by Amelia Grey
Relief washed down Mr. Smith’s face. “Yes, that is how I knew he had them. I mentioned the gentlemen only because I wanted you to know the reason I have no pearls to show you. I would be pleased to notify you when I can obtain more pearls. I would consider it an honor to have something you wanted.”
She rose. “That would be lovely. Thank you, Mr. Smith.”
He swept his hand across all the jewels that lay on the desk in front of her and questioned, “Did you not find anything to your liking? I have more.”
Mr. Smith went back to the safe. It was clear he didn’t like the idea of a possible sale slipping away. “Oh, but I did find something I wanted,” she said with a smile. “I am delighted that I found the old music scores. My companion will pay you for them. She will leave you my card so you can send me a note should you get more music or pearls.”
The man beamed and bowed graciously, knowing he’d made the only sale he was going to get from her today but pleased he might have other opportunities in the future.
“Most assuredly. I am always available to be at your service, Your Grace.”
Susannah nodded and started threading her way back to the front door. She wanted to get away from the intense citrus scent and clear her thoughts and pounding head.
She hoped she wasn’t being gullible but she believed everything Mr. Smith had told her. She had watched him closely and concentrated on his eyes and his mannerisms, not how well he could do things with only one arm. She was almost positive he didn’t have the Talbot pearls. His story about Captain Spyglass and Race rang true. His recounting matched with what Race had told her the first day they met. She remembered Race saying the antiquities dealer wanted to buy the pearls for a client.
For now, at least, she felt confident in marking Mr. Smith off the list of possible suspects. She had no doubts that, if he’d had the necklace, he would have shown it to her. So that left Mr. Harold Winston and Captain Spyglass for her to deal with. And she had to factor in that there was always the possibility of someone else who hadn’t revealed himself to Race the way she, Captain Spyglass, and Mr. Winston had.
Susannah nodded to Mr. Helms as she walked past him. The bell on the door jangled as Susannah stepped onto the boardwalk that ran along the street, leaving Mrs. Princeton to deal with Mr. Smith and the scores. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, hoping the damp air would clear the heavy smell of incense from her mind and clear her head, if not her clothing.
“Susannah?”
Her eyes popped open, and she found herself staring into Race’s troubled eyes. After their angry parting earlier that morning, it stunned her that her heart still fluttered uncontrollably at the sight of him.
She took a step away from him. A light breeze feathered his hair across his forehead, making him amazingly attractive, and she winced from the emptiness in the pit of her stomach.
A deep frown creased his forehead and around his eyes. “Why am I not surprised to see you here?” he asked.
She took in another deep breath to fortify herself. “Probably for the same reason I am not surprised to see you here. I do not take kindly to your following me, my lord.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Following you? Is that what you think? I wasn’t, but I can see that I should have. I came here to see if Smith had closed his shop and escaped London with my grandmother’s pearls. What excuse do you have for being here?”
She had to admit that, once again, the circumstances made her appear guilty. “Perhaps it was your grandmother’s dear friend, Lord Chesterfield, who said, ‘Looks can be deceiving.’”
Concern edged his features, and he said, “Susannah, the man inside that shop deals with criminals. If you had nothing to do with the theft of the pearls, you should have no dealings with that man.”
“If?” she exclaimed. She held out her empty hands, unable to keep from defending herself yet again. “Do I look like I have any pearls on my person? I have no pockets on this cape and none on my dress. I don’t even have a reticule with me today.” She untied the satin ribbon that held her cape together and flung it off her shoulders and draped it over her arm. “And as you can see, I have no pearls around my neck.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Do you really not know, my lord?” she asked incredulously. “I am here because I know I do not have the pearls, and the only way I can prove I don’t have them, or that I don’t know who has them, is to find them myself, which is what I intend to do. If you suspected Mr. Smith might have the pearls, reason should tell you that I would suspect the same thing.”
Race’s gaze pierced hers. “This is a dangerous game you are playing.”
She whipped her cape around and fitted it onto her shoulders again.
“But play it I must.” She remained firm and collected. “And have no doubts that I am playing for keeps. I intend to find that necklace, and when I do, mark my words, my lord, I will keep it.”
“Did you tell him the pearls had been stolen?”
She blinked rapidly. “Of course not. I merely asked to see what jewels he had, and he has no pearls, because Captain Spyglass bought them all.”
Race stepped closer to her, his gaze fixed tightly on hers. In a low voice he said, “I will not let you put yourself at risk over this.”
Anger rose up inside her. Anger for the way he had made her feel last night. Anger because he was now pretending to care about her well-being. Anger because she had an aching sense of despair because she would never feel his touch again.
Susannah suddenly jerked her head so close to Race’s face he flinched. “How dare you think you have any control over me. You cannot stop me from doing anything I choose to do. I am mistress over my own life, and I can take care of myself. I will thank you to stay away from me.”
Susannah heard the door jingle behind her and knew Mrs. Princeton had come out of the shop. She glanced over her shoulder to her companion. “Come along, Mrs. Princeton. The day is getting late, and we have a party to get ready for.”
