Thief of Hearts

by Teresa Medeiros

  He offered the Admiral a tentative hand. “Gerard Claremont, sir, at your service. Or at least I hope to be.”

  There was nothing ordinary about that voice. Its drawled cadences poured over Lucy, stirring her dormant senses like a forbidden swallow of Jamaican rum—rich, dark, and sparkling.

  “So you’ve come about the position, have you?” The Admiral ignored the man’s outstretched hand.

  Mr. Claremont tactfully withdrew it, using it instead to shape the wide brim of his tan-crowned hat. Lucy’s gaze was drawn to his hands. Their backs, too, were sprinkled with crisp ginger. “I have.”

  “Speak up, lad. I’ve no tolerance for mumblers.”

  Claremont met his gaze squarely. “I have,” he repeated, his voice ringing with clarity. “And I’ve brought references.”

  The Admiral grunted skeptically and held out his hand. Ignoring it, Claremont drew a brown envelope from his coat and tossed it on the desk. Lucy held her breath, waiting for her father to dress the man down for his deliberate insolence.

  The Admiral studied Claremont from crown to boots, lips pursed, before shaking his head. Lucy was surprised to see an admiring gleam burnish his eyes.

  Claremont waited patiently as the Admiral pawed through his desk drawers, muttering loudly beneath his breath. “Damned careless girl. Lost my favorite letter opener. Ivory-handled. Shot the elephant myself during my last African jaunt.”

  Lucy sank deeper into the corner. She’d neglected to tell her father that she’d used his precious letter opener to stab Captain Doom. Not even his forgiveness would have been worth reliving that grim moment.

  She gasped as an object appeared in Claremont’s hand. Not a letter opener, but a knife, its lethal blade glinting in the sunlight only inches from her father’s face. Mr. Benson beamed openly at the man’s bold display of dexterity.

  Claremont wryly lifted an eyebrow, toeing the line between respect and mockery with a dancer’s uncanny grace. “May I, sir?”

  The Admiral raised both hands in surrender. “Be my guest.”

  Claremont slit open the envelope. The knife disappeared back where it had come from while Lucy’s father perused his references.

  He shot Claremont an approving look. “Former Bow Street Runner, eh? Admirable calling. Done a lot to make the streets of London safer. Don’t suppose you’ve had any military experience? Army perhaps?” Then more hopefully. “Merchant marines? Royal Navy?”

  Claremont threw back his head and laughed. Dazzled by the warm, rich sound, Lucy tried to remember if she’d ever heard anyone laugh in that room before. If she’d ever heard anyone laugh at all before.

  “I’m afraid not, sir,” he confessed, the very picture of sheepish charm. “I fear I’m prone to seasickness.” He flattened his palms on the desk and favored her father with a conspiratorial whisper audible throughout the drawing room. “Why, just walking into this house almost made me ill.”

  Lucy could see why. Her father had christened the house Ionia after the infamous sea where Rome’s naval supremacy over the world had first been established. He’d proceeded to decorate nearly every inch of it in the nautical style. Even after living here for most of her nineteen years, Lucy still expected the polished wood flooring to list beneath her feet.

  The steering wheel from the Admiral’s first command, the HMS Evangeline, hung proudly over the mantel. Every piece of furniture was dark and heavy, polished oak or mahogany chosen for its utilitarian nature rather than for its beauty. There were no Oriental rugs, no vases of fresh cut flowers, no frivolous knick-knacks to mar the overwhelmingly masculine effect. Instead there were globes, compasses, maps, sextants, Lucy’s own watercolor seascapes, and glowering busts of her father’s seafaring heroes.

  The gloom of the furnishings was offset by the airiness of the spacious rooms and the sunlight that poured through the generous bay windows. Their lead-glazed panes overlooked a sea of clipped lawn that had begun to trade its billows of summer green for the golds and russets of autumn.

  At Claremont’s confession, Benson’s smile deflated. Fighting her own inbred flare of disdain, Lucy braced herself for her father’s scathing denouncement. She did not relish the idea of this bold soul being reduced to scampering away with his coattails between his legs.

  The Admiral sighed. “Just as well, I suppose. I’ve no plans of taking to the sea until that rogue Doom is caught and hanged. You’re hired.”

