All Through the Night (19 page)

He laughed, a bitter sound that made her wince. He’d been far more than provoked, as she’d soon learn. “Am I supposed to believe a thief of your skills didn’t check a jewelry chest for a hidden drawer?”

She swallowed. Twin lines appeared between her straight dark brows, and in spite of himself he longed to smooth them with his fingertips. He dropped his hands abruptly. Traitorous things, they might soothe when he needed them to terrorize.

“I didn’t search it thoroughly, but I did look,” she said rapidly. “There wasn’t a catch or a lever. If there was a drawer it must have been a very small one.”

He considered the possibility that she was telling him the truth and decided it could make no possible difference. He couldn’t trust her. He couldn’t believe a word she said. And damn it, it
hurt.

It was so impossibly stupid he nearly laughed. He still wanted her. Any part of her he could have.

She was lying to protect whomever she’d sold that damn letter to. Either she
wanted
to protect him, or she feared this person more than she feared Jack.

Silly girl.
He was the biggest bad wolf in her particular little story. She was about to find out how bad.

“Where is the chest now?” he asked.

“I fenced it. As soon as I ... I stole it.”

“Convenient.”

“It’s true! Did you think I would keep something so easy to identify lying about my uncle’s town house? I sold it to an old man on the docks. I used an intermediary.”

“Better and better,” Jack said grimly. “And what was this old man’s name?”

“Blind Tom.”

“Tom.” His voice was ripe with mockery. “Should be easy to find. What about this ‘intermediary’?”

“I ... I don’t know.”

He smiled. She flinched as if warding a blow. “Perhaps one of your charity cases knows. Perhaps that brat. What was his name—Will?”

She went still, like a deer caught in the beam of a lantern. “Please,” she whispered forlornly.

“Very nice. Now, let’s talk about the name of the intermediary.”

Tears welled in her eyes, overflowed the cradle of her lids, and splashed down her cheeks. “I don’t know his name. I don’t even know how to contact Blind Tom. He contacts me. Through different people. Children mostly, carrying notes they can’t even read.”

“Amazing man, Blind Tom, to be able to write with such a handicap.”

“I don’t know. Maybe he uses a scribe.” She was pleading with him now. In her extremity she’d abandoned the corner and leaned toward him. She plucked at his sleeve. Her skin shimmered like fresh milk in the dark carriage interior. Her hands, even gloved, electrified him with their touch.

Lust and fury pumped in his veins. God, she had him tangled in a web of desire and hopelessness so complete he doubted he’d ever escape.

“Please leave Will out of this. He doesn’t know anything about this. He’s just a boy. I’ll help you find it. I swear.”

“Oh, we’ll find that chest, all right. But it will take time.”
Time during which my father will be searching for you, and when he finds you he will kill you. And that I will not allow,
he silently vowed.
No matter what I have to do.

“Whatever you want.”

“I want you to marry me,” he said coldly, watching her intently.

She stared at him, more horrified than she’d been at any point that night. “Marry you? I can’t marry you.”

“I beg to differ. You can. I assure you arranging for a special license will be one of the easier tasks I’ve had to accomplish.”

She shook her head back and forth in violent denial. “No. I can’t. I couldn’t!”

“You can,” he bit out. “And you will. Or I will have that boy arrested as Wrexhall’s Wraith.”

Her eyes widened. “But he couldn’t have done it. No one will believe you.”

“On the contrary”—he kept his voice level—“they shall believe the evidence, and I shall make certain there is plenty of it. Irrefutable evidence.”

“You’d fashion false evidence to convict an innocent boy?”

“My dear,” he said softly, “you are stunningly naive for a thief. It’s been done before, many times. Nothing could be simpler.”

“I’ll confess.”

“No one will believe
you.
You’ll simply be thought a brave if stupid young woman. Besides, who would believe that Wrexhall’s Wraith is a female? Jeanette Frost may look foolish claiming she was kissed by a boy, but better that than a woman or, even worse, letting society know she wasn’t attacked at all and is a liar.”

