What the Duke Doesn't Know (12 page)

Her eyes flashed with conviction. Kawena knew enough not to suggest that her reaction was a bit extreme. And the mention of seduction cut rather too close.

“But why are we talking of Lord Robert?” the other continued. “You must tell me more about yourself. What thief are you hunting? What is your home like, so very far away?”

Kawena obliged by describing the island and her father's arrival there. She also gave a few details of her quest for the jewel thief, as there was no one nearby to eavesdrop just now. Miss Jennings seemed fascinated.

“You are quite intrepid, aren't you?” she commented when Kawena finished.

“Sometimes I am,” she agreed. “But I worry I will never find the one who took my father's treasure.”

“I hope you will. But even having tried is inspiring. I should be proud to have acted so decisively.”

She smiled at Kawena, and they exchanged a most cordial look. Kawena felt that they really could be good friends, given an opportunity. But just then Mrs. Jennings came to fetch Flora, leading her off to a group on the other side of the room. Lord James walked over to take her place.

“Your brother and Miss Jennings are…?” Kawena didn't know what word to use.

“I have no idea,” he replied. “She's not his type at all. I can't think what he's doing.”

“Seduction?” wondered Kawena. The word had stuck in her mind.

He started as if she had jabbed him with a fishhook. “Of course not! Robert would never contemplate such a thing.”

The word did not apply to her either, Kawena thought. She had done as she pleased, not been lured into…whatever the English thought that word implied.

“The cuneiform is sadly fragmentary on this point,” said someone behind them. “I don't believe it is possible to determine a reference.”

“I suppose he's gone mad,” continued Lord James. “Like the rest of us.”

“The rest of whom?” inquired a cool voice. Flora had returned as they talked.

“Are all the duke's sons quite irritating?” Kawena put in, resenting his characterization of her, and their quest, as “mad.”

“Well, I haven't seen Randolph or James since I was a child.” Miss Jennings eyed their companion as if trying to make a quick judgment. “Nathaniel is rather stuffy, I think. Sebastian thinks far too much of himself. Alan's not bad; his scientific work is impressive.”

“And Robert?” asked Lord James.

Flora's gaze found him across the room. “An enigma.”

“But you like puzzles,” he found himself pointing out. And then wondered where that had come from.

The glance she gave him was wide and startled. Kawena was nearly as surprised. Just when she thought him incapable of noticing what was going on right before his eyes, he said something that showed he was very aware indeed.

Lord James spent the next two days visiting former crew members around London. He did not allow Kawena to don her boy's clothes and accompany him, reminding her that his men would talk much more freely to him alone. Although she suspected his preoccupation with scandal was also involved, she had to admit the logic of this and stay behind. She spent the time wandering around his family's huge house, occasionally speaking to a servant, looking at its furnishings, and going slowly mad from an unsettling combination of boredom and hope. She tried books from the library, a newspaper she found in the entry hall, but nothing held her attention for long. Finally, she took to pacing long corridors like a restless ghost, to work off some of her impatience.

And in the end, it was all for naught. “It was the same as in Portsmouth,” Lord James told her on the second evening. “No one seemed to know anything. I sailed with these men for years, most of them. I'm well acquainted with their quirks and evasions, and I didn't spot any lies. I even tried another visit to that fellow at the Admiralty, but he had no more information.”

Kawena sat on the drawing room sofa with her hands folded tightly in her lap. She was afraid that if she moved, she would fly into a thousand pieces. This was it. This was failure.

“I don't know what more I can do,” he went on. “I simply don't believe that any of my crew took those jewels. Sailors live in very close quarters on shipboard, you know, even the officers. And a voyage has long, boring stretches. They notice anything unusual, and they talk about it. Someone hiding a treasure… I simply can't see it.”

Her lower lip was threatening to tremble. Kawena bit it, hard, to hold back any hint of tears. That would be too humiliating.

Lord James glanced at her uneasily. “I'm very sorry. But…I've done what I promised. I don't see what else… We'll head back to Oxford tomorrow.”

There had to be something. But Kawena couldn't think of a next step.

“I'll see about a post chaise,” he said, sounding increasingly uncomfortable. “Are you…have you heard what I said?”

“Yes,” said Kawena. Unable to bear the pitying, uneasy look in his eyes, she sprang to her feet and rushed out of the room.

In her borrowed bedchamber, she paced some more. She couldn't accept the idea that her quest was over, ending in disaster. Yet she'd tried every idea. She'd used up all her resources, including the amount of help Lord James was willing to offer. Having sat with him and some of his crew in Portsmouth, she believed what he said about his men. He did know them. However…her father's hoard
had
been taken. If not by someone on the
Charis
…

Kawena had questioned everyone at home. More importantly, her mother had done the same. And people on Valatu did not lie to her mother. They might wish to. They might plan to. But she had an uncanny ability to detect falsehoods. Indeed, she had uncovered a number of petty sins during the hunt for the jewels. They were not there.

