A Marquis to Marry (25 page)

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Do you really not know, my lord?” she asked incredulously. “I am here because I know I do not have the pearls, and the only way I can prove I don’t have them, or that I don’t know who has them, is to find them myself, which is what I intend to do. If you suspected Mr. Smith might have the pearls, reason should tell you that I would suspect the same thing.”

Race’s gaze pierced hers. “This is a dangerous game you are playing.”

She whipped her cape around and fitted it onto her shoulders again.

“But play it I must.” She remained firm and collected. “And have no doubts that I am playing for keeps. I intend to find that necklace, and when I do, mark my words, my lord, I will keep it.”

“Did you tell him the pearls had been stolen?”

She blinked rapidly. “Of course not. I merely asked to see what jewels he had, and he has no pearls, because Captain Spyglass bought them all.”

Race stepped closer to her, his gaze fixed tightly on hers. In a low voice he said, “I will not let you put yourself at risk over this.”

Anger rose up inside her. Anger for the way he had made her feel last night. Anger because he was now pretending to care about her well-being. Anger because she had an aching sense of despair because she would never feel his touch again.

Susannah suddenly jerked her head so close to Race’s face he flinched. “How dare you think you have any control over me.
You
cannot stop me from doing anything I choose to do. I am mistress over my own life, and I can take care of myself. I will thank you to stay away from me.”

Susannah heard the door jingle behind her and knew Mrs. Princeton had come out of the shop. She glanced over her shoulder to her companion. “Come along, Mrs. Princeton. The day is getting late, and we have a party to get ready for.”

Fourteen

My Dearest Grandson Alexander,

I found these words in an old letter Lord Chesterfield once
wrote: “I am now privileged by my age to taste and think
for myself and not to care what other people think of me in
those respects, an advantage which youth, among its many
advantages, hath not.”

Your loving Grandmother,
Lady Elder

R
ACE SAT IN THE FAR CORNER AT THE TAPROOM OF
The Rusty Nail, feeling a loneliness he had never experienced before. He felt cold and empty inside, and he hadn’t been able to shake the fact that, no matter how he tried to convince himself differently, he had behaved like a first-class bastard to Susannah earlier that morning and not any better when he’d seen her coming out of Smith’s Antique Shop just a few hours ago.

It was late afternoon and raining. The damp air held a chill, and he was mindlessly watching a servant stoking the fire he’d just built in the fireplace, and listening to raucous laughter and balls pinging together in the billiards room nearby. Race was still trying to swallow the bad taste his encounter with Susannah left in his mouth, but not even his drink was helping.

Perhaps he hadn’t had enough wine.

Yet.

No doubt as the evening wore on that would change. Perhaps it had been a justifiable reaction at first that he had considered her an accomplice to the theft, but why hadn’t he simply believed her when she’d denied it? He should have. Perhaps it was the fact that the evidence pointed to her as being the most likely suspect.

But now he was rethinking that, and the guilt he felt for accusing her so fiercely bore down on him like a heavy weight.

After he left her house that morning and returned home to dress, he’d found himself stopping whatever task he was doing, be it buttoning his riding breeches or tying his neckcloth, and he would start thinking about his night in Susannah’s arms. It staggered him that, on the one hand, his body felt immensely satisfied from their lovemaking, and on the other, he desired her once again with an all-consuming fire that defied his being able to explain it. He couldn’t get the memory of their night together off his mind.

Somehow, she had bewitched him.

He swirled the dark red wine around in his glass. Race shook his head, cleared his throat, and took another sip of his wine. It was past time for him to compose himself and to deal with Susannah and the theft rationally. For some reason, uncharacteristically, he hadn’t yet put all the facts into perspective.

Susannah had truly looked shocked when he accused her of stealing the pearls. She was definitely angry he had stormed into her bedchamber without thought for her reputation. She had been right when she told him the theft was his fault. And later that morning, she was convincing when she said she would find the pearls, and she would keep them.

Now he was beginning to see what he had been unable to see earlier. Susannah was not part of the theft, and she was willing to put herself in danger to find the pearls.

Her desire was not news to him. She had freely told him she wanted the necklace. What made him think she wanted it badly enough to steal, when she had been trying to get him to look at the documents she had brought to prove the pearls had been stolen from her family? Documents he’d never looked at.

Was it because of what he was feeling for her that the mere thought she might have betrayed him turned him into a madman? He didn’t know why he had jumped to the wrong conclusions based on flimsy evidence.

He hadn’t told her he would leave his door unlocked, and she certainly wouldn’t have arranged an elaborate plan to steal the pearls just on the assumption that he’d be so eager to get in her bed he wouldn’t remember to lock the door. He knew all that now, but now it might be too late.

He picked up his wine and drank again. Over the rim of the glass, he saw his cousins sauntering into the taproom together, impeccably dressed and both looking like the proud, titled gentlemen they were.

They pulled out chairs and sat down as he placed his wine on the table. Race motioned for the server to bring over two glasses.

“What has Gibby done now?” Blake asked, folding his arms across his chest and tilting his chair on its back legs.

“Gibby?” Race questioned.

“Isn’t he the reason you summoned us here?” Morgan asked.

For a brief moment, Race had forgotten they didn’t know why he sent word for them to meet him here in this quiet and exclusive gentleman’s club not far from White’s. He supposed he would have to tell Gib about the stolen pearls, too, though he dreaded it. Gibby had always idolized their grandmother, and he didn’t like anyone saying or doing anything to disturb her memory.

