Unmasking the Thief, page 4
He let a hiss of laughter escape him because, actually, the whole messy situation was funny.
His hackney was far enough behind hers that he could not have followed her if he had wanted to. As it was, he went home to bed and rose early enough to rouse his favorite goldsmith at seven in the morning.
By ten, he was sitting on a bench in the center of Barclay Square, watching the nursemaids play with their charges or tow them around the square. A very large dog walked past with two adolescent girls. It was a pleasant, sunny spring morning, and he stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles in a pose of supreme relaxation.
In fact, he was not relaxed at all. Every sense was alert for attack, sneaking or otherwise, whether because someone knew what he was or wished to punish him for his disrespectful behavior to a lady last night. He thought the latter unlikely since if she had had male protectors, presumably she would not be the one going alone to Maida Gardens to retrieve the lost ring.
He was also looking for her in every young woman he saw. A dark-haired, dark-eyed lady with a swan-like neck and soft, full lips, shapely and ripe for kissing… Though, remembering that was not the best way to stay alert.
He wondered what she would look like without the mask, who she and her bizarre, even younger friends actually were.
In the end, he almost missed her because she wore an old, straw bonnet with a dull ribbon and an unprepossessing grey wool cloak, and in his mind, she was full of color. But he could see a lock of almost-back hair trying to escape the bonnet, and her lips…her lips were exactly as he remembered them. And as she walked toward him, she gazed directly at him.
Chapter Four
Matty was not surprised to receive a late-night visit from Catherine.
“I couldn’t possibly sleep without knowing you were home safe,” the girl exclaimed in clear relief, closing the bedchamber door behind her and sagging against it. “What happened? Was it awful? Did you find the miscreant?”
“Yes, I found him,” Matty said with a pretended coolness she could not yet feel. “Or at least, I suspect he found me. The tulip was an excellent idea, for I do think it caught his attention and reminded him of you.”
“Did he say so? To be honest, I was afraid he stole from so many that he would not remember me!”
“Oh, I think he did. The good news is that he is prepared to give us the ring back for a mere guinea.”
“Oh, you clever thing,” Catherine breathed, launching herself across the floor to sit on the bed beside Matty. “How? When?”
“Tomorrow at ten o’clock in Barclay Square. Which is the bad news. He says he broke the ring, but he will have it repaired. Also, I’m not entirely convinced he will do as he says.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not sure,” Matty said, frowning at her hands, “that he is the sort of man to whom a guinea means very much.”
“But you must have threatened him, too, to have got such a low price!”
“Yes,” Matty admitted. “But again, it didn’t seem to trouble him unduly.”
“Then why did he agree?”
“That is what I don’t know, and why I’m not perfectly certain he will come to Barclay Square.”
“Well, we can worry about that if it happens,” Catherine said, squeezing Matty’s arm. “Thank you for this. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”
“In Rollo Darblay’s black books,” Matty retorted. “And your mama’s. It hardly seems worth mentioning my own.”
“Well, you can’t go alone,” Catherine said decisively, ignoring Matty’s last words. “I’ll fetch Hope, and we shall come with you. What’s more, we’ll take Pup.”
“Good Lord, you can’t possibly come with me,” Matty scolded. “It will undo every effort to keep your escapade secret if he even gets a hint of who you are! None of you are to go anywhere near Barclay Square tomorrow morning. Even Pup is far too easily recognized to be seen near me.”
Catherine blinked, looking anxious and uneasy. “I suppose you are right.”
“And really, what harm could become of me in daylight in Barclay Square?”
Catherine smiled with some relief. “That is true. Especially when you have already braved the public ball at Maida Gardens alone!”
“I have, and I won’t pretend the anxiety was not tiring. Off to bed with you, Catherine, and let me fall into mine.”
*
Matty’s heart drummed, and her stomach seemed to be tied in knots as she entered the gardens in the square. At first glance, there was no sign of him, only a few small children with their nurses and a lady with a pug on a leash.
Matty walked on toward two gentlemen deep in conversation, neither of them the right shape or coloring to be her thief. And then, emerging quietly from one path to another, she saw him.
He had removed his hat—a decent beaver which sat on the bench beside him. He seemed quite relaxed, long, elegant legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. His clothes—blue coat, buff pantaloons—could have belonged to a gentleman of quality, although he lounged on the bench, his face turned up to the sun in a quite ungentlemanly posture.
Her heart gave a funny little lurch, for as she walked determinedly toward him, she saw that without the mask, he was almost ridiculously handsome. In a dark, saturnine kind of way. He had a thin, aquiline nose, broad cheekbones, and a strong chin beneath the thin yet almost sculpted lips she remembered all too well.
A small, fearful part of her wished he hadn’t come at all, although, for most of the morning and the previous night, that had been her greatest fear.
She tried to look straight ahead so that she only saw him on the periphery of her vision. She could hear no one behind her, and there was no one in front. And the unsafe thief who had kissed her uncoiled his limbs and stood, bowing before her.
“Miss…Smith?” he hazarded, humor lurking in his dark, profound eyes.
