A Thief in the Nude

by Olivia Waite

  His mouth curved in a grin so cunning it made Hecuba suck in a breath and go hot all over. “Would you rather I find our host and inform him that I found you up here, only one night after you successfully stole a painting from my brother’s home?”

  She stared. “Are you really blackmailing me into dancing with you?”

  He took a step forward, hand still out and waiting for hers. “Yes,” he said. “Please.”

  She knew it wasn’t really a request and that please shouldn’t have mattered. But he had her neatly trapped and she still didn’t know why he hadn’t turned her in yet as the thief she was. She certainly wouldn’t find out by avoiding him.

  He wasn’t smiling anymore.

  She glanced at his hand and remembered what it had felt like when he’d held her wrist. Then she mustered up all her reserve and resolve. Surely one simple dance would not destroy her. They would hardly touch at all.

  The musicians below launched into a waltz. Obviously the gods were out for blood.

  She blew out a breath in vexation and took his hand.

  His other hand went to her waist and he pulled her toward him, just slightly closer than propriety recommended. Her treacherous blood raced in her veins and she fought for calm. It was simple anger, she told herself—but even she didn’t quite believe it.

  The gallery was too small for the sweeping range of motion enjoyed by the waltzing couples down below, but it didn’t matter. Held so close, with his grip so firm on her waist and his hand warm around hers, Hecuba could feel every motion, every tiny step, every gentle sway as they spun slowly in tandem. The slight trembling of her hand in his felt like an earthquake, and every light press of his fingers just above the curve of her hip went through her like a thunderbolt. He began pulling her closer in tiny increments, diminishing the space between them as the circle grew slower and slower until she was very nearly pressed against his chest. His legs tangled in her skirts and made her suddenly very aware of all the layers of fabric that separated them: the silk of her stockings, the cotton of her petticoats, the muslin of her skirts, the fine wool of his trousers. She stopped herself just before she imagined all their clothing away and left them nothing but naked skin.

  He bent his head and put his mouth close to her ear. “Steal the second painting tonight,” he said.

  She couldn’t have heard that properly. Maybe the rushing of her own pulse in her ears had gotten in the way of the words he’d actually uttered. “I beg your pardon?” she whispered.

  He gazed down into her eyes—and Lord, she could just stretch up one small inch and kiss him if she wanted to. She looked away from him, but she could still feel his eyes on her face and was compelled to look back. As soon as she did, he spoke again. “Come back tonight and steal the second painting. Please.”

  A mouth that beautiful shouldn’t be allowed to form words—especially not the word “please.” And she needed that second painting. But he couldn’t know that, could he? “And if I say that I have no interest in paintings other than the one I took?”

  His lips curved in a smile and really, she mustn’t kiss him, mustn’t even think of it, even though they were far away with nobody there to see. She could no more banish the thought from her mind than she could banish the air from her lungs. Sooner or later it must surge back in. But he was speaking again. “Then I would call you a liar as well as a thief. They’re obviously a set. You couldn’t want one without wanting the others.” Hecuba glared daggers up at him but he was unfazed. “Say you’ll come.”

  She wanted to push him away, tell him just what he could do with his precious painting, but—damn him!—he was right. The paintings were indeed a set and she did need all four. “What time?” she asked instead.

  For one moment he glowed with eagerness, then that casually flirtatious mask was back in place. “Just past midnight should do it,” he said. “My brother is early to bed and early to rise. He’ll think nothing of my wanting to stay up late with a bottle in his study .”

  “Midnight then,” said Hecuba with a sigh of resignation.

  He brushed his lips across the plane of her cheek. “You remember the way?”

  “It was only last night,” Hecuba snapped. “My memory is perfectly in order.”

  His smile widened and his eyes warmed. “So is mine,” he said then his mouth was on hers.

