The Devil's Thief (24 page)

“Well
you’ll have to tonight,” he told her, regret lacing his words. He rolled away
unexpectedly and stood next to the bed. He found his shirt on the floor and he
began to dress rather frantically.

Still
lost in a lustful daze, it took a moment for Julianna to realize what he was
doing. “You’re leaving?” she asked in alarm. “But we’re not done!” She could
plainly see that he was still aroused.

“Oh,
yes we are,” he said emphatically. “At least for tonight. You are far too much
of a temptation for a sinner like me, my dear. I can resist my own lustful
impulses for only so long, and I don’t believe I can resist yours for one more
moment.” He tucked his shirt into his pants and danced out of reach as Julianna
tried to yank him back into bed. “Stop it. I did not come here for that. Well,
I did, but only for you, and not for me.”

“You
are for me,” she said in a seductive voice, trying to strike an alluring pose
on the bed. Alasdair just raised one sardonic brow.

“You’re
impossible,” she told him, rolling onto her stomach and resting her cheek on
her crossed hands. “Fine. Go home to your lonely bed. I’ll just lay here by
myself dreaming of lurid, wicked things, aching and wanting, desperate to be
seduced.”

Alasdair
sat on the bed beside her and playfully slapped her bottom. “Enough, I’m in
torment already.” He ran his hand down the length of her braid lying against
her back and then began to unwind it. “We need to talk.”

Julianna
groaned and buried her face in the covers. “I don’t want to talk about that
blasted pearl,” she mumbled. She lifted her head and pointed to the window.
“You’ve apologized. You can leave now.”

Alasdair
tugged on her hair. “Try to be serious, Juli. This is part of my apology. You
see
,
I followed you to Tottenham Court yesterday. I
saw you with that boy. That’s why I was so angry with you.” Julianna couldn’t
contain her small gasp of shock and dismay. Alasdair continued to undo her
braid, refusing to meet her eyes. “I shouldn’t have, I know. But I’m a
distrustful bastard. I saw you two together and let jealousy get the better of
me.” Finally he looked at her. “I hope you’ll forgive me for not trusting you.”

“Of
course you didn’t trust me,” she said in exasperation. “Alasdair, I took your
pearl. You caught me trying to steal it.”

“That
doesn’t excuse my behavior,” he said. “There are lines a gentleman does not
cross. I came dangerously close to crossing them today. Actually, I nearly
crossed them yesterday when I saw you with him.”

“He
is not my lover,” she said firmly, wanting to put that argument to bed once and
for all. “He placed his two boys in the foundling home that I help operate.”
Honesty was again the best policy here, although she wasn’t sure yet exactly
how much to tell him. She did not want him to risk life and limb by confronting
Blackman over the stolen pearl. “He helped me to sell your pearl, Alasdair.”

Alasdair
looked at her with a rueful quirk of his lips. “Sold it, did you? Well, I
suppose I suspected that all along. What did you do with the money?” He was
running his fingers through her hair, which he’d freed from the braid.

“I used
some of it when we went shopping the other day.”

Alasdair
frowned. “Surely you got more than that for the pearl?” He sounded dismayed. “To
whom did you sell it?”

She
shook her head. “I won’t tell you.” He started to argue and she held up her
hand. “No, don’t bother trying to get it out of me. He’s a very unscrupulous
person, and he has refused to sell it back to me. I tried, you see. I tried to
give him back the money, but he wants twice what he paid for it now. And, quite
frankly, I don’t think he’d sell it back if I gave him what he wanted. He’d
rather”—she drew a line across her throat with her thumb while making a
choking noise—“and dump my body in the Thames.”

“What?”
Alasdair practically shouted.

“Be
quiet!” she admonished. “Do you want to wake the household?”

“Did
he threaten you?” he whispered angrily.

“Yes,
he did,” she said matter-of-factly. “ ‘The Thames is deep and memory short,’ ”
she intoned in a mock baritone. She shivered. “And he meant it. I won’t have
you dealing with him, Alasdair. He is the worst sort, and I don’t trust him not
to harm you. Not at all.”

