The Gentleman Jewel Thief

by Jessica Peterson

  God damn Harclay. Why’d he have to be such a fool and steal the diamond in the first place? This was all his fault, his doing.

  From the look of him, he hadn’t left her side since he’d shot her. And though her heart swelled with gratitude and something else—something deeper—that also meant he hadn’t gone out in search of the missing diamond.

  Which meant, of course, that it was still within her grasp if Mr. Lake had not found it first.

  William must have sensed the sudden shift in her mood, for he squeezed her hand. She looked away, gritting her teeth in an effort to control the panic and pain that coursed through her entire being.

  “Violet,” he said quietly. “Darling, look at me.”

  “Please don’t call me that,” she whispered, choking on the words as she said them.

  Cupping her chin in his hand, he pulled her to face him. “I do not know where to begin—I might apologize forever, if I could.”

  She looked down for a moment, willing her tears to remain in her eyes. They did not. She sniffed and again met his eyes.

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was gruff. He cleared his throat and tried again.

  “I’m sorry about shooting you, for fighting that duel. I’m sorry for even challenging Lake in the first place. I am sorry for putting you in the middle of my—my foolish escapades. I am sorry you were kidnapped—even now, Violet, it kills me to think of you bound and taunted by those beastly creatures. I am sorry about jeopardizing your family’s future, and your happiness. I am sorry about hurting you. You must know I never meant any of it.

  “But—” He finally took a breath. “But I will never—never—be sorry that I met you. I am not sorry that we met and fell in love. And I hope you aren’t, either.”

  Violet sucked in her breath. She could hardly bear it. How she longed to give in, to admit her love for him and her desire to be with him, always.

  But she couldn’t. Wouldn’t. She still had to prove herself; she still had too much to lose.

  “William, you’ve hurt me so badly—I told you not to fight—”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” he said, tugging a hand through his dark hair. “Violet, I shot you, for God’s sake! I deserve to be shot myself. The guilt, it’s been so terrible I can’t tell you how many times—how often I’ve thought about selling my soul to the devil, so that you might be spared. I’d give anything”—he stopped, voice cracking—“anything to take back what happened to you.”

  Violet steeled herself against his words, stoking her anger so that it might overcome the pity she felt for him, the love.

  “Would you give back the diamond?” she asked.

  He blinked, the expression on his face as shocked and saddened as if she’d just shot him in the ribs.

  “Yes,” he said. “From the beginning I planned to give it back. To you, to Hope. I didn’t come here to discuss the French Blue, but if you desire it—”

  “What else is there to discuss?” she replied. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not,” William ground out. “You know that’s not what we’re about at all. I love you—”

  “What good is love if I lose this house, my inheritance, my family?” she snapped. A hardness, black and raw, spread over her chest into her throat. It felt awful to say these things to him, but she’d already come this far; she couldn’t turn back now.

  “Don’t do this, Violet, I’m begging you,” he said. “I’ll get the diamond back, make sure the world knows it is once again safely in Mr. Hope’s possession. His business will recover, and your family’s fortune will be secured. And then we’ll be married, perhaps in the parish on my estate—”

  “William,” Violet cut in, shaking her head. “This game we play. It can’t go on forever—not when it’s become so dangerous. Once I find the diamond—and I will find it—you and I, we won’t fit together the way we do now. You live for the chase. I live for the thrill. You think we’ll feel the same about each other once it’s done?”

  She watched the indignation shade his eyes a darker shade of black.

  “Once upon a time I was that man,” he said steadily, “but don’t you dare accuse me of thinking you nothing more than a chase. It’s an insult to your intelligence, for one thing, and a blatant falsehood besides.”

  Violet swallowed for what felt like the hundredth time and looked away. He was right, of course. She didn’t know why she was saying the things she did; but the poisoned words kept falling from her lips, the blackness spreading through her limbs, surrounding her heart.

  Again Harclay cupped her chin in his hand and turned her head to face him. “I know you are a woman with little patience for fools. And so I am asking you one last time,” he said. “Violet, please marry me. For heaven’s sake, make an honorable man of me.”

  “I already told—”

  “I love you,” he continued. “I stayed by your side for weeks now. I hope to stay forever. This is the last time, Violet. The last time I’ll stand before you and ask you to be my wife. I shan’t ask again.”

  The smooth violence of his words assured her that no, he wouldn’t ask again. This was her chance. Her only chance.

  And before she could think, Wait, what is it I really feel? she blurted out, “No. No, William, I thank you for your concern, but it’s—us, we—it’s just not possible.”

  The earl pushed away from the bed, rising to his feet, and ran a hand through his hair. Breathing a deep, frustrated breath, he turned back to her.

  “Fine. But you can’t say I didn’t try, Violet. You can’t say I didn’t attempt to make this right.”

  Violet struggled to hide her rising panic. “My side hurts,” she said. “I need to rest.”

  Biting the inside of his lip, William surveyed her for several beats. A fresh pulse of pain sliced through her at the sight of his watery eyes.

  “Good-bye, Violet,” he said at last, his voice tight.

  She cleared her throat. “Good-bye, William.”

