How I Met My Countess (20 page)

“I’ve spent the entire day wondering why my brother would let such a fortune tumble into your hands,” Clifton said.

“Perhaps you’d like to leave and finish your pondering,” she suggested, nodding toward the door.

Even in the meager light, he could discern the blazing gleam in her eyes, the fire behind her sarcasm. The way her mind was replotting her course. “Perhaps you’d like to enlighten me and save me the trouble.”

She snorted. “Not with my last breath.”

He leaned closer and whispered in her ear so only she could hear him. “We could take another turn in my carriage and see if you change your mind.”

She shivered but held firm. “Not unless I can push you beneath the wheels first.”

“Move along, guv’ner,” Sammy said. “This here is ours.”

“Not really,” Clifton said. “Black Britch was quite clear about the creed: He who finds it first.”

“Aye,” Rusty agreed warily. “But if you found it first, why haven’t you made off with it?”

Clifton leaned against the desk, his arms crossed over his chest, his walking stick dangling from one hand. “For the simple reason that I can’t get the safe open.”

Lucy smirked. “Terrible problem that. Now leave, so we can take what you’re unable to gain.”

“I still have right of claim,” he told her.

Her eyes widened. “Right of—”

“Oh, he has you there, Goosie,” Sammy whispered over her shoulder. “Right of claim gives him the first skimming.”

“The Creed of Thieves?” Lucy nearly choked.

“Ss-sh-sh!” her compatriots whispered.

“Oh, yes, the noble Creed of Thieves,” Clifton repeated, “for I daresay Rusty and Sammy won’t go against it.”

They both nodded in agreement, albeit reluctantly.

“Well, you’ll find Thomas-William and I have no such loyalties,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and taking a wide stance that mirrored his own. “And if you are dead, neither will Rusty and Sammy.”

“I thought it might come to this,” he told her, and in one quick movement, he tossed up his walking stick. It rose to within inches of the ceiling before he stopped it, the top hovering just within rapping range.

“If you refuse to help me, I’ll summon Strout down here. I daresay he’ll insist on calling the Watch and rewarding me for capturing the thieves who dared to steal from him,” Clifton told them. “What say you, Lucy? Will you open the safe for me, or shall we see what sort of generous mood Strout might be in?”

He watched her jaw work back and forth. She looked as murderous as she had earlier, when he’d kidnapped her, when he’d taken her in his arms and held her close enough to kiss her.

Oh, how close he’d come to plundering her lips, but his pride, thank God for his pride, had held him in check.

But what he hadn’t thought of was the way he would spend the rest of the day and this night haunted by the feel of her, the scent of her hair, the curve of her hips and press of her breasts against his chest.

She’d reawakened every longing he’d ever had for her in those few moments. Every realization of how much he loved her.

Had loved her,
he tried to correct himself as he stared once again into her furious gaze.

The one that suggested he had best watch his back for the next fortnight or so if he ventured outside the confines of his house.

But he would worry about that after she got the safe open and he’d managed to amass enough pieces to this mystery that he could discover the truth.

Or, at the very least, an inkling of it.

“I’ll open it,” Lucy agreed. “But I get Malcolm’s will.” She paused and cocked her head. “No questions asked.”

He nodded in agreement. She could have it once he was done with it. Not entirely what she thought, but then again, she hadn’t been all that clear, now, had she?

About keeping her vow to him. About waiting for him.

“Where’s the safe?” she asked.

“Under his desk. The floorboards are quite ingenious, though not entirely insurmountable.”

Rusty moved around the desk and eyed the boards that now sat piled up next to the safe. “Nice work, guv’ner. Haven’t lost your touch, I see.”

“Not at all,” Clifton said. “I do owe you gentlemen a debt of gratitude. I’ve put your lessons to use on more occasions than I can number.”

“Oh, go on with ya,” Sammy said, waving him off like a blushing debutante at Almack’s.

Lucy’s gaze rolled upward, then she made a soft
harrumph
and pushed past the lot of them. “A light, Sammy,” she said, pointing to the spot she wanted illuminated.

