Thief of Hearts

by Teresa Medeiros

  He suppressed an impolite “oomph” as Lucy did step on his foot. How could she explain to this earnest child that the kiss of a real man had banished Captain Doom to the realm of fantasy where he belonged?

  At a loss, she gently excused herself and went in search of another glass of champagne. She ducked behind a chattering flock of guests at the sight of Lord Howell anxiously searching the crowd for her. As if to blunt the impact of the Admiral’s defection, Sylvie and her mother had sicced each of the Howell males on her in turn until she feared she would have to toddle around the floor with Gilligan before the night was over.

  She wanted nothing more than to escape the maddening babble and tinny music, but her only refuge was the carriage and that meant facing Claremont again, this time without the Admiral’s dubious protection.

  Fresh mortification heated her cheeks at the prospect. After checking guiltily to make sure no one was watching, she filched a brimming glass of champagne from an abandoned tray and downed it in one greedy gulp. As she lowered the glass, she realized she had made yet another grave error in judgment.

  Someone was watching her.

  A stranger, leaning against the marble mantel with lazy grace, his beautifully tailored evening clothes and black mask making him look both elegant and dangerous. Droll amusement quirked his lips as he lifted his own champagne glass to her in a mocking salute.

  Dismayed to find herself the victim of such a shameless flirtation, Lucy ducked between the dancers, hoping to lose herself in their twirling gaiety. But when she dared a glance over her shoulder, the stranger was still there.

  Watching her. His heated gaze caressed her bare shoulders.

  Inexplicable panic swept through her. She felt trapped, innocent prey cornered by a master hunter. Desperate for escape, she snatched Sylvie’s pudgy eight-year-old brother Christopher from a cluster of his friends.

  “Dance with me,” she hissed. “Or I’ll tell your dancing master to box your ears.”

  “I d-don’t have a dancing master, Miss Lucy,” he stammered.

  “Then I shall box them myself.”

  He swallowed his protest, fearful any girl stout enough to best Captain Doom would pack a mighty wallop. They shuffled awkwardly around the floor, Lucy taking mincing steps to match his abbreviated gait. She peeped over his head at the mantel only to discover the man was gone.

  His absence taunted her more than his presence had done. She scanned the crowd, searching for any hint of him. Her heart leaped to discover a similarly garbed man across the room only to plummet as she saw the vapid blue eyes behind his ebony mask. Twice, three times, she thought she caught a glimpse of the stranger, but then he was gone again. Elusive. Mysterious. Provocative.

  “Miss Lucy?”

  “Yes, Chris?” she replied absently, teetering on her tiptoes to gain a better view of the room.

  “The music has stopped. May I be dismissed?”

  Lucy quit shuffling her feet and dropped her gaze to his cherubic face. “Of course. And thank you, Chris. For being so gallant.”

  He swept her a clumsy bow that made his apple-cheeks redden. As he scampered back to his snickering friends, Lucy sighed. Now that she had succeeded in dodging the unwanted attentions of her covert admirer, she felt more bereft than before. She resolved to escape the farce her evening had become only to find a broad expanse of chest blocking her path. A crystal globe of golden bubbles floated before her eyes.

  “Champagne?” At the caress of the rich baritone, every pulse in her body throbbed.

  Determined to give the insolent rake the setdown he deserved, she presented her back to him, preferring to ignore the fact that he’d just witnessed her gulping champagne with all the finesse of a habitual drunkard. “No, thank you, sir. I don’t drink.”

  His voice came again, silky, seductive, so near to her ear that his warm breath stirred the infinitesimal hairs along its lobe. “That’s just as well, I suppose. We wouldn’t want to weaken your moral character, now would we, Miss Snow?”

  Lucy spun around, mesmerized by the wicked glitter of the hazel eyes beneath the mask. Hope and fury warred in her heart. Her mouth widened to an accusing circle, but before she could let fly a string of recriminations, her bodyguard gently pressed the rim of the wineglass to her lower lip. Their gazes melded as she drank deeply and without hesitation.

  Gerard didn’t need champagne. He was intoxicated by the graceful motion of Lucy’s throat as she swallowed, the tantalizing dart of her pink tongue as she licked an errant drop from the corner of her mouth.

