The Danger of Desire (25 page)

She hooked her fingers around the back of the spine and pulled the book out. It was surprisingly light for such a thick book. Because it wasn’t a book. It was a clever little box—and it was full of what she could only suppose were cheat sheets for the code books locked up tight in Falconer’s strongbox. And they were all in a cramped left-slanted writing. Stoval.

Meggs took only two seconds to think about what she should do. She pulled the entire contents of the book-box out and shoved them straight down the front of her bodice, so the sheets were riding flat along the busk. This had to be enough evidence to at least arrest Stoval and Falconer. Once they had them secured, the captain could come in and go at the strongbox at his leisure. All she had to do was get the sheets to the captain quick-like, before Stoval figured they were gone.

So she replaced the book-box on the shelf and was about to walk straight out. The urge to run was so strong. No. She turned around. Much as she would have liked to leave the strong chest half unlocked, if she left
any
evidence, it would put the wind up both Falconer and Stoval. The captain needed enough lead time to do things legal-like. She quickly stowed her pick set down her pockets, doused the candle, and made sure everything was put to rights.

It was then she heard the unmistakable sound of a key being inserted into the lock of the hall corridor door.

Bloody blue fuck. How had she missed hearing anyone on that clacking marble? There was no time. She had to get out the only other door—the private vestibule. She mussed her hair out of its pins and pulled her neckline loose as she ran. By the time she made it through the study door and was safely in the vestibule, the full scenario had worked its way through her brain.
Brazen it out, dearie, but make it real.
Meggs took one last moment to shove her breasts as high as she could get them, wet her lips, and subside back against the door with a sigh of lazy satisfaction.

It was only another second or two before Falconer burst through the door and wrenched her by the arm, twisting the skin over her wrist. Pain burst up her arm and settled in for the duration. Falconer had a grip like a debt collector with a mean streak. Here was a man who did not mind causing pain. Jim-jams didn’t begin to cover the fright crawling along Meggs’s skin.

“Oowww!” she bawled. “Lemme go!”

“What are you doing here?” Falconer demanded.

“Oh, Mr. Falconer. Lord Stoval.” She bobbed an awkward and painful curtsy within the secretary’s viselike grip as Lord Stoval appeared in the doorway. Falconer was a blade of cutting suspicion, sharp and probing, his eyes darting all over the vestibule and back into the study. But Stoval’s gaze was much more obedient. Meggs took a series of rapid little breaths designed to make her titties rise and fall quickly, keeping his attention focused. While Falconer cased the ken for anything missing, Meggs used her free hand to slip a tiny pinch of putty into the bolt of the door behind her back, pinning the lock open.

“I asked you a question. This room is forbidden to servants.”

“Yes, sir. I knows.” She made her eyes wide and let all her very real fright come into her voice and her face. “I weren’t in that room, I promise,” she pleaded. “I just slipped in here for a moment or so ... so’s I could stay warm, outta the cold.”

“You came
in
?” Lord Stoval asked.

Meggs bit her lip and did her best to look all soft and rumpled and appealing, even as her courage was wobbling like a loose cart wheel. “I know I weren’t supposed to, my lord.” She let her eyes swim just a little with the shine of tears. “But they was always watching in the kitchen stairs. And a girl can’t get a man to make an offer with everyone staring. I just needed a bit of privacy to get him in the mood, see?”

Lord Stoval began to chuckle.

“This is not amusing,” Falconer sniped. “How did you get in here?”

“We was in the doorway, talking like, but the door was open, so’s we just slipped in, outta the rain.”

“We? Who did you let in here?”

“For God’s sake, Falconer,” Stoval objected. “Look at the girl. I’m sure her skirts are still damp. It was merely a lover’s tryst. Go back to the kitchens, girl.”

“No.” Falconer was insistent and he had not released her wrist. “How did she get in here? The door is locked.”

“No, it ain’t.” Meggs stepped aside to let the winter wind blow it open. Falconer let go of her arm to ratchet at the lock.

“Really, Falconer.” Lord Stoval’s voice was replete with smug disdain. “You need to take better care with your precious keys.”