Ever the bossy, formidable Goosie
, Clifton mused, resisting the urge to grin at her. “Can you open it?” he asked, kneeling beside her, his shoulder brushing hers.

They both jumped a little, for the contact, as always, was electrifying. Revealing. Too much so.

“Must have had a demmed good reason …”
Jack’s words whispered past him.

“Of course,” she said, shrugging off his question as if it had been too foolish to even ask. Could she open it? Did birds fly?

“That’s my girl,” he said softly, reaching over and brushing a wayward strand out of her eyes.

For a moment they both stared at each other, Clifton lost in the memory of what it had been like to loosen her glorious dark hair and watch it tumble past her smooth shoulders. “I’ve always admired your skill and your confidence.” He reached for her again, and this time she swatted his hand away and tucked the lock back under her cap, hiding it from him.

“You delighted in shocking me back then,” he teased quietly, wishing he could pluck that demmed cap right off her head.

“No more than you liked ruffling my feathers,” she whispered back.

She glanced at him, this time without that murderous gleam, and the sweet memories of those weeks long ago wove between them, knocking cracks into the mortar and stone that he had built in their place.

Then, as if she found the intimacy of their position too much, she turned her attention to the lock. She found, however, that it remained stubborn to her efforts.

“Oh, heavens, why couldn’t Strout have been as cheap with his locks as he is with his clerk’s pay,” she muttered. “He would have to go to the expense of buying a Swiss safe.”

“Come now, Goosie,” Clifton said. “You’re the finest dubber in the city. You can open it.”

“Too bad you didn’t bring the little monkey along,” Rusty whispered. “Still a bright one with the picks, is he?”

Lucy stiffened and shot her old felonious friend a black look.

“Who’s the little monkey?” Clifton asked.

“No one,” Lucy said quickly. “A thief. He would have been a liability,” she shot off, as if trying on one answer, then another.

But Clifton wasn’t about to press the matter; there would be time later for answers.

There is always more than meets the eye …

Meanwhile, Lucy continued to work at the lock.

“I saw a safe like this in Geneva a few years back,” Clifton said, nodding at the iron box before them.

“Did you get it open?” she asked, her brows furrowed as she studied it.

“No. I could have used you that night.”

That and so many others …

He shoved that wistful notion aside.

But she, smart little minx that she was, had heard the note as well. “You thought of me?”

Was it him, or did she sound surprised? “Yes, Goosie. I thought of you.”

More than he cared to admit.

“How would I have known?” she said as she went back to work. “You never wrote. Never sent a word.”

“But I did,” he protested.

There was a little
harrumph
from where she was bent over the safe, her back to him, but he didn’t need to see her face. She didn’t believe him.

“I sent you a flower with every dispatch. A pressed blossom. I thought you’d know what they meant.”

She stilled and glanced over her shoulder at him. “There were never any flowers. Just reports.”

“So you thought I’d forsaken you,” he said, more for himself.

“What else was I to think?”

But before he could say more, there was a definite
click
from the safe, followed by an echo of
clunks,
the tumblers aligning. She paused for a moment, a slow grin lifting her lips. Then she turned the latch and began to pull the heavy piece of iron up and open.

Clifton reached over and lent her a hand, and the moment their fingers twined together, his hand covering hers, it was as if the entire interlude in the carriage sparked between them.

She tried to bat his hand away, but he kept his hold on her.

He wasn’t ready to let her go. Not now that he’d found her again.

And the notion left him breathless.

Together they heaved the iron door open the last few inches. He caught up the lamp and held it above the opening, the rest of the crew crowding around to take in the sight before them.

Even Rusty, the best cracksman in London, let out a low whistle. “I thought you said this fellow was naught but a solictor.”

“He is,” Lucy said, sitting back on her heels and shaking her head.

“Looks like a regular smuggler’s hoard,” Sammy said, nodding at the bags that bulged with coins. And there wasn’t a one of them that didn’t suspect they were full of sovereigns. “Never seen so many flymseys in all me days,” he said, nodding at the banknotes stacked next to the gold.

