Rogue Grooms (44 page)

His hands clasped her waist loosely as she leaned back to gaze up at him. He did not look like himself this evening—not like the David she had come to know, in his stylish coats and waistcoats, his perfectly tied cravats. Tonight, he wore a strange costume of loose black cotton trousers with a black tunic and long waistcoat. His hair was concealed by the folds of an exotic black turban. The gleam of a dagger could just be seen peering from the folds of his sash.

“You look quite—
fetching
yourself,” she murmured. In truth, if he had a gold earring he could pass for a Barbary pirate.

He laughed, his teeth very white against all that black. “I am sure I look like a murderous thuggee, but none of my other clothes allow such concealment. Now, come—we have to hurry. The Innises have left for the musicale, but who knows how long they will be gone. We must be well away before they return.”

“And before Georgina and Alex get back and insist on checking on my ‘fever,’” Emily answered. She took his hand and followed him onto the back street heading away from the mews. “But what will we do once we get to the Innises’ house?”

“My dear Boudicca, don’t you know? We are going to break in and exchange one false Star for another. Isn’t that what you’ve been secretly planning all along?”

 

Exchange one Star for the other
. It sounded so very simple, Emily thought. It was just too bad that the execution did not prove to be so easy.

Execution. Now,
there
was a word. Surely that was what awaited them if they were caught in this scheme. She and David would be dead or in Australia. Anjali would be parentless and Georgina and Alex would be in despair.

But somehow, even with all that lurking above her, Emily felt alive with excitement. This was what she had been missing in all those ballrooms—missing ever since she and David last dashed across the summer fields at Fair Oak. She had been missing
life.

If only she could have found it some other way, she mused wryly. In dancing, perhaps, or needlework, rather than breaking and entering. But they would not be caught. They would retrieve the paste Star and be gone from here.

She hoped.

David held her up to the library window at the Innis house, the balls of her feet balanced in his palms as she clung to the cold marble ledge with her gloved fingers. It was pitch black in there, a ray of errant moonlight just catching on the Star’s glass case.

“Well?” David asked. “Can you see anything?” He did not even sound breathless from the effort of holding her aloft.

But Emily was not sure how long she could keep her balance. “Not a thing,” she said, wobbling against the wall. “There is no one there. I can see the case, but I do not know if it still contains the Star.”

“Is the window locked?”

The glass was an old-fashioned casement, unusual for a couple with such modern sensibilities as the Innises. Perhaps they had just not yet gotten around to replacing them, which made Emily’s task easier. It was fairly simple to slip her thin wire between the panes and pop up the latch. She pushed open the window and answered, “Not anymore.”

“Excellent.” David hoisted her up even further, until she could pull herself up into the room. She tumbled to the floor with a deafening (to her ears, anyway) thud.

She lay there on the carpet, breath held as she listened for running feet and warning shouts. Nothing. Only silence.

Her breath left her lungs in a great
whoosh
, and she sat up and turned back toward the window. David’s hands, also encased in dark leather gloves, appeared over the ledge and he hoisted himself up and over. Unlike her own ignominious fall, he landed lightly on his feet, like an Indian panther.

He clasped her hands and drew her off the carpet. “All right?” he whispered.

Emily nodded mutely, and turned in the direction of the glass case. As if in a trance, she moved across the library, dodging the dark shapes of chairs and desks and settees, with David close behind her.

This has to be a dream,
she thought. Only David’s hand in hers was real.

She stopped at the glass case, staring down at it. The Star was there, winking and sparkling up at her as if to mock her endeavors. She pressed her fingertips against the lock, suddenly realizing she had lost her wire.

“Looking for this?” David pressed the thin silver length into her palm. “You dropped it on the carpet.”

Emily nodded, still silent. She turned the wire over in her hand, staring at the lock.

David’s hands landed lightly at her waist, a warm, reassuring pressure. “You can do this, Boudicca.”

