by Lynn Messina
She finished dressing, located her safe-opening kit and glanced at the clock. It was precisely ten-fifteen. After extinguishing the candle and arranging some pillows to look like her sleeping form, Emma climbed through the window. As she had said, the tree beside the house was a trustworthy oak, and Emma moved down among its branches with easy familiarity. Thanks to her misspent youth, there wasn’t a tree whose heights Miss Emma Harlow could not scale.
As soon as she dropped to the ground, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She resisted the urge to jump, even though she felt a fleeting glimmer of fear. It was the duke, of course, not some assailant.
“All is well?” he whispered in her ear.
She nodded and indicated that she would follow. He placed his hand on the small of her back. The Duke of Trent had no intention of letting her out of his sight for the whole of the adventure. He led her to a hired cab that was stationed on the street corner.
Grosvenor Square was quiet and pretty in the late hour and Emma thought it was a shame that she wasn’t allowed to take constitutionals after dark. She regretted, not for the first time, that the world was such an unsafe place for a woman.
It was only when they were in the cab and on the way to Half Moon Street that Emma felt comfortable enough to speak. “Good evening, your grace,” she said, looking at him in the dim light of passing street lamps. He was dressed as plainly as she, though in clothing indicative of his sex, and she couldn’t help but notice how nicely he filled out his jacket. Without any affectation or tailor’s padding, he was as impressive a specimen as ever. Really, she thought, he is so perfect. How could Vinnie withstand his charms?
“Good evening, my dear, I see you’re behaving as unconventionally as ever. Tell me, who is your tailor?”
Emma laughed. “You’re looking at her, and since I have no illusions of my skill with a needle, you do not have to cut me down. I made them because it was necessary for them to be made.”
“What’s the news from home? Will Lavinia be seeing Windbourne this evening?”
“We were engaged to dine at the Winchesters’ this eve. I can only assume that as Miss Harlow’s betrothed he was invited as well. Sarah did not mention it. I’m surprised she went. With Roger here, she has been inclined to stay close to home.”
“How is he doing? Miss Harlow informed me of his accident. I’m very sorry,” he said, talking her hand. “It must be a terrible thing to adjust to.”
“Yes, but Roger is adapting marvelously. He has never been the sort to complain about anything other than boredom, and the loss of an arm is indeed terrible but it is better than the loss of a leg or one’s life. Sarah could not bear it if he’d died.”
The duke nodded and, still availing himself of her hand, began drawing lazy circles on her palm. While she found this distracting, she had no intention of putting an end to it. The duke’s hands were soft, warm and something about his grasp made her heart beat faster.
When the carriage stopped at Windbourne’s town house, the duke climbed out and spoke to their driver. He then returned to Emma. “It is ten fifty-five. I can see the south-side window hidden behind a hedge. I’ve told the driver to leave and circle around again in a half hour and to wait for us here. Now, are you ready?" he asked, trying to look deeply into her eyes. But it was dark and he could barely make out the features of her lovely face. “It is not too late, Emma. You can stay in the cab and wait for my return.”
She gave a low laugh. “I was about to say the same to you, sir.”
“Very well,” he said, opening the door. “We may as well go down together.”
They crept silently up the path to the side of the house. Fortunately, the lamp nearest their destination had gone out, and they worked in almost total darkness. The pantry window was six feet above the ground, just as Emma had calculated, and before she could figure out the best way to approach it from her meager height, the duke had already opened the window and given her a leg up. He then pulled himself through with complete ease, and Emma marveled at his strength. Clearly those muscles she had felt during her passionate exploration weren’t merely for show.
The pantry was small and crowded and filled with so many pots that even the floor was covered, as Emma quickly discovered when she tripped over one. The sound of copper hitting concrete was indeed loud, but fortunately the duke caught her before she could fall on other loud copper pots. They both froze, expecting the door to open at any second and a large butler come charging through. Since they were on a tight schedule, they could only spare a minute for their dread. The duke lit a candle and Emma carefully walked out of the small hazard-ridden room.
The dimensions of the kitchen were hard to discern on the strength of a single candle but they seemed to be large. She didn’t have her map with her, but she knew full well which direction to take. The study lay to the north. She pointed to the doorway and Trent nodded. They walked through the dining room and past the drawing room without incident. In a flash they were in the study. Emma lit another candle and handed a key to Trent.
“It’s for the desk drawer,” she whispered.
He accepted the key. “What am I looking for?” he asked now, wondering how it hadn’t occurred to him to inquire before now.
“Anything that appears suspicious,” she said. “I don’t know what we’re looking for, but we’ll know it when we find it. Trust me, there must be evidence of that snake’s perfidy somewhere.”
Since Trent believed they were on a fool’s mission—an extremely organized and well-planned one, of course, but still a mission for fools—he doubted very much that he’d know “it” when he saw it. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing to know or see.
