Dance of Seduction (13 page)

He turned toward the back room, where he kept the safe. “Does Lady Clara often go for drives with her aunt?”

“Not since I been staying at the Home. But I reckon her aunt gets a mite lonely with m’lady away so much. She probably twisted Lady Clara’s arm.”

Or Lady Clara twisted her aunt’s. What was the wench up to now? It was hard to guess. He’d never met a woman so unpredictable, so heedless of her own safety, so…generous to wayward children.

He swallowed. It was her caring toward
them
that stymied him. He’d never seen the like in his life. And how could Johnny not realize how lucky he was? “Won’t anybody notice you’re gone?”

“Not yet. I’m supposed to be scrubbing pots in the kitchen with Peg, but I promised her a shilling for letting me go. So I figure I’m safe enough until lunch.”

Morgan relaxed. With any luck he wouldn’t be getting the lad into trouble. Again. “I’ll fetch your money.” Morgan
stopped Johnny from following him into the back room and gestured to the front of the store. “You wait over there.”

When a gleam appeared in Johnny’s eye, Morgan added, “If I find anything missing when I return, you’ll pay for it later, and I don’t mean in shillings. Understood?”

That banished Johnny’s avarice. The boy bobbed his head, wide-eyed and fearful.

Morgan squelched a smile. It was amazing what an idle threat and a dire look could do to even the most incorrigible pickpocket. As he headed for the safe, he called out, “So how much are you figuring I owe you?”

“Two guineas,” Johnny called back.

Morgan rolled his eyes at the lad’s blatant attempt to fleece him. No self-respecting fence would give the boy more than ten shillings.

Keeping a wary eye on the doorway into the front room, Morgan released the hidden panel in the wall, opened the safe, and counted out a handful of coins. Then he closed up and returned to the front room, where Johnny now fidgeted as he stood at the window, scanning the street.

“Relax, boy,” Morgan said. “Nobody’s about in Spitalfields at this hour.” Late nights guzzling gin meant late mornings for most residents. His thundering headache signaled that he’d been one of them in truth last night.

And for what? He’d learned nothing useful, no matter how many drinks he’d bought and how many stupid jokes he’d laughed at. His drinking companions had whined about hard times and schemes gone wrong, about troubles with the magistrate and friends in Newgate, but nobody had been willing to discuss Spitalfields’ most notorious criminal.

All he’d ended up with was a serious case of morning-after regrets, centered mostly in his churning belly and pul
sating noggin. He’d been so sure he was past the nightmare days of his childhood, but all it had taken was a little gin to make him cozy with companions he would despise when he was sober.

He scowled. One more sin to hold to Ravenswood’s account.

Striding behind the counter, he plunked down Johnny’s money. “Six shillings. That’s all the watch was worth.” No point in giving the boy enough to tempt him to return.

Johnny scowled. “I s’pose I got no choice when it comes to you bloody close-fisted fences.”

He reached for the coins, but Morgan kept his hand on them. “Before I give you this, you must promise me you’ll never return to my shop.”

Johnny jerked his head up with a look of shock. “Whyever not?”

Morgan raised an eyebrow. “Because there’s nothing here for you. I was under the distinct impression that you boys in the Home had abandoned the thieving way of life.”

“I can’t! Not yet.”

“Why not? If Lady Clara gives you food, clothing, and shelter, you shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

“I got to get myself twenty pounds!” Johnny burst out. “I just got to!”

“Now what’s a lad like you, with a place to stay and plenty to eat, need with twenty pounds?”

The typical defiance of all boys up to no good showed in Johnny’s scowl. “What do you care, long as you get your own piece of it?”

Morgan gritted his teeth. Sometimes playing the fence could be frustrating. He switched tactics. “What if Lady Clara catches you stealing?”

“She won’t.”

“But if she does?” Morgan persisted.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Johnny shrugged in apparent unconcern. “I’ll have to leave the Home for a while is all.”

Johnny’s feigned nonchalance affected Morgan like a blow to the gut. When Morgan was Johnny’s age, he too had hidden his fear behind a mask of bravado. He’d been damned good at pretending not to care that his and his mother’s survival depended on her waning ability to hold a man’s attentions. At hiding from her the truth of how he’d come by the few coins he daily added to their meager store. At living with the terror that one day he’d be thrown in jail for good, and she’d be left to struggle alone.

