Loving Lady Lazuli (London Jewel Thieves Book 1) Read online

  So, however he imagined he knew her, he didn’t. For God’s sake, hadn’t he been years in the army?

  No. The most he could have was supposition. Supposition wasn’t fact. And that supposition was something she must quash, or face the ruin of all her plans. Twenty-two years of holding tight to the thought, ten of scheming and squirreling so she could come here and prove who she was, the rightful owner of what she rented. A woman not even the ghost of Sapphire could haunt. And not just that. A woman not even the ghost of Sapphire could hang—what she would face if he had more than supposition. She spread her fan.

  “Yes. Lady. Didn’t I just say? Your hearing has been damaged by cannon blasts, perhaps?”

  “My hearing is like my eyesight. Perfect, Cassidy.” He lowered his rich voice. “Or maybe I should just call you—”

  “I may be mistaken, my lord, but I don’t believe I gave you permission to call me by my first name.”

  Call her? She may have spread her fan, she didn’t dare use it. Show she was ruffled? How the blazes could he be so sure, beyond the shadow of a doubt, though? So sure he didn’t even seek to pretend to give her the benefit of that shadow and hide behind the social nicety the fact she was dressed as a grief-stricken, innocent widow merited? She didn’t know him at all.

  “Yes, Devorlane.” Belle laughed. “Goodness, but what is wrong with—”

  “What’s wrong? What’s wrong is that I come home here, after ten years—”

  Ten years? Cass’s flesh prickled.

  “I was eighteen at the time. Does that ring any bells with you, Cassidy, because certainly there’s clang—”

  “I beg your pardon?” The laugh Cass forced was masterful. It was especially masterful given the way he sprung to his booted feet, rather more hastily and terrifyingly than he’d left them.

  The cool way she faced him was masterful too though, especially when he stood so close that the hem of her gown brushed his boots and his scent, iced cool cedar wood, washed into her senses like a fragrant tide. Not for nothing had she spent the greater part of her life facing men though.

  It wasn’t just a gang of jewel thieves Starkadder had run. How many times had her self-possessed calm prevented any spill of his other operation into her world, although she hadn’t the least doubt a queue of men existed who wanted to bed Sapphire. Who were prepared to pay dearly for it too, one reason she’d always made herself so very useful. Why not?

  Eighteen at the time though? Truly she needed not to set her jaw. She had been looking at this from the wrong end of the telescope. The boy, not the man, was who she needed to search her memory for. And if it was the boy, not the man …? Then ..?

  “Oh, don’t you mind him, Belle.” She made herself speak. “Goodness no. Matthew always said a military man with manners was as rare as snow in the fiery caverns of hell—”

  Belle’s eyes rounded. "Matthew?”

  “Yes.”

  “But, Cassidy.”

  “What?”

  “You told me his name was Elgered. At least when you showed me his miniature the other day at Barwych, you distinctly said—”

  Oh Christ, so she had. Cass’s mind spun. It spun so fast, she didn’t know how she was able to stand there with what rocketed through it. God save her, the mistake was bad enough, one she never should have made, it was still not bad enough to condemn her. Not taken alone. Only it wasn’t alone.

  Matthew.

  A winter evening.

  The Wentworth emeralds.

  The night … the only night anyone had ever seen her.

  Sweet Jesus in heaven above. Her pulse rose like a growing tide. Slight to start with, then reaching such a high pitch, the room, and everything and everyone in it, danced. Then, like that same tide, the sea of dresses and people shrank marooning her, watching from a great height. Then the room dropped away. All of it. Everyone in it too. Except for one person.

  Him.

  This could not … could not be the only man in the world who could identify her. The man not the boy?

  This could not possibly be him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Was it her?

  Devorlane cursed beneath his breath as he escorted her across the checkered floor of the pillared hallway. How could he even think such a thing—was it her? Was he stark, raving mad? It was perfectly plain it was her with clogs on. He’d be a damned fool to think otherwise just because her coral lips had him. They’d had him all those years ago too.

