The Millionaire Rogue (30 page)

The crush here was thick and stubborn. No one, it seemed, wished to relinquish their position at the forefront of what was sure to prove this season's greatest scandal.

Hope ducked; he leapt into the air; still he could see nothing.

At last, squeezing between two potbellies, Hope found himself inside the circle.

His eyes fell on Lady Violet.

There, strung from a collar of glittering white diamonds, was the French Blue, nestled just above the overeager rise of Lady Violet's bosom.

The French Blue.

Disbelief pulsed through him, along with a wave of panic so strong it made him nauseous. Without thinking he leapt into motion, pushing bodies out of the way as he made for Violet, the diamond, his salvation.

The Earl of Harclay was nowhere to be found; it seemed he'd vanished as quickly, as inexplicably, as he'd appeared some moments before.

The crush was terrible, and even with the advantage of his height and breadth he could make little headway. His heart raced. He was close, so close, he couldn't let the diamond out of his sight . . .

If only for Sophia. If only to save her family's meager fortune, her cousin, her mother, and her uncle. If only for Sophia, he would reclaim the diamond, make it his once more.

When at last he trampled his way to the middle of the room, Lord Harclay had, predictably, disappeared; Violet was nowhere to be found. He frantically searched the sea of faces that surrounded him on all sides, thousands and thousands of masked people he did not recognize. Was that the back of her head there? Or her skirts, was she wearing blue, or had it been white? No, no, he thought, ticking off faces as he looked, not her, not her,
definitely
not her . . .

But then he caught sight of a small ripple on the sea's surface, a parting of bodies as if someone were snaking between them. He followed the movement as it made its way across the ballroom and into the gallery beyond; as the figure rounded the corner, he caught the glimmer of a gauzy gown, followed by the flash of diamonds.

It was Violet. She was going after the earl, wherever he'd disappeared to.

Hope pushed and prodded his way after her, ignoring the cries and gasps of outrage as he went. He wasn't about to lose the French Blue, not after he'd come so far; not after all he'd lost, and still had to lose.

He stumbled into the gallery just as Lady Violet ducked through the narrow servants' door at the far end of the hallway. Hope paused, catching his breath, his mind racing with options, his chances, what his next move should be; and as he stood there, his eyes of their own volition settled on a shapely figure in an alcove to his right.

Sophia stood dutifully next to her mother as Lady Blaise chatted with a circle of flush-faced matrons. Watching Sophia, face studiously blank as if she were about to weep, eyes darting over her mother's shoulder in search of him—he
knew
she was looking for him—something inside Hope broke and began to bleed. He felt the poison seeping into his lungs, weighing down his limbs and his will to move on.

But he had to move on.
Move
, but his feet remained planted on the parquet floor of Harclay's high-ceilinged hall.

Hope gritted his teeth. There would be time enough for grief. Right now he
had to move
.

Only with tremendous effort did he coax his body into motion. Down the gallery, through the door, he nearly fell down the darkened corridor of the servants' stair. His unexpected tumble lent him momentum, and the cacophony of the kitchens passed by in a whirl of scents and shouts and the clatter of pots.

He heard Violet's voice, soft and breathless, followed by the burly cook's booming reply: “He's thataway, my lady. Just missed 'im, you did. You'd best hurry!”

He followed Violet into the servants' quarters at the back of the house. Violet was calling for Harclay,
William, William, wait
, as her footsteps quickened on the cold stone floor.

Hope followed her through the back kitchen door and out into the night, skidding on the loose gravel of the drive. Lady Violet was several paces in front of him; she was cursing, something about damning said William to hell; in answer to her curses, an enormous coach silently materialized out of the darkness.

Hope plastered himself against the house's far outer wall, peering through a thorny tangle of a rosebush. The vehicle slowed but did not stop; the door flung open, and with a little yelp, Violet was swept from her feet and into the carriage, the door clicking quietly shut behind her.

His blood rushed as he bolted out into the drive. Had Lady Violet, with that fifty-carat diamond about her neck, been
kidnapped
? Hope was as tired of that plot as anyone, but it
did
make sense; it wouldn't be the first time the French Blue was thieved out from under his nose.

