by The Treasure
“I’m the one with the gun.”
“You’re not going to shoot Betsy or me or anyone.”
“You’re right,” Valin said. The nose of the gun dipped, and Valin started walking toward her. “But lying little lady thieves must take the consequences of their crimes. Want to know what the consequences will be for you, my dear?”
Emmie backed away and raised the hammer she still held. “Keep away from me.”
“You led me a pretty dance, and it’s time to take your punishment.”
Emmie lifted her skirts and turned to run, but Valin snatched a fistful of fabric. Emmie stepped on a broken lance and slipped. Her skirt tore, and Valin laughed. He reached down and grabbed Emmie’s wrist, but as he pulled her to him, Pilfer rushed out of the shadows and kicked him on the shin.
“Bloody mutcher! You leave the missus be.”
Emmie yanked her wrist free in time to see Betsy rush at Valin with the bread paddle. Valin recovered in time to dodge the paddle and catch Pilfer by the back of his collar. Lifting the child, he let the lad kick his feet in the air and swear at him.
Valin rounded on Emmie while she was getting to her feet and pointed the gun at Betsy again. “Call them off.”
She hadn’t survived in the rookeries without knowing whether a man was capable of shooting women and children.
Edging away from Valin, she shook her head.
“You’re not going to hurt Pilfer, and you’re not going to fire that gun.”
“But I’ll fire mine, Miss de Winter. I promise you that.”
Acton North stood on the stairs holding a revolver. It was pointed at Emmie’s heart.
14
Megan the collie poked her nose through the hole in the floor and pricked her ears at the barrage of noise coming from the people in the room below. One of the women shrieked at Acton. Megan started and scrambled away from the hole. She circled it before settling down under the bend in the spiral staircase to wait for her master.
The din coming from the subterranean room rose higher. Betsy was giving Acton a frank appraisal of his character and appearance. Turnip held his sore head and moaned while Emmie snapped out her opinion of people who threw other people down steep flights of stairs and brothers who helped them.
While the verbal battle raged, Valin remained silent. Part of him wished he’d never gone to Emmie’s room tonight, but he’d wanted to explain why he had left her at Hartwell Keep. Truthfully, he had also just plain wanted her.
By the time he’d reached her chambers, his decision had been made—he wanted to marry her, no matter what the consequences. A mad decision considering how little he knew of her, but what else could he do when life held no attraction without her?
When he found Emmie missing from her room yet again, of course he had looked for her—searched with a brain-fevered anger that stemmed from jealousy. Illogical as it had been, he’d made the mistake a second time of suspecting that she’d gone to some gentleman’s room. Perhaps if he hadn’t found it so hard to believe she cared for him, he wouldn’t have flown across the house looking behind curtains, peering in alcoves, and listening at doors. His ear had been pressed against the portal of one of the gentlemen’s guest rooms when he’d heard a distant crash.
Speeding downstairs to the Gallery Tower, Valin had spotted Emmie’s coachman lurking by the spiral stair. Only then had he realized that Emmie and her little band were up to some kind of mischief, most likely robbery. At least he hadn’t been fool enough to approach without first retrieving a gun.
By the time he’d gotten back with a pistol he’d had time to absorb the significance of what he’d seen. Emmie, or whatever her name was, had been lying to him even after he’d discovered her ruse. Since then—even at Hartwell Keep—she’d been weaving a fluffy warm snood of distraction around him. Her goal had been to keep him preoccupied until she could get to whatever was in that hole beneath the Gallery Tower. She must have wanted it badly to forfeit her honor. Had she always intended to make that sacrifice? Was he the first merely by coincidence?
At this thought Valin’s frigid rage warmed in a furnace of pain. Everything he’d assumed about Emmie, about her affection for him, had been based on lies. Fury, humiliation, and agony threatened to wring a cry from his throat. When he had confronted her here in the darkness, she’d turned on him with frightening ruthlessness, with hatred. Valin swallowed and opened his eyes. He hadn’t realized they were closed. Why was everyone yelling?
