A Heartless Design (7 page)

“The box’ll be gone now,” Bailey guessed aloud. “They’ll have moved it.”

Thorne withdrew into the deeper green of trees bordering the lawn. “I’ll be staying here for a while.”

“You plan on getting the other papers so Helm can’t?” Bailey asked.

“Is that any concern of yours?” Thorne asked, his voice deceptively mild.

“No,” Bailey assured him hurriedly. “But Helm will come looking for me, and what am I supposed to tell him about you?”

“Nothing,” Thorne said, looking Bailey full in the face. “In fact, if you’re smart, you’d better disappear altogether.”

“What do you mean?” Bailey began to back away, looking even more nervous when Thorne reached into his coat. But he only pulled out a small bag that made a distinctive jingling sound. He took out several coins. “You’re not from London,” he noted, as Bailey stared at the money.

“I was born in Dorset,” he admitted.

“Go back there,” Thorne advised. “And don’t stop at your home to get anything. The further away you get, the more likely you’ll live.”

“What are you after?” Bailey asked fearfully, staring at Thorne as if unsure he was human.

“Something much bigger than you, friend. Now go.” He dropped the money— probably more than the thief would have earned from five jobs like this one—into Bailey’s palm. “Godspeed.”

Bailey lost no time in disappearing. Thorne was relatively confident that Bailey would live. The man was a weasel, but weasels were usually interested in self-preservation. In any case, he had to concentrate on getting the papers out of this house and to the Zodiac, where they would be safe. He noticed the sky lightening in the east. He would stay only long enough to learn the layout of the house. One circuit around, and then he’d vanish.

* * * *

Up in her room, Cordelia stood at her window in the cool hour before dawn. She had dreamed of the
Andraste
again. Unlike her early dreams of it, in which the sides shone silver like a knight’s armor, in this dream the ship was the blue black of a folded blade. The sea it sailed over was dark, the waves tinged red by sunset. The sails were filthy with salt and grime, and the shouts of men—sailors? soldiers?—echoed over the water. She stood gazing at the ship from a headland, watching in despair as her beautiful creation, the bright ship
Andraste
, became blood-stained in battle.

At the window, Cordelia bowed her head. What had she been thinking? She thought her design would save lives, not help destroy them. She’d been a child when she first dreamed up the
Andraste
, with a child’s naiveté.

Something caught her eye outside. Cordelia watched a shape drift over the lawn. Something—someone—was on her property. The bulk of the shape was scarcely noticeable in the dim light, and she stared hard for a minute to make sure she was not mistaken. But then it moved again. Yes, it was a man. A man watching the house.

She knew she should pull the bell to summon help. Jem could try to chase the man down again. But something held her in place. She tried to see the outline of the man on the lawn. Was he old? Young? Fat? Was he the same man who had broken in before? Cordelia kept to the side of her window, hoping that she was invisible to the watcher. Who was he?

Suddenly, the shape moved again. Walking parallel to the edge of the lawn, the man made his way to the gravel drive, where he halted for a moment. Then he turned and disappeared. But right before he did, Cordelia caught the shape of his silhouette against the white gravel. She had no reason to believe that she had seen this man before, but the impression was seared onto her overactive brain. The shape of the head, the set of the broad shoulders. Even under the greatcoat that covered his frame, she knew who it was. It was the man who had kissed her.

She could not forget the shape of him.

She trembled, remembering how close he had gotten to her…but why had he followed her in the gardens, if not to force her to give him the papers? 

Blinking, she realized his kiss must have been part of a cold-hearted seduction plan. Did he really think seduction would work? Hadn’t it, almost? She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t been extremely affected by his attention. She ruefully noted that he’d been quite sure of his effect on her. But even worse was that little pull in her heart. She had
liked
him, even before he kissed her. He seemed…fascinating. Part of her wondered what it would be like to have someone like him at her side. If they could be allies.

Shivering, Cordelia turned away from the window. “I know what you want,” she whispered to the air. “But I’ll never let you get it.”

The morning dawned bright and
glorious, but no one in the house on Quince Street was in a mood to appreciate it. A few servants, led by Stiles, paced around the yard, discussing the house in a very professional manner.

