Victorian Vigilantes 01 - Saving Grace (18 page)

“Oh, what I felt?” She squirmed in his arms and squeezed her limbs tightly together. “At first a kernel of sensation crawled through me. It was a primitive feeling.” She nodded. “Yes, primitive is the perfect description. Then, when you used your…your tongue, I…well, I just floated and, er—it’s so very difficult to put into words.”

“It’s all right,
chérie
. I understand better than you think but I want to hear you say it.”

“You embarrass me but forcing me to articulate my feelings.” She pretended to be upset. “That’s not very gentlemanly.”

Isaac roared with laughter. “My darling, none of my behaviour has been exactly gentlemanly this evening.”

“No, that’s true, and I thank goodness for it.”

Isaac sat up, pulling her with him. “Much as I would like to stay all night, I should return to my own room.”

“But you.” She waved at his body and felt her face heat. “There must be something I can do for you.”

“I already warned you that I wouldn’t fuck you, sweetheart. Nothing has changed.”

“Don’t I have any say in the matter?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Isaac, you’re not being fair! For the first time in my life, I want to please a man.” She fixed him with a beseeching look. “I want to please you.”

“You do please me, just by being you. But, Eva, I won’t spoil what we have, the sublime connection between us. You feel it too, do you not?” She nodded. “Until we have resolved the issue of your husband, and restored your daughter to you, I can’t take this affair to its natural conclusion.” He clutched her shoulders and she drowned in the glittering fervency in his eyes. “When I make love to you, sweet Eva, it won’t be with the shadow of your husband hovering above us.”

Tears filled Eva’s eyes. “We have no idea how things will turn out. There are still some weeks to go before the exhibition. Anything could happen. We shouldn’t waste this opportunity. We might never have another.”

“Have more faith in Jake’s abilities, and mine. We know what we are doing.”

“Does Lord Torbay have any idea how my husband’s associates plan to steal the diamond?”

“Next week there’s an official reception at Buckingham Palace at which the stone will be exhibited. It will be closely guarded, naturally, and all attendees will be carefully vetted. However, a party of Sikhs will form part of the guard of honour. We believe your husband plans to substitute the men you saw in his warehouse for the official Sikhs.”

“Very audacious, but how could they possibly get away with it?”

“We think his government connection has given him detailed plans regarding the security for the events.”

“Which is what you hope to find hidden in his desk?”

“Yes. The person couldn’t part with the official papers, they would have been missed. So he would have had to copy them out in his own hand.”

“Now I see. You plan to identify him through his handwriting.”

“Absolutely.”

Eva considered what he had just told her and frowned. “Even if they manage to take the stone, it will be missed immediately so they can’t hope to escape.”

“That is where your husband has been clever, much as it grieves me to acknowledge the fact. We happen to know a replica has been commissioned.”

“Ah, so they will use the hustle of the reception as a distraction to steal the original stone and replace it with the replica. By the time anyone notices, they will be well away.” Eva nodded. “Yes, that is just the sort of audacious cunning William excels at.”

“Unfortunately, unless we can unearth definitive evidence to tie your husband to the plot, we will have to prevent the theft but Woodstock and the man who put him up to it will escape unscathed.”

“How do you know so much?”

Isaac chuckled. “Franklin’s very good at listening at doors.”

“No wonder you are so keen to get into William’s study.” She chewed her lip in frustration. “Let us hope you manage to track Rose down.”

“That’s something else we are relying on Franklin to help us with.” Isaac pulled her into his arms, his bare chest colliding with her breasts as he kissed her long and deep. “I really must leave you now. Jake will return soon and he might have news for me.”

“Very well.” She smiled at him. “Nothing else would persuade me to release you.”

“Nothing else could compel me to leave.”

He touched her face for one last time before shrugging back into his clothes and quietly leaving the room.

I am in love with him, Eva thought as she watched him go, and I’ll be damned if I will sit back and let him take all the risks. There has to be something I can do to resolve the issue.

Eva fell asleep, not dreaming of Isaac’s magical hands and tongue, but of ways in which she could expose her husband for the criminal that he was. She knew a side of him that he didn’t show to anyone else. If there was a weakness in his character, something they could exploit to their advantage, she would identify it or die in the attempt.

