My Favorite Thief (14 page)

A bitter taste filled his mouth. He washed it away by draining his glass.

“Good evening, Miss Kent,” he said. “I trust you have come for your money?”

“I'm so sorry.” Her voice was small and raw. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“That depends.” Jesus, had the foolish girl reported him to the police? His mind began to race. He could not stay here if the authorities were on their way to arrest him. He knew they wouldn't believe anything he had to say. But if he suddenly disappeared and left his mother in the care of the servants, he knew the effect on her would be devastating. “What, exactly, Miss Kent, have you done that warrants my forgiveness?”

Charlotte stared at him helplessly. His expression was composed, but she wasn't fooled by it. She had known too much anguish in her own life to not be able to recognize it in others. He was haunted by the atrocity of his crime, just as she had known he would be. But in her mind, she was as much responsible for the death of Lord Pembroke's butler as he was.

She was the one who had forced Lord Bryden to steal that night.

“I never should have asked you for money,” she began haltingly. “But I was desperate, and I thought you would be able to help me. It never occurred to me that you wouldn't be able to easily afford it.”

He raised a brow and said nothing.

“Once you told me you didn't have the money, I shouldn't have suggested that you steal it. I don't think I thought it through—or maybe I just thought that you were so skilled at stealing, that it would be easy for you. I was being foolish, of course, and selfish. Now, because of me, you have been forced to kill a man.” Her expression was haunted. “Can you ever forgive me?”

He stared at her, dumbfounded. This was not what he had expected. But then, Miss Kent never seemed to do or say what he expected. He exhaled a tense breath, permitting himself to relax slightly.

Apparently he did not have to flee his home just yet.

“I know you didn't intend to kill that man, Lord Bryden.” Charlotte wished he would say something. “If anyone is to be held responsible, it is I. I should never have forced you into a situation where you had no recourse but to defend yourself.” She looked away.

Harrison clenched his jaw in frustration. How much could he explain to her? She already believed that he was the Dark Shadow. He could not tell her the truth without exposing all the sordid details of his past. He had fought too long and hard to raise himself above his mistakes to start unveiling them to some woman he barely knew. Besides, she had no reason to believe anything he told her.

“Am I correct, then, in assuming that you are not going to turn me over to the authorities?” he enquired dryly.

Charlotte looked at him in surprise. “Do you really think that I would do that?”

“Forgive me if I offended you. It's just that the other night you indicated that unless I paid you five thousand pounds, you would report me to the police.”

“I have no desire to see you sent to prison—or worse, tried for murder. But after last night, surely you must realize that you cannot continue to steal. Either someone else will be harmed, or you will be caught. No jewels are worth such a terrible price.”

“Thank you, Miss Kent, for your advice.”

His tone was mocking, the chiseled lines of his face hard. He didn't think she understood, she realized. While Lord Bryden knew some of the details of her past, he didn't have any inkling of what that past meant. He had spent his entire life safely ensconced in the silk-covered walls of his elegant home, and undoubtedly also within the grand halls and endless corridors of some magnificent ancestral estate. According to his friend Mr. Poole, he had experienced some financial problems after his father's death, but evidently not enough to destroy his family's wealth. He had probably started stealing out of what he deemed necessity.

As Charlotte stared at him, looking every bit the arrogant aristocrat in his elegantly tailored clothes, with his richly appointed furnishings and his perfectly deferential servants bowing around him, anger began to pulse through her. He had no comprehension of what necessity was. Necessity was being so hungry that you felt weak and sick. It was being forced to eat a moldy crust of bread or a rotten, half-eaten apple you found lying in the gutter, and be grateful there was something in your stomach. Necessity was being terrified to go back to your filthy dark flat because you hadn't managed to beg or steal anything of consequence that day, and you knew your father was going to beat you until you could barely move. Necessity was being forced to stand before a gaping, jeering crowd and slowly lift your skirts—

“Miss Kent? Are you all right?”

She blinked and looked at him. Everything was suddenly very white.

