Lady of Desire

by Gaelen Foley

  “Blade!” a man yelled. “Did you get O’Dell? Is he dead?”

  The crowd fell silent, awaiting his answer. Jacinda looked at her captor.

  It seemed to cost him a great deal, but he squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. “No. Not tonight. He ran, like a coward. Like he always does. He’s still out there.”

  A long moment passed as they absorbed the sobering news.

  “Enough long faces!” Nate yelled at them in sudden, startling anger. He pointed at his captain. “When has this man ever broken his word to you? Blade said he’ll get him, and that means he will! Now, strike up the music! You’re safe enough here, as you well know.”

  The piper obliged, dispersing some of the tension with a nimble melody. The drummer joined in, and the accordion player gave his box a brave squeeze. The crowd seemed to exhale, and the party gradually resumed.

  “Come on, Jane Smith,” Blade muttered drily to her, leading the way.

  As they moved through the crowd, the people quickly returned to slapping his back and hailing him, urging him on with renewed vigor.

  “You’ll get him, Blade! You’ll get him!”

  He ignored them, scowling. As he pulled her along by her wrist, he stopped Nate. “Tell the others not to get too drunk,” he ordered in a low tone.

  “Aye,” Nate answered, then turned to join in the festivities, accepting a mug of ale and a hearty kiss from a buxom wench.

  Blade got her satchel back from the man called Sarge and handed it to her, then led her around to the back of the building, whereupon she discovered that the gin shop fronted a large countinghouse set over a narrow back alley. A pair of lanterns above the wide barn door revealed business being carried out with a well-oiled hum of efficiency. Half a dozen sturdy bruisers were loading wooden crates onto a wagon, while a little man stood high up on the wagon’s bed with a small writing board and pencil in hand. He appeared to be a clerk of some sort, charged with keeping count of the inventory. He waved excitedly to Blade while the grizzled driver in a long greatcoat greeted him, musket resting casually over his shoulder.

  “Blade.”

  “Evenin’, Al. I trust you have everything in order.” He stopped to shake the older fellow’s hand.

  “Under way in no time, sir.”

  “Watch yourselves out there tonight. Roads are crawling with highwaymen.”

  The man laughed at his jest. Blade grinned and slapped him on the back, then shepherded her toward the few cement steps alongside the loading dock leading up to the door. It all looked like a legitimate business, but she regarded him dubiously.

  “What are those men loading onto that wagon?”

  “Used goods,” he said vaguely.

  Just then, an eager, high-pitched voice filled the alleyway. “Blade! Blade!”

  He looked over as a small boy came darting out of the doorway past the men carrying the crates.

  “That’s the boy who robbed me!” Jacinda exclaimed.

  “Hang back a moment,” he murmured, setting her behind him in the darkness. “I want to hear what the little blighter has to say for himself.”

  “ ’Hoy, Blade! Did ye get O’Dell?” The boy rushed over to him, fairly vibrating with puppyish excitement. “Did you give ’em a belting? I’ll bet you tapped his claret, all right! Blade, Blade, hey, Blade, I gotta show you somethin’! Look what I done!” With a flourish, Eddie the Knuckler lifted his cupped hands and presented the gang leader with an impressive stash of gleaming coins.

  Her coins. Jacinda narrowed her eyes.

  “Someone’s been industrious tonight,” Blade drawled. “Where’d you get it, Eddie?”

  “Lobby o’ the Bull’s Head.” The boy beamed up at him, clearly worshipful and trying desperately to impress his hero. “You shoulda seen me, Blade! My flat never knew what hit him! I was gone before he could say Jack Sprat! Actually, there was two—I mean three of them. They was big, too! Big as you, almost.”

  “Really,” he said lightly. “Eddie, I have brought someone to meet you. This is Miss, ahem, Smith.” He reached behind him, gently took her wrist, and pulled her into view.

  Eddie’s eyes widened. Jacinda gave the child an arch look.

  “Shite,” the boy uttered, spinning around to flee, but Blade grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, halting his exit.