Or had the Earl of Harclay—
William
, Lord Townshend—defied everyone's wildest expectations and actually done the honorable thing? Had he swept Lady Violet off her feet so that he might take her to the
altar
, the diamond aside?

And could Harclay even speak words like
honor
and
altar
without bursting into flames?

Only time would tell.

And Hope didn't have very much time at all.

He leapt out into the drive and burst into a sprint, his heart hammering as he gunned after the coach. The gravel slipped and skidded beneath the fine soles of his pumps; his chest and throat burned.

He was so close. So very, very close to getting back what was stolen from him those weeks and weeks ago. The diamond was within his grasp; he could feel its cold weight in the palm of his hand, the thrill of his triumph.

But it was slipping further and further away, the coach disappearing into the darkness as the pair of matching blacks was urged into a gallop.

The drive curved into the lane up ahead. Hope watched as the coach pulled into the evening traffic, disappearing into the seamless tangle of horseflesh and lacquer that heaved just beyond the gates of Harclay's property.

And then, as if it had never existed at all, the coach was gone.

His heart burst with pain and Hope doubled over, hands on his knees as he fought to breathe. He tried to curse the vilest curses he knew, in every language he spoke, but all he managed were a few pitiful wheezes.

The diamond was gone. That bloody jewel was gone
again
.

He felt sick at the finality of it, the irony of it. Hope knew better than anyone that the French Blue brought misfortune to those who owned it—first Shah Jehan, then that wily traveler Tavernier, the kings of France. And now it brought misfortune to Thomas Hope; a hideously classic example of mankind being doomed to repeat its terrible history.

Doom
. Even the poet in Hope winced at the word. It was 1812, damn it, and no such thing as doom existed anymore. Everyone knew it died out with the Tudors, or, at the very least, with wart-faced Oliver Cromwell.

Even so. Watching the innocuous push and pull of traffic in the lane, the slow turning of the moon in the night sky above, Hope could not shake the sense of dread knotting in the pit of his belly.

He was about to collapse in defeat and, with any luck, roll into a ditch somewhere when a familiar hiss—
psst! Psst!
—sounded from over his shoulder.

Hope rose, chest releasing with relief at the sight of La Reinette leaning out a carriage door, her face obscured by a red satin domino.

“Venir, monsieur, vite!”

She waved him over to the coach in that singularly elegant way of hers, her eyes on his face as he trotted toward her.

“We've got,” he wheezed, pointing in the direction of the lane. “To go.”

La Reinette held out her hand. “
Oui, oui
, I know, come!”

Thank God.

Thank God she was here to save him. He still had a chance.

Hope fell heavily onto the fine velvet squabs. It was dark inside the coach, the lanterns having been extinguished; the better, he figured, to slip through London's streets unnoticed.

“Oh, Marie.” He gasped. “I cannot tell you. What a relief. It is. To see you.”

He saw the flash of her teeth as she smiled. In the dark they appeared small and sharp, like the talons of a falcon.

He paused. “Wait a. Moment. What are you. Doing back in London?”

“It was time,” she replied. He waited for her to say more but she remained silent.

“Well then,” he said uneasily. “Shall we be off?”

The voice that answered did not belong to La Reinette.

Or any woman, for that matter.

“
Oui
, we shall.” The voice was like gravel; the accent heavy but clear, clipped.

Hope recognized it at once.

Beside him, Guillaume Cassin pounded the roof with his silver-topped cane. The carriage heaved into motion.

Hope jerked to life, leaping for the door; but the man who had indeed come back from the dead, whose neck La Reinette had sliced open in that sour-smelling room in Paris, stopped him short, using his cane to thwack Hope soundly in the head.

Hope fell face-first to the floor with a ringing
thump
.

In his head his blood rushed.

And then, nothing.

T
hankfully Lady Blaise had wept herself into a stupor over Cousin Violet's sudden disappearance at the ball, leaving Sophia to face the black evening ahead in blessed solitude.

After helping Fitzhugh, one of the few servants left at the house, carry Mama upstairs to her bed, Sophia pleaded exhaustion. With promises that she would wait up for any word of Violet's whereabouts, she ducked into her room and closed the door behind her.

