Author: Anne Stuart

“The front parlor.” Mr. Bothwell had very large, very white teeth, and they were clenched together. They made her nervous. This time he let her precede him, and she’d barely made it into the middle of the room before he began his tirade.

She sat.

“Shouldn’t you be going in there, Molly?” Jacob said as she climbed down from the coach. “You’re her guarantee of respectability, after all, and her fiancé looked ready to bite her head off.”

“Afraid I can’t, love. I recognize the gentleman. He’s one of my customers, and he’s got very nasty habits, that one has. I’ve had to give him warning a time or two, and he’ll remember me for it. I hope the lass isn’t going to marry him—he’s a mean one. Anyway, you’ve done your job, Jacob me darling. What’re you waiting for?”

“She recognized me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. And even if she suspected for a moment I spun her such tales that she has to be convinced she was wrong.”

He shook his head. “She knew.” He pulled out the piece of cloth she’d given him and opened it, though he knew what would lay in its bunched-up folds. He shoved the ring in his pocket, then brought the cloth to his nose. Violets.

He glanced up at the elegant house, the door closed against intruders. “I’ve got more business here,” he said abruptly.

“Jacob …”

“Shall I call you a hackney, Molly lass? I may end up in Newgate or I’d offer you a ride home when I’m done.”

She looked at him for a long, frustrated moment. And then she smiled and shook her head. “You’re a fool, Jacob. Who would have thought to see King Donnelly laid low by love? It would fair turn one’s stomach if it weren’t so sweet.” She stretched. “I’ll walk. It’s not far and my bum is fair killing me after all that jolting around. The girl’s got the right of it—you weren’t born to be a coachman.”

“God only knows what I was born to be,” Jacob muttered. “Mind if I borrow yon trunk?” He nodded toward the smallish trunk that was bound up behind the black coach.

“Will I get it back? You could always give me yon ring in return for it if no one has a use for it.”

“I have a use for it. And you know I’m good for whatever the cost. You’d never wear one of those dresses again if you could help it.”

“Aye,” Long Molly said. “Have at it, yon Romeo. Go rescue the damsel in distress.”

He’d hoisted the heavy trunk on his shoulder with relative ease. “You’ve got your stories mixed up.”

Molly shrugged. “You’re the one who can read, not me. Let me know what happens.”

“I expect you’ll hear about it,” he said, half to himself. And he mounted the front steps.

Her family’s servants didn’t want to let him in, of course. Not in the front door. And the footman tried to take the trunk from him, but since he towered over all of them they didn’t have much recourse. “Where’s thy mistress?” he demanded. “I promised her I’d see this into no one’s hands but hers.”

“I don’t believe that is Miss Pagett’s trunk,” the superior-looking butler began, but Jacob, recognizing the opposing commander in this particular battle, went straight toward him, towering over the man.

“I promised Miss Pagett I’d be bringing her trunk directly to her,” he said in his best Irish. “Would you like to try an’ stop me?”

The butler moved out of the way hastily, and Jacob continued on into the house.

It smelled of beeswax and lemon oil and old money, and he took a deep breath, resisting the impulse to curl his lip. He didn’t need to ask the way—he could hear Jane’s fiancé lecturing her in an upraised voice, and he headed in that direction.

He took the steps lightly, two at a time, the heavy trunk on his shoulder. They were in a small parlor near the top of the first flight, and he paused in the doorway.

Jane was sitting in a chair, her shoulders bowed, her head down, as her fiancé loomed over her, bullying her, yelling at her.

“I cannot believe you would be so lost to all sense of propriety that you would simply take off, with nothing but a note from one of the most notorious men in London to set their minds at ease. And that you would accompany a strumpet of Lady Miranda’s reputation goes beyond all understanding. For all her titled family I would have disallowed the connection the moment we were married, but I thought you had the delicacy to keep your association with such a reckless and unacceptable personage quiet. But no, you must needs go haring off to the ends of the earth with her, sending word back to your parents that you were ‘assisting’ her in a marriage by special license to a man whose name with which I shall not soil my lips. Are you so lost to all sense of propriety—to what is due to my consequence as your affianced husband—that you would do such a thing? Your understanding must be pathetic indeed, not to have considered what this must look like.”

“Mr. Bothwell, I beg pardon. I’m sorry …” Her voice was thick with choked-back tears, and Jacob’s rage momentarily blinded him.

