Читать книгу Regency Rogues: Candlelight Confessions - Marguerite Kaye - Страница 12

London, three weeks later

Elliot stifled a yawn and fished in his waistcoat pocket for his watch. Five minutes off two in the morning and his friend Cunningham was showing no inclination to leave. The atmosphere in the gambling salon of Brooks’s was one of intense concentration disturbed only by the chink of coin, the glug of a decanter emptying, the snap of cards and soft murmurings as the stakes were raised. The gamblers were much too hardened to betray anything so crass as emotion as the stack of guineas and promissory notes shifted across the baize from one punter to another.

Some of the cardplayers wore hats to shield their faces. Others tucked the ruffles of their shirt sleeves up under leather cuffs. Elliot, who had been used to gambling with his life for far higher stakes, could not help finding the whole scene slightly risible. He had placed a few desultory bets at faro earlier, more for form’s sake than anything, but the last hour and a half had been spent as a spectator.

Restlessly pacing the long room, with its ornately corniced concave ceiling from which a heavy chandelier hung, the candles in it guttering, he called to mind the many similar reception rooms across Europe he had visited. Cards were not the game which had attracted him to such places. In the midst of war, cards were a means for his men to while away the long hours between battles. Civilians didn’t understand the boredom of war any more than they understood its visceral thrill. He had no idea why Cunningham could ever have thought he would be amused by a night such as the one they had just spent. Carousing and gambling left Elliot cold. No doubt when Cunningham rose from the tables he would be expecting to indulge in that third most gentlemanly pursuit, whoring—another pastime which held no interest for Elliot. He was a gentleman now, perforce, but he was, first and foremost his own man, and always had been—even in the confines of his uniform. Elliot had had enough.

‘I find I have had a surfeit of excitement, my dear Cunningham,’ he said, tapping his friend lightly on the shoulder. ‘I wish you luck with the cards. And with the ladies.’

‘Luck doesn’t come into it, Elliot. You of all people should know that. Never met a devil more fortunate with the fairer sex than you.’

‘Never confuse success with good fortune, my friend,’ Elliot replied with a thin smile. ‘I bid you goodnight.’

He collected his hat and gloves and headed out into St James’s, doubting he’d be making much use of his new club membership in the future. It was a cold night, dank and foggy, with only a sliver of moon. A housebreaker’s kind of night, though it was much too soon to be thinking about that.

Kinsail’s diamond had proved rather difficult to dispose of. Elliot’s usual fence had refused to have anything to do with such a distinctive stone, forcing him into an unplanned trip to the Low Countries where he had, reluctantly, had it cut and re-faceted before selling it on. The resultant three diamonds had garnered far short, collectively, of what Lord Kinsail was rumoured to have paid for the parent. But then, Kinsail had paid the inflated premium such contraband goods commanded, so Elliot’s thief-taker had informed him. More important—far more important—was the price Kinsail was now paying for his dereliction of duty to the British army.

Not that he knew that, of course, any more than he really understood the price paid by that army for his neglect. Men such as Kinsail saw lists demanding horses, mules, surgeons. Other lists requiring field guns, cannons, rifles, vied for their attention, and more often won. But what use was one of the new howitzers when there were no horses to haul it into battle? What use were muskets, Baker rifles, bayonets, when the men who would wield them lay dying on the battlefields for want of a horse and cart to carry them to a field hospital? For want of a surgeon with any experience to tend to them when they got there? What did Kinsail and his like know of the pain and suffering caused by their penny-pinching. The ignorance which led them to put guns before boots and water and bandages?

Elliot cursed, forced his fists to uncurl. Even now, six years later, Henry’s face, rigid with pain, haunted him. But what did Kinsail and his like know of that? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And even if he could, by some miracle, paint the picture for them, it would give them but a moment’s pain. Far better to hit them where it hurt—to take from them what they valued and use it to fund what really mattered. Those diamonds, even in their cut-down form, would make an enormous difference. That miserly bastard Kinsail would never know that his jewel had, by the most dubious and complex route, gone some way to make reparation for his war crimes.

As ever, following what he liked to think of as a successful mission, he had scoured the newspapers for word of the robbery, but Lord Kinsail had, unsurprisingly, declined to make public his loss. For perhaps the hundredth time since that night Elliot wondered what, if anything, Lady Kinsail had said about their encounter. For what seemed like the thousandth time the memory of her pressed beneath him flitted unbidden into his mind. The feel of her mouth on his. The soft, husky note to her voice. That face—the haughty, questioning look, the big eyes which had shown not one whit of fear.

