To Love a Thief (Steel Hawk) (5 page)

The man’s eyes widened to saucers. He thought it real, which was exactly what she intended, and she certainly wasn’t going to correct him.

He held out his hand, but Rose curled her fingers over the stone. “When you give me what I want.” Her voice sounded calm, but inside, she shook like a leaf.

She refused to look away, not even offering a blink or hint of concession.

“So what is it you want to know?”

Rose looked up and down the street. “Let’s go inside where it’s quiet. You can offer me a glass of your finest ale, and we can talk.”

* * * * *

“Bloody hell,” Nathan cursed for the umpteenth time. “She can’t have gotten far.”

“It appears she has.”

Stifling his frustration, Nathan turned back to his business partner. “I’m sorry, Ben.”

“I don’t want your apologies. We need the damned diamond back in the case. The real diamond.”

“I am aware of that.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“What I intend to do is rout out an old friend and see what he knows.”

They were standing a few yards away from the crowd waiting to enter the exhibition’s first day. “You stay here and represent Steel Hawk. The Queen apparently wants to meet us—you now, after hearing reports about our locking system for the Star. Maybe she’ll offer a contract for the Koh-I-Noor.”

Ben’s jaw hardened and his boot scuffed at the footpath. “How the hell can we contract to the Queen of England, for God’s sake, when it appears your lock failed?”

“It hasn’t. No one knows about the system.”

“That’s not quite true.”

“Well, it was a design I brought up once with Alex Valetta.”

“The girl’s father?”

He nodded. He remembered those days. Remembered being so bloody grateful to Alex for hauling him out of the gutter, giving him a chance.

And then he’d run away without a word for ten years. “We had discussed an idea of mine, but I never had the chance to develop it.”

“Why not?”

Because his past had caught up with him. “I promise I’ll explain it later. But now, while the trail hopefully hasn’t gone cold, I need to scout out some information on the diamond.”

“Do you really believe you can get it back?”

“I do.” But in fact he wasn’t sure what the hell he believed anymore. He grabbed Ben’s right hand, patting has shoulder with his left. “Believe me, Ben. Trust me.”

Ben’s frowned. “It seems I have no choice.”

Without answering him, Nathan spun away and flagged down a passing carriage. “The Cock and Hen down by St. Catherine’s dock, if you please.”

The man’s eyes widened as he took in Nathan’s expensive clothing and highly polished boots. “You sure, sir? Ain’t no place for a gentleman like you.”

Nathan’s mouth twitched. “Just as well I’m not really a gentleman, then, isn’t it?”

With a flick of the reins, the driver set his team in motion.

Nathan eased back, though he didn’t take in his surroundings. Instead, his mind wandered back ten years ago—to a day when he’d had to run from the best thing that had ever happened in his life.

“We’re ’ere.”

The man’s Cockney accent dug into the mire in Nathan’s brain. He eyed his surroundings. It seemed nothing had changed in all these years.

Oh, yes it has
.

Rosie had changed. The auburn-haired beauty with eyes the color of fresh spring pansies was all grown up.

Aware of a sudden yearning for those days, and one day in particular, again, Nathan shoved the carriage door open and exited. “Would you mind waiting?”

“Sure, but it’ll cost ya.”

“I wouldn’t have expected anything less.” Pivoting, he headed toward the Cock and Hen public house. If anyone knew what was going on, Harry Biggins would. He kept a good clean pub, but he also kept an ear to the ground.

The moment Nathan walked over the threshold, Harry’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Nathan strode toward his old friend, shaking his outstretched hand. “And here I was thinking you were already damned.”

“Ah no, it’s me wife, Alice, that keeps me on the straight and narrow.”

Nathan’s brow creased. That didn’t sound good. “Not too straight, I hope.”

Harry reached for a bottle of whiskey and two glasses from behind the bar. He uncorked the whiskey and poured a small amount in each glass, then hesitated. “Damn it, it’s good to see you after all these years.” He filled the glasses to the brim.

Nathan eyed the golden liquid. “If I drink that lot, my brain will be addled, which will be no help at all.” However, he lifted his glass and saluted Harry.

“I gather then that you need your wits about you.”

“I do.”

“So where you been?”

“San Francisco.”