Could she? It was true that once she had been quite shamefully proficient at picking locks. The blacksmith’s apprentice at Fair Oak had taught her, and she had used the skill to break into Damien’s strong box on his infrequent visits to Fair Oak. The few coins she took were never enough for him to notice, but they meant extra seed or a leak in the roof patched to Emily.

That was years ago, though. She had not tried it since. She flexed her fingers and closed her eyes, trying to remember just the right twist to make the lock open to her.

Steadied by David’s nearness, she opened her eyes. Slowly, carefully, she slid the end of the wire into the tiny opening of the lock. She wiggled it around, trying to get it just under the mechanism. She only just felt it, when the library door gave an ominous click behind them. The faint echo of voices, a giggle, came to their ears in the darkness.

“Blast!” Emily cursed under her breath, yanking the wire out of the lock. They were caught!

“Come with me,” David muttered. He pulled her across the room, and reached out to draw open the door of a cupboard. It appeared to be a section of a bookcase, tucked into a comer, but Emily saw it was in reality a tiny closet, with banks of crates pushed against the walls. She had only a fleeting glimpse before she threw herself inside, pressing back against the crates.

David slid in beside her, drawing the door shut just as candlelight spilled into the library—across the glass case where they had been standing only an instant before.

David left the closet door open a crack. Emily peered through it, her hand braced against the wall and a prayer of thanksgiving whispering in her mind.

A footman, his powdered wig askew and the jacket of his livery unbuttoned, appeared in the library, a branch of candles in his hand. He was closely followed by a girl in a housemaid’s black dress and white apron. Her cap was gone, her light brown hair spilling over her shoulders.

Surely they have not come here to clean
, Emily thought.

Her suspicions were quite confirmed when the footman placed the light down on the desk and drew the maid into his arms.

“Ooh, Johnny!” the girl squealed. “Yer ever so naughty.”

The footman’s hand slid down to her backside and squeezed, as he lowered his head to kiss her neck. “I can be even naughtier, Nell, you just watch!”

Nell squealed again, and dissolved into giggles as he proceeded to pull up her black skirts. “We’ll be caught! And I’ll be sacked for sure. So will you.”

“And who’s to catch us?” Johnny’s voice was muffled in Nell’s bosom. “Mr. Hudson and Mrs. Barnes are snoring away, and the master and mistress won’t be home for hours. Plenty of time for a bit of fun, eh, Nell?”

Nell went into a paroxysm of laughter as Johnny tipped her back onto a settee. They were mercifully hidden from Emily’s view by the furniture’s brocade back, but she had to draw the closet door shut when she saw a pair of satin livery breeches and a white petticoat go sailing down to the carpet.

She was quite afraid she was going to have a fit of the giggles herself. She was shaking with the force of her nerves at having her lock-picking interrupted by such, er, lively activity, and hysterical laughter lurked just below the surface.

Fortunately, the cupboard was quite soundproof once closed, and she didn’t have to hear any more of Nell’s squeals. Unfortunately, all the light was also gone, and the heavy darkness pressed in upon her.

She took a deep breath—and inhaled David’s sandalwood scent. Suddenly, the darkness did not seem quite so frightening. His presence was all around her, even though she could not see him, and she had a new fear—that he would touch her, and she would start gasping and giggling just like Nell.

“Are you all right, Em?” he murmured. His voice enfolded her, like a thick velvet coverlet, wrapping about her, drawing her in.

She felt one of the crates at the back of her knees, and sank down onto it, reaching up to pull off her hat and shake her hair free. “Yes. Quite all right.” Her voice was hoarse and trembling, but hopefully he would put that down to her shock at being interrupted. Not at the sudden, drugging warmth that flooded her veins and made her weak and slow.

Through the door, a sudden high-pitched scream could be heard. “Ooh, Johnny! Yer ever so big. I don’t think as how it’ll fit.”

Emily choked on a snicker, and pressed her hand to her mouth.

“Well,” David drawled, laughter rich in his voice. “I do not suppose we will be free of this hidey-hole any time soon. Not if young Johnny’s, er, attributes continue to be as alluring to Nell as they are at present.”

