by Merry Farmer
The ram’s headed man jerked up to stare at Herrington. It was difficult to tell, but Nigel thought his eyes went wide behind his mask. “They’d notice,” he grumbled, seemingly offended. “Of course, they’d notice.” He snatched up the two cups of punch he’d poured, then dashed out of the room.
A second too late, Nigel recognized the man’s voice and identified him—Wallace Newman, one of the other suspects high on his list. His stomach lurched, and he took a step as if to follow Newman. But then he hesitated. He wasn’t finished with Herrington yet.
Herrington, however, was finished with him. He clapped Nigel on the shoulder and said, “The wolf is off to hunt, and I’ve seen quite a few tasty birds as prey. I hear the best ones are hiding upstairs. Wish me luck.”
Herrington strode out of the room. Nigel followed him, fully intending to stop him and drag him aside for more questions. But he was stopped in the hallway by a man wearing a mask of eagle’s feathers.
“Wait, I know you,” the man said in a rich baritone.
Nigel was forced to stop, mostly because he recognized the man in return. “Lord Lichfield,” he said with a slight, grudging bow. Yet another man high on his list. Perhaps all was not lost with Herrington’s departure. “What brings you here this evening?”
Lichfield laughed. “The same as the rest of us.” He shrugged. “Free wine, free food, and women who are free with their favors.”
“You can’t pay for all that yourself?” Nigel asked.
Lichfield’s mouth quirked into a grin below his mask. “I certainly can, but it’s not about the blunt, is it? It’s about the thrill of the chase, the rush of excitement that comes from doing something devilish.”
Nigel’s pulse sped up. Perhaps Lichfield was the thief after all. Herrington was desperate for the money, but some men were wicked for the sheer thrill of it. Lichfield did have a certain reputation amongst the ladies. Perhaps this was another outlet for that addiction to the thrill.
“Have you seen what Khan has on offer?” Lichfield thumped Nigel on the back and drew him into the ballroom where the main activity of the evening was taking place. At least, the main public activity. “He’s presented us with a variety of gems to choose from.”
Nigel’s senses flashed to the alert. Why would Lichfield use those words if he wasn’t focused on jewels, on diamonds? “Very nice,” he said, letting himself be immersed in the revelry.
The noisy, crowded room was filled with a hundred distractions—from drunken guests to sensual, naked women. Instinct gripped Nigel at the sight of so much exposed flesh, and within minutes, he was semi-erect. He gritted his teeth and tried to scold his body into business, but after the intensity with which he’d been pining for Rebecca—and he wasn’t too proud to admit he’d been pining, his cock had been hard as pine for days—he couldn’t help but be aroused by his surroundings.
But he was there to work, not to lose himself in the pleasures of the senses. The thief had to be there. He ran through the list of suspects in his mind as he took up a position close enough to the door that he’d be able to spot anyone leaving in a hurry but far enough away that he wouldn’t appear menacing. Khan routinely invited all manner of society to his bacchanals. London was filled with scandalous revelries any given night of the week, but Khan’s had a reputation for the exotic as well as for debauchery. They always drew an interesting crowd.
A particularly crude bark of female laughter caught Nigel’s attention, and he glanced across the room to find none other than Miss Dobson, the owner and headmistress of Rebecca’s school, smack in the middle of the debauchery. His brows shot up, particularly when Miss Dobson slurred, “Well, if you say so, your lordship,” and handed her glass of punch to one of the gentlemen crowding around her. She then proceeded to tug her bodice down until her flabby tits spilled over the edge.
Nigel grimaced, but the men leering at Miss Dobson seemed to like the display. Nigel made a note to investigate who exactly Miss Dobson was, why she owned a so-called school that was little more than a holding-pen for women of large fortune who had gotten into trouble, and why Khan had invited her to his festivities.
He took one step toward Khan—who was holding court at the other end of the room with a certain set of bare-breasted, blonde twins with a reputation for debauchery that made even Nigel pale—when Herrington returned to the room. It wasn’t Herrington’s return that froze him in his tracks, though, but rather the woman who had rushed into the room right before him.
