“It?” Somewhere along the way it had stopped being the offhanded teasing for sport. Now it was as serious as his next breath, a deliberate provocation designed for the sole purpose of getting her to react to him, the way a woman should react to a man. The exquisite heaviness in his nether regions grew, and with a smile that felt downright predatory Roderick leaned in to look her right in the eye. “Can’t you say sex, Peabody?”
If possible, her blush worsened. “If we have nothing more to discuss, I’ll be going.”
“Come now. It’s just a word.” He was so close he could smell her roses and soap scent. It had to be the most erotic scent he’d ever breathed in. “Say it.”
“Coddington—”
“Say it.” He brushed the pad of his finger along the line of her lower lip to coax the word out, then nearly groaned when her silk-soft mouth opened in helpless invitation at the caress. “Say sex.”
He thought a shudder rippled through her before she caught his wrist and pushed him away. “You think I’m your plaything, do you, Coddington? Well, I assure you I haven’t forgotten who we really are to each other, and I doubt you have, either. You think I’m the heartless thief who stole your precious egg, and I know you’re the man who gleefully brings me closer to a horrific death with every tick of the clock. So if you think you’re going to punish me all the more by humiliating me, there are still some things in this godforsaken life I lead that I simply will not allow. I’ll see myself out.”
Roderick let her go, her words falling around him in the sudden, deafening silence.
Chapter Four
Five days. Five days. Five days.
The chant taunted Cornelia with every step she took on the snow-packed streets. She almost envied the harried, present-toting people on her way to LaJoie of Books And Trinkets. They were so lucky, those good and normal people. How nice it would be if her only concern was finding that special gift for a loved one by Christmas morning. Then she grimaced as she reached the shop. With the life she’d always had to live, she hadn’t a clue what a loved one was.
Which was how she preferred it, by God.
The musty scent of books reached out to embrace Cornelia as the door swung shut on a bell’s merry jingle. A sweep of the store’s interior showed a lone elderly customer browsing through the stacks, so absorbed in his reading he never looked up as Cornelia passed. Out of habit she kept her face averted while her veiled touring hat further covered whatever identity she needed to protect. When she reached the shop’s neat counter, a portly man with a plush red handlebar moustache and monocle emerged from the back room, the ice-smooth pate of his bald head gleaming beneath in the gaslights.
“Good morning.” With a practiced glance around the front room, the round little man ran a hand over his silk brocade vest. “I’m Dumont LaJoie, the proprietor. Do you see something that catches your eye, young lady?”
“I’m looking for a one-of-a-kind item, and I need to find it before Christmas morning, Mr. LaJoie. What’s more, I believe you are the only person who can help me with this rather personal endeavor.”
His eyes widened enough to threaten the stability of the monocle’s resting place. “I’m intrigued. If you’ll follow me, we can discuss this in a more private setting.” With one last glance toward his lone customer, Dumont LaJoie waved her past the sales counter.
“I’m quite taken aback, Cornelia.” Safely ensconced in the privacy of his office, Dumont went straight to an 18th century cherry wood sideboard that held a fussy silver coffee set. “You’re usually a seller, not a buyer.”
Perched on the edge of an ostentatiously gilded armchair, Cornelia accepted the delicate cup and saucer offered to her, not at all surprised the creature comfort-loving shop owner used fine bone china for everyday coffee. “Can’t I enjoy a bit of Christmas shopping like everyone else?”
“That’s just it, my dear. You don’t shop. You take.”
“How selfish you make me sound.” And she didn’t much care for the feeling it gave her. With a twinge of discomfort moving through her, she frowned at her host. “If you don’t approve, I’m sure in the future I can find someone who won’t be so troubled by my ways of conducting business.”
“Now, now, let’s not be hasty. I’m delighted you’re carrying on the family tradition, and happier still you trust me to be the intermediary for your delicate business transactions. Your mother would be proud to see you so successful.”
“My mother was a violent, ham-handed amateur who targeted individuals, whereas I focus on faceless institutions. As such, I’d be obliged if you didn’t attribute my success to any such nonsense as family tradition. My operation is entirely different, make no mistake.”
“Of course.” With a loud clearing of the throat, Dumont LaJoie took a sip of his coffee. “Is it me, or are you in a bit of a mood today?”
Cornelia almost bit his head off before she sighed and set aside her untouched coffee. “I’ve been in a mood for days, which brings me to my reason for being here. I need to locate a specific piece of merchandise, and you are the only one who can help me.”
“Oh?”
“Do you recall a certain Fabergé egg coming into your possession about six months ago?”
Dumont’s bushy brows shot up. “Hard to forget such a rare item.”
“Who did you sell it to, Dewy?”
“Who…? For heaven’s sake, you know I can’t tell you that, my dear. That’s what makes me so successful at what I do. It’s a delicate thing, this high-end resale business.”
“You’re a fence, and I’m a thief who needs to get her hands back on that egg, and I need to do it now.” The words shot out of her like frozen bullets, but she didn’t care. Maybe it was due to Roderick’s diabolical gadget ticking her life away, but she just didn’t have the usual patience—or the stomach—to dance with the euphemisms her kind used to sugarcoat their actions. “I won’t ask again, Dewy. Who was the buyer?”
