THAT NIGHT, JAMES PLAYED CARDS IN THE CLUB for hours, waiting for Pembroke to appear. He had thought that once he was sure Pembroke was otherwise engaged, he might slip away and avail himself of the study safe once more. He had cracked it once; perhaps the second time would be easier.
However, Pembroke never crossed the club’s threshold. Instead, a jovial Ramsden reveled in taking his money. James couldn’t keep his mind on the cards; instead his thoughts continued to slip back to that kiss and his desire for more. When the futility of waiting for Pembroke permeated his brandy-soaked brain, he left the club and stood in the pouring rain just outside of Pembroke’s residence. Every room was brightly illuminated, shining through the foul weather like a smuggler’s lamp on a rocky shore.
Even if the house hadn’t been gaily lit and inhabited, the imbibed brandy increased both the tremors in his hand and the fog in his brain, making the prospect of cracking the safe an impossibility. Still, he stood in the rain, watching. Standing in the shadows, letting the rain soak through his clothes was far more preferable than facing Lusinda after indulging in that kiss.
Naturally, as a female, she would expect that brief pleasure to mean something more lasting. She would anticipate some sort of commitment. Her disappointment when he reiterated his philosophy of no attachments would be painful. So painful that he could feel it himself, deep in his soul, like the sputtering of a flame, or the removal of hope in a dank prison cell. He shook his head to chase away the memory, flinging rivulets of water off the brim of his hat. It was safer this way, he would explain once again. Surely she would see the logic of that.
Yet if it was safer, why was he standing in the pouring rain looking for excuses not to return home? Looking for excuses not to remove the possibility of sharing her sweet lips once again. Looking for excuses not to resign himself to a life without companionship and laughter. Looking for excuses . . .
So it was with the remorse of the past night weighing heavily on his spirit that he reluctantly rousted himself from bed the next morning. Not only did his head ache from his excesses of the night before, but his heart did as well; he dreaded having to curb Lusinda’s enthusiasm for any lasting association. He dressed and found his way to the breakfast room where, Pickering assured him, Miss Havershaw patiently waited.
“Good morning, Mr. Locke.” She snapped the pages of the freshly ironed
Times
, producing a sound like the crack of a whip, a sound that reverberated in his skull like a gunshot. He grimaced.
“I suppose your late arrival this morning may be attributed to your activities last evening?” she said, looking crisp and pristine like a shiny new shilling. Instinctively, he took a deep breath, but inhaled only the revolting scent of coddled eggs and blood sausages. He nodded a greeting and quickly took a seat.
“I feel a pressing urgency to remind you that we must further our progress on locating your elusive list,” she continued, without so much as pause to allow him to respond to her question. Her words stabbed at him with the efficiency of a bayonet point. If only his head didn’t feel so much like a target. “As hospitable as you have made my stay”—she glanced toward Pickering—“I feel a particular urgency to leave this house and return to my former life.”
Leave the house. Locate the list
. The words buzzed about his ears like a hive of angry bees, leaving him with an unfamiliar loss of bearings. He had expected to find a dew-eyed miss with false illusions of marriage, and instead found a female drill officer issuing orders about urgency and family. Did she not just return from a generous visit with her family? Wasn’t he the one who had insisted upon urgency in finding the bloody list? After all, his name was on the blasted thing, not hers. Wasn’t she the one who had resisted the necessary safecracking practice? He squinted, hoping the action would sharpen his focus. “I beg your pardon?”
“You mentioned a plan yesterday,” she continued with barely a breath of hesitation, “but then departed without sharing the details.” Her gaze raised to his, then narrowed in scrutiny. “Are you quite all right?”
“Yes. Of course.” He looked away before she could recognize the lie, struggling to remember the fuzzy details of a plan that had seemed so clear the night before. Pickering, that dear man, poured a cup of coffee, that wonderful elixir from the West Indies. Locke took a fortifying swallow and let it scrape the remnants of his strategy from the edges of his memory.