  This time the Admiral took the hand Claremont offered him. “You shan’t regret it, sir. I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe. Even if it costs me my own life.”

  “Such sacrifices won’t be required, Mr. Claremont. It won’t be my life you’re responsible for, only my daughter’s.”

  Lucy was still reeling from her father’s matter-of-fact announcement when Claremont pivoted on his heel, his gaze finding her with such unerring accuracy that she realized he’d been conscious of her presence from the moment he entered the room.

  She stiffened to find his hazel eyes narrowed in flagrant dislike.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DISLIKE WAS TOO MILD A WORD, GERARD Claremont loathed her.

  Lucy knew she wasn’t particularly likable. She didn’t possess Sylvie Howell’s dimpled charm or even her father’s jovial bluster, but she couldn’t fathom what she’d done to earn this man’s contempt. As he approached through the lingering haze of sunlight and smoke, she was jarred by a disturbing sense of recognition.

  The sun glinted off his spectacles, hiding his eyes and making her wonder if she hadn’t been cursed with her mother’s vivid imagination after all. She hadn’t thought him a very large man, but he seemed to tower over her. He reached down and captured her hand. For a disconcerting instant, she thought he was going to bring it to his lips. But he simply enfolded it in his palm in a perfectly respectable gesture of greeting.

  “Forgive my negligence,” he murmured. “I had no idea my charge was to be such a charming one.”

  Nor was he pleased by the discovery, Lucy deduced, unnerved by the possessive warmth of his fingers. Her sluggish mouth refused to so much as stammer a response.

  “Lucinda!” her father snapped. Lucy shot to attention as if someone had lit a charge beneath her chair. The familiar volley rumbled off the Admiral’s tongue. “Have you forgotten your manners, girl? Back straight. Head up. Knees together.” He rolled his eyes in one of his droll asides to the ear of God. “Heaven knows if your mother had done the same, it would have spared us all a great deal of scandal.”

  Drawing the frosty veil of her dignity around her, she inclined her head. “How do you do, Mr. Claremont. Lucinda Snow. My—”

  “Why, I’ll wager your friends call you Lucy,” he cheerfully interrupted. He cocked his head to one side and his eyes reappeared behind his spectacles, twinkling with humor.

  Lucy coolly withdrew her hand. “Some do. You, sir, however, may address me as Miss Snow.”

  “I’d be honored.” His crisp bow implied the opposite. His bold gaze mocked her, offering none of the deference she had come to expect from both servants and her father’s subordinates.

  The mannerless clod hadn’t even the decency to excuse himself before presenting his broad back to her. Lucy glared at it, silently seething. How could her father have hired such an odious man?

  He waited, hat in hand, while the Admiral cut Mr. Benson a banker’s draft of considerable worth before dismissing the delighted solicitor. At her father’s gruff invitation, Claremont commandeered Benson’s chair, stretching out his lean legs and crossing his booted feet at the ankle. The Admiral poured two glasses of sherry from the mahogany sideboard.

  Claremont took a glass from her father’s hand. “Your solicitor tells me you’ve made quite an enemy of this Doom fellow. Have you any idea why he bears you such animosity?”

  “A man of my rank who has served his country so long and so faithfully is bound to have trod upon a few criminal toes.” The Admiral took a grudging sip of his own sherry. “ ’Tis my theory t
he scoundrel is French. God knows I’ve been fighting the French for half my life. When I wasn’t fighting those ungrateful Colonials, that is.”

  “But, Father, I told you the man hadn’t even a trace of accent—”

  “Hush, Lucinda. If I’d have wanted your opinion, I’d have solicited it.” He waved an impatient hand in her direction, relegating her to the same importance as the potted fern in the opposite corner.

  Lucy subsided, knowing further argument would be futile. If she didn’t curb her tongue, he wouldn’t hesitate to remind her of the French blood lurking in her own veins.

  Claremont tossed back his sherry in one swallow. “You’ll have to forgive my confusion, sir, but your solicitor led me to believe I was to serve as your bodyguard. Have you any reason to suspect Doom or one of his minions might make an attempt on Miss Snow’s life?”