“Jesus Christ, sit down.” He wrapped a strong arm around her and helped her over to the sofa. “Here, put your head down—you look like you're going to faint.”

Charlotte permitted him to seat her, to lay his gentle hands across her shoulders and ease her forward, until her face was staring at the simple gray pleats of her tailored skirt. Her mind reeling, she fought to separate the past from the present. She focused on the warmth of his touch across her shoulders, the steady sound of his breathing as he leaned into her, the highly polished sheen of his expensive black boots. His scent was all around her, a wonderfully clean, masculine smell, soap and leather and a hint of brandy. Suddenly he released her and walked away, and she felt chilled and alone. But he was back a moment later, kneeling beside her, holding a glass of something fragrant to her lips.

“Take a sip of this,” he urged, helping her to slowly sit up again. “Not too fast, though. It's strong.”

She didn't flinch as the brandy burned a path down her throat. She took another swallow, then raised her gaze to him.

“Feel better?” he asked, setting the glass on a table.

She nodded, embarrassed. “Yes. Thank you.”

Harrison stayed kneeling beside her. The sun-washed fragrance of her was intoxicating his senses, a light, crisp scent of wildflowers and orange. She struck him as exceptionally lovely in the honeyed light of his study, with her creamy silk skin and those wide, jade eyes flecked with amber. A few coppery strands of hair had escaped the confines of her hat to play teasingly against the paleness of her neck, giving her a sweetly disheveled look. He found himself recalling the feel of her slender form pressing against him on the first night they met, her rib cage rising and falling within his embrace, the soft swell of her breasts grazing his arm, her firm buttocks pressed against his thighs.

Desire surged through him, hot and hard.

He rose abruptly and went to his desk, distancing himself from her. What the hell was the matter with him, for God's sake? He poured himself a brandy, trying to focus. He recalled that on the night they had met he had expected her to swoon—in fact, he had even hoped for it. But she hadn't. Instead she had tried to help him, demonstrating a remarkable strength and courage. Nothing about her had struck him as fragile or weak on that night, even after he finally noticed her disability.

Yet soon after, she had been frightened enough to resort to blackmail, an act which she obviously found completely abhorrent.

“Tell me why you need the money, Charlotte.”

She regarded him warily. “I told you, it's for my refuge house.”

“Don't play games with me. You are desperate for money, but you won't turn to your own family for it. Someone is threatening you, and I want to know who.”

She looked away. “I can't tell you.”

“Then I won't help you.”

His reluctance to help her was understandable, Charlotte realized. After all, he barely knew her, and she was asking for an enormous sum of money. But she hadn't gone there expecting him to suddenly hand her five thousand pounds. She had only wanted to apologize for her actions, and to ensure that he was not hurt.

“I understand,” she said quietly. “Then we don't have anything more to discuss.” She started to rise, acutely aware that her time was running out.

Harrison crossed to her in two strides and sat her down again, forcing her to look at him.

“Listen to me,” he began firmly. “I know those girls who have come to you for help have all kinds of filthy scum in their lives—vicious brutes who think women are nothing but a piece of property, to be used and tossed aside when they're of no more use to them. What you're doing to help those young women is admirable, Charlotte, but it's also dangerous. Those men don't like having their women taken from them—even if it's the girl's choice. If you or one of the girls is being threatened, you have to go to the police,
now
—do you hear?”

“You don't understand—”

“Then tell me, damn it!”

His eyes were dark and filled with concern. She looked down at his enormous hands. They were strong hands, clean and smooth and well cared for, not rough and blackened and dirty like her father's. She stared in confusion at the pale bandage wrapped around his left hand. Blood had started to seep from the wound hidden beneath, its bright red essence suggesting that the injury was still fresh. He was just a man, she reflected, and a coddled aristocrat at that. He might have had great success playing the role of an elite jewel thief, but he was a world apart from the brutal forces that had bred and shaped her. He could be injured. He could be killed.

He was no match for a vicious street fighter like Boney Buchan.

And neither was she.

“I cannot tell you,” she said in a pained whisper. “I can't.”