  He turned and without a backward glance stalked from the room.

  The tears came hot and fast now, blotting out the world around her. For all her bravado, her anger toward William, she’d never felt such a sense of terrible remorse in all her life. She wept; and no matter what her father said, no matter the wine Cousin Sophia brought up, nothing could console her.

  • • •

  When she’d cried herself into a virtual stupor, Violet was at last faced with the surgeon. He slipped quietly into her room after Sophia had left and for several minutes busied himself at Violet’s escritoire.

  He turned and handed her a small vial of dark liquid. When she raised her brows, he said, “Laudanum, mixed with a bit of wine. It will help with the pain.”

  “Nerves, too, I hope,” she replied and managed a small smile.

  The liquid tasted foul but she drank it anyway.

  “There is something you wanted to discuss?”

  “Oh, yes,” the surgeon said. He grasped his hands behind him and rocked back on his heels, as if gathering strength for the coming revelation.

  “Well?” Violet said. “Please, sir, you’ve nothing to fear. After having been shot in the ribs, I hardly think whatever news you have shall upset me.”

  “Perhaps,” the man said, clearing his throat. “Perhaps not.”

  Violet’s eyes went wide. Her pulse quickened. “What?” she asked. “What is it?”

  Twenty-nine

  The Earl of Harclay returned to a house turned inside out. During his absence, the entire residence had been ransacked. In his study, musty, crinkled paper was everywhere, an overturned inkpot leaked onto his chair and carpet, and drawers were tossed about, books and bills askew. Avery claimed the staff was drugged; he found them snoring in a heap in the basement. Doubtless that rogue Mr. Lake had something to do with this.

 
; Harclay hardly noticed the mess. Stalking through the front door, Avery jogging closely behind at his heels, Harclay tossed his jacket and hat aside.

  He ignored Avery’s gasp of terrified surprise at the condition of the house and headed for his study.

  “Send up hot water for a bath,” Harclay growled over his shoulder. “Make sure it’s scalding.”

  Battering aside the study door, Harclay made a beeline for the gleaming liquor cabinet. Praise God, whoever his visitors had been, they’d left his collection of brandy intact.

  In a swift, brutal movement, he lopped off the round crystal topper from a decanter and poured himself a full glass. He downed its entire contents in a single, desperate gulp.

  He threw his head back, eyes closed, and waited for the liquor to make its way into his blood. He felt sore and starved in every corner of his being. His clothes were dirty and wrinkled; his beard unshaven and untrimmed. He needed a good scrubbing, and a good, long, slobbery drunk, the kind that erased one’s memory, at least for a little while.

  But no matter how much brandy he drank—in a matter of minutes, he finished the entire decanter—he couldn’t forget Violet. Her wound, her face, her heartless, scathing refusal.

  Elbows on the top of the cabinet, Harclay sank against it. His knees felt rubbery, his head full of hate and regret and sadness. He was a mess, no two ways about it, and he hadn’t a clue how in hell to go about fixing the tangle in which he found himself.

  What a fool he was, to believe she’d rethink her refusal after he put a bullet between her ribs. What an idiot he’d been, to ask her to marry him again after she responded that first time with an unequivocal no, no, no.

  What sort of masochist was he besides? It seemed he could not get enough of Violet, no matter her unkind words, her work against him.

  He’d turned into just the sort of idiot he loathed: sick with love, positively sick with it. His life was in shambles, and over a single woman, a single heartbeat, a single presence he could not seem to get enough of.

  Not a month past, he would have thought such a thing impossible.

  Harclay turned back to his study, and as if for the first time allowed the chaos of his surroundings to sink in. As if his day wasn’t terrible enough—now this.

  At once he knew it was the work of Hope’s men, including Mr. Lake. Harclay saw the cripple’s pity for him in the sparing of the brandy and of the Harclay seal, which stood upright exactly where the earl had left it four—or was it five?—weeks ago.

  Everything else was a disaster. Drawers turned out, furniture left open and askew; it appeared as if someone had enjoyed a deliciously athletic midnight rendezvous in the room.

  Harclay stood before the gaping windows, allowing the evening breeze to wash over him and cool his skin. He understood the assault for what it was: a threat.

  He had to find the diamond, and soon, or they would all drown in this quagmire together—the earl, Mr. Hope, Caroline and Lake, Lord Rutledge and Violet and all their dependents.

  And no matter her feelings for him, Harclay couldn’t bear the thought of hurting Violet. He would find the diamond, if only to keep her safe. He would find the diamond for her sake, and hers alone.

  Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair. The brandy had at last dulled the edges of his consciousness, leaving in its wake a pleasant, half-asleep murmur in his veins. His murderous mood was all but forgotten, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, he was able to think.

  By now the diamond could be anywhere—Prussia, the prince regent’s jewel drawer, Putney. Doubtless those grasping acrobats had sold the French Blue off by now. But to whom? For how much?

  Harclay recalled with a pang of annoyance that he was as good as broke until Hope allowed him access to his accounts. He had little cash available at the house; perhaps a guinea or two, nothing that would even come close to being enough to buy back the jewel.

