Prince of Swords Page 12

  “There speaks a doting older sister,” Fleur said wryly.

  “Who always knows best.”

  Jessamine’s sanguine mood lasted a remarkably long time. It survived a dinner that was only slightly better than her worst nightmare. She was ensconced between an elderly bachelor who dribbled food on his lavender satin waistcoat and a long-married squire whose conversation seemed limited to hunting and port. Fleur was sitting dangerously close to the Earl of Glenshiel, but for some reason he seemed impervious to her remarkable beauty. Almost every man in the room seemed enchanted by her younger sister, Jessamine thought with gratification, except Alistair MacAlpin. He seemed far more interested in watching her.

  It was covert enough, which was small comfort. She doubted if anyone else at the huge expanse of table would have noticed. But there was no way she could avoid it—every time she glanced up she could feel his cool gaze on her.

  After dinner wasn’t a great improvement—while they were spared the presence of the gentlemen, who lingered over the squire’s beloved port, most of the young ladies and hopeful mothers viewed Fleur and her sister with justifiable hostility.

  Fleur took her leave early, pleading exhaustion, and Jessamine wished she could do the same. But she knew perfectly well why they’d been invited, and if Sally had suddenly chosen to be gracious, that warmth could vanish just as abruptly as it had appeared.

  At least Glenshiel came nowhere near her. He was in the room once more, watching, but for some reason he had no interest in her card readings. He was probably as skeptical of her abilities as most of the gentlemen, a fact that disturbed her not in the slightest. It was easy enough to read the cards for the women who surrounded her, now friendly with avid curiosity. Their futures were serene; they were all satisfied with the same thing.

  In fact, Jessamine was feeling as serene as the rest of them when she made her way back toward the bedroom she shared with Fleur. There was no servant to light her way, so she held the candelabrum herself, catching up her full skirts with her other hand as she climbed the broad staircase. She saw the shadow out of the corner of her eye, but not for a moment did she consider her danger. Glenshiel had been ensconced in a cozy tete-a-tete with Sally Blaine, seemingly unaware of her departure.

  She smelled the thick odor of garlic and beer, covered imperfectly with mint, and a moment later the candelabrum was dashed from her hand, plunging the stairs into darkness, the only light coming from the candles in the hall above.

  A hand clamped over her mouth before she could scream, and a thick body shoved her against the marble banister. She let herself go limp, waiting for a chance to fight back. She was more than a match for any randy gentleman—her time in Spitalfields had taught her how to keep herself safe—but the voice that whispered hoarsely in her ear stripped away all her furious determination.

  “All alone, my dear?” Josiah Clegg whispered in her ear. “Where’s the pretty little sister of yours, mmm? Gone off with one of those rich boys? Or has she gone sniffing after Brennan? He’s got a soft spot for her, I can see it in his eyes no matter how hard he tries to hide it. Maybe she likes it rough and tumble as well. I can oblige her far better than a man like Brennan.”

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded in a fierce whisper when he removed his hand from her mouth. “And take your hands off me!”

  “Ah, now, miss, I wouldn’t be so fast with my orders if I were you. How do you think your fine, aristocratic friends would like to hear you’ve been helping the likes of me? Think you’d still be considered fit company, or would they send you down to the kitchens with Brennan and me? That may be where Brennan belongs, if it’s not in a sty, but Josiah Clegg is made for better things in this world.”

  “Take your hands off me,” she said again, standing cold and still within his grasp. “I don’t give a damn about your threats, and if you ever expect me to read the cards for you again, you’ll go away and leave me alone.”

  “I dunno, miss,” he said, his gold tooth flashing in the dim light. “You haven’t helped me find the Cat, and I’m beginning to doubt what you’ve told me before. It might just be coincidence, and I’ve no fancy to share my moiety with a down-on-her-luck lady.” He said the word like a foul curse. “Maybe we’ll just call off our little arrangement.”

  She yanked herself free from him, but she had no illusions that she could have done so if he hadn’t been willing to let her go. “That sounds perfectly agreeable to me, Mr. Clegg.”