  “He’s already abducted her once, hasn’t he? That proves him to be the sort of scoundrel who would prey on an innocent young girl to achieve his own sinister ends. Lucy has also been privy to many covert military strategies while helping me gather material for my memoirs. Should she fall into Doom’s hands again, it could bode ill for His Majesty’s navy. I’ve found it necessary to prepare her for all eventualities. Lucinda, come.”

  Lucy sprang out of her seat to stand before the desk, feeling the same helpless rush of love she always felt when the Admiral displayed her as his daughter.

  “Explain to Mr. Claremont what you’re to do should that nasty brigand kidnap you again.”

  She studied her kid slippers in a vain attempt to dodge Claremont’s piercing gaze. “Resist giving him any information under torture and throw myself overboard at the nearest opportunity.”

  The Admiral reached across the desk and gave her hands a benevolent squeeze. “That’s my girl.”

  Flushed with pride at the rare tribute, she returned to her seat as her father and Mr. Claremont began to discuss terms.

  “Your monthly wages, of course, will include board and lodging,” her father explained. “There’s ample room in the servants’ quarters belowstairs—”

  “Won’t do,” Claremont said. Apparently the man had no qualms about interrupting her father either.

  The Admiral’s left eyebrow shot up a notch. “Do tell?”

  “Of what use will I be to your daughter if I’m buried in the cellar? I’ll require lodgings with an unhampered view of her window.”

  Lucy made a mental note to keep her drapes drawn at all times.

  The Admiral grumbled beneath his breath for a moment before surrendering. “Suppose that can be arranged. There is the gatehouse. Though Fenster won’t take kindly to being evicted.”

  “Unless this Fenster wants my job, I’m afraid I’ll have to insist.”

  Lucy smothered a smile at a vision of the ancient coachman charging to her rescue.

  “Very well,” her father said. “You may begin your duties tomorrow. Smythe can provide you with a written copy of Luanda’s schedule. I’ve simplified it for her convenience. She is expected to rise promptly at oh six hundred and attend breakfast at oh eight hundred. She spends from oh nine hundred to eleven hundred hours in the library transcribing my memoirs.”

  “A fascinating endeavor, I’m sure.”

  Lucy frowned. Had that been a hint of sarcasm in Mr. Claremont’s expressive voice? If it had, her father remained blissfully oblivious to it.

  “Quite so. From eleven hundred thirty to thirteen hundred, she partakes of luncheon and is free to prepare for any social calls she is obligated to make that afternoon.”

  Was it Mr. Claremont’s eyes or his spectacles that were beginning to glaze over? Lucy wondered.

  “Barring any calls,” her father droned on, “she takes tea at fifteen hundred and may dabble in her watercolors from sixteen hundred to seventeen hundred. She then dresses for dinner, which is served promptly at nineteen hundred hours. I am frequently absent in the evenings, advising the Admiralty Court on strategies and such, but if I happen to be entertaining, Lucy is expected to act as hostess for a late supper at precisely twenty two hundred. Of course, all of her activities are interspersed with the social obligations appropriate to a girl of her age and position such as afternoon teas, balls, routs, theater parties, et cetera, et cetera.” The Admiral relaxed enough to smile at his captive audience. “I have found that a productive life is a happy life. Don’t you agree?”

  “Indubitably.” Claremont’s smile lacked its former verve.

  The brass skeleton clock on the mantel chimed the hour. Lucy rose, bobbing a flawless curtsy. “May I be dismissed, Father? It’s time to dress for dinner.”

  The Admiral checked his chronometer, then nodded his permission. Before Lucy could escape, Claremont stood, stepping neatly into her path. She was forced to tilt her head back to meet his gaze or risk being thought as rude as he was. His warm fingers curled around hers, bringing her tightly fisted hand not to his lips, but to his heart. She could only glare at him, too shocked by his familiarity to jerk back her hand as she should have.

  “Have no fear, Miss Snow,” he drawled, his voice laced with mockery. “I promise to hold your life as dear as I hold my own.”

