Loving Lady Lazuli (London Jewel Thieves Book 1)

by Shehanne Moore

  The fire? What a swine.

  “You mean now, Lord Hawley. I see.” She shifted her gaze from the embroidered leaf on his waistcoat to the trailing ivy. “But what about eating supper first—”

  “You think I should feed you as well?”

  She lowered her gaze from the trailing ivy. Fire? Door? The latter certainly was what any woman in their right mind would choose.

  If she did that though, she’d lose the papers. Did she want her dreams going up in smoke just because he had set this vile condition? “I may, of course, be mistaken, but I think you did say we would eat first?”

  “In some ways that’s probably the root of the problem. You think too much for someone I brought here solely to entertain me.”

  “But I thought I was being entertaining, Lord Hawley.”

  “That depends,” he muttered.

  That she had made him angry, this man whose boredom seemed to stretch like a clothes line all the way to his soul, was clear.

  So now she must decide what she faced him as. The woman brimming with coldly burning contempt for his plunder of what he took? Or the one who didn’t want him to know how damned stupid and ignorant Sapphire, queen of thieves, truly was?

  Her heart thudded. There was no point thinking it, buttons were made to be unfastened, and the sooner she unfastened hers the better.

  Snagging a breath, she unhooked the clasp at the neck of her dress. Ever since she’d glimpsed him standing at the library door, he had unnerved her. This was one instant she must, she would, keep her hands from shaking.

  She drew her gown off her shoulders. A sharp ache in her wrists made her aware how tightly she clutched the material as she stepped out of the mass swirling at her feet. Then she bent to ease off her ankle boots, one at a time, so she stood in her stockinged soles. What came next in the brittle silence, she’d no idea.

  Sapphire would think of many things. In that moment she did not feel she was Sapphire, that creature of ice and certainty who feared nothing. In that moment what she felt largely was sick. Who was to say he wouldn’t now ask her what she was doing and tell her to put the gown back on again when she’d been so awkward?

  “There,” she murmured, smoothing stray tendrils of hair back from her face.

  “Miss Armstrong, I—”

  “There is absolutely no need to seem astonished by my ability to be amenable. I think you will find that I can and will do whatever you ask. Well. Within reason. And just because I wasn’t entertaining, doesn’t mean I can’t be.”

  Of course, she understood that standing here in this God awful shift, corset, and petticoat she had argued with Ruby about, feeling brittle enough to snap into a thousand pieces, she wasn’t the most appetizing thing in the world. But so long as he overlooked that, it was fine.

  “Yes? Or no, Lord Hawley? Didn’t we make a bargain after all?” Lifting her chin a little higher, she faced him fully in the candlelight. “But perhaps you are the one who now desires to break it? If you do, well … I do know where the door is, since you’ve been good enough to point it out.”

  So? What next? Her hair? Or the corset? She hesitated, feeling an instant’s unease flicker beneath her marbled veins.

  Of course, a few scars where she’d been beaten were nothing. But she was Sapphire. And Sapphire had her own limitless appeal, living in people’s imaginations. Did she want this specimen knowing she had been beaten into stealing? Any more than she wanted him knowing how inexperienced she was?

  Worse would be his pity. The leering pretense of it rather, since she doubted the man had a pitying inch of bone in his whole body. Half a quarter inch neither.

  In that respect it was better she forget what he took from her and hurry this along as the masterful Sapphire. So, it must be her hair. She reached up, grasped a pin, and stuck the edge between her teeth. Then she grasped another. And another.

  “You know that Christmas Eve, it was—”

  “A wig.” How could he remember that? “As Sapphire I kept my hair short. A footman. A lady. Whatever the mark. Whatever the plan. That was how it worked. I may as well say I’m surprised you recognized me.”

  “Perhaps because I had my reasons.”