  “A word with you, sir. Miss Smith, this way.”

  “Aw, Blade, leave off! I was only jokin’!”

  Complaining all the way, Eddie trudged ahead of them on Blade’s orders, going up the steps to the door. Blade showed her into a broad workroom with a large table in the center, a battered secretaire in the corner, and a squat black coal stove on the wall to her right, which sat unlit. A few dusty shelves cluttered the dingy plaster walls, while a burrow of small filing boxes angled into the corner. He nodded toward the benches around the table.

  “If you’ll make yourself comfortable for a moment, I will see about your property.”

  “You’re going to return it to me?” she asked in surprise.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” He sent her a provoking half smile and shepherded Eddie into the small adjoining office. Leaving the door open a foot or two, he turned to the child. “Damn it, Eddie, are you trying to get strung up before your tenth bloody birthday?”

  She half listened to him lecturing the little pickpocket, looking very stern, his hands braced on his waist. His stance drew back his short, black jacket a bit, revealing the bloodstain on his white shirt beneath, like the red carnation he had worn that day at Knight House. His indifference to his own wound disturbed her.

  She forced herself to look away, then noticed that each time the unkempt-looking thieves came back from the loading dock to carry out another crate, they wrinkled their noses in distaste when they passed her. She blanched with embarrassment to remember the stink that clung to her redingote. Undoing the belt and buttons, she shrugged out of the offending garment almost violently—and immediately regretted it. At once, all around her, the outlaws froze.

  They stopped and stared at her, some with the crates still in their arms. Jacinda glanced down nervously at herself, still dressed for Almack’s in a white silk ball gown with gold-thread embroidery, finery the likes of which they had probably never seen. As their coarse stares ran all over, she tried to tug her shoulder-baring décolleté up higher, but the thieves were already exchanging evil grins and putting their boxes down. One or two leered openly at her bosom, but most of them seemed to have homed in on her throat. Realization dawned, and she paled, slowly lifting her hand to the ornate diamond necklace she had totally forgotten she was wearing.

  It probably cost as much as the building. She gulped and began backing away as they started toward her, closing in like hungry wolves.

  “Ah, Blade?” she ventured, still edging away from them, but Eddie was whining loudly at him. “Blade?” she called a bit more forcefully, but when the heavy table at her back blocked her retreat, she knew she was trapped. “Blade!”

  She looked over in alarm at the half-opened door. He had stopped midsentence in his lecture to Eddie and for a heartbeat just stared at her, his stunned gaze sweeping over her.

  If the sight of her had dazed him in that dark alley, at this moment, in the light, the sheer extravagance of her beauty positively clobbered him. His mind went blank; his voice strangled in his throat. She was a goddess. He could not scrape two thoughts together, wonder-struck by her flashing dark eyes, milky skin, and the golden fire of her hair cascading over her white shoulders. His stare ran over her sweet, lithe arms and stopped at her cleavage. Then he was in agony.

  The gold-trimmed neckline of her ball gown was cut low and square, and put the peachlike ripeness of her round, lovely breasts on wonderful display. His mouth watered as he stared at their upper curves, and the first thought that finally formed in his mind was that her nipples were almost visible. It was enough to drive a man mad.

  “Blade!”

  The effect, he saw, was not lost
on his men, either. Not a moment too soon, he came crashing back to his senses.

  Letting out an explosive oath, he threw the door wide open and stalked into the workroom. “Get the hell away from her! Out of my way! Back to work!” he bellowed, shoving his way between them to reach her.

  He grasped her arm and thrust her behind him. Clinging to him, she peered out from behind him as he blocked them from her with his body.

  “I said get back to work,” he ordered in a warning growl, but they held their ground, a restless, uneasy mob.

  “Fine bit o’ sparkle, Blade. You plan on keepin’ that for yourself?”

  “No one touches her.”

  “Why don’t you keep the girl and give us the diamonds?”

  “Aye, and nap us her fancy dress, too, eh? Could fetch a fine price at the pawn shop. Why don’t you strip it off ’er for us?”

  Behind him, the blonde let out an appalled gasp.

