worse. There had been no way to practice descending the outside of a building, but that part of it had never been a big challenge for her when she was a girl. Only, last night, her larger size and weight meant that her finger and toeholds on the quoins barely held. She had to drop the final ten feet because her strength would not support her any longer.

Not all of it had been bad. There had been moments of elation. Thrills. Excitement at her own audacity and pride in her skill. That had happened the first time, when she’d taken the brooch, but that task had been easy compared to this one. She had thought that the danger would kill any unseemly euphoria. Instead, it had coursed stronger as a result of the greater risk.

She wished that reaction had not been revived along with her abilities. She was supposed to feel guilty, not powerful. Once it is all over, there must be a reckoning.

It was not a buckle in truth. More a clasp. The two pieces covered with fine lines fit together, but whatever had once unified them had been lost. Together they measured no more than five inches long.

The man directing this scheme wanted this specific item. It is cloisonné. You remember what that is, I trust, her mother had written. He says it is blue and red with gold lines forming diamonds and a gold frame.

It had much in common with the last item he had demanded. That brooch had been larger and more elaborate, but still primitive in design, with small jewels, the kind of brooch that might close a cloak in olden times.

The similarity in the two items meant she now knew something about her tormentor. He was a collector. He desired specific items that he could not buy even if he had the money because they were not for sale. So he had her stealing them instead.

She set the buckle aside, and dipped her pen to write a note to be left at the mail drop for a Mr. Pettibone. On the paper set on her table, she wrote only three words. I have it.

She would leave this at Peterson’s Print Shop to be picked up or forwarded, and she would wait for instructions about its delivery. She was finished with this game, however. She did not trust this unknown man to end it, ever. She no longer believed she would save her mother by complying.

When the instructions came, she would obey them and send this buckle to this collector. She would not wait like a lamb for his next move, however. It was past time to make a few of her own.

* * *

Gabriel lit his cigar, then settled back to enjoy it and the fine whisky that Brentworth had poured. Brentworth had made himself comfortable as well, his head now obscured by smoke.

The only man in the chamber not at ease was their host, Adam Penrose, Duke of Stratton. He stood beside the fireplace, one elbow hitched on the mantel, trying to appear calm. All of them knew he was anything but. Above them in the ducal apartments, his wife was lying in, giving birth to their first child.

“Good of you both to agree to meet here instead of the club,” Stratton muttered.

“Your whisky is better than theirs,” Gabriel said, trying to maintain levity. “Besides, the Decadent Dukes Society can meet anywhere so long as they meet at all.”

They had formed this little group as boys in school, when they’d all found each other and realized only another ducal heir would treat a ducal heir normally. The title of their group had been a joke, at least at first.

Once a month, they met at their club for little more than what would transpire here, before going out on the town together. Not that they raised much hell anymore. Stratton had become domesticated and Brentworth had grown discreet. That left Gabriel to carry on the older traditions of the Decadent Dukes.

“She retired a while ago?” Brentworth asked, as if he knew Stratton wanted to talk about it.

“Three hours.”

“I am told these things take time.”

“Not too much, I hope. I will go mad.”

“You must not dwell on it or the time will seem never to pass. Langford, distract him. Tell him about . . . oh, I don’t know, something diverting. Ah, I have it. Tell him about all the interest in that speech you gave in Parliament.”

“Why don’t you tell him about your recent contretemps with your mistress? That is far more amusing, or at least most of society thinks so.”

Brentworth’s gaze darkened. “There was no contretemps. A mere misunderstanding, that is all.”

“That is not the way I heard it.”

“You just heard it from me, and that is how I told it.”

“I also heard it from at least five other people, some who heard it from her, and they told it differently.”

“How so?” Brentworth asked in the cold, crisp tone that heralded danger. At least Stratton was distracted now. He watched with interest.

Gabriel cleared his throat. He puffed on his cigar. He swallowed some spirits. Each delay made Brentworth stormier. “It is said.” He puffed again just to annoy Brentworth more. “It is said that due to your disagreement she wanted to throw you over, but you begged her to reconsider.”

“The hell you say,” Stratton exclaimed. He eagerly turned to Brentworth for confirmation or denial.

“The hell you say,” Brentworth echoed, flatly and darkly.

“And it is said that you gave her pearl earbobs the next day to ingratiate yourself.”

“The hell I did.”

“Well, that is what is being said. If you tell me what really happened, I am happy to correct the gossip when I hear it.”

“I do not discuss—”

“Yes, yes, we know. Have it your way. I will continue to listen with interest while she grinds your carefully created reputation for discreet ravishments into dust.”

“What will you do?” Stratton asked. “I thought you always entered these alliances with a clear understanding that there would be no gossip no matter what happened.”