Betsy hissed at Acton, who was standing halfway up the stairs. “Listen, you sodding muck snipe. You speak to Emmie with respect or you’ll see the sharp end o’ my chiv.”
“You make one move and I’ll use this,” Acton said, waving his revolver.
“Now, Betsy, hold your tongue, girl,” Turnip said as Emmie helped him stand.
Valin was about to demand silence when the child called Pilfer scampered up the stairs and kicked Acton on the shin. Acton yelped and took a swipe at the child with the revolver. Emmie dove for the boy and yanked him out of harm’s way. Betsy squawked, grabbed an earthenware jug, and threw it at Acton. As it crashed on the wall behind its target everyone started shouting again.
Drawing in his breath, Valin put the full force of his lungs behind his shout. “Silence!”
He gestured with the pistol. “You thieves, over there away from the stairs.”
Emmie held Pilfer’s hand and marched over to stand with Turnip and Betsy. All four of them glared at him in defiance. He scowled back at the coachman, at the maid, even at Pilfer, but he ignored Emmie.
Acton came down to join him. “Excellent. I’ll summon a constable, and he can throw them in jail while we—”
“Bloody macer,” Pilfer said. “Missus, he’s going to make lags of us all.”
Another shouting match ensued while Valin subsided in confusion. He hadn’t thought beyond surprising Emmie in the midst of her betrayal. Acton wanted to call the authorities, expose her to the world, send her to prison. Part of him, the raging deceived madman, wanted that too. But if she went to prison he couldn’t see her pay for turning him into a fawning puppy; he couldn’t force her to beg his forgiveness. God, he wanted to make her feel as stupid and ashamed as he did at this moment.
“Shut up, all of you!” Acton rounded on Valin. “Watch them while I send a servant to the village.” He started up the stairs, tossing a jibe over his shoulder. “It will be gratifying to see this lot in Newgate.”
Emmie and her little band went silent.
Valin blinked and said, “Newgate?”
Acton was almost up the stairs when Valin reacted.
“No.”
Coming back a few steps, Acton said, “I beg your pardon?”
“We’re not sending for a constable.”
“Are you mad?” Acton pointed at Emmie. “That woman tried to rob you. She’s an imposter, a thief, and no doubt a whore.”
Valin turned slowly to his brother and said, “Use that word in connection with her again, sir, and I’ll give you the beating I should have years ago.”
“You’re still besotted,” Acton said. “Lord, Valin, after what she’s done she deserves anything that happens to her. Don’t let her make a fool of you again.”
“I’ve no intention of playing the fool, Acton. I simply want a more personal justice than our authorities provide. Besides, how do you think we’ll appear once this little masquerade is exposed? The scandal will give Aunt Ottoline a brain fever from which she’ll never recover. The rest of the family will never forgive us.”
“But she tried to steal a fortune from us.”
Valin was trying to remain calm, but his pain and rage threatened to erupt at any moment. Emmie’s presence was a goad. She was standing in the dim light wearing a shabby black gown that only served to highlight her appeal, which in turn made him even angrier. He darted a glance at her and found her glaring at him with scorn. How dare she scowl at him as if he were the traitor? He was the injured one. Had she ever behaved honestly
toward him, or had it all been a ruse? Of course it had. Her damned thieves’ cant was more important to her than he was.
“Valin,” Acton said. “What are you going to do?”
“Damnation!” Valin paced back and forth, then stopped near the stairs. “For now we’ll lock them in their rooms. I have to think of some way to avoid scandal for Aunt’s sake.”
“Why don’t you marry her?” Action sneered. “Then she can’t steal from you.”
Valin glanced at him. “You’re such an ass. I’m going to see to it that she never steals from anyone again, but first Miss de Winter will break our engagement.”
“She’ll run away.”
“She won’t get a chance.”
“And after the engagement is broken she can vanish. We can send her to the London authorities. No one will connect a common thief with your fiancée if we’re discreet.”
Valin threw up his hands in exasperation. “You have a devious mind, Acton. I congratulate you. Now will you please stop arguing and help me?”
