Prince of Swords

by Anne Stuart

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I have a confederate.”

  Brennan glanced around, only for a moment, but it was enough. The mace made a satisfying thunk as it connected with Brennan’s well-padded skull, and he went down in a large, untidy heap.

  Jessamine stormed across the room in a flurry of rose-colored silk, falling at Brennan’s side. “If you’ve killed him...” she said fiercely.

  “I haven’t.” He dropped the mace. “He’s a Yorkshireman—they have very hard heads. What are you doing here, Jessamine? And where the hell is Freddie?”

  “Freddie’s sitting in a boat beneath Traitor’s Gate, freezing his hindquarters off. And I’m here to stop you, of course.”

  “Of course,” Alistair said faintly. “You’re abominably difficult to get rid of, my pet.”

  She looked up at him through the shadows. “Are you so very certain you want to get rid of me?”

  He couldn’t meet that steady gaze. Instead, he glanced back into the crate, poking among the glittering gold with a desultory hand. “Jessamine, I care for nothing and no one. Haven’t I succeeded in proving that to you?”

  “No.”

  “I’m a thief. A conscienceless, arrogant wastrel with nothing useful to do with my time. Why don’t you marry Freddie? He’s pleasant, amenable, and while his fortune isn’t large, it’s a great deal better than what you’re currently living on.”

  “I don’t want to marry Freddie.”

  “Not even knowing it would annoy Ermintrude Winters exceedingly?” he said.

  “I don’t want to marry anyone.”

  That startled him. “Not even me?”

  “I don’t want to be a widow,” she said. “I don’t want to stand at your gallows and weep.”

  “Then stand at my gallows and dance,” he suggested cheerfully.

  She rose, glaring at him. “I hate you.”

  “Of course you do, my pet. I truly wish I could say I return the sentiment. Is your brother-in-law beginning to rouse? I expect I didn’t hit him as hard as I should have.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Put the crown back and run, Alistair. You can make it out of the country before they catch you. What possible benefit could there be in dying?”

  “None,” he said. “Unless I’d get to see whether you’d really cry for me.”

  “I’ve cried too much for you already.”

  He reached down and picked up the satchel. It was light, with only the denuded crown within, but it was good enough. “Why?” he asked, curiosity stalling his escape.

  “Because I love you, you monstrously selfish, arrogant fop!” she shouted at him.

  He didn’t move. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I am not a fop.”

  At her feet Brennan groaned, beginning to move. “Would you please leave!” she begged him, and he could see those tears in her eyes. “Take the crowns, take every damned thing, but just escape before—”

  “Too late.” Josiah Clegg stepped out of the shadows. “Lovely little party we have here. All nice and friendly like.” He looked down at Brennan, then kicked him with his sharp-toed boot. “Did you kill him?”

  “He’s just unconscious,” Jessamine said. “Mr. Clegg, you must realize that Alistair—”

  “Shut yer face, Miss Maitland,” Clegg said pleasantly. “I’ll be shutting it for you before long, but if you want to spend a few more minutes on this earth, then you’ll go over there and sit down quietly while I deal with his lordship.”

  “What are you going to do with me, Clegg?” Alistair asked.

  “Why, kill you, your lordship. And me old pal Brennan as well. Can’t have anyone taking credit for yer capture, now, can I?”

  “And Miss Maitland?”

  “Ah, Miss Maitland. I’ll give her a taste of what she’s been begging for. And then I’ll cut her throat.”

  Twenty-Four

  Jessamine backed away from him, stumbling over a pile of old tools and antique weaponry, but Josiah Clegg had already dismissed her. That had always been Josiah Clegg’s failing, she thought. He couldn’t believe a woman could pose any threat to him.

  “I think I’ll shoot you in the head. It makes a great bloody mess, but it’s very satisfying. I’ve never had the chance to kill a lord before. I think I’ll enjoy it.”

