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Authors: Darcy Burke

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #Regency, #Historical Romance

To Love a Thief (6 page)

BOOK: To Love a Thief
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Moss shook his head while he massaged his wife’s wrists. “I don’t think so.” He stood and helped Mrs. Moss to her feet.

Carlyle helped Nan up. “And Mrs. Harwood?”

“Still out,” Moss said, “by the grace of God.”

Jocelyn relaxed a bit at this news.

“Just the same, I think I’d better take a look around.” Carlyle turned to Jocelyn and took her hands in his. “Stay here.” He gave her fingers a squeeze and then raced up the stairs almost soundlessly.

While Carlyle was gone, they went into the kitchen and assembled themselves at the small table where the staff took their meals. Moss continued to hold his wife’s hands and stroke her wrists in a soothing fashion. She kept looking into Moss’s eyes and smiling tremulously, as if she were doing her best to reassure him.

Jocelyn blinked tears away. Their love and concern for one another was palpable and evoked bittersweet memories of her parents.

Nan made tea and when she’d set the pot to steeping, Carlyle came back down the stairs. All of them turned toward him with expectant eyes.

He took a seat at the head of the table. “The house is empty, but every room was searched. I can’t tell if anything has been stolen.”

Jocelyn was nearly certain nothing had, that what they’d wanted was tucked firmly in her pocket, but didn’t say so. “I daresay we won’t know until we clean up.”

She laid her hand over her pocket, feeling the items concealed within. Relief that she’d decided to carry the treasures with her at all times joined her anger at what had been done to their retainers. She was only glad Gertrude hadn’t been here.

Carlyle turned to Moss. “Can you tell me what happened?”

The butler gave his wife a reaffirming nod before turning his attention to Carlyle. “I answered the door, and they struck me in the head. The blow wasn’t enough to put me out, but they easily overcame me, my lord.” He sounded apologetic.

“You did fine, Moss. How many were there?” Carlyle asked, his tone warm and encouraging.

Moss looked a bit sheepish. “I’m not sure, my lord. Two of them dragged me down here, but it seems likely more came in after.”

Nan nodded, her lip curling. “One came upstairs and found me. Tall bloke with longish blond hair. Nearly scared the life out of me. I tried to kick him, but he hauled me downstairs and handed me off to another one.” She shook her head, muttering something unintelligible, and then went to get the tea.

“So perhaps four men?” Carlyle asked calmly. His demeanor didn’t change—he wasn’t agitated for angry, but resolute and logical. His skills as a constable hadn’t diminished.

“We should notify Bow Street, shouldn’t we?” Moss asked.

“Yes, but first I’d like to see if anything was taken.” Carlyle focused his attention on Jocelyn. “Are you up to going through the house with me?” His stare was intent as usual, but carried a gleam of authority. He was in his element, solving a crime. She was going to have to tell him what she believed had happened, and he wasn’t going to like it. Not when she’d committed a crime too.

She squared her shoulders. “Where do you want to start?”

“Your bedchamber, I think.”

Jocelyn couldn’t help the flush that crept up her cheeks. Was it inappropriate to allow a man into your bedchamber for the purposes of solving a crime?

She led him up the back stairs, climbing two flights to the first floor. At the threshold to her bedchamber, Jocelyn froze. Her room hadn’t just been searched. It had been destroyed. Her bed had been pulled apart and the pillows cut open. The drawers in the dresser set in the corner were all open, with the contents spilling out. Even the draperies on the window hung at an angle.

She stepped inside and moved into the tiny dressing chamber. This too had been ransacked. Her clothes lay strewn about the floor and, perhaps most telling, her mother’s jewelry box was in pieces on the dressing table. And that made her furious.

“Is there anything missing?” Carlyle asked from behind her.

She went to the dressing table and picked up one of the shattered pieces of the jewelry box. Now was the time to tell him. She had to. After seeing him with the retainers, his concern for the entire situation, she wondered if he could help her. But would he? “I don’t think so.” She turned to face him. “I know what they were looking for.”

