Maggie MacKeever (27 page)

Sabine frowned. “Are we certain there is a connection between these things?”

“Nothing has been stolen since the codebook.” Ned picked up the fireplace poker and applied it to the embers burning on the hearth. “The item the Cap’n now seems most anxious to retrieve is Julie herself.”

Sabine wanted to know more about this Cap’n. Ned told her what little he had gleaned from Julie, and about Mother Yarwood, who trained up young thieves. “There is a place in the Holy Land known as Rat’s Castle. Julie was bidden to meet Mother Yarwood there. Someone meant for her not to arrive.”

“You may be making mountains out of molehills,” remarked Kane. “London has long done a brisk trade in virgins. Are we sure the chit
is
a virgin, Ned?”

Ned threw down the poker. “We’re sure you wouldn’t disapprove so greatly if I hadn’t become a bloody earl.”

Kane knew he was behaving badly. He couldn’t stop himself. “You inherited a title, and with it responsibilities. Instead of tending to them, you spend your time dangling after a sticky-fingered stray.”

“You’re starting to sound like Hannah,” Ned retorted. “It must come from being born with a silver teaspoon shoved up your arse.”

Kane wavered between apologizing and bidding Ned to blazes. Before he could do either, Sabine touched his arm. “You
are
being a bit of a prig. If Miss Wynne is an innocent, as Ned believes she is — and I think you must agree that at this point he probably has a good notion of the truth of that — we can hardly let her fall into a villain’s hands, whatever her background may be.”

Kane thought that Sabine was overly influenced by Julie Wynne’s resemblance to someone she had once known. “You have had an opportunity to more closely inspect the girl.”

Sabine removed her hand from his arm. “Sometimes I saw a similarity to Julian, sometimes not. Perhaps it is merely as they say, that each of us has a twin.”

Was she being truthful? Kane couldn’t tell. His usual ability to read people didn’t apply to Sabine.

She and Ned were speaking low together. Kane turned away. He was used to females feeling possessive of him, not the other way around. The shoe was on the wrong foot now, and he didn’t like it much.

He did like Sabine, however, though he didn’t understand her. Even
when a man held her in his arms and listened to her sigh with pleasure, there was a part of her that remained beyond his reach.

Was this how Kane’s lovers felt about him? That he satisfied a momentary craving, fulfilled a fleeting passion, but was ultimately of no more lasting substance than a morsel of fine chocolate, briefly sweet on the lips and tongue, leaving behind a slight bitter memory along with the sweet?

And when had he started wanting to be remembered? He was a rakehell, was he not? Rakehells didn’t go around hoping their memory would be fondly tucked away in some corner of a lady’s heart.

The conversation faltered. Sabine drew her shawl closer around her shoulders. Kane asked, “Are you cold?”

“I’m always cold,” she responded.

“Not always,” he said.

Ned raised an eyebrow. Sabine ignored them both. “Our absence will have been remarked. We should return before I stand accused of engaging with the pair of you in a
ménage à trois.
Your cousin would enjoy that, I think. The speculation, not the act.”

“Hannah wouldn’t dare. We have had a conversation concerning repercussions.” Ned opened the library door.

Kane couldn’t stop himself from adjusting the shawl around Sabine’s shoulders. His fingers brushed against the nape of her neck.

She glanced up at him. “Thank you. And yes, you may.”

Kane’s heart beat a little faster. He had an appalling suspicion that he’d blushed. “I shall be delighted to be of service to you, of course.”

“I didn’t expect that the delight would be all mine.”

Ned pretended not to hear. He wished his friends enjoyment of their moment together, for it was unlikely to be more than that, and at any rate who was he — unlike Kane — to judge?

He should have kept Julie with him. If not for Clea, Ned would have done precisely that. He was already responsible for Clea knowing much more than she should about the world. Forget banning Ovid
.
He should forbid his sister to have anything more to do with
him.

The crowd pressed close around them. Ned lost track of Sabine and Kane. Over the tops of the nearest heads, he saw three feathers progressing inexorably in his direction. Doubtless Hannah had another young lady in tow, with whom he must dance and carry on a polite conversation, while at the same time discouraging her from thinking she might be his bride.

