by Kate Bateman
Conant snorted. “Dammed odd thing to find pleasure in, I say. Rocks? What’s wrong with cards and women, eh?” He chuckled heartily.
Alex drummed his fingers on his thigh, his mind already whirring with possibilities. He’d been praying for something to occupy his time, some challenge to enliven his current ennui. Here, at last, was an adversary worth pursuing.
“Maybe they’re being smuggled out of the country? Or maybe money’s not the Nightjar’s primary goal. You say he could steal more but restrains himself? Perhaps he has some moral code about not stealing more than one piece from any individual?”
“Moral code? Ha! A thief like that has no morals, Harland. Nor any honor. Whatever his reasons, he’ll get no mercy when he’s caught, tried, and convicted. The law is the law. We’ll see him hanged from Tyburn tree, you mark my words.”
Conant slapped his palms on the arms of the chair and pushed himself to his feet. “Rundell and Bridge aren’t keen to publicize this, obviously. They want you to investigate quietly, but I’m counting on you to catch the slippery devil. The Prince Regent demands it.” He strode to the door. “I imagine you’ll want to take a look at the crime scene. It’s over in Ludgate Hill.” He shot Alex a teasing smile. “I’m sure you already know that. No doubt you’ve purchased plenty of pretty baubles there yourself since your return from Waterloo.”
Alex hid a wince at the man’s uncanny perspicacity. He’d been at the jeweler’s only last month to buy a parting gift for Alicia, his mistress. The discreet widow had been disappointed but pragmatic when he’d ended their month-long liaison. She’d been hoping for more than a casual physical relationship—a wedding band, in truth—but he’d never pretended to be looking for a wife. He doubted he’d ever be looking for a wife.
Not that there was anything wrong with the married state, of course; witness Benedict’s current blissful existence with his heiress Georgiana. But unlike Alex, Benedict wasn’t practically blind in one eye, nor as cynical when it came to women. As a second son, Alex was under no pressure to marry and produce heirs. He enjoyed women, their company, their bodies, but he’d never felt the need to limit himself to just one.
Except once. Almost four years ago, at a masked ball on the eve of his leaving for the Peninsular, he’d met the woman of his dreams. A woman who’d not only excited him physically but challenged him mentally. A woman whose husky laugh and intoxicating scent had wrapped themselves around his heart and ensnared it so completely, he’d almost forgotten his own name. Un coup de foudre the French called it. A thunderclap. And they were right. He’d felt a deep sense of inevitability, of utter rightness. An absolute conviction that, against all odds, here, finally, was the woman for him.
They’d talked. Danced. Flirted. They’d shared one perfect kiss.
Then she’d disappeared.
He’d never even discovered her name.
Alex closed the file in front of him with a snap and exhaled deeply. God, what a naïve fool he’d been back then. Three years in the King’s Own Rifles had beaten such optimism out of him. He’d traipsed through Spain and Portugal, France and Belgium, and witnessed the true horrors of war, the brutal nature of both men and women. It had taught him the futility of such dreams.
He still dreamed of her, though. Not every night, but often enough. He’d wake with the lingering scent of her perfume on the breeze—an exotic scent he’d never encountered since. The feel of her lips on his. And a cock hard enough to hammer nails into solid steel.
It was ridiculous. He didn’t know her hair color—she’d been wearing a powdered wig in the antiquated style of the French court some fifty years before. He didn’t know the color of her eyes—they’d been hidden behind a ludicrous mask that covered the top half of her face.
The thought of her had nearly driven him to distraction. He’d been so frustrated, never solving the mystery, never knowing if she was someone’s wife, someone’s mistress, or someone with whom he might have considered a future.
Alex rolled his shoulders. He should have forgotten her by now. It wasn’t as though he’d remained celibate over the past four years. He doubted she would have either. And yet, he’d found himself searching for her ever since he’d been back in town. He scanned every room he entered, every face, paradoxically convinced that if he just saw her—just once—he’d recognize her. His body would recognize hers. His soul would recognize her.