He should not have kissed her. He had thought, as he fled the scene of his crime, that she had kissed him back, but had come to believe that mere wish fulfilment. She had simply been too startled to resist. After all, as far as she was concerned he was a thief. But why had she not cried foul?

The bright gas lighting of Pall Mall gave way to the dimmer and appropriately shadier braziers around Covent Garden. Thin as London was of company this early in the year, there seemed to be no shortage of customers for the wretches forced to earn their living on the streets. A scuffle, a loud cry, then a cackle of laughter rent the air as a man was dumped unceremoniously on to the steps of a brothel. Shaking his head at a questioning pock-marked street walker, Elliot pressed a shilling into her filthy hand and made haste across the market square, ignoring her astonished thanks.

The stark contrast between the homes of the gentlemen who frequented the privileged clubs of St James’s and the hovels and rookeries which were home to London’s whores, whom those same gentlemen would visit later, made him furious. He had seen poorer and he had seen sicker people abroad, but this—this was home, the country he had served for nigh on sixteen years. It shouldn’t be like this. Was this what twenty-odd years of war had won them?

In the far corner of the square he spied something which never failed to make him heartsick. Just a man asleep in a doorway, huddled under a worn grey blanket, but the empty, flapping ends of his trousers told their story all too well. The low wooden trolley against which he rested merely confirmed it. To the callused, scarred legacy of guns and gunpowder on his hands would be added the scraping sores caused from having to propel himself about on his makeshift invalid cart. He stank, the perfume of the streets overlaid with gin, but to Elliot what he smelled most of was betrayal.

‘May God, if God there be, look down on you, old comrade,’ he whispered.

Careful not to disturb the man’s gin-fuelled slumber, he slipped a gold coin into the veteran’s pocket, along with a card bearing a message and an address. To many, charity was the ultimate insult, but to some—well, it was worth trying. Elliot never gave up trying.

Weary now, he made his way towards Bloomsbury, where he had taken a house. ‘The fringes of society,’ Cunningham called it, ‘full of Cits.’ He could not understand Elliot’s reluctance to take a house in Mayfair, or even a gentleman’s rooms in Albemarle Street, but Elliot had no desire to rub shoulders with the ton any more than he desired to settle down, as his sister Elizabeth said he ought. Said so regularly and forcefully, Elliot thought with a smile as he passed through Drury Lane.

They were surprisingly alike, he and his sister. Almost twelve years his junior, Lizzie had been a mere child when Elliot joined the army. He had known her mostly through her letters to him as she was growing up. As their father’s health had declined and war kept Elliot abroad, Lizzie had shouldered much of the responsibility for the overseeing of the estate as well as the care of her fast-failing parent. Knowing full well how much her brother’s career meant to him, she had refrained from informing him of the true nature of affairs back home until their father’s demise had become imminent. Touched by her devotion, Elliot had been impressed and also a little guilt-ridden, though Lizzie herself would have none of that, when he had finally returned for good after Waterloo.

‘I have merely done my duty as you did yours. Now you are home the estates are yours, and since Papa has left me more than adequately provided for I intend to enjoy myself,’ she’d told him.

She had done so by marrying a rather dour Scot, Alexander Murray, with rather indecent haste, after just three months of mourning. The attachment was of long standing, she had informed her astonished brother, and while her dearest Alex had agreed that she could not marry while her papa was ailing, she’d seen no reason for him to wait now that Papa had no further need of her. Lizzie had emerged from her blacks like a butterfly from a chrysalis—an elegant matron with a sharp mind and a witty tongue, which made her a popular hostess and an adored wife. Matrimony, she informed her brother at regular intervals, was the happiest of states. He must try it for himself.

Russell Square was quiet. Bolting the door behind him, Elliot climbed wearily up to his bedchamber. After tugging off his neckcloth, neatly folding his clothes—an old military habit, impossible to shake—Elliot yawned and climbed thankfully between the cool sheets of his bed. Another hangover from his military days: to have neither warming pan nor fire in the room.

He had no wish to be manacled in wedlock. It was not that he didn’t like women. He liked women a lot, and he’d liked a lot of women. But never too much, and never for too long. In the courts of Europe loyalty to one’s country came before loyalty to one’s spouse. In the courts of Europe the thrill of intrigue and adventure, legitimised by the uncertainty of war, made fidelity of rather less import than variety.

