You Only Love Once (15 page)

“My dear, I make no objection to you bashing in his head, whether your virtue was at stake or not.”

“Good. Then we do not need to argue about it.”

He raised one eyebrow. “Were we arguing? I thought I was being agreeable.”

He was, damn him. “If he does not go out this evening, we will simply go later. And before you ask,” she added as he looked about to speak, “I will be armed with more than a rock tonight.”

A faint smile crossed his mouth. “No doubt,” he said again.

“Is that all you can say?” she snarled. “Have you no helpful suggestions? I have already been out to see the house and plan how we will get inside. What have you done today?”

As soon as she said it, Angelique wished it back. It was ill-tempered, rude, and unfair; she had no idea what he had been up to this morning, but not in her worst mood could she accuse Nate of being unhelpful. He had treated her far better than she had just treated him, and even now that she had snapped at him, he still didn't snap back at her. She drew a deep breath and let it out. “Forgive me,” she said more calmly. “That was wrong of me.”

Nate rose. “Apology accepted. You must be tired today, and that is my fault.” He walked toward her,
and she felt her face warm as his clear green eyes met hers, deep and pure and knowing. “Prince will be returning to the ship. His work here is just about completed, and it will be more convenient to have his laboratory already stowed aboard when we locate Mr. Dixon. We notified the captain this morning; a cart and some men will come this afternoon for his equipment. And…I went to get you a gift.” He put his hand into his coat pocket and took it out.

Angelique blushed—deeply. It was a knife he held out to her, with a dark carved handle and a sheath of some fine leather embroidered with pale beads and threads. She slid the blade from the sheath; it was slightly curved, made of finely honed steel. The hilt was as smooth as satin under her palm, and perfectly balanced. It was a beautiful, deadly, weapon, but not like any knife she had ever seen before.

“It's a Wyandot knife,” he said when she looked up in wonder. “From the frontier of America.”

“How exotic.” She didn't know what else to say.

“I thought you might like it,” he said. “Should you need to protect yourself against men like Hurst again.”

“It is beautiful.” She tested the blade, razor sharp against her thumb.

He grinned. “It's not meant to be an object of art. Mind you don't cut yourself.”

“I do know how to use a knife.” But she slid it back into the ornate sheath. “Thank you.”

“Thank me tonight,” he replied in a low voice. “In any way you like.”

She met his gaze, and awareness crackled in the air between them. “I will,” she whispered.

His slow smile made her stomach flutter. He
caught her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing the tip of her index finger. “I look forward to it.” Then he turned to go.

“What is a Wyandot?” she asked on impulse. He stopped at the door to his bedroom and glanced back at her.

“A tribe of native people,” he said. “They live in the Ohio Territory. They are known for their ferocity, especially to their captives.” She turned the knife over, looking at it in renewed amazement. “It's a warrior's blade,” he added. “A scalping knife.”

I
t was as dark and silent as a tomb inside Davis Hurst's house. Getting in had been no trouble at all, thanks to the purloined key, and now they stood in the narrow hallway listening to the faint ticking of a clock. Any servants must have retired for the evening after Hurst left for his club, sporting a bandage just visible under his hat. Angelique had quietly relished the sight of that bandage.

With a soft touch on Nate's arm, she led the way up the stairs. She winced as one step gave a soft squeak, but behind her Nate was utterly soundless, and the house remained as still as before. Upstairs, they found Hurst's study and slipped inside, and Angelique drew her first full breath in some time when Nate closed the door behind them.

“I shall start on the desk,” she murmured. “Will you do the cabinet?” He nodded once and moved to the ornately carved cabinet by the window. Angelique knelt on the hearth and poked at the fire until she got an ember to light her small lantern. Nate lit a candle from the mantel and they turned to their respective tasks.

Hurst was a careful bookkeeper. His desk draw
ers were locked, but she was able to open them with only a few minutes' work with her lock picks. Hurst had ledgers coded in colored inks, detailing his transactions. He was nothing more than a glorified fence, she realized, but a clever enough fence to identify his clients only by numbers. She paged through all the ledgers and searched the other drawers, but couldn't locate a key listing names and directions. By the dates, they could make a guess which transactions might be connected to Jacob Dixon, but that would still tell them nothing about where the man or his stolen money were now. Angelique was just cursing eloquently in her mind as she replaced the ledgers where they had been when an unexpected sound stopped her cold.

Someone was at the door.

She froze, her gaze flying to Nate. There was no escape from the room; the one tall window looked out on the street, and there was no other door. Nate made a motion urging her to get down, and blew out his candle. Angelique followed suit with her lantern, then dropped to the floor behind the desk and held her breath.

Metal rasped against metal as the doorknob turned, until the latch released with a soft click. She could hear rapid, heavy breathing, then an extended creak as the door opened. A slice of light fanned across the floor, less than a foot away from where she huddled. Slowly her fingers inched toward the dagger strapped at her waist, the scalping knife Nate had given her. She wasn't going to kill a servant simply doing his job, but if he had a pistol, she wasn't going to wait to be shot, either.