He had no heart for it, yet couldn’t take his leave. Ned owned Hannah an atonement. She had been embarrassed by his friends.

He glanced around. He’d had an itchy feeling between his shoulder blades all evening, as if a hunter had him in his sights.

Matchmaking mamas merely, Ned assured himself. Battlefield nerves.

Julie was safe at Ashcroft House. She couldn’t step a foot outdoors without sounding the alarm.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A woman is always better seen than heard.
— Plautus

Julie was having a lovely dream. She had returned to Wakely Court, and the earl was with her in his tub, giving her a bath the likes of which was causing her to thrash about and moan. His hands were all over her, touching, teasing, tempting. She wanted him closer. She wanted him lying alongside her in his ancient carved bed.

She reached out, to draw him to her. Her questing hand hit hard against what felt like an arm encased in a rough serge sleeve.

Julie wakened abruptly. There should be no arm in her bed but her own, and that wasn’t wrapped in serge. It wasn’t wrapped in anything, for she’d tumbled into bed wearing merely her shift, too exhausted by the events of the day to change into a nightdress.

Nor should there be about her the smell of unwashed flesh. She’d become particular about being clean.

Someone was in her room. A male someone, from the feel of that arm. And definitely not the male she’d been caressing in her dreams. Did he realize she was awake?

No question but that Julie was growing soft. Ned’s blade lay on the dressing table, beyond her reach. Maybe if she was quick she could get to the knife while the intruder was off guard.

Julie edged away. The arm hauled her back. She kicked and punched and opened her mouth to scream. A wad of some foul-
tasting fabric was shoved between her teeth. The man — men, she realized; there were two of them — were efficient and swift. In no more than a clock’s tick she was bound and shoved into a sack.

She fought against them, made as much noise as she could through the suffocating gag. Her efforts earned her another sharp
blow to the jaw. Julie struggled to remain conscious as they carried her down the stairs and outside.

No one tried to stop them. Perhaps no one had seen. And perhaps Tony had let the men into the house, and that was why he had insisted she stay indoors tonight.

Julie was flung onto the hard floor of a carriage. From the stink of it, a hired hack. She heard a murmur of unfamiliar voices, and then the horses set out. Every bump and rattle jarred her bones. Pretending to be stunned, Julie pulled stealthily at her bonds. Stealthily, and futilely. She was trussed up like a bird for the cooking pot.

Whose
cooking-pot wasn’t in much doubt.

Ned had wished to keep her safe. Julie hoped he would carve out Tony’s gizzard when he found out she was gone. Or maybe she’d take that pleasure for herself once she got out of this mess.

That she might not get out of it, Julie dared not think. She banished that cringing, crippling doubt to a far corner of her mind.

The carriage rattled through the streets, lurched to a halt. Rough hands grasped and tugged, tossed Julie over someone’s shoulder as impersonally as if she’d been a sack of coal. Distant muffled voices came to her, and laughter, and music, along with an unpleasant suspicion of what sort of place this was. She was jostled up a flight of steps and flung onto a bed. Julie lay very still.

“Shouldna have hit her so hard,” said the first unfamiliar voice.

“Makes no difference at the long run, does it?” retorted the second, as its owner yanked off the sack. “She’s here as himself wanted her.”

The first man allowed as he wouldna want to
be
her. Julie heard
the door snick shut. She didn’t much want to be herself, either. Cautiously, she opened her eyes.

The room was small but nicely furnished with rosewood and expensive Argand lamps and silk paper on the walls. Julie noted the heavily draped windows, glimpsed herself in the ornate looking glass that reflected the bed. The older of her bruises had turned brilliantly green and purple, and her shift was caught up under the ropes around her thighs. Her hair stuck out in all directions, like the quills of a startled hedgehog. Her eyes were huge in her pale face. She looked terrified.

She
was
terrified, but it wouldn’t do to show it. With effort, Julie eased the expression from her face. She prayed no one would wish to tumble someone looking as hard-used as she did.