‘Living in the moment,’ one of his paramours, an Italian countess, had called it. Voluptuous Elena, whose pillow talk had been most enlightening, and whose penchant for making love in the most public of places had added an enticing element of danger to their coupling. That time in the coach, coming back from the Ambassador’s party … Elliot laughed softly into the darkness at the memory. It had been later, in another country, in another coach and with another woman—this one rather less inclined to court public exposure—that he had realised how practised had been Elena’s manoeuvres. Her ingenious use of the coach straps, for example. He had obviously not been the first and he was without a doubt that he had not been her last.

He wondered what Elena was doing now. And Cecily. And Carmela. And Gisela. And Julieanne. And—what was her name?—oh, yes, Nicolette. He could not forget Nicolette.

Except he could hardly remember what she looked like. And the others, too, seemed to merge and coalesce into one indistinct figure. He missed them all, but did not miss any one in particular. What he really missed was the life, the camaraderie. Not the battles, for the thrill of the charge was paid for in gore and blood. Nor the pitiless reality of war either—the long marches, the endless waiting for supplies which did not come, his men stoically starving, clad in threadbare uniforms, footwear which was more patches than boot. Killing and suffering. Suffering which continued still.

Elliot’s fists clenched as he thought of the old soldier in Covent Garden. One of thousands. No, he’d had more than enough of that.

What he missed was the other, secret part of his army career, as a spy behind enemy lines. The excitement of the unknown, pitting his wits against a foe who did not even know of his existence, knowing that before he was ever discovered he would be gone. The transience of it all had made living in the moment the only way to survive. The pulsing, vibrant urgency of taking chance upon chance, the soaring elation of a mission pulled off against the odds. He missed that. The pleasure of sharing flesh with flesh, knowing that, too, was transient. He missed that also. Since coming home he had taken no lover. He would not take a whore, and somehow, in England, taking the wife of another man seemed wrong.

Abstinence had not really troubled him. He had encountered no woman who had stirred him beyond vague interest until his encounter with Lady Kinsail.

Elliot sighed as her face swam into his mind again and his body recalled hers. Between his legs, his shaft stirred. Dammit, he would never sleep now! That smile of hers. That mouth. His erection hardened. What would it feel like to have that mouth on him, licking, tasting, sucking, cupping? Elliot closed his eyes and, wrapping his hand around his throbbing girth beneath the sheets, gave himself over to imagining.

Deborah stood undecidedly on the steps of the discreet offices of Freyworth & Sons in Pall Mall. It was early—not long after ten—a pretty day for March, and she longed to stretch her legs and mull over the rather worrying things which Mr Freyworth had said. It was true, her writing had of late become more of a chore than a pleasure, but she had not been aware, until he had pointed it out, that her general ennui had transferred itself on to the page. Stale. That was how her publisher had described her latest book. Knitting her brow, Deborah was forced to acknowledge the truth of what he said. Perhaps her imagination had simply reached its limit?

Across from her lay St James’s Park, and a short way to the left was Green Park. There would be daffodils there. Not the sort of freshness Mr Freyworth was demanding, but perhaps they would help inspire her. She could walk over Constitution Hill, then carry on into Hyde Park and watch the riders.

Even at the end, when money had been as scarce as hens’ teeth at Kinsail Manor, Jeremy had found the funds to keep his horses. Riding had always been a solace to Deborah, though these days it was, as with most things, a pleasure she could only experience vicariously.

She had no maid to accompany her, which when she was married would have been a heinous crime, but a combination, she believed, of her widowhood, her impoverished state and the bald fact that she possessed no maid, had allowed her a relative freedom which she cherished. In fact it was rather her self-possessed air, the invisible wall which she had built around herself, which made it only very occasionally necessary for Deborah to rebuff any man who approached her. For her charms were not so recondite as she imagined, and nor was she anywhere near so old, but of this she was blissfully unaware.

In the Green Park, the fresh grass of the gently rolling meadows made her feel as if she was far from the metropolis. Her mind wandered from her business meeting back to that night, as it had done on countless occasions in the days which had elapsed since. Though she had scoured both The Times and the Morning Post on her visits to Hookham’s circulating library in Bond Street, she had found no mention of the theft from Kinsail Manor. Jacob had been as good as his word.