“It appears someone decided to void that contract to save face.”

“Are you saying you threw her over?”

Brentworth barely nodded. “The earrings were a parting gift.”

“They won’t all go quietly, Brentworth,” Gabriel said. “I have told you that often before. You have been lucky thus far, but this was inevitable eventually.”

“It will all be forgotten in a day,” Stratton soothed. “There are worse things than having society think a woman got rid of you instead of the other way around.”

Brentworth did not look appeased. He relaxed, but he sent a rather nasty smile in Gabriel’s direction. “Since you have entertained Stratton in his hour of need, you should continue.”

“I have nothing of interest to distract him.”

“Why don’t you tell him about your shepherdess?”

Gabriel puffed on his cigar.

“Shepherdess?” Stratton encouraged.

“He met her at the masked ball,” Brentworth said. “She was pursuing Harry and he threw himself into the breach on his brother’s behalf. He then lured her to the terrace and down into the garden. As to what transpired there . . .” He waved his cigar in a circular pattern.

“So?” Stratton prodded.

Gabriel cleared his throat. “Very little happened. It is a very short story.” He normally did not hesitate to regale his friends with stories of his women, but he did not want to this time. For one thing, the tale hardly did him credit. For another, he could not escape a nagging sense deep inside him, beneath the desire for pleasure or a diverting pursuit, that this woman was in trouble of some kind.

Nonsense, probably. No doubt she either had played him for a fool or had begun a long game. If the latter, the next move must be hers.

“And yet he peers at ladies’ mouths and chins wherever he goes, since that was all one could see with her mask,” Brentworth said. “On our way here, he was doing it again.”

“I swear you are worse than an old aunt sometimes. I always look at the ladies. Remember? I was not looking for her.” Except he had been. He had tried to re-create her face in his mind, based on damned little evidence from seeing it in the shadows that night. The shawl remained in his dressing room still, long after he should have discarded it.

“What is her name?” Stratton asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Kisses in a garden do not require names,” Brentworth said.

“Have you seen her again?” Stratton asked.

Gabriel eyed the appointments in the library. Brentworth eyed him, then leaned forward to examine his face more carefully.

“Damn, he has seen her again,” Brentworth said. “You had an assignation with her, didn’t you? Yet you still don’t know her name?”

“It was a very brief meeting. Very discreet. Stop smiling. I can be discreet too when necessary.”

“Not too brief a meeting, I trust,” Stratton said. “Do you plan any more brief, discreet assignations?”

It was too much. “See here, I will explain, but you are not even to tell your wife, Stratton. It would ruin me. You must swear.”

“I swear. Brentworth does too. You know us. We are good to our word on this.”

Gabriel told the story, short though it was.

“You fell asleep?” Stratton asked. “She came to you. You had her there. You kissed. Then you fell asleep?” He turned to Brentworth as if requiring someone to confirm he had heard correctly.

“This is amusing enough to take society’s mind off the talk about me,” Brentworth said.

“I had too much wine. She began that song and it lulled me and . . . suddenly it was morning.”

“Did you check your pockets?” Brentworth asked. “Some whores—”

“Of course I checked for theft. I am not a green boy, auntie. I checked myself, the chamber, the silver. Nothings appeared gone. I told you, she is not a whore. That much I know.” Damned if he could explain how he knew. He just did.

“No wonder you keep looking for her. You need to apologize,” Stratton said. He actually appeared offended on behalf of the woman.

“That is your French half talking,” Brentworth said.

“If it is French to believe a man has certain obligations to his lover, so be it,” Stratton said. “A gentleman—”

“Whether I intend to apologize is not your concern,” Gabriel interrupted. “I do, however, intend to see her again.”

“Not to apologize,” Brentworth said to Stratton. “He has unfinished business, doesn’t he? A score to settle now.”

These were his closest and oldest friends, but sometimes Gabriel did not like how well they knew him.

“How will you do that, if you do not know who she is?” Stratton asked.

Damned if he knew.

Approaching footsteps interrupted his consideration of the conundrum. The door to the library opened, and Harry’s sweet Emilia, the young, blond, and angelic sister to the Duchess of Stratton, appeared. She noticed Gabriel and her big smile dimmed a bit, but she recovered and walked over to the man she had come to see.

“It is done and all is well,” she said. “You can go up now and see your son.”

The chamber erupted with cheers and well wishes; then Stratton ran from the chamber. Before Emilia followed, she sidled nearer to Gabriel.

“I am told your brother has left town,” she said.

“He went away to rusticate and work on his book.”

She had the decency to look sad. “I will miss him.”

Not enough. “He should return in a month or so.”

He excused himself then, and sought his horse. He parted from Brentworth on Oxford Street and rode on. He had figured out how he might see his mystery woman again.