Tumbling was what men did in establishments like this. Julie knew a brothel when she saw one. She’d never before had the opportunity for so close an inspection, her fingers considered too nimble to be wasted on any but the pilfering trade.

It seemed someone had decided her fingers were not valuable anymore. She tried not to remember that deflowering a virgin was said to be a sure cure for the pox.

Julie had wanted her first time to be with Ned. Had dreamed she might have a few moments’ happiness with the earl. And so it could have been,
should
have been, except that he was as contrary as any man ever born, saying he wasn’t offering her a slip on the shoulder, though he might if she wished him to, but all the same undressing her, and caressing her, and kissing her in places she’d never realized were designed
to
be kissed — and then refusing to take advantage because the time wasn’t right.

Concentrate,
Julie told herself. She tried again to ease her wrists, managed only to tighten the knots. She wriggled closer to the edge of the bed. There was nothing in the room that might serve as a weapon, save the water pitcher and chamber pot, and she could hardly pick them up with her hands bound.

The door opened, and she froze. A man walked into the room, a tall man dressed in black, with dark hair and darker eyes, who
carried a walking stick with an ornate knob.

He closed the door behind him,
moved toward the bed. Julie scooted back as best she could; each movement made her arm ache worse. He placed the knob of his stick under her chin and tipped up her face so that she was forced to look at him. “You’re not in prime twig, are you, Jules? It’s beyond my comprehension how you caught Dorset’s interest. Where’s the statue, if you please?”

Cap’n Jack, she made no doubt. “I don’t have the statue. I gave it back.”

He slapped her. The Cap’n was skilled at slapping. Julie licked away the blood from her split lip.

“That was ill-advised of you,” he said. Julie didn’t know if he referred to her returning the statue, which she hadn’t; or her lying to him, which she hoped he didn’t realize. The Cap’n continued: “How did you know to steal the thing in the first place?”

‘Know to’ steal it? The statue must be worth more than Ned realized. Julie shrugged, or tried to. “Caught my eye, it did. As to why I filched it — it was there.”

“It was there and so were you and therefore you took it? Forgive me, Jules,
if I say I find that difficult to believe.”

Julie found it difficult to hide how sick she felt. “I was looking for something to tide Rose over while I was away.”

“And you just happened to choose Wakely Court to rob.” The Cap’n turned away from her. “We’ll come back to that. Tell me about Dorset’s notebook.”

Julie reminded herself that she wasn’t supposed to know the Cap’n had the wrong codebook. “What about it? I found it in the library.”

“What else is in the library?”

“A precious lot of dusty old books, that’s what.” Julie decided a change of subject might be wise. “Why did you almost have me run down by a carriage? I can’t steal anything for you if I’m dead.”

So much for distraction: the Cap’n moved closer to the bed, stroked the tip of his walking stick along her calf. “If I’d wanted you crushed to smithereens, my dear, crushed you would be.”

His dear? The notion made her shudder. As did the cold metal
tip snaking its way up to her knee. “Is it because of you that poor Frenchwoman hanged herself? After I snagged her glove?”

He didn’t answer. She had not expected he would. The walking stick continued its upward journey. Julie was glad for the ropes that kept her legs clamped shut.

The Cap’n might have read her thoughts. “Dorset is intrigued by your inexperience. You should be grateful to me, because I let it be known
that anyone who interfered with you in that manner would incur my wrath. But now
—
Dorset will hardly want another man’s leavings. Careless Jules. You’ve lost your chance.”

He was trying to frighten her, and succeeding very well. “I don’t see much to thank you for,” Julie muttered. “Since I’m being set upon and near run over by carriages and snatched right out of my bed.”

His fingers dug painfully into her bruised chin. She couldn’t turn away. “You were released from Newgate because I saw a use for you. However, you appear to be in need of convincing that you should do as you are told. Mick and Pego are angry about the events of the other evening. It seems to be a matter of damaged pride.”

“Mick and Pego may go to hell and pump thunder,” retorted Julie, proud that her voice didn’t shake.