The shifty-eyed investigator who had come calling at her lodgings in Hans Town had been equally reticent. She had absolutely no idea what had been stolen save that it was small, definitely not papers, and definitely extremely valuable. What? And why was Jacob so intent on silence? And how, when he was so intent, had the housebreaker discovered the presence of whatever it was in the safe when even Jacob’s wife had no idea of its existence?

The housebreaker who had kissed her.

Deborah paused to admire a clump of primroses, but her gaze blurred as the cheerful yellow flowers were replaced by a fierce countenance in her mind’s eye. Try as she might, she had been unable to forget him. Unable and unwilling, if she was honest. In the secret dark of night he came to her and she seldom had the willpower to refuse him. Never, not even in the early days with Jeremy, before they were married, when she had been so naïvely in love, had she felt such a gut-wrenching pull of attraction. Who and why? And where was he now? She had no answers, nor likely ever would, but the questions would not quit her mind. His presence had fired her imagination.

Reaching the boundary of the Green Park, she made her way across the busy thoroughfare of Piccadilly towards Hyde Park, with the intention of walking along Rotten Row to the Queen’s Gate. Carriages, horses, stray dogs, urchins, crossing sweepers and costermongers made navigating to the other side treacherous at the best of times, but Deborah wove her way through the traffic with her mind fatally focused elsewhere.

The driver of an ale cart swerved to avoid her.

She barely noticed the drayman’s cursing, but on the other side of the road Elliot, emerging from Apsley House where he had been petitioning Wellesley—he never could think of him as Wellington—froze. It was her! He was sure of it—though how he could be, when he had not even seen her in daylight, he had no idea.

But it was most definitely Lady Kinsail and she was headed straight for him—or at least for the gates to the park. She was dressed simply—even, to his practised eye, rather dowdily for a countess. The full-length brown pelisse she wore over a taupe walking dress was bereft of trimming, lacking the current fashion for flounces, tassels and ruffles. Her hair, what he could see of it under the shallow poke of her bonnet, was flaxen. She was tall, elegant and slender, just as he remembered. In the bright sunlight, her complexion had a bloom to it, but her expression was the same: challenging, ironic, a little remote. Not a beautiful woman—she was too singular for that—but there was definitely something about her, the very challenge of her detachment, that appealed to him.

He should go. It would be madness to risk being identified. But even as he forced himself to turn away he caught her eye, saw the start of recognition in hers and it was too late.

Elliot, who had in any case always preferred to court trouble than to flee from it, covered the short distance between them in several quick strides. ‘Lady Kinsail.’ He swept her a bow.

‘It is you!’ Deborah exclaimed. She could feel her colour rising, and wished that the poke of her bonnet were more fashionably high to disguise it. ‘The housebreaker. Though I have to say in the light of day you look even less like one than when you—when I …’

‘So very kindly broke my fall,’ Elliot finished for her. ‘For which I am most grateful, believe me.’

Deborah blushed. ‘You expressed your gratitude at the time, as I recall.’

‘Not as thoroughly as I’d have liked to.’

‘I didn’t tell,’ she blurted out in confusion.

‘That I kissed you?’

‘No. I mean I didn’t report you. I should have. I know I should have. But I didn’t.’

‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ Elliot stared at her in astonishment.

Her eyes were coffee brown, almost black, with a sort of hazel or gold colour around the rim of the iris. A strange combination, with that flaxen hair. The pink tip of her tongue flicked out along the full length of her lower lip to moisten it.

He dragged his eyes away. They were in danger of making a show of themselves, standing stock still at the busy entrance gates. Taking her arm, he ushered her into the park. ‘Let’s find somewhere more private, away from the crowds.’

Deborah tingled where his fingers clasped her arm. It was most—strange. In a nice way. So nice that she allowed herself to be led down one of the more secluded paths without protest.

He was taller than she remembered. In daylight his countenance was swarthy, the colour of one who had spent much time in the sun. The lines around his eyes, too, which gave him that fierce quality, looked as if they came from squinting in bright light. Snatching a glance up at him, she noticed a scar slicing through his left eyebrow, and another, a thin thread on his forehead just below the hairline. A soldier? Certainly it would explain his bearing, the upright stance, the quick stride which even her long legs were struggling to keep up with.