“Why not?” she conceded while a pulse jumped in her throat.
“Shall we sit?” he suggested, indicating the bench.
Why didn’t he just give her the dratted ring and let her be on her way?
Because their meeting should look natural.
She moved abruptly and sat beside the hat. He folded himself onto the bench on the other side of it, and she was glad of the barrier, however small.
“Do you have the ring?” she demanded.
“I feel like the groomsman at a wedding,” he said flippantly. “Do you have my guinea?”
“I do.”
He delved into his pocket and, without even glancing about to check that they were alone, opened his hand to reveal a masculine ring with a large, fine opal in an engraved gold setting.
What on earth was Hope been thinking about to wear such a thing? It would have been ridiculously loose on her dainty fingers, drawing attention to their femininity. And, of course, easily pilfered by the likes of Matty’s present companion.
“There is very slight damage to the setting there,” the thief pointed out, touching the outside edge, “but I don’t think it’s noticeable. It was the best my goldsmith could do.”
She reached out, and his fingers closed around the ring once more.
“My guinea,” he said with reproach.
Mocking reproach, for his eyes gleamed with humor, inviting her to share the joke. Really, he was a very odd thief. She opened the faded reticule on her lap and took out the coin. She placed it in the brim of his hat between them.
Gravely, he dropped the ring on her side of the hat brim. She snatched it up and placed it in her reticule, drawing the ribbons tight. He was slower to retrieve the coin, and when he did, he turned it in his fingers, his gaze on her face as she sat on the edge of the bench, poised for flight.
“You are not what I expected,” he observed.
“I’m incognito.” She knew she should stand up and leave, but none of this made any sense. “How did you come to break the ring?”
Of all the questions she could have asked, she wasn’t sure why this one spilled out, but she couldn’t take it back.
“I pried the stone loose of its setting.”
“Why?” she asked blankly.
“To see what was underneath.”
“And what was?”
“Nothing,” he replied with apparent regret.
She frowned. “What did you expect? Surely not a love letter?”
His eyes gleamed. “Close, but not quite. I suppose you won’t tell me who were your young friends.”
“You suppose correctly.”
“Two young ladies kicking up a lark,” he said steadily. “A rather dangerous lark. And you should not go to a public ball alone.”
“Not even with my basilisk stare?” she asked politely.
He smiled. “Not even with a loaded pistol. May I see you home?”
“No, you may not.”
“Why not?” he challenged.
She stood. “Because I know nothing about you except that you’re a—”
“Would you like to?” he interrupted.
Her eyes flew to his face as warmth surged into hers. Where was that basilisk stare when one needed it? He had risen when she did, and they stood facing each other almost as close as in last night’s dance.
As she tried to summon a flat “No,” he astonished her all over again by conjuring a flower from his coat pocket. A slightly wilted red tulip with a crushed stem.
Her eyes widened, and that denial remained unspoken.
“You dropped it last night,” he said, holding it out to her.
Over his shoulder, she saw an elderly couple approaching with a child. In a panic that was not all to do with being seen together, she snatched the battered tulip from his hand with a muttered thanks. Only as she tried to stuff it into her reticule did she realize she also held a cold coin, which dropped into the bag along with the flower.
Once again, her baffled gaze rose to his.
His lips quirked. “Perhaps, one day,” he observed obscurely as he picked up his hat from the bench. “But then again, perhaps not.” He bowed slightly. “Good day, Miss Smith.” And he sauntered off down the path.
*
Francisco, having discharged his duty and being as sure as he could be that no plots or political protests were likely to be planned by either his spirited young lady or her even younger friends, left the square and headed toward Bruton Street.
All the same, he was conscious of a tug, like an invisible thread, drawing him back to the dully dressed lady. There was as much regret as attraction in that pull, but he had no inclination to consider such foolish reactions. Even incognito, if that was true, she was not the sort of lady he could touch, and he was certainly not the sort of man she should touch. And so, duty and honor satisfied, he moved on to the next line of his investigation.
Emma Carntree, the most memorable of his former lovers, who had worn a red corsage on the night a message was to have been passed to such a lady.
He was clutching at straws, of course, because he had been lured so foolishly to the wrong people that night. But he had been abroad for a long time. He had no idea where Emma’s restless interests had drawn her, and he was both curious and reluctant to find out.
It was not yet eleven of the clock when he knocked at the Carntree front door, but he hoped by persuading the servant to take his card immediately to her ladyship, he might catch her before her surprise had worn off.
Accordingly, when the liveried footman opened the door, he presented his plain, white card, on which was engraved G. Francis, Esq., and beneath it an Albany address that he rarely visited.
“If her ladyship would see me now, I should be most grateful,” he said pointedly.
But before the servant could say or do anything, a startled voice from the depths beyond exclaimed, “Francis? Francis!”
A lady walked briskly into view. “Let him in, George,” she commanded, and as Francisco removed his hat and stepped inside, she approached him with blatant delight, both hands held out. “What a lovely surprise!”
“Isn’t it?” Francisco agreed, allowing the servant to take his hat so that he could take her hands and bow over them. “How are you, Emma?”