“I’m not sure how you’ll take it, since you’re interested in reacquiring it.”
Cornelia’s chest squeezed until she couldn’t breathe. “It’s overseas?”
“No, it’s still in town. But it might as well be with the man on the moon, for all its accessibility.”
“You’re stalling, Dewy.”
“Irish Paddy bought it.” At her frozen expression, he reached for a tin of pinwheel cookies and, after his offering gesture was waved away, chose one for himself. “I knew you wouldn’t like it. Forget the egg, Cornelia. No one steals from Irish Paddy and lives to tell the tale.”
Her jaw locked on the retort that she wasn’t destined to live long no matter what she did. One thing was certain—there was no way to outsmart the shackle on her wrist, but she just might be able to use her wits to get around Irish Paddy. All she needed was time to prepare.
Too bad time was one thing she didn’t have.
It was the planning stage that had always set Cornelia apart from her mother and her long-gone passel of smalltime thieves. Her mother’s old gang had never been anything more than second-rate bullies who had taken to blaming the weakest in their drunken, slipshod pack whenever something went wrong. Naturally the weakest had been Cornelia. She had been the only child who made it through the brutality of her mother and her posse; the rest of the children had either died or wound up in workhouses, thanks to being left behind as distractions for the coppers while the adults cut their losses and ran for it. The lesson Cornelia had taken away from such an existence was simple. Survival was all that mattered. And the only way to survive in life was to use her greatest weapon, her brain, while everyone and everything else fell by the wayside as unimportant. If she could stay one step ahead of all who surrounded her, no one would ever get close enough to wound.
It was strangely calming to put her greatest weapon to work now. Since she at last had the name of the egg’s new owner, aggravating though it may be, she could now begin to piece together a way to get it back. For the remainder of the day Cornelia pos
ed as a harried Christmas shopper while casing what all street-wise Bostonians knew to be Irish Paddy’s home. It was a walled-off compound, comprised of two carriage houses, servants’ quarters and a breathtaking, multi-winged mansion, one of the largest in the Beacon Hill neighborhood. She found a cozy bakery at the end of the block across the street from her target, and after ordering a pot of Earl Grey and fresh-from-the-oven currant scones with butter and clotted cream, she retrieved a pair of brass opera glasses from her muff and went to work “bird watching.”
The glasses were a favorite tool; modified so that the outer casing appeared to be consistently pointed upwards, she had made it so the true magnifying mechanism within the brass casing was pointed straight ahead. To a casual observer, it appeared her attention was trained on the sky, when in fact her focus was much more grounded.
By the time the wintery sun dipped into the west and her tea had gone cold, Cornelia had all the information she needed. With her head full of possibilities she made her way home, her eyes automatically skimming over the two white flags blowing in the breeze. Not that those flags meant anything where Roderick Coddington was concerned, she brooded, pushing her way into the brownstone’s foyer. As soon as she got the blasted egg back, she’d have to think about relocating to another place. Maybe another town. Or another state.
The idea of putting as much distance between herself and Roderick made her smile grimly as she headed up the stairs to throw her outerwear on the bed in a room she never used, preferring instead the hidden bed tucked into a wall in her office. That man disturbed her thought processes in every way. Even now she half feared he’d suddenly pop out as she moved into the private WC to flick on lights and run a bath in a claw-footed tub big enough to wallow in. He was nothing like what she’d assumed staid university professors were supposed to be. Conservative only on the outside, Roderick was a dangerous rogue with a hot smile that made her toes curl. A soft snort escaped her as she loosened her hair to tumble about her shoulders. Whoever would have imagined the supposedly straight-laced Professor Coddington could be such a wicked flirt?
And he had been flirting, no doubt about it. Cornelia couldn’t begin to guess what twisted game he’d been playing earlier, with all that verbal seduction. Her traitorous body heated at the memory as she stripped out of her clothing, and as she dipped a toe into the steaming water she cursed the absurd physical response. Of course it was nothing more than embarrassment, she was sure of that. The only thing her questionable upbringing had left her truly ignorant of was how male-female relations worked, or at least male-female relations that could be considered normal. There had never been anything normal in her life. She was pretty certain, however, that if a man was interested in her the last thing he would do was keep her strapped to a lethal weapon.
So Roderick had been playing with her, she decided, gripping the tub on either side and careful to keep the timepiece dry as she slowly lowered herself into the hot water. No surprise there. He was probably hoping she would fall for a sexy line just so he could humiliate her all the—
“Don’t get the timepiece wet!”
Only her childhood training to stay silent in moments of danger kept Cornelia from screeching like a banshee as she started, lost her balance, and splashed into the tub. A tidal wave of water sloshed onto the tiled floor even as she slipped under the surface, and had it not been for her well-developed survival instinct that made her arm shoot straight up to the punched tin ceiling, she would have been totally submerged.
Roderick…?
What the bloody hell was he doing here? How did he get in? Had he forgotten he’d already warned her about getting the timepiece wet? And for the love of God, had he seen her naked? The questions collided into each other like cars on a derailed freight train, one right after another. Before she could find an answer to any of them, an iron hand clamped around the wrist she held aloft and without ceremony, yanked her completely out of the water.