He was exceedingly well dressed, in a rich blue double-breasted tailcoat with brass buttons, and the snowy white of his cravat was carefully tied, enhancing the strong line of his jaw, the tanned complexion. Brown trousers, black boots, a single fob, a beaver hat—though the crown was not tall enough to be truly fashionable. His toilette was elegant but simple. Like herself, he eschewed ostentation, though unlike herself his reason did not appear to be lack of funds. Housebreaking must be a lucrative profession.

No, she could not bring herself to believe that he stole in order to dress well. Whatever reason he had for breaking into houses, it was not avarice. It appealed to her sense of irony that the famous Peacock was decidedly no peacock. Maybe his choice of calling card was deliberately self-mocking.

‘What is so amusing?’ Elliot brought them both to a halt by a rustic bench facing the sun.

‘Just an idle thought.’

‘We can sit here awhile,’ he said, after carefully wiping the wood down with his kerchief. ‘As long as the sun prevails we shall not get cold.’

Obediently, Deborah sat down. There were so many things she wanted to ask, but as she stared up at him she was too overwhelmed by the reality of him, which was so much more than the memory of him, to order her thoughts properly. ‘Are you really the Peacock?’

A word from her in the right ear and he would be dancing on the end of a rope at Tyburn. Though so far she had of her own admission said nothing. ‘Yes,’ Elliot replied, ‘I really am the Peacock.’

‘When I saw Jacob holding up the feather I could scarcely believe it.’

It was a small bench. Elliot’s knees touched her leg as he angled himself to face her. A spark of awareness shot through him at the contact. He remembered the way she’d felt beneath him. He remembered, too, the things he’d imagined her doing to him since and prayed none of it showed on his face. He had to remind himself that she was married. Married! In England, that mattered.

‘Why?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Why did you say nothing to your husband?’

‘You mentioned him during our first conversation—if it could be called a conversation,’ Deborah said with a frown. ‘You said that I must blame him, or some such words. Blame him for what? What has Jeremy to do with your breaking into Kinsail Manor?’

Jeremy! It had slipped his mind, but he remembered now that was the name she’d given Kinsail. ‘You mean Jacob, surely?’ Elliot said, also frowning. ‘Jacob, the Earl of Kinsail. Your husband.’

Her eyes widened with surprise and she burst into a peal of laughter, brimming with amusement like a champagne flute full of bubbles. Then, as if she was quite unused to the sound, she stopped abruptly. ‘I am not the current Lady Kinsail. Jacob is my husband’s cousin, the Fifth Earl. Jeremy was the fourth.’

‘Was? You’re a widow?’ She was a widow!

‘Of some two years’ standing,’ the widow replied.

‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am to hear that.’ The words were out before he could stop them.

‘I doubt very much that the pleasure you take from my status could rival mine.’

‘That, if you don’t mind my saying so, was an even more telling remark than my own.’

Deborah coloured. ‘I am aware of that.’

‘It was not a love-match, then, I take it?’

‘No. Yes. I thought it was. I was just eighteen when we met—my head stuffed full of romantic fancies, as foolish and unworldly as it’s possible to imagine a person could be—and Jeremy was … seemed to be … well, he swept me off my feet, to put it in the sort of terms I’d have used myself then,’ Deborah said with a twisted smile. ‘When Jeremy proposed I thought all my birthdays had come at once. My guardian—my uncle—my parents died when I was very young—was only too glad to be able to wash his hands of me, so we were married three months after we met. I thought myself wildly in love, but it was all a sham. Jeremy was only interested in my money. Pathetic, isn’t it? I don’t know why I have told you all this, but you did ask.’

‘I think it’s sad, not pathetic. Were you very unhappy?’

Deborah shrugged. ‘I was very naïve and very set upon the match. I was not the only one who suffered as a result. I should never have married him. You know, this is all rather boring. Do you mind if we change the subject?’

Her husband sounded like a complete bastard. Elliot couldn’t understand why she was so determined to lay the blame on herself but, much as he wished to probe deeper, her closed look was back. He doubted he would get anywhere. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘You didn’t,’ Deborah replied, tilting her chin and sniffing.

He wanted to kiss her then, for that defiant little look. Actually, he’d wanted to kiss her before that. ‘You know, you don’t look a bit like a dowager,’ Elliot said lightly. ‘Not a trace of grey hair, you don’t dab at your eyes with a black lace kerchief, or sniff at your smelling salts, and I’ve seen not a trace of an obnoxious little lap dog—unless he’s too precious to be allowed outside in the cold. The Dowager Countess of Kinsail.’ He shook his head. ‘No, it’s just not you.’