He huffed air out of his nostrils, irritated with himself. Bloody hell, what was wrong with him? As the co-owner of a gambling den, he was more than capable of calculating the odds of such a probability: long to the point of absurdity. She was doubtless a married matron by now with a parcel of brats driving her to distraction.
And he was blissfully free, a bachelor of means, with a handsome face to match his handsome fortune. He could, within reason, have any woman he wanted with the lift of an eyebrow, the flash of a smile.
Except that one. The one that got away.
Was that it? Perhaps the reason his mystery woman still plagued him was the sense of unfinished business. He’d have tired of her within a month if they’d ever been properly introduced. It was merely the attraction of the unknown that allowed her to retain her unholy allure.
The same principle applied to the Nightjar; it was the challenge of the unknown. Alex hated to be beaten. His pride required him to outwit his opponent, to catch the prize, to win the game. He wanted to excel at whatever he put his mind to. His competitive nature would allow nothing less.
He stared deeply into the fire. The Nightjar intrigued him. Whoever the thief was, he was a master of disguise, of guile. Nobody had ever seen him, although his exploits had featured in many a column inch of newspaper print over the past decade.
He opened the thin file beside him and glanced at the report within. Brief, sketchy details about a number of high-profile heists throughout Europe. A remote chateau in Switzerland, halfway up a vertiginous mountain. A highly fortified villa on the shores of Lake Como in Italy. He shook his head. Conant had been right—nobody had the first clue how the Nightjar had managed most of his crimes.
Some of the details remained the same, however. Never any violence. No force of any kind, in fact. No safes had been cracked, no doors blown off their hinges. No servants drugged, nor guards harmed. The most striking characteristic was stealthy, quiet intelligence. Presumably disguise. In several instances, nobody had even noticed the gems were missing for several days after the presumed theft; it was often impossible to say precisely when they had been stolen.
Only once had the Nightjar deviated from leaving a sole black feather at the crime scene. Alex smiled at the report. The thief had inadvertently knocked over a silver sugar bowl in the course of one of his robberies, but instead of stealing the silver, he’d taken the time to sweep up the sugar with a piece of paper and then penned a note of apology.
Signor Locatelli. Please excuse the mess. I regret the necessity of depriving your wife of her very beautiful emerald earrings, but I am sure she will be delighted to shop for their replacements. Pour la gloire de la France.
—The Nightjar
Alex studied the brief handwritten note. An elegant, sloping hand, obviously someone who’d received a formal education. Was he looking for a gentleman thief?
The last reported theft had been four years ago in 1812. And then nothing. Conspicuous inactivity until last night’s little spree at Rundell Bridge & Rundell.
Alex shook his head, bemused. Why the long gap? Was the Nightjar getting old? Losing his taste for adventure? Either way, here, at last, was a problem to sink his teeth into. The Nightjar, ancient or not, was a worthy opponent against whom Alex could test his mettle.
“The law is reason, free from passion,” Aristotle taught, and Alex agreed wholeheartedly. He prided himself on his relentless investigative skills, his ability to look at any situation objectively. He would bring the Nightjar to justice using cool reasoning and impartial logic. Although he, Benedict, and Seb got a financial reward f
or every case they solved for Bow Street, the cash wasn’t his primary goal. It was the professional satisfaction he gained from the victories that motivated him.
War had taught him that rules and laws existed for good reason. Infantry soldiers formed into squares when under attack to present a united front and protect one other. Any man who broke rank not only made a target of himself, but endangered the lives of the men next to him. Infringement led to danger and anarchy.
In the Rifles, he’d been part of a large force, a cog in a vast machine. As a Bow Street operative, he had the opportunity to do something more individual, to be part of a much smaller team with Benedict and Seb. Any successes were entirely to their credit, any failures, theirs to own. Alex liked the accountability.
He’d fought for three years to protect the innocent inhabitants of this country. With Napoleon safely incarcerated on St. Helena, he would continue to uphold the laws of England, and guard against disruptive criminals like the Nightjar.
He called for Mickey, who arrived mere moments later.