  He twirled the fragile stem of the wineglass between his fingers. A bemused smile curved his lips. “I knew I had to shut you up before you denounced me, but I feared kissing you might cause a scandal.”

  “So might plying me with champagne.” Lucy’s airy tone belied the treacherous thunder of her heart. “A weakened moral character can be a very dangerous thing.”

  “Ah, but dangerous for whom? You? Or me?”

  He opened his arms, inviting her to share the risk. As Lucy went into them, the barriers of class that separated them dissolved. He swept her into the waltz with a natural grace that defied convention.

  The marble-tiled floor rolled beneath their feet like the deck of some majestic ship. Lucy was caught up in Gerard’s masterful rhythm and the miracle of being enfolded in the warmth of his arms.

  “How did you learn to dance so beautifully?” she asked over the swell of the music.

  He gave her one of those enigmatic smiles that drove her to distraction. “In my profession, a man must learn to be the master of many talents.”

  It was as if Lucy had spent her entire life with her senses wrapped in cotton batting only to have them tingle to awareness in that moment with an acuity that was almost painful. Every sensation was heightened, deepened. The notes of the Viennese waltz reverberated through her soul, rich and shaded with secret layers of meaning. She gloried in the sweet burn of the champagne through her veins, the shift of their muscles beneath their finery, the hard press of Gerard’s thighs as he guided her through an intricate turn, splaying his powerful hand at the small of her back.

  She tossed her head back, answering the smoldering challenge in his eyes with a reckless smile of invitation.

  From the corner of her eye, Lucy saw the crowd melting before the inevitability of their twirling flight. Many, like her father, still considered the waltz the height of depravity and sought to have it banned. She knew they were making a public spectacle of themselves. Knew society must have stared at her rebellious mother in just such shocked fascination. But for once she didn’t care what anyone thought of her but the man who held her in his arms.

  It was as if she and Gerard were floating in one of the champagne bubbles, the only two people suspended in an arctic wonderland. The faux snowflakes glittered above them like stars over the indigo expanse of the ocean at midnight.

  Every head in the ballroom turned to follow the path of the handsome couple, struggling to fathom that the vivacious creature whirling in the stranger’s arms with such abandon was truly Admiral Snow’s sallow, cheerless daughter.

  Lucy’s cheeks were hectic with color, her gray eyes sparkling with emotion. As she tilted her head toward her partner, her cheek dimpled in a provocative smile. Unable to tear their gazes away, several of the eligible young men nudged each other. They had never even suspected Lucinda Snow of being pretty. Now they realized her looks defied the shallow precepts of prettiness. Her beauty was of the classical variety, as timeless as her transparent adoration for the man who held her so scandalously close.

  “Oh, my,” Sylvie breathed, studying Lucy’s partner from the gleaming crown of his head to his polished slippers. “Who is that glorious creature?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest.” Her mother lowered her lorgnette from her eye, her brow crumpled in a perplexed frown. “Shouldn’t you step in, Eustace? With her father called away in such haste, you should stand in his stead.”

  Lord Howell shoo
k his head sadly. “I hate to spoil it for her. God knows the poor girl’s had little enough happiness in her life with Lucien so devoted to serving His Majesty.”

  From his vantage point on the floor, where he’d been quietly sucking his fingers until he could scavenge something more tasty, Gilligan tugged at the hem of his sister’s gown. Her imagination had been so thoroughly captured by the vision of romance gliding past them that she paid him no heed.

  Young Christopher came rushing up, his plump hands curled into fists. “Shall I call him out, Papa? I won’t stand for anyone accosting Miss Lucy.”

  The waltz hurtled to a magnificent finish, its last majestic note ringing in the air. Gilligan tugged at Sylvie’s skirt again. She absently waved him away, holding her breath along with the rest of them as they waited to see if the mysterious stranger would dare to break the enchanted tableau with a kiss.

  Gilligan cared nothing for kisses. His own rapt attention had been caught by the figure sneaking silently down the stairs. Spotting the wide-eyed baby, the man laid a finger to his lips in an exaggerated plea for discretion.

  Gilligan pried his fist from his mouth, pointed at the new arrival, and squealed the first intelligible words anyone had ever heard him utter.

