Wicked With the Scoundrel

by Elizabeth Bright

  She would have continued to do so, had they not arrived at their destination. He called for bandages as they entered the pump room and set her down in the first empty chair that crossed his path.

  She looked up at him, her face as hot as though she had carried him through the streets of Bath rather than the other way around. “Thank you.”

  He said nothing and merely reached for her hand. Before she could protest, he turned her wrist, revealing the brown marks that marred her white gloves. His lips quirked. “Thank you.”

  It was such an odd moment that she couldn’t help but laugh. She had read a number of romances at Adelaide’s suggestion. They were quite interesting books, full of heart palpitations and elegant swoons. Not a single heroine had ever stained her gloves with the hero’s sweat, for the very good reason that sweat was not romantic. It was dirty and oftentimes smelly.

  And yet, Claire knew she would never wash these gloves again.

  Perhaps she would not go so far as to sleep with them under her pillow.

  Although—she remembered the way his throat looked, and the sudden softness in his eyes as she wiped his brow—perhaps she might.

  The bandages arrived. Colin sat down and lifted her foot into his lap. When she started to protest, he gave her such a ferocious look that the words died in her throat. Her shoe was removed with utmost care. His hands remained gentle even as his expression turned thunderous.

  He wrapped a bandage around her heel and ankle, then leaned closer to examine his work. He shook his head. “If you can’t manage half a mile without bloodying your feet, perhaps you ought to stay safely at home.”

  “Or perhaps I ought to wear sturdier boots.”

  He rose to his full height and stood with his hands on his hips. For a long moment, he simply glowered and said nothing. She met his gaze steadily. She would not be intimidated by a grouchy pirate. Especially not one that had tied such a sweet bow on her bandage.

  “You will do so tomorrow, when we visit Scipio’s ruins,” he said finally. “If you give me even one moment of concern for your safety, as God is my witness, you will stay in the carriage.”

  “Hmm,” she said, aware that he would take her agreeable tone as assent when in actuality it was no such thing.

  Wait in the carriage, indeed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Later that night, Colin found himself beneath Scipio’s ruins, doing the opposite of what a sane man would do: burying treasure rather than running away with it.

  “Are English prisons very terrible, do you suppose?” Deb asked.

  Colin did not pause in his work. Tap, tap, tap went his hammer against the chisel. “Oh, no. I hear Newgate is quite lovely, what with all the disease, starvation, and rats. Why? Are you planning a visit?”

  “I suspect we may both end up there before the summer is over.”

  “Why do you say that?” Tap, tap, tap. With every knock of his hammer, he undid a small piece of Roman craftsmanship that had stood the test of centuries. He had done much worse to Egyptian tombs, but it still caused him a pang of remorse, as it had then. He liked old things. If only one could profit from them without also destroying them.

  “Perhaps it is because we stand here, in a dark pit in the dead of night, with a parcel of jewels that don’t belong to us. And, oh yes, I am not English, and you are poor.”

  “All of those things can be explained.” Although the latter made it harder to find a sympathetic ear. “Anyway, Chatwell would free us.”

  “At the risk of his daughter learning of his deceit? I think perhaps not.”

  Now Colin did pause his work. He turned to face his friend. “Are you having doubts? Would you rather not be a part of this scheme?”

  “On the contrary. I think it is great fun,” Deb said. “I’ve never had the opportunity to escape a prison before.”

  Colin rolled his eyes heavenward. “Forgive me, but I hope you will be disappointed in your quest. I have no intention of being imprisoned.”

  “Huh.” There was much doubt in Deb’s grunt.

  Colin ignored him and returned to his task. The brick was almost loose enough to pull from its centuries-old resting place. For a moment longer he worked in silence, then Deb spoke again.

  “Riya thinks you’re mad.”

  “That is nothing new,” Colin said with a patience he did not feel. “She’ll feel differently when this is all over and Chatwell has funded our adventure in Luxor.”