“You can’t mean to do this, force me to marry you.”

His voice hardened. “But I do.”

“Why?” she pleaded helplessly. “I don’t understand. Why would you want to marry me?”

“I hunted you. I tracked you. I trapped you. And now, by God, I’m going to keep you.”

“I don’t believe this.” Jamison slammed his fist down on his desk. “He’d never have done something like this without my approval.”

The man, shielded from view of the door by the wings of the oversize chair, shifted in his seat. “He’s done it. Married her by special license two nights ago.”

“Why?” Jamison demanded. His visitor didn’t respond, which was just as well. Jamison didn’t expect, or want, speculation from this man. He was a drone carrying information.

Jamison did not like his information. It supported a fear—no, he would not call it “fear”—a
misgiving
he’d had for some time that Seward’s allegiance to him was eroding. Seward on a tight leash was one thing; he was quite another as a free agent.

“I don’t see that there’s much to be done about it,” the man said.

Jamison spared him a contemptuous look. There was
always
something to be done. He’d begun his association with this aristocratic little drone years before by proposing a solution to his approaching insolvency. Since then Jamison had fixed far more than financial worries for him. In return, Jamison demanded only very occasional but utter obedience from him.

It had proven a useful relationship. The man had some intelligence and a knack for surreptitious observation. That he moved in the most exalted circles of the ton also had its benefits. But he was nothing compared to Seward.

None of the agents Jamison directed could take Seward’s place. There was no way to tally what such a loss would mean to Jamison. He would be without his premier weapon, a man who commanded respect and fear, who could discover not only his enemy’s weaknesses but his strengths, a man of intelligence and intuition.

“I will not allow it!” The words burst from his lips with insuppressible vitriol.

The man in the shadows of the chair looked startled.

Jamison folded his hands on the desk. Calm replaced his rare outburst of passion. A man who made emotional decisions made bad decisions. He refused to lose the use of Seward’s many talents, but retaining them would demand careful planning. Seward married, for God’s sake. The thought repelled him.

“Why
has he married her?” he asked.

The man in the chair lifted his hands. “I don’t know. He’s been favoring her with his attention for weeks. But I thought he suspected she was Wrexhall’s Wraith. I told you he’d been with her.”

“You did no such thing,” Jamison corrected. “You reported to whom he spoke at these parties and where he sent what agents you knew to be his.
I
put together the pieces of the puzzle.
I
told
you.
”

The man shrugged. “Regardless of that, from the way Seward sticks to her, I was sure she must be the Wraith.”

“Who the bloody hell
is
this woman, anyway?” Jamison said.

“No one,” his visitor declared. “She caused a minor sensation when she came out some years ago. Dark creature, a certain degree of dash to her. But other than that . . .”

“Come man, there must be something,” Jamison said coldly. “I can’t see Seward marrying someone for her ‘dash.’ ” He sneered the last word.

His guest’s expression wrinkled with distaste. “She runs a charity for soldiers, solicits donations from the ton, but she’s
no one,
I tell you,” he declared. “Her mother was just country gentry. Her father was nothing but a merchant from Sussex—I think he was knighted a few years back—but
everyone’s
knighted these days—”

“Knighted?” Jamison leaned forward, suddenly alert. “What was this merchant’s name?”

“Let me think. Tristham? No, no, it was Tribble. Yes!”

Jamison leaned back in his seat. It couldn’t be the very same thief he’d employed all those years ago. That upstart piece of rabble from the docks who insisted he be knighted so his daughter’s way in society would be clear. But of course it was. Tribble had been the most useful and skilled thief Jamison had ever used. His daughter would be no less.

If he’d been of a humorous bent, he would have laughed. “Well, you may have earned the money I pour into those empty pockets of yours. I believe Seward’s wife
is
Wrexhall’s Wraith.”

“But why would Seward marry her?”