Emily moved her hands to cover her whole face, forgetting for an instant that it was completely dark in their closet and he could not see her scarlet cheeks. “Um—no. I daresay you are right. You should sit down, David.”

“Where?”

Here, and then I’ll sit on your lap and pretend we are Johnny and Nell,
Emily thought, then almost slapped herself for such unladylike thoughts. But she could not deny that, for a moment, she had wished she was a housemaid and not a duke’s sister.

“There is a crate here beside mine,” she said. “They seem quite solid.”

She felt the brush of cool air as he moved to sit on the crate behind hers, the caress of muslin cloth on her wrist. She started as his hands found her in the dark, sliding around her waist to draw her close.

For a second, she held herself stiffly, unyielding, scared to let herself give in for fear of what she might do. But the darkness was seductive, urging her to give in to his touch, to let herself be free for just a while. Not as free as Nell, of course, but still . . .

She relaxed against David, letting her head drop back to rest against his chest. She felt his chin nestle atop her head, his breath stirring her hair. Her hands slid atop his, and they sat there for a few moments, entwined, silent.

Then a long moan broke across the quiet, and Emily knew she had to speak, to cover the noise from Johnny and Nell, or she would go mad.

“David, talk to me,” she urged.

“What would you like to talk about?” he said, his voice heavy and rich, like chocolate or sweet brandy.

“Oh—a tale of India. That would be appropriate, I think.”

“You probably know more than I do, with all of the reading you have done.”

“Of course I do not. You have lived there; you know the sights and scents and feelings. I can only imagine them.” And that had been all she had done in her life—imagined. Until now. Here, in this dark little closet, she felt that all the mysteries of life, love, and death could be revealed to her. All in David’s voice and touch.

After a long second of silence, he said, “I can tell you a tale of the Star. My grandmother told it to me when I was young.”

“Oh, yes! Please tell me, David.”

When he began his tale, his cultured London accent fell away, his tones became lilting and musical, touched with the spice and heaviness of his home. “There was once a prince who lived in ancient India. His name was Krishna, and he was an incarnation of the god Vishnu. He founded the city of Dwarka, on the coast of the land of Gujarat before it fell into the sea and disappeared. Some say it was the true Atlantis.”

Emily closed her eyes, and she could see it, the shining city by the sea. It made everything—the darkness, the breaking and entering, Nell and Johnny—recede away.

David went on. “In Dwarka lived a man named Sattrajit who worshipped Surya—the sun. One day, while Sattrajit was walking on the shore, Surya appeared before him and rewarded his devotion with a jewel. This jewel, as brilliant as the sea itself, brought great prosperity to the city, and kept away all evil—even thieves and famine and plague.”

“The Star?”

“Perhaps. But Sattrajit feared that Krishna would demand the jewel, so he gave it to his brother Prasena. But, you see, the jewel would only do good for the good man—and bad for the bad man.”

“And Prasena was bad?”

“Indeed. He went out hunting, and was killed by the king of bears, who took the jewel to a cave.”

Emily was fascinated. “Then what happened?”

“When people found Prasena dead, they said that Krishna killed him for the stone. To prove his innocence, Krishna found the king of bears in his cave and fought him for twenty-one days, until the bear gave up the jewel. When Krishna returned with it, people believed he was innocent after all. Then he gave it away to a virtuous maiden—and eventually it ended up in a great temple.”

His voice stilled. Emily’s eyes opened, and she was half-surprised to find herself still in the dark closet and not in the cave of the king of bears. “Was that all?”

David gave a low, rumbling laugh. “Of course not. Such tales go on forever in India. The stone passes from hand to hand, some worthy, many not. Krishna could not keep it himself, you see, because he had sixteen thousand wives, and that was hardly virtuous.”

Emily laughed. “Sixteen thousand!”

“Yes. One can only hope that they were all as happy as Nell out there.”

Emily laughed even harder, so hard that she was afraid she could never stop. She muffled the sound behind her hand.

“It is said,” David continued, his clasp on her tightening, “that whoever possesses the jewel moves like the sun, wearing a garland of light.”