  Her cheeks flooded with unwelcome heat. Was she that good? Somehow she doubted it. Still, despite the fact she’d left those emeralds in his pocket, a boy of that age would scarcely have been terribly troubled about it. Did it make her work here easier, or harder though, if after all the years he remembered, not just her, but what had licked up between them in the hot darkness of that coach? A world away from this night.

  Suddenly she didn’t know, and while she tried to think, he stepped closer. Her heart pounded like a blacksmith’s hammer.

  “Then you should be careful, Lord Hawley. Next you’ll be telling me how hard you tried to find me.”

  His face held that sleek, distant quality. “You have no idea.”

  He reached his knuckle towards her.

  “What are you—”

  “I am just wondering how you are going to kiss me with a mouthful of pins. Or maybe that’s part of the plan?”

  Her eyes widened. Even before he’d caught them between his fingers, her lips had fallen open so most of the pins spilled. Except for one, which she clamped her shocked lips shut on.

  Bending his head he caught it, expertly. Standing there, while his mouth brushed hers, the faint feel of his breath mingling with her own, as opposed to her sinking to the floor in a heap of white cotton, was an exercise in willpower even she had never known.

  Her heart skipped a beat as he rolled the pin on his tongue, another as he turned his head. When he flicked it onto the rug, then bent his head in order to cover her mouth with his, only years of careful training allowed her to keep her face a mask—just.

  Only for the papers did she do this. Only for the papers.

  Because whatever kind of man he was, he was the one who could have let her see these papers for nothing. So she could not let him be one she suddenly felt she could never get enough of. His lips anyway. Especially when he was also the man she must bed.

  His arms came around her back. The movement was unexpected. So much so she wished she could control her legs and they wouldn’t quiver. But what was she meant to do, wrap them round him so he could carry her to the bed with her legs splayed?

  To her horror, his hand came down and clasped her buttock, as if that was her intention.

  Never mind the intimate situation it put her in. What if she toppled and then he had to pick her up from the floor? What if he got down on the floor with her? What if he glimpsed what was under that sofa?

  She’d no choice but to attempt it. Except she’d honestly not expected, while winding one leg, for her other to stick. Why the hell had she worn the stupid petticoat?

  “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

  “I—I’ll walk.”

  “Walk?”

  “Yes.”

  His brows drew together. He sometimes limped, but was she meant to let him drop her on the floor so she ended doing likewise? Trying to be seductive was bad enough. She didn’t want a broken leg to add to her trouble.

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  He swung her up. She held her breath as the bed glided into her vision.

  “Thank you, Lord Hawley. I—”

  Setting her down, he shucked off his coat. “Do you always talk this much as a rule? Not that your voice isn’t music to my ears. I’d just prefer if we could get on with this. Now.”

  His maroon neck-cloth followed his coat. He certainly was in a hurry. And hurry was good. Especially fevered, impassioned hurry. What he’d just said about doing things as a rule had caused uncertainty to sweep her skin. As a rule, she’d not done any of this.

  “Yes. Yes, of course. Just tell me what—”

  “Shhh. When a moment’s so perfect, don’t … don’t spoil it.”

  He tore his shirt over his head, and her alarm about perfection extended to what emerged, if only f
or the second she was permitted to glimpse his golden, sleekly muscled beauty, before his mouth descended on hers. His hands, hotly caressing and knowing, were everywhere—on the sides of her face, her arms, her waist. And not, so far, anywhere they shouldn’t be. Although so far, anyway, she wouldn’t have known if they were.

  What gripped her in that instant was a panic about everything. Darkness descended as she closed her eyes. Of course she should answer the sweeping foray of his tongue with a thrust of her own. It would make her look very practiced.

  That was what this was about. Jewel cases were more her specialty, but in some respects, a man’s trouser’s buttons were very much the same thing. She took a breath, reached between their bodies. Where she had learned this from she’d no idea. Her upbringing had been very checkered though as this afternoon had shown when she’d lost it ever so slightly.

  She undid, she grasped, she kept her inner self intact.