On the other side of the safe, account books sat atop account books, along with folded and sealed papers bound with black cords.

“Wills,” Lucy whispered.

“Wills?” Clifton asked back. “How do you know?”

“My father’s will was done up thusly. Arch—” She paused for a second. “The clerk said Strout always did the wills with those black cords and seals because it made them easier to find.”

“So many?” Clifton tipped his head and studied them. “All locked up and hidden away. Whatever for?”

Lucy glanced over her shoulder at him. “I don’t like this. There is something altogether wrong here.”

They looked at each other, and whatever differences lay between them unraveled, for they shared the same curiosity, the same drive and desire to uncover the truth of a matter, the intimate details that would tell the entire story.

It was why they had suited so well to begin with.

“I agree,” he said. “Why do you think Mr. Strout keeps so many wills locked up in his safe?”

She shook her head, then reached inside and pulled out a handful. “Shall we find out?”

It didn’t take long to discover what the esteemed and trusted Mr. Strout had been doing over the last two decades or how he’d amassed his fortune.

The man who had served as solicitor to so many of England’s agents before they had gone abroad had taken advantage of their trust. Of their tentative fates.

Darby Bricknell and a dozen or more names that Lucy recognized had entrusted their last bequests into Strout’s hands, and the man had repaid them by not honoring a single dying wish.

Properties that were to have gone to loved ones, distant cousins, and friends were still in Strout’s hands, the rents—according to the numerous account books—filling Strout’s personal coffers.

Clifton’s anger knew no bounds, but it was the packet of correspondence and a will in particular that nearly had him forgetting their vow of silence.

For it had to do with Lucy.

As she was busy reading one of the wills, he eased into a corner with a glym at hand and quickly scanned his purloined discovery.

Her father’s estate had been trimmed down to the bare bones by Strout’s shady dealings.

Worse yet, there was a letter inside from Strout’s clerk to the Duke of Parkerton reminding His Grace that upon George Ellyson’s death the lease on the house in Hampstead had ended.

And the signature on the letter?

The scurvy little rat had set in motion Lucy’s eviction, and moreover her marriage to him. Oh, Clifton could just see the fellow coming to Lucy with the news of her pending eviction and a solution to her woes.

Marry me, Miss Ellyson, and you’ll never want for a home.

And if that wasn’t enough insult, Strout had received a fee for finding new tenants.

And where had he been? Clifton cursed the demmed Fates. For he’d been too far away to help. And he’d known this might happen, for hadn’t Lucy told him so all those years ago?

“The old duke granted Papa the use of the house during his lifetime, but when he dies, the house goes back to the estate.”

And Strout, the very devil, had given Archie a clear field toward marrying her, having stolen all of Ellyson’s money beforehand.

Well, Archibald Sterling was most likely roasting in hell, but that didn’t mean Strout wasn’t around to pay his dues.

“I’ll see him hang,” Clifton muttered as he discreetly stowed the documents inside his jacket.

Just as Goosie had taught him to do all those years ago.

* * *

Lucy glanced up and for a moment drew back at the evil light in Clifton’s eyes.

Good heavens, he looked ready to march upstairs and hang Strout from the rafters. And as much as she wanted to do the very same thing, she was just as happy to consign the solicitor’s fate into Mr. Pymm’s devious and evil hands.

He’d find a spot that was as near to hell on earth into which to cast the fellow.

She reached over and touched the earl’s arm, letting the warmth of her touch warm the chill that appeared to have taken hold of his heart. “Well, if he is to hang, then let’s make short work of the task.” Then she nodded at the evidence before them.

They went through the books, one by one, and marveled at the extent of his crimes.

“Look here,” Lucy said, handing over the will she’d been reading. “Darby’s betrothed was to have five hundred pounds, paid fifty pounds per annum until she married.” She shook her head and rolled the paper back up. “She never did, you know. Has faithfully carried his memory all these years, and here is Strout, cheating her out of what she is due. She’s no idea that Darby held her in his heart right up to his dying day.”