He was rewarded with a weak smile. ‘I prefer not to use the title. It’s Deborah Napier. And if I don’t look like a dowager you look even less like a housebreaker.’

‘Deborah. Now, that suits you. I am Elliot Marchmont, known to a very select few as the Peacock.’

‘What was it you stole, may I ask? Only Jacob has not let on, for some reason.’

‘For a very good reason,’ Elliot said drily. ‘I suppose there is no harm in telling you, since you already have my fate in your hands. It was a diamond. A large blue diamond, reputedly cut from the original French crown jewels. Kinsail came by it in what one might call a rather roundabout and unorthodox manner.’

‘You mean illegally? Jacob?’ Deborah squeaked.

‘Why do you look so surprised?’

‘Because he’s a sanctimonious, parsimonious prude who is never happier than when condemning others for lack of principles or morals or—well, anyway—’ She broke off, realising she had once again forgotten her golden rule of keeping her feelings strictly under wraps. This man unsettled her. ‘How did you know about it?’

‘I have my sources.’

‘Goodness. Do you mean those people they call fences? The ones who live in the Rookeries?’ Deborah asked, using with relish the cant she had only ever written.

‘I have to say, for an upstanding member of the aristocracy you seem to have an unhealthy interest in the seamy underbelly of society.’

‘I prefer to attribute it to a vivid imagination. Is it true what they say? That there is not a safe in England you cannot break?’

‘I have not yet encountered one,’ Elliot said, rather taken aback by her reaction, which seemed to be fascination rather than disapproval.

She was sitting on a bench in Hyde Park in broad daylight with the notorious Peacock. She should be calling the authorities. But instead of being in fear for her life she looked intrigued—excited, even. He had the distinct feeling that he had in Deborah Napier, Dowager Countess of Kinsail, met someone almost as subversive as he was himself.

‘I wish you would tell me all,’ she said, as if to confirm his thoughts. ‘Why do you do it? What is it like to pit your wits against the world as you do? Are you ever afraid of being caught?’

She had not asked him what he’d done with the diamond. Surely that was the first question any woman would have asked? But she seemed to have no real interest in the outcome, only the method. Just like him—well, at least in part.

‘There’s always a chance,’ Elliot replied, beguiled by the way her eyes lit up. ‘But if it was no risk it would not be worth doing. That is part of it for me—the excitement, knowing that one false move could be an end. There’s nothing like it. Not since …’

‘The army?’

‘How did you know that?’

‘The way you walk. The scars on your face.’ Deborah touched his brow, felt a jolt at the contact and drew her hand away quickly. ‘The first time I met you I thought you were a man used to being in command. Were you a soldier for long?’

‘Sixteen years. We ran off when I was just fifteen, me and my school friend Henry. Like you, he was orphaned, only his father had made no provision for him. In the same week he lost his family and his place at school. He was to be apprenticed to a lawyer.’ Elliot laughed. ‘Henry—a lawyer. Nothing could be more unlikely. He decided he would enlist instead, and I decided to go with him because by then I’d had enough of school and the notion of returning to the family estates and learning from my father how to take up the reins sounded like purgatory. So we ran off together, lied about our ages.’

‘What about your parents?’

‘My mother was dead. My father was not particularly happy, but we were not yet at war at that point, and I persuaded him that it would be good for me to learn some independence and some discipline. He bought me my first commission. Then the wars with Napoleon came, and by that time I’d discovered I had a talent for soldiering. The army was my family. In a way it was selfish of me, but by that time my loyalty to my men was such that—to be frank—I could not have left while there was a war to be won. To his enormous credit, my father supported me in that. I was a major when I resigned my commission after Waterloo. My only regret is that my father died just six months after I returned home.’

‘It must have been very difficult for you to adjust to civilian life after all that time.’

‘Yes, it was. Very.’ Her perception surprised Elliot. ‘People don’t really see that.’

‘People never do. I was nineteen when I married. When Jeremy died I found I had no idea who I was. Two years later I’m still not sure.’

‘I came home to take up the mantle of my family estates, to settle down into the quiet country life I’d joined up to avoid in the first place. Not much more than two years ago and I’m still not sure, either, who I am. I’m not a soldier any more, but I’m pretty damn sure that I’d die of boredom as a country squire.’