“When Seb finally drags his thick head out of bed, tell him I’ve gone to Ludgate Hill. I’ll be back for lunch.”
Chapter 2.
“The British Museum? You cannot be serious.”
Emmy Danvers, née Emmeline Louise d’Anvers, the daughter of Europe’s most elusive jewel thief, dropped her forehead to the scarred kitchen table with a heartfelt groan. “Nobody in their right mind would attempt it. Why don’t we break into the Tower of London and steal the British crown jewels instead? That way, when we’re caught, the cells and gallows will be already set up for us. It’s impossible!”
Luc, seated at the opposite end of the table, chuckled at her morbid humor. “That’s what you said about Rundell and Bridge, and it went off without a hitch, did it not? It’s not impossible, Em. Just difficult. A challenge worthy of our skills.”
Emmy raised her head and shot her brother a withering glare. “I am sick of such challenges. We will be caught. And hanged. Or transported to the Antipodes. It’s only a matter of time before our luck runs out.”
Camille—who refused to accept the title Grandmère on the grounds that it made her “feel terribly old”—took a delicate sip of her tea and nodded.
“Well, we are all in agreement there, ma chère. Your father, God rest his soul, may have been my son, but this quixotic dream of his has left you with a very dangerous legacy. The Nightjar!” She gave an elegant feminine snort. “What a name! I told him he should have called himself ‘The Fox’ or ‘The Conjurer.’ Something with a little more flair.”
Emmy bit back a laugh of despair. That was typical of Camille. The fact that her son had repeatedly broken the law in at least six different European countries over the course of a fifteen-year career was less offensive to her sensibilities than the fact that he’d not done it more stylishly. In her grandmother’s mind, there was very little that couldn’t be forgiven provided one went about it in a suitably dashing manner.
With a family like this, how could she ever have hoped to lead a normal life? Was it any wonder they were in the tangle they were in now?
She glared at the letter that lay, unfolded, on the table between them. It was the latest in a string of similar missives, the first of which had arrived just over a year ago. “He is mad, this Danton,” she said flatly. “How did he discover Father was the Nightjar? How did he find us?”
Luc’s handsome features twisted in a grimace. “Does it matter? He can send us all to the gallows, as he says. We have no choice but to follow his orders.”
Emmy groaned again. For four blissful years, since their father’s death, they’d lived a blameless, crime-free life. Louis d’Anvers’s patriotic whim—to recover the French crown jewels and store them until the Bourbon monarchy had been restored—had been, if not forgotten, at least suspended. Napoleon had been so secure in his rule over France that it had seemed unlikely his reign would ever end, despite the valiant efforts of Britain and her allies to quell his ruthless empire-building. Even exile on Elba had proved insufficient to stop him.
But with his downfall at Waterloo last summer, their father’s dream of a Bourbon restoration seemed destined to become a reality. Luc and Emmy had just been discussing what they should do with the Nightjar’s ill-gotten gains when the first letter from Emile Danton had arrived.
Danton’s father had been the revolutionary leader Georges Danton, the man their father had publicly denounced for the theft of the French crown jewels. Having been deprived of his true target by their father’s death, the younger Danton had turned his ire on the Nightjar’s family. As far as Emmy could tell, Danton Junior was as corrupt as his sire. He’d demanded not only the cache of jewels their father had already stolen, but insisted they obtain three additional jewels—a white diamond, a blue diamond, and a ruby—that were still at large. She doubted very much that he planned to atone for his father’s sins by returning them to the French government.
Failure to comply, he’d assured them, would result in most unpleasant consequences, not only for Luc and Emmy, but for those they loved. He’d specifically mentioned Camille as a potential target if his wishes were not carried out “in a timely manner.”
Emmy and Luc had had no way of refusing, no way of communicating with their blackmailer. They’d thought to claim ignorance of where the treasure was hidden and tell Danton the secret had gone to the grave with their father, but there was no return address. His demands were always delivered by one of London’s innumerable scrappy errand boys, who, when questioned, could only report that they’d been commissioned by “a dark-haired gentleman” with a “foreign accent.”