  Brennan groaned again, and in the shadows Jessamine could see him struggle to sit up. Clegg turned to sneer at him, enjoying himself. “Of course you’re a different matter, Robbie boy. I’ve killed plenty of your sort, so there’s not much challenge in it. I could shoot you in the crackers. I’m going to tell them his bleedin’ lordship did it, of course, and who would expect an earl to have decent aim?” He chuckled, advancing toward his dazed colleague with malicious glee.

  “No need to kill him,” Alistair drawled. “It’s me you want. Why bother with Brennan?”

  “Because I don’t likes to share,” Clegg said with a raspy chuckle. “And I enjoy killing.” He raised his gun, aiming it directly at Brennan’s groin.

  Jessamine scrambled to her feet, grabbing the first metal thing she could find and brandishing it threateningly. It looked like an old ax of some sort. “Leave him alone,” she said, moving toward him.

  It distracted him for one crucial moment. In the blink of an eye Alistair reached into the crate in front of him and sent a golden object winging toward Clegg’s head. Brennan rolled out of the way, ducking under a pile of rubbish, but the golden mace only glanced off Clegg’s forehead, falling to the dirt floor with a noisy clatter.

  “Bitch,” Clegg said, no longer interested in his first two victims. “Bleedin’ whore. I’ll take care of you first, and let the others watch.”

  “Keep away from me,” she screamed.

  She could hear Alistair scrambling behind her. “You want me,” he said, his voice desperate. “Leave her alone.”

  “Make me, boy-o.” He made the fatal mistake of turning his back on Jessamine. “You can’t stop me in time, and I’m going to put a bullet right between her lovely little—”

  Jessamine hoisted the heavy tool over her head, shut her eyes, and slammed it at him as hard as she could. The weight of it threw her off balance. She could feel a solid chunk as it landed, and then she went tumbling to the floor as the weapon took on a life of its own.

  For a moment all was eerily silent. Jessamine struggled to her knees, peering through the ill-lit darkness as Alistair suddenly loomed large.

  “Holy Mother of God,” he said softly. “Remind me never to annoy you when you’re near a weapon, dear heart.”

  “Did I kill him?” she asked, aghast. She could see Clegg’s legs sticking out from behind a crate, motionless.

  “I’d say so,” Alistair murmured.

  Brennan had managed to rise to his feet. He was bleeding from the blow to his head, and his color was an ashen green. “Thoroughly,” he said.

  Jessamine rose, starting to move around the crate to get a better look at her fallen nemesis, when Alistair stopped her with an arm around her waist. “I don’t think you want to see, my pet. Do you have any idea what you flung at him?”

  “No, I was just trying to stop him.”

  Brennan reached down and picked up a double-sided ax that was ominously dark on one side. “It’s a headman’s ax,” he said. “Still quite sharp.”

  “I never realized you had Tudor blood in you, my precious,” Alistair said.

  “You mean I...?”

  “Precisely,” Alistair said, drawing a finger across his throat and making a disgustingly cheerful rasping noise. “Severed it completely.”

  If the room was dark before, those shadows were now closing in on her. I’m going to be sick,” she said quite firmly. “That, or faint.”

  “Might I suggest the latter?” Alistair said sweetly. “We already have quite a mess to clean up.:

  It was the finishing touch. The darkness closed in completely, and Jessamine slumped to the hard-packed floor, still remembering the solid thunk as her weapon connected with
living flesh.

  Alistair caught her, of course. It would probably be his last chance to hold her, he thought, and he had every intention of enjoying it to the fullest. He glanced over at Brennan, who was still staring down at his fallen comrade with an expression of disgust mixed with satisfaction.

  “What are you going to do now?” he inquired.

  “I’m not sure, sir. One thing I do know—I can’t let you get away with the crown jewels.”

  “I wasn’t planning on taking them all,” he said with great reasonableness. “For one thing, they’re too heavy. I thought one big one might make my point.”

  “I’m afraid not, sir.”

  “And how do you intend to stop me? Will you kill me, Mr. Brennan? The man who saved your life? You may not be aware of it, but Clegg was just about to blast your nuts away when I threw that mace at him.”

  “You’re mighty handy with the mace, sir,” Brennan said, touching his wounded forehead. “But I appreciate your efforts on my behalf.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “Not enough, however, to let you go.”