‘So you’ve taken up housebreaking instead? Is that it?’ Deborah asked, looking amused.

‘Partly.’

‘I wish I’d thought of something as exciting, but I lack the skills. How came you to acquire them? Is it part of basic army training, lock-picking?’

Elliot laughed. ‘No, but the British army is made up almost entirely of volunteers, you know. You’d be astonished at the skills one can learn from the men.’

‘Is that how you came about your contacts, too?’ Deborah chuckled. ‘I do not recall reading in the newspapers that the war against Napoleon was won by fences and pickpockets and the like.’

‘The war was won by poor bastards from all walks of life who enlisted because they had the misguided belief that at the end of it they would have made a better life for themselves and their families,’ Elliot said grimly. ‘The same poor bastards you see begging on the streets now—those of them who made it home.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Deborah said, taken aback by the sudden change in him. ‘I did not mean to make light of it. You must have lost some good friends.’

‘Yes.’ Surprised by the urge to confide in her, Elliot took a deep breath. ‘Sorry.’

‘You have no need to be. I should have known better. Time makes no difference with such scars, does it? A year, two—people think you should have forgotten.’

‘I won’t ever forget.’

‘Nor I,’ Deborah said softly.

She recognised that tone. And the look in his eyes—the darkness, suffering, guilt. She wondered what it was that had put it there. It went too deep to be solely down to the horrors of war. But though she was tempted to ask, she did not. Something about him—a shuttered look, a reticence—warned her off. Besides, questions begat questions. She did not wish to reveal why it was she understood him.

‘What do you do with your time?’ Elliot asked. ‘Despite what you said, you don’t give the appearance of one who is enjoying her widowhood.’

‘I am still becoming accustomed,’ Deborah said with a shrug. ‘It is not what I expected—not that I was actually planning for it, because Jeremy was only six-and-thirty. I mean, I did not murder him or anything like that.’

‘But you thought about it?’

‘Well, only by way of diversion when I was …’ Writing my first book, she had been about to say.

Deborah stared at Elliot, aghast. He was trying not to smile. The corner of his mouth was quivering with the effort of restraining his laughter.

‘It’s not funny. That was a shocking thing to make me say,’ she said, trying to hide the quiver in her own voice.

‘I did not make you say anything.’

‘You know, I wish you would take me with you,’ Deborah said impulsively.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Just once. I wish I could accompany you—the Peacock. It would be—I don’t know—marvellous.’ And perhaps inspiring, Deborah thought.

Elliot burst out laughing. ‘Marvellous! I’ve heard my escapades described in many ways, but marvellous has never been one of them. You are the most original woman I have ever met.’

‘Yes? I take that as a huge compliment, I think. Have you met many women?’

‘Many. They’ve asked me many things, too,’ Elliot said wickedly. ‘But not one of them has shown an interest in housebreaking.’

‘Well, I am very interested in housebreaking,’ Deborah said, trying not to think about the many voluptuous and experienced women Elliot had met. ‘Will you consider it?’

‘Consider—good God. You are not serious?’

She could not quite believe it herself, but it seemed she was. For one night, she would step out of her shadow, cast off the ghosts which haunted her and act as boldly as her literary alter ego. In fact, she would be Bella. It was perfect. Just exactly the boost her writing needed to stop it from stagnating.

Deborah’s eyes positively sparkled. ‘You have no idea how much,’ she said.

Elliot seemed to find her enthusiasm amusing. He was laughing—a deep, gruff sound which shivered over her skin. She found herself staring at his mouth. His knee pressed into her thigh through the cambric of her dress. Little ripples of heat spread from the contact. Up.

‘Will you take me?’ she asked, half-joking, half-something else she chose not to acknowledge.

Elliot couldn’t take his eyes off her mouth. She smelled of spring and flowers and something more elusive. He leaned closer. There were just the tiniest traces of lines around her eyes. He’d thought her three- or four-and-twenty, but she must be older. That darkness that lurked at the back of her eyes was experience. She was a widow. He couldn’t possibly kiss her here, in the park. But she was a widow. So not married. Or not any more. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to do a lot more than that.

‘Elliot, will you take me?’