  In addition to her many other abilities—nabbing; eluding capture; slipping things into his pocket, while her hand rested where she should have kept it off; seeing him off to the military for ten years; and parading herself here, talking such awful damned rot about being a poor grief-stricken widow, he would, under other circumstances, struggle to contain his mounting laughter—why the hell must she also have lips that made him want to wish it wasn’t her?

  He bowed slightly as they reached the piano, then he stepped back.

  And it wasn’t just her lips that had him. Her touch was so cool, even through the layer of silk, it seemed to burn him. Him, who in ten years a flame had never touched.

  When he thought of this moment, the one he should be having now, not this one where he wanted to kick himself, he’d imagined chucking Tilly and Belle, who were naturally choking on their handkerchiefs about it, out the front door. He’d imagined he might let his younger sister stay if she pleaded nicely enough. It wasn’t as if she’d disbelieved him after all. She was too young.

  Not once, in the course of these imaginings, these plans, which also included turning this place into a pleasure palace, had he dreamed of opening the library door to see her sitting there. How could he? That kind of good fortune was reserved for his wildest dreams. And these were things he never had.

  What the hell was there in Chessington so illustrious a thief could want that she’d go to these lengths to get it? If this was her. Widow’s garb. Worming in with Belle. Blush as absurdly pretty as a dawn sky. Eyes so diamond hard, it made his eyes ache to look at them.

  Lapis lazuli. Gemstones of the Kolcha River. There was an old name for them. Something he’d read once in a book, probably right here, in this very house.

  Yes. He’d been a studious boy. Every Sunday evening spent poring over passages of rich prose from the beautifully tooled library volumes. That was probably the reason he could so clearly remember. The name had resonated from the Sar-e-Sang mine to Mesopotamia. Amazing.

  Particularly that old name, first forged at Sar-e-Sang and known by Sumerians and Assyrians alike …

  Sapphire.

  The reason she was here? The one he’d entirely overlooked?

  The only one that would entice her back to this area?

  The Wentworth emeralds.

  ***

  What the blazes had this bastard done with the Wentworth emeralds? In his damned pocket still, that place where she’d stuck her hand that night? Or found by a laundry maid the next day, or otherwise? No wonder she pondered. Pondered the row of yellowing ivory keys that swum into her vision too. The silence on the subject of the emeralds had been deafening. Except in her own ears. When she thought how she’d been beaten. How Matthew, who was her whole life …

  “I think you’ve made quite an impression on Devorlane. Why! He can’t seem to take his eyes off you.”

  Cass groaned. A pity she couldn’t lay her head on the keys, strike the odd note with her forehead. The last thing she needed was to sit here while the entire pile of gold-tooled music books careered about the top of the pianoforte because Belle was in a temper. Oh, and the carefully constructed temple came down about her ears. But she couldn’t exactly bolt, could she? Not when Devorlane Hawley knew who she was and would bolt after her.

  How could he know? What had she missed? What gave her away? Her hair was black, back to its normal coloring. She was ten years older, she didn’t look anything like that any more.

  She swept a lose strand of hair behind her ear. “Oh, I don’t t
hink he means anything by it.”

  “Then why does he keep doing it, pray tell? Why did he take your arm like that to lead you here, as if he couldn’t let you go? You tell me when he’s only just met you.”

  Cass swallowed, feeling sweat stand in the armpits of her gown. Because he knows I stuck a very valuable necklace I’d just nabbed in his trouser pocket ten years ago. As to how I had access to his trouser pocket … What I did in it … You work that one out, if you can … weren’t words to say. Not and be allowed to sit here. Although equally, imagine the heart attacks it would cause all these stuffed shirts gathered around the piano waiting for their ears to be murdered, if she did say it. It would keep the local vicar in business for months.

  She stared impassively at the silver candelabrum that might have looked perfect on top of the piano at Barwych, but would look even more perfect being smacked off of Belle’s head. When so much hinged on her ability to manage through the next five minutes or so, and then get the blazes out of here, she wasn’t going to scrap like a gutter-snipe in front of this lot, was she? ‘Toasty,’ Ruby would call them, frying their whiskers on the end of the fork. Toasty.