“Horrendously bored, of course, which makes me doubly pleased to see you back in London. Come upstairs. George, we’ll have tea in the blue salon.” She turned to him, smiling, “How long have you been in London, Francis?”
“About a week, I suppose.” He followed her across the landing and into a tasteful, bright room with blue curtains and wallpaper.
“A whole week, and you have only now got around to calling on me?”
She seemed genuinely outraged, which almost made him laugh. He regarded her for a moment, waiting for the inevitable rush of lust that had stayed with him long after mere liking had died. It didn’t come. Her beauty, he thought dispassionately, although definitely eye-catching, was somehow obvious, almost vulgar.
Compared with whom? he mocked himself. A plainly dressed lady in grey with eyes that could annihilate at twenty paces?
“One has things to attend to,” he said vaguely, taking the chair opposite her own. “I am trying to cultivate a sense of duty before pleasure.”
“You, Francis?” she teased. “Never.”
Which bore witness to the strength of his mask. If only she knew.
“Actually, I thought I saw you at Maida Gardens the other evening,” he murmured.
Her reaction was almost imperceptible. If it hadn’t been for the hand smoothing her skirts, pausing for the tiniest instant, he might have missed it.
“Maida?” she repeated in mock outrage. “You went to Maida days before you called on me! Why didn’t you speak to me there?”
“I was with another party. And besides, I wasn’t sure it was you. It seemed a very unfashionable place to find Lady Carntree.”
She wrinkled her pretty nose as a different footman entered with a tray. “One can see why it is unfashionable, not to say vulgar. Thank you, Alan,” she added as the servant deposited the tea things on the table in front of her. “You may go. But my dear Francis, it would have been a much more enjoyable party if you had joined us. All I had for company was Lizzie Betshaw and Harry Granton. Oh, and the Finchley brothers who are not quite as scintillating as they imagine they are. What about you? Did you have a pleasant evening?”
“Not particularly, though who knows where it will lead?” He accepted a cup of tea from her with a murmur of thanks. “So, what is the talk of Season, Emma? What is your latest enthusiasm?”
She gave a theatrical shudder. “Enthusiasm, sir? I believe you were my last. Now, I am merely paralyzed with ennui. As for talk…the Wennings are apparently due back in town, and the world is speculating if they still speak to each other after two years in each other’s company, which is foolish. After all, there are as many ways to avoid each other abroad as there are in England, are there not?”
“I’m sure you are better placed to judge than I,” he said mildly, referring to her married state. He sipped his tea.
For the first time, a frown of annoyance marred her brow. “How can you say so when you fled the country to avoid me?”
She really was the most self-centered creature he had ever tangled with. In any capacity. Once, he had been intrigued to see how far her selfishness went, to discover what lay beneath. By the time he had discovered that nothing very much did, she had convinced herself and her very best friends that he was madly in love with her.
Physically, he probably had been enslaved for a while—the pang he had felt on seeing her in Maida the other night had been an echo of it—but family matters had sent him to Spain, and several assignments thereafter had kept him in Europe. Not a broken heart. Regarding her now, he could not summon even a memory of desire.
“You cannot believe that I would ever avoid you,” he said. “In fact, I would rather know where I might find you for the next few weeks.”
She fluttered her eyelashes. “I’m going to the theatre tonight…”
*
Matty discovered Catherine and Hope in the schoolroom, distracting the girls from their work. Admittedly, this was not difficult, for neither were as bookish as Catherine, and they did not have their sister Viola’s excuse of reading difficulties.
Matty, having removed her cloak and bonnet, entered the schoolroom wearing a frown of disapproval that caused the younger girls to subside immediately and provided an excuse to summon Catherine and Hope to the other side of the closed door.
Before either could speak, she shoved the ring into Hope’s hand. “There is very slight damage, but I can’t see it. I don’t imagine your brother will. But, ladies? No more, or I will be forced to tell your parents.”
They both hugged her, which she pretended to endure, although she was secretly touched, and then they ran off, calling to Mrs. Dove that they were going to Darblay House. It was interesting, Matty reflected, that Catherine no longer mentioned Mr. Granton, the reason for them going to Maida in the first place. She supposed Catherine was of the age to fall easily in and out of imagined love. But for the first time, it struck her that both the girl’s fixation on a man no more than unexceptionable in most people’s opinion, followed by the risky adventure at Maida, had the same cause. Boredom.
And the Season was not so far along that a debutante should be tired of its delights. Catherine did not possess her older sister Viola’s dread of society, but her interests were more intellectual, her conversation more mature than the vapid chattering of most girls her age. The thought stayed with Matty, so when she had released the younger ones from their learning torture, she went in search of Mrs. Dove.
This rather vague lady was discovered in the drawing room, supervising the removal of furniture to one of the reception rooms downstairs.
“Oh, there you are, Miss Mather. Do you think this room is large enough for a few couples to dance?”
“Oh, I think so. Once you have taken out most of the furniture, I’m sure eight or ten couples could stand up easily here.”