He applied the key to the drawer and reluctantly examined its contents. It was very bad form for a gentleman to rifle through another gentleman’s things, and he felt extremely uncomfortable doing so. Emma, on the other hand, threw herself into the disagreeable exercise with unrestrained enthusiasm. She was a faint outline to him in the candlelight, but he could hear the energetic ruffling of papers. Every so often he heard a sound like a grumble or a groan.
The first thing the duke noticed was that Windbourne was not the most organized of peers. Stacks of papers with bent corners and weathered edges filled the desk, along with scattered note cards that were in no discernible order. He glance at each sheet, trying to discover its business. The first batch of documents were rather commonplace correspondence with one’s secretary. They made Windbourne aware of the status of his estate and informed him of repairs that needed to be made. Nothing of interest there. The second group of papers was from bankers and lawyers and spoke of investments Windbourne had here and abroad, most specifically in France. Trent perused these, looking for something uncommon, but everything seemed to be in order. Now that the war with France was over, there was nothing remarkable about owning land there. The duke checked the dates and satisfied himself that the land had been transferred to Windbourne after Napoléon’s exile to St. Helena.
The third stack was a collection of gambling debts. Trent totaled up the figures, feeling like a perfect cad as he did so, and whistled softly. Windbourne was in deep with several moneylenders. Apparently Miss Harlow’s assessment of his gambling skills was accurate. It seemed that Windbourne hadn’t had a stroke of luck in months.
When he was done perusing the documents, Trent took a cursory look at the note cards, which were perfumed, written in French and of an amorous nature. He read one in its entirety and tossed it back into the drawer in disgust. The communication had been trite and poorly spelled. He closed the drawer. There was nothing suspicious here. Indeed, to Trent, Windbourne seemed like the classic English gentleman, right down to his French paramour.
After locking the drawer, Trent tapped Miss Harlow on the shoulder. “Any luck?” he asked.
She handed him a document that had been puzzling her for the last several minutes. “Look at this, Trent. Windbag keeps another house in London. See, here is the deed. It’s lo
cated near Covent Garden. I wonder what goes on there, for he has never mentioned owning additional London property. Perhaps this is where all his nefarious deeds take place. I think we should search it.”
“Emma,” he said kindly, kneeling down next to her, “that is where he keeps his mistress.”
“His mistress?” she repeated, almost confused by the thought. She knew gentleman kept mistresses—her father was a prime example—but she had never considered the possibility that Windbourne had. Perhaps because it seemed remarkable enough that he had attracted one female let alone two. “Then he’s a faithless dog, no?”
“Many men have mistresses before they wed,” he said, trying to treat the matter lightly.
“Many men have mistresses after they wed,” she said bitterly.
Realizing now was not the time for a serious conversation but wanting to put her at ease, Trent said, “Yes, but we don’t know Windbourne’s intentions yet, for he and your sister are not yet married. He might cut the connection before the wedding.”
“You are splitting hairs. The wedding itself is but an arbitrary date that has no bearing on one’s heart. Either he loves Vinnie or he doesn’t. When you love someone you do not go to a house in Covent Garden and make love to a dancer. Do not give it to me all wrapped up in society’s fine linens, sir,” she said angrily, fighting to keep her voice low. “I might be a woman but I am not a idiot, despite what you and your brethren think of my sex. Only unfaithful married men keep mistresses. Vinnie has the right to know about this.”
Trent laid a hand on her arm. “You cannot tell her. Windbourne has the right to conduct his affairs as he sees fit.”
“Not with my sister!”
“What will you do, Emma?” he asked softly. “Will you tell her that her fiancé is keeping a woman and humiliate her with the knowledge? What if she decides to go ahead with the marriage, for you yourself said she’s determined to wed and have children, what will it be like for her, fearing that you think less of her for not having your strong convictions? Vinnie isn’t as naïve as you, my dear. Perhaps she already knows.”
“I’ll consider your words,” she said, knowing there was some truth in what he spoke, “but I take them with a grain of salt. You’re not the gentleman to understand this, since you yourself are not faithful to one woman.”
Although the duke wished with everything in his heart that he could deny this charge, if for no other reason than to prove to this darling brave girl that all men were not alike, he could not. In lieu of a defense, he changed the subject. “Have you found anything else?”
“No,” she said, the disappointment strong in her voice. “There’s nothing here, just files and files of financial papers and several folders of private, very boring correspondence—not one confession of an unforgivable crime.”
“What is this?” asked Trent, picking up a folder that she had taken out of the drawer.
“That is their marriage contracts. I wanted to give it a careful read.”
The duke didn’t think that was wise. Not only was it none of her business what monies were settled where but they also didn’t have much time. They had already been there for thirty minutes. “Why don’t I flip through this and you open the safe?”