  She must pray as she sat in suffering agony that the story she’d told about living in Mysore, and that poor brother of hers getting that posting, had been convincing. It wasn’t as if she’d ever set foot in the place.

  Still, Matthew would be glad to know he had died a hero’s death in the field of battle though instead of being turfed into the gutter and expiring outside Bessie Bridlock’s All-You-Can-Pay-For-You-Can-Keep hock shop.

  She fingered the back of her neck. Perhaps for that matter Devorlane Hawley didn’t know she was actually Sapphire? She was very young after all to have been stealing like that for years. Perhaps he thought she was some other thief? There were certainly plenty about. Pearl and Ruby were just along the road at Barwych.

  “Well, Belle, it’s like this. I have no idea why he’s staring. Perhaps I remind him of someone he once knew?”

  An understatement.

  “He’s not staring at any of us. That’s for certain.” Belle slammed the book onto the stand. “Yes. We might as well be invisible. Me especially.”

  A first. But actually not as welcome as it should have been.

  “Don’t be stupid. He’s not remotely interested in me.”

  “Well, he’s not interested in me. After I have pined and longed and was promised by his dear mama to him.”

  “I see. Well, I’m sure you still are.”

  Cass smoothed her hands over her skirt, then she tucked another stray strand of hair behind her ear. It was hardly fair. Whatever she’d done—and she didn’t shrink from the facts of it—she’d been pinioned, tamed, forced into the theft of each shining sovereign, each gleaming jewel.

  How damn dare the bastard be so dutiful as to want to see her hang for the loss of a little of what that pretty silver candelabra said he’d a mansion of. It wasn’t even as if it was his damned necklace. So why get so precious?

  Because obviously he was like his whole class. So singularly ungrateful for the silver spoon he’d been born with in his mouth, he wanted the whole canteen. It wasn’t as if he’d gone to prison or anything. A duke’s son? That would take the sodding—Ruby’s words not hers--biscuit jar. She flicked her gaze over Belle standing a foot away. At least she could put her off the scent.

  “But I think he is interested in you. You know, men are notorious for playing hard to get. The thing is not to let them see how desper--”

  “I beg your pardon? Shall we just begin? Hmm? Thank you. People are staring. I just personally hope it’s not at me.”

  Cass’s sipped breath was a claw hammer in her heart. So, she hadn’t put Belle off the scent? Christ, just wait till the Hawley bastard saw she couldn’t play a note. Then the game would be up. It was probably up right now. Just like he was too for some reason. Was that kiss, the feel of her fingers clasping his rock hardness all those years ago so memorable, he hadn’t had better? Because he knew her. Imagine that. And he was dying to blab it too. Probably right at the end of the recital. ‘This is Sapphire.’

  Then? Well, if they dug up that coffin in the cemetery, she’d be all right. Providing there was a body in that coffin in the cemetery. What if there wasn’t? What if that damned undertaker had sold her short? Christ, that wouldn’t be a first. Besides, only the Sisterhood knew the location and alleged contents of that grave and they were scattered to the four winds now. She couldn’t very well say, ‘I’m buried there,’ could she?

  Belle clasped her hands together and warbled. “Eef I-eye were a-ah tin-eeh-eh elfeen … ”

  Jesus God, why couldn’t Belle just pronounce the word if like any other self-respecting person? Why the hell did she need to she screech it to death? Tiny and elfin too? Then mutilate the corpse, before Cass had time to splay her fingers on the yellowed keys and batter out … what exactly?

  To manage through the first line with Devorlane Hawley’s contemptuous stare burning holes in her and Belle’s vaulting soprano bawling in her ears, her elbow all but banjoing Cass off the stool onto the floor, was going to be a miracle that ranked with some of that same God’s finest. And she didn’t manage it. The opening bar … Lord, what was that twang? That screech too?

  “I woulds’t but fly all day. Fl-ah-ah-ah-eye-eye-eye-eye away.”

