“Yes, yes, a game. What balderdash.”
The drayman’s voice calling to the horses to move on drew their attention back to the window. A closed carriage with yellow wheels now stood in front of the town house as well.
“See,” Emma said, pointing at the fancy equipage. “The woman is probably inside.”
Lily bit on the nail of her index finger. “If you hadn’t been arguing with me, I might have seen something. I’m going to go outside and peek in the carriage.”
Emma grabbed her sister’s hand. “You will do no such thing. Anyway, it has already started up the street.”
Lily wrenched her hand free and pressed her nose to the pane of glass. “Drat, I know what I saw, and I shall prove it to you.”
Chapter Two
Emma dipped her brush into the cerulean paint on her palette and lightly dabbed at the canvas. She stepped back and appraised her work. The portrait of Mrs. Naples and her dog, Alfred, needed a few more touches. A dab of white to highlight, a smidgen of gray to shadow, and the painting would be complete.
Thankfully, the widow and her pug no longer needed to sit for Emma. Mrs. Naples believed Alfred to be her late husband reincarnated. Emma hoped, if that were true, Mr. Naples had exhibited better manners than his namesake, who was the most flatulent animal Emma had ever had the displeasure to meet.
The tall longcase clock on the first-floor landing struck twelve times, resonating through the house. Stifling a yawn, Emma rubbed the back of her hand across her heavy-lidded eyes.
Midnight.
Surely, folly to continue when fatigue pulled at her limbs like leaden weights and the paraffin lamps burned low. She laid her brush down atop her palette and picked up a turpentine-soaked rag to scrub the paint off her tools and fingertips. The woodsy scent of the solvent filled her nose. Tomorrow she would finish the portrait, and most of the funds for Michael’s tuition would soon be in hand. She set the rag into its bowl and glanced out the window. Blue moonlight illuminated the white stone of the town house across the way. The residence had stood silent all day. The servants, like their mistress, had all disappeared. A movement caught her attention. She set her hands to the glass and peered at a slim form dashing across the street.
Lily!
Emma sucked in her breath. The mint-drop slowly dissolving in her mouth flew down her throat. With a cough and an unladylike curse, she slipped the window’s latch. By the time she threw the sash up, her sister had already opened the wrought iron gate of the darkened residence and was disappearing down the servants’ steps.
Why had she told Lily she didn’t have enough proof? She should have realized the child would devise some harebrained idea to ferret out evidence. Darting from the room, Emma wiped her hands on the loose white shirt and gray wool trousers she always wore to paint when alone. Garments her brother had outgrown.
She hurried down the stairs. In the entry, Emma grabbed Michael’s knit cap off the hall tree and tugged it over her chignon. She opened the door, peeked out, and glanced at the neighboring town houses. Thankfully, Mrs. Jenkins would be asleep. The gossipmonger would weave horrid tales if she spotted either Lily or Emma scurrying about at such an ungodly hour, especially with Emma scandalously dressed in men’s attire.
As she dashed across the street, cloudy tendrils of fog rose from the damp pavement to swirl around her ankles. A sense of foreboding moved down her spine like an icy-cold finger. She set her hand on the iron gate and swung it open. The hinges gave an eerie cry. She descended the steps, expecting to see her sister with her nose pressed to a pane of glass, but the gas streetlamp revealed an open window and a crate pushed underneath it.
This is beyond the pale, even for Lily. When she got her hands on her sister, she would drag her home by the ear. Then she would take an inordinate amount of pleasure in burning every Inspector Percival Whitley book Lily possessed.
She hefted herself up and swung one leg, then the other through the opening. Once inside, her eyes adjusted to the gloom relieved by the muted light streaming through the open window.
“Lily?” she whispered, moving to the stairs at the back of the kitchen.
Darkness filled the narrow stairway. Emma grasped the wooden handrail and ascended the steps to the third story, where the master’s bedchamber would be, and hopefully Lily. A large mullioned window that overlooked the street illuminated a wide corridor with four doors. The one closest to the window on the right stood ajar. She crept into the dim room. The white dust covers draped over the furniture caused the tall pieces to loom like ghostly specters.