  There was the family silver, of course, Harclay’s horseflesh, and all the priceless antiques his grandfather had brought back from the Continent two generations before.

  But what would a wily pawnbroker, or a slick master jeweler, possibly want with a Medici portrait?

  It was hopeless.

  Curses he didn’t even know existed bubbled from his lips as he pounded up the stairs. To his very great relief, Avery had managed not only to find the copper tub in the midst of all this ruin but also to fill it to the brim with steaming water. The bath was in its usual place, drawn up before the fire; beside it stood a fresh decanter of brandy and a heavy crystal snifter.

  Harclay grinned. At least he still had Avery.

  The earl spent an hour, then another, sunk up to his chin in the bath. What had once been his favorite place to think had become a nightmare. Every time he thought he was getting somewhere with this plan or that, he would recall Violet bathing in this very same tub. How lovely she’d looked, like a mermaid, with her dark hair fanned out in the water around her. How he’d tasted her, right there on the bed, her slickness on his lips. Pressing that slickness onto her mouth.

  Brandy, and more brandy, and more brandy still.

  It did nothing to erase the image of her naked curves, her swollen lips, and the smile he’d left on them when he was done.

  There was only one thing he could do.

  “Avery!” he called. “Avery, bring the razor. I shall need a shave. I’m going to White’s.”

  • • •

  In all the world, there was no better cure for the memory of a lady lost than wild, unadulterated debauchery.

  And Harclay was sure to find that at White’s.

  He rarely visited the establishment anymore, having fleeced half its members at the tables while stealing the other half’s wives, daughters, and favored courtesans. It was a point of pride, actually, that he scared these fashionable men speechless.

  Only now he didn’t care about wagers or courtesans. He came for White’s astonishing array of cognacs, and for those cognacs alone. It soothed him to be in the company of other men, besides, the cigar smoke swirling about him in a comfortable haze of familiarity.

  Harclay took a seat toward the back of the club, as far away as he could get from the infamous bay window at the front of the house. He wished to remain anonymous tonight; his hope was that he’d drink himself into a stupor and wake three days later in the comfort of his own bed, or perhaps in hell.

  Poor as a pauper, rejected by the woman he loved, and entirely clueless as to how to find that blasted diamond, Harclay was starting to think hell the more attractive prospect.

  The waiters came and went, setting before him an array of etched decanters. And slowly, with great patience, he began to make his way through each of them.

  Still he was haunted by the memory of Violet’s face, her laugh. Still he could not gather his wits long enough to form a plan or even decide on a first step. Raid all the pawnshops between here and Cheapside? Sidle up to the regent, ask if he’d heard anything about a fifty-carat diamond?

  Hopeless, hopeless, nothing short of hopeless.

  Life was beginning to appear bleak indeed.

  Harclay sank farther into the butter-soft leather of his wingback chair, his despair deepening, his mood black. By now he’d drunk enough cognac to fell the Russian army, but Harclay felt no different from how he’d felt two hours before. Either he was on the verge of death or his pain was still besting the liquor.

  It was at that moment, when Harclay thought he might indeed be dead, that an enormously fat man collapsed into the chair behind him, nearly catapulting the earl from his. A second, equally fat man sat beside the first.

  The back of Harclay’s chair faced the back of the first fat man’s, so that the backs of their heads nearly touched. The man wore a white powdered wig, the intricately curled, heavily perfumed kind that had been fashionable when crazy King George hadn’t been so crazy
—in other words, sometime last century.

  Harclay was about to turn around, face snarled into a rebuke, when the fat man began to speak.

  He spoke in low, languid French, his voice nasal and high, as if he were used to speaking down to company.

  “You little rat,” he said to the fat man beside him. “How dare you make me wait! A king waits for no man, not even his brother. I passed an hour at cards, which you know I’m not very good at, and everyone looked at me as if I had crossed eyes.”

  Harclay’s ears perked up at the mention of “king.”

  The second man sniffed. “‘Not very good’ is an understatement, dear brother. What is it the English say? Oh, yes. ‘Piss-poor.’ Ha-ha!”

  If Harclay weren’t so intrigued, he would’ve rolled his eyes. Frenchmen were a peculiar breed. These two gentlemen were very peculiar indeed, for Harclay knew them to be the exiled Louis XVIII and his degenerate younger brother the Comte d’Artois, scions of the house of Bourbon.

  Those French aristocrats lucky enough to escape madame guillotine lived in exile across Europe—in the Low Countries, Russia, Naples, Edinburgh. But because of the political threat the king and his brother posed, and the great debts they seemed to rack up wherever they went, these two corpulent princes had been denied asylum time and time again.

  Until, of course, King George III had offered them a cushy welcome in England some four years past. The prince regent continued to support the exiled Bourbons, and the English had watched King Louis XVIII grow from fat to positively corpulent off the generous grants bestowed upon him by Prinny.

  For a time Harclay had pitied the exiled king. Poor man had no country to call his own and had lost countless loved ones to a bloody revolution. Surely he deserved to live with all the dignity and respect accorded to him by virtue of his exalted position.