The treasures in her pocket suddenly felt like lead weighing her down. She pulled them out and turned them over in her palm so he could see them clearly.

He stepped in front of her, staring at her hand. “You
did
take them.”

She jerked her head up. “You knew?”

He raised his gaze to hers, but she couldn’t discern what he was thinking—was he disappointed, angry, something else? “I suspected, which is why I came to see you today. I heard your pocket jangling when we left the office the other night, and when Lady Aldridge told me some things were missing from her jewelry box, I wondered if you’d taken them. Particularly when she said one of them was the pendant her husband had given her.”

“It’s
my
pendant. Just as these earrings and this brooch also belong to me.”

He stared at her. “You stole them.” His tone was still even, but beneath its deceptive calm seethed a current of anger.

He was angry then. She was getting there too. “I
recovered
them. It’s not stealing if they’re mine.”

“You can’t prove that—or so you told me. And you’re mistaken. Lord Aldridge said the pendant wasn’t yours.”

She moved a bit closer as she glared up at him. “You don’t find it rather coincidental that he has
three
items identical to mine? I might’ve been able to eventually accept the pendant was simply an exact version of my mother’s, but not these earrings and the brooch too. No, these items belong to
me
.” She curled her fingers around the jewelry in her hand. “Furthermore,” she swept her hand out, indicating the devastation of her room,” he doesn’t want me to have them back.”

His face was impassive, his eyes dark and devoid of emotion. “What were you doing in his study?”

He was well-versed in intimidation, but Jocelyn wasn’t having it. She regretted using him for her own ends, but she didn’t regret trying to uncover Aldridge’s deceit. “Looking for proof that he’d either purchased these items or maybe … something else. And there are other missing items, so I was looking for them.” She lifted her chin.

His features froze and that undercurrent of fury spiked with fire in his eyes. “You manipulated me to secure you an invitation to Aldridge’s house. You
used
me to commit theft.”

He looked so furious, so … betrayed that she couldn’t help but feel a rush of shame. “I’m sorry” sounded so inadequate, but it was all she had. “I truly am sorry. I thought it was my only chance to recover my things. Please understand.”

He glared at her another moment and then massaged his forehead. When he regarded her once more, his eyes had grown calm. His features relaxed into those of the helpful constable, making her wary. “You have to return the items,” he said.

The hell she did. “I most certainly do not. I can’t believe you’d even suggest it. What about him having Mrs. Harwood’s house torn apart like this?”

His gaze drifted to the side, as he considered her question. “I can’t believe Aldridge is behind your house being ransacked.”

“Why not? He
had
to have been looking for these.” She held up her closed fist. “He knows I took them.”

His attention was focused on the wall as if there were something fascinating etched in the wallpaper. “Then he’d let Bow Street handle it.” His voice trailed away.

“What? Why are you staring at the wall?”

Carlyle’s gaze didn’t waver. “Because he didn’t tell me about the theft,” he said quietly.

And of course he would have. They were close friends who championed police reform. This was a matter Lord Aldridge would’ve confided in Carlyle. Some of her anger leached away. “What are you thinking?”

“That none of this makes sense.”

“Would it help to know this is precisely what happened two years ago when our property was stolen in the first place? Our retainers were bound together in the scullery, our house ruined.” She couldn’t keep the anguish inside. “It sent my father into a fit from which he never recovered.”

At last, Carlyle turned his head toward her. “I’m sorry for your loss.” He was quiet a moment. The space between them was scant, perhaps a hand’s width. She could lean into him, seek his warmth, his comfort. But she didn’t. He thought she was a thief, and she supposed she was. Did his opinion matter? She had no answer for that.

He pivoted away from her, creating distance between them, which was probably for the best. Whatever attraction she felt toward this man was doomed before she could even pursue it.

“You believe Lord Aldridge was behind the theft in your town house two years ago and what happened here today?”

She heard an edge of skepticism in his query, which made her want to raise her voice. But she didn’t. She spoke calmly, if ironically. “I think it’s suspicious that today’s invasion looks exactly like the one two years ago, that it happened two days after I recovered some of my stolen property, and that Lord Aldridge hasn’t reported his wife’s missing jewels. You may draw your own conclusions, of course.”