From the corner of her eye, she caught a movement. A white cat sprung from the darkness to land on the bed. Emma gasped and stepped back, pressing a hand over her pounding heart.
The cat meowed and craned its body toward her.
She reached out and rubbed the fur behind its ears.
Hooves clopping on the pavement echoed outside, shattering the silence of the street below.
Emma crept to the window and edged open one shutter. A carriage stood before the town house. The horses shook their heads, rattling heavy harnesses, and the breaths from their nostrils cut through the dark night with puffs of white.
A broad-shouldered man leapt from the carriage. His long overcoat swayed against his tall legs, dispersing the fog swirling upward from the damp pavement. He lifted his head, and light from the lamppost slashed across his angular face.
She sucked in a mouthful of cool air. Earlier today, she’d thought the man beautiful, but without the sun to lighten his countenance, his face looked only menacing.
He strode toward the residence.
Her breathing quickened. With a hand fisted to her mouth, Emma spun away from the window and glanced frantically about. Where was Lily? Hopefully back home.
She ran into the corridor.
The front door opened, then slammed closed. Her limbs froze. The sound of her blood racing through her veins filled her ears with a thump, thump, thump. She dashed back into the bedchamber, dropped to her hands and knees, and crawled under the bed.
“Kismet!” The man’s deep voice seemed to reverberate off the walls. Quick footfalls moved up the steps.
Emma poked her head out from under the mattress. The luminescent glow of the feline’s eyes caught the moonlight as the animal slinked around the bedchamber. The cat moved into the corridor and meowed before dashing into the room and under the bed to join her.
“Kismet!” The gentleman moved farther up the steps.
Emma ducked back under the bed and blinked at the animal rubbing itself against her. “Are you Kismet?” she whispered.
The animal butted his head on her arm as though affirming her fears.
“Shoo.” She pushed his furry body away and pulled her brother’s knit cap farther down over her light-colored hair.
The man’s footfalls grew louder. The floorboards near the threshold squeaked.
She clamped a hand over her mouth, hoping to muffle her breathing as she dipped her head low and peered under the edge of the bed skirt. Light reflecting off the moon eased between the slightly parted shutters. A beam caught the shine of the man’s approaching black shoes. Soft fur brushed against her arm, and the cat’s purr rumbled in the room as though amplified.
“Ah, I knew you’d be in here.” The man dipped to one knee.
His hand reached under the bed. Emma’s heart pounded so loud, she feared the gentleman would hear it. She pulled her arms tighter against her body.
The pads of his fingers pressed against her shoulder.
Once.
Twice.
“What the hell!” he growled.
Long fingers wrapped around her arm in a bone-crushing grip, dragging her out from under the bed to hoist her upward. The man stood even taller than she thought. She tipped her head back and peered into his dark eyes. For a bizarre moment, she appreciated he held her upright, for her legs seemed incapable of the task.
“Lad, you picked the wrong house to pilfer.”
Lad? She glanced down at her brother’s clothing.
He gave her a shake.
Pain shot through her arms where his ungloved fingers bit into her skin. Panic squeezed her chest like a vise, and she rammed the heel of her shoe onto his foot.
As if nothing more than a pesky fly irritated him, his talon-like grip remained firm. “You wretch, give me one good reason why I shouldn’t box your ears and drag you before the magistrate.”
Her throat tightened.
“Damn you, answer me.” He released her arm.
She tried to dart past him.
“No, you don’t.” His fingers clamped around her wrist.
Instinctively she fisted her free hand and swung.
He ducked. His white teeth flashed in the dim light.
Her brother had told her where to hit a man if attacked. Without further contemplation, she lifted her thigh and rammed it between the man’s legs.
“Owf.” He fell to his knees like a sack of coal.
For several seconds, she stared at him as his breath heaved in and out. Run, a voice in her head commanded. Who will care for Lily and Michael if you are arrested? Eyeing the open door, she pressed her back against the wall and edged by his crumpled form.