She stripped off her pale satin gloves and loosened a particularly painful pin that had assaulted her right ear all night, allowing them to fall through her fingers to the floor.

And then she fell back against the door and let out the breath she'd been holding all night, tears welling as she sank slowly to the ground.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and allowed herself at last to cry, her hurt and her anger and her grief pouring from her eyes, the tears hot as they slid down the length of her neck.

It was the sort of cry reserved for prima donnas on stage and hapless heroines in novels.

But Sophia would not be thwarted; she had wronged, and been wronged in return, and hang it all if she wasn't going to get a good, solid, one-for-the-ages cry out of it.

Mr. Hope had looked handsomer than ever tonight; and while he would've looked better in black leather rather than white, her heart had skipped a beat at the blue of his eyes, the boyish curve of his lips. He'd excused himself so abruptly on the landing of the top of the stairs; as she watched him walk away, intent on seeking out the French Blue, her heart, so exultant moments before, sank into the depth of her disappointment and seemed to dissolve altogether.

It would be the last time. The last time he would bow over her hand and her blood would pulse with the knowledge that he was hers and hers alone. The last time she would look into his eyes and see her own desire, the love she bore him, reflected in the wide, startling blue irises.

On ne peut avoir le beurre et l'argent du beurre.

Sophia remembered the faraway look in La Reinette's eyes as she said the words.

One cannot have one's cake and eat it, too.

The madam had been talking about some lover or another, one who broke her heart; one she loved above all the others. Now Sophia understood La Reinette's pain, her regret. By setting her cap at London's most eligible—and often most lackluster—gentlemen, Sophia had neglected men like Thomas.

Passionate men, handsome men, men who made her feel alive, adored.

Men who loved her, and whom she loved in return.

What a fool she'd been! To even
think
of choosing the Marquess of Withington, sweet natured as he was, over Thomas Hope.

Thomas hadn't broken her heart; no, Sophia had done smart work of that herself.

And now she was alone in a crumbling house, no money or future of which to speak; it would only be a matter of time before that Cassin fellow, wherever he'd disappeared to, revealed her identity as the author of some of the most scandalous memoirs England had seen in decades. What little she had left—family, reputation—would be ruined.

Again the tears threatened; but even as Sophia was tempted to give in, and give up, and resign herself to a thankless and gray spinsterhood in some thankless, gray place like Scotland—for surely Mama's exhibitions of grief would force all of them into exile—she found herself wondering what La Reinette would do.

La Reinette. Yes, thinking of Madame always made Sophia feel better; and in the early, heady days of her courtship—if one could call it that—with Mr. Hope, the Little Queen's adventures occupied her thoughts often.

Sophia glanced toward her bed, the single taper on the table beside it. Its flame wavered sluggishly in the still air of the room.

Barely enough light by which to read.

But it was enough.

Sophia wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand and scampered to the side of the bed. Drawing up on her knees, she pushed aside the bedclothes and ducked to peer into the dark space below.

Admittedly not the cleverest of hiding spaces, but then again Lady Blaise was not the cleverest of mamas. Besides, if anyone needed watching, it was Cousin Violet; no one suspected Sophia of much beyond the usual sins of youth: vanity, a proclivity for gossip and flirtation.

Harmless things, really, when compared to her usual nighttime activities. If her mother only knew! Lady Blaise would be dead of apoplexy in five seconds flat.

The tattered hatbox scraped across the floor as Sophia drew it out into the small circle of light. She traced the familiar lettering, now faded, with her fingers:
LOCK & CO HATTERS. 6 ST. JAMES'S ST.
LONDON.

Carefully she placed the box on the bed and climbed up after it, her slippers falling to the floor with tiny, hollow
plunks
. Drawing near the taper, she opened the box, inhaling the animal scents of leather and fur that still clung to it so many years later.

Inside, a scattered pile of fine paper lay strewn about the box's silk-lined interior. Each page was covered in Sophia's careful copperplate handwriting, La Reinette's extraordinary life boiled down to a series of looping
p
's and
g
's, the grand arch of an
A
.

Sophia read the first line of script at the top page—
It had been a cold winter, a terrible winter, and I knew the duke's warm embrace could not last forever
—and only when the taper's light sputtered, the wick having burned down to a blackened nub, was La Reinette's spell broken.

