The Undercover Scoundrel

by Jessica Peterson

  And yet here she was, rising to the touch of the man whose memory had tortured her for a decade.

  Despite his size and limp, Henry moved as if on air. His steps were confident, smooth. She wondered where he’d learned to waltz; in which corner of the world had Henry thrilled other women with his surefootedness, his steely command?

  In the circle of his arms she felt safe and stranded. She felt lost and more than a little strange, as if it all were a dream: not entirely unpleasant, but certainly impossible—thrillingly, terribly so. She’d already woken once to find him gone. She was not fool enough to do so again.

  Besides, she was widowed, and possessed of a hard-won freedom she would not give up for the likes of Henry.

  But oh, that look in his eye . . .

  Her stays felt too tight, suddenly, and Caroline struggled to breathe. She stumbled, but Henry was quick to right her.

  Just when Caroline thought she might swoon, or die, or both, an enormous clatter reverberated through the ballroom. It was a throaty, tinkling sound. Henry froze; Caroline bumped her nose against the inviting little slope of chest where his collarbones met. They both turned at once in the direction of the noise; a wave of stunned silence washed over the crush.

  There, on the far wall of the ballroom, a handful of figures costumed in black crashed through the high arched windows, showering the crowd below with broken glass. The figures somersaulted through the air before coming to land—impossibly!—on the monumental chandeliers spanning the length of the room. Pistols held high in their hands, they wrapped their arms and legs about the gilded cables from which the fixtures hung.

  Caroline and Henry together ducked at the one-two-three discharge of the guns; the acrid smell of gunpowder filled the room. She cried out, and Henry held her head to his breast, covering her ear with his hand. With her heart in her throat, she watched the intruders pull knives from their belts, and begin sawing at the cables.

  “Oh my God,” Caroline murmured, and on cue the ballroom erupted in a cacophony of screams, shouts, prayers to our Lord and Savior.

  An ominous groan crackled above her head. She looked up and saw an intruder leap from the chandelier to land solidly on the ground beside them; he took off into the crowd. A moment later the chandelier bore down upon their heads.

  “Oh my God,” she said again, backing away.

  Henry pulled her against him from behind, her back to his front, and with his arm about her waist pressed her to the ground, shielding her body with his own just as the chandelier hit the floor with a shuddering, monumental crash.

  The ballroom was plunged into darkness.

  Her shoulder was in his mouth and his knee was wedged between her thighs and she could hardly breathe. Not for the weight of him—though that was no small consideration—but for the shock of so much sudden, searing closeness.

  For half a heartbeat, Henry lay sprawled atop her, chest rising and falling against her back as he struggled to catch his breath. She could feel the scattershot thump thump thump of his heart through the hardened expanse of his breastbone.

  Caroline wondered if he could feel her heart.

  She dearly hoped he couldn’t. It would give her away.

  Another half heartbeat later, he was propping himself up on elbows and knees, his knees planted on either side of her hips. She turned over. His wig had thankfully disappeared, and his long, pale hair hung down about his face and tickled her nose.

  “Are you,” he panted, tucking the strands behind his ear, “all right?”

  Caroline swallowed. Around them people were scrambling, screaming. “I believe so. What’s—who—?”

  “I don’t know,” he said grimly, glancing over his shoulder. “But we’ve got to get you out of here. Now.”

  He hovered above her, blocking out the night, the world, surrounding her in a heady mix of sight and sound and scent. His green eye stood out boldly against the darkness, wide as he looked at her, and looked, and kept looking.

  The look—that look!—in his eye made her belly fall to the backs of her knees. No one had looked at her like that in years; intently, softly, as if he liked what he saw, and wanted more of it. As if he wanted her. She struggled not to look away; the onslaught was unbearably brash.

  Caroline could see the small droplets of sweat that dotted his eyebrows and temples; the smooth, vexingly inviting flesh of his lips.

  No.