  “But why must we hide the jewels? Why not instead truly search for the real treasure?” Deb persisted. “Why must we deceive Lady Claire? I do not like it. Riya does not like it.”

  Colin didn’t like it, either. It was not so much that he was overly fond of honesty. He could always be counted on to hold his tongue rather than burden his friends with uncomfortable truths…and what was a story without an embellishment here and there? But outright lies were cumbersome things, in his experience, and always led to more lies and even more trouble.

  Then, too, was the matter of who he was lying to. Lady Claire was not stupid. What if she saw through the lie? When he had agreed to Chatwell’s scheme, he had believed she was no different from the rest of her ilk—spoiled, selfish, only seeing exactly what they wished to see and not an orphan more.

  Now he could not claim Lady Claire was oblivious. She saw everything. And while he could not deny she was spoiled, he knew she was not selfish. She had stained her expensive gloves with his sweat so that he might be more comfortable as he carried her down Milsom Street.

  He shouldn’t have let her. But the day had been hot and, damn it all, he hadn’t wanted sweat in his eyes. In that moment, it hadn’t seemed wrong. He had exerted himself for her comfort, and so she had made his exertion more comfortable. Perhaps it was not proper, but it was right.

  “I do not like it, but I understand Chatwell’s position. Don’t you? Wouldn’t you do the same to protect Riya, if you thought it necessary?”

  “No.”

  Colin again paused his work, regarding his friend with surprise. “No?”

  “I take happiness very seriously, bandhu. Especially when that happiness is my sister’s. Are you suggesting that I should have lied to my sister, tricked her into a marriage she didn’t want, and sailed away without her? Perhaps she would have been safer had she stayed home rather than joined us. But she would have been miserable. Happiness cannot come from deceit.”

  “You say all this now because Riya survived our adventure. You would have felt differently had she died or become injured.”

  “Had that happened, the ocean would be a mere drop compared to my tears. But still, I would not regret taking her with us. I value her happiness more than her life, if it comes to that. Happiness is at least somewhat within our own control. But death comes for us all regardless, so why be miserable while we wait for it to find us?”

  Colin opened his mouth to protest but quickly snapped it shut at seeing the dangerous glint in Deb’s eyes. His friend had suffered more than his fair share of loss. Colin could not argue against experience—nor against the deep love he felt for his sister.

  But the fact remained that Lady Claire was not suited for dirty work. She had injured herself by simply walking down the damn street! Small wonder that her father had created this ridiculous scheme to satisfy her adventure lust. She would never survive the real thing. In fact, even this might be too much for her. The sooner she found the fake treasure, the safer she would be. She was delicate. She was fragile. She was—

  He missed his mark, and the hammer came down on his thumb rather than the chisel. He grunted in pain. Damn, damn, damn.

  “Shall I take a turn, and you can hold the lantern?” Deb asked.

  “Sod off,” Colin muttered. “I’m almost there.”

  A few more taps, and it was done. He put down his tools and carefully wiggled the brick free. “Now the jewels.”

  Deb handed them over. “I cannot believe we are going to leave them here. The gold necklace alone is worth a y
ear of bread.”

  “They won’t be here for long. I’ll bring Lady Claire tomorrow.” Colin pushed the parcel deep into the hole. It was another half hour of work to remove half the length of the brick, which he then replaced in the wall.

  He stood back, squinting in the dim light to examine his work. It would be clear to a discerning eye that the brick was loose in the wall. Good. He nudged the rubble with his boot. “We should spread this around, so it is less obvious we have been here.”

  Deb laughed. “Surely, the lady won’t notice a bit of rock and dust?”

  “Oh, she will. I assure you, she will.”

  Deb gave him a quizzical look but did not argue.

  And then it was done. The treasure was buried.