  “We promise not to look!” another said.

  They guffawed, but a murderous quiet came into Blade’s voice.

  “I’m gonna tell you buggers one more time. If you’re goin’ to act like animals instead of men, you might as well go join the bloody Jackals, ’cause I got no use for you here. Now, I want that wagon loaded. We got a shipment due tomorrow mornin’. Unless you want to make somethin’ of it?”

  A few of them grumbled, but slowly they backed down, turning away with surly looks. As they slouched back to their task, Blade turned to the girl with an exasperated glower. Giving her scarcely a second to grab her satchel off the table, he grasped her hand and pulled her out of the room toward the narrow, dingy stairwell.

  “Where are you taking me?” she exclaimed, tripping along after him on her long skirts.

  “Be quiet,” he growled. “Come with me before they bloody mutiny.”

  He marched up the steps, his implacable grip wrapped around her hand. She picked up her skirts with her free hand and hastened to keep up with him.

  “I cannot believe they threatened to take my gown!”

  “Can’t you?” he retorted. At the top of the stairs, he stalked down the cramped corridor, pulling her after him, then threw open a door on the right.

  At once, a breathless feminine voice greeted them, tinged with a torrid accent. “Billy!”

  He stopped at the threshold. “Damn it, Carlotta, what the hell are you doing here? Get out.”

  “Billy!”

  “Out!” he ordered.

  His fair captive waited in the hallway, rather wide-eyed, as his unceremonious command was met with a stream of hotheaded foreign curses. A moment later, his latest conquest flounced out of the room, hastily tying her cottage-style bodice. Carlotta was an exotic-looking, olive-skinned Gypsy girl with long black hair.

  When she saw the blonde, she whirled to him, her tanned face flushing with rage. “Who is this? You bought yourself some high-priced harlot?”

  “I beg your pardon!” the blonde exclaimed in haughty indignation.

  Carlotta turned on her. “He is mine, you little—”

  In the nick of time, Blade caught Carlotta’s hand as she raised it to strike the unsuspecting girl. “Do once try to act like a lady, would you?”

  Wide-eyed, Miss “Smith” gazed at the Gypsy girl, looking astonished and quite fascinated by the notion of fisticuffs between women. Blade took the wild creature in hand and sent her on her way. Carlotta’s vulgar, hotheaded curses trailed after her as she stormed off down the hallway. Turning to his guest with a long-suffering look, he could not have been more acutely aware of the contrast between the two women. Carlotta fairly steamed with exotic allure, but her foul language and crude manners embarrassed him as he stood before this high-bred demoiselle of luxurious elegance, refinement, and grace. As she looked around in wonder at his rough-and-tumble world, he stole the chance to study her. Her beauty was at once wild and delicate. As dainty as sculpted porcelain, her face expressed a frank, lively mind and a mercurial nature as full of caprice as the English weather—clouds, sun, clouds, sun, all in one day. The sort of woman who would play the game on her terms or not at all, he thought. But as he watched her, what he was most keenly aware of was her innocence. Though her dark, sultry, almond-shaped eyes hinted at an untapped wantonness, he could feel the youthful freshness of her spirit when he stood close to her, a tangible force as golden as her hair. It simultaneously made him want to run like the devil and to bare his soul.

  Aye, this was a woman, he realized down deep in his bones, who could make a man crawl through hell on his hands and knees. Bloody dangerous. Without further ado, he swung the door open and nodded toward his chamber. “After you, Miss Smith.”

  “But…” She turned to him, her voice trailing off in dismay at the prospect of going into his room alone with him.

  A wicked smile crept over his lips. “Don’t disappoint me, my dear,” he murmured, his eyes agleam with a very personal sort of challenge. “Surely you’re not going to start acting sensibly now?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jacinda stiffened at Blade’s silken taunting, but could hardly take offense at his mild accusation, for he had heard the whole story from the boy’s own lips and thus knew she had been duped by a mere street urchin. Lifting her chin with what remained of her pride, she gave him a severe look that warned him—probably in vain—not to try anything improper, then bravely strode ahead of him into his private sanctuary. He watched her pass with a look of amusement.

