His Improper Lady--A Historical Romance

by Candace Camp

  “Who are you? Why the hell are you following us?” Tom pressed his full weight into the man. “Answer me!”

  “I’m not following you! I’m not! I swear. I was just walking along and you jumped me.”

  “Maybe you ought to call for the police, then. You can tell them your story. Who do you think they’ll believe?”

  The man just grunted.

  “Tell me what you’re after. Did someone hire you?” Tom twisted his arm higher.

  The man made a pained noise, but said nothing.

  “Listen to me,” Tom growled, leaning into him harder. “If I see you following me or this lady again, if you lurk outside her house, I will take you apart limb by limb,” Tom growled. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Tom released him and stepped back. The man took off, shoving past Desiree. Desiree swung on Tom. “What are you doing? Why did you let him go? You barely asked him any questions.”

  “He wasn’t going to tell me anything.” Tom took her hand and pulled her out onto the street with him. “And I want to follow him.”

  Their former pursuer had broken into a run, and they hurried after him, keeping a good distance behind him. The man soon slowed down and stopped to catch his breath, then started walking again.

  After a few minutes of trailing him, Desiree said, “He’s going back toward my house. Why? Do you think he’s going to take up watching the house again?”

  “He’s not too bright if he does. But then, he wasn’t very bright about following us, either.”

  Their quarry reached Desiree’s house, but he walked past it and turned at the next street. Tom and Desiree continued to follow him.

  As they rounded the corner, they saw their target stop beside a carriage. Bending down, he unhooked the weight that keep the horses in place.

  “That’s the carriage!” Desiree broke into a run, Tom beside her.

  The man whirled and saw them. He jumped up into the driver’s seat and took off, leaving Tom and Desiree standing in the street, staring after him.

  Tom cursed and Desiree let out a long sigh, sagging. She’d left this morning with such high hopes, but after all they’d done, here they were at the same place.

  “Come.” She touched Tom’s arm. “Let’s sit down and take stock. It’s teatime, and I, for one, am starving.”

  They returned to her house, and after consuming a few little cakes and dainty sandwiches and a great deal of tea, Desiree’s spirits began to pick up. “At least we found out that the man following us was the one spying on the house last night. I’m certain that was the same carriage.”

  “We’ve got a bit more than that.” Tom seemed surprisingly cheerful. With a grin, he stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out a jumble of objects, which he dumped on the low table before him.

  Desiree’s eyes widened. “You picked his pocket!”

  “I haven’t lost all my skills.”

  She laughed. “No wonder you didn’t try to question him more.”

  “I thought it was easier than beating him to a pulp in front of a church. And I doubt I would have learned anything anyway.” Tom spread out the objects. “Let’s see—a used ticket from Stepney.”

  “Perhaps he lives there. But that doesn’t seem likely when he’s got a carriage.” Desiree moved over to sit beside Tom and examine the contents of the other man’s pockets. Her arm brushed against his, and even though the material of his jacket lay between his flesh and hers, her skin tingled with awareness. She thought of that moment when they were hiding behind the wall and Tom’s arms had been around her, his body close to hers.

  “I suppose he could have hired the carriage,” Tom said. “Or maybe he’s working for someone.”

  “Like Falk, you mean,” Desiree said.

  Tom nodded. “I must say, though, one would think Falk would have sent someone better at the job.”

  “He was very clumsy about it,” Desiree agreed. “That’s not like Falk. I didn’t recognize him as one of Falk’s men, but that doesn’t mean much. I haven’t been around them for over a decade.”

  “A pouch of tobacco and cigarette papers,” Tom went on, pushing them to one side. “A folding knife.” He opened it. “Long enough to be lethal. Sharp, too. A handkerchief. None of this is very helpful.”

  “What’s in here? This looks like a coin purse.” Desiree picked up a leather pouch that was bound with a drawstring and pulled it open, tipping the contents out on the table. Several coins of various denominations rolled out, as well as a set of gold cuff links, inlaid with a dark green stone. She picked one up to study the face of it. “These are very nice.”

  “Is that jade?” Tom reached down to get the other one.

  “I think it’s aventurine,” Desiree replied.

  “Naturally you know your gems.”

  Desiree shot him a glare. “It’s not because I’m a thief, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I just see a lot of men wearing it in one form or another. Gamblers consider it a lucky stone.”

  “Desiree...” Tom said in an odd voice. “Look at the back side of it.”

  The cuff link was hinged, with an oval of the same size and shape on the other end. Usually the back side was plain, unlike the more ornate front, but this one was engraved. Curlicues were etched around the edge, and in the center it was engraved with three letters: PAX.

  “Pax?” Desiree’s voice rose in excitement as she turned to look at Tom. “The man Brock said was a friend of my father’s?”

  “Seems more likely than someone engraving peace in Latin on their lucky cuff links.”

  “But why would—do you think that was actually him? Oh, I wish we’d caught him!”

  “He didn’t strike me as the sort who’d be the friend of a duke’s relative.” Tom frowned. “But his hair was graying... I’d say he was probably old enough. He was dressed like an ordinary chap, but I suppose that could have been a disguise.”