With no other options, they’d begun to plan the Rundell & Bridge heist.
The Nightjar had been resurrected.
Emmy had been fourteen the first time her father had involved her in one of his “little jobs,” and that had only been under duress. It had always been tacitly understood that Luc would inherit the role of the Nightjar, but when he’d turned eighteen, he’d insisted on enlisting in the Royal Navy under Admiral Nelson to “do his bit” in tackling Napoleon. He’d been wounded in the leg at Trafalgar only a few months later. His convalescence had been slow and painful, and his resulting disability had rendered him unable to take part in the physical element of the heists.
And so, for four years, from the age of fourteen to eighteen, Emmy had helped her father and brother track down and steal back the crown jewels of France.
She was singularly ill-suited for a life of crime. She was physically small, at only three inches over five feet, and while constant exercise ensured she retained a certain agility, no amount of practice could cure her dislike of heights. She steadfastly refused to steal anything that required being more than ten feet off the ground.
Father had maintained that stealing the jewels back was a moral imperative. If it happened to be contrary to the law, well, then, the law was simply wrong. Committing a few lesser, secondary crimes was necessary to serve justice for a much larger one.
Emmy agreed. The jewels belonged to France. They should undoubtedly be returned.
She just wished the role had fallen to someone—anyone—else.
Father had never asked his children to complete his task. Not in so many words. But Emmy had always felt the weight of his silent expectation on her shoulders. The pressure to finish what he’d started.
The back door banged open, interrupting her brooding thoughts.
Sally Hawkins, who’d left her job as a costumier at Covent Garden Theatre eight years ago to become their “cook-housekeeper,” bustled in, looking artlessly seductive in a crimson shawl. As she dropped a basket full of fruit on a stool and unbuttoned her matching cherry-striped pelisse, Emmy suppressed an envious sigh at her friend’s voluptuous figure. Sally needed neither corset nor stays to achieve that gorgeous hourglass outline.
“Mornin’, all.”
Sally slapped a folded newssheet onto the table in front of Luc, who made a valiant
effort not to stare at the cleavage that appeared in front of his face as she leaned over. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and his eyes closed as if he were in acute pain.
Sally settled herself on one of the kitchen chairs, and Emmy half smiled at her efforts to avoid touching Luc as she did so. Even a blind man could see the attraction between the two of them, but as far as Emmy knew, neither of them had ever done anything about it.
It had been Sally who’d helped Emmy nurse Luc during those terrible first few months of his convalescence. Sally on whom his gaze lingered whenever he thought she wasn’t looking. And yet there seemed to be some intangible barrier between them, some tacit agreement to keep their distance.
Emmy sometimes wondered whether Luc thought of himself as less of a man because of his prosthetic foot, an unsuitable mate for the beautiful Sally. As an aristocrat, albeit a French one, he was socially her superior. Sally had been born in the roughest part of London’s East End, and her voice still retained the accent of her youth. She was sharp as a pin, utterly unapologetic for the fact that she’d made her own way in the world, and possessed of a canny ability to read people’s true intentions.
Their father had first encountered her as she fended off an armed assailant in a Covent Garden back alley. Sally had coshed her attacker around the head with a wooden sewing case and rendered him unconscious without any assistance. Impressed, Emmy’s father had helped her move the body out of the road and escorted her safely home.
Sally’s father, it transpired, had been George Barrington, one of London’s most infamous gentleman thieves. As a child, Sally had assisted him in creating costumes and disguises for his various jaunts, but when Barrington was convicted of pickpocketing and transported to Sydney, she’d found work as a seamstress and makeup artist at the rowdy Covent Garden theatre.
Emmy’s father had offered her a job—one that didn’t require fending off unwelcome advances from drunk theatregoers on a regular basis—and Sally had quickly made herself indispensable in providing disguises for the Danverses’ various criminal escapades. She was a genius with a needle and a pot of rouge. She could turn Emmy into a chimneysweep, a flower seller, or a duchess, at the drop of a hat.