“Harm
me?” Alasdair said incredulously. “What about you?” He grabbed her and pulled
her close. “I don’t want you going back to see him. Tell me his name and I’ll
buy the pearl back.”

She
shook her head against his shoulder as she snuggled into his embrace. “No, I
told you I would not.”

“Julianna,”
he said sternly, holding her away from him with a hand on each arm. “How did
you find this person in the first place?”

Julianna
choked on her reply. She couldn’t risk telling him about her father. If he
inadvertently revealed something to the wrong person . . . or, even worse, what
if he somehow found Blackman? Blackman might choose to reveal her father’s
unsavory past to the world in retaliation. The consequences would be
devastating for her father.

She
broke his hold and snuggled back against his chest. When he wrapped his arms
back around her, she tried to change the subject. “Didn’t you come here to
apologize?”

“I’ve
already done that,” he said dismissively. “Did that boy bring you to this
unscrupulous fellow? The one who threatened you? What is the boy’s name?”

“You
don’t need to know that, either,” she said, pushing away from him. She climbed out
of bed and looked around for her nightdress. It was draped precariously close
to the lit candle. She shook her head at how careless Alasdair made her. The two
missing buttons made modesty impossible, but he’d seen her naked this evening
already. A little décolletage in her otherwise modest nightwear would hardly be
of significance.

“Yes,
I do. Don’t you think it’s time you were honest with me?” His arms were crossed
and he was glaring at her with something other than passion.

“I’m
trying to be as honest as I can. Admittedly, I’m a little rusty at it,” she
replied.

Alasdair
gave a bark of laugher, then said, “ ‘
Though
I am not
naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.’ ” In response to Julianna’s
quizzical stare, he said, “The bard again.”

“Shakespeare
is shockingly appropriate for almost every occasion,” Julianna agreed with a
smile. “I daresay Will would have appreciated these circumstances.”

“Julianna,
you will tell me the names of both of these men and then you will let me handle
this business of the pearl,” he said sternly, as if talking to a recalcitrant
child.

She
didn’t like that one bit. “No, I will not. This ‘business of the pearl,’ as you
call it, is very much my business. I stole it, I sold it, and I shall retrieve
it. You know nothing at all about this business, Alasdair, and I think it’s
best if we keep it that way.”

“And
what do you know of it?” he exclaimed, standing to confront her. “A gently bred
young lady such as yourself? It is clear that you have gotten in over your
head, Julianna.”

“Over
my head?” she retorted, taking a step closer until she could jab him in the
chest. “I pulled off the burglary of the century, Alasdair. I stole the Stewart
Pearl. I think that qualifies me to handle this situation, thank you very
much.”

“I
practically put it in your pocket,” Alasdair argued disbelievingly. “I caught
you stealing it, and you fucked me senseless and walked out with it. Hardly the
burglary of the century.”

She
gasped. “Is that what you think? That I deliberately set out to get the pearl
by letting you take me to bed?”

“No,
dammit,” he growled, grabbing her wrist. “You actually thought you were capable
of stealing it without getting caught, which is far more worrisome. You are a
terrible thief! You admitted it. I caught you,” he said slowly, as if she were
an imbecile. “It was a foolish escapade from beginning to end.”

“Oh,
you caught me, did you?” she retorted, yanking her wrist from his grip. “Well,
then, where was I in the morning? And where was your pearl?” She smiled smugly.
“I had it in a hidden pocket in my shirt the whole time, you know. I had
already taken it when you dragged me into your bed.”

Alasdair
paled. “I did not drag you. You came willingly, and begged me to let you stay
there once I found out that my thief was a virgin in disguise.”

“Yes,”
she said slowly, “and what about that bargain? It seems to me the pearl is
still mine, to do with as I please. Whether or not I try to get it back is no
concern of yours.” She turned and stalked over to the open window, where she
waved a hand out into the night air. “Good night, Mr. Sharp. I’ve enjoyed your
visit immensely. Do come again when you feel the need to apologize. Again.”