“Very well.”
Once the decision was made Valin finally felt a measure of calm. Perhaps he was dazed from the shock of Emmie’s perfidiousness.
“Thank you, Acton. Then will you please take Miss de Winter to her room?” Valin retrieved a key from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to his brother. “Lock her in.”
Acton motioned for Emmie to walk ahead of him. As she passed him Valin felt the small breeze created by the sweep of her skirts and smelled honeysuckle. Schooling his feature to impassivity, he looked at her at last. She sailed by him without a glance, and his last view of her was of those drab skirts floating up the stairs and vanishing above his head.
Late the next morning Valin unlocked Emmie’s door and strode into the sitting room. She was dressed and standing at a window. She faced him as he approached, and Betsy came in from the bedroom.
“Ooo,” Betsy said. “It’s his high-and-mightiness.”
Emmie gave her friend a bitter smile. “Don’t be frightened, Betsy. He scowls like a bear with an ague, but he doesn’t bite.”
“If you’re finished babbling, I’ve something to say to you.”
“Chosen a jail for me, have you?” Emmie asked with a sneer.
“Lady Fitchett has found herself called away to London. She left early this morning.”
“Cor, got rid of her, he did,” Betsy said.
Valin gave her an indifferent glance. “You should be grateful I’ve kept up appearances by allowing you to attend your mistress.” He turned to Emmie. “Pack your things. Be ready in an hour.”
He took great satisfaction in leaving without further explanation. Emmie would stew and worry, thinking he’d decided to haul them to the village and hand them over to the constable as Acton had urged. His pleasure didn’t last long, because it was derived from an act of small-minded pettiness of the kind he detested.
Thus his mood was foul when he went down the front steps to find Emmie’s coach waiting, with Emmie and her little band of thieves in their usual places. Acton was already mounted, his revolver stuffed unobtrusively in his waistband. Turnip slouched on the coach box eyeing the gun, but he made no threatening moves.
Emmie stuck her head out the carriage door. “Where are we going?”
Mounting his horse, Valin ignored her and pulled up beside Turnip. “Follow me, and don’t do anything stupid. My brother will be beside you all the way.”
They were almost at their destination when Emmie stuck her head out again and shouted at him.
“You sneaking nobbler, you can’t throw us in there!”
Riding up to the forebuilding of Hartwell Keep, Valin wore a bitter smile. It didn’t take long for him to supervise Turnip in moving Emmie’s luggage into her new room. When Valin returned to the carriage, he ordered the thief to resume his post, then yanked the door open and stuck his head inside.
“Get out, Emmie.”
She gave him a look he’d seen on Russian cavalry officers charging his troops in the Crimea and stayed where she was.
“If I have to carry you, it will be over my shoulder.”
Emmie’s gaze assessed his determination. She sighed and nudged her friend.
“Come along, Betsy. Pilfer, take care when you jump down.”
“They’re not coming,” Valin said.
A chorus of protest ensued. He lifted a brow and brushed his coat aside to reveal his pistol. The volume of the complaints lowered to a continuous, fulminating grumble.
Emmie put her foot on the carriage step and scowled at him. “Where are you taking them?”
“Somewhere where they can’t make mischief for me or help you.”
Valin offered his hand. Emmie slapped it aside and jumped to the ground.
“I give you notice,” she said as she lifted her skirts and climbed the stairs of the forebuilding. “You harm them, and I’ll do for you, I will.”
“It’s quite amusing how quickly you lose your polished accent and cultivated expressions when you’re frightened.”
Emmie rounded on him, looking down from three steps above. “I ain’t frightened, I’m furious at meself for allowing a false, mean, odious villain like you to—”
“To what?”
“Never you mind! I curse the evil wind that blowed you in my direction, I do. And if it’s cultivated expression you want, how’s this one: ‘The villainy you teach me, I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.’ ”
“I’m not the one who’s the villain here.”
With a sniff, she whirled around and marched inside the keep. When he guided her to her new room, she halted on the threshold. He watched her eyes widen and her cheeks lose their color. Then she walked into the room and continued past the giant bed to stand looking out the window. Valin waited for her to say something, to protest, but she remained silent until he was about to close the door and lock her in.