“Well, blow me down all the way to the Colonies. What on earth for?”

He sipped the whiskey and enjoying the heat as it burned all the way down his throat and into his belly, then set his glass on the bar. “Another time, Harry. While it’s nice to enjoy your hospitality, what I really want is some information.”

“Doesn’t everyone.”

Nathan frowned. “Anyone in particular?”

“Nah, just some lass.”

Nathan’s gut churned. “What was she like?”

“A real beauty, but then she was a bit strangely dressed in boy’s trousers and all.”

“
Rose was here?”

“
Don’t know if that’s her name. Why? Do you know her?”

“I sure do, and I’ve got the bruise to prove it.” He absently rubbed his shin. “What did she want to know?”

“If you know her, then I reckon it’s the same as what you want.”

Nathan’s mouth curved into a half smile. “Very perceptive.”

“Call it experience. When two people come to see me within hours of each other, usually it’s about the same thing.”

“And?”

Harry shook his head. “You’re an impatient fellow, Hawk. Are you back in your old game?”

For a moment, Nathan didn’t comprehend what he hinted at, then it hit. The Raven. Harry thought him back to his old ways of stealing, lifting something from the rich but not quite giving it to the poor. He shook his head. “No. The Raven is long dead.”

“You reckon? There’ve been a few robberies of late, all with the hallmark of your expertise.”

A shocked breath burst from Nathan’s chest. “It’s not me. Those days are long gone. It must be a copycat.”

“Doing a fine job of it, then. Know anyone who had the skills?”

There’d been only one, but Nathan didn’t have a clue where his childhood friend would be now. Besides, he had more important things on his mind.

“So what did Rose want?”

“Wanted to know if I’d heard of any foreigners arriving of late.”

“Foreigners? From where precisely?”

“Zarrenburg. Though I ain’t even bloody sure where the hell that is.”

“A tiny principality in the middle of Europe. So what was your answer?”

Harry eyed Nathan as the older man picked up a cloth and began to dry some glasses. “A couple of blokes came in here. Couldn’t understand much; they sounded all foreign. Got me interest up, though.”

“Did you hear anything in particular?”

“Sure.”

Frustration ran through Nathan. “Harry, am I going to have to wring it out of you?”

“Nope, but a bit of the gold coin wouldn’t go amiss.”

“And I’m presuming you’ve already been paid once.”

“Betcha. And a nice little bauble for the missus it was too.”

“Rose gave you a diamond!” Shock scored through Nathan, and then a sudden chuckle burst from him. “A diamond. She gave you one of them.”

“Damned right, and it’s got me back in Alice’s good books.”

“I’m sure.” Nathan leaned over the bar. “Just be sure not to tell your beloved that the diamond is fake.”

“Fake!” Harry clamped his lips closed and took a quick glance over his shoulder toward his wife.

“Well not quite. It’s called paste and is the best imitation you can buy short of buying the real thing. But if Alice believes it’s real, I suggest you leave it at that.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “You can count on it. My life wouldn’t be worth living if she knew the truth.”

Nathan pulled two gold sovereigns from his trousers’ pocket. He rolled them onto the counter. “So tell me exactly what you told squirt.”

His old friend chuckled. “That sure is a good name for her.”

“How long ago did she leave?”

Harry scratched his bald pate. “About an hour or more.”

Damn!

“She’s heading for the Isle of Dogs, and you’ll need to charge to it if you’re going to catch her up. Ain’t safe for a girl around these bowels.”

“I know.”

“So what are you waiting for? Be off with you, Nathan. If it’s diamonds you’re after, you better find those fellows. They may ’ave been talking all foreign like, but I did catch them jabbering about some star.”

“A star. Are you sure?”

“’Course I am. I’m bald, old and cranky, well, Alice tells me I am, but I ain’t deaf.”

Nathan tipped back the remainder of his whiskey, earning himself a burn that tore at his throat and took his breath away. He set his empty glass down, leaned across the bar and grabbed Harry by the shoulders as the whiskey hit his gut and came right back up and burned the backs of his eyes. “Thank you.” He smacked a kiss on the man’s bald head.

Harry shooed him away, chuckling. “Get away with ya, don’t be kissing me.”

“Would Alice get jealous?”

