Her Scandalous Pursuit

by Candace Camp

  “Yes,” Gordon agreed, sounding more interested by the moment. “Its value is incalculable to us, but in material terms, it’s worthless.”

  Desmond looked around at the others. Their faces were filled with excitement. “I cannot believe you’re actually considering this. Any of you.”

  “Don’t be such a puritan, Dez,” Carson told him.

  “I don’t think considering theft wrong qualifies one as a puritan,” Desmond declared.

  “This is more important than legalities,” Gordon said. “It’s for the advancement of human knowledge. If this woman sees spirits, that proves that Annie Blue’s Eye works. It makes it even more imperative to investigate it. One stubborn old woman should not be allowed to stand in the way of progress.”

  “All of you are talking as if it’s a surety that you would be able to steal it and get away. That’s faulty reasoning. The odds of you stealing it are at best fifty-fifty. First, none of you are thieves so you’re apt to bungle it. Second, you don’t even know what it looks like.”

  “I’d know it the instant I saw it,” Gordon assured him.

  Desmond refrained from rolling his eyes. “Begging your pardon, sir, but you merely think you’ll instinctively recognize it. Those aren’t the only obstacles. This woman is a duchess—she’s bound to live in a large house with any number of rooms. How will you know where to look?”

  “It’ll be near her, I’d warrant. She’d keep it close,” Carson countered.

  “Marvelous. All you need do is enter a room where someone is sleeping and creep about in the dark, trying to find an object of unknown appearance.”

  “Go in when she’s not likely to be in her bedchamber.”

  “During the day, in broad daylight, with who knows how many servants walking around?”

  “Evening,” Carson said. “It’s dark, but they won’t be in bed. The duchess and her family will either be out at a party or downstairs eating a long and lavish dinner. The servants will be busy downstairs serving or they’ll be in the servants’ hall, enjoying their master’s absence.”

  “I must say, you’ve given this a great deal of thought.”

  “I’m a quick thinker. And I know the schedule of people like that.” Carson grinned and tapped his temple, his bright blue eyes dancing.

  “This just a game for you,” Desmond said in exasperation. “A debate, an intellectual exercise. You have no realization of what the consequences are. To you jail is just an idea, some vague place where common people go. But it’s not. This is serious, Carson.” Desmond’s voice rose. “If you are caught stealing, you’ll be tossed in jail—for many years. Don’t count on them letting you go because you’re the ‘right sort of people.’ The duchess will have all the influence here. You won’t have silk waistcoats and soft beds and good meals. It’s gruel and water and inadequate sanitation.” Desmond caught himself before he blurted out that he knew jails because he’d visited his father there.

  Across from him, Carson dropped his amused expression. “I’m sorry, Dez. I shouldn’t tease you. You take everything so seriously. I don’t actually intend to break into the duchess’s sleeping quarters and steal the Eye. I am much too fond of my silk waistcoats for that.” The corner of his mouth quirked.

  “Yes, obviously this is hypothetical,” Gordon said heavily. “Mere supposition.”

  “What a waste,” Benjamin sighed and shook his head.

  One by one they returned to their tasks, but no one seemed able to concentrate. It wasn’t long before the others left. Desmond remained; he wanted to make sure Gordon had given up the mad idea of stealing the Eye. The man had said he accepted it, but the expression on his face was so avid, his bitterness at the duchess’s refusal so apparent, that Desmond feared he might give in to his desire to have the Eye.

  Apparently, Gordon was of a similar mind, for after the last student closed the door behind him, he said, “Desmond, I want to talk to you.”

  “Good.” He walked over to the other man. “I meant no disrespect earlier.”

  “No, no, I understand. You’re the most practical of them all, the steadiest. That’s why I want to ask you—”

  “Ask me what? You know I’ll do whatever I can for you.”

  “Recover the Eye of Annie Blue.”

  “Sir?” Desmond gaped at him. “You said you understood.”