Jake thought the evening would never end. The Home Secretary and his trusted inner circle quizzed him on his progress at tedious length, not bothering to hide their frustration at his failure to discover the identity of the government mole. Jake glanced at their faces, wondering if that mole was in the room. He didn’t possess a trusting nature, which is why he held back quite a few vital details about Woodstock’s
modus operandi
and neglected to mention Lady Eva was living beneath his roof. Even so, he shared their frustration at his lack of progress. This was his toughest assignment to date and he was determined to acquit himself with honour.

By the time he returned to Grosvenor Square, he wasn’t in the most congenial frame of mind. He entered his drawing room and found Isaac there, sprawled full length on a sofa.

“God give me the strength to tolerate political windbags,” he said, heading straight for the brandy decanter.

Isaac, grinned. “Sir George had a great deal to say for himself, I take it.”

“When does he not? Never have I met a man who enjoys the sound of his own voice more.” Jake ran his eye over Isaac’s prostrate body and elevated one brow. “I wager you have had a more enjoyable evening than me.”

Isaac’s smile was decidedly smug. “Unquestionably.”

“Have a care, my friend. Don’t put unnecessary pressure on the lady.”

“You know me better than that, Jake.”

“Yes, of course—” Jake looked up when the door opened and Parker stood there, looking uncharacteristically ruffled. Isaac saw him too, shared a questioning look with Jake, and rose athletically to his feet. “What is it, Parker?”

“Mrs. Grantley’s man’s here. She’s been attacked and sent him to fetch you.”

Jake’s heart lurched. Olivia had been attacked. Dear God, this was all his fault! He never should have sent her to the park. Both men put their glasses aside and headed for the door. They found Olivia’s long-standing butler-cum-general-factotum, standing in the entrance vestibule. His clothes were torn and dishevelled and there was a nasty cut on his cheek.

“What the devil happened, Green?” Jake asked. “Is Mrs. Grantley all right?”

“She’s shaken but relatively unharmed.”

“She must be shaken to have sent for you, Jake,” Isaac said.

“I stepped out for an hour this evening and some ne’er-do-wells broke in while I was gone.”

Jake ground his jaw. How often had he told Olivia she needed more than one permanent male in her establishment? A wealthy, attractive woman living alone would always be a target for scoundrels. If that woman also had a less than stellar reputation
and
worked undercover for Jake, then her safety was definitely a matter for concern. She had always dismissed his worries, as though she had a point to prove. He ought to have insisted. If anything had happened to her…Jake shuddered, endeavouring to remain calm and shake off the debilitating fear that trickled down his spine.

“Did the rogues say what they wanted?” Isaac asked.

“Aye, they wanted to know where Lady Eva is.”

Ah, Jake thought, so this
is
all my fault.

“There were three of them,” Green said. “But fortunately they underestimated my mistress.” Jake managed a brief smile, aware that most people did. “She crowned one with a vase, er…kicked the second in a place that definitely put him out of the fight, and—”

“And the third one managed to get to her?” Jake felt a murderous rage replace his earlier fear.

“Aye, but she used that close-combat fighting you taught her. She allowed him to come up behind her, went all weak and defeated like, and then threw him over her shoulder. He landed on a small table, so he did, and broke it.”

“Good for her!” Isaac said with relish.

Parker had already ordered up one of Jake’s unmarked carriages. “Remain here, Parker, and hold the fort,” Jake said. “Make sure the house is secure and Lady Eva remains safe.”

“That I will.”

“Make haste,” Jake said to his coachman as Green joined him and Isaac inside the carriage and Mrs. Grantley’s coachman followed close behind in that lady’s conveyance.

“What injuries does Mrs. Grantley have?” Jake asked.

“I can’t rightly say. When I arrived home they took fright and ran, and Mrs. Grantley despatched me to fetch you.”

“But you are injured,” Isaac said.

“Bah, it’s just a scratch. I engaged with one of them and he came off far worse.”

“Mrs. Grantley’s maid is caring for her now?” Jake asked.

“She is that.”

“Was anyone else hurt?”