“He hasn’t got the letter,” Jamison said. “Rather than kill her as I commanded, he has married her to keep her under his control until he finds it.”

“Then he might already have it.”

“No,” Jamison replied. He shifted the papers before him into straighter alignment. “So, Seward thinks to outmaneuver me, does he? I expressly told him I wanted that thief dead. I see I’ll have to handle that task myself.”

“You can’t mean to kill your own son’s wife?”

“Developing sensibilities rather late in the game, aren’t you? Before you decide to wallow further in such sentimentality, I suggest you remind yourself of all the creature comforts you so well love and the title you so esteem and remember how you came by that title— through the fortuitous death of a distant relative.”

Even in the shadows, Jamison could see the man pale visibly.

Jamison’s lips curled. “Besides, she’s not Seward’s wife. She’s a bargaining chip that he’s keeping under his thumb in the simplest and most convenient way possible.”

“I don’t know,” the man said. “There’s something more there, I’ll wager. You haven’t seen him. He looks . . . smitten.”

“I raised him, you’ll remember,” Jamison said. “If he’s smitten it’s only with his physical response to her. His head isn’t involved.”

“What of his heart?”

“He hasn’t got one. Still”—he pleated his fingers together and tapped the index fingers thoughtfully against his chin—“he
has
cut himself off from me. He might resent my killing her. I don’t want that. I want him back under my control.”

“I’m
not killing her.”

Jamison’s eyes glittered. “Probably not,” he said calmly, “but make no mistake, should I say so, you
will
kill her.”

The man hesitated before jerking his head once in assent. Jamison studied him narrowly. His visitor knew enough to realize there would be no alternative should Jamison give him that order. He was, after all, not a stupid man.

“How are you going to do it?”

“So rash.” Jamison clucked disapprovingly. “I must study the situation first. It may take some time, working the finer details out. But she’ll be dead soon enough.”

“What if she tells him where the letter is?”

“But she won’t,” Jamison clipped out.

“But how can you know she won’t—”

“You may go now,” Jamison dismissed him.

With a sound of relief the man rose and picked up his coat. “What about Frost?”

“Stay close to him. Keep him unhappy and drunk. He may just be your means of keeping your conscience clear, Lord Vedder.”

As soon as Vedder left, Jamison rose and made his painful way to the bookcases. He selected a volume high up and pulled it down. Without bothering to look around—no one would dare enter his sanctuary unannounced—he ruffled the pages. It fell open on a thick sheet of thrice-folded vellum with a broken wax seal. A royal seal.

The Tribble chit wouldn’t tell Jack where the letter was because she didn’t know. Only Jamison knew where it was, and he intended it to stay that way.

A week before his death, Atwood had come to him with the letter. From some friends in the Admiralty, Atwood had learned how Jamison, along with Sir Knowles, handled “matters of political delicacy.” Jamison, immediately recognizing the letter’s importance, had happily unburdened him of it. That should have been the end of it.

It hadn’t, of course. Jamison shut the leather-bound book and replaced it. For whatever reason, Atwood wrote Knowles and described the contents of the letter and his discussion with Jamison about its importance. Luckily, Atwood didn’t mention that he’d already given the letter to Jamison. Perhaps he assumed Knowles already knew Jamison had it. They were reported to work in tandem.

Knowles immediately wanted to know when Jamison could expect to secure this fascinating letter. Jamison, caught unawares, told him he’d already arranged for its delivery.

He’d been trying to determine how to handle the situation when a stroke of fortune in the guise of this little thief provided him with the answer. She stole Atwood’s jewelry case.

Jamison had taken immediate advantage of the opportunity this presented. Atwood himself had helped Jamison’s cause. The night after the theft, he’d gone to dinner and regaled his friends with the story of his victimization at the hands of the notorious Wrexhall’s Wraith.

Jamison wiped the dust from his fingertips with a clean kerchief and smiled. He could almost let the thief live if only for that. Almost.

