An Honorable Thief (11 page)

"No, indeed? And do you know what else?"

From the corner of her eyes Kit saw the ladies lean closer.

"They say he might have been a Chinaman!"

"No! Good Heavens!"

"A Chinaman, Maud! But how do they know? Did someone see him?"

“No, but they found a torn scrap of paper near the window the rascal climbed through
—and it had Chinese writing on it!"

"Chinese! But was it not a Chinaman who stole the Pennington Black Pearls?''

"Yes, that's right, Hettie. The Devenish boy saw him."

Kit smiled to herself. The Devenish boy, indeed!

"This paper, Maud. What did it say?"

"Well, they called in some chappie from
—"

"All alone, Miss Singleton? Not dancing for some reason?"

Kit started and glanced up. “Oh, Mr Devenish, how do you do?'' she murmured, keeping her face blank of all expression. Drat! Apart from wishing to continue her eavesdropping, he was quite the last person she wished to encounter just now.

She hadn't expected to see him tonight. From all accounts Almack's was by no means his cup of tea. And yet, here he was, looming over her when she least expected it. And when she had no other choice but to invite him to be seated on the vacant chair next to hers. Common politeness dictated it. Drat the man. She had no wish to be subjected to more of his questions, and after their encounter in the park, she was sure he would have more.

If he'd recognised her, that is.

She looked him over, feeling almost exasperated. How did he do it? He was the most plainly dressed man in the place, as if he could not be bothered with fashionable nonsense. He wore no rings, no fobs, no seals, no quizzing glass
—not even a tie-pin, a small part of her noted guiltily.

His coat was dark and plain, though subtly well cut across those wonderful shoulders. He was dressed, most correctly for Almack's, in knee breeches and his cravat was simple, though elegantly arranged. Every other man in the room had gone to more trouble to dress for the occasion than he.

He should have looked like a plain black crow. And yet he looked magnificent.

His hair was newly barbered: cut short and brushed sternly back with water. It seemed he disdained pomade. Kit was glad; she disliked the smell of pomade. And clearly he preferred neatness, rather than style. She wondered whether he realised that enough small rebellious locks had survived the barber and the brushing to spring up, giving a faint impression of the Windswept Style.

A tiny smile quivered inside her. So that was why he had his hair cut so brutally short. It would not do for the world to know the stern Mr Devenish could grow a headful of curls any damsel would envy.

"Another danth? Yeth, yeth, of courth. Are you enjoying
—?"

"Odd, that," he interrupted brusquely. His cold grey eyes bore into her, a faint, disturbingly mocking light in them.

She looked at him inquiringly.

"My sister-in-law, Lady Norwood, is of the opinion that you lisp only when you are nervous. Are you nervous?"

Kit did not know what to say. She gave what she hoped sounded like a nervous, schoolgirlish titter as a way of avoiding a reply. It sounded to her ears more like the whinny of a sick horse. "Oh, look," she said, "there's my friend Mifh Lutenth. I mutht
—"

"You didn't lisp at all in the park this morning."

Kit froze. "Park?" she said vaguely, twirling a dusky curl in the most inane way she could think of.

"After you'd been attacked by those footpads, I would have thought that if nerves had been in question, you'd have been lisping your head off then."

"Footpadth? Good Heaventh! But I really don't know what
—"

"Doing it much too brown, Miss Singleton. I am not venturing a bow at random, you know. I saw your face when you hit me." Hugo smiled sardonically and raised his wrist. "And I bear your brand."

To Kit's horror a faint, livid mark was still visible. "Oh, no, I am so terribly sorry, I didn't
—"

She caught herself up just in time. She could not admit to being out at dawn, unchaperoned. "I mean, you are mistaken about whoever you saw. It was not I.I slept until ten o'clock this morning, after the late night I'd had." She bit her lip and looked up at him remorsefully. "I don't know who did this to you, but I am very sorry you were hurt."