  “I do. But I didn’t say I agreed with you.”

  “Professor Gordon...” Desmond shook his head, at a loss for words. He had never seen his mentor so blindly stubborn. Yes, the man believed some things that Desmond deemed unlikely, but he had never before been so immune to reason.

  “I’d do it myself, but clearly if she discovered the theft, I would be the most likely suspect since I have just written her asking for it.”

  Desmond’s mind boggled at the thought of the portly, dignified gentleman climbing through a downstairs window. “Sir...you cannot.”

  “They would know nothing of you, however. I could be in public somewhere, have an established alibi while you slip in unbeknownst and take it. Think, Desmond. That woman doesn’t deserve to have the Eye. You’re from Dorset, close to Anne Ballew’s own village. You have more right to it than some aristocrat.”

  Could Gordon know his aunt’s wild assertions? “I have no connection with Anne Ballew. I have no more claim to it than anyone.”

  “Dorset does. It would have gone to someone in Dorset if Anne Ballew had had a say in the matter.”

  “Perhaps so, but that doesn’t make it right to commit robbery. It’s not as if I think the duchess should have it. However she acquired it, it was originally stolen. I really don’t care whether some aristocrat loses a bit of property. But it’s illegal.”

  “There’s a larger good here than the law. Don’t you see it? We have the opportunity to make history. Don’t you want to see it? To touch it? To see how it works?”

  “Of course I do. I want to examine the thing as much as anyone. I agree that there’s a greater good here and that one stubborn old woman shouldn’t keep it from the rest of the world. It’s disappointing, frustrating...wrong that we cannot study it. I want to see it. But not enough to risk jail.”

  “You won’t get caught. You’re clever. You don’t panic. And I’ve seen you run.”

  “The same can be said about many men in Newgate. Besides, it’s an impossible task. I don’t know what room it’s in. I don’t know what it looks like. I don’t even know where this woman lives, let alone the floor plan of the place.”

  “I know where Broughton House is, and bedchambers are always upstairs,” Gordon said, as if this resolved the matter.

  Desmond swung away, throwing out his arms in frustration. “Why me? Why not ask one of the others? Carson seemed especially keen on it.”

  “Oh, Carson...” Gordon waved away that idea. “He’s too impulsive, not responsible.”

  “Which is why he would be willing to steal it.” Desmond stopped, his eyes narrowing. “Is it because he’s a gentleman’s son? It would be more of a scandal if Carson was caught. Whereas I am disposable.”

  “No!” Gordon’s eyes widened. “No, of course not. Truthfully, it would be far easier to lose Carson than you. You’re the brightest of the lot. The best. I can’t trust any of the others to accomplish it. I regard you like a son. I remember when you first came to the city.” He smiled reminiscently. “How eager you were, how bright. I didn’t care that you couldn’t pay. I wanted the opportunity to pass my knowledge on to someone who would be able to understand it. To use it.”

  Desmond felt himself softening. He could not have asked for a better, more generous man to mentor him than Professor Gordon. He owed him so much, and guilt twisted through Desmond at the thought of turning him down. “Sir...I know that I can never repay what you have done for me. And if I have been like a son to you, I assure you that you have been a much better fathe
r than the one I had. I would do almost anything for you, but this...” He trailed off.

  “Of course.” Gordon nodded. “Well, if you cannot, you cannot. I will have to do it myself.”

  “Professor! No!” He would certainly get caught. Professor Gordon hadn’t the first idea what to do, and he was anything but agile. “You mustn’t. It would destroy your career.”

  “No. It will save it. Don’t you see? I must have the Eye. Mr. Wallace is growing impatient with our lack of results. I’ve no idea how long he will continue funding our research. I shan’t have enough for this laboratory. The equipment.” He waved his hand around, indicating the contents of the room.

  “We’ll find another patron,” Desmond said, though he was not sure there was another wealthy man out there intent on spirit research. Wallace had been something of a godsend.