With terrible precision, there came a footstep,
then another. The light spilled over the desk now, and Angelique had to dig her fingernails into her palm to keep herself from flinching away. Staying completely motionless was far better than instinctively jerking out of sight; the movement itself, the rustle of cloth, a change in breathing would give her away. She remained still as a stone and waited. Where was Nate? she wondered. Her fingers tightened on the knife hilt as she imagined him being slowly revealed by that approaching light. He had been exposed on the other side of the room by the window, with no large furniture to hide behind.

The next thing she heard, over the pounding of her heart, was a startled intake of air, followed by a thump and a wheeze. Something pinged softly, like a fork tapping on a wineglass, and then there was a rushed choking, gargling sound. It sounded like someone being strangled.

Angelique scrambled to the corner of the desk away from the light, no longer silent but ready to spring to Nate's aid. Her fingers touched her garrote, coiled at her waist by the knife, and she rocked onto the balls of her feet. She slid around the heavy mahogany desk with deadly intent, then stopped in surprise.

Nate held a stocky older man with one arm around his neck, the other around his forehead covering the man's eyes. In his hand was a small glass bottle, pressed to his captive's nose and gasping mouth. Hurst's servant was clutching at Nate's imprisoning forearm with one hand and flailing rather aimlessly about with the other, which clutched a stout walking stick. As Angelique watched, his arms relaxed and then flopped to his side. The walking stick
thumped on the floor and rolled under the cabinet. The servant's head lolled unconscious on his neck. Only then did Nate ease his grip. The man in his grasp slumped forward.

Nate glanced at her. “I found a box of correspondence,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Look—there on the table. I'll take care of him.” He set down the small bottle, then hefted the unconscious man over his shoulder with a strength greater than his lean frame indicated. Moving slowly and carefully, he went out the open door, and a moment later she heard his footsteps descending the stairs.

Angelique snatched up the bottle and took a cautious sniff. The sickly sweet scent of ether made her wrinkle her nose and put it down. A small bit of liquid sloshed in the bottom. Ether fumes could make one feel faint, and she kept her distance from the bottle, even opening the window to get rid of the smell. She got the lamp that the servant had left burning on the table by the door and went back to work, making much faster progress with better light.

Nate returned several minutes later, less quietly than before. “There's no one else in the house,” he reported. “Did you find anything?”

“He is an organized rogue,” she said, digging through Hurst's correspondence. “These, perhaps. I cannot read it all.”

Nate took the letters she held out, scanning through them. After a moment he made a quiet hiss of triumph. “Here's Dixon,” he muttered. “He's being called Chartley now, and staying at the Pulteney Hotel in London.”

“Are you sure?” Angelique asked even as she
began placing the other letters back in the box.

He tilted the letter toward the light. “He lists the jewels here. The necklace with the teardrop emerald pendant is quite distinctive—as Dixon knows, from the way he mentions its unique design and high value.”

“Do we need anything else here?”

Nate looked down to flip through the other letters, then shook his head. “His last letter is just a day ago from the Pulteney, and makes no mention of moving. We're done here.”

“Good.” Angelique replaced the letters, then let Nate return the box to where he had found it. She closed the window and checked once more to see if they had left any trace of their presence. “What are you doing?” Nate was on his knees by the desk, running one hand over the carpet.

“Looking for the seal,” he whispered back, wiggling the bottle at her before tucking it into his pocket. She joined him on the floor, and moments later found the hard wax wafer that had sealed his bottle of ether. With one last look around the room, they blew out the lamp and left, hurrying quietly down the stairs.

In the hall below, they had just reached the bottom of the stairs, ready to go out the back, when a key rattled in the lock of the front door. Angelique's heart leaped halfway to her throat; there was no place to hide in the hall. Almost before she had formed the thought, Nate had seized her arm and hustled her down the hall and around the corner to the back of the stairs, where the servants' door to the lower level was. The front door was opening. Nate shoved her against the wall right behind the baize
door, and then flattened himself against her as light from the streetlamp in front of the house seeped into the hall.

“Puddlestone,” called Davis Hurst. “Puddlestone! Where are you?”

Angelique barely breathed. She was squeezed tight between Nate in front of her and the wall at her back, and breathing would have been difficult even if she weren't trying to hold herself utterly motionless. She could feel the faint puffs of Nate's breath on her temple, and knew he was doing the same. As soon as Hurst went upstairs, they could slip out, but for now the man was in his front hall stamping about, waiting for his servant to attend him. Slowly she tipped back her head, meeting Nate's eyes. Although his body was tensed, he was grinning broadly and there was a wild, excited glint in his eyes. He wiggled his eyebrows, then leered downward at her bosom, flattened against his chest, as if this had all been a ploy to press up against her, and in spite of her thundering pulse, Angelique had to bite her lip hard to keep from smiling back at him. What a daredevil he was, to find it amusing that they were literally inches away from being discovered breaking and entering.