“Silence!” Mr. Bothwell thundered. “Do you have any idea what kind of people you spent the last few days with? That … that man is a member of the Heavenly Host, and you know what they are, Miss Pagett? Satanists. Devil worshippers, who sacrifice children and practice the most obscene behavior, and he’s arranging for them to join him in what I can only term an—” he lowered his voice for a moment in whispered disgust “—an orgy, to celebrate his marriage to that doxy! God knows what will happen to her, but she is only reaping the result of her own unspeakable behavior. Behavior that you have chosen to emulate! I cannot think how I was fool enough to affiance myself to someone so lost to all sense of what is fit and proper. I cannot cry off, but I will speak to your father, and I don’t doubt we can make some kind of arrangement to sever this distasteful association without causing harm to my reputation. Yours, I’m afraid, is beyond repair, and I—”

“Excuse me,” Jacob said, having had enough of this, striding into the salon. “Where were you wanting me to put this, Miss Pagett?”

Jane looked up, her face streaked with tears, and he would have clocked Bothwell and had done with it, until he looked at the joy in her eyes as she looked at him, and everything fell into place like a puzzle. He knew what he wanted, what he needed, and it was suddenly very simple.

“How dare you interrupt your betters?” Bothwell shouted at him, clearly happy to bully anyone he thought would have to take it. “Get out of here, or I’ll have you turned off immediately.” He turned back to Jane. “As for you, Miss Pagett, I’ll have my ring back. You …”

“Excuse me,” Jacob said again, turning on his heel, calculating it perfectly. The trunk on his shoulder slammed into Bothwell’s head, and he went down like a stone.

Jacob lifted the trunk down and set it on the floor, leaning over Bothwell’s motionless body. He gave him a none-too-gentle nudge with his boot, but the man didn’t move, knocked cold.

“Pity,” he said in his normal voice. “I didn’t mean to knock him out.”

Jane had leaped up. “You didn’t?”

He looked over at her, grinning. “No. I was hoping for the chance to hit him a few more times.” He tilted his head, observing her. “I think, lass, that you gave the wrong man back his ring.”

She looked flustered, uncertain, but she pulled off the pitiful jet ring Bothwell had given her and threw it at his unconscious form. No blood coming from his head, Jacob noticed with no particular concern. He’d been in enough fights to know when someone was badly injured, and being wanted for the murder of an upstanding gentleman wouldn’t have suited him. But Bothwell would live to bully another young woman, more’s the pity.

“That’s the girl. Now where do you fancy you’d like to go?”

She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her ringless hand. “I need to go to Miranda.”

It wasn’t the answer he could have hoped for, but it was better than some he might have feared. “I can do that.” He held out his hand for her.

She didn’t move. “First, tell me who you are. What your name is.”

Ah, here it goes, he thought. It was one thing when he was a mystery, a kiss in the dark. The truth was less palatable. “You know who I am. Or at least what I am. I’m Jacob Donnelly—called King Donnelly in some parts of London, due to my leadership of a group of individuals who are, for want of a better word, thieves.”

She didn’t flinch. “And who is Mrs. Grudge?”

Sparing her would get them nowhere; he had a mind for the truth now. “She runs a brothel over in Brunton Street, but she likes a bit of adventure every now and then, does Long Molly, and she was willing to help out. She has a special fondness for Scorpion.”

She took it well, did Miss Jane Pagett. “And you’ll take me to Miranda?”

“Aye. You’ll have to give me leave to check on my people first, but then we can be off. If you don’t mind the traveling.”

“I like to travel,” she said firmly. “What are we waiting for?”

22

Miranda slid into the warm bath, closing her eyes and breathing in the scent of roses that surrounded her. There were dried rose petals floating in the water, and she could almost imagine it was summer. She would continue her explorations tomorrow, this time through the gardens behind the house. It was spring, daffodils were blooming everywhere and the fresh canes of rosebushes would be spiking through the damp earth. She couldn’t wait.

She closed her eyes, sliding down. If she tried really hard perhaps she could forget that he was back. He hadn’t made any move to touch her, to kiss her. He’d had her—perhaps that was all he intended.

It was easy enough to be sensible about it when she was dressed and walking around. But lying naked in a hot tub of rose-scented water aroused too many of her senses, and a host of memories returned. His mouth on her breast, sucking. His thick, hard invasion that had been uncomfortable at first, and then quickly became quite … wonderful.