Tempting a Devil (13 page)

He was speechless. This was the perfect excuse, of course. If he claimed both were true—which they were not—he could avoid too many torturous scenes like this one. He might even convince Harry to end their affair, and continue as mere friends. The thought did not please him. She’d been so damn wonderful against that wall, so responsive and delectable, and voracious—he took a deep breath. It didn’t matter. It was for her own good. He’d “confess” his failings and as soon as he found out what kind of trouble she was in, he could be on his way.

“No,” he said.
Coward
. He wanted to slam his head against the wall. “That’s not it. I could certainly, um, go again immediately. And sometimes hard and quick is just what you need. As I said, at a later time we can go for soft and slow.” She looked shocked and then pleased as she bounced up from the sofa. He backed up again. “But, truly I can’t. I need to talk with you about the attack on Mercy the other morning, and then I’ve got to meet Hil at Bow Street.”

That stopped her in her tracks and she went white as a sheet. “Bow Street?” she whispered.

She’d obviously had time to think about the attempted kidnapping, and the ramifications of what had happened had sunk in. It was clear she was no longer blasé about it. He hated to bring it up knowing how it was distressing her. It was when she was like this, so vulnerable, that Roger found her nearly irresistible. He had a terrible case of wanting to be a champion, it would appear, particularly after watching Sharp rescue his
own Julianna.

“Are you sure you didn’t recognize the man who tried to take Mercy?” he asked gently. She shook her head vehemently. “Can you think of any reason someone would want to take him?” Again she shook her head silently, too distressed to answer his questions. “Well, Hil is working on finding out who may have done it,” he reassured her. “I don’t think you need to worry it might happen again.” But she did look worried, and he’d rather drop the discussion than upset her more.

He realized then and there that he wasn’t going to be able to keep putting her off with one excuse or another without risking hurting her feelings. If this affair was to remain, well, not exactly chaste, then she had the right to know why. “All right,” he said. “Enough questions. Now we need to talk about this”—he gestured between them—“I’m sorry, Harry, but I am not going to consummate this affair.”

* * *

Well, was all Harry could think, amazed that she was still standing after the dual blows of a threat from Bow Street and the fact that Roger did not want her. This day was not going at all the way she had planned while she’d waited for Roger to return after their extraordinary encounter.

“I see,” she said calmly. She turned and sat down on the sofa, folding her hands in her lap. She’d taken off her gloves at last and had been looking forward to finally touching Roger skin on skin.
How disappointing
, she thought in a grand understatement. At least he’d stopped asking questions about the attack on Mercy. She stared at the picture on the opposite wall, a pretty watercolor of the park in the square. “May I ask
why?”

“Don’t do that,” Roger said harshly, sitting down next to her. He’d been running away for the past quarter hour. Now he wanted to sit by her? He jerked her arm until she looked at him. His expression was a mixture of frustration and guilt, and in a fit of uncharacteristic pique Harry wrenched her arm from his grasp.

“Harry, we can’t risk it and you know it,” he said miserably, slumping back against the sofa cushions. He clasped his hands in his lap and stared at them, as he rubbed one thumb along the back of the other hand repeatedly. “If you were to get pregnant, you’d have to marry. And the worst part is you’d have to marry
me
. God knows you don’t deserve a sentence as harsh as that.”

She tilted her head to the side, not sure she’d understood him correctly. “What?”

He finally looked at her and he looked terribly unhappy. “I only want the best for you, Harry, you know that. And you also know it isn’t me.”

“I told you I don’t want to marry again,” she said automatically.

“And there you have it,” Roger told her with an emphatic gesture in her direction. “We’d both be miserable if we were forced to marry because of a child. And the best, surest protection against that is not to consummate this affair.”

“But how can we have an affair if we don’t have relations?” she asked, baffled. “Isn’t that just a friendship? Don’t you want me, in that way?” That would never do. In order for her plan to work, there had to be an affair. She hadn’t even thought about pregnancy. It had taken so long before she’d gotten pregnant before. “I was married to Mercer for five years before I was given Mercy,” she argued. “I’m not even sure I could have another child.”

“Were there problems?” he asked, his concern genuine as he sat forward and took one of her hands in his.