  “And that way I can see whether your sister has any of your talent.”

  “No!” She lunged after him as he started up the stairs.

  “No, miss? Then why don’t we stop all this foolishness? You give me what I want, and I’ll leave your sister alone. But I’m tired of waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “I want the Cat, miss. And you’re the only one who can find him for me. I’m tired of waiting, and making sure no one else gets the jump on me. I wouldn’t take it kindly if someone like Brennan were to nab him first. You know that, don’t you, miss?”

  She stared at him dully, feeling the trap close around her as surely as it would close around the Cat. Not that he mattered—whoever he was, he was one felon who deserved Clegg’s tender mercies. “I know that,” she said. “Do you want me to come back to London?”

  “No need for that, miss. I have my informants, and word has come to me that the Cat is going to make his appearance at this very house party. You don’t suppose a man of my reputation and standing would agree to this sort of work if there wasn’t good reason? He’s going to try for one last theft, and I’ll be waiting for him.”

  “You and Brennan.”

  “No, miss. No one’s getting in my way. I’ll see to that, and I suspect you know me well enough to believe I’ll do just that. When the Cat arrives by the dark of moon, he’ll find he’s made a fatal mistake.”

  “What if he’s already here?” The moment the words popped out of her mouth she could have kicked herself. She had no idea where such a thought came from; she knew only that Clegg was far too dangerous a man to volunteer information to.

  “What do you mean?” His eyes narrowed. “You’ve seen something in those bloody cards of yours? You know who he is?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know anything,” she said with perfect truthfulness. “I just wondered. It’s been rumored he’s a gentleman, else how could he simply wander throughout the great houses of London picking up jewels?”

  “You’ll find out for me, won’t you, my sweet?” Clegg cooed in a repulsive voice. “I know you’re here to read the cards for these toffs, same as you do for me. You read them for each gentleman and tell me what you find.”

  “It’s not usually the gentlemen who will sit for a reading. They deem it claptrap.”

  “Ah, but you and I know different, don’t we, miss?” Clegg’s gold tooth flashed. “You wheedle them, and if that fails, get your sister to work on them. Can’t imagine anyone saying no to that pretty sister of yours.”

  “Keep away from her!”

  “Certainly, miss. As long as you give me what I want, I’ll leave her strictly alone.”

  “What about Brennan?”

  “Oh, he won’t go anywhere near her if I know Robert Brennan. He has a code of honor, he does. One of his many flaws.”

  “One you’re not troubled with,” Jessamine said in an acid voice faint with fear.

  “That’s one thing I have in common with the Cat. You find him for me, miss, or you’ll be sorry the day you met me.”

  “I already am.”

  Clegg’s unholy grin was complacent. “Most people are. It don’t bother me none. I likes people to be afraid of me. It makes ‘em do what I want. I’m getting a mite bit impatient. You meet me and tell me what you’ve discovered, and maybe your job will be over.”

  “And what if he isn’t already here?”

  “Then that just makes things a bit more complicated, doesn’t it? But I’m counting on you and yo
ur witching cards, miss. If he isn’t here, you’ll figure out when and how he’s coming, won’t you? For your old friend Clegg?”

  Jessamine eyed her old friend Clegg with unmitigated hatred. “Where and when do you want me to meet you?” she asked coldly.

  “Never you fear, miss. I’ll find you.” And without another word he vanished into the shadowed hallway, leaving Jess standing alone, shivering in the sudden draft.

  Eleven

  The bedroom was empty. Jessamine slammed the door behind her, leaning against it, out of breath, panting, her heart pounding from her panicked dash down the hallway. Where in God’s name had Fleur gotten to? Was there more behind Clegg’s veiled threats than she supposed?

  She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. He would scarcely have come after her, taunting her, and not mentioned that he had her sister stashed somewhere.

  But where was she? Surely she knew better than to wander around without proper protection. Unless she was in search of a man who made protection his profession.

  Jessamine pushed away from the door, shaking her head. Fleur wouldn’t do that no matter how tempted. She knew the family was counting on her to make an advantageous match—she wouldn’t throw away their only chance at security on a handsome Bow Street runner.