Sophia looked up, blinking. She sat up, running a hand along the stiffness in her neck, and set the pages down on her lap.

Goodness, but the memoir was good; Madame's stories were intoxicating; the romance and the bare-chested barons and long, naked nights spent before roaring fires made for some exquisite reading.

Sophia glanced out the window; outside the night was black, no sign yet of dawn or sleep.

Settling a few pillows against the headboard, Sophia leaned against them and bent her knees, propping the pages on her thighs. She still had a few minutes yet of light, and the story was just getting good . . .

The spy had no name but the bluest eyes I had ever seen in my short life. With his gaze alone he could fell any woman, rich or poor, royal or common . . .

Tonight he played the part of pirate, leaping from his ship on the Seine, his billowing shirt open, his eyes alive with danger. It took all my strength not to swoon at his feet. His dark hair was wild in the wind, the curls held back by a red handkerchief . . . I waited for him to touch me, for the stars in the blank sky above to answer my urgent prayers that he love me as I loved him . . .

Sophia pulled back, her thoughts sparking with a vague sense of recognition, of familiarity. Blue eyes, fallen woman, dark, curly hair.

Dread snaked up her spine; her body went stiff. It couldn't be; couldn't
possibly
be him. He and La Reinette were no more than strangers back then, two people brought together by a series of exciting, if unfortunate, events. She couldn't be in love with him, not after what they'd done together . . .

But Sophia knew better. She recalled her conversation with La Reinette the night Mr. Hope had interrupted their meeting at The Glossy:

I enjoyed this week's tales. Thoroughly. That spy you knew, back in France—the one with the curls, who could fell a girl with his gaze alone? He is my favorite gentleman yet.

La Reinette had smiled; a smile Sophia now understood to be the secret sort, the malicious sort.
Yes. He is my favorite, too.

Blue eyes, fallen woman, dark, curly hair.

It could only be one man.

It could only be Mr. Thomas Hope.

Sophia leapt to her bare feet, her mind racing as she tore into her armoire in search of her boots.

Of three things she was certain.

First, La Reinette was in love with Mr. Hope, had been since they'd first met nearly a decade ago.

Second, Hope was not in love with La Reinette, never had been.

And third, La Reinette was French. She said herself the French were possessed of vengeful hearts. As a woman spurned, Sophia had no doubt Madame would do everything in her power to destroy the object of her unrequited affections.

Everything, like colluding with Hope's enemy, Guillaume Cassin, to mastermind a plot to bring Hope to his knees.

A plot to bring the woman Hope
did
love to her knees, too.

It made perfect sense; Sophia was angry at herself for not seeing it sooner. La Reinette was the only one other than Thomas who knew Sophia was writing scandalous memoirs. The madam was the missing link;
she
was the one who sold Sophia out to the gossip sheets.

And now that La Reinette and Cassin had Sophia by the short hairs, they would turn their attention to Mr. Hope.

It was, ironically enough, just the sort of plot, of adventure, that populated the Little Queen's memoirs. Only now, the madam would use her cunning and wily nimbleness against Sophia; it was no longer an adventure but a duel, a race to ruin.

Sophia quickened her steps, and was about to scuttle down the stairs, when she caught sight of the narrow door that led to Uncle Rutledge's dressing room. She paused, but only for a moment; she darted into the room, emerging moments later wearing only her chemise, a ball of clothes tucked into the crook of her arm.

She skipped down the stair as she tugged one leg, then the other, into her uncle's rather voluminous breeches; she tugged a shirt over her head, tossing aside a musty waistcoat after tangling her arms in its armholes. Too much work, that, and no one would notice, anyway.

At least she
hoped
no one would notice.

Skidding out the kitchen door, Sophia shrugged into a jacket. She topped off her costume with a hat that was two sizes too big and twenty years out of fashion.

She tucked the last of her pilfered finds into her jacket and, tipping up her nose so that she might run without the hat falling into her eyes, Sophia took off at a sprint.

There wasn't much time. She had to stop La Reinette and that rat-faced Frenchman Cassin from getting to Thomas.

If they hadn't already.