  When did we stop dancing? Hecuba wondered in the moment before all thought was obliterated. Then there was nothing but his mouth and his hands pressing her body against the whole length of him. She gasped and he slipped his tongue between her lips, and that was probably wrong but it felt so right that she wrapped her free arm around his shoulders and pulled him toward her for more. He dropped her hand to stroke his palms down the length of her back, all while he coaxed her mouth open wider for him, and his tongue began to tease hers with strokes that surprised her even as they left her breathless.

  She had been kissed before, by a long-ago suitor in the first flush of manhood, but that had been a gentle, tentative thing, like a daisy pressed between the pages of a young girl’s diary, dried out and delicate. This kiss was a rose. This kiss was wine. This kiss was everything intoxicating and lush and dangerous, precisely the kind of thing an unmarried miss should stay far away from.

  Hecuba never wanted it to stop.

  But just as she reached for more of the kiss—and for more of the man who was sharing it—he pulled away. Staring into her eyes, he looked just as shaken and startled as Hecuba felt inside. He took a couple of steps back and smoothed the front of his waistcoat. Blushing, she did the same with her skirts. “Tonight then,” he said, but there was a note of uncertainty that hadn’t been there before.

  Hecuba nodded, unsure of her voice. Then Rushmore was gone.

  Chapter 2

  It rained, of course. Hecuba kept her mouth shut but inwardly cursed in two languages—English and a vulgar dialect of French she’d learned from the old cook Father had picked up somewhere during his travels. His cakes had been heavenly but he’d had a mouth like a pigsty. Naturally Hecuba had spent as much time as possible in or near the kitchens, listening in.

  More chilling than the rain, though, were the voices she could hear as she crept closer through the darkened grounds around the house. She was approaching from the outside this time, aiming for the long double windows of the earl’s study, in case this whole endeavor was a trap set for her by John Rushmore, who was clearly much less honorable than his title implied.

  But if there was even a chance she could get away with a second painting...Well, she had to try.

  She crouched beneath the windowsill and pressed herself flat against the wall, which kept at least her neck free from the slithery cold of raindrops. She could hear someone—not Rushmore, but perhaps the earl?

  “After all your insistence on hanging them together,” the voice was saying, “you bring out that old portrait. It’s not a painting fit for public viewing, John.”

  Rushmore’s tone was clipped and tight when he responded. “It was an experiment in style, based on Jones’ work. I wanted to see how far off I was from a technical standpoint.”

  The earl laughed. “Probably about as far as Serena threw it when you finally unveiled the thing. I can still see the tear in the canvas where it hit the corner of the mantelpiece.”

  “I recall,” said Rushmore coldly. There was a light clinking of glass and the snap of a log on the fire. Hecuba shivered and wrapped her arms around her torso to hold in as much warmth as she could.

  If she were very lucky, she would overhear something useful she could use to blackmail Rushmore the way he had blackmailed her into dancing with him earlier. She spent enough time chafing against the restrictions of genteel propriety with her stern uncle and aunt. She didn’t need another person in her life who wanted to control her—particularly an unscrupulous peer who thought only of his own pleasure and how best to achieve it.

  The earl was speaking again. “At least it wasn’t one of your landscapes. Th
ose gave me nightmares for weeks. I kept dreaming I was in a garden, but it would start to rain and all the paint began to run and the whole world dissolved around me. Terrible.” He paused, but there was no response from his sibling. “A good thing you never had to live off the money from your paintings—you’d have starved!”

  “At least then the landscapes might have been worth something.” Rushmore sounded lively enough, but to Hecuba it sounded like the same thin, tight kind of cheer she put on when Anne made remarks about her eccentric upbringing. Light words that wouldn’t chafe the wound beneath. “The artistic world loves nothing more than a dead genius.”

  It drew a chuckle from the earl. “Well, we all have youthful obsessions we grow out of, I suppose.”

  “Too bad you never grew out of being an ass.”

  Hecuba winced—but the earl just laughed harder, his voice moving from one side of the room to the other. “And now I’ve wounded your pride. I’ll let you stew in peace for the rest of the night.” A door clicked shut and the conversation was over. Hecuba waited until she heard the clink of glass again then stretched one arm up to tap on the window.