Alasdair
stalked over to the window and, to her surprise, began to climb out. When he
had one leg hanging outside, he sat on the sill and turned back to her. “This
is not over, Julianna,” he said furiously. “I shall find that pearl.”

Before
she could get out an angry retort, he swung out the window and dropped from
view. She heard a muffled curse and the rustle of leaves and then a
thump,
followed by more cursing that slowly
faded into the night. So much for telling him she couldn’t get the pearl back,
she thought as she closed the window with an audible
thud
. Now she had no choice. She’d have to get the bloody thing
back before he got himself killed over it.

Chapter Fifteen

“I
need help finding a man,” Alasdair announced as he entered Hil’s library the
following morning. Surprisingly, he’d had a good night’s rest after leaving Julianna.
He’d decided to find her dangerous buyer and put an end to this whole pearl
business once and for all. Then he could get on with the far more personal business
of a proper courtship—or at least as proper as it could be under the
circumstances.

Hil
sighed and neatly folded his paper. “First a woman, and now a man. What did
he
steal?”

Alasdair’s
step faltered as he puzzled over Hil’s response for a second. “Oh, very droll,”
he retorted when he deciphered Hil’s meaning. “The pearl, I think. Julianna
tells me she sold it to some unscrupulous fellow who threatened her when she
tried to buy it back. But she refuses to tell me his name. She’s worried about
my safety, of all things. As if it’s perfectly normal for a girl like her to
have dealings with this person, but not a gentleman such as myself who is
perfectly capable of defending himself.” His disbelief and disgust were evident
in his voice.

Hil
propped his elbows on the table in front of him and rested his chin on his
steepled fingers before regarding Alasdair coolly. “I assume that this means
you apologized to Miss Harte,” he said, “and that she accepted said apology
with this exchange of information.”

“Yes
and yes,” Alasdair assured him. “And then we got into another argument about
her refusal to give me names. Which is why I’m here, Hil. It may be
presumptuous, but I was hoping you might help me find this man and get the
pearl back before Julianna comes to some harm in her own attempts to retrieve
the pearl.”

Roger
entered the library just in time to hear what Alasdair was saying. “Can’t you
two just leave the damn pearl where it is?” he said irritably. “By now we all
know this isn’t about the pearl at all.” He threw himself down on the sofa, and
then wearily lifted his legs so he could lie on it, one arm hanging off the
side as if he were a corpse on display. “I had a dastardly night of carousing,
old man, and I’m not in the mood for your perverse notion of courtship.”

“You’re
partially right, Roger,” Alasdair admitted. “It stopped being solely about the
pearl some time ago. But the fact remains that the pearl is a family heirloom. I
am bent on retrieving it, if only to salvage my somewhat damaged pride. And I think
I know Julianna well enough now to deduce that she is hell-bent on getting it
back before I do. She admitted as much.”

Shaking
his head, Hil walked over to the sofa and knocked Roger’s feet off before
sitting down. Roger unceremoniously plopped them back in Hil’s lap. He left
them there. “Does everything between the two of you have to be a competition?”
Hil asked.

Alasdair
sat across from them. “No. This isn’t about winning. It’s about Julianna’s
safety.”

Hil
laughed. “I believe Miss Harte is quite adept at protecting herself. She has
proven it time and time again.”

“Hear,
hear,” Roger muttered.

“And
what is it about for Miss Harte, do you suppose?” Hil mused. “Protecting
herself from you, perhaps?”

“From
me?” Alasdair was genuinely surprised at the very idea. “She has to know by now
that I would never denounce her or reveal what she’s done.”

“What
about that forgiveness we spoke of?” Hil asked seriously. “She has forgiven
you. Have you forgiven her?”

“Of
course I have,” Alasdair said, but he could hear the lack of conviction in his
own words. “I mean, I don’t blame her for the circumstances that led to her
theft.”