“No, fortunately Molly and Sarah had gone to bed and knew nothing about it until the rogue whom Mrs. Grantley threw over her shoulder recovered. He subdued Mrs. Grantley…”

“Subdued her how?” Jake called upon all his training as a diplomat to keep his deep concern out of his voice. “If he dared to—”

“He struck her and then tied her to a chair.”

For which he would pay dearly, once Jake discovered his identity. “I believe he became quite violent but Mrs. Grantley refused to even admit that she knew Lady Eva.”

“She would,” Jake replied, grinding his jaw. “She really shouldn’t be so stubborn. God alone knows how it might have turned out.”

“The blaggards lost patience, searched the house to make sure Lady Eva wasn’t actually there and then I returned and they fled.”

“After you confronted them, Green,” Isaac said. “That was brave.”

“I knew something wasn’t right when I got back and saw the front door hanging open. They were back in the drawing room, about to do I know not what to get Mrs. Grantley to talk. I sneaked into my room, got my blunderbuss and threatened them with it.” Green jutted his chin pugnaciously. “One of them snuck up on me and landed a lucky blow, but the gun saw them off right enough.”

“You undoubtedly saved the day, Green,” Jake replied. “I doubt they would have left Mrs. Grantley alive to identify them if you hadn’t scared them off.”

“She must have been terrified,” Isaac said.

Green shook his head. “If she was, she isn’t showing it. She’s furious about the loss of her favourite vase, though.”

Jake managed a bitter laugh. “I’ll buy her six more.”

Their carriage turned into Olivia’s road.

“Stay alert,” Jake told his coachman and the footman who had accompanied him. “We can’t ignore the possibility that Mrs. Grantley was left alive to raise the alarm, just so that the villains could see who came to rescue her.”

“No one will get past us, m’lord.”

“Good man.”

Jake took the three steps to Olivia’s front door in one stride, Isaac at his heels. A tearful Molly opened the door only when she had satisfied herself it was them. Who had opened the door to the intruders, he wondered, or had they simply broken in and taken Olivia by surprise? Jake heard several bolts being shot back before the door actually opened. At least someone in this establishment was taking security seriously, even if it was after the event.

“I’m mighty glad to see you, my lord.” Molly wiped her eyes rather inelegantly on her sleeve. “It has given us all such a turn, so it has. Only think, we could all have been murdered in our beds.”

“How is your mistress?”

Molly rolled her red eyes. “Fighting mad, my lord.”

“That’s reassuring,” Isaac said.

He and Jake entered a drawing room that looked as though a herd of elephants had trampled through it. Olivia sat on the settee, battered and bruised, fury radiating from her eyes.

“Of all the damnable luck, Jake,” she said. “There were only three of them but I was wearing heavy skirts and my feet got tangled in them, otherwise I—”

“Shush!” Jake crouched before her and took both of her hands in his. “I am so sorry, my dear. I should have anticipated this.”

“And I should have been better prepared.”

“By having more than two females and one male servant living in?”

Olivia tossed her head, wincing at the pain the gesture clearly occasioned her. “I am not in the mood for lectures, Jake. You know very well how much I enjoy my privacy.”

Jake didn’t pursue the subject. “How are you?”

It was a ridiculous question. Her gown was torn, there was a bruise already forming on one side of her lovely face and a deep cut on her upper arm. Her wrists were chaffed, presumably because she had tried her damnedest to escape her bonds when tied to a chair. Olivia wasn’t the wilting violet type.

“I shouldn’t have sent for you, Jake,” she replied, avoiding his question. “They won’t return, but if they’re watching I might have alerted them to our connection.”

“Nonsense, for once you did the sensible thing. I came in an unmarked carriage and now one could have seen my features when I entered your house.”

“Yes, but even so, you’re not needed.”

“How very discouraging.”

“Someone has to keep your head from swelling.”

“And someone has to keep you safe.” Jake was still crouching in front of her, his lips perilously close to hers. Never had the desire to kiss her been more compelling. “Molly,” he said, deliberately turning away from Olivia before passion overcame common sense. “Pack a few essentials for your mistress and have Sarah waken Master Tom. You will all remove to Grosvenor Square until we get to the bottom of this.”