“Those windows are so low to the ground, you can practically call them doors,” Jem noted critically. He’d been a pickpocket in a former life and, as a member of a gang, had also stolen from several houses of the gentry. “We can’t keep watch all night, every night, so we’ll have to secure them somehow.”

“And locks alone won’t do,” Bond added. “Any decent thief knows how to muffle the sound of broken glass.”

“Towel.” Jem nodded.

“Or cut a pane out with a jeweler’s knife,” Bond suggested.

“You did that?” Jem asked, looking at her with a certain respect.

“Not to a window,” she explained. “I cut out a wee bit of glass on a locked cabinet. Just enough to turn the latch from inside.”

“And what was inside?”

“A jewel case. Most of the stuff was paste, but there were these pearls…” Bond’s eyes grew dreamy. “Ludd only gave me one tenth of what he got for ’em. Stingy bastard…considering I did all the work for ’em. I ate like a queen for three months, though.”

Stiles grunted, interrupting her reverie. “That is not the sort of story you should be proud of, Miss Bond.”

She shrugged. “No sense denying the past. We’ve all done things we shouldn’t to fill our bellies.”

“Well, put your talents to better use now.”

Bond said, “Many homes bar the ground floor windows.”

“Ugly,” noted Jem. “Miss Bering won’t like it.”

Bond considered the side of the house. “You could plant something nasty and thorny in front of the windows…but that takes time to grow, and Mrs Wharton might take issue if we alter her gardens.”

Jem laughed shortly. “Might take issue? We’d be run out of town if we touched a single plant!”

“Bars it must be then,” Stiles said. “Jem, could you get into the upper windows?”

“I could,” Jem admitted easily. “But I’m not sure that most would try. It wouldn’t be a quick job, that’s for sure. If it were me, I’d climb that vine-covered trellis over there, then scramble over to the window that opens at the end of the hallway.”

Bond gasped, measuring the distance Jem described. “You’d fall and break your back!” 

“I’ve made further leaps, my girl,” he said, grinning. “Don’t you worry about me. Though if I did get hurt, would you kiss it to make it better?”

“That’s enough!” Stiles rumbled. He frowned at the young couple. They were having entirely too much fun. “We must put a sash lock on the window by the trellis. No one could pry it open while hanging from the sill.” Satisfied that they could secure the house against most intruders, the butler directed his underlings to return inside, where they had other duties. He would see to the protection of the home.

* * * *

In the house, the mistress slumbered at long last. After seeing the stranger in her garden, Cordelia had lain on her bed, staring at the walls, her mind consumed with memories of her father and the awful days following his death. When daylight finally crept into the room, she fell into an exhausted, dreamless sleep, though she felt no better when Bond woke her later.

“It’s eleven, ma’am,” Bond said after she’d shaken Cordelia awake. “You said I should never let you sleep past eleven.”

“No,” she agreed groggily. “I should be up and about.”

“Shall I bring your tea up?”

“I’ll take breakfast downstairs,” Cordelia insisted.

Bond selected a gown for Cordelia and helped her into it with a minimum of fuss. The dress was a filmy, Grecian style gown in white lawn. That style, with its high waist and tiny sleeves, was the height of fashion, though Cordelia privately found the shape a bit scandalous. She couldn’t deny how comfortable it was to wear, however, particularly in warm weather.

“It will be hot today, ma’am,” Bond said as she buttoned up the back of the gown. “It’s already hot on the east side of the house. Here.” She handed Cordelia a fan, the thin wooden spine covered with silk dyed a rich shade of green. Cordelia idly snapped it open and fanned herself experimentally.

“Ah, very pretty, ma’am. Brings out your eyes. Do you want the jade necklace?”

Cordelia shook her head. “A good thought. Not at the moment, though. If I go out, I’ll wear it.”

“Yes, madam. I’ll put it aside then,” the maid replied easily. She had clearly retained everything she’d been taught about clothing and jewelry, Cordelia noted as she watched Bond gather up the dress from last night to take downstairs to press and repair it if necessary.