She shook her head. “No, it just took so long. The doctor said it was a miracle I conceived at all, after such a long time.”

Roger scoffed. “He was an idiot. I’ve seen wives conceive ten years after they were married and then every year after.” He shrugged. “It simply happens when it happens. You mustn’t worry.”

“Worry?” She laughed. “Trust me, if I plan never to marry again, then I am equally determined not to have another child. Oh, don’t get me wrong,” she rushed to assure him. “I love Mercy with all my heart. But I wouldn’t want a bastard child.”

“Which, again, proves my point,” Roger said logically. “As for the difference between an affair and a friendship?” He pointed to their wall again. “That’s the difference. And if it wasn’t obvious, then let me make it perfectly clear. I want you very much.”

“I never cared for intercourse,” Harry told him honestly. “I found it messy and unsatisfactory to say the least.” She made a face. “So I can’t say I’m sorry you don’t wish to have it. I much preferred what we did today.”

Roger looked as if he wanted to argue the point and then he closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Yes,” he said a little weakly, “much better.”

She bit her lip for a moment in indecision, and then decided she might as well ask. It certainly couldn’t hurt. “Can we do more of that, except, perhaps, in bed, naked? I very much want to see you naked.”

Roger let his head fall back against the sofa cushion and his eyes were closed
again. He looked as if he was in pain. “Yes,” he said, although he didn’t sound happy about it. “I think I can handle being naked. But only if you aren’t.” His eyes popped open and he glared at her before she could reply. “But I’ll decide when. Don’t you dare arrive on my doorstep naked.”

“At Sir Hilary’s?” she asked in horror. “What kind of woman do you think I am?”
Oh, wait
, she thought.
That’s the sort of woman I’m supposed to be
. “I mean, why not? That sounds … exciting.” She’d be mortally embarrassed, but if she must, she must.

“If you do,” he warned, “then the affair is over.
Fini
. The end.”

“Well, when you put it that way,” she said, mentally sighing in relief. “I promise I shall not show up at Sir Hilary’s naked. You have my word.”

“Good,” Roger said emphatically. “And you have my word that I shall not show up here naked, either.”

Chapter Twelve

“Are you sure Vickery can help us?” Roger asked Hil as they approached the Bow Street Police Office.

“No,” Hil answered honestly. “But I don’t think it hurts to ask. And if he can’t, then perhaps one of the other Principal Officers can.”

“How did you meet him?” Wiley asked, eyeing everyone on the street suspiciously.

“Another officer introduced us, John Townsend. He’s a friend of the Prince Regent, and we became acquainted …” Hil let his sentence trail off. “Yes, well, I was helping the Prince Regent with a purely academic problem, and I made the acquaintance of Townsend, who was also helping. A very interesting fellow, Townsend. So interesting, in fact, that I was curious to meet the other Principal Officers at Bow Street.”

“Was this the ‘purely academic problem’ that led to your knighthood?” Roger asked wryly.

“We do not speak of it,” Hil said with a disdainful sniff. “A mere coincidence.”

“Why would Prinny call you to help with something criminal?” Wiley asked, his eyes huge. “ ‘I got me a criminal issue,’ he thinks, and”—he snapped his fingers—“just like that, he thinks of you?”

“Hardly,” Hil replied. “It just so happens that it was well known at the Royal Society that I was quite interested in the study of crime and criminal behavior. In school I chanced upon the writings of an Italian physician named Malpighi. He discovered the
presence of what he called fingerprints.” Hil stopped walking and held up his hand, pointing to the tip of one index finger. “These lines here. They are in a different formation on each individual.”

Wiley leaned close to look at Hil’s thumb, and Roger rolled his eyes. “You look as if you’re going to get a splinter out of his thumb with your teeth.” Wiley jerked back immediately, blushing as he looked around. He frowned at Roger.

“Yes, well,” Hil continued both walking and talking, “this led me to another Italian, Fortunato Fedele, who prescribed autopsy to determine the cause of a victim’s death.”

“Autopsy?” Wiley asked.

Roger shuddered. “Cutting the body up and poking around inside to see what killed them,” he explained. “Gad, don’t get Hil started on that. Grisly stuff.”

“Christ,” Wiley whispered. He surreptitiously crossed himself like a Papist.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Hil snapped. “We call it science, you ninnies.”