  The word rose up through her with propulsive force. She had to remember he’d left her, remember all he’d taken and what he’d left behind.

  With surprising agility—hadn’t Henry been limping when she saw him in the park this afternoon?—he leapt to his feet and pulled Caroline up beside him. People pressed and pushed against them in an attempt to flee; Caroline looked over the crowd to see three black figures making a beeline for the far side of the room.

  Her gaze followed them through the darkness. Where the devil were they going? Who—what—were they after?

  A red-blue spark, a white flash of brilliance caught Caroline’s eye.

  The French Blue.

  Of course.

  Those scalawags were after Hope’s diamond!

  “Oh my God,” Caroline said for what felt like the hundredth time. “They’re after Hope’s diamond!”

  She watched in mute horror as the thieves pounced upon the blue-eyed woman wearing the gem. Beside her, William struggled to push them off, his arms swinging, fists battering against the assault.

  Henry palmed the back of Caroline’s neck, placing his fingers and thumbs gently—if firmly—on the outside slopes of her throat.

  He dipped his head. “We’ve got to go,” he murmured in her ear.

  She pointed across the room. “But William! They’re attacking him. And the diamond—”

  “The diamond is gone. Let’s go.”

  Caroline looked up at the sudden edge in Henry’s voice. She started; his face had transformed, seemingly within the space of a single heartbeat, into a mask of rage; his mouth was drawn into a tight line.

  She followed his gaze back to the woman and her brother. The thieves had all but disappeared, and the lady’s hands were clutching her bare throat. She was shouting something, crying, and then she promptly bent at the waist and appeared to empty the contents of her stomach onto William’s shoes.

  Well, then.

  Caroline turned back to Henry. He was watching the pair of them—William and that woman—intently, his eye flashing with something she’d never seen in him before. Something that looked like suspicion.

  She drew back. “Wait, wait. Are you—do you know about—?”

  “Let’s go.”

  Henry pushed her forward into the crowd, one hand at her neck as he stalked through the chaos beside her. Using his free arm, he cut a path for them across the ballroom; together they ducked through a pair of doors out onto the terrace.

  Like frightened children, Hope’s guests flitted about the terrace in circles, knocking one another down, bumping into the balustrade. One poor fellow had even managed to get his head stuck between two stone balusters; he wept softly while beside him his wife, hands on her hips, chastised him through gritted teeth.

  “Come,” Lake said, pulling Caroline toward the edge of the terrace. “Here.”

  “Here?” Caroline peered over the balustrade. “You mean for us to—?”

  “Yes.” He placed his hands on the stone railing and lifted himself onto its edge. “Don’t worry, it’s not as far down as it looks.”

  “You’ve done this before?”

  “Just this afternoon.”

  Before she could protest, he flung himself from the railing into the pit of darkness below. Some seconds later she heard a small crunch—the gravel beneath his boots.

  “Henry!” she cried. “Henry, are you all right? Good heavens, are you even alive?”

>   “Alive and well!” came the reply. “Your turn.”

  “My turn?”

  “Your turn. Jump.”

  Caroline squinted into the darkness. Far—very far—below, she could make out Henry’s massive shape. His arms were akimbo, fists on his hips; he was looking up at her, intently.

  “I can’t jump that far,” she said.

  “I’ll catch you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You must. Now that those bastards—pardon me, my lady. Ahem. Now that those blackguards have what they came for, they might wreak other kinds of havoc. Kinds I cannot mention in your presence.”

  Caroline glanced over her shoulder. The scene behind her was like something out of a particularly melodramatic opera; inside the ballroom, a woman’s wig had caught fire and she dashed about madly, arms outstretched.

  Caroline looked back down at Henry and swallowed.

  “All right,” she said. “I’m coming!”

  With shaking limbs Caroline climbed over the balustrade. Henry held out his hands.

  “Are you sure you can catch me?” Her voice shook.

  She could hear the smile in his reply. “Let’s hope so.”

