When a Lady Deceives (Her Majesty’s Most Secret Service) (27 page)

“Writing has always helped me put my thoughts in order. I’ve begun another volume.”

A smile flickered across his features. “I imagine you were born with a pen in your hand.” He turned away, throwing a glance over his shoulder. “Good night. Lock yourself in and wait for me in the morning.”

His words triggered a faint memory. An image, flashing through her thoughts. Mary’s portrait. A delicately etched fountain pen in one hand. A journal open upon an elegant desk.

“Don’t go,” she said, the syllables tumbling out.

“What is it, Jennie?”

“I should have remembered…Mary’s diary.”

Jack closed the space between them. “What do you mean?”

She knew she must look positively wild-eyed with excitement but, at the moment, she didn’t care. Clasping her hands over his, Jennie whispered against Trent’s mouth in a gesture any onlooker might have taken for a playful kiss.

“I know where she hid the bloody book.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Trent stared down at Jennie as though he didn’t trust his own ears. “The evidence Harwick is trying to hunt down?”

“Yes.”

“For God’s sake, Jennie, where is it?”

Relentless wind whipped against her face, but she ignored it. “Come see for yourself. I can’t believe I didn’t think—”

A disquieting awareness flared again. Stronger now. Closer. It felt as if eyes tracked her every move. Tiny hairs at her nape stood on end. Her fingers flexed, prepared to tear her pistol from its hiding place.

Trent tugged his scarf tighter about his neck. “I didn’t think a woman could walk this fast in all those heavy skirts. Where are we going?”

“You should have learned not to underestimate me by now,” she replied with a lightness she didn’t feel. Her heart thudded in her chest, every thought a blur of hope and fear. When they found the diary, would the memoirs offer the proof she needed to solve Mary’s murder? Would the evidence exonerate Matthew? Or would the book serve as Matthew’s death warrant?

Trent scanned the cluster of people milling about outside the London Palace Theater. A muscle tensed in his jaw. “Good God, doesn’t anyone in this city ever sleep?”

Her gaze swept the well-traveled street. “We’ll slip in through the alley.”

“I presume you have a plan. This place is probably locked tight to keep vagrants from finding their way in.”

“You lack imagination, sir. I thought you were an adventurer.”

“That would depend on one’s definition of adventure.” Trent studied the building’s rear entrance. He gave his jaw a brisk rub, as if bracing himself for an unpleasant fate. “There’s probably a dog.”

“In all likelihood. Large and quite vicious.” Jennie smiled despite her thundering pulse.

He trailed her through the dimly lit alley. “You still haven’t stated your plan.”

“I don’t have one. Not quite yet.”

“Excellent, Miss Quinn. I shall remember that when I’m pulling some deranged hound’s incisors from my shin.”

“Oh, ye of little faith.” Weaving her fingers through the untidy tresses piled atop her head, she wriggled a hairpin free. She marched to the door, crouched, eye-level with the lock, and utilized the pin as a makeshift key.

Nothing.

Drat the luck. She pulled in a low, calming breath. Forcing the sliver of metal a bit farther, she swiveled the pin until the tumbler clicked into place. Her breath rushed out as the bolt released.

She met Trent’s incredulous stare with a smile she knew looked a bit smug. “Done.”

“Why am I surprised? How did you —”

“I learned to pick locks before I wrote my exposé on the asylum. It proved a highly useful skill.”

“Indeed.” Trent nodded thoughtfully. His brows quirked. “But they don’t allow inmates in an asylum to have hairpins.”

“I won’t reveal all my secrets, but I had an ample supply at my disposal.”

“The ever resourceful Jennie Quinn. Do you plan to open the door now that you’ve conquered the lock, or shall we continue to freeze?”

“If you are not overly concerned about the hound.” Jennie kept her tone deliberately bland.

“At this point, teeth marks would be preferable to frostbite.”

“Good heavens! And men believe women to be the fairer sex.” With a little
hmmmph
, Jennie pressed against the door and peered through the opening. No sign of anything that growled. Only silent, forbidding darkness.

Trent sidled close. “You still think someone is following us?”

“I told you I didn’t,” she whispered.

“You were lying.”

“You knew?”

“I can read you as clearly as one of your headlines. So, who might be on our trail?”

“No one at the moment.” She bolted the door behind them. “I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Have you considered that we might need a quick exit?”

She slanted him a glance. “Worried, Mr. Trent?”

He responded with a crooked grin. “Never. Unless I hear snarling or see fangs.”