“Aye, she might. She just might. Now go find your sweetheart.”

“Sweet…” He didn’t bother explaining. Rosie wasn’t his sweetheart. Not really. She was too bossy. Stubborn. He could never get soft on Rose Valetta. He’d rather go to hell.

Yeah, but you liked kissing her.

Once. Only once.

Suppressing those disturbing thoughts, Nathan strode out of the Cock and Hen and up to the still-waiting carriage. “Isle of Dogs, please.”

Harry Biggins followed him out. “Potter House is a boarding house
of sorts.
A Mrs. Jessop is the owner, though I’m darn sure she’s never married, but she has a parade of men through the way you and I would change our socks.”

“I see.”

Concern etched itself across Harry’s forehead. “Be careful, Nathan. She’s been known to have dubious characters staying there.”

“Seems like just the place to find these men, then.” He tapped the carriage driver from behind, and the man released his whip to the air, the crack spurring the horses off at a gentle trot.

What the hell was Rose playing at?

He didn’t have long to wait to find out.

* * * * *

“Mrs. Jessop?” he enquired as the landlady opened the door.

“Lady” was stretching the title, as far the woman who opened the door was concerned. Faced with a rather plunging décolleté spilling over her rather bawdy citrus-colored gown, making her look like a squeezed lemon, it took Nathan considerable effort to curtail his laughter.

While her gown was that sickly yellow, her hair had taken on another color of the spectrum and was as scarlet as the frock coats Nathan had seen the Beefeaters outside Buckingham Palace wear. Her hair matched the painted-on color of her lips and cheeks.

The woman leaned forward, and Nathan found himself automatically arching back as her overindulgence of some sort of pomander assaulted his nostrils.

“I was told that my…ah, cousin’s friends are boarding in your establishment.”

“And who would that be?”

He feigned confusion. “You know, I just can’t remember. It’s rather a convoluted story,” he said of the tale he’d concocted on the way over from Harry’s establishment. “My wife is expecting, and, well, she asked me to visit them and I can’t disappoint her.”

Mrs. Jessop ran a grubby hand across his shoulder and trailed a finger down his cheek. It was all Nathan could do to stop himself from gagging. “You’re married. Such a shame. All the nice ones are married, and you sure are nice.”

Nathan choked on an airless breath. “Thank you. Um…the men,” he prompted. “Foreign, I believe, and with rather thick accents.”

“Oh yeah, I know them.” She stood back so he could enter.

This wasn’t quite the way he wanted to play it, but he had no way out now. He stepped past her only to feel her hand on his buttocks, fingers giving them a decidedly stiff pinch. “Room Four, and when you’re finished, come down and see me.”

Nathan nodded; however, hell would freeze over before he ventured into Mrs. Jessop’s den, that was for sure.

He took the steps two at a time, though he made not a sound. It seemed the old tricks of his trade were still there.

He came to Room Four at the top of the first-floor landing and pressed his ear to the door.

He heard nothing except his heartbeat.

He counted to thirty, just in case, and then tapped on the door. “Delivery for ya. Delivery.”

He waited. Listened some. And still heard nothing.

“Delivery.”

At the bottom of the stairs, he witnessed Mrs. Jessop’s large form. The woman was listening.

Nathan fingered the small pistol in his pocket, something he’d gotten used to carrying over the years. He cocked it and yanked down the door handle at the same time throwing the door back so it slammed against the wall.

It reverberated on its hinges, but that was the only sound.

No voices. No men from Zarrenburg. And no Rose.

“Shit.”

He strode into the room, glancing about, checking the one cupboard, but realized the futility of it, as all three could not fit in it.

What now?

The room was definitely used. In fact, there was a warm pot of tea on the table, and a half-eaten meal. He spied something white on the floor.

Dust?

He bent down and grazed his index finger through it. Powder. White powder. Paste powder.

So Rose had been here. But where was she now?

Just then, he heard a clatter of barrels echoing from the back alley. Straightening, he glanced out the window.

“Rose!” Nathan hadn’t realized he’d screamed her name until she looked up at him.

Unfortunately, the thugs dragging her along between them did the same thing.

Nathan shoved open the window. No time to go back through the house. He’d lose sight of them, and lose Rose.