She’d just made it by him when his large hand snaked out and wrapped around her ankle. She tried to shake herself free, but the man gave her leg a hard jerk, and she landed on her back with a heavy thud. A searing pain radiated from her tailbone to her shoulders.
Breathing unevenly, the man crawled over and sat atop her, straddling her body with thick, muscular thighs. His weight compressed her hips, imprisoning her. A shaft of moonlight slashed across his lean face, exposing his perfectly chiseled features and a crescent-shaped scar on his left cheek. Terror gripped her belly, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the hard, beautiful angles of his face.
“Why, you misbegotten wretch. I was only trying to scare you, but now you’ve made me bloody well angry.” He set his hand on her chest. His fingers flexed. His eyes widened. “Damnation, you’re a woman!”
She knocked his hand away and bucked under him.
He leaned closer.
The scent of spicy male drifted off his heated skin, while his warm breath fanned against her ear.
Goose bumps scattered over her flesh.
“Why you little she-cat, I have half a mind to put you over my knee and spank you.”
The low, almost seductive timbre of his voice sent a frisson down her spine. Sparks exploded low in her belly. What was wrong with her? She should be frightened, but it wasn’t fear that caused her pulse to beat faster. God, she must be mad.
The legs clamped around her eased. The man shifted, and his face tensed as if still in pain. “Now, if I get up, will you promise to behave?”
She wet her dry lips, opened her mouth, and snapped it closed as a shadow near the door slipped into the room. The slim form moved—shifted along the wall.
Lily. Gracious! Did the girl possess no sense? Did she wish them both to end up before the magistrate?
Emma wrapped her hands around the lapels of the man’s coat and tugged his face to hers. She slid one hand behind his shoulder and motioned her sister to leave.
He jerked back. “What do you think you’re about?”
“Repentance.” Her voice sounded low and sultry, unrecognizable to her own ears. She slipped her fingers into the warmth of his thick hair and drew his mouth to hers. His lips held firm. Unresponsive. Obviously, she lacked sufficient skill to carry such a diversion to fruition. She was about to give up when his weight settled closer to her. The tension in his taut muscles uncoiled, shifting the air around them with a tangible force.
Uttering a deep, raspy noise, his mouth moved hungrily against hers. His fingers wrapped around her wrists. He pulled her hands off him and pinned them above her head. His tongue slipped into her mouth, tangled with hers before withdrawing, only to plunge again.
He tasted like brandy and sin, and the wicked way he kissed made her body heat. Everywhere. She fought the urge to arch against him. Failing miserably, she pressed her tingling breasts tighter to the solidity of his chest.
A floorboard squeaked.
Lily! Was the child still in the room? Watching? Not escaping as Emma hoped she would?
Emma slammed her palms into his shoulders just as a crash rent the air. Shards of pottery exploded around them like fireworks, and she pinched her eyes closed.
The man collapsed atop her, his body a dead weight. She opened her eyes to see Lily standing above them, holding the bottom of a broken vase.
“Lily, what have you done?”
Her sister tossed what remained of the vase on the bed and dusted off her hands. “Saved you, Em. He was about to kill you using the same method he employed against his other victim.”
Oh my! Emma squirmed out from under the heavy weight of his body and held her fingers before his lips. The man’s breath fanned against her skin. The knot in her stomach eased.
“Thankfully, you haven’t killed him, Lily.”
“I had to protect you. I couldn’t let him—”
“Hush,” Emma said, running her fingertips carefully through his hair to feel the back of his skull. A lump had already begun to form, but at least there wasn’t any blood.
A ray of moonlight highlighted a gold ring on the unconscious man’s right pinkie. Her sister crouched and touched it. “There’s an emblem on it. What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know. Leave it be.” Emma gently brushed a lock of hair off the gentleman’s forehead.
“It could be from some secret society of murderers. There was such a villainous group in Inspector Whitley’s third book, Blood on the Thames.”
