Wicked As Sin

by Jillian Hunter

  He had absolutely no wish to be caught again by Merry, or even worse by another guest, who would understandably assume that Gabriel was up to no good. He was going to be married in a few days. Alethea would never believe he was innocent. And who would blame her?

  “I think I ought to leave,” he said hastily. “I assume that the lady is seeking you. Quite frankly, you’re welcome to her.” He glanced back at the masked guest, who had darted furtively into the dressing room. “Wait a minute,” he muttered. “Don’t you dare leave me alone with the woman who has gone to all this trouble to invite you to her bed.”

  The man’s cloaked shoulders shook with laughter. “Her bed?” He locked the dressing room door and whirled about to open the casement window, which overlooked an alley crammed with small carriages, hackneys, and carts. “May I ask a favor of you?”

  Gabriel came a few steps closer, snorting in amusement. How the hell had he ended up in this coil? “You aren’t going to jump?”

  “Yes, I am. I’ve enjoyed chatting with you, but I’m afraid we’ll have to continue our conversation at another time.”

  The bolt creaked as it was manipulated by jimmy or skeleton key. Gabriel glanced around and noticed only then that two of the drawers in the veneered cabinet had not been pushed back properly into place.

  “You’re a burglar,” he said in disgust. “You aren’t anyone’s lover and you aren’t part of any Boscastle conspiracy.”

  The man laughed again, backing to the window frame. “Perhaps not the conspiracy you were thinking of. It was good to see you again. I regret I won’t be able to attend your wedding. Your bride is very beautiful, as I recall. It occurs to me that you’ve done well for yourself.”

  Gabriel wrenched his dagger from his boot. “And it occurs to me that I shouldn’t be so bloody cordial with a housebreaker.”

  “You, Gabriel—on the side of moral rectitude? I wish I could stay and discover how this happened to the rugged little brother I so fondly recall. I think I’m proud of you. One day you’ll have to explain how this came about.”

  “Brother—you. You!”

  The door opened and a brunette, also masked and dressed in an elaborate Elizabethan costume, crept in cautious degrees across the room. “Where are you, demon?” she whispered in a low voice. “I’ve been following you all night.”

  “She doesn’t sound very friendly for a partner,” Gabriel said wryly, leaning against the wall.

  “Don’t give me away.”

  “The hell I won’t. Why should I help you? You never bloody did anything for me.”

  “I’ll return the favor.” The man’s white teeth gleamed in a familiar grin, and Gabriel lowered his knife.

  “You bastard. You’re the Mayfair rogue I’ve been taking the blame for.”

  “Lovely to see you, too, Gabriel.”

  And the cloaked figure dropped from a rope that had been secured to the sill, dangled for two seconds in midair, then landed in a crouch on a cart filled with hay.

  Another man emerged from the alley and jumped onto the cart to drive a pair of piebald ponies. Gabriel cursed and watched the night shadows enfold them until he felt the unmistakable muzzle of a pistol dig into his ribs.

  “Turn around slowly with your hands lifted. I swear I’ll shoot you if you leap from another window tonight. How did you change your clothes so fast?”

  Chapter Forty-one

  At six o’clock on that same Thursday night, Alethea had been whisked from her brother’s Cavendish Square town house into one of the most impressive carriages it had ever been her pleasure to behold. The younger sister of an earl, she was not as easily awed as one accustomed to trundling about in a post chaise. By the time two solicitous footmen had settled her inside the vehicle, its team of six white horses whinnying in aristocratic impatience, a crowd of curiosity-seekers had gathered at the pavement to observe.

  Someone wondered aloud whether the Marquess of Sedgecroft had set himself up with a mistress.

  She stuck her head out the window, and said, “Indeed he has not. He is faithful to the marchioness.”

  One of those gathered happened to be her cousin, Lady Pontsby, who had just returned from a lecture with her husband. She gave Alethea a nod of approval, raised her nose in the air, and curtly instructed the onlookers to allow her to pass. When this attempt failed, a tall, intimidating footman strode from the parked carriage, his heels clicking, and haughtily demanded that she and her husband be let through.