“The Farthingtons?” she prompted. “You said we needed to return to the Farthington residence?”
“Yes. The Farthingtons.” The strong brew worked its wonders. Details started to flow to the surface. “The plan is this: I will engage Mr. Farthington while you enter the residence and check the safe.”
He mentally braced himself for her protest. This new enthusiasm of hers aside, she had protested all of his plans to date. This should be no different.
She leaned forward with a hint of a smile about her lips. Luscious lips that he would have to be vigilant not to sample again. Even as he reminded himself not to encourage her, he leaned toward her as well, a mirror of her actions.
“Have you forgotten my lack of success with cracking a safe?”
Her eyes positively sparkled with the morning sunlight streaming through the window. She might be luminously bedeviling in the evenings, but she absolutely radiated with the sun. Even now as she undoubtedly prepared to nay-say his plan to have her open the safe. He attempted to smile but the effort released a pounding in his temple. He placed the cup back on the saucer so he could rub the offending area.
“In this case that will not be a problem,” he said with a smugness that comes from knowing one holds the winning argument that will trump the other’s objection. “I’m not a complete stranger to this particular safe, which is why I know its exact location. I know as well where Farthington hides the key, so you should have no difficulty reviewing the contents.”
As expected, her eager enthusiasm diminished at his call to action. He settled back in his seat, nursing the medicinal coffee.
Now let us see who insists on urgency.
“But the moon is still waning.” She glanced uncomfortably toward Pickering, who remained at attention near the door. “There could be obstacles.”
“There are always obstacles,” James replied. “The key is to anticipate and prepare accordingly. In this case, we have a tree to use in case of an emerg—” He frowned. “Is there some difficulty, Miss Havershaw?”
The motion of her head had progressed from a gentle nod to a consistent jerk, not unlike a bobbing fishing float whose baited hook has been struck by a massive carp. Her eyes widened and she glanced pointedly toward Pickering.
“Oh,” he said, recognizing her concern that Pickering would hear too much. Such vigilance seemed a needless precaution. Of course, she didn’t know the secrets the old man had guarded for him for so many years. However, to appease her concerns, he raised his eyes to his manservant. “Thank you, Pickering, you may leave us now.”
The door closed before she returned her gaze to him. “Really, sir. You are the only one who knows the effect the moon has on me. You promised no one else is to know.”
He frowned. “I apologize, Miss Havershaw. My only defense is that my head is not quite as clear as it should be this morning.” It was an understatement, but the best he could do under the circumstances. He certainly wouldn’t have imbibed as much as he did last night without the provocation of her kiss. She, however, looked as fresh as the bloody roses on the table. She must have retired early to appear so disgustingly healthy. All the time he stood in the rain, she must have been abed. The thought disturbed him. It certainly wasn’t the mark of a gentleman to abandon her to entertain herself. “Last night . . . how did you . . . ?”
“Given your lack of clarity,” she said, tapping her spoon lightly on the table, “perhaps we should concentrate on your plans for this evening.”
“Yes, this evening . . .” He frowned again. She’d not shown concentration to be her strong suit during their sessions the prior week. Something had changed; even her appearance had altered in a slight degree, though he couldn’t say how. He ran a hand over his face, mentally focusing on the mission ahead. “This should be a very quick endeavor, Miss Havershaw. Don’t you think you could maintain that invisible condition of yours for a brief space of time?”
She looked pensive for a moment. “If I soak up the available moonbeams for a lengthy period before attempting to enter the Farthington residence, and I stay in moonlight as much as possible, and if the clouds do not hinder the moonlight, perhaps I can sustain invisibility.” She looked doubtful. “There’s less certainty when the moon is not full. I don’t have a great deal of control.”
He tried not to linger too long on her admitted lack of control. The woman roamed about bloody well naked without so much as a by-your-leave. If that didn’t indicate a lack of control, he didn’t know what did. Obviously, it fell to him to maintain the proper distance and decorum in their relationship. What if he hadn’t left last night? What if he had pulled her into his arms as he had longed to do and revisited their earlier embrace? What if he hadn’t . . .