Harrison regarded her incredulously. She was unbelievable. She limped about in her modest little outfits, all shy and reticent and looking like a strong gust of wind might blow her away. But when she decided to be stubborn, she called upon some hidden inner strength and held fast. It was incomprehensible that she was refusing to let him help her—or at least go to the bloody police. But she was.

Whoever was demanding five thousand pounds had obviously terrified her into silence.

He cursed silently. He didn't need this. He had enough problems of his own. At any moment he could be arrested, or even murdered if whoever was running about playing the Dark Shadow decided he had become too great a nuisance to ignore. His mother had almost completely lost her grip on reality, and needed constant monitoring and protection. His brother and sister required his financial support. And his incapacitating headaches were stripping away the precious time he needed to fortify his investments before his own mind finally disintegrated. He glared at Charlotte, wishing to hell she had never stumbled into his life.

Had he not already assumed enough responsibility, for Christ's sake?

“There you are!” exclaimed his mother suddenly, bursting into the room. “I've been looking everywhere for you, Harry. Wherever have you been hiding?”

Harrison abruptly moved away from Charlotte and stood. “I've been right here, Mother. Didn't Telford inform you I would come up to see you shortly?”

“Telford said that you were most upset to hear that your father and I had been arguing, and that's when I knew I had to find you and make you feel better.”

Charlotte watched in wonder as the slight, silvery-haired woman lifted a pale hand to tenderly brush a lock of hair off Harrison's forehead. She appeared to be in her late fifties, and she moved with the graceful confidence of a woman who had spent her entire life knowing she was both beautiful and treasured. She wore a magnificent evening gown of sapphire silk, which was a little loose and too wide in the skirts to be deemed fashionable, suggesting it had been in Lady Bryden's wardrobe for many years. A spectacular sapphire-and-diamond necklace was draped around her neck, and heavy matching earrings sparkled from her ears. Her hands glittered with a profusion of rings, and an enormous diamond pin radiated from one shoulder. She looked as if she were dressed to attend the most extravagant of balls, and had decided to pile on as much of her jewelry as possible.

Was she the reason Lord Bryden crept about London at night stealing jewels? Charlotte wondered, astonished.

“Poor, sweet Harry,” Lady Bryden cooed, “you mustn't worry when your father and I argue. That's what adults do, every now and then, when they are having a disagreement. It doesn't mean anything, dear. Your father and I care far too much for each other to let a little argument come between us. Besides,” she added, her gray eyes twinkling with mischief, “eventually the poor man always comes to realize that I am right.” She turned to Charlotte and gasped.

“Oh, Harry, you haven't introduced me to your little friend. What a pretty thing she is, too, why, just look at all that lovely chestnut-colored hair. Reminds me of a beautiful horse I had when I was a girl. Timmy, I called him, although my father said that was a terrible name for a horse, and insisted upon calling him Apollo instead. Animals are so sensitive—I always tell your father we have much to learn from them, but he still refuses to let me bring the dogs up on the bed. Honestly, the man can be so stubborn sometimes. If it weren't for me, he'd still be eating poached eggs and jellied tongue every night for dinner. What's your name, dear?”

“Forgive me, mother,” interjected Harrison, “this is Lady Charlotte Kent, the daughter of the Marquess of Redmond.” He prayed Charlotte wouldn't correct him and tell his mother she was actually Lord Redmond's ward, which would instigate a flurry of questions.

“I'm delighted to meet you, child.” Lady Bryden smiled warmly at Charlotte. “It has been quite some time since my Harry has had a little friend over. I always tell him we should throw a party and invite all his friends, but poor Harry is a bit shy, and he won't let me do it. But one day I'm going to surprise you, young man,” she teased, gazing adoringly at him, “and you'll come home to find the house filled with all your lovely playmates, and we can play games on the lawn and have tea and lemonade and little iced cakes and candied fruit—won't that be nice?” She turned her attention back to Charlotte. “You'll have to come too, dear. I'm sure Harry would like that.”