Unfortunately for her, she was the only person besides himself who knew for a certainty that Atwood had not been in possession of that letter at the time of his death and that it had not been in the jeweled chest as Jamison had claimed. He might have even let her live then, except for Knowles’s interference.

Jamison wadded the handkerchief in his fist, his expression growing grim. Though Jamison had told Knowles that he would handle the situation personally,
Knowles
had appropriated the task.
Knowles
had decided who was to be sent.
Knowles
had picked Seward, knowing Seward was Jamison’s agent, going over Jamison’s head and gaining authorization to do so. Jamison’s clenched fist trembled.

Such affronts would not be tolerated once he regained the advantage in their relationship. Knowles would be the first to know it, and Seward would quickly learn afterward the wages of betrayal. How dare Seward disobey his orders to adhere to those given by Knowles?

With an effort, Jamison calmed himself, returning his thoughts to the matter at hand. As soon as he’d learned that Knowles had set someone on the thief’s trail, Jamison had decided the thief must die. No one must ever learn he had that letter. It must be kept secret, especially from Knowles, until such a time as he could use it to expand his own power. At just the right time, in just the right circumstance, a letter such as this might greatly enhance his influence.

All he needed to do now was to arrange an accident for her before Jack—or Knowles—put the pieces of the puzzle together. An accident like the one he’d arranged for Atwood. He smiled, his good mood restored. Even that had played in his favor. Knowles saw Atwood’s death as part of a political conspiracy revolving around the acquisition of the letter.

Jamison’s small smile turned to a speculative look as he hobbled back to his desk. His troubled expression cleared.

Let her try to gain Seward’s trust and convince him she didn’t have the letter. He’d raised Seward, shaped him,
created
him. He didn’t trust anyone. Not even himself.

The small figure ran across the bridle path. Strand watched Sophia with mixed feelings.

She was so damn young. Young enough so that his formidable status—hell, he thought irritably, his nearly
venerable
status—as one of the ton’s most eligible bachelors didn’t impress her. In fact, the only thing that did impress her was his lovemaking. And even that was subject to debate.

“Giles!” she said, flinging her arms around his neck. More from habit than any real concern for their good reputations—he, after all, had none, a state she was well on her way to emulating—he gently untwined her limbs. She pouted. Adorably, he supposed.

“Don’t you like me anymore?”

“Of course I do, puss,” he said lightly. Tucking her hand in the crook of his arm, he led her down a deserted footpath he’d discovered, oh, probably the year she was born. “Now, what is this all about?”

Her tongue flicked out to damp the very center of her upper lip. A very nice and exceptionally provocative affectation. One that had him growing hard in response.

“I just wanted to see you,” she said, nuzzling him.

“I see.” He didn’t believe her for an instant. Had she wanted a sexual liaison, she would have come to his house at night as she had before. Or, he thought, she would have claimed his attention for one of the brutally quick and rough encounters that invariably took place in a back hallway while a party progressed around them.

Strand’s smile was jaded. It wasn’t much his preference, but his little Sophia had a taste for such settings. And he was, after all, a gentleman.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He could read her so easily.

“I had a note from Anne today,” she said.

His attention sharpened. “Yes?”

“Seward really did marry her. She says so in her note.”

“Really?” He tried to keep his tone careless. “What else did she say?”
Is she happy? Does she love him? God, if he hurts her . . .

“Oh, a lot of drivel about how it wasn’t as precipitate as it seems and how their elopement was for the best because she didn’t want to burden everyone with a formal wedding.” Sophia’s little mouth turned down petulantly. “A fat lot of thought to the burden she handed me! Leaving me without a chaperone and the season not even begun.”

“Poor puss,” Strand responded tonelessly. Anne had married Seward.
Good luck to them.

Sophia halted in the shadow of a huge yew. Its ancient branches sagged beneath the weight of their greenery. With a quick guarded look around, she led him behind it. He went with her indifferently. Doubtless she planned another dangerously staged seduction.