  Belle’s screech soared to the rafters as if she was going to sprout wings and follow and fly about the beams, to the horror of the assembled multitude —lovely but worth sod all except for firewood. The beams that was, although the assembled multitude, in terms of usefulness, were probably worth even less.

  Devorlane Hawley’s brow twisted in agony. Whether it was due to Belle’s caterwauling, or her own clanking efforts at accompaniment, or the wound he’d suffered in the Peninsular, or the choice of this particular song for his home coming, or the fact he’d come home at all, or all five for that matter, was hard to divine. But she struggled to sit there.

  He didn’t look the least like the kind of man who wanted to be a tiny elfin and fl-ah-ah-ah-eye away. What he looked was the kind to snap the pianoforte lid down on her fingers, to spare his ears further assault. Assault? He looked like he’d gladly sacrifice his life and everyone else’s, unfortunate enough to be present, for a pair of socks to jam in his ears to shut out the eviscerating racket.

  For an instant his anguished gaze collided with hers and she caught a knowing glint in his cool emerald eyes. A glint that was almost conspiratorial. As if he’d cheerfully assist her in strangling Belle in order to put an end to the torture.

  She struck a wrong note. Then another. And another, to add to the symphony she’d already struck. How awful this was. Since Matthew’s death, no one had ever exchanged such a look with her though. She’d never exchanged a look with them. She and Matthew had stood alone against the world. Not just because they were brother and sister, but because they were friends.

  This Hawley man wasn’t her friend. He was never going to be her friend. What was more she hadn’t missed the measuring glint in his eyes earlier.

  Maybe he wanted to see her hang, but it wasn’t all the salacious bastard wanted. What if he dragged her to supper next? She’d choke. How would that look before this lot? She must go. Much as she wanted to prove her innocence, how could she?

  “Fly. Fah-ly. Fly. Fly. F-ly-eye-eye-eye-eye … ”

  Just as Cass wondered if the elfin did anything else—be tiny perhaps—Belle soared to a triumphant halt on the word, “Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah. Ah-way.” Merciful too.

  The startled silence was immediately followed by a rush of applause. Cass stole her gaze sideways. Then back. It was clear as the stars on a starry night everyone wanted her and Belle to shut a certain kind of something up.

  What other reason could there possibly be for so many people not just banging their hands together like frozen kippers but surging forward too? Stampeding, like a herd of cows, actually.

  Since Devorlane Hawley had stepped i
nto the library, Cass had been thinking about what it was time for: Time to think. Time not to. Time to go. Time to be silent. Time to be inventive.

  She had instructed Barron to collect her in the carriage at six. Now was not the time to wait.

  Now, like the tiny elfin, it was time to get the hell out of here.

  ***

  As she rounded the bend in the road, Cass’s scalp froze. Clip-clop. Clip-clop. Clip-clop-clip. Almighty God. And coming her way. She should have gone the quick way, through the secret gate between the two properties. Then she’d have been home by now. But in her panic she hadn’t been able to find that path, twisted and tangled as much as she was right now.

  And she was in a panic. Even now the heat of that moment when Devorlane Hawley had offered his arm and then tucked her fingers firmly beneath it, lay on her skin like a snake. It wasn’t right—not when it was a good half hour since he’d as good as dragged her to the piano—that her arm should still tingle. Or that she should imagine she smelled his scent. She didn’t. Especially now the damned man came after her like this in cold so perishing, her breath hit the air in a white puff and she veered sideways in the moonlight because she was having difficulty holding to the path.

  How could—how could he even have missed her—when what she needed, what she wanted, was to get home to Barwych?

  She clasped her side, also gnarled by a stitch. If she could see the outline of the trees and bushes skirting the road, then it stood to perfect reason she could be seen. It wasn’t that she didn’t expect to face Devorlane Hawley—God, no—she just didn’t want to do it here, when the fact she’d run away, leaving her cloak behind, said she was guilty as hell.

  No. If she was to stay—and first she must discuss with Ruby and Pearl the perilous menace of this threat—it must be on an equal footing.