Cordelia went downstairs, where she found her appetite revived by the smell of baked bread and fresh jam. When she was nearly done eating, Stiles appeared in the dining room. He customarily went over the details of the household every morning, from the daily menus to more particular issues. Today, his mind was still on the robbery.

After a perfunctory review of the daily tasks, he related his plans to add bars to the windows. Then he added, “I talked it over with Mrs Landry. We agreed that it may have nothing to do with your father’s work. Rather, it may have to do with one of us, one of the servants,” he finished.

Cordelia looked at him, her eyes wide with a newfound concern. “Oh, no. That’s impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible, my lady. You know our pasts, and so do others. I know I won’t surprise you by admitting that I made many enemies in my time.”

“But that was years ago,” she insisted, as if that could ward away the logic of his argument. “You even changed your name.”

“A grudge can last a lifetime, my lady. And people talk. Maybe someone finally discovered that I’m not as dead as they thought. My name is different now, but I can’t do much about my face. It may be best that we leave this house in order to protect you.”

“No!” Cordelia said. “Absolutely not. Where would you go? What would I do without you?”

Ivy appeared in the hall, bearing a tray holding a small teapot and cup. The scent of tea drifted in the air. She halted when she saw her mistress arguing with Stiles.

“Ivy, take that to Mrs Wharton in the garden,” Stiles ordered.

“Have you told her then?” Ivy asked, ignoring the order. “We’ll go if that’s what’s best, ma’am. Don’t know where I can go, but I’ll be damned if my old boss takes what I done out on you.”

“Ivy!” Stiles growled. “Language!”

The maid looked abashed. “I meant that I’d be quite distraught,” she corrected herself.

“No one is going anywhere,” Cordelia said firmly. “If anyone is to blame, it is me. I should have destroyed those papers long ago. I didn’t. But I will decide how to…extract this household from any future entanglement. I promise.”

Though how she could do that when she didn’t know who her enemies were would be quite a challenge.

* * * *

Despite his late night, Sebastien only slept for a few hours after returning to his family’s townhome, once again dressed as the gentleman everyone presumed him to be.

He awoke just after nine, his brain too fevered to sleep anymore. In his dreams, he chased a thousand threads throughout the city, looking for the elusive papers. Not knowing what exactly they were for made everything worse. He feared he would look right at them and not recognize what he was seeking.

Groaning at the sunlight, he summoned his valet to help him dress, then went down to the breakfast room.

The townhouse that the Thorne family had purchased several years ago was located in a quiet, well-to-do neighborhood. The building itself was not large, nor was it particularly ornate. Sebastien was glad of that, because he knew what other families of his class spent on maintaining their homes in town, and the idea of squandering funds on that sort of thing made him furious.

The walls were painted rather than papered, and ornamentation was restrained compared to earlier eras. The molding was inspired by Classic art. Sebastien’s eyes followed the flow of one design that marched around the room just below the ceiling. It looked simple, and it was simple, but a trick of the eye made it hard to decide exactly what the pattern was. Not unlike his life, he reflected ruefully.

He poured coffee into two separate cups. He had no intention of sharing—he merely wanted to avoid getting up to refill anything. He carried those to the table, then pulled together a plate of cold meats and bread off the sideboard. Sitting down at last, he decided to forget his mission for the space of time it took him to break his fast. There was nothing he could do at the table to solve this mystery.

His mother sought him out before his coffee had a chance to cool. She appeared in the doorway, dressed in powder blue damask that set off her fair complexion and still golden hair. Sebastien had inherited his father’s coloring, not his mother’s. But he did have her stubbornness.

She surveyed him with narrowed eyes. “Are you slipping back into your dissolute ways, Sebastien? I am told that you didn’t get home until well after dawn.”

“Gough’s ball,” he explained shortly, hoping to put her off. He lifted the first coffee cup to his lips and drained it. His mother looked on in frank disapproval.

“You hate those things.” She sat down across the table from him, her back ramrod straight, helped only a little bit by her corset. The woman had been born with perfect posture.

“I met an old friend there. Another officer.”

“And then went carousing all night, I’ll warrant. Sebastien, when will you admit that you cannot live like a young lad first off in the world? You are thirty-five, and the heir now. You need to take responsibility!”