  Perhaps she’d simply gone in search of something improving to read, or to eat. Perhaps she’d gone back to the gathering, feeling suddenly lonely.

  Except that Jessamine would have run into her if she’d been heading toward any of the public areas of the house.

  She sat down in the comfortable chair and leaned back, feeling the pain pound through her head. She was always like this: shaken, exhausted, full of megrims, after she’d done readings, even the shallow ones she’d offered that night. She needed her sister’s soothing hands on her temples, she needed a tisane. She didn’t need to worry about Josiah Clegg’s threats, or where exactly her young sister was at that very moment.

  Ah, but when had life been kindly enough to cater to her needs, much less her wants? If she’d learned one thing over the last few years, it was that it was up to her. Everything. She couldn’t count on fate or a fairy godmother or a deus ex machina to appear and solve her problems.

  She needed to go in search of her sister immediately. Even if it meant running into Clegg again, even if it meant the far more dangerous risk of running into Glenshiel. She wasn’t quite certain why that would be the more frightening of the options. Clegg was evil, Glenshiel was neither bad nor good. He simply was.

  Maybe it was what they wanted. Clegg wanted money plain and simple, a need Jessamine could understand and anticipate.

  Glenshiel, for some odd reason, seemed to want her. A far more dangerous proposition.

  It made no difference—she had to go in search of Fleur. She couldn’t leave her sister unprotected.

  She would rise from this wickedly comfortable chair, ignore her headache, and find her. In just a moment. Just a brief moment while she closed her eyes and tried to banish the pain and exhaustion. Just a brief moment...

  The pounding rain had stopped at last. It was late, and the temperature had dropped sharply. Fleur wrapped her shawl around her slight frame more tightly as she stepped onto the damp grass and took a deep breath of the cool night air.

  Country air. She filled her lungs with it, tipping her head back to view the stars overhead. She seldom saw the stars in London. The wood smoke from a thousand fires filled the city air like a dark curtain, and the tightly packed houses of Spitalfields left little room to look for the stars. There was no way she could step out into the street after dark to peer upward—it would be to court death and disaster.

  But out here, in the kitchen garden beyond the stone mass of Blaine Manor, she could stare out into the sky and listen to the night birds calling, sounds she hadn’t heard in years. She could walk among the neat rows of cabbages and carrots, hear the distant mutter of the chickens, and feel at peace.

  Jessamine would have a fit if she knew she was out here. Fleur could only hope she’d make it back to the room before her sister retired—there was no need for Jess to worry needlessly.

  Indeed, Fleur had avoided the formal gardens on purpose, to make certain she wouldn’t run into any of the other guests. To do so might be to invite importunities, and that would sour her chances for the marriage Jess was counting on.

  She didn’t want to marry any of the men cluttering up Sally’s drawing room in their silks and satins, their snuffboxes and their dripping laces. They were either witless, like Freddie Arbuthnot, enamored of themselves, like the majority of the guests, or completely terrifying, like my lord Glenshiel.

  She wasn’t quite sure why he frightened her. He was drawlingly, mockingly polite, even charming. His clothes were elegant to the point of foppishness, and if one didn’t look too closely, one would assume he was as harmless and shallow as the others.

  But Fleur was used to looking more closely, with an artist’s eye. And what she saw in the Earl of Glenshiel’s catlike eyes frightened her.

  She ought to warn Jessamine, though she doubted her sister would thank her. If anything, Jessamine would deny any interest in the enigmatic earl, a denial that would ring false to both of them.

  She lifted her skirts, stepping carefully down the neatly planted rows. There was a half-moon that night, providing a fitful illumination, and from the house she could hear the vibrant sound of laughter from the servants’ hall.

  Suddenly she felt cold, lonely, she who usually reveled in her solitude. She’d felt miserably out of place in the drawing room. To be sure, she’d manage to disguise it well enough so that not even her sister realized her discomfort. She’d smiled sweetly and made all the requisite replies to the incessantly inane conversations that abounded. She would spend her life making just such idle chatter. And she would always feel a stranger.