He snorted. "It would take more than a cut from a vixen to hurt me."

She flushed and, without thinking, reached out and took his wrist, cupping it between two soft hands. She peered at the thin red mark. "It looks rather red and angry. Did you put any salve on it?'' Her finger lightly traced a line just below the actual mark.

A silent shiver went through Mr Devenish at her touch. He stared down at her, watching the soft, slender finger stroke gently back and forth across his skin. It was mesmerising.

He glanced at her face, his brows drawn darkly together in unwilling suspicion. Her head was bent, the tassel of her cap falling forward. Her pale nape was curved and delicate, her dark curls wisping gently around it. Was this another one of her tricks? He wanted to pull his hand back away from her soft touch. He was unable to move, transfixed by her touch. He could feel his heart beating within his chest, pounding the blood though his body.

He inhaled deeply to clear his head and found himself inhaling the scent of her, the faint citrusy tang of something in her hair, the warm aroma of
—he inhaled again—was it vanilla and rosewater coming from her body? Whatever it was, her scent was ravishing. He loathed the way so many females drenched their bodies with strong-smelling perfume. Not Miss Catherine Singleton. A faint hint of roses, and yes—he leaned forward imperceptibly and breathed deeply again—he was sure it was vanilla. Roses and vanilla.

She had removed her outlandish red jacket and he found his eyes drawn to the scooped neck of her gown, to the fine creamy skin. His gaze sharpened and he felt a tiny spurt of triumph as he noted several tiny faint freckles, which she had dusted with rice powder to disguise. She might try to hide them from the world, but she would not hide them from him.

Mr Devenish felt a sharp of jolt of surprise as he caught himself on that possessive note. Good lord! What was he thinking of? She was a mystery to be investigated, that was all, and on his young nephew's behalf. He was here on business, no more. It was what he was good at.

If he wished to be rid of the constant drain of his nephew and sister-in-law on his time and purse, he'd best make certain that any heiress Norwood snapped up would be rich enough to bolster the family fortunes sufficiently. It was not merely his nephew's interests he was pursuing here, it was his own. Once Thomas was safely buckled to a fortune, his uncle would be free.

And this was the heiress Thomas had chosen; this creature of rose and vanilla, who parried his questions with artless simplicity and went out to ride at dawn.

An heiress with a lisp that came and went. A diamond heiress who never wore diamonds. A sheltered young innocent, chaperoned at all times
—except when she was fighting off footpads alone at dawn. A girl who claimed to have beaten off robbers in Jaipur when she was fourteen. Who may well have stolen his tie-pin under the eyes of hundreds of London's finest. She looked barely seventeen now. But he'd wager Sultan she was a good deal older than she looked.

"How old are you?" he snapped.

She blinked and looked up at him in surprise. And beneath his sharp gaze her eyes turned from the clear depths of blue innocence, to glowing sapphires, glittering with mischief.

Mr Devenish frowned. He had never been drawn to sapphires. Untrustworthy stones. But he was drawn to her eyes, even when they weren't innocent and clear, but sparkling opaquely as they were now.

“I thought that was a question a gentleman never asked a lady," she murmured, releasing his hand.

He caught hers in his, refusing to break the contact. “Yes, but I am not a gentleman. Ask anyone. How old are you?"

Her eyes twinkled as she pretended to think for a moment. "I'm as old as my eyes, and a little bit older than my teeth. And you, sir?''

"I'm thirty-two," he said bluntly. And old enough to know he shouldn't be holding hands with a chit only just out in a place where anyone might walk by and see them. But he didn't let go of her hands. His thumbs moved back and forth across her skin.

Her hands were not as soft as those of most ladies of his acquaintance. There were faint callouses, and not just from riding. If he didn't know better, he would have suspected she'd had to do menial work at some time. Interesting that. He would have to find out why. Another mystery to unravel.