  “But why would an old friend of my father’s follow me around?”

  “I don’t know.” Tom jumped to his feet and began to roam around the room, rubbing the cuff link between his thumb and fingers. “But it defies belief that a different man with the same name would pop up in the middle of this.” He paced a bit more, then said, “We can’t dismiss the gambling aspect. You said it was a gambling good luck piece.” He gestured toward her. “Like the club token you wear.”

  Desiree’s hand went instinctively to the token, once again on a chain and hidden beneath her dress. “We can’t be sure that he’s a gambler. After all, aventurine is used in other jewelry, as well.”

  “Very well, but let’s go with the odds. This could have nothing to do with your parentage. Or with that bloody envelope, whatever that’s about. Say this fellow’s a gambler. He comes to your club frequently.”

  “I didn’t recognize him.”

  “Well, that’s because he’s a lurker, isn’t it? He doesn’t go to your table—he watches you from afar. He admires you. He wants to see what’s beneath your mask, wants to have you for himself.”

  “Tom, you’re frightening me.” A shiver ran down her spine.

  “Maybe you should be frightened.”

  Desiree gazed at him for a moment, her chest tight. “No.” She rose to her feet, crossing her arms defensively. “That is simply too much. This fantasy admirer would also have to have the same name as my father’s old friend. An unusual name. And if he was someone who frequented the Farrington, Brock would have noticed that name.”

  “He knows the name of everyone who comes there?”

  “If it’s someone who goes there frequently, yes. My brother is not the sort to leave things to chance. He knows everything that goes on in that place. He circulates throughout the room, greeting people, chatting. Brock makes it his business to know his patrons, as well as his employees. He makes sure there are n
o arguments, and when he sees some young fool throwing away a fortune, he puts a stop to it. He wants the fool to come back. He wants the fool’s friends and family to know that it’s an excellent place to play. Trust me, he would notice someone who was dangerous.”

  Tom quirked his eyebrow at her. “He ‘reads’ people like you do?”

  “No.” Not exactly. “But he has a lot of experience, and he pays close attention. He would have recognized that name, and he would not have allowed anyone dangerous in the club—at least not more than once. I don’t think it’s connected to the club.”

  “Very well. Let’s say the man following you is the man who was a friend of your parents.” Tom took another turn around the room. “Why, after all these years, would this man decide to start following you? He’s had ample opportunities to find you before this. He would know your names. You have been living in this house, working at that club, for some time.”

  “Yes, years.”

  “Then why—leaving aside the issue of why he wouldn’t simply call on you—why would this man suddenly feel the need to hunt you up and watch your house? Why dog your footsteps?”

  “Because I didn’t start looking for my father until now,” Desiree replied. “I mean, I’d always wanted to know. I wondered about it. I even looked up my birth certificate. But I have never made a concerted effort to find him. I didn’t hire a detective.”

  “You didn’t exactly hire one now, if you’ll remember,” Tom commented dryly. He paused, frowning, then said, “Come to think of it, if you wanted so much to learn who your father was, why haven’t you hired a detective to find out before now?”

  Desiree’s stomach quivered. She hated the look of suspicion in his eyes, the iron in his voice. But how could she tell him the truth? Tom already thought she was a liar, and even though he had been surprisingly open to her explanation of her skill at “reading” people, she felt sure a full revelation of her powers would convince him that she was either mad or a fraud. Or both. “I hired you now because the opportunity arose. I found that ring in your office. I finally had some idea of who he was.”

  “Even before you found the ring, you wanted to know who he was badly enough you agreed to work for a man you say you despise, to put yourself in jeopardy by going back to thieving, because you wanted to find out his name. Then you threw in your lot with another man you disliked.” He jerked his thumb toward his own chest. “All because you wanted so much to find your father.”

  “Yes. What does that matter?”

  “What’s your goal? You know his name, so you’ve satisfied your curiosity. You already knew that he ran off with your mother years ago. It seems unlikely to believe that you will have some happy reunion with the man. And you maintain that you aren’t trying to squeeze money from his family. You just ‘want to know.’ You’re hiding something. I can ‘read’ people well enough to tell that. What is it that you want to know? And why now? Why is it so incredibly, urgently important now?”

  “Because something is wrong!” Desiree shot back, feeling pushed to the brink.

  Tom stared at her blankly. “What do you mean? What’s wrong? What does it have to do with your father?”

  “I don’t know! If I knew, maybe I’d know what to do.” Desiree glared balefully back at him. “You won’t believe me any more than you believe anything else I say.”

  “Try me.”

  “I’ve been having this feeling.” How was she to explain this? How could she make him understand?

  “This feeling.” His voice rang with skepticism. “What, like the thing you sense with people, that they have integrity or not?”

  “A bit. But I don’t see anything. This is something inside of me, so it’s not visible, even to my inner eye. It is more abstract, but somehow also stronger, more urgent than the warnings that the light and dark images give me.” It was as if an alarm went off inside her that said that something was about to rip apart her internal life. Destroy her emotions. Corrupt her own constancy and solidity. But just the idea of saying all that to someone as calm and logical as Tom made Desiree want to run and hide. “Have you ever walked into a room and before you could even pinpoint what was missing, you knew something was different?”