“Do you mean to tell me that if you steal again, Lady Clara would make you leave?” he prodded.

“The rules of the Home say if you pick pockets or sell stolen goods three times—and I already been caught twice—you’re kicked out. You can’t come back ’til you’ve changed your ways for a month.”

Morgan remembered hearing of such “rules” from boys in the streets of Geneva who were in and out of charitable institutions like Lady Clara’s Home. In truth, her rules were lenient. Other facilities sent violators to the workhouse or even to jail. If they even deigned to take in criminals in the first place.

But when it came to actually throwing Johnny out, would Lady Clara have the heart for it?

Awareness suddenly dawned. She was afraid she wouldn’t. That was why she’d tried to retrieve the watch Johnny had stolen, why she was so frantic to send Morgan packing. She didn’t want to have to evict the lad—or any of her other boys who might stray. And Morgan wasn’t about to be responsible for holding her to her convictions.

“Will you give me my money or no?” Johnny asked with a boyish petulance.

“Will you promise to stay away from here? And tell the other lads they’re not welcome either?”

Johnny shrugged. “Oh, all right.” When Morgan handed over the coins, Johnny scooped them up, counted them greedily, then dropped them into the pocket of his ragged red coat. Then he tipped up his chin proudly. “I’ll just go to another fence is all.”

“Fine. Be a fool if you wish. Just don’t be one in my shop.”

A sudden clatter and wild barking outside made them both whirl toward the window. Morgan had barely assimilated the strange sight of an overly dressed matron with an armload of yapping dog descending from a carriage across the street when Johnny dropped to the floor. “Bloody hell, it’s
her
!”

“Her?” Morgan asked, trying to see better around his window display.

“Lady Clara!”

Morgan strolled from behind the counter and up to the glass door. A footman was now helping a second woman out of the carriage. Morgan recognized her winsome form only too well. Confound the meddling wench, it
was
her. This was the last thing he needed on the day a menagerie of stamping beasts took up residence inside his head.

Then Clara straightened, and Morgan’s headache was forgotten. God help him, but she was a treat for even his bleary eyes. Where was her sober brown gown, her no-nonsense bonnet? Today a perfectly tailored, snowy spencer nipped in around her bodice to accentuate her breasts and well-formed shoulders, while yards of pale blue fabric cascaded from beneath it to her ankles. When she moved, the faint breeze blew the gauzy stuff around her slender legs, hinting at a curve of calf here, an arch of dainty knee there.

The blood rushed to his head as he imagined sliding his
hands up beneath the gown to skim her silk-stockinged calves. Then higher past the garters to touch the warm, scented flesh that trembled beneath his fingers as he edged up to stroke—

“How does she look?” Johnny croaked from down at Morgan’s feet. “Does she look angry? Is she headed this way?”

She’s headed for my bed if I have anything to say about it
.

Cursing under his breath, Morgan fought to rein in his lascivious imagination. “She’s not headed anywhere right now. And she looks…fine.” She looked elegant and poised, exactly as a marquess’s daughter should look when out for a drive with her aunt.

And that must be her aunt—the beribboned older female with the curly-haired dog. Make that
dogs
. Four of them. One lolled in the aunt’s arms while the other three capered or stamped about Lady Clara’s dainty kid boots. Ignoring them, she strolled to the back of the carriage and issued instructions to her footman.

“She mustn’t catch me here,” Johnny whispered. Not that anybody could hear the boy over the racket those damned dogs were making. “She told me if I came back for the money, she’d kick me out for sure.”

“She won’t catch you,” Morgan reassured him. But why the devil was she here? She couldn’t possibly know Johnny was in the shop, because if she did she’d already have hauled the boy out by his ears.

The longer Morgan watched, the more bewildered he became. Clara directed her servant to erect a table and chairs on the opposite side of the street in front of a lodging house. The landlady, Mrs. Tildy, came out, conducted a seemingly congenial conversation with Clara, then went back in.

Casting Morgan’s shopfront a quick glance, Clara took a seat beside her aunt at the table and began to set out inkwells and quills and a large glass jar.

“Are they gone yet?” Johnny whispered.

“No. From the looks of it, they’re settling in for a long stay.”

“Bloody hell.”