  A moment passed before she heard the study window slide open. “Miss Jones?” came Rushmore’s voice, barely audible above the steady sound of rain.

  “Here,” she replied, emerging from beneath the windowsill. He reached out a hand, which felt impossibly warm as it closed around her cold fingers. Pride was cast away in favor of getting out of the cold and the wet and the night. With the leverage Rushmore’s hold provided, Hecuba clambered over the sill. Her numb toes were clumsier than usual and she staggered a little upon landing. Rushmore put a hand on her shoulder to steady her even as he clasped his other hand tightly around hers. His jacket was gone, as was his waistcoat, and his shirtsleeves were indecently rolled up nearly to his elbows.

  Hecuba looked at his wrists and wondered if her fingers could span them. Carefully she pulled her hand from his.

  He gave her a knowing smile and turned to shut the window. Hecuba left him to it and advanced to the hearth and its blazing fire. She put her hands as close to the heat as she could bear, flexing her fingers to restore circulation. Her nose caught the faint aroma of pipe smoke mixed with the scent of old books, while the firelight glinted on the gilt lettering that spelled out the titles and the names of authors. A few candles around the perimeter of the room brightened what corners the firelight didn’t reach.

  Rushmore poured a quantity of amber liquid into a small tumbler and took it to where she stood shivering by the mantelpiece. “I nearly had an apoplexy thinking you would waltz in while my sainted brother was here.”

  “I have a bit more sense than that, thank you,” Hecuba said.

  Rushmore smiled at her again and her heart lurched in her chest. It was not comfortable and she frowned at him. “A shame,” he said. “You waltz beautifully.”

  “Is that why I’m really here tonight?” she fired back. “Another waltz? Because I am not in the mood, Mr. Rushmore.” He grinned more widely still and with an effort Hecuba reined in her irritation. She would never get that second painting by being abrasive, and it was clear Rushmore was going out of his way to provoke her. To give herself a moment to think, Hecuba took a large swallow of what turned out to be whisky. She’d expected brandy and was pleasantly surprised. “This is excellent,” she said, but was prevented from elaborating by another bout of the shudders.

  Rushmore frowned down at her. “We need to get you out of those clothes.”

  “We need to do no such thing,” Hecuba retorted.

  “Fine,” he said. “You need to get out of those clothes, unless you fancy being ill and sore of throat for the next week.” She said nothing and he pressed onward. “I’ll turn my back, I promise. You can wrap yourself in a blanket, sit by the fire and drink all the whisky you like while your clothes dry.”

  Hecuba mustered a sharp response, but as she opened her mouth to speak a chill went through her and shook her so hard that she bit down on her tongue. The whisky turned to fire when it struck the tender spot. “Very well,” she said instead, “but you will kindly keep your distance.”

  Rushmore nodded easily, as if sharing drinks with indecently garbed women were part of his everyday experience. Perhaps it was. Hecuba’s frown deepened but she accepted the blanket he pulled from one of the armchairs, waited until he’d turned his back, set her whiskey on the mantel, and disrobed with all the speed of which she was capable. Shoes and stockings were spread first on the warm stone hearth, then her black shirt and trousers. Her chemise and drawers were mostly dry, so she kept those on while she retrieved the blanket and wrapped herself in soft green wool. Thankfully she’d left her stays at home; they impeded her range of motion far too much for comfortable burglary.

  She turned to find that Rushmore was standing too casually by the window, facing away from her. Firelight danced in the windowpanes.

  “You’re cheating,” said Hecuba, as realization dawned. “I suppose you saw everything in the reflection.”

  “Not everything,” he admitted. “Not nearly as much as I wished.”

  Hecuba retrieved her whisky and considered hurling it at his head but chose instead to take another swallow. Warmth was beginning to return to her chilled limbs, soaking into her bones with every crackle of flame or sip from the glass in her hand. “You may as well turn around then,” she said through the pleasant burn of the liquor.