Since the safe was her last bastion of hope, Emma complied willingly. She took out the listening device that she had bought down on the docks. It was a cylindrical metal cup attached to rubber tubing.
“What is that?” asked the duke.
“It is a magnifying glass for the ears,” she said, putting it on. “Mr. Squibb promised that I’d hear the numbers click into place. That’s how I will know the combination.”
Trent had little confidence in the odd device’s usefulness, but he looked on in wonder as Emma opened the safe. It took less than a minute. Then he returned his attention to the marriage contracts. There was nothing out of the ordinary, except that the last three sheets in the folder were not part of the marriage agreement. They were letters to Roger.
“Hmm,” he said.
“What?” asked Emma, as she looked through Windbag’s sad collection of jewelry: a sapphire necklace, diamond earrings, two gold broaches and a pearl bracelet. Miss Harlow was not the sort of woman to covet precious stones, but she thought that her sister deserved better than this dismal assortment.
“There are letters of Roger’s here.”
“Really?” exclaimed Emma, before she remembered to keep her voice down. “Let me see.” She grabbed them from Trent and read through them quickly. They were deadly dull, telling of weather conditions and coastal forecasts. “Why would anyone want to steal these?” she asked, puzzled.
“I don’t think he did,” answered the duke. “He must have picked them up by mistake when he gathered up the contracts. I know you’d like to lay some monstrous sin at his feet, but I don’t think this is it.”
As much as it killed her to admit it, Emma had to agree that the duke was probably right. Roger’s private correspondence, even the ones that were not meteorologically concerned, were of little importance to the world at large. She could not imagine what Windbag would do with them, had he intended to steal them. She folded the letters and put them into her pants. She may as well return them to her brother.
“Did you find anything in the safe?” Trent asked.
“No, just some jewels.”
He nodded. “Well, should we leave? It is almost eleven forty-five.”
Emma knew that to remain longer was foolish, but she hated to go without evidence of his treachery. It was here, she just knew it was here, but she didn’t know where to look. She sighed and closed the safe, turning the dial back to zero. “All right,” she said, blowing out her candle. They would need only one to find the pantry.
Trent opened the door and looked out. The hallway was dim, lit only by a candle on the wall. He laid a hand on the small of Emma’s back. “Let’s go.”
They stepped out the room, and Trent quietly shut the door behind them. They retraced their steps from earlier, but this time when they walked passed the drawing room doors, they opened. Hearing the turn of the knob seconds before the door opened, the duke blew out his candle and pulled Emma behind a long damask drape.
Tense and afraid the beating of her heart would broadcast their location, Emma waited in the duke’s arms. As the seconds slowly ticked by, she imagined the awful scene of their discovery. No doubt the constable would be called in to haul them down to Newgate. And she could just see the smirking grin on Sir Waldo’s face as he pressed charges against her. What an awful thing to have to explain to Lavinia, not to mention Sarah and Roger and her parents.
It was completely dark behind the heavy curtain and the air was hot. In a voice that was barely there, the duke whispered, “It’s been a few minutes. I’m going to stick my head out and take a look. Don’t move.”
Don’t move? thought Emma. Fine advice. Really, to whence would I go?
“I think it’s all right,” said the duke. “The candle in the hallway has been extinguished.” Emma nodded. “Follow me and move silently.”
More excellent advice, she thought, as she moved as quietly as possible. They returned to the pantry without further incident. Before she would step in the room, Emma insisted that the duke light a candle. “I want to hear no more clattering of copper pots,” she said reasonably.
They were out the window as easily as they were in it. The hired cab was waiting for them up the street. Once they were safely ensconced in it, Emma started to laugh. She saw the duke looking at her strangely. “It’s all nerves,” she explained. “I was fine until that last moment, but when I heard the drawing room door open I felt fear—real fear. I don’t think I’ve ever felt it before.”
“Fear is message, a warning that you’re not doing something right. Perhaps you should heed it.”
Emma dismissed this sage advice with a wave of the hand and laughed delightedly. “But fear is also exhilarating, is it not, sir? My heart is racing and I feel as though I could rac
e to Newmarket but in two hours and fifty-seven minutes this time.”
“Since I am in no mood to go barreling down a rural road at breakneck speed,” he said, leaning toward her with an intent look on his face, “perhaps we should channel your energies elsewhere.”
Emma knew that he was going to kiss her, and she raised herself up to meet him halfway. She had been disturbingly aware of him from the moment she’d entered the carriage. Now that they were out of danger she had time to reflect on that strength of his, that caged strength that was so out of place in polite drawing rooms and that was only unleashed in the ring at Gentleman Jackson’s. Instantly she knew that she wanted to feel that strength, to have those arms crushing her to him so tightly that it was impossible to tell where she ended and he began.