“Rebecca?” he muttered. His pulse pounded, and his half-erection started toward a full one. She was obviously out of place, dressed as she was, but her mask seemed to hint that she was there to participate. Nigel’s gut tensed with rage as Herrington sidled up behind her, reaching under her cloak and whispering something in her ear as he stood too close.
A split-second later, a few more pieces flew into place. Rebecca couldn’t be there to participate. She was still dressed in her school uniform. Even with a mask, he could see she was shocked by what she’d seen. She must have come through the secret passageway for some reason. But why would she—
“Hold on. Where did you get one of my uniforms?” Miss Dobson asked in a voice loud enough and sloshed enough to draw attention from half the people in the room.
“Is it?” Rebecca squeaked. “I don’t know…I didn’t…that is, I found it….”
“Let’s get you out of that uniform,” Herrington said, reaching for the clasp of the cloak at Rebecca’s neck.
At the same time, Miss Dobson slurred, “I know your voice.”
Nigel shot into action, a combination of anxiety and pure, unadulterated jealousy fueling him. He marched toward Rebecca and Herrington, blocking Rebecca from Miss Dobson’s view.
“There you are,” he said when he reached Rebecca. He scooped her right out of Herrington’s arms as carefully as he could without causing a bruising tug-o-war. “I’ve been searching everywhere for you.”
Recognition dawned in Rebecca’s eyes as soon as she glanced up at him, and she breathed a noticeable sigh of relief. “You see?” she told Herrington, clinging to Nigel’s side. “I told you I was here to meet someone.”
“Lucky devil.” Herrington backed away, his hands raised in graceful concession, but Nigel still felt like pounding the man in the face. Herrington winked at Rebecca behind his wolfish mask. “Let me know when you’re done and I’ll show you what a real man can do.”
Yes, Herrington definitely deserved a bloodied nose. Nigel’s certainty that he was the diamond thief grew. He sent Herrington a warning look before whisking Rebecca out of the room and around the corner to a secluded alcove.
“What are you doing here?” he hissed, careful not to be overheard.
Rebecca seemed to sense the need for secrecy. “I snuck over to see if I could learn more about the diamond thief. There’s more that I didn’t have a chance to tell you the other day. The thief has a half-moon—”
“Where did she go?” Miss Dobson’s voice echoed from the doorway to the ballroom. “I swear I know her.”
Nigel leaned into Rebecca, pinning her against the wall of the alcove and slanting his mouth over hers, both to stop her from talking and to shield her from Miss Dobson. His intent was purely defensive, but the moment their lips met, the need he’d been feeling for days welled up in him. It didn’t help that Rebecca sighed and threw her arms around him without a moment’s hesitation.
Sense and purpose fled as Nigel devoured her. He thrust his tongue against hers, taking what he needed so desperately. He wedged his knee between her legs, pinning her further and rendering her helpless. He planted one hand against the wall for balance, but slipped the other under her cloak to squeeze her breast. He would have ripped her high-necked bodice so that he could touch her bare flesh, but then Rebecca would have had to explain the damaged gown.
That suddenly rational thought, combined with Miss Dobson’s continued complaint of, “I could swear she was one of mine, but they’re all locked in the
ir rooms. How could one of my charges be in attendance?” helped him to remember his purpose. As soon as Miss Dobson was whisked upstairs by two of her companions, Nigel straightened, panting.
“We need to go somewhere we won’t be interrupted,” he said, reluctantly letting Rebecca go.
Rebecca lurched forward with all the coordination of a wet rag. She sagged against Nigel, her eyes bright and her lips swollen and red. For a moment, the sounds that came from her lips were more pleading for them to resume their activity than anything else. They finally coalesced into words when she said, “Upstairs.”