“Still don’t see how this science made you an expert on crime,” Wiley pointed out.

“My interest drew the attention of Mr. Patrick Colquhoun, with whom I began a correspondence. His
Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis
is brilliant, utterly brilliant.”

“Boring, utterly boring,” Roger muttered under his breath to Wiley, who guffawed.

“Pearls among swine,” Hil complained peevishly.

“If you’re talking about these pigs,” Wiley said, gesturing to the patrol constables going in and out of the Bow Street Office, “then you’ve got that right.”

“We do not use that offensive cant here, Wiley,” Hil admonished sternly. “These gentlemen may have, on occasion, been your adversaries, but they deserve your respect, not your condescension.”

“My what?” Wiley asked.

“He means don’t be an idiot,” Roger interpreted. “We need their help.”

“Not we,” Wiley told him, pointing in his direction. “You.”

“Semantics,” Roger replied with a scowl. “Perhaps I should have said Lady Mercer needs their help.”

“Now that prime piece has earned my respect,” Wiley said with a lascivious grin.

Before Roger could either respond or punch him, a short, fat, eccentric man bustled out the door of Number 4 Bow Street and stopped short at the sight of Hil.

“St. John, is that you?” he asked.

“Townsend,” Hil said with a slight bow, which Townsend returned. He was quite a sight in his flaxen wig, light-colored suit with knee breeches, and broad-brimmed white hat. Just the sort that Prinny attracted.

“More research?” Townsend asked jovially, but Roger could see the intellect in his eyes, and the shrewd assessment he gave both Roger and Wiley.

“Not quite,” Hil answered. “We are here to report a crime, and to ask for help in solving it.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place, then,” Townsend answered absently. He began walking again, going right past them as he gestured at the door he’d just come out of. “You’ll find what you need in there. I’m afraid I’m late for an appointment with the Prince Regent.”

“Please be so kind as to give him my regards,” Hil said.

Townsend laughed. “Hates to be reminded,” he called back as he climbed into a carriage, right before he slammed the door and the horses clipped off.

“Be reminded of what?” Wiley asked, the picture of innocence.

“You don’t honestly think I’m going to fall for that and reveal all, do you?” Hil was highly amused, and he just opened the door without further answer.

Wiley looked at Roger, who just shrugged. “He won’t tell me, either,” he said. “Probably best that way.” Wiley nodded in agreement, clearly having known Hil long enough to see the wisdom of that.

The chief clerk greeted them. “How may I help you, sir?” he asked Hil, while eyeing Wiley with distrust where he stood with his back to the wall, eyes warily darting right and left.

“Is Mr. Vickery available?” Hil asked with a polite smile. “We need to discuss a recent incident with him.”

“An ongoing investigation?” the clerk asked, reaching for a sheaf of papers.

“No,” Hil said, almost apologetically. “A recent kidnapping attempt which we are here to report.”

“You were the victim?” the clerk asked, still not looking at Hil.

“No,” Hil replied. He offered no other information.

The clerk looked up at Hil’s silence. He frowned. “Your involvement?” he asked.

“A concerned party,” Hil responded, his voice noticeably cooler. “Would you be so kind as to inform Mr. Vickery that Sir Hilary St. John is here to see him?”

The clerk paled. “Sir Hilary,” he said, standing quickly, and then diving to catch
the pile of papers he almost knocked to the floor. “I … I’m afraid Mr. Vickery is out. Shall I let Sir Nathaniel know you’re here?”

Even Roger was shocked. “I’m impressed,” he told Hil. “Not many people would merit the attention of the chief magistrate of Bow Street.” He looked at the clerk. “Yes, please,” he answered for Hil.

The clerk looked ready to do his bidding when Hil put a hand on Roger’s arm and shook his head. “No, thank you. The chief magistrate is not necessary. Is one of the other Principal Officers available?”

“Yes, sir,” the clerk said, nodding his head, clearly pleased to be able to answer in the positive. “Mr. Lavender and Mr. Taunton.”

“Please see which one is able to help us today,” he asked dismissively. This time he let the clerk rush off.

Roger was not happy. “If you can command the assistance of the chief magistrate, Hil, then I say do so.”