Fourteen
My Dearest Grandson Alexander,
I found these words in an old letter Lord Chesterfield once wrote: “I am now privileged by my age to taste and think for myself and not to care what other people think of me in those respects, an advantage which youth, among its many advantages, hath not.”
Your loving Grandmother, Lady Elder
RACE SAT IN THE FAR CORNER AT THE TAPROOM OF The Rusty Nail, feeling a loneliness he had never experienced before. He felt cold and empty inside, and he hadn’t been able to shake the fact that, no matter how he tried to convince himself differently, he had behaved like a first-class bastard to Susannah earlier that morning and not any better when he’d seen her coming out of Smith’s Antique Shop just a few hours ago.
It was late afternoon and raining. The damp air held a chill, and he was mindlessly watching a servant stoking the fire he’d just built in the fireplace, and listening to raucous laughter and balls pinging together in the billiards room nearby. Race was still trying to swallow the bad taste his encounter with Susannah left in his mouth, but not even his drink was helping.
Perhaps he hadn’t had enough wine.
Yet.
No doubt as the evening wore on that would change. Perhaps it had been a justifiable reaction at first that he had considered her an accomplice to the theft, but why hadn’t he simply believed her when she’d denied it? He should have. Perhaps it was the fact that the evidence pointed to her as being the most likely suspect.
But now he was rethinking that, and the guilt he felt for accusing her so fiercely bore down on him like a heavy weight.
After he left her house that morning and returned home to dress, he’d found himself stopping whatever task he was doing, be it buttoning his riding breeches or tying his neckcloth, and he would start thinking about his night in Susannah’s arms. It staggered him that, on the one hand, his body felt immensely satisfied from their lovemaking, and on the other, he desired her once again with
an all-consuming fire that defied his being able to explain it. He couldn’t get the memory of their night together off his mind.
Somehow, she had bewitched him.
He swirled the dark red wine around in his glass. Race shook his head, cleared his throat, and took another sip of his wine. It was past time for him to compose himself and to deal with Susannah and the theft rationally. For some reason, uncharacteristically, he hadn’t yet put all the facts into perspective.
Susannah had truly looked shocked when he accused her of stealing the pearls. She was definitely angry he had stormed into her bedchamber without thought for her reputation. She had been right when she told him the theft was his fault. And later that morning, she was convincing when she said she would find the pearls, and she would keep them.
Now he was beginning to see what he had been unable to see earlier. Susannah was not part of the theft, and she was willing to put herself in danger to find the pearls.
Her desire was not news to him. She had freely told him she wanted the necklace. What made him think she wanted it badly enough to steal, when she had been trying to get him to look at the documents she had brought to prove the pearls had been stolen from her family? Documents he’d never looked at.
Was it because of what he was feeling for her that the mere thought she might have betrayed him turned him into a madman? He didn’t know why he had jumped to the wrong conclusions based on flimsy evidence.
He hadn’t told her he would leave his door unlocked, and she certainly wouldn’t have arranged an elaborate plan to steal the pearls just on the assumption that he’d be so eager to get in her bed he wouldn’t remember to lock the door. He knew all that now, but now it might be too late.
He picked up his wine and drank again. Over the rim of the glass, he saw his cousins sauntering into the taproom together, impeccably dressed and both looking like the proud, titled gentlemen they were.
They pulled out chairs and sat down as he placed his wine on the table. Race motioned for the server to bring over two glasses.
“What has Gibby done now?” Blake asked, folding his arms across his chest and tilting his chair on its back legs.
“Gibby?” Race questioned.
“Isn’t he the reason you summoned us here?” Morgan asked.
For a brief moment, Race had forgotten they didn’t know why he sent word for them to meet him here in this quiet and exclusive gentleman’s club not far from White’s. He supposed he would have to tell Gib about the stolen pearls, too, though he dreaded it. Gibby had always idolized their grandmother, and he didn’t like anyone saying or doing anything to disturb her memory.
Race brushed an imaginary crumb from the table and then sat back in his chair. Issuing an audible sigh, he said, “No, Gib is not the reason I wanted to see you.”
“What else could have you looking so glum?” Blake asked as the server put two glasses on the table in front of them and poured wine into both.
“Leave the bottle,” Race said.
Morgan grinned. “This must be serious. You look like you’ve lost your two best and only friends, and we know that can’t be true, because here we sit right in front of you.”
“I didn’t lose my friends,” Race said flatly. “I lost something else. My safe was robbed last night.”
“What?” his cousins said in unison as the front legs of Blake’s chair hit the floor with a thud.
“The contents of my safe were cleaned out last night, including Grandmother’s pearls.”
“Damnation,” Blake said.
“Bloody hell,” Morgan whispered. “What the devil happened? Did no one in the house hear the thief breaking in?”
“Was it one of your servants?”
“I don’t think so,” Race said quietly, looking from one cousin to the other. “No one had to break in. The back door was left unlocked.”
“I hope you turned off the bloody servant who was careless enough to do that,” Blake said.
“Unfortunately, I’m the one who left the door unlocked.”
“You?” Morgan questioned.