  “ ’Ook, Syllie! Cap’n Doom!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  GILLIGAN’S CROW OF DELIGHT WAS FOLLOWED by yet another sound Lord Howell’s guests had never thought to hear—the bright, merry peals of Lucinda Snow’s laughter. The figure on the stairs froze, trapped in the relentless beacon of the crowd’s attention.

  He might have strode straight out of a Royal Circus playbill for a pirate melodrama. From his forbidding eyepatch to the fuzzy strands of his plaited beard to the six pistols strapped across his chest, he sported every pirate cliché known to man with such a haphazard lack of taste that even Lady Howell cringed in sympathy.

  All he needed to complete his ensemble was a cutlass between his soot-blackened teeth and some slow-burning hemp fuses tucked beneath his misshapen hat. Had he meandered in with his own severed head tucked beneath his arm, he might have passed for the ghost of the dastardly Blackbeard himself.

  He bore as little resemblance to the sleek and ruthless predator Lucy had unwittingly engaged on board the Retribution as she did to one of Mrs. Edgeworth’s intrepid Gothic heroines.

  She clutched Gerard’s arm, gasping for breath. “Oh, I’m sorry, but it’s simply too much. That … b-b-buffoon is not Captain Doom.”

  His muscled forearm had gone rigid beneath her hand. “I should say not.”

  A fresh paroxysm of laughter seized her. “Oh, if only the Admiral had stayed. Can you imagine what he would have thought?”

  “Only too well.”

  Lucy realized that Gerard was no more amused than her father would have been. Beneath the mask, his eyes had narrowed to dangerous slits. It was so refreshing to see him angry at someone besides herself that Lucy failed to feel even a shred of alarm.

  A polite smattering of applause went up from the guests to reward the originality of the newcomer’s costume. The musicians launched into a rousing navy hymn as the Howell boys rushed to examine the mock pirate.

  “Excuse me.” Gerard disengaged his arm from her hand. “I’d best see if our host needs any assistance in routing the villain.”

  Lucy sauntered after him, surprised to find herself a trifle unsteady on her feet. Although the waltz had stopped, it was as if the ballroom were still spinning. Or maybe it was her head. She cupped a hand over her mouth to smother a belated fit of giggles.

  “Aaargh, mates,” the pirate was growling as they approached. “Shiver me timbers, if this ain’t the finest crop o’ lads this side o’ Madagascar. Which one’ll be the first to run away and cast his lot with me crew?”

  Christopher Howell shyly lifted his hand. “Me, sir, if you please.”

  Sylvie hung back behind her brothers, but that didn’t stop Gilligan from reaching out from her arms to tuck a frayed plait of the pirate’s beard in his mouth.

  The brigand dug a finger into the baby’s doughy belly. “Can’t abide children. Except for supper, that is.” He blew Sylvie an insolent kiss. “Comely wenches I saves for dessert.”

  Sylvie blushed while her brothers howled with laughter.

  Their father was trying to peer beneath the ragged eyepatch. “Confess, Georgie, is that you? A simple mask would have been sufficient. There was no need to go to such expense just to entertain my children. God knows they’re spoiled enough as it is.”

  Slender, fourteen-year-old Layne was gazing down the barrel of one of the ancient flintlocks. “Quite impressive, Father. You’d almost think it was genuine.” He fixed his approaching mother in its rusted sights.

  Gerard’s hand shot out to snatch the gun away. Lucy was the only one not fooled by the deceptive façade of his smile. “Of course it’s genuine. How else would this scurvy sea dog make war on His Majesty’s mighty navy?”

  He slapped the pistol against the interloper’s breastbone. A grunt of pain escaped the pirate.

  Lord Howell’s good-natured smile faded as he recognized Gerard. He shot Lucy a concerned glance. She grinned stupidly at him, thinking what a handsome man he must have been in his youth. But not nearly so handsome as her bodyguard.

  “Claremont?” Lord Howell confirmed, stiffly drawing himself up. “My, this night is simply rife with intrigue, isn’t it?”

  “You don’t know the half of it, sir.” Gerard gave him a curt bow. “Forgive my intrusion, but I found mingling as one of your guests the most effective way to look after Miss Snow.”

  “Is that really necessary? This is a social occasion. It’s difficult to imagine our Lucy indulging in anything more hazardous than tripping over one of the spaniels.”