  All that remained was to let Lady Claire find it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Scipio’s home stood a mile from the west side of Bath. Nothing remained except a single row of five elegant arches, each twice as tall as a man, and a worn stone here and there. There was also an underground room of sorts, which had been discovered when a child had fallen through a sinkhole. The entrance had been widened and made usable by treasure hunters. The room had been searched thoroughly without success, other than some letters, coins, and chipped pottery. Claire doubted she and Colin would find anything further.

  But that did not mean the day would be wasted. The sky was blue, and the sun was warm. She stretched her arms, basking in the sunlight like a cat. Last year had been so cold—it had seemed to her that spring had never truly arrived, and then suddenly it was winter again. Even this year spring had come late, but now it was August, and finally the Earth had reawakened as though from a long, deep slumber.

  “Shall we investigate the underground room?” Colin asked.

  “Not just yet.” She perched on a large, flattened boulder—perhaps it had once been part of Scipio’s wall?—and gazed at the arches. “How do you suppose they managed to survive these two thousand years? And why did the others crumble?”

  Colin lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the sun as he turned to look. “Luck?” he suggested.

  “Hmm. Or perhaps the laborers who constructed this particular wall were more skilled than the others, or the bricks were of better quality.”

  “Luck,” he said again.

  His hair glinted like burnished gold. She turned away so she wouldn’t appear to be staring and arranged her skirt to reveal a bit more ankle just visible above her half boots. Men liked such things, Adelaide had once told her, although Claire couldn’t imagine why. Perhaps because ankles were supposed to be covered?

  He looked.

  She inched the fabric up just a fraction more. Just as quickly, Meg reached over and gave her skirts a rough swat. Her ankles disappeared in a rustle of muslin. Claire gave her maid a speaking glance. “My hem will get dirty.”

  “Better your hem than your virtue,” Meg said tartly.

  Claire flushed, her gaze shooting to Colin to see if he had heard the reprimand. He was paying them no mind now that there was no ankle to entice his notice. What was the point in having ankles if they had to be kept virtuously hidden?

  “Well,” she said primly, “I am going to remove my pelisse. It is hot, and what if I should become overheated and faint? Mr. Smith would have to carry me again. He might start to form a habit of it.”

  She unbuttoned the garment as she spoke and tugged it off. She hadn’t been lying. It was hot. A light sheen of perspiration coated her chest. She wrinkled her nose. Sweat was not at all attractive on a lady.

  Colin turned away abruptly and gave a small stone a vicious kick. It went flying several feet in the air, bounced off an ancient arch, and tumbled into the plush grass. Then he turned to face her, hands on hips. “We won’t find the treasure out here, you know. We should investigate the underground room.”

  She sighed. They wouldn’t find the treasure there, either. The room had been so thoroughly excavated that there couldn’t possibly be anything left to discover. The items discovered had been sent to the museum a few years ago, and she had visited the exhibit with her father. The broken bits of pottery were not very interesting, but there had also been a parchment letter to the general’s wife, several lead tablets with strange curses carved into the metal, and a scant half dozen copper coins. The letter had been copied in the book they had borrowed from the library.

  The letter, of course, was of particular interest, but alas, it seemed devoid of any clues as to where the treasure was hidden. Likely it had been written long before Scipio had buried the emerald. Still, it was a lovely letter, and Claire especially liked the valediction.

  Yours, where the water flows from darkness into light, Scipio.

  She had no idea what it meant, but it was pretty.

  “All right.” She stood, folded her pelisse, and set it neatly on the rock. “Let’s go, then.”

  Colin rummaged through the pack he had brought and pulled out a lantern. After lighting it, he handed it to Claire. It barely glowed in the bright sunshine. “Just in case the light from the opening is not enough. I wouldn’t like you to stumble in the dark and twist your ankle. Although I wouldn’t carry you. I would put you in the carriage.”

  She gaped at him as a hot flush crept up her throat. Oh, heavens! He had heard every word of her conversation with Meg. How humiliating.

  She followed him to the opening, where crude stairs had been pushed into the earth to make a passageway leading beneath the ground. The stairs were not Roman; they had been constructed by archeologists and treasure hunters.