Nigel nodded. He grasped her around the waist and set her fully on her feet. A burst of laughter from the ballroom served to bring her fully to her senses, though. She swallowed, grabbed his hand, then hurried down the hall with him to the staircase, then up to the first floor. They climbed another flight of stairs to the second floor, then she tugged him down a hallway filled with rooms Nigel guessed were either where the East India Company’s guest stayed before returning to the subcontinent or, judging by some of the sounds he heard, where revelers came to have a moment of privacy.
“In here,” Rebecca whispered at last.
She led him into a small room with a chaise that was contoured specifically for carnal activity. The chaise was draped with cloaks like the one Rebecca wore, and a basket of masks sat on a table. It must have been a dressing room for guests who hadn’t brought their own costumes. Rebecca took off her mask and cloak and snatched up a candle from the table with the masks, then crossed to what looked to Nigel to be a bare wall. But the moment she reached it and touched a certain spot, the wall swung open.
“Your secret passage,” he said, following her into the dark, narrow space between the walls.
As soon as he was wedged into the uncomfortable space, Rebecca shut the door behind him. “Jo and Caro are in here somewhere,” she whispered. “We all snuck in to see what we could find out. I found the cloaks and masks and figured I could find out more if I joined the rest of the party, but then that wolf man found me.”
“Lord Herrington,” Nigel growled.
Rebecca blinked in the candlelight. “Is that who he was?”
“He’s a suspect,” Nigel told her. “In fact, I’m convinced he’s the thief.”
She gasped and pressed a hand to her chest—a chest he longed to free from the constraints of her drab uniform and explore for hours. “No. I could have cornered him and questioned him.”
Nigel chuckled dangerously. “I’m afraid he would have cornered you and done far more than ask questions.”
Even in the dim light, Nigel could see her blush. “I’m not sure I would have been strong enough to resist if he had,” she confessed. “I’m not a good girl.”
A fierce rush of protectiveness pulsed through Nigel. If Rebecca hadn’t been holding a candle in an impossibly narrow passage, he would have swept her into his arms. “You are good, Rebecca,” he told her.
She shook her head. “I’m not. I’m very naughty indeed.” Her voice took on a guilty, defeated tone as she went on with, “Good girls don’t ache to feel a man’s touch. Good girls don’t constantly think about how it must feel to be used by a man, to have his cock inside of them. They don’t daydream about what he must taste like.”
Lord help him, she was going to cause him to spend in his breeches if she kept talking like that. And with such innocence as well. “There’s nothing wrong with any of that,” he said, well aware of how rough he sounded. “If you feel that way about the right man.”
“I feel that way about you,” she said, surging toward him. “I want to be your lover so badly that I can’t sleep at night. I have ever since the night of the party.”
It was pure torture, hearing her words and being physically trapped in a space where he couldn’t act on it. “I want you too,” he growled. “So badly that I’ve had a cockstand for days. I would have buried myself in your sweet pussy to the hilt the other day, if Landsbury hadn’t interrupted us. I would have fucked you senseless, and then I’d’ve done it again and again.”
“Ohh,” she sighed, the sound shaky and filled with need. Her breath came in shallow gasps. “Oh, my. I—” She glanced around as if looking for a place to put her candle down so that she could jump him. “There has to be—”
Without finishing her sentence, she turned and darted off down the passageway. Confused and overly aroused, Nigel was forced to follow her or be left in the dark. She felt her way along the wall, sliding something aside now and then and, he assumed, peering into the rooms they passed. She hummed with a note of desperation, as though eager to find a room where they could go at it like rabbits.
Her humming stopped with an abrupt squeak as the sound of two male voices came suddenly through the wall.
“I tell you, I can’t sell it yet.”
Nigel instantly recognized the voice as Herrington’s. Anger renewed in his gut, and he hurried silently to Rebecca’s side as she peered into one of the rooms.
“I beg of you,” Khan said. “I need this, for me and for my son.”
“What does Saif have to do with all of this?” Herrington asked.
“He’s as much a part of it as Lichfield is,” Khan went on.
“Lichfield,” Herrington snorted. “The man is a friend, but he’s clumsy. He may have helped me acquire it in the first place, but he keeps dangerous company. Get the wrong woman involved and the truth will be all over London. We’ll have that Runner all over us in no time.”