  “You might be surprised, sir, at the hazards our Lucy is capable of embroiling herself in.”

  Lord Howell’s skeptical reply was cut off by the pirate. “Aye, ye must protect ’er agin rogues like me. I’m always on the prowl for pretty young lasses to carry off to me ship.” He shot a convincing leer at Sylvie, his exposed green eye sparkling with mischief.

  Sylvie giggled and even Lady Howell tittered nervously.

  Caught up in the spirit of the game, Lucy bumped her way past Gerard, tweaked the gold hoop in the pirate’s ear, and gave him a devilish wink. “And just what do you do with ’em once you’ve got ’em there, mate?”

  The pirate looked almost as astounded by her boldness as the Howells did. Gerard caught her elbow in a viselike grip. “Some things are better left to the imagination, aren’t they, Miss Snow? Tales of such gruesome atrocities aren’t fit for your tender ears. You should leave the interrogation to a professional such as myself.”

  He thrust Lucy behind him, then yanked the pirate from the stairs and dragged him toward an unoccupied alcove.

  “Are you going to give him forty stripes? Torture his secrets out of him?” Christopher called hopefully after them.

  Gerard bared his teeth in a grimace of a smile. “Only if he resists.”

  “Intriguing chap, don’t you think?” Lord Howell murmured. “I thought it was Georgie, but now I’m not so certain. Could it be Sir Marcel’s son? I’ve heard he dearly loves a good prank.”

  Lady Howell lifted her lorgnette to her eye and shook her head sadly. “Whoever he is, he has execrable taste in fashion. I’ve never seen a villain quite so … overdressed.”

  As the others drifted away, Lucy watched the terse exchange between Gerard and the stranger. She was having trouble focusing her attention on anything of import. Insignificant details pelted her—the strand of sandy gold escaping the pirate’s ratty wig, that single green eye, his lanky height. He was taller than Gerard by a good two inches, but his shoulders lacked her bodyguard’s imposing breadth.

  The pirate’s mouth had appeared to be twisted into a smirk of perpetual amusement, but it hardened into a grim line as Gerard marched back to her side.

  “Friend of yours?” she asked.
/>
  “Old acquaintance,” he replied shortly.

  “I’m surprised a Bow Street Runner would have such impressive social connections,” she said, her earnest tone spoiled by an undignified hiccup.

  “There’s a lot about me that might surprise you.” He caught her by the shoulders, his eyes searching her face as if to memorize it. The desperation of his grip sobered her.

  The spell between them was broken by a commotion near the stairs. A troop of abashed-looking gardeners rushed in, their charge led by a man wearing nothing but a pair of flannel underdrawers and a black eye. Shocked gasps went up throughout the ballroom.

  The man’s nasal braying made Lucy wince. “Threw me in the bushes, he did! Just like so much rubbish. I’m the Duke of Mannington, by God! A peer of the realm! I’ll have the villain tossed in Newgate before this night is done.” His finger quivered with righteous indignation as he pointed. “There he is! That mask cost me a pretty shilling. I’d recognize it anywhere. Seize him!”

  With exaggerated patience, Lord Howell removed his mask just in time to keep his own gardeners from carrying him off to the jail.

  His accuser’s countenance darkened with dismay as he surveyed the sea of masked faces, then brightened as he flung out his arm again. “There! Cowering behind the column! I’d know the rascal anywhere!”

  Lucy snickered. “He’s gone and fingered the curate this time.”

  Outraged chaos erupted as the irate duke began accusing each male guest in turn. From the corner of her eye, Lucy saw the garish pirate beat a hasty retreat through a curtained alcove.

  Gerard drew Lucy toward the terrace doors. “I believe that’s our cue to exit as well.”

  She dragged her feet, savoring a rare fit of petulance. “But I wanted to dance some more. I wanted to dance all night long!”

  Gerard flung open the terrace doors. Lucy’s cheerful wail was snatched by a blast of frigid air as the night engulfed them. She tripped on an uneven flagstone and would have fallen had he not caught her. Their masked faces, his hard and unrelenting, hers soft with shy uncertainty, were separated by mere inches. The air between them seemed to sparkle, glittering with motes of faerie dust. Lucy’s gaze shifted upward, her eyes widening with fresh wonder.