“Puddlestone!” Hurst barked again. He muttered under his breath, and Angelique caught the words “lazy” and “idiot.”

With a creak, the baize door next to them slowly opened. The man Nate had knocked unconscious stumbled out, rubbing his forehead. His gray hair stood up in a ruff around his bald crown, and he moved like a man just roused from a deep sleep.

“Coming, sir,” he mumbled. He shuffled toward
the front of the hall, not noticing the two of them plastered to the wall barely inches away from him on the other side of the door. The door had shielded them from view this time, but if he came back toward them, there would be no escape. “You're home early, sir,” Puddlestone said to his master.

“And you took the opportunity to drink, I see,” snapped Hurst. Silently, Nate reached out and caught the edge of the door before it closed. He eased away from her and motioned her to go through.

“No, sir,” Puddlestone protested plaintively. He was around the corner now, his lamplight illuminating the front of the hall. “Just a drop of sherry, no more. I have such a headache, though.”

“I'm sure it's nothing to mine. Bring some of that headache powder and some wine, and be quick about it,” Hurst ordered. Angelique slid around the door under Nate's arm, then dashed as quietly as she could through the scullery, Nate right behind her. Once the baize door to the hall had closed, she felt safe enough to slide back the bolt and open the door to the back stoop. Hesitating just long enough to take a quick glance out to be sure there was no one about, they were outside the house. Nate closed the door behind them, then caught her face in his hands and pressed a hard kiss on her mouth. In spite of everything, her knees started to soften, and she had to grab his arms to keep her balance when he released her. Still grinning like a madman, he took her hand and they ran through the garden into the alley and back to the street.

“
Mon Dieu!
” she said, sucking in a deep breath. “
Incroyable!
What brought him home so early? He was not gone above an hour!”

“Perhaps his splitting headache of last night caught up to him.”

She laughed, a little giddy with relief. “Perhaps! And his servant also, I think.”

Nate shrugged modestly, his stride long and easy. “Ether can give a man a hangover as powerful as one from brandy.”

“Where did you get it?” She had not known he had it, and it was an oddity; if Hurst and his man pieced together what it was, they could chance upon the chemist who sold it. She had tried so hard to eliminate any trail that led to them, even dropping Hurst's latchkey into the area below the front steps where he would find it eventually and never suspect he had lost it in Vauxhall. She couldn't deny the ether had come in handy, but she also couldn't deny being a little irked Nate hadn't told her about it.

“Prince made it for me,” he said. “An extra potent mixture; he warned me not to breathe it myself or I'd be staggering around like a drunk.”

“Oh,” she said. “Did the man see you, before you seized him?”

“I doubt it,” he replied, giving her an aggrieved look. “And he'll likely have some very fanciful notions of what happened; ether gives men strange dreams.”

She said nothing, but Nate caught the flash of pique on her face. He thought it had been a very successful night; they now knew where Jacob Dixon was staying, and they hadn't been caught. Now they were on their way home, and his blood was already running hot and fast from their close escape. Just the thought of the pleasures she might inflict on him was making him hard and ready. Or maybe it was
the way he had pressed her against the wall, sparking all sorts of images in his mind as he inhaled the soft scent of her hair and felt her lithe body shift against his. Or maybe it was the spark of irritation in her face that made him tense in expectation of the unknown. Maybe he'd breathed in too much of the ether after all, for his fantasies were taking reckless turns.

“You can exact whatever revenge you wish when we get home,” he said to her in a low voice.

Her eyes flashed at him. “You may depend on that,” she replied. “I trust you remember your promise last night?”

He'd said he would be hers to do with as she wished. Nate had to forcibly control his breathing. “I do.”

By the time they made it home, both were almost running. All thought of what they had learned vanished from Nate's mind; all he could see was Angelique stripping off her dark, fitted jacket, and the way she watched him with a fierce fascination that must be mirrored in his own face. Desire made him hasty and clumsy. At least one button burst off his coat as he struggled out of it. He barely got it off, let alone back on the peg behind the door, before she grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled, sealing her mouth to his in a blazing kiss.

It wasn't the ether. He felt as wild and drunk with anticipation as a sailor stepping on shore for the first time in months. She was a living bonfire in his arms, tempting him toward immolation, and God help him, he was already ablaze. He wrapped both arms around her and lifted, striding toward the stairs.

“No,” she breathed, wriggling free.

Nate set her down without releasing her. “Upstairs now, or here on the stairs.”

“You said it would be my night to command,” she whispered, twining her fingers through his hair as he kissed her bare throat. She tipped her head back and moaned, and the vibration under her skin, against his lips, made Nate shudder. He wasn't going to survive this woman. She would drive him mad, one way or another.