  He turned back toward her and stilled, sweeping her green-draped form with a gaze that went from her damp, tousled hair to the curl of blanket that warmed her bare toes. “Boadicea.”

  “Bless you,” she replied tartly.

  He laughed at that. “I’m a painter,” he explained. “I see dramatic potential in everything—and you look very much the barbarian warrior queen at present.”

  Hecuba didn’t want to admit how much more pleasing that was than if he’d told her she was beautiful. It warmed her even more than the whisky in her belly or the fire at her back. A change of subject was needed. She looked past him to the wall where The Thief had hung before she’d stolen it. Another painting had taken its place.

  It was a portrait of a girl in the sunlight. She was laughing at something with her eyes gazing upward and one arm thrown above her head as though to pluck something unseen out of the air. Sunlight—the golden kind you only see at the end of a perfect summer’s afternoon—flowed through her chestnut hair and over the graceful curves of her dress, making the bright-red flowers glow behind her. But although all these details were present and remarkably vivid at first glance, the more Hecuba looked at the painting the more they seemed to exist as accidents, ideas created by the merest slash of red or casual sweep of gold. Close up, the individual brushstrokes were plainly distinct, thick bars and bold sweeps of color that her fingers itched to touch.

  It was only when she heard Rushmore’s voice coming from behind her that she realized she’d dream-walked her way across the entire room and was staring at the painting from one foot away. “That’s my sister Serena,” Rushmore said.

  His sister. Hecuba was first pleased, then angry with herself for being pleased. But she put that aside to stare at the portrait again. “This is like nothing I’ve ever seen,” she said. “You’ve painted her so vividly she could almost step out of the frame, yet I can see exactly how you’ve built her out of brushstrokes. It’s...it’s like when you’re just waking up from a dream and you can only half remember what you’ve been looking at.”

  He smiled slightly, his own eyes intent on the painting. “My brother objects to seeing it in his study.”

  “Yes,” said Hecuba, “but your brother is an ass.”

  Rushmore laughed in surprise. “So you heard that part, did you?”

  Hecuba’s eye was caught by a small irregularity—a part where the painting had been rent then carefully but imperfectly repaired. Phrases from the conversation she’d heard came darting back to the surface of her memory. “This was based on C. F. Jones
’ technique?”

  “It was,” he acknowledged. “I was thinking about the way his paintings seem to dissolve at the edges, like they’re only half-real, and wanted to see if I could get the whole subject to look that way. I didn’t get it quite right, but I think that’s partly because the color...” He broke off. Hecuba turned to see him staring at her in rather a more pointed way, those brown eyes of his almost accusing. “Because the color I ought to have used,” he said slowly, “was Hecuba green.”

  “Ah,” she murmured. “I’d wondered when you were going to work that part out.”

  “So that’s why you’re after my paintings!” he cried. “C. F. Jones was your father.”

  “No,” corrected Hecuba, “C. F. Jones was my mother.”

  He couldn’t have looked more surprised if she’d sprouted an extra head to tell him that fact. “Your mother?” he said. “Are you sure?”

  She snorted. “I’m fairly certain, yes.”

  He stared at her for a moment more then grabbed her by the elbow and hauled her back across the room to the painting that hung to the right of the mantelpiece. Hecuba allowed this liberty because she knew what he was looking for—and because the journey took her back to the warmth of the fire.

  In the better light, his eyes flicked back and forth from her face to the face in the second painting, A Portrait of Hecuba as Henry VIII, in imitation of the famous Holbein. Hecuba remembered wearing the itchy gold brocade and wrinkled green velvet tunic, the weight of the false crown on her forehead, how much her arms had hurt from holding them at the proper arrogant angle, how her feet had ached to move, how her nose had itched several times and her mother had scolded her for scratching it and spoiling the pose.

  She’d stood for two entire days, full of more irritation than an eight-year-old girl should be able to contain. And all that wounded dignity, impatience and fury had been captured in color by her mother’s skillful brush, so that eight-year-old Hecuba looked every inch the miniature monarch.