  Claire peered down the steep passageway. “Imagine how frightened the children must have been when they fell through! It goes down rather far, doesn’t it?”

  Behind her, Meg made an odd whimpering noise.

  “I imagine they would have been grateful for our lantern,” Colin said. “It looks to get quite dark.”

  Meg whimpered again.

  Claire glanced over her shoulder. “Are you all right, Meg?”

  “Yes, my lady. It is only… I would rather not. Perhaps I should stay here, in case someone must go for help.”

  Claire frowned. “Why would someone need to go for help?”

  “I can think of a great many reasons, my lady,” Meg said darkly. “Those children would have starved to death if a farmer had not heard their cries.”

  “The children fell through a hole,” Claire countered. “You are far more likely to fall through a hole out there than in here, where you will be inside the hole itself.”

  “I believe I would rather fall through something than have something fall on top of me and crush the life right out of my body, my lady.”

  Claire opened her mouth to protest but quickly snapped it shut again. If Meg wanted to stay out here and leave Claire to explore the dark room alone with Colin, well then, so be it. She was a good maid, and really, what kind of person would Claire be if she forced Meg into a situation that clearly frightened her?

  “Wait here, then. We shan’t be more than an hour.”

  Then she followed Colin down into the dark.

  Chapter Fifteen

  This was exactly the sort of thing that got a man shot at dawn.

  Colin cursed the maid’s cowardliness as he led Lady Claire deeper into the earth and farther from anyone who could stop him from doing something regrettable. He had an odd sense of walking to his doom. Really, he was quite cross about it. It seemed as though the entire world was conspiring to thwart his moral compass.

  The lanterns glowed brighter as the path grew dimmer. He should insist they turn back and return with a chaperone who wasn’t afraid of the dark. But his legs continued to carry him forward despite his brain’s objections.

  The pathway widened, and he came to a halt, lifting his lantern higher. “This must be it,” he said, just as though he had never been there before. He tried not to look at the loose stone just to his right, where last night he and Deb had hidden Chatwell’s treasure.

  Lady Claire turned s
lowly in a circle. The walls had survived the centuries remarkably well, despite the evident damage from dozens of visitors.

  “How do you wish to proceed?” he asked. “We can’t just dismantle the entire room.”

  She lifted the lantern to see his face. “I suppose we should examine every part of the walls for loose stones or anything that would indicate a hiding spot.”

  They would find the treasure in no time. Good. Once they found it, there would be no reason for them to be together so much. Especially not alone in a dark room.

  He moved away from the hiding spot—it would be too suspicious to find it in the first place they looked, wouldn’t it?—peering at the wall as he went. A mark caught his eye, and he paused. “There are initials carved into the stone here.”

  She wrinkled her brow. “Why would anyone do that to the walls of his own home? I wouldn’t write my initials on my sitting room wall.”

  “I doubt Scipio did, either. It’s probably not Roman. Perhaps it was even done only weeks or months ago. Look—initials, and a heart.”

  “Was this the site of a lovers’ tryst, I wonder?” Lady Claire mused.

  She leaned over his shoulder, holding the lantern high so she might investigate the etchings. Her breast pressed into his back, her hair brushed his cheek, and the sweet scent of flowers filled his nostrils. He caught himself taking a deeper breath to get more of it and instantly turned his head away.

  She was driving him mad. Did she have no concern for her own safety?

  “You should not be here alone.”

  She turned to him with a puzzled frown. “I am not alone. I am with you.”

  “Alone with me.”

  The frown cleared. Ah, now she understood. Finally.

  “My maid does not like dark holes, as she said, but she is just outside the entrance. That is enough to satisfy my father’s need for propriety, especially since he will never find out.”

  Colin stared at her. Propriety? No, she did not understand, after all.

  He straightened to his full height so he loomed over her. “If I truly wished to harm you, do you think your maid could stop me?”