  “Brennan, you have a headless Bow Street runner and a fainting woman on your hands. How do you intend to stop me?”

  “I’ll shoot you if I must. And I don’t have her on my hands.”

  He regretted it, of course, but there was really no choice. “You do now,” he said simply. He tossed Jessamine’s semiconscious body toward Brennan, counting on the runner to drop his gun rather that a lady. A second later he knocked over the candle, plunging the room into utter darkness.

  “Sorry to leave you like this, Mr. Brennan. But I have my pride to consider.” And catching up his rough satchel, he disappeared into the darkness.

  There was a moon that night. A half-moon, but a bright one, shining down over Tower Green. No one seemed to have noticed the disturbance in the old storeroom, but then, things had been lax at the Tower since Cromwell’s day. Alistair tossed the satchel over his shoulder and walked down the pathway, whistling cheerfully.

  A raven swooped by, cawing a wicked note of laughter, and Alistair’s whistling came to an abrupt halt. He would have no trouble leaving the way he came, and he had the coronation crown of King George to cheer him on his way.

  He paused in the middle of the walkway, momentarily distracted. The crown was heavier than he’d realized, and for the moment he wasn’t quite sure what he would do with it. Even Nicodemus might draw the line at turning one of England’s priceless treasures into ready cash, and besides, Alistair had no real need of money. The manor house in Scotland had been shored up, in better shape than it had been in centuries. London was no longer a hospitable place for the likes of him, so his house on Clarges Street could be dispensed with.

  But where would he go? What would he do?

  He considered his options as he strolled aimlessly through the midnight streets of London. The Continent bored him. The thought of exotic, willing foreign women bored him. The thought of pilfering diamonds from the French court bored him.

  He didn’t want diamonds, he didn’t want to climb over rooftops. He didn’t want French courtesans or Italian mistresses.

  He wanted Jessamine.

  He looked down at the satchel, paused, and pulled the crown from its resting spot. It didn’t look much the worse for wear—a dent or two perhaps, but nothing that wouldn’t be fixed by a jeweler’s hammer.

  Oliver Cromwell was out of favor even among the German Hanovers. Only one statue remained within the city limits of London, a great bronze monstrosity that had the Lord Protector glaring down at his frivolous countrymen from a public garden near the small Puritan church where Cromwell had once worshipped. “You don’t approve of me, do you, old Noll?” he said softly. “Well, I don’t approve of you. You need some livening up.”

  The crown sat quite jauntily atop Cromwell’s bronzed pilgrim’s hat. Alistair stepped back to survey the effect, then smiled. As a finishing touch it couldn’t be bettered. “Wear it in good health, milord Protector,” he said. And then he sauntered off into the moonlight, making his escape.

  Jessamine took deep, cleansing gulps of the fresh night air. Her brother-in-law stood beside her, one polite, protective arm around her as she slowly regained her senses.

  “Are you feeling better?” he asked.

  She glanced back at the tightly shut door of the old storehouse. She wasn’t even certain how he’d gotten her out of there. She had no idea where Alistair was. She knew only that he’d disappeared. And she told herself she was glad.

  “I suppose so,” she said. “What are you planning to do?”

  “About what?”

  “About... er... that?” she said, gesturing back toward the storeroom. “Mr. Clegg.”

  “Not a thing,” he said. “Someone will find his body soon enough, when they go to return the jewels to Martin Tower. I imagine whoever investigates it will assume there was falling out among thieves.”

  “Will you investigate it?”

  “No.”

  “What about the Cat?”

  “What about him?” Brennan said smoothly. “I imagine he’ll be one of those mysteries that never has an answer. He terrorized London society for a few months and then disappeared.”

  “He didn’t terrorize anyone!” Jessamine protested.

  “It makes a better story. And that’s all he’ll be—a whopping good story.”

  “What about the missing crown?”