  “No. And it’s not just that. It’s... I have become an object of scorn to my fellow scientists. A jest. They overlook everything I’ve done before, the articles I’ve written, because I’ve chosen to focus on the spirits.”

  “I know. It’s very unfair. Your paper on the diffusion of—”

  “This is science.” Gordon slammed down his fist on the table. “This is more important than the properties of a chemical or what gases exist on the sun. This concerns the very essence of life—the beginning, the spark, the thing that raises us above the beasts.”

  “Of course it’s more important.” Desmond had heard these arguments many times before, especially when the professor had downed a tankard of ale. “You mustn’t distress yourself over it.”

  “I was respected. I was admired. I remember Faraday himself once told me I had a bright future ahead of me.” He gazed off into the distance, smiling a bit at the memory, then swung back to Desmond. “I have to get that back. With the Eye, I can prove how wrong they were. I can prove that I’m not a doddering old fool.”

  Desmond’s chest ached at the sight of tears glimmering in his mentor’s eyes. Gordon was driving himself mad over this. It was cruel that they ridiculed him, unfair that they cast doubt on his earlier work because he was “playing with ghosts.” As much as Desmond himself would like to see whether the Eye worked, he wanted it even more for his teacher.

  Was it really so terrible a sin to take the Eye? Gordon was right; the Eye was at best a plaything for a spoiled aristocrat. In Gordon’s hands, it could be groundbreaking. It could give something to the world. Advance man’s knowledge. Would it be so terrible to take one trinket from a duchess’s coffers? Would it be as difficult as he had described?

  He was young and fast and reasonably agile. If he awakened anyone, surely he could make it out of the house before they could grab him. He had a better chance of success than any of the others. He hadn’t served as an apprentice to his father’s illegal trade, but he had absorbed a fair amount of information on the art of breaking into a house. At least he knew how to pick a lock.

  The odds for him were not as bad as he’d said. He could get into the house and take a look around. Of course, the endeavor was doomed to failure—finding what he didn’t know to look for was a fool’s errand.

  But perhaps that would be enough for the professor. He could find an unlocked window or pick a lock and slip inside, look around the house a bit, find nothing and leave. He could go back to Gordon and tell him that he had been unable to find it. Perhaps his making the effort would be enough to ease the older man’s distress. Perhaps it would enable Gordon to accept that he could not steal the thing.

  And if by chance Desmond could find the Eye...

  “I’ll do it.”

  * * *

  IT HAD NOT been his brightest decision, Desmond reflected as he walked toward the address Professor Gordon had given him. Gordon had maneuvered him into acceding to his pleas. Desmond had been aware of it at the time, but even so, he saw little way out of it.

  He did owe Gordon a great deal. The man had helped him in many ways—not only tutoring him without charging him, but also recommending him for the job that he could not have gotten on his own, steering him through university and providing him the opportunity to work on a well-funded research project. How could he refuse? How could he let the man proceed on his own and wind up imprisoned? It would be the deathblow to his reputation as a scientist.

  Desmond was honest enough to admit that he was also seduced by the lure of finding the Eye, the possibilities it might open, the chance for them—for him—to find success. However unlikely it was that he could obtain the instrument or that the legends surrounding it were true, the prize that dangled before him was hard to resist.

  Desmond didn’t expect fame or fortune, but the opportunity to discover, to know, to make some mark in the scientific community, lured him. Which brought the lowering thought that perhaps the difference between him and his father was only in the kind of reward a criminal act might bring.

  Well, no matter how foolish, he was in it now. He’d promised Gordon, and he would at least make a try to find the thing. He was also going to do his damnedest not to get caught.

  He didn’t intend to break into the house tonight, though that was probably what Gordon hoped for. Carson’s thievery reasoning had been persuasive. The best time to break into the house was probably in the evening, when the inhabitants were downstairs and the servants were busy in the kitchen. But that opportunity had passed now. It would be bedtime, at least for an aged woman, and everyone was more likely to be on the bedroom floor.