“You really are a bloody bastard, you know.”
She didn’t turn around, and he closed the door softly and turned the key in the lock. He stared at the thick wooden panels of the door, her words echoing in his memory. He detested Emmie more than he ever had Carolina, the only other woman to provoke such a strong emotion from him. He was going to figure out a way to prevent her from working her evil on more unsuspecting gentlemen.
Back at the carriage Acton was waiting for him.
“Valin, this is absurd.”
“What?”
“Allowing these criminals to go free.”
“For the last time, Acton, I won’t have them prosecuted. It would be disastrous for Aunt Ottoline if it were known that she entertained a professional thief, even accepted her as my future wife. We’re taking them to the village. Mr. Leslie is meeting us there with a couple of men who will escort our guests to the nearest port.”
“I cannot believe you’re going to pay for their passage to France,” Acton said with a roll of his eyes.
“It will take them some time to get back, since I’m paying only for one-way passage. Please, Acton, no more discussion.”
“Very well, but you’re too soft.”
In the village Valin’s arrangements went without a hindrance, and two hours after leaving he was back at Hartwell Keep. Acton had gone home to keep Aunt Ottoline company. As he climbed the stairs to Emmie’s new jail cell, he reflected upon how cooperative and sympathetic Acton had been. His brother had been greatly offended by the deceit practiced on Valin and conscious of the mortification and hurt that had resulted. Indeed, Acton was behaving very unlike himself. Perhaps all that had been lacking was some great crisis to bring forth his good qualities. Valin was grateful, for he’d never been so confused or felt so alone.
At this thought gloom descended upon him, a mood darker than the winding stairwell he was climbing. Valin reached Emmie’s room, unlocked it, and gave the door a slight shove. It swung open noiselessly to reveal an unexpected sight. Emmie was standing in a pool of fabric; the yards of her s
ilk skirt formed waves of indigo on the floorboards. The bodice of the gown and a corset lay on the bed.
She hadn’t seen or heard him, or she wouldn’t have continued to remove her delicate chemise. Valin stood in the middle of the doorway, his mouth slightly open in surprise, as Emmie pulled the chemise over her head. Watching her was torture—seeing the pale curves of her hips and breasts. His whole being suffused with his physical reaction to her. It was like swallowing a magic potion that drained all the ugly emotions from him—even his rage—and left only desire.
He must have gasped, because Emmie suddenly looked up and cried out. She stooped, grabbed her skirt and petticoats and shielded herself.
“Rot your soul, Valin North! Get out of here.”
“Don’t screech at me. How was I to know you’d be—”
“Civilized people knock and ask, you bloody fool.”
Valin’s feet seemed to move of their own accord, and he found himself approaching Emmie as she backed away.
“I forgot,” he said. He seemed unable to tear his gaze from her bare shoulders or exorcise the memory of her naked body.
Emmie kicked a length of midnight blue silk out of her way as she moved farther from him. “What kind of gentleman forgets the simplest of courtesies?”
“What kind of lady undresses in the middle of the day?” Only a minuscule portion of his mind heard what she said. The rest was on fire.
“A lady who’s tired of waiting for her luncheon and wants a wash after a dusty trip, that’s what kind.” Emmie bumped into a dresser behind her and edged along it. “You stop where you are, Valin North.”
Valin kept easing toward her and whispered, “Do you know you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen?”
That stopped her. She fluttered her lashes, then said, “I am? But you’ve seen many women. I’m not as pretty as Miss Kingsley. I know I’m not.”
“Miss Kingsley is irritating in her perfection. She’s like a petit four—every tiny curlicue of her icing is molded into place. She hurts my eyes with her perfection.” Valin stopped within touching distance but kept his arms at his sides. “You are real, Emmie. I love your nose, your fingertips, your toes, especially the little one that turns sideways. I love the way your ears turn pink when I kiss you. I love that little scar on your left wrist.”