  “I expect we’ll find it. It seems to me his lordship doesn’t have a truly larcenous nature. It’ll turn up sooner or later, probably when we least expect it. But it won’t be my concern. I’ve finished my work here. I’m taking my wife back to Yorkshire with me, where all I’ll have to worry about is the weather and the price of corn.”

  Jessamine took a deep breath. “She loves you to distraction, you know.”

  “I know. You don’t mind? It spoiled all your fine plans for her.”

  “They were my plans, not hers,” Jessamine said. “She has what she wants, and what she needs now, and I couldn’t be happier.”

  “There’ll always be a place for you and your mother.”

  “You haven’t met our mother,” she said wryly. “You may regret the offer. We’ll manage, never you fear. But I’ll be there in nine months’ time to welcome my new niece or nephew into the world.”

  “That’s rushing things a bit, isn’t it?” he said, startled.

  “You’ll find that Fleur can be quite determined in getting her own way.”

  “I think,” said Brennan, “I’ve already discovered that.”

  “And you need to get back to her. She’s probably worried sick about you. And poor Freddie must be frozen solid.” She leaned up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Welcome to the family, brother,” she said, and then ran off into the nighttime shadows before he could stop her.

  Freddie wasn’t quite frozen solid, but he was clearly unhappy. Being an obedient soul, he hadn’t moved from his spot in the tiny skiff where she’d left him, but he complained, a little too loudly, all the way back to Spitalfields, about her ill treatment of him.

  “You’ve been a savior,” she said, leaping down from the hired carriage before he could help her. “Alistair will thank you for it.”

  Freddie looked suddenly mournful. “Do you think we’ll ever see him again, Miss Maitland?”

  It was something she wasn’t quite ready to face, but she managed a brave smile. “I doubt it, Mr. Arbuthnot. But we’ll have our memories, won’t we?”

  “Splendid ones,” Freddie said soulfully.

  “Splendid ones, indeed.”

  “Wake up, dearest.”

  Jessamine pushed her face deeper into the pillow, trying to drown out the gentle voice. When Brennan had returned her to the house in Spitalfields, she had taken to her bed and refused to rise for two days. She wasn’t about to get up now.

  Her sister wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Wake up, Jess,” she said in a sharper tone, yanking at the cover
s.

  Jessamine flopped over onto her back in the large bed she’d always shared with her younger sister and glared at that evil beast. “I don’t wish to wake up,” she said firmly. “I don’t know if I ever wish to get out of bed again. And what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with your husband?”

  “He’s seeing to some last-minute details, so he sent me on ahead here. He thought you would be interested in the newspaper.”

  “I find that highly unlikely,” Jessamine said, sitting up and pushing her hair out of her face. She knew her face would be pale and tear-streaked, but she made no effort to hide it.

  “I brought you some tea,” Fleur said, perching on the end of the bed with the ease of one who doesn’t plan to remove herself any too soon. “Someone tried to steal the crown jewels.”

  “Fascinating,” Jess said carefully. “Did they get away with it?”

  “Well, the missing crown was recovered a few miles away in a churchyard. Perched atop a statue of Oliver Cromwell.”

  Jessamine hadn’t thought she’d ever be capable of laughter again, but she was wrong. “A thief with a sense of humor,” she said.

  “Apparently. Unfortunately your friend Mr. Clegg was killed. Most unpleasantly too. Someone whacked off his head at the Tower.”

  Jessamine had just taken her first sip of tea, and she spat it out noisily into the cup. “How unfortunate,” she said in a faint voice.

  “They say he died in the line of duty. He’ll have a hero’s funeral. Him and his head.”

  “Fleur!” Jessamine protested.

  “Sorry, dearling. I didn’t know you were quite so squeamish,” she said with a mischievous smile.

  “I don’t like severed body parts.”

  “I don’t imagine Mr. Clegg is any too fond of them himself.”

  Jessamine lay back with a moan. “Have you seen Mother?”

  “Only briefly. She was on her way out.”

  It took a moment for Fleur’s words to register. Jessamine opened one eye. “Out?”

  “She’s gone shopping for a new wardrobe. For some reason the notion of her daughter marrying an earl has cured her of her lingering illness.”