“Him?” Khan laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about him. His mind is elsewhere. Now, come along before we are missed.”
Nigel flinched as Herrington and Khan left the room. Once he was certain they had gone, he growled and banged his fist against the passageway’s wall. Half his frustration was for the revelations he and Rebecca had heard, but half was because now he couldn’t possibly, in good conscience, do any of the things he had been planning to do with Rebecca just moments before.
She seemed to sense the truth of the situation they were in as well. “Oh,” she squealed in frustration, sagging against the wall beside him. “This is wretchedly unfair.”
“I know,” he sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “But now we know who stole the diamond.”
“Is that what they were talking about?” She peeked hopefully up at him. “Couldn’t we pretend we heard nothing?”
Nigel’s mouth twitched to a grin, and for a change, it was his heart that ached for her. She was sweet, in spite of her insistence that she wasn’t. She was cleverer than he supposed she gave herself credit for too. It infuriated Nigel to think that her insistence that she was bad likely came from the way her family had treated her. He could offer her so much more than they ever had and would treat her better than she could possibly imagine.
“There’s still time, isn’t there?” she asked, her eyes round and hopeful and her cheeks flushed pink. “What if I clung to you like this?” She handed him the candlestick, then pivoted to stand with her legs spread on either side of his and began tugging up her skirts. “We could be quick about it.”
Nigel’s groin ached so badly that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to walk normally for a week. “Rebecca?” he asked as she leaned into him, resting her hands on his hips. “Are you a virgin?”
She blinked, then nodded in shy affirmation.
That only made his heart beat harder. “Then I’m not going to spoil you standing up in a narrow, dusty, secret passageway in the dark.”
“You’re not?” She seemed genuinely disappointed.
He shook his head. “I’m going to take what I want from you in a bed, in broad daylight, when we can linger and enjoy ourselves, and when I can make you come at least half a dozen times before we’re too exhausted to go on.”
“Ohh,” she sighed, her voice quivering. He could feel the tension rippling off her body, so close to his. “I think I would enjoy that immensely.”
“I will promise you something else as well,” he went on, amaz
ed at his own powers of restraint, given the circumstances and her proximity. “I’ll find a way to get you out of that wretched school. Even if I have to invent lies so that the hypocritical Miss Dobson will let you go. I’ll say you’re an essential witness in an ongoing investigation.”
Rebecca straightened. “I am, though, aren’t I?”
Nigel smiled in spite of himself, brushing the side of her face with his free hand. “You’re essential in every way, love. I won’t ever let you forget it.”
“Nigel.” She breathed his name softly, then lifted to her toes to kiss him. It was a sweet kiss, and he let her take complete control, even though his balls ached so badly he wanted to groan. He would wait as long as it took to find exactly the right time to make her his. And once he had, he was beginning to doubt if he’d ever be able to let her go.
Chapter 6
It was pure torture for Rebecca to separate from Nigel in order to find Jo and Caro and to return to their room. But Nigel was right when he told her that between the walls of someone else’s house was no place to make love. And it truly was important for him to track the diamond thief’s movements. Nigel seemed certain Lord Herrington was the thief. In spite of what they’d heard, Rebecca wasn’t as sure. It didn’t seem quite right that a man who smelled so good and who had whispered so seductively to her could be guilty of stealing a diamond. Although she could certainly imagine him stealing a woman’s virtue. Some other woman’s.
“You’ll never believe what I saw.” Caro knocked Rebecca’s thoughts on the matter clear out of her head as the two of them met at one of the passageway’s intersections a few moments later.
“Wait, wait,” Jo whispered, dashing up from the direction Caro had come from. “Don’t share anything without me. I have a few things to share myself.”
The three of them crept back into their room, set their candles aside, and pushed the wardrobe back into place. Once it was secure and they all climbed onto Caro’s bed to share their discoveries, all three blurted almost in unison, “Miss Dobson was at the party.”