But where in the wide world were they? And what was she going to do?

Kawena strode from one side of the luxurious bedchamber to the other, feeling like the caged tiger she had seen during her long voyage here. She supposed that Lord James's family would lend her money for the passage home. Or…why pretend? It would not be a loan, but a gift. And they wouldn't care. The sum would be nothing to them. They would give it to her, carelessly, kindly, and she would fade into their memories to become an amusing story, part of the Gresham family lore. The idea grated on her sensibilities. She would never see Lord James again, and he wouldn't care a whit. She would make her way back to a small life on the island. Her mother would see that she had a place there, as a dependent. Although she missed her family, the prospect did not appeal. It felt stark and empty.

The hour grew late, but Kawena knew that sleep was impossible. She didn't even try getting into bed. Her mind insisted upon going over and over her situation, as if repetition might produce a solution.

It did not.

She paced some more. Movement was a little better than stillness. It was the illusion of action, at least. It used some of the pent-up energy that made her want to run and flail and shout with frustration.

She was still at it when the first light of dawn showed at the windows. Although she was finally a little tired, Kawena still couldn't rest. She left her chamber, craving more space, and wandered the house again. She was up before the few servants who cared for this huge dwelling that was used for only months out of the year. She strode through room after room. She would never fit into this kind of life, she thought. The place was oppressive—windows shrouded by layers of draperies, walls crowded up against other grand houses, with closed gardens and fenced squares. Barrier after barrier between the people and the outdoors. She found it hard to breathe here, sometimes.

Kawena came to a door at the end of a hallway in the back of the house. Her feet had led her here, unthinking. She opened it and went through, into a small parlor papered in stripes of cream and deep green. The draperies and carpet were the same dark green, and shelves held a collection of books, ornaments, and odd little items. Kawena had discovered that this was the duchess's private parlor, told by a young maid who seemed almost afraid of the place. She'd dared to sit here, even though it felt like a kind of trespass. The room had an air of ease and contentment that she hadn't found in other parts of the house.

She went over to stand before the arrangement of six small portraits on the far wall. When she'd asked the maid, she'd told her that these were the Gresham brothers, each painted at the age of five years. It was easy to pick out Lord James from among them. Though the boys all resembled one another in coloring, they had their unique looks. What was it like to be the mother of such an array of sons, the mistress of all this? she wondered. And the duchess had charge of several other big houses, too, she'd heard. It seemed to her as if it would be more burden than gift.

Kawena walked the perimeter of the room, absently running her fingers along the shelves and chair rail in the growing morning light. She looked at the informal clutter of objects the duchess had chosen to put here. She could like the person who accumulated and arranged this collection, she thought. But it was unlikely she would ever get to meet her.

The sun climbed a bit higher, and an errant sunbeam lanced through the half-open draperies and struck the upper corner of the room, gilding it with light. The sudden illumination caught Kawena's eye, and what seemed a familiar shape held it. There was something tucked away on the highest shelf, half-hidden by a row of books. Frowning up at it, Kawena moved closer. It couldn't be, but…

She fetched the chair that sat before the writing desk and set it below the shelves. Climbing onto it, she reached up. Her fingers were still inches below the object. From this nearer distance, she could see that it was imperative she get her hands on it.

She examined the shelves. They were thick and solid, built into the wall, immoveable. Clearing a space on the one just above the chair, she pulled back her skirts and placed one foot onto the painted wood. Gripping a higher shelf with both hands, she stepped up until she was standing on the shelf. Carefully, she reached again.

This time, she got it.

Taking care not to fall, she lowered herself to the chair, and the floor. She took her prize over to the window. The small, squat wooden figure had a large head and a greatly exaggerated male organ. About six inches tall, it was a type of carving produced on her island, mostly for sale to foreign traders. And she'd noticed as soon as she lifted it that it was far heavier than it ought to be.

Her heart beating fast, Kawena turned the figure over and ran her fingers around the base. There was an almost invisible crack; she could feel it. She needed a tool. With growing urgency, she scanned the room. There was a bronze letter opener on the desk. In the next moment, she was inserting the tip into the crevice in the wood. It resisted. She wiggled and pried until, slowly, the crack widened, revealing the outlines of a square plug. She twisted and pushed harder until at last the bit of wood popped out. Beneath it was a cloth bag, stuffed in the figure's hollow interior. Kawena pulled it out and untied the drawstring. Inside nestled her father's hard-won hoard of jewels, glinting up at her like laughing eyes, and like salvation.