Race nodded.
Blake shrugged. “Locking up is one of the reasons we have servants. I know they are all careless at times. That’s just the way of it. It’s not your fault. Don’t be too hard on yourself. We expect our homes to be sacrosanct.”
“The thief must be a servant,” Morgan argued. “There can’t be that many people who know where your safe is located or how to get into it. I’d venture to say that most of your servants know.”
“All the servants had already been dismissed for the night when I went out the back door and left it unlocked.”
“And someone just happened to know you left the door unlocked?” Blake questioned.
Morgan rubbed his temple and studied over that comment. “I agree. That seems a bit far-fetched to me, unless someone has been watching your house, just waiting for it to be vulnerable.”
“Wait. Something’s not right,” Blake said, drumming his fingers on the table. “Why do I get the feeling there is something more to this story than you are telling us?”
“Like, who knew you would be going out and leaving it unlocked?” Morgan asked.
“A woman?” Blake said, catching on to Morgan’s line of thinking.
“Maybe Susannah?” Morgan offered.
Blake’s forehead wrinkled. “The duchess? How?”
Race remained quiet.
Morgan took a sip of his drink and then looked at Blake and responded, “Easy. She lives in the house directly behind him, and something tells me she knew he would be with her.”
The corners of Blake’s lips lifted in a knowing grin. “As in all night?”
“Most of it, anyway,” Morgan offered.
“You two can be such bloody blackguards,” Race mumbled.
Blake landed a fist on the table with a thump. “So she lured you into her bed, and then she had someone sneak into your house and pilfer what she came to Town for. She got the pearls.”
“I thought so at first, but not any more. There are other, more likely suspects,” Race countered, not wanting his cousins to condemn Susannah as he had.
“But if not Susannah, who?” Blake queried.
“I don’t know the answer to that yet.”
“But we do know whom she was in bed with,” Morgan remarked slyly. “Did she give you that little scratch under your eye?”
Race reached up and touched the scrape he’d received on his cheek while crawling through the hedge after he’d left Susannah’s house that morning. That cut was minor compared to some of the ones on his chest and back. He looked like he’d been in a fight with a cat and lost.
Race didn’t want to discuss Susannah with his cousins. He had to tell them the necklace had been stolen, but he didn’t have to tell them anything else about Susannah.
Blake picked up his wine glass and took a sip. “Have you been to see the magistrate?”
“Not yet and may not for a time. I will be having some things done that he wouldn’t approve of. I spent most of the afternoon with a man on Bow Street, named Mr. Walter Bickerman.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Blake said. “He has one of the best reputations of all the runners.”
Race nodded. “He immediately dispatched men to watch Spyglass’s and Winston’s residences, Smith’s shop, and Spyglass’s ship, The Golden Pearl, which as of a short time ago was still in the harbor. They will be followed wherever they go, even if they leave Town. That way we’ll know where they are at all times.”
“I think I’m missing something.” Morgan paused and rubbed the area between his eyes with his thumb. “How is following them going to get the pearls back?”
Blake rested his forearm on the table. “It stands to reason that, if Spyglass is the thief, he will now prepare to leave Town, since obtaining the pearls seems to be the only reason he came to London.”
“I would think all of them are smart enough not to run the minute they got their hands on the pearl
s,” Morgan offered. “That would be like waving a flag and saying they were guilty.”
“Bickerman and I discussed that. But we thought it was better to have the houses, shop, and ship watched anyway, to be safe. He is going to hire a man who can go in and search for safes and hiding places and try to find the pearls.”
“Now that sounds like the right thing to do,” Morgan said.
“And the reason the magistrate doesn’t need to know about this.”
Race swallowed wine past a tight throat. “Yes. I wanted to go in and check the safes myself, but Bickerman reminded me of a very important point. I wouldn’t know how to open their safes even if I found where they were hidden.”
Blake tilted his chair back again. “Yes, our grandmother saw that we were taught how to ride, play cards, and shoot, but not how to open a safe. How thoughtless.”
“I don’t think our grandmother intended for us to rob anyone,” Race countered dryly. “The good thing is that Bickerman knows of a man who can do just that, and he’s going to employ him for me.”
“Someone who knows how to break into a house and open safes?” Morgan asked. “Who is he?”
Race chuckled ruefully. “He wouldn’t tell me, of course. People who can do that sort of thing don’t want too many people knowing they can do it. It’s against the law, you know. Bickerman knows how badly I want the pearls back, and he wants the money I’ve promised when he finds them.”
“So, I suppose the possibility that the duchess might be in on this will end your affair with her,” Blake said.
Morgan picked up the wine bottle and topped off their glasses. “I’m sure it will. Remember Lord Chesterfield said that ‘Love ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret.’ We know about his liaison with her, so what fun could it be for him now?”
Blake agreed with a nod and said, “But I was just remembering one of Chesterfield’s other quotes. ‘Hatred is by far the longest pleasure; men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.’”
“Damn both of you,” Race muttered. “You know good and well Chesterfield never said either of those things. You’re both making them up just to get me riled, as if I wasn’t already.”
