All Through the Night (7 page)

A pair of skeletal, rag-covered beggars shrank from his approach. He pulled open the door. A blast of stale, cold air kissed his face and coated his throat with its vile scent of desperation. Inside a baby screamed.

He loathed this. Yet he entered, keeping his eyes straight ahead, refusing to look at the specters from his youth. A hand brushed his leg in supplication. He jerked forward.

He spotted a boy whose sharp, clever face was turned with interest toward him. Jack motioned and the boy slunk forward.

“Where’s the lady that came in here a half hour ago?” Jack asked.

“Mrs. Wilder?” The boy cocked his head. “What’s it worth to you?”

“Half a crown.”

The boy’s eyes widened and then narrowed. He snorted and pointed at Jack’s coat. “Your coat be worth ten times that. You can afford a bit more.”

The coat was worth forty, but the boy would hardly know that since his own coat probably had been pilfered from a rag pile, or stolen from another boy.

Survival was all that counted here. That’s all one asked of the next day, the next month, the next year. In a place like this anything could be forfeited in the endless barter for life.

Wordlessly Jack flipped a crown toward the boy. He snatched it out of the air, looking around to see what interested eyes had witnessed his sudden windfall.

“She be back here,” the lad said, motioning Jack to follow. “In the kitchen here waiting fer the toffs to arrive.”

“Toffs?” Jack kept his eyes averted from his surroundings. He kept his mind focused on the boy’s words. He did not need anything freshening his memory of that place, the acrid stench of stale urine and ancient sweat. He did not want to
be
here.

“Aye,” the boy said, pushing open a door tucked into the far wall. Jack followed him in, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the sting of smoke belching from an ancient stove. “She gots a bunch of gentlemen and ladies comin‘ down ’ere any minute now to see if we deserves their aid.”

Jack wasn’t listening. He spotted Anne just as a crippled man seized her around the shoulders. Jack surged forward but abruptly checked himself. The man wasn’t attacking her. He was falling.

And Anne was catching him.

She clasped the filthy man tightly, easing him gently onto the filth-strewn floor and kneeling beside him.

Eyes riveted on her, Jack moved closer. Around him people parted before his advance. He heard her speaking. Something about making a good impression and then her hair fell about her shoulders and she looked down at it and began to cry.

She shouldn’t cry.

He