They moved to the stairwell. A glowing sconce offered meager light. Her eyes adjusted quickly. She scanned the area, navigating the steep, narrow staircase with quick, confident steps.

“Mary McDaniel brought me here during one of our meetings. Of course,
she
had a key.”

Trent stayed on her heels. “Lead the way,” he said when they reached the landing. “I have no idea where we’re going.”

“Mary’s dressing room.”

“You expect they’ve kept it untouched in her memory?”

Ignoring Trent’s skepticism, Jennie made her way along the corridor. Portraits of the theater’s star performers lined the walls, beautiful faces immortalized in sepia and framed in gilded wood. Even though the small lamp nearest to Mary’s portrait glowed no brighter than twilight, the spark in her eyes stood out. She’d been happy then—Harwick’s pampered mistress and the London Palace’s brightest star. Her mouth curved in a subtle smile, as though pleased Jennie had finally discovered her secret.

Jennie traced a fingertip along the delicate roses carved into the lavish frame. “She sat for this portrait a few months before she died. The photographer captured a side of her I never saw.”

“What does any of this have to do with evidence?”

“Still no faith? Look at the portrait. What do you see?”

His eyes betrayed his exhaustion. As if to confirm it, he rubbed his neck. “She’s seated at a desk. What does it mean? I’m too bloody tired for games.”

“Look closer,” she urged.

“The photograph is a clue?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

He gave his head a weary shake. “The mirror in the background reflected her image, so in essence, there are two portraits in one.”

“You’re right. But that’s not it.”

He took a step back. His eyes lit up. Finally. He’d taken her meaning. “You might be on to something.”

She struggled to contain her excitement. If Jennie’s deduction was correct, the key to her investigation was falling into place. “Just think…Mary is seated at a desk, her hands folded over a book as if she’d been writing—”

“In her journal.”

“I can’t be sure the book in the portrait is hers, but I feel quite certain it represents her diary.” She grazed her fingers along the edge of the frame. “I think it’s here.”

“Behind the photograph?” The question was laced with doubt, but he took the frame in his hands.

She nodded. “Shall we test my theory?”

In answer, he lifted the frame from its hanger and stepped away. “There’s not enough space for anything the size of a book to be hidden inside the frame.”

Jennie glided her fingers over the wall, searching for a flaw or a crevice. Nothing. No secret door. No indication the wall had been altered to create a hiding place.

Trent’s forehead ridged with doubt. “If she hid the journal here, Bond got to it first. And someone killed him to retrieve it.”

She took the portrait from his hands and examined the image. Mary’s pensive smile beckoned her to look further. This wasn’t over. There was more. There had to be. What was Mary trying to tell her?

If only she’d been willing to bring the book to the
Herald.
But Mary had insisted on secrecy at every turn. Jennie settled her gaze on the image captured by the camera’s lens.

“We must examine her dressing room.”

Trent raked a hand through his hair. “I’m sure others have used that room since she was killed. You can’t expect the book to be there.”

Jennie brushed aside the doubt in his words. Drumming her fingers against the frame, she considered their next move. “Another performer wouldn’t think to look for it. Her diary might be exactly where she stashed it.”

Her hand went to the knob. Locked.
Drat.
She retrieved another pin from her hair and jabbed it into the keyhole. The click of metal heralded the lock’s surrender

“If you ever tire of journalism, you could make a good living as a jewel thief.” Trent’s voice bore a note of grudging admiration.

She spotted a small oil lamp and lit it. The feeble glow illuminated a room scarcely larger than a closet. Elaborate costumes and props consumed every inch of space. As Jennie maneuvered through the packed quarters, a lavish hat sagged forward. An enormous pink feather crowning the headpiece tickled her nose, but she slapped it aside and made her way past a dressing screen embellished with garish painted flowers. She glanced over her shoulder, spotting Trent doing battle with the same troublesome feather.

“Bring the portrait, please,” she requested.

“Your wish is my command,” he mumbled, thrusting a suit of armor out of his path. “It doesn’t appear anyone still uses this as a dressing room.”

A looking glass tucked in a corner of the far wall reflected light from the wall lamp. Jennie ran her fingers along the edge of the richly carved mahogany frame. Nothing. Blast it all.

“The mirror is prominent in the portrait. Perhaps that’s a clue.”

Trent lifted the glass from its place on the wall and carefully propped it against the baseboard. “There’s nothing here.”

Jennie bumped against a timeworn desk. Carving out space on the cluttered surface, she set the lamp on the dull wood and turned her attention to an inconspicuous furrow etched in the wall. “It’s here. I’m sure of it.”