Amazement and relief made her knees weak. Letting the wooden plug drop, she half fell into an armchair, clutching the bag close. The treasure had been here, right here, all this time. She'd found it. She'd succeeded—just when she'd given up believing that she could. Her long voyage had been worth it. Everything was all right. Except…

Outrage brought her bolt upright in the chair.

Lord James had lied to her! He
was
the thief. He'd hidden the jewels right here in his house, his family's house. He'd humored and cajoled her, gone through the pretense of talking to his crew, when all the time he'd known he had them. Perhaps he'd exulted in that knowledge, enjoyed deceiving her…

But even in her fury, logic brought Kawena up short. That, and her observations of Lord James over these last weeks. Would any thief, even the most daring, bring her here and leave her alone to explore the house, when she might do exactly as she had done and find his hiding place? There had been no need to come here. She need never have entered the place. It was stupid, and even if Lord James had somehow been able to disguise his thieving nature, she knew he wasn't stupid. She looked down at the bag of jewels in her hands. It made no sense.

Kawena sprang to her feet. She snatched up the now-empty figure and stalked out into the corridor, down it, and up a flight of stairs. A left turn, another hall, and then a closed door, which she pounded on with the carving before shoving the panels open and striding through. The door swung shut with a click behind her.

Inside a bedchamber less opulent than the one she'd been given, Lord James sat up in bed, blinking. She rushed over to him and thrust the figure at him. With her other hand, she shook the bag of jewels, making them rattle. “They were right here all the time!”

“What? What are you doing in my room?”

“Right here, all the time,” she repeated, louder. “The jewels were right here!”

Lord James caught her wrist and pushed the wooden figure away from his face. His fingers were like steel bands, his strength irresistible. Belatedly, it occurred to Kawena that it might not have been wise to confront a wily thief alone, in his bedchamber, with only his family's servants to witness anything he might do. She yanked her arm free and stepped back.

He appeared to be still shaking off sleep. “You shouldn't be in my room,” was all he said.

Kawena moved farther toward the door. But she still wanted answers. She still couldn't believe that this man was a consummate deceiver. “I found my father's jewels inside this figure in your mother's parlor,” she told him. She held up the carving and the bag.

He stared. She watched comprehension, and then astonishment, cross his face. They looked unfeigned. “That thing? I sent that to Mama as a joke, months ago.” He rubbed a hand through his hair, blinked again. “I send her odd bits and pieces from all my ports of call. She likes to get some sense of what I'm seeing.”

“But how did you get this?” Kawena demanded. She shook the figure again. “There is no way you could have—”

“Well, I didn't steal it! You may be sure of that.”

“No one would have given it to—”

He held up a hand. The sleeve of his nightshirt slid down to bare a muscular forearm. “Wait.”

Impatiently, Kawena did so.

Lord James frowned. “I must have bought it. I buy trinkets wherever the ship stops. I don't even think about it anymore. It's a habit.”

His puzzlement seemed genuine. Kawena relaxed just a little. “No one would have sold you this at the trading center on Valatu. Not with my father's jewels hidden inside. It would never have been on the shelves. My brother would never have—”

“Wait,” he said again. He frowned as if working through a knotty problem. “It was a boy,” he said finally. “I'm remembering now. I thought nothing of it at the time.” He threw back the coverlet and started to rise, giving Kawena an enticing view of his bare legs beneath his nightshirt. She remembered those legs quite vividly, in far more pleasant circumstances. He pulled the coverlet back up.

“I'd come to make the final payment,” Lord James went on. “After all the supplies we'd ordered had been delivered to the ship. And the man I'd dealt with before wasn't there.”

“My brother,” said Kawena.

He nodded. “As I know now. There was only this boy around the place. He assured me I could leave the coin with him. I was in a hurry, and he kept on chattering—”

“Atui,” concluded Kawena. “My brother's oldest son. He talks before he thinks. He would surely have been instructed to fetch my brother for any business.”

“Well, he didn't,” said Lord James. “He just talked in a funny sort of half English.”

“He's very smart,” said Kawena.

“I'm sure he is. And enterprising. He tried to sell me all sorts of things. I expect he'll be taking over the trading one day. And do well at it.”

“This figure,” she said, holding it up again.

“Right. I'd seen some of…those. Crew members had bought them from canoes that came up to the ship, and I thought my mother—”

“Would find it funny,” Kawena supplied with a spark of resentment.

“Well, in a way.” Lord James looked a bit sheepish. “So I told him I'd take one. This boy looked, and at first found nothing. Then he ran into the back and brought that figure out. He must have asked a small sum, or I would remember. I'm sure I readily gave it. It was over in a moment. I bought some other things as well. As I said, I always do. There was nothing memorable about the transaction.” He sounded defensive. “I sent that off to my mother with the next courier we encountered.”