  She didn’t belong in the servants’ hall either. If she went there, seeking companionship and warmth, the cheerful mood would vanish, and they would stare at her, silent and uneasy, unwelcoming.

  But she knew who was back there among those friendly faces. Robert Brennan, Yorkshireman and thief-taker. Someone as foreign to a lady of her position as a Chinese. It didn’t matter. She wanted him to smile at her, she wanted his warmth, when her future was doomed to cold politeness. She wanted his strength, his simplicity, his...

  “You shouldn’t be out here alone, lass.”

  She turned in shock, for a moment convinced she’d conjured him up out of her own longing. He towered over her, and the wind whipped his light, shaggy hair against his high forehead. His jacket was buttoned up tight against the chill night air, and the shadows obscured his expression, but she wasn’t afraid.

  “It’s the countryside, Mr. Brennan,” she said, taking another deep, appreciative breath. “Not London. There are no evil creatures ready to leap out of the shadows and do evil.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, miss,” he said sternly. “There’s evil everywhere, country and city alike. Evil comes from people, not places.”

  She glanced around her. “Surely there’s no evil out on such a beautiful night?”

  Brennan glanced back at the house, but it was too dark to read his expression. “Evil’s where you least expect it at times, miss. Come back to the house. You shouldn’t be out here, and you shouldn’t be alone with the likes of me.”

  “You’re not going to tell me you’re evil, are you, Mr. Brennan?” she asked in a breathless voice, half shocked at herself. She was almost flirting, and Robert Brennan didn’t seem the type to take flirtation lightly. “If you do, I won’t believe you.”

  “No, miss,” he said slowly. “I’m not evil. But that doesn’t mean I won’t hurt you without wanting to. Without meaning to.”

  “How could you hurt me?” Her question was pitched low, and she could almost feel the longing that spread between them like a fierce, strong length of silk. She didn’t know how she recognized it—she’d never felt longing before. But
she did, for this man. And she had the melancholy suspicion that it wasn’t a changeable thing with her, or the slightest bit fleeting.

  He didn’t answer her question. “Back to the house with you, miss. My job is to keep the guests safe, and you’re not allowing me to see to it. I’d take it as a favor if you were to return to your room. Now.”

  There was a faint note of strain in his usually cool voice, and Fleur felt suddenly ashamed. She was such a child, imagining things, feelings, where none existed. He was simply doing his job, and she was making it more difficult for him.

  “Of course,” she said, taking an obedient step back toward the house, only to tread directly on a solid cabbage, twisting her ankle, sending her tumbling toward the ground...

  Directly into his arms. He’d moved so quickly, she wouldn’t have imagined it possible, and she’d already put out her arms to catch her fall. Instead, she caught him, he caught her, pulling her into his arms against the dark worsted of his jacket.

  He was hard, solid as a rock beneath the material, and his arms were impossibly strong as they held her. He was warm as well, heat beneath her chilled hands. For a moment neither of them moved—he simply held her body against him, her breasts pressed against the bright buttons of his coat, her hips against his, and she stared into his eyes breathlessly, waiting, she wasn’t sure for what.

  She’d never been held by a man, never wanted to be. She wanted this. She wanted him to put his firm, wide mouth against hers and kiss her. Kiss her to distraction.

  “Lass,” he whispered in despair, still holding her. “You’ll be the ruin of me.” And before his words had a chance to sink in, his mouth covered hers, his head blotting out the light.

  His mouth was wet, hard, open over hers, pushing her lips apart as he used his tongue. He tasted of dark beer and white-hot longing, and Fleur was too shocked to do more than stand there, pressed tight against his body, as he used his mouth on hers.

  In the first moment she wasn’t sure if she liked it. This was no shy gentleman courting her. This was a man, a real man, kissing her as if she belonged to him. Within the second moment she banished her doubts and slid her arms around his waist, her hands tight on the thick wool of his jacket, holding on for fear she might tumble into the cabbages if he kept kissing her like that.