Exactly. “Their vantage point gives them a full view of the alley and the front of the shop. There’s no back exit, so you’ll have to hide in here until they’re gone.”

“I can’t do that!” Johnny wailed. “Mrs. Carter will start looking for me come lunchtime, and when she don’t find me, she’ll sound the alarm.”

“Be quiet and let me think.” Damn it, he was in no mood for dealing with Clara and her troublesome charge. “I suppose I’ll have to get rid of her somehow.”

“What if you can’t?” Johnny’s young voice cracked. “When m’lady sets her mind to something, it ain’t that easy to change it.”

“I’ve noticed. I tell you what—go into the alley and watch from where she can’t see you. I’ll try to convince her and her aunt to leave. If I can’t, then wait until I’ve distracted her and make a run for it.” He glanced down to where Johnny lay huddled against one of the counters. “Can you manage that?”

Johnny’s face bore a painfully hopeful smile. “I can manage anything so long as you keep her from seeing me.”

“I’ll do my best. But first, I need your help.” He eyed the two women, now bent in close conversation over the table. “What do you know about Lady Clara’s aunt?”

“Miss Stanbourne? Not much. She don’t come to the Home at all.” He mused a moment. “But wait, there is one thing I heard from Samuel. Miss Stanbourne surely loves her dogs.”

Chapter 8

His cap for much knowledge and skill,
He used in encounters most rare.
His sword all the giants did kill,
For speed none his shoes could compare.
“
The History of Jack the Giant-Killer
,”
edition by J. G. Rusher, Anonymous

A
unt Verity’s dogs were performing precisely as Clara wished. Fiddle tussled with Foodle, Faddle barked ceaselessly at the sign swaying over Morgan’s dirty shopfront, and Empress paced beneath the table, stopping occasionally to sniff Clara’s boots.

Clara was as nervous as they were. She felt distinctly like Jack lying in wait for the Giant. Not that Morgan was physically as large as all that, but his imposing presence did remind her of something legendary, overwhelming, fearsome. In all her battles with him, he’d gained the upper hand with unsettling ease.

She wished she could don the Giant-Killer’s cap of knowledge and arm herself with his phenomenal sword. Surely only mythical weapons would work on a man who could make a woman forget every principle, every intelligent thought, when he backed her up against a wall and kissed her.

Not that such a thing would happen today, thank heavens. Even Morgan wouldn’t dare try anything naughty with Aunt Verity and the dogs about.

“Oh, stop that, lassie,” Aunt Verity called to Faddle. “It isn’t the least bit ladylike to bark with such persistence.”

“Let her do as she pleases. She’s not bothering anyone.” Clara
wanted
the dogs to bark. That was why they were here, though Aunt Verity didn’t know it.

Her aunt faced her with a sniff. “You tricked me, you know.”

Alarm coursed through Clara. “What? How?”

“You told me that you would dress nicely and go for a drive on Rotten Row if I agreed to bring the dogs here afterward.”

Clara relaxed. “I
did
dress nicely and go for a drive.”

Aunt Verity snorted. “That wasn’t a drive, dear girl, it was a dash. It was hardly long enough even to see anyone, much less be seen by gentlemen of consequence.”

Clara bit back a smile. “I didn’t specify how long a drive I’d go for.”

“And when we finally met up with Lord Winthrop, you cut him off before he scarcely said two words.”

“I only wish I had. He got in a whole slew of words, every one more tedious than the last. And he wouldn’t even tell me about that incident with the pirates last year.”

“What pirates?”

“Don’t you remember? A year or so ago, he was aboard a ship that was attacked by the Pirate Lord. He made an enormous outcry against that man named Blakely, remember? The baron’s brother? The one Lord Winthrop’s crewman recognized among the pirates? The tale was hushed up when
this Blakely fellow returned to England a few months later, but I wanted to know the real story. And Lord Winthrop refused to tell me.”

“Good lack-a-daisy, niece, what do you expect? It was idle gossip—and probably every word of it false.”

“That’s not what
I
heard. Though I must admit I’ve never met this Blakely man in society…or his brother, for that matter. Still, parts of the tale must be true or Lord Winthrop would’ve denied it entirely.” She sighed. “What a tedious man. He’s had one interesting thing happen to him in his whole life, and he won’t even discuss it.”