  A swift glance around revealed walls washed in the same drab hue as the hallway, and a wood-planked floor painted dark brown. There was a threadbare braided cottage rug thrown down before the brick hearth, where charcoal embers gleamed beneath the small iron kettle. Against the wall, his low cot had been turned into a makeshift tent-bed, draped with long swathes of fabric that she realized on closer inspection were fine cashmere scarves, undoubtedly stolen. They appeared of finest quality, with swirling designs of red, orange, and gold. She smiled to herself, remembering the gaudy purple waistcoat and red carnation he had been wearing the day he had come to Knight House. Other than a taste for loud colors, he appeared to live very simply. Tidiness, however, was not among his virtues, she observed as a mouse went scampering along the seam of the wall and vanished into its hole. The furniture was dusty and looked decidedly battered by the light of the candles burning in colored glass jars here and there around the room. There was a wardrobe, an abused-looking secretaire with a simple wooden chair, and a chest of drawers—upon which sat a glorious Canaletto in a gilded frame.

  Her eyes widened in disbelief as she stared at the masterpiece: the gondolas on the Grand Canal, the Venetian palaces in rich tones of red and gold. Good Lord, she recognized the painting from Lady Sudeby’s drawing room! She turned to her host in astonishment as the full reality of his occupation sank in. Used goods, indeed!

  Oblivious to her racing thoughts, Blade followed her into his room, locked the door, then turned and leaned against it, folding his arms slowly across his chest.

  Still reeling at the audacity of his theft, she pointed in bewilderment. “That painting—?”

  A ghost of something that might have been guilt flickered in his untrusting eyes. He had fascinating eyes—pale, sea-green irises rimmed by a dark band of cool, deep chalcedony. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “How did you get that?” she demanded.

  “How do you think?”

  She stared at him, resting her hands on her waist. She barely knew what to make of the creature. “It seems a dangerous way to make a living.”

  His roguish smile made her knees go weak. “Aye, but if I die tomorrow, I’ll go knowin’ I had a hell of a lot of fun while I was here.”

  “You’re mad.”

  He laughed softly. His light-tricked gaze caressed her. “I had to have it, at least for a little while. You see, I enjoy beautiful things.” He stared at her, then leaned his head back on the door and gazed wistfully at the painting. When he spoke again, for a moment, it seemed his
rough Cockney accent had gone missing.

  “I’ll sell it soon enough, I suppose, but this one…bewitched me. Sometimes I lie on my bed staring at it until I fall asleep. Then I dream I’m there—in Venice—the blue sky, the sun on my face, the lapping of the waves.” He sent her a half smile full of wry self-mockery. “But artists lie. No place could be that beautiful.”

  “But it is.” She looked from it to him. “I have been there.”

  He stared at her, suddenly on his guard.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You should go.” She offered him a cautiously teasing smile. “You might find the influence of so much beauty elevating to your moral sense.”

  He snorted. “Got no time for holidays. There’s Cullen O’Dell to contend with.”

  “You’ll get him,” she said softly, then paused. “Are you badly hurt?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll live.”

  They stared at each other uncertainly. Magic quivered like a plucked lute string in the silence between them for that moment. The room seemed smaller, the candlelight more richly golden as it played over his wary face, sculpting its sleek planes and sharp contours. When he spoke again his tone was low, urgent.

  “Who are you? I must know.”

  “I might ask the same of you.”

  “I asked first.”

  “I’ve already told you—”

  “No. No ‘Jane Smith’ wears diamonds like that. I have seen you before.”

  Careful, she warned herself, uneasily lifting her hand again to her diamond necklace. He might be illiterate, but he was sharp—clever enough to know quality when he saw it. She ventured a half-truth. “You seem familiar to me, as well, but I cannot think where or how we possibly could have met.”

  He eyed her as though weighing each one of her words. “Eddie says you were hiring a post chaise to Dover, that you meant to cross the Channel.”

  “That is true.”

  “Why?”