A low moan eased from the man’s mouth.
Emma shot to her feet.
Lily remained hunched over the gentleman, still inspecting his ring.
“Hurry.” She clasped Lily’s wrist and pulled her sister from the room. They raced down the stairs and moved to the open kitchen window.
“Em—”
She cupped her hand over Lily’s mouth. “Shhh, his coachman awaits him. Climb out and wait for me.”
With a nod, Lily hoisted herself out the basement window. Emma followed right behind. They crept to the top of the steps and peered at the man sitting on the carriage perch. His chin rested on his chest, and his snoring filled the night air.
Stealthily they tiptoed across the street and slipped inside their residence. Emma slumped against the front door and tugged off the knit cap.
“Em, you won’t believe what I saw—”
With a finger that trembled, Emma pointed at the stairs. “To bed! Or so help me, I’m going to drag you up there by your braid.”
Her sister’s mouth fell open. “But—”
Emma pushed off the door and took a menacing step toward her.
Lily raced up the steps.
In the morning room, Emma opened the shutters and peered out.
If the gentleman didn’t come out of his house in five minutes, she would have no choice but to tell his coachman he lay injured. Suddenly, the front door of the town house burst open. The man stumbled out, one hand holding his head, the other clutching the cat.
Pulling the shutters closed, Emma released the air held tight in her lungs.
* * *
In his club, Simon cracked open one eye and glanced at the expectant faces staring at him. He narrowed that singular eye on the crystal glass he held in his hand. Brown liquid congealed on the sides of the now empty goblet like horse dung on the bottom of one’s shoe.
The corrosive concoction James Huntington had given him was going to put him in his grave. At least it would, if God had any mercy.
Simon pressed a hand to his throat. It burned as if he’d swallowed a flame-eater’s torch. He leaned back against the leather chair. Why he’d spent the night at his gentlemen’s club was beyond him. He should have sought comfort between the legs of a soft-spoken wo
man with hands that knew how to soothe. Obviously, that blasted vase had knocked all prudent thought from his brain.
He set the glass down. “That tasted foul.”
Huntington grinned, a rare occurrence. At one time, he’d been the ton’s darling—the man everyone wanted to be, but since his wife’s death and the suspicion that fell on him, the marquess had fallen from grace.
Simon placed a hand to the front of his skull. Whatever he’d just swallowed wasn’t alleviating the pounding in his head. If he ever got his hands on that little femme fatale, he would make her pay. Shoving her knee into his bollocks had been dire enough, but then to distract him with her warm mouth and supple body while her accomplice conked him over the head, well, that was unforgivable.
“Did it work?” Huntington pointed at the glass.
Julian Caruthers pushed his chair back from a baize-covered table and walked over to Simon. “Is your headache gone?”
The man’s words reverberated off the mahogany paneling in the private room. “Could you extend a chap a bit of mercy and lower your voice?” Simon asked. “Whatever Huntington gave me is causing a slow death, and you’re not making it a peaceful demise.”
“Give it a minute, old chum,” Huntington averred. “I swear on my grandmother’s grave it works.”
Caruthers’s laughter filled the room. Simon assumed he found humor in the fact that Huntington’s cantankerous grandmother was alive and well.
“I’ve rarely seen a man best you, Adler,” Caruthers stated. “How many men attacked you last night? Five? Six?”
Simon glanced at one of his closest friends, Hayden Westfield. The only one with whom he’d confided that one of his attackers had been a woman who’d distracted him with her lush body and her promise of repentance.
“Yes, do tell us how many men attacked you.” Westfield grinned.
Simon narrowed his eyes at Westfield. “Two people attacked me.”
Caruthers blinked. “Just two! Hit you when your back was turned, eh?”
Westfield snorted a laugh before lifting the morning newspaper to shield his wide grin.
Damnation, must they all be so loud? Simon groaned.
“Where was your mistress while all this was going on?” Caruthers cocked a brow.
Never Deceive a Viscount Page 2