  “Do you mind telling me where I am to be taken?” Alethea asked of this formidable person, recognizing him as the senior footman to the marquess, the very one who had guided her through the secret corridors of his master’s house.

  He was bewigged, long-nosed, and solicitous to this lovely young lady whom he had been informed was to become a desirable link in the Boscastle dynasty.

  His name was Weed, he said, a fact she already knew. He revealed that he had a brother named Thistle, who was also in Boscastle service, and that there was no task too trivial for them, or for those beneath them, to undertake if it added to Alethea’s ease.

  Thereupon he made a thorough inspection of the spacious carriage’s interior as if to certify her comfortable ensconcement. All apparently met his standards, until his shrewd gaze lit upon her worn blue satin slippers.

  She thought she heard his breath gurgle as if he would choke. Her cheeks turned hot, even though there probably wasn’t a single shoe in her entire wardrobe that did not bear some stain, scuff, or loose heel.

  “Am I being taken to meet the marquess?” she asked, suddenly anxious at the prospect of a private meeting when a few moments ago she had been quite composed. There was no reason to be afraid of meeting Grayson again, but all this fuss bespoke an importance that unnerved her.

  “No, my lady,” he said gravely. “You have been invited to a light collation with the marchioness and the other ladies of the family.”

  “Oh, dear. I’m not sure I am properly dressed for the occasion.” As Alethea remembered her, the marchioness could have posed for a fashion plate.

  Weed rapped upon the roof, his smile reassuring. “We shall make one short detour, then all shall be well.”

  Alethea snuggled beneath the ermine-lined lap blanket offered for her comfort, recognizing herself in good hands. If Weed had any other relatives besides Thistle available for employment, such as Dandelion, Burdock, or Thorn, she would, with the family’s approval, beg them to enter her husband’s service. The prospect of returning to Helbourne Hall in its appalling condition and bringing up Gabriel’s children there made her frown.

  The carriage rolled through the streets and presently came to a darkened shop. She peered outside, not at all surprised when a light flickered in the shop’s upper windows and a person soon after beckoned Weed inside from the door below. Scarcely did five minutes elapse before the senior footman returned with two boxes, which he gently deposited on the seat opposite her.

  “Courtesy of Lady Sedgecroft.”

  The carriage set off once again. She stared out at the street and saw a young man, a stranger, sitting on the pavement. He stared at her in awe. From the day she had witnessed Gabriel’s humiliation at the pillory, she had not taken a single carriage ride during which she failed to think of him. Even when she was happily engaged to another. Even when she knew Gabriel was far away, fighting alongside her brother, and his cousins.

  Perhaps she would always have a tender haven in her heart for those lost, wicked boys and the girls who could not help loving them. And Gabriel seemed to share this empathy, for although he did not want to admit to any softness in his nature, she had found out before leaving Helbourne that he had taken his namesake under his wing.

  At length, the carriage slowed. She glanced down, realizing that the boxes brought from Weed were meant to be opened.

  “Are you ready to be escorted inside, my lady?” Weed asked from outside the carriage window.

  She quickly opened the first box and found amidst a
delightful extravagance of tissue paper a pair of gray silk pumps. The second box held a light silver cashmere shawl that sparkled with the subtle radiance of a cobweb on a midsummer eve.

  She slipped on the shoes and then the shawl, a perfect complement to her storm-blue dress, and answered, “I am ready, but—this isn’t the marquess’s main residence.”

  Weed bowed and handed her down onto the sidewalk. “It is the home of his eldest brother, Lord Heath, my lady.”

  “Lord Heath,” she exclaimed, her eyes widening. She had not made his acquaintance at Grayson’s party, but in the country Alethea and the vicar’s wife had enjoyed a good giggle over the infamous cartoon of Lord Heath’s private pieces that his wife had drawn in jest only to lose and find circulated throughout England.