She was serious! He sat back, blinked, pulled his hat from his head, looked at it, put it back again. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘It’s not ridiculous,’ Deborah said, too taken up with the outrageous idea to care how wild it sounded, to notice the reckless edge to her voice. This was what she wanted. This was what she’d been waiting for. Excitement—enough to jolt her out of her melancholy. And experience. The authenticity it would lend to her story would give Bella Donna a new lease of life. ‘Please, Elliot.’

Her hand was on his coat sleeve. Her gloves were worn. His own were new. He hated wearing gloves. He wanted to feel her skin. ‘No,’ he said, shaking her hand away. ‘I could not possibly …’

‘Why not? Are you afraid I would mess things up for you? I would not, I promise, I would do only as you instructed.’

For a few wild seconds he imagined it—the pair of them in cahoots. Her presence would lend a wholly new edge to the thrill of the escapade. What the devil was he thinking? ‘Madness,’ Elliot exclaimed, leaping to his feet. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking. To risk the gallows …’

‘It would not come to that. It never has yet—you are too clever for that.’ She couldn’t understand why, but she had to persuade him. ‘Please. My life is so—you have no idea. I can’t explain, but if I could just—I want to feel alive!’

Elliot had no difficulty in recognising that particular sentiment. It was still madness and he still had no intention of agreeing, but he couldn’t help empathising with what she said. ‘Deborah, it’s impossible,’ he said gently.

‘It’s not.’ Desperation made her ruthless. ‘I want to come with you the next time. In fact, I am determined to come with you; if you do not agree I will inform upon you.’

This he had not anticipated. God dammit, he couldn’t help admire her daring. She must want this very badly. He wondered why. That fatal curiosity of his. Elliot tried valiantly to stifle it. ‘You would be unwise to do so. By your silence, you have already implicated yourself. I could say that you were my accomplice.’

‘Oh!’ The wounded look Deborah gave him was almost comical. The resolute set to her mouth which followed, the straightening of her shoulders, was not. ‘It is a risk I’m prepared to take.’

‘It seems to me that you’re prepared to take a great many risks.’

‘You think so? You don’t know me very well.’

The light went out of her so quickly it was almost like looking at a different person. One minute she was sparkling, the next bleak. He recognised the edge of desperation which made her reckless. She was a fascinating mixture.

It would be madness to consider doing as she asked. He was only thinking about it because he wanted her. He wanted her a lot. And she wanted him too—though she would no more acknowledge it than her real reasons for wishing to break into a house with him. If he did not take her, what then? He could not possibly be considering this.

Slowly, he began to shake his head.

‘No! Please, don’t say no. I mean it, Elliot—if you say no I will inform on you.’

Really, he could not imagine a more original female. She was quite as ruthless in her own way as he was. Elliot’s smile was a slow curl, just the one side of his mouth. His finger traced her determinedly set lips. The pulse at her throat fluttered. He felt the shallow intake of her breath, but she did not flinch. Ridiculous, but what he thought he saw in her was a kindred spirit. One who stood on the edge of society. It was absolute madness even to be considering doing as she asked.

‘You won’t persuade me with threats,’ he said softly. ‘If I take you, it will be because I want to.’

The words made Deborah shiver. Did he want her? Want her? No one had ever wanted her like that. ‘And do you—want me?’ she asked. Because it was exactly what Bella Donna would have said, and because if she let herself think like Deborah she’d turn tail and flee and regret it for the rest of her days, and she was sick, sick, sick of regrets.

Looking round swiftly to check they were quite alone, Elliot pulled her to him, a dark glint in his eyes. ‘You are playing a very dangerous game, Deborah Napier. I would advise you to have a care. For if you dance with the devil you are likely to get burnt. You may come with me, but only if you promise to do exactly as I say.’

‘You mean it!’ Oh, God, he meant it! She would be a housebreaker. A thief!

Since this rather vital aspect hadn’t actually occurred to her until now, Deborah wavered. But her failing to take part would not avert the crime. And if their victim was like Jacob most likely he would deserve it anyway, or could easily afford the loss. And Bella needed this, and she needed Bella, and Elliot was waiting for an answer. She would never get another chance. Never!

‘I promise,’ she said. ‘I’ll do exactly as you say.’

‘Then prove it. Kiss me,’ Elliot said audaciously, not thinking for a moment that she would.

But she did. Without giving herself time to think, her heart hammering against her breast, Deborah stood on tiptoe, pulled his head down to hers, and did as she was bid. Right there in Hyde Park, in the middle of the day, she kissed him.