The palpable antagonism flaring between the men gave Meggs the perfect opportunity to back quietly out of range. But she couldn’t just run—and certainly not toward the dark carriage trolling slowly past at the edge of the park. If either Falconer or Stoval had even an inkling of what she’d stolen, or for whom she had stolen it, they would take a lam faster than the captain could have them arrested. They had to believe they were still safe.

“Come back here,” Falconer snarled at her as he chased her out on the wet pavement.

Meggs darted into the middle of Upper Grosvenor Street, where she was sure to catch a crowd. “You keep away from me, you leacher!” she bawled.

“I’ll have you dismissed.”

“No you won’t, cuz I quit!” Meggs was yelling at the top of her lungs so the whole street would hear. “I won’t work in that bloody house another minute. And if you ever try to hurt me again, I’ll have my man come find you and fillet you into pieces with a fish knife, you sorry excuse for a—” She picked up a small chunk of broken cobble and whipped it at him. She missed, but the piece landed exactly where she hoped it would, crashing through the window pane next to Stoval’s head with a spectacular shower of splintering glass.

And then she turned and ran like hell. Away from the captain and into the alleys of London.

Twenty minutes of running hard, of backtracking and skirting through passageways the size of a penny, made sure Falconer lost track of her. Damn, but why was it always as wet and cold as a dead whore when she was caught out of doors? If she stayed out in the rain, trying to find her way back to the captain any longer, the cargo down her front would get wet and the ink would run. And all her bloody evidence would be ruined. She couldn’t wait. Chill rain was sluicing through her hair—she’d lost her mobcap somewhere in her run—and the clothes upon her back were already soaked through.

There was really only one alternative. She had to get the sheets of codes dry. Old habits died hard. If anyone from Stoval House was looking for a larcenous, missing scullery maid, they’d have a devilish hard time finding one.

CHAPTER 18

I
t was agony to wait. It did no good to tell himself she was a professional, or that she had been living off her wits and agile fingers for years. Or that she knew her way through every alley and byway in London. Or that she was as lethal as a handspike.

Hugh had seen her back out of Stoval House, bawling like the proverbial fishwife, pelt Falconer with her rock, and take off like a wild hare. He tried to keep after her, but she was too fast and had too much of a lead for him to follow on foot. And then the traffic snarled and slowed to a crawl, making the carriage all but useless. She had disappeared into the cold, wet streets like the rain—invisible.

For a long while he cruised the park, waiting in hopeful anticipation for her return. But when night set in, and still there was no sign, he began to grow uneasy. The doubts he had pushed aside in the pursuit of duty came back to assail him tenfold.

Why hadn’t she run to him? Had he asked too much? Had he left her alone, unsupported, in Stoval House, too long? Had he given her an impossible task? Or worse. Had she just simply run?

He had warned himself, hadn’t he? He had known he was asking for trouble by trusting a cynical thief who would leave him flat at the first chance she got. He had trusted an untrustworthy criminal, and as a result he was going to fail Admiral Middleton, the Admiralty, and his country. And now he would have to go tell them.

Hugh reluctantly had Jinks turn the carriage toward home, and in too short a time, he was drawing up in front of the house in Chelsea, where Admiral Middleton was wearing down the carpet in his study.

Unfortunately, Rawsthorne was there as well, making himself at home behind his desk, looking into every shelf and corner and cataloging whatever it was he was seeing into the back of that manipulative mind of his. Hugh was of half a mind to be rude, just to pick a fight. But putting off the inevitable would serve no one. Bad news had to be delivered as quickly as possible.

“Well, Captain?” Admiral Middleton asked directly.

“It’s Lord Stoval, sir. I am quite confident of that, despite the fact that I have a very small amount of evidence to date, but unfortunately—”

There was a sudden clatter at the door as Timmy pelted into the room, and for a long, strange moment Hugh couldn’t conceive of how Timmy had grown so much taller or what he was doing interrupting their conference. But when the sopping-wet urchin all but threw himself into his arms, he knew that the wet body he was holding was Meggs, shaking from cold and exhaustion.