  “Oh, dear,” she murmured. “He’s the intimidating one, isn’t he? The one the family calls the Sphinx.”

  “Lord Heath is not at home,” Weed informed her, his thin lips curling into what might have been meant to be a smile. “His wife and the other ladies of the family are waiting to receive you.”

  Indeed, it was Julia, Heath’s wife, who held the floor in the drawing room for Alethea’s welcome. Actually, the gathering seemed more like an initiation into a coven of becoming young witches. She did not know what it said for her character that she felt right at home in their gossipy circle, as she had the afternoon they had embraced her. The ladies paused in the middle of their conversation to greet Alethea and offer her a choice of beverages. The moment she was seated, their lively exchange resumed.

  “The Boscastle men are devious,” Julia announced with her wineglass raised in the air for emphasis.

  “I take exception to that,” Chloe Boscastle said from the sofa, where she lay with her head propped upon her sister-in-law Jane’s shoulder. “Boscastle women are devious, too. We have a long-standing reputation for cunning developed as a means of self-defense.”

  “Jane and I were not born Boscastles,” Julia said, pouring a glass of wine for Alethea. “But I do think we are devious.”

  “That proves my theory,” Chloe said. “The Boscastle men have forced you to become guileful.”

  “I was guileful before I met Grayson,” Jane admitted with a sly smile. “My reputation would have been ruined had I not married him.”

  “But it was a Boscastle male who forced you into deception in the first place,” Julia said.

  Jane shrugged. “True. Oh, I do like your shawl and slippers, Alethea.”

  “Thank you,” Alethea said with a grateful smile. “They’re ever so perfect.”

  “Alethea has a flawless reputation,” Chloe said. “Or do you have a dark secret to confide?”

  “She shouldn’t confide anything until after the wedding,” Jane said. “And I feel obliged to mention that our absent member, Emma, up to her dainty nose in ducal affairs, takes exception to the reputation of the entire family, male or female.”

  “The point that we were trying to make before you arrived,” Chloe said, wagging her finger in Alethea’s direction, “is that the Boscastle male—any male, really—must be trained from the very start. I trust you realize the task that awaits you. Gabriel has lived quite a hard life. But then so has my Dominic.”

  Alethea opened her mouth. “Well, I—”

  “She has accomplished more than any of us here dared to hope,” Julia interjected. “No one ever thought Gabriel would be tamed.”

  Chloe’s blue eyes flashed in mischief. “Tell us about how you first met him, Alethea. We all of us thought Gabriel would never fall in love. You country girls are so quiet, but the country is where I got into the best trouble of my life.”

  Charlotte Boscastle waved her pencil in the air in a bid for attention. She was a willowy blonde who had recently been promoted to the position of headmistress in the young ladies’ academy her cousin Emma had maintained in this very house until her marriage to the Duke of Scarfield, a title he had inherited two months ago. “Speak slowly if you don’t mind. I am recording the family history for posterity.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  Gabriel slipped his knife inside his sleeve, allowing the lady in the dressing closet to approach him before he turned in amusement and captured her hand in his. “That’s close enough, love. More than a chat is by invitation only. And I don’t believe we’ve had a proper meet.”

  She wrenched her wrist back hard, as if she expected him to fight to hold her. When he didn’t, her eyes narrowed behind the mask she wore. Had she and his long-lost brother attended a masquerade together for the purpose of breaking into another Mayfair home? Were they partners in criminal ventures? He listened for the rumble of the cart in the street. All he heard was a soft burst of unladylike curses addressing the matter of his ancestry.

  “You aren’t him,” she whispered in exasperation.

  “Who would I not be?” he asked, waiting for her to enlighten him on the last decade or so of his brother Sebastien’s life.

  She moved to the window, ignoring his question. Gabriel didn’t follow her, instead studying the pistol he had confiscated from her grasp. He didn’t need to identify the other man, of course, but he was curious what she knew of his brother. He could have told her that Sebastien had been a great one for mastering escapes since the day he could ride.