“An opening could have been built into this wall,” he suggested.

She pressed her fingertips along the fissure. The gap expanded. She slid one finger along the crevice, tugging against it with all her strength.

“It won’t budge.”

“Allow me.” Trent removed a folding knife from his coat pocket. Lamplight gleamed off the blade. The point glided easily within the thin crack. He levered the blade against the panel and edged the wood to the right.

Jennie lifted the lamp, illuminating a compartment the size of a man’s hand. Her pulse raced. “I think we’ve found it.”

Trent leaned over her shoulder. “Do you see the book?”

“Not yet. But something’s there.”

He placed his hand over hers. “Careful. That
something
might have teeth.”

Jennie bit back the uncivil words that sprang to mind. “In that case, would you like to do the honors?”

“My wariness of creatures that bite is not limited to large dogs.”

“And there I thought you were intending to demonstrate your chivalrous nature.”

He laughed, a soft, scoffing bark of a sound. “Good God, whatever gave you that idea. I don’t have a chivalrous bone in my body.”

“I shall bear that in mind. Might you manage to hold the light higher so I can see into the crevice?”

She thought she heard Jack sigh with relief as he took the lamp from her hand and raised it over the opening.

“There…I see…something.” Banishing an image of sharp incisors and whiskers from her thoughts, she gingerly inserted her hand through the opening. Her fingers settled on a cool, smooth surface, polished wood, perhaps. “I have it.”

She retrieved the object from its hiding place. A small, elegant lacquer box. Jennie examined it beneath the lamplight. Dark mahogany gleamed. Jennie tipped up the hinged lid. The tinny, high-pitched strains of a waltz greeted them.

Trent rapped a fist against the wall. “A bloody music box. I suppose Miss McDaniel must have thought herself quite clever.”

“She was, indeed.” Jennie smiled to herself as she inspected the box. “Of course, you didn’t know her. Men often assume a beautiful woman is little more than a pretty face.”

“You may take comfort in knowing I’d never think you merely a pretty face,” he said with a bland voice.

“That brings me no comfort at all.” She extended one hand. “I need your knife, please.”

“With that gleam in your eyes, I’m not sure I trust you.”

“The knife. Now. Please.”

He placed the handle in her palm. Cringing at the music box’s off-key notes, Jennie examined the indigo lining. “The fabric on the bottom doesn’t match what’s in the lid. It’s similar in appearance, but definitely not the same cloth. Whoever put it in here bunched the cloth in the corners and fastened it to the wood rather haphazardly.”

She probed the edges with the blade. A few quick movements freed the lining from the mahogany case. Wrinkled velvet pooled against the bottom.

“I’ll take that.” Trent retrieved the knife, freeing her hand. “Has she tricked us again?”

“Ever the skeptic.” Jennie tore away the cloth. Rumpled velvet drifted to the floor at her feet. She carefully lifted a small, leather-bound book from its hiding place. Struggling to control her rampaging pulse, she leafed through the journal.

“And there, my dear Mr. Trent, is the diary.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. You did it. Most impressive.”

He drew closer. His hard chest pressed to Jennie’s back as his hands settled at her waist, holding her with a lover’s touch.

The book nearly slid from her hands. She jerked away. Had the thrill of their discovery excited his masculine instincts?

He eyed her hungrily. “I suspected you’d lead me to the bloody book. Beauty and brains. An intoxicating combination.”

A shiver skimmed her spine. She held herself very still and steadied her voice. “I assure you I share your excitement. But I must insist you stop this nonsense at once.”

He dragged her back into the unyielding circle of his arms. His mouth trailed the curve of her throat. “Just pretend I’m him, Jennie. That will loosen you up.”

The words sounded a piercing alarm in her head. Gooseflesh peppered her arms and throat. Silently cursing her cumbersome skirts, she slammed her heel into his shin.

A low grunt rushed from his lungs, and he reached for his leg. With a violent twist of her body, she rammed an elbow into his ribs.

Another grunt, louder this time, and Trent doubled over.

She bolted from the room. The harsh rhythm of her heartbeat blurred with the thuds of his boots against the floorboards. Wool and cotton rustled against her ankles. She careened toward the stairs.
Blast these heavy skirts.

She swiveled to avoid his grasp, but he was fast. And strong.

“Take your hands off me!”

“Calm down, Jennie. I got a little carried away. That’s all.”

She spun to face him. Certain her cheeks had flushed to the color of beets, she braced her hands on her hips and raked him with what she hoped was an unforgiving stare. “A little carried away! My, that is quite the understatement.”