“I ran,” she panted. “Near all the way. Devil of a time shaking him, he was that mean, but I tipped him the double in the Dials, and I ditched the maid rig cuz’—”

“Shh. Get your breath. Sit down.” Though he was loath to let go of her for even a moment, he set her back in a chair so she could rest and catch her breath. She swiped off a disreputable hat and pushed back the loose ends of her hair, dripping and shaking off water like a stray cat. But all her lovely, dark, long hair was gone, chopped off somewhere in the latitude of her chin. It looked as though it had been lopped off with hedge shears. “Christ. What happened?” And then, because he had already said too much in front of Rawsthorne, he added, “Do you have the evidence?”

“I’ve got it. Codes.” She was taking in air in great gulps. “Couldn’t make the big box—eight bolts—too strong. But I got these.” And then she was fishing a packet out of her shirtfront and pushing it into his hands. “I tried to keep them dry.”

She had wrapped the papers in a small length of oil cloth. Smart, smart, clever girl. And he was an ass, an unmitigated, undeserving jackass, for ever doubting her.

“Is it enough? Can you get him with those? That’s Stoval’s writing, I’m sure. He’s left-handed. See how it slants? The other piece—the blank I gave you—was Falconer’s. Right-handed. And these codes should decipher it. I couldn’t get into the strongbox,” she repeated, anxious for it not to be a failure. “I swiped those papers—didn’t have time to copy ’em. So you’ve got to act fast, because if either Stoval or Falconer goes looking, they’ll know they’re gone and something’s afoot. Is that all right? Will it be enough?”

“It should be more than enough.” Hugh passed the packet to Admiral Middleton and then swept his own sea cloak around her shoulders. “Try to get warm.” He would have kissed her, right there in front of God and the admiral, but Rawsthorne was prowling behind him, so he had to be content with chafing her arms. “Go down to the kitchens. Mrs. Tupper will have something hot for you.”

She shook her head, like a stubborn little terrier, not willing to leave until she knew. “But is it enough? Did I get the right stuff? We could get back in on a dark job to heave the case, I suppose, but—”

Hugh laid a finger across her lips to stop the flow of nervous babble.

“Have a look at those codes, Major,” he suggested. “Can you make anything out?”

Rawsthorne’s attention was diverted to the evidence Admiral Middleton was laying out on the table, so he left off peering at Meggs to sit down and examine the evidence. They worked in silence for a very long while, and Hugh was obliged to go over and give his opinion on the work. He tried to keep an eye on Meggs, who was shivering in her chair as wet and cold as a bilge rat.

“Do you have everything you need? I need to get the boy seen to before he takes ill.”

“We do. We’ll take it from here.” Rawsthorne finally nodded his head and then moved toward the door.

“Quietly, Major Rawsthorne, please. Arrest him as discretely as possible. Do we understand each other?” Admiral Middleton asked.

“Lord Stoval shall be swept under your rug as quietly as you should wish. You may leave it to me.”

“Thank you, Major. I’ll await your progress. Good luck.” When Rawsthorne had left, Admiral Middleton came to shake Hugh’s hand. “I thank you as well, Hugh. You’ve done very well with an enormously difficult task, and it is much appreciated. Go ahead and see to the boy.”

Hugh drew what felt like his first full breath in hours, or even days. They were done and the traitor was as good as hung. So why didn’t the fist holding tight to his gut ease?

Meggs was home. She was safe. But he wasn’t. He was coming apart at his seams. Because now, in the moment after her triumph, he had no reasonable reason to keep her.

Mrs. Tupper insisted Meggs soak in a steaming hot bath to steep the raw cold out of her bones. That suited her well enough, though she was anxious to hear from the captain if Stoval and Falconer had been successfully taken up.

But she was tired to the bone. And cold. So she gave in to Mrs. Tupper’s fussing and was glad. The bath was thawing her out nicely. A bowl of soup and a nip of that sherry of the captain’s, and she could fall into her lovely bed, warm and happy. She had done it. She had done it for him. She hadn’t let him down. So why hadn’t he said a word of congratulations? Or even thanks?

It was all of a piece—the captain prowling into her bath without so much as knocking. Had a penchant for interrupting a good soak, the captain did. Meggs curved into herself to hide her body, but he wasn’t even looking at her. He was ranging around the room like an angry animal pacing the edges of its cage. Raw discontent sloughed off his shoulders. The only civilizing touch was the drink in his left hand. Every few moments he would swirl it around in the cut crystal glass and take a gulping drink.

“Well, am I meant to guess? Is it finished? Did you get them?”