“What if I phase-back to visibility too early?” she asked.
He cleared his throat, hoping the action would dismiss the direction of his thoughts. “This is where I think we can use the events of two nights ago to our advantage.” He reached for the issue of the
Times
that rested by her plate. “Yesterday, the paper suggested that you were the spirit of Mrs. Farthington’s niece who tragically drowned several years ago on her country estate. Perhaps that illusion will hold should you be discovered.”
“That illusion?”
Her confusion pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Can you wail and moan convincingly?”
“I suppose so.” She appeared perplexed, although certainly a woman of her free and sensuous nature knew a moan from a sigh.
He settled more comfortably in his chair. “Please demonstrate. ”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Just as he realized the moonstone brooch was missing from its customary position, she let loose a keening wail that could draw restless spirits out of Kensal Green. At the very least, it drew Pickering back to the door.
“Is all well, sir?” he asked, surveying the room with his hand to his hip as if to draw out a nonexistent sword.
Miss Havershaw hid her laughter with a fist to her mouth.
“Everything is fine, Pickering,” Locke said, feeling repressed laughter squeeze his ribs. “Miss Havershaw was merely demonstrating her dramatic talents.”
He waited until Pickering had left before he leaned toward Lusinda, his eyes crinkled with humor and his voice lowered to intimate levels. “You are truly amazing, a regular Sarah Bernhardt.”
“If I am caught, I don’t think they’ll worry that I’m a ghost,” she said, barely containing her laughter.
“Why not?”
“I can’t wear my clothing and still be invisible, remember? If I should phase-back before leaving the house, I shall glow as I did before, but all over.”
He closed his eyes and tried very hard not to imagine what that would look like. He almost wished there was another alternative to keeping Farthington occupied just so he could be there in case of such an occurrence.
“Locke?”
“Hmm?” He wondered how the
Times
would describe that ghost sighting.
“There is another difficulty.” Her voice had returned to a serious note.
He opened his eyes. “And what might that be?”
“I’ll need a location where I can soak up available moonbeams and begin the phasing process. At home, I have an enclosure constructed for that purpose, but here . . . the servants . . . Pickering . . .”
“I suppose I could blindfold them.” He was teasing, but her grimace suggested she was very serious about this slight complication. He sighed. “I shall give them a paid evening off. I don’t imagine there will be complaints.”
“Thank you.” She smiled. “I shall still require a driver, but I can stay clear of the stables until it is time to go. Just give your driver instruction as to the time and place. I’ll make sure I’m in the carriage before he leaves.”
She began to push back her chair, but he moved to his feet to assist her before the chair had moved an inch.
“I’ll leave you to the
Times
,” she said, standing then turning so that a mere breath of air separated her alluring body from his own. “I need to locate an appropriate spot open to the moon but removed from the public eye where I can lie down to soak up the beams.”
She clasped her hands behind her, shifting her shoulders back. The posture lifted her breasts and thrust them forward, as if for inspection. His mouth went dry.
“My entire body will need exposure to the moon,” she said with a demure downward glance.
The mental image that accompanied those words made his tongue thick and words impossible. A soft smile lingered about her lips, almost as if she could read his thoughts.
“I’ll start in the conservatory.”
All he could manage was a nod.
LUSINDA SLIPPED OUT OF THE BREAKFAST ROOM AND down the corridors toward the conservatory with a smile on her lips.
Ha! Let’s see how he likes to be abandoned after a provocative encounter.
She was not above being wicked. Although leaving him to go to another part of the house hardly compared with abandoning her with only Pickering for company.
He had said she was amazing. Amazing! It didn’t matter that Pickering’s hateful allegations the night before had festered into a foul mood that morning. Locke still managed to make her laugh. She wasn’t sure if it was that adorable way he quirked his brow, or his voice that flowed through her like chocolate, or the way he had a creative solution to any proposal, she couldn’t stay angry at him.