“Y-you…” Blinded by a curtain of sodden hair and choking on a lungful of hot water, Cornelia took a swipe at where she thought a face should be, while horror and vulnerability at wearing only rivulets of water made her want to wail at the top of her lungs. Her wild swing almost made her lose her footing before she was hauled up and thrown over a shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and the raw indignity of it at last uncorked the scream that had been building up, a scream overrun with all the rage and humiliation burning in her veins. As a child she’d been nothing, a thing unworthy of respect, but that was a long time ago. No matter how little he thought of her, she’d be damned if she was going to meekly accept his uncaring insolence as her due.
“You…bastard!” Furious, she kicked her feet and thumped a fist against his back. “How dare you.”
“Stop struggling, you idiot.” Roderick’s hard voice was the same as it had been that first night, but the hand smacking against her wet, bare backside was something new. Shock at the brief sting jolted her into stillness, followed instantaneously by a flush of heat the likes of which she had never felt before, not even when she’d been stricken with fever three winters ago. It was as though the surface of her skin had become hypersensitive and hot enough to scorch, and a slick melting between her thighs tingled with a tight, unbearable pleasure that made her squirm against him. Horrified her enemy could spark such a wanton response from her traitorous body, she screamed all the louder even as the world cartwheeled. With her backside aglow with what felt like the bright red imprint of his hand, she hit her bed’s mattress with a bounce. She rolled with the momentum, caught up her muff as she did so, and by the time she was upright again she had the tri-barreled Lady Derringer in one hand, and the muff as a flimsy shield in the other.
By God, if he was stupid enough to make a muff joke now, no court in the land would convict her.
The look he gave the tiny gun spoke volumes of contempt. “This again, Peabody? I never should have given that toy back to you.”
“Your mistake.” The hammer being pulled back into place sounded as loud as a Christmas cracker. She took bitter pleasure in the widening of his eyes. “And it’s not quite the same situation as the other night. This time I will kill anyone who would dare touch my person without permission. Never again will I lose that sort of control. Now get out, before I tire of refraining from pulling this trigger.”
For what seemed like a small eternity he simply looked at her. Her face flamed at how much of her he was actually seeing, but out of sheer cussedness she refused to let him know her cringing horror. No doubt he would find ways to make her humiliation worse, she thought in trembling fury, but as she searched his aquamarine eyes she didn’t see malicious intent. What she saw…what she saw…
Was all-out, full-throttle desire.
With a jerk of his head, Roderick surged for the door. “Just keep the timepiece dry. We wouldn’t want anything to go off prematurely, would we?”
She frowned at the heavy meaning in his words, and it wasn’t until he was gone did she think to wonder what the devil he was doing there in the first place.
Chapter Five
Naked. He’d seen her completely, beautifully naked.
And by damn, he’d even gotten to spank her.
As if he were a clockwork automaton, Roderick found himself in the kitchen of his enemy, pulling out random elements from her icebox and getting to work. He’d always enjoyed cooking—the precision of it, the step-by-step process of bringing separate components together to create a symphonic whole. It was what he usually did to calm himself when he was worked up.
At the moment he was the living definition of the phrase, with the emphasis, of course, on up.
Had there ever been a more spectacular woman?
Roderick’s jaw knotted. The insistent throb of desire was a sweet, never-ending ache in his nether regions, so pure in its intensity it made his thighs shake, and it infuriated him. Was this fire in his pants really for the woman he knew was nothing but a canker upon the world? Did he really have such lo
w standards?
His brain didn’t, to be sure. Another part of his anatomy, however, didn’t seem to give a damn who she was.
A growl escaped Roderick as he made quick work of quartering a chicken and double-dredging it in egg and breading of his own creation. Spectacular to look at she might be, but there was a viper inside, he reminded himself while the savory scent of frying chicken perfumed the air. And Cornelia Peabody, despite her charming hang-ups and dangerous intellect that could no doubt run circles around him, was still nothing more than a thief.
A thief with milk-pale, rose-tipped breasts and an indented waist made for a man’s hands to span.
A thief possessing an earthy curve of hip that flowed right into the firmest bubble bum he had ever seen, an ass he would have had to have been blind and dead from the waist down not to notice right from the beginning.
A thief whose beautiful body was covered in a roadmap of scars.
Another sound escaped his throat as he turned the chicken over before he set about making vinaigrette for a salad. The scars themselves didn’t bother him—there was no way her innate feminine beauty could be dimmed by those marks. Their existence, however, bothered him out of all proportion. Few people could have survived a whipping like what she clearly had suffered. Damn it all, in this enlightened age no human should know what it was to be beaten so brutally. Violence against women—even against Cornelia—was something he couldn’t stand.
So speaks the man who swore to all and sundry he would bring about her death in five days’ time, he thought, the scent of the chicken turning his stomach. Damn him to everlasting hell for being such a hypocrite. He was no better than the mindless brute who had covered that fragile body in scars.
“I thought I told you to get out.”
A Clockwork Christmas Page 4