  Caroline screwed her eyes shut. She let go of the balustrade behind her.

  For a moment she hovered on the ledge of the terrace, and then she was falling, falling, her stomach in her throat as her arms flailed inelegantly above her head.

  She landed heavily in Henry’s arms. Her skirts had flown up to her ears, and the padded skeleton of her panniers had somehow detached from her waist and now hung from the tip of her satin slipper. She felt the heat of Henry’s palm on the back of her naked knee.

  She was naked.

  Well, practically.

  And she was in his arms.

  “Oh,” she said, struggling against her gown. “Oh, dear, this won’t do, blasted thing, I should’ve never—”

  She freed her face from her skirts and met Henry’s gaze. He was looking at her like that again. Like he had no right to. Like he shouldn’t.

  There was a violent rush of heat to her face as she elbowed her way to her feet, kicking the panniers off her toe.

  Henry nodded to her skirts. “Might I?”

  “You might—may—might most certainly not,” she said, straightening them the best she could. Which was not very well at all.

  Henry reached down anyway and gave her gown a firm tug. It traitorously rearranged into a close version of its former self.

  He straightened before her; he stood very close, looming over her in the darkness.

  Oh God, she thought. Oh God, what now?

  Caroline looked anywhere but at him. They were at the back of Hope’s mansion; she could smell the mews, hear the horses stomping and crying out at the chaos upstairs.

  She was wondering what the devil to do next when a handful of slight figures appeared at the balustrade on the terrace.

  The thieves.

  Without thinking, Caroline took Henry’s hand and squeezed, pointing up.

  In half a heartbeat Henry was tugging her toward the mews; she reached out to grab her panniers from the ground just in time. He moved quickly, his long legs affording him an enormous stride. Caroline tripped behind him in an effort to keep pace.

  Now the warmth of his palm was seeping through the fine kidskin of her glove.

  Henry drew up short when they entered the mews. They were as much a disaster as the ballroom. Grooms scurried about, shouting directions to waiting coachmen; the coachmen shouted back with curses that made Caroline’s ears ring.

  “This way,” Henry murmured, shoving aside a groom as he led Caroline to a nearby stall. In one of its dark corners, a glistening black mare cowered, her eyes wide and wet.

  Henry opened the stall door, quietly removing a saddle from its hook as he began cooing to the horse.

  “You’re going to steal Mr. Hope’s horse?” she whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Oh, all right. You’re sure he won’t—ah—mind?”

  Hope aside, the horse certainly did mind; when Henry approached she reared up onto her hind legs and, kicking against the stable walls, screamed.

  So, too, did a nearby groom, who rushed toward them with shouts that put the coachmen’s expletives to shame.

  “Oh dear,” Caroline said, backing away.

  Henry threw down the saddle and ducked beneath the groom’s swinging fist. With savage ferocity, he caught the man’s arm and twisted it, hard, behind his back, until the poor groom whimpered for his mummy. Henry tossed him aside and was about to pick up the saddle when another groom appeared, and another.

  Henry groaned aloud. Caroline looked from Henry to the grooms and back again.

  She looked down at the twisted mess of her panniers in her hand.

  She looked back up at the grooms.

  Across the stable she met Henry’s gaze.

  And then with all her might, she launched the panniers at the grooms.

  Tangled in a mess of wire hoops and misshapen pads, the grooms were, for a moment, too stunned to do much of anything.

  Henry didn’t waste a second. He leapt over their wrangling mass and, taking Caroline’s hand in his, made for the exit.

  They both turned at the thunderous sound of an approaching horse. For a moment Henry’s face hardened, and before she knew what he was about, he was pressing her into the shadows beside a nearby stall, urging her to silence with a finger at his lips.

  She ventured a peek past the stall’s rough-hewn wall.