  Answer correspondence—0700

  Organize calling cards by rank and alphabet—1230

  Gerard Claremont glared down at the schedule in his hand. It had come slithering beneath the gatehouse door earlier that evening, outlined with military precision in the butler’s neat script. It seemed his bombastic employer had omitted several colorful and thrilling tasks from his verbal itinerary of his daughter’s life, such as reviewing the daily papers for mentions of him and polishing the brass buttons on his uniforms. Gerard was surprised the man hadn’t allotted her specific minutes in which to make use of the chamber pot.

  “A productive life is a happy life,” he mimicked savagely, crushing the elegant sheet of vellum and tossing it into the fire he had lit to burn off the chill of the autumn night.

  He watched with satisfaction as it shriveled to ash. There had been little of happiness in the girl’s shadowed eyes.

  Absently rubbing his clean-shaven jaw, he paced the gatehouse. Decorated with the same spartan practicality as the main house, the long, narrow room was an excellent one for pacing. There were no overstuffed ottomans to stumble over, no porcelain figurines to bump with his elbows. There was only a wooden bedstead, overlaid with a weary feather tick and a worn but serviceable quilt, a tall wardrobe, a round table, a bedside stand, and four nicked and scarred Hepple-white chairs doubtlessly cast from the family dining room after overstaying their welcome. The grumbling coachman Gerard had inadvertently ousted hadn’t left so much as a trace of his own thirty-year occupancy.

  The rough-planked floor creaked beneath Gerard’s angry footsteps. It seemed that all of his hard-won plans had been laid for naught. He had expected his position to entail guarding a pompous military hero far past his prime. How was he to accomplish what he’d come for when forced to play nursemaid to some imperious young miss whose every thought and feeling was regimented by her father? The Admiral had claimed to be protecting his daughter from Doom, but Gerard suspected he was protecting himself from what Doom might reveal to her should she once again fall into his hands.

  He’d been able to learn that Lucy was the only female Lucien Snow tolerated in his domain. Even his household staff had been culled from retired seaman who had served under him and were willing to award him the adulation and unquestioning obedience he considered his due. Just as his daughter had proved herself only too willing to do.

  As his contempt raged higher, the walls of the gatehouse seemed to shrink around him. The high-raftered lodgings were spacious, even luxurious, compared to most of his former dwellings, but Gerard’s sense of confinement mounted until the flames of the fire wavered before his eyes, cloaked by a billowing blackness that threatened to smother him.

  Flinging open the door, he escaped into the moonlight, drinking in hungry gulps of crisp night air redolent
with the tang of autumn. He flexed his shaking fingers as if to assure himself they were no longer skeletal ruins. Despising himself for his weakness, he drew a cheroot from his pocket and lit it, hoping its savory smoke would steady both his hands and his nerves.

  A dog barked in the distance, the sound both mournful and oddly comforting. Withdrawing into the shadows of the brick wall that surrounded the modest estate, he tilted his head back to study the stars. The familiar constellations danced like flecks of crystal before his restless eyes. They’d steered him many places in the past—some exotic, some dangerous, some breathtakingly beautiful, but he’d never dreamed they’d bring him to a place such as this.

  His gaze lifted reluctantly to the second-story window that belonged to the Admiral’s daughter. It was the only room on the front of the yellow-bricked manor hung with curtains—lace and damask confections drawn back to reveal the lamplit panes of the sash window. He’d requested residence in the gatehouse to escape the prying eyes of the other servants. He ought to be plotting how to turn this bitter twist of fate to his advantage, not glaring up at Lucy Snow’s window, haunted by a pair of enormous gray eyes and a lush mouth set incongruously in a pinched little face.

  He remembered the cool feel of her hand in his, the cultured bite of her voice, the stormy spark of defiance in her eyes whenever she turned them on him.

  He had held his breath in anticipation, waiting for that spark to ignite beneath the flame of her father’s bullying. But it had remained banked as she sprang up like a well-trained terrier to stand before the Admiral. She had dutifully described her impending death at the hands of Captain Doom as if she were reciting her multiplication tables. He could almost see her jotting it onto her schedule: 0800—Resist torture. 0830—Throw self overboard. 0900—Be eaten by sharks. No sacrifice too great for the noble Admiral and His Majesty’s Royal Navy!