He arched a brow at her. “Thank you, I shall.” He paced to the opposite corner of the small, square room. “I must agree it’s all a bit suspicious. Lady Aldridge mentioned that her husband had advised her not to tell anyone about the missing jewelry, that she’d probably just misplaced the items.”

“And is that typical for her?”

“Yes. She’s been known to lose things now and again. She’s quite reliant on her maid to keep things in order, and her maid has been gone the past week visiting her sick mother.” He shook his head. “The more I think about this, the more I think you’re batty. Lord Aldridge undoubtedly thinks his wife’s jewels are somewhere in their town house, which makes perfect sense.”

It would, if Lord Aldridge had told the truth about how he’d obtained Jocelyn’s jewelry. “Except they’re not in the Aldridges’ town house, and someone ransacked this house looking for them.”

He looked unconvinced. “You don’t know that.”

“I
do
know that.” She picked through the clutter on the dressing table. “Nothing is missing. See, here—” She’d been about to say her silver earbobs were still there, but they weren’t. And neither was the cameo Gertrude had loaned her the other day.

He came up beside her. “What is it?”

Her shoulders deflated. “My jewelry is missing.” But how is it that the same thing could’ve happened to
her
twice? “I still don’t think this is a coincidence. I think they came looking for these and took whatever else they wanted while they were at it.”

“Have you considered an occupation as a constable?” he asked wryly and she turned to stare at him.

“How can you find humor in this situation?”

He exhaled and turned his body toward her. “I’m not. I’m merely saying you’ve a logical mind, if perhaps colored by your past experiences. Yes, it’s coincidental that you’ve been robbed twice, but it’s not impossible.”

She spun to face him, still clutching her jewels. “How do you explain Lord Aldridge having three of my stolen pieces of jewelry?”

He shook his head, frowning. “I don’t know, but I intend to find out. In the meantime, you have to return the items.”

“I will not.”

“Miss Renwick, surely you understand I cannot ignore a crime.”

She was counting on it. “I do, and I’m asking you to solve mine. Do you believe these are my items?”

“I believe you think they are.”

What a perfectly pompous thing to say. She put her empty hand on her hip and gave him a direct stare. “Well, that’s a bit insulting, isn’t it?”

He sighed. “I don’t think you’re lying about them. There has to be a good explanation for the similarity.”

She could work with that. “I agree. I propose you find that explanation—how these pieces came to be in Lord Aldridge’s possession—and then I will return them, whether they were mine or not.” How it pained her to even suggest they weren’t hers, let alone return them!

He moved into her bedchamber. “All right. Let’s start with a list of the things that were stolen from you two years ago. Can you write it down for me?”

“Certainly.”

He turned toward her. “Excellent, please be as detailed as possible in your descriptions. While you do that, I’ll ask Nan to make some order out of this room.” His eyes flicked toward her ruined bed and then at her. She was suddenly very aware they were alone in her bedchamber. This thought was followed closely by the memory of his near-kiss the other night. A wave of heat assaulted her.

He focused his gaze on a spot on the wall behind her. Apparently the walls of her dressing room and bedchamber were riveting. He cleared his throat. “I’m going to send Moss for a constable from Bow Street.”

It appeared his interest in her had waned. She tried to ignore her disappointment. “A Runner?”

His mouth turned down. “That’s not what we’re—
they’re
—called. But yes.”

She suspected he missed his former occupation more than a little bit. How shocking to go from being a constable to suddenly being a viscount without any choice in the matter. “Then we have a deal?”

His eyes connected with hers again and their usual intensity was heightened with a glimmer of excitement. Yes, he missed being a constable and he was eager for this task. Or, perhaps he wasn’t as uninterested in her as she’d thought. “We do.”

Despite the utter ruin of her bedchamber, Jocelyn felt hope for the first time in two years. She also felt the spark of something else, and it was something she’d never felt before.

 

 

Chapter Five

 

BOOK: To Love a Thief
5.59Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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