  Mr. Thomas Hope, their magnanimous and thoroughly costumed host, drew up his enormous horse before Henry. A very pretty—and very young—woman sat astride the saddle in front of him, her diaphanous gown drawn up about her knees. Hope held her firmly against him, his front to her back; the fists in which he held the reins rested on the slope of her hips. There was something about the way he held her—the ease of his touch, the color in his cheeks—that made Caroline wonder who, exactly, she was, and what she meant to London’s most eccentric, and richest, banker.

  Hands on his own hips, Henry glared at Hope. Even though Hope sat atop his horse, Henry’s sheer size, the burning look in his eye, made it appear as if he were staring Hope down, rather than the other way around.

  “Hope,” he said, “what the devil is thi—?”

  The banker held up a hand. “You head east, toward the Thames. The thieves are nimble and likely faster than we’ll ever be on horseback or even on foot. Tell no one what has occurred this night. Godspeed.”

  But Henry did not make to move, and neither did Hope; for an overlong moment they stared one another down, the air crackling with—well, Caroline didn’t exactly know what it was, except that it was hard and heavy and probably not good.

  She drew a shaking breath as she turned back into the shadows. She’d known Henry was some sort of agent or other, an officer in His Majesty’s Alien Office. She knew his trade was secretive and often dangerous; she knew he was probably a spy or a pirate or, in her adolescent late-night fantasies, both.

  Still, the reality of it shocked her. First his appearance in Hyde Park, his hand tucked into his waistcoat; there was that look he’d given her brother across the ballroom, and now this charged exchange with Thomas Hope.

  Never mind Henry’s reappearance in England after all this time. Why was he here? In what sort of sinister web of deceit and daring was he ensnared?

  She waited, breathless, until the thunder of hoof beats filled the stable once more. She felt faint with relief.

  Henry was at her side then, holding out his hand. She took it.

  “Why hide me from Hope?” she asked, following him as he led her out of the mews. “And who was that girl? Why is she with him if he’s going after the diamond?”

  Henry’s mouth was a tight line a
gain. “You don’t want to know.”

  “About the girl? Or the diamond?”

  “Both. Neither. Come.”

  He led her out into the night, their arms clasped between them as they scurried across Duchess Street and away from the crowd surrounding Hope’s limestone manse.

  The air felt blessedly cool against Caroline’s skin. It was a fine evening, the sky soft and close, like velvet. She closed her eyes and lost herself in the sensations of this moment: fresh air, warm night, the scent of spice and lemons—Henry’s scent—filling her head.

  Her eyes flew open at the sound of an approaching carriage.

  She looked over her shoulder to see an enormous lacquered vehicle bearing down upon them. A nearby gas lamp illuminated a familiar coat of arms splayed proudly across the carriage door.

  The Harclay coat of arms.

  Good God, it was her brother, William! If he saw her, he’d have her head; if he saw her in the company of Henry Beaton Lake, he’d have his head, too.

  “Quickly!” she hissed, breaking into a run. “It’s my brother!”

  Henry did not hesitate. His limp all but disappeared, he fell in line beside Caroline, and together they dashed down the street, careening into a nearby alley.

  They ran down one lane after another, Henry guiding them through Mayfair’s carefully kept squares and its less so lanes and mews. Heart thumping giddily inside her chest, Caroline followed him into a small, if charming, square somewhere west of Regent Street.

  Or at least she thought it was west of Regent Street; how much the city had changed since she’d been here last, all those years ago!

  Henry stopped before the redbrick façade of a stately town house, a single gas lamp flickering beside its shiny black door; the windows were all dark, save for one on the top floor.

  Together, Henry and Caroline bent over and placed their hands on their knees, gasping at the cool night air.

  “Why,” Henry panted, “are you. Running from your. Brother?”

  Caroline looked up. “You don’t. Want to know.”

  One side of his mouth curled into a grin, revealing the curve of a dimple in his cheek. For a second Caroline felt dizzy; that grin, and good heavens that dimple, was charming beyond measure.