"Thirty-two," she said admiringly, quite as if he'd declared himself ninety-two. "That's quite old, isn't it? I suppose your children are almost grown by now." Her eyes danced, and he recalled her offer of a rusk the night before.

"I don't have any children," he said brusquely.

"I'm sorry," she said with quick remorse. "It was a thoughtless comment."

Confound the wench! She was a minx and a baggage and a mystery! One minute the lisping innocent, the next a cool-voiced little Amazon wielding a whip in her own defence. And now, this soft-eyed, soft-voiced woman, with the not-quite-soft-enough hands.

"I don't have any children because I have never been married."

"Oh." She appeared to consider the matter. "So you have sworn off marriage." She nodded understandingly. "Many men do not care for marriage, I know." She smiled at him and he caught a glimmer of mischief again. “They prefer their, er, male friendships."

Definitely this chit was no naive schoolgirl!

Innocent, but not naive. The unselfconscious way she had taken the hand she'd marked had convinced him that she was inexperienced in the ways of the flesh. Guilt, rather than flirtation, had been behind that action. She had touched him more like a repentant child than a woman bent on seduction. So an innocent, but a worldly one, for all that.

"But I
do
enjoy the company of women," he assured her grimly.

She nodded artlessly. "Oh yes, many of the
—er, many unmarried men do so, I know."

The minx was deliberately teasing him! She could not truly believe he was a man-milliner, surely! But he couldn't help but retort sharply, "I'll have you know I have enjoyed a number of liaisons with women.
Intimate
liaisons."

She turned her head away, suddenly the shy schoolgirl. "I do not believe you should be speaking of such matters to me."

He was aware of the truth of that. Good God! What on earth was he about, discussing his mistresses with a gently reared young virgin! And a relative stranger, to boot! Quite disgraceful of him. He felt his face reddening.

"Er..." he began awkwardly.

"Oh, it is quite all right
—Papa was a little too free with his tongue, too," she surprised him by saying. "I expect you will continue to be so, as well. It is difficult, I know, for gentlemen to change their habits after a certain age."

"After a certain age
—" he began wrathfully, but before
he could bring her to a proper understanding of his youthful vigour, she had tugged her hand free and was waving to some other young thing.

"Oh, there is my friend Miss Lutens and I must speak to her most particularly about something. I beg you will j excuse me, Mr Devenish, but I truly must go. It was very pleasant speaking to you, and..." she paused in her rush, and her voice lowered "... I am truly very sorry about what, er, what happened to your hand. Goodbye." And she curtsied and hurried off to join a gaggle of young women in white.

He watched her move gracefully across the room, baffled, annoyed and fascinated, despite himself. He still knew almost nothing about her. Oh, he was coming to know her in small ways...

She had three or four tiny freckles just below the hollow in her throat. And that she tried to hide them.

She sat a horse like the huntress Diana and faced unexpected danger bravely and boldly.

She could apologise with a liquid softness in her eyes that caused him to see another Miss Singleton hiding behind the mischievous girl with the quick and clever tongue whose not-quite-soft little hands held him even as she tied him in knots with her nonsense.

But who the deuce she was, where she had come from, where she had spent her childhood, and where the devil that diamond mine was? About those questions he was no more informed than when he had first clapped eyes on the chit!

Less! The more he knew of Miss Singleton, the less he understood about her.

Mr Devenish did not care to play the ignoramus any longer.

He strode to the card room and scanned its occupants quickly. Aha! Sir George Bancroft! Old Bancroft had been an intimate of his father. He was reputed to be "a very downy fellow, old Bancroft''. If anyone recalled anything about Miss Singleton's father, it would be Bancroft.

"Oh, Miss Singleton, I am so very glad you are here tonight. Sir Bartlemy is being very...attentive!"

Kit frowned. "And did you try to hint him away as I suggested?" She glanced at her young friend's distressed face. "Yes, I can see you have. Impervious, is he? Horrid old Octopus! Did you bring your hatpin?"