  The wise thing was to make a plan, to locate the windows and doors and hopefully get some idea of the layout of the house. It would scarcely do to climb in the dining room window in the middle of the meal. He needed to find the most secluded door or unused room. Or there might be a viable way to get in on the second floor—a tree, say, or a conveniently placed drainpipe.

  It was a long walk to Broughton House from the nearest omnibus stop. He wondered if he could spare enough money for a hack the night of the theft—but, no, then there would a witness who knew he was in the area at the time of the theft. He must think more like a criminal.

  The houses grew larger and obviously more expensive as he neared his destination. He’d expected that. What he hadn’t expected was that when he reached Broughton House, he would find that it took up the entire block. His jaw dropped as he stared at the huge stone building, looming up before him like a more stylish government building, reducing even the grand domiciles across the street to insignificance.

  It was hopeless. How could he expect to find one object in this enormous house? He let out a sigh. He had to at least make an effort. Desmond studied the house. A long walkway ran down the side to a far less magnificent door. That was doubtless the trade entrance, where servants and sellers brought food and supplies. Beyond that door, a high wall jutted out from the side of the house.

  Walking past the house, he found another walkway leading to a door at the rear of the house. Light shone from the windows near the door, and he concluded that the room must be the kitchen, where the servants were still cleaning the dinner dishes. That would mean that this door was the trade entrance, but if so, where had that first path led? He decided that it deserved a second, closer look. There was a gate in the property wall beyond the door, but the kitchen windows spilled too much light on it for him to examine it. He continued following the wall, turning at the side street. At the very back, where the wall turned the corner, stood another building. There were windows along the upper floor, but the ground floor had none, only two very wide wooden doors—this, then, was the mews where the horses and carriage were kept.

  Marveling at the stables that would have dwarfed the cottage where he’d been raised, he walked on. The wall offered no handy tree to climb up and over it, though he did notice that a large tree on the other side hugged the wall. Perhaps, if he took a running jump, he could grab the top of the stone barrier and pull himself up. The tree would provide a handy way
to climb down, as well as a quick exit.

  He completed the tour and wound up at the side of the house, having found no other gates or breaks in the solid wall. Shivering, he tucked his hands in his pockets for warmth—bloody stupid gloves—as he studied the house from this angle. What sort of people, he wondered, would live in a house this size? How many of them were there? What in the world did they put in all the rooms? He couldn’t imagine what one would do with all that space. Or how many servants it must take to clean it.

  The gas streetlamp a few feet behind him gave him enough light to see, and he moved closer. Light shone from several of the windows on the floor above, but they were all curtained. It would be safe to explore the area.

  He was only a few feet from the small side door when it swung open, and a figure rushed out. Desmond stood, rooted to the ground, staring at the woman hurrying toward him.

  “Thisbe!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DESMOND COULDN’T MOVE, couldn’t think, as Thisbe ran to him. She threw herself against him, and then he was kissing her, reason dismissed, lost in the feel of her body in his arms, her mouth on his. Emotions swirled through him—astonishment, confusion, elation—and all were overlaid with a shimmering passion.

  His world had just exploded in front of him and he was utterly lost, but this heat was real, this hunger and urgency. Her lithe body pressed into him, her mouth hot and seeking, opening beneath his—all this was real. And right now nothing else mattered.

  One hand moved up, tangling in the mass of her hair. Good God, her hair was down, spilling over his hand, sliding between his fingers, silken and rich. His other hand moved lower, curving over her buttocks and pressing her more tightly to him. His desire was evident and he wanted her to feel that, wanted to feel her against him.

  His lips left hers and traveled down her neck, and he buried his face in the fall of hair. Her hair smelled of lavender, the scent intoxicating. She turned her face toward his, murmuring her name, and the touch of her breath on his skin sent a shiver through him.