  “Of course,” Tom answered. “Like when you broke into the office and I was sure something was wrong in the building, but couldn’t say why.”

  “Exactly. But it’s much stronger—I can feel little fissures in my inner world, as though the ‘wrongness’ is inside me, squirming in my stomach like an eel. A week or two ago, I began feeling twitchy and anxious, as if there was something I should be doing. I kept thinking about my parents, my father, and I knew that uneasy feeling was connected to him. I didn’t know what to make of it or what I could do. Then Falk offered to tell me my father’s name. And I knew it was meant to be. That I was supposed to find him. That it was important.”

  “What do you think is going to happen if you discover his name? What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know! I just know that I need to find out! There’s danger waiting.”

  “How can you be so sure? Have you ever had this feeling before? Did it come true?”

  “Yes!” Desiree cried out. “The last time I felt like this was right before Bruna Upton burned to death!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  TOM’S STOMACH DROPPED, an atavistic feeling of dread filling him. Was Desiree in danger? “Are you serious? You’re sure it’s the same?”

  “Do you believe me?” Desiree looked surprised.

  “I’m...not sure.” Tom had seen too many things with the Morelands over the years to discount premonitions of danger. Which also raised the question, again, of whether this portent of doom was proof Desiree really was a Moreland. But that was something he would worry about later. Right now, there were more immediate concerns. “I think we’d be foolish not to consider the possibility. That’s the only time it’s happened?”

  “They tell me that I was upset before Brock fell from a rope and injured his leg, but I was only two, and I don’t remember it. I have—well, Brock calls it a gift, but I’m not sure what it is. I can sense when something is wrong. Dangerous or damaged or odd. It was helpful when Wells and I were thieving. I could tell if, say, there was a dog or a guard that we hadn’t expected or if something was wrong with our equipment. I felt it last night when I saw that carriage. Sometimes I can see a deep darkness, a sort of void, where there’s danger. Other times, it’s just a little shock of awareness inside. Like goose bumps. Or the way you feel when music hits a discordant note.”

  “And you’re feeling that same thing about finding your father?”

  “No. This isn’t just a bit of prickling or tingling. It’s a knot in my chest, a nervous, restless feeling. A compulsion to do something. But I don’t know what to do.” Desiree threw her hands up in frustration. “It’s not a premonition, just a vague, pervasive feeling. It’s how I felt before Bruna died. I was young, only six, and I had no idea what it meant. I just felt frightened. Then one day a lantern turned over and the tent caught fire, and the only mother I’d known was dead. I realized that was the reason I had felt that way. I should have told someone. Warned Bruna.”

  Something in Tom’s chest twisted at the sorrow on her face. “You couldn’t have known. You’re not a seer. That’s far too heavy a burden to place on a child. Even an adult wouldn’t have known what was going to happen.”

  “Yes, but...” Desiree set her jaw, her eyes bright. “I know now. And I’m not going to make that mistake this time. I have to act.”

  He nodded. There was going to be no holding Desiree back.

  “It’s been growing for a month now,” Desiree went on. “I hardly noticed it at first. I thought I was just bored. But it grew stronger, and then when Falk offered me that job, I knew. I can’t explain why, but I was certain that the urgency in me was to find my father, to learn who I really was.
I’d always wanted to know about the rest of our family, but it wasn’t the same sort of compelling need.”

  “Do you feel it more at certain times, certain places? Certain people? Was it stronger when you were talking to Falk?”

  “No. At least, I haven’t noticed that. But it grows more urgent all the time. I’m more certain that finding my father is important. But...” She broke off and looked away.

  “But what?”

  Finally, grudgingly, Desiree said, “It’s not as strong when you’re around.” She added hastily, “I think perhaps it’s because I’m actually doing something about it. Not just sitting around worrying.”

  Tom nodded. He had no idea what to say about her statement or why her words had warmed him. “Are you going to the club tonight?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Why?” Desiree looked over at him in surprise at his change of subject.

  “Because I don’t think you should go there alone. I’ll go with you.”

  Desiree frowned. “I didn’t mean that you needed to be with me all the time. It isn’t as if that feeling is overwhelming.”

  “No, I know you didn’t intend that. And I’m not talking about haunting your presence. Just escorting you to and from the club. That’s when that carriage was lurking there.”

  “Our coachman takes me and carries me home.”

  That was true, but Tom didn’t find it very satisfactory. “Your driver is watching the road. He’s standing about chatting with the other coachmen while he waits. He’s not going to look at things in the same way I will.”

  Desiree looked at him shrewdly for a moment. Then, to Tom’s surprise, she shrugged her shoulders and acquiesced. “Very well. Why don’t you stay, have supper with us before we go?”

  Something in him wanted to do just that. They could talk over their day, plan for tomorrow. But Tom shook his head. He needed to think, and that was harder to do around Desiree. His thoughts kept creeping toward completely inconsequential matters, like the exact color of her gray-green eyes or the wispy strand of hair that escaped her pins and curled along her neck or the way her laughter made him want to say something to make her laugh again.