  If she could just get her hands on the damned buttons, without there being some sort of repeat of what had happened a second ago when she’d tried wrapping her legs round him. She couldn’t.

  She flicked open one eye. When she thought of what he took from her here, it was awful that heat glazed his eyes. Could she at least moan so she was giving him some kind of response?

  Believing darkness lent her invincibility, she closed her eyes again and found the buttons. Softened, her face would look seductive, and a certain amount of seductiveness would outweigh the fact the damn button was stuck. How could that be?

  He moved his hand the length of her leg, his palms skimming her stocking top, then the bare expanse of flesh above. The touch was cool enough to force another groan. A breathy one she was not in control of. Ridiculous, when part of her, the part that didn’t want to do this, squirmed, bracing for his assault.

  Trembling, she grabbed his wrist. It seemed better he didn’t touch her. She was more green woman than green girl, although what spiked in her very center said she wasn’t as green as all that. What spiked her center made pleasurable ripples fizz in her blood. How could she enjoy—how could she anything—giving herself for a set of papers? What were these few hurried movements he now made regarding his trousers about?

  His eyes glazed, his ragged breathing hot against her face. Her body shrank from the smooth pressure of his erection against her thigh as much as it welcomed it. Her heart thudded fit to burst from her ribcage, the practical details of her shocking lack of knowledge, things she knew she must disguise. Quite how, except by clasping the sides of his face and pressing her lips to his, she’d no idea.

  The breath retreated into the furthest corners of her lungs. The initial burning shock of her sensitive flesh being pierced almost forced a groan. She froze. Not showing it, was all that counted because she didn’t expect to experience anything, except shock, as if she were drowning and there was no air in her lungs, just icy water. Her eyes widened.

  Frankly? Sex was a lot of talk about nothing at all. After all, it was easier, when she was so ignorant, to let him do whatever he wanted, to just lie here and …

  “Jesus … Great …”

  Whatever it was she was doing, at least he was happy. Just listen to him. Not just an exclamation of joy, a compliment of her prowess, a stopping to admire it, a look, so darkly impassioned her heart stuttered against her ribcage, missing all manner of beats.

  “Yes? Lord Hawley?”

  “Are you a virgin?”

  A virgin? The cheek when she thought of what she gave him here, all she gave him here and how it killed her. Killed her so her tears boiled dry. Here she was doing her level best to be seductive and moan and all these things, after all that had happened to her today too, and all he could do was insult her. She smacked her hand off his jaw before she could stop it. The noise cracked like a whip in the softly candlelit room. “How dare you insult me.”

  He tilted his jaw. How stupid to have struck him. It was even stupider when she wanted to see these papers, which were firmly in his possession. Shouldn’t she just have cleaved to the insult that, for all her fumbling, fingering and moaning, she plainly couldn’t do this for toffee? She was a thief. Not a seductress.

  What if he now sent her packing? Was it so clever to lose this magnificent opportunity, the only one to come her way in weeks, because he’d plainly grasped Sapphire’s little secret? The one she’d wanted to keep in every respect.

  Mustering herself, she cleared her throat. “Nevertheless, you may continue.”

  He could, couldn’t he? She was not going to argue about it, no matter what it cost to let him. They finished this, she saw the papers, that was that. All that mattered was exiting this situation with her pride and dignity intact.

  Frustration, thinly-veiled irritation, was written all over his handsome face, the straight brows, the even straighter lips, the perfectly sculpted lines of his body. He drew backward, then off the bed and readjusted his trousers. Sighing, he retrieved his neck-cloth and his shirt. If he did that, this wasn’t continuing.

  Silence followed him all the way to the linked door and she swallowed the hot sticky constriction in her throat, dread holding her immobile as the handle turned.