Race brushed an imaginary crumb from the table and then sat back in his chair. Issuing an audible sigh, he said, “No, Gib is not the reason I wanted to see you.”

“What else could have you looking so glum?” Blake asked as the server put two glasses on the table in front of them and poured wine into both.

“Leave the bottle,” Race said.

Morgan grinned. “This must be serious. You look like you’ve lost your two best and only friends, and we know that can’t be true, because here we sit right in front of you.”

“I didn’t lose my friends,” Race said flatly. “I lost something else. My safe was robbed last night.”

“What?” his cousins said in unison as the front legs of Blake’s chair hit the floor with a thud.

“The contents of my safe were cleaned out last night, including Grandmother’s pearls.”

“Damnation,” Blake said.

“Bloody hell,” Morgan whispered. “What the devil happened? Did no one in the house hear the thief breaking in?”

“Was it one of your servants?”

“I don’t think so,” Race said quietly, looking from one cousin to the other. “No one had to break in. The back door was left unlocked.”

“I hope you turned off the bloody servant who was careless enough to do that,” Blake said.

“Unfortunately, I’m the one who left the door unlocked.”

“You?” Morgan questioned.

Race nodded.

Blake shrugged. “Locking up is one of the reasons we have servants. I know they are all careless at times. That’s just the way of it. It’s not your fault. Don’t be too hard on yourself. We expect our homes to be sacrosanct.”

“The thief must be a servant,” Morgan argued. “There can’t be that many people who know where your safe is located or how to get into it. I’d venture to say that most of your servants know.”

“All the servants had already been dismissed for the night when I went out the back door and left it unlocked.”

“And someone just happened to know you left the door unlocked?” Blake questioned.

Morgan rubbed his temple and studied over that comment. “I agree. That seems a bit far-fetched to me, unless someone has been watching your house, just waiting for it to be vulnerable.”

“Wait. Something’s not right,” Blake said, drumming his fingers on the table. “Why do I get the feeling there is something more to this story than you are telling us?”

“Like, who knew you would be going out and leaving it unlocked?” Morgan asked.

“A woman?” Blake said, catching on to Morgan’s line of thinking.

“Maybe Susannah?” Morgan offered.

Blake’s forehead wrinkled. “The duchess? How?”

Race remained quiet.

Morgan took a sip of his drink and then looked at Blake and responded, “Easy. She lives in the house directly behind him, and something tells me she knew he would be with her.”

The corners of Blake’s lips lifted in a knowing grin. “As in all night?”

“Most of it, anyway,” Morgan offered.

“You two can be such bloody blackguards,” Race mumbled.

Blake landed a fist on the table with a thump. “So she lured you into her bed, and then she had someone sneak into your house and pilfer what she came to Town for. She got the pearls.”

“I thought so at first, but not any more. There are other, more likely suspects,” Race countered, not wanting his cousins to condemn Susannah as he had.

“But if not Susannah, who?” Blake queried.

“I don’t know the answer to that yet.”

“But we do know whom she was in bed with,” Morgan remarked slyly. “Did she give you that little scratch under your eye?”

Race reached up and touched the scrape he’d received on his cheek while crawling through the hedge after he’d left Susannah’s house that morning. That cut was minor compared to some of the ones on his chest and back. He looked like he’d been in a fight with a cat and lost.

Race didn’t want to discuss Susannah with his cousins. He had to tell them the necklace had been stolen, but he didn’t have to tell them anything else about Susannah.

Blake picked up his wine glass and took a sip. “Have you been to see the magistrate?”

“Not yet and may not for a time. I will be having some things done that he wouldn’t approve of. I spent most of the afternoon with a man on Bow Street, named Mr. Walter Bickerman.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Blake said. “He has one of the best reputations of all the runners.”

Race nodded. “He immediately dispatched men to watch Spyglass’s and Winston’s residences, Smith’s shop, and Spyglass’s ship,
The Golden Pearl
, which as of a short time ago was still in the harbor. They will be followed wherever they go, even if they leave Town. That way we’ll know where they are at all times.”

“I think I’m missing something.” Morgan paused and rubbed the area between his eyes with his thumb. “How is following them going to get the pearls back?”

Blake rested his forearm on the table. “It stands to reason that, if Spyglass is the thief, he will now prepare to leave Town, since obtaining the pearls seems to be the only reason he came to London.”

“I would think all of them are smart enough not to run the minute they got their hands on the pearls,” Morgan offered. “That would be like waving a flag and saying they were guilty.”

“Bickerman and I discussed that. But we thought it was better to have the houses, shop, and ship watched anyway, to be safe. He is going to hire a man who can go in and search for safes and hiding places and try to find the pearls.”

“Now that sounds like the right thing to do,” Morgan said.

“And the reason the magistrate doesn’t need to know about this.”

Race swallowed wine past a tight throat. “Yes. I wanted to go in and check the safes myself, but Bickerman reminded me of a very important point. I wouldn’t know how to open their safes even if I found where they were hidden.”

Blake tilted his chair back again. “Yes, our grandmother saw that we were taught how to ride, play cards, and shoot, but not how to open a safe. How thoughtless.”

“I don’t think our grandmother intended for us to rob anyone,” Race countered dryly. “The good thing is that Bickerman knows of a man who can do just that, and he’s going to employ him for me.”

“Someone who knows how to break into a house and open safes?” Morgan asked. “Who is he?”

Race chuckled ruefully. “He wouldn’t tell me, of course. People who can do that sort of thing don’t want too many people knowing they can do it. It’s against the law, you know. Bickerman knows how badly I want the pearls back, and he wants the money I’ve promised when he finds them.”