  She looked around at him accusingly. “You let him go. Do you have any notion who he is?”

  He had more than a notion. “I don’t know who you are, or why you wanted to shoot him.”

  “I didn’t, actually.”

  “Then why—”

  “It’s probably better that you never find out.” She narrowed her eyes again behind her mask. Her hair was escaping the edges of her hood. “You look uncannily like him.”

  “Do I? Well, I can’t argue or disagree, having only seen him in disguise.” He paused. “You don’t mind telling me why you’re both dressed like that, do you?”

  “We went to a masquerade party,” she said slowly. “Our host sent us on a treasure hunt.”

  “Ah. And you broke into this house instead of simply knocking at the door and requesting help from the owner?”

  “Not exactly. We’re not stealing anything. The rules of the game are that we keep our identities secret.”

  “Why did your companion run from you then?”

  “We’re in competition, of course. I’m afraid I cannot give you any more answers.”

  “You’re going to have to answer to the authorities.”

  Gabriel glanced at the tall cabinet against the wall of the dressing closet, and suddenly noticed that a folded letter had been caught in the uneven seams of the two partially open drawers.

  He shifted his weight to shield her view of the cabinet. When her gaze shot right to it, he knew she and Sebastien were on no ordinary treasure hunt. And that theirs was no innocent masquerade.

  He sensed her tension. Perhaps he could have used it to extract more information from her, but suddenly they were not alone.

  Another person had entered the outer room, a woman calling playfully, “Gabriel, is that you waiting for me? In my bedchamber? Why, you wicked darling, what changed your mind?”

  Merry, good God above. He glimpsed her through the crack in the closet door and grimaced. Nobody in the world would believe that he hadn’t come here for an assignation. No one would believe that he’d caught two strangers in the act of what he didn’t know, and that one of them had been his brother.

  And the other—

  He turned his head. His brother’s companion had vanished, just like that, stealthy as a cat. He swore under his breath and stepped to the window, watched her shimmy down the rope and land agilely on her feet, her cumbersome skirts billowing.

  “What’s going on in here?” a man demanded in the background.

  He backed away from the window. Merry was now standing behind him, talking excitedly to his host, Timothy. Gabriel looked at her, relieved that she had not done anything stupid such as starting to undress while he was distra
cted.

  He motioned Timothy into the closet. “I heard something break in the bedroom and saw a man skulking about in here on my way to the card room. I thought he looked suspicious so I followed him to investigate. He just escaped. Look.”

  Timothy and Merry crowded beside him, the three of them staring down at the rope that fell to the street.

  Timothy glanced up at Gabriel in gratitude. “We might have all been murdered over brandy had it not been for you, Boscastle.”

  “Gabriel,” Merry said in a crafty voice. “There are rumors that you have been pilfering gentlewomen’s drawers in Mayfair the past few months.”

  Gabriel smiled. “A charming fabrication. I am engaged, heart and soul, to a beautiful lady. I have no interest in pilfering any other woman’s drawers.”

  “Not those sort of drawers,” Timothy said wryly. “The villain in question has been rifling through—”

  The three of them turned simultaneously and stared at the letter protruding from Merry’s chest of drawers. “My private correspondences,” she exclaimed in horror. “If anyone publishes those—”

  “—your price shall rise on the market, and I shall not be able to afford you,” Timothy said over her shoulder.

  “Are you truly the man the authorities are searching for, Gabriel?” she asked, surreptitiously tucking the letter back into the drawer.

  Timothy snorted. “Of course he isn’t. I do wonder though, Gabriel, whether you had a good enough look at this intruder to help the runners identify him. Do watch Merry for me while I call a footman to summon help.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  Sir Gabriel answered every question the runners put to him as honestly as he could.

  Did he know the intruder?

  No. Gabriel did not know his brother at all. He was a stranger to him, and that was exactly what he said.

  Could he recognize him in a crowd?

  Unlikely. And if he did, he would not stop to renew their relationship. Nor did he bother to mention the mysterious woman who had appeared to be following Sebastien.