  “Thank you, but I don’t think I will, Miss Armstrong.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  After stepping past the entrance to the library, Devorlane stepped back. The movement was not just against his better judgment, but after last night, instinct screamed not to. The only saving grace, when his feet did it anyway, was his boots were noiseless on the tiled floor. He was on his way out, a ride to clear his head, freshen his body of the chills that had swept it all night. He’d no idea of the time. The darkness outside didn’t tell him a thing, not at this time of the year with Christmas four weeks off. But the library was lit and in the grate a smoldering fire offset the chill of the cavernous room with its quiet corners and arched alcoves.

  She was dressed as ever in black. Was he mistaken to think the bodice of this dress was lower, displaying the faintest hint of creamy cleavage? Not that it should matter a damn whether she displayed cleavage or not.

  If his gaze, his interest, merely rested on the cleavage, that would be bad enough. He was bound even by the tilt of her head, the line of her neck, as she sat there at the table. Last night her hair had spilled loose about her face, this morning it was tied, if not particularly tightly, with a piece of black ribbon at the nape of her creamy neck.

  He bit his lip. Why hadn’t she just left? Taken the papers and vanished into the same kind of thin air Sapphire had that Christmas Eve.

  Tilting his jaw, he exhaled faintly. He could and should have locked the damn boxes up. To be truthful though, when he’d strode back into his bedroom last night and locked the door, those papers were the last thing on his mind.

  Not that virgins troubled him terribly. Had he known the truth when he’d made that bargain with her, though? He shook his head to gather himself. At the very least he wouldn’t have been so impatient when she’d insisted on walking to the bed, after the fiasco with her legs. Desperation had overpowered him.

  He narrowed his eyes as they appraised the soft swell of her breast. Yes, he had felt the need to move the encounter along, quite unusually for him. It was that or walk out, feeling she didn’t want him. At that point he wasn’t for walking out because her wanting him wasn’t what this was about. Not just that. He never fumbled like a fifteen year old, even when he’d been fifteen himself. Last night he’d fumbled.

  Of course, she’d denied being a virgin.

  Of course, she’d every reason to. She was Sapphire.

  Again his eyes appraised her. Bargain? So far she hadn’t been very damn much of one had she? Well? All right, he’d feel a hell of a lot better about the encounter and his own lack of restraint, and the fact she was here at all, if she’d smacked her hand off his jaw because she was telling the truth. He had insulted her.

  The last thing in the world Devorlane wanted to do was step over the threshold, so what the hell
was he doing not just over it, but across the library floor as well? Why should he stand there feeling badly about last night though? About the whole bargain he’d struck with her, come to that, if she was a virgin? Anyway that damned provocative scent of hers had him magnetized. He was standing beside her, inhaling it before he knew it.

  “Prove it.”

  Her gaze licked sideways, then it licked back onto the papers, as if she regretted not taking them and bolting while she had the chance. Good. He needed this creature to be at his mercy, not the other way about. It was just unfortunate, when he needed that so badly, the memory of that moment when he’d fleetingly possessed her made his blood pound with longing. Virgins didn’t do that to him as a rule.

  “And a good morning to you too, Lord Hawley.”

  “Is it?”

  “Well, whether it is or not, to answer your other question, it’s early days.”

  “We both know the papers aren’t what I’m talking about.”

  No. Her virginity was what they were talking about, which was why the faint blush that crept over her cheekbones was so satisfying.

  “Of course, it is very clear such things don’t interest you.”

  “But they must interest you, or you wouldn’t still be here given my terms. Or maybe you think I’m going to let you away with anything because you’re London’s premiere jewel thief? Dressing as you did last night. Arguing like a fish-wife. And let’s not talk about the fact you’re incapable of keeping your hands to yourself.”

  It was true. Bringing her here had at least disabused him of one thing: the tiny flickering notion he pitied her.

  He wagered the desire she must have to strike him—probably with the papers—warred within her against the possibility of being bundled on the next coach for London, without them. Unless she meant to knock him unconscious with the box itself, as the stare she cast it, then him, said. Several moments’ worth of ticking clocks and crackling logs and shadows seemed to advance across the rug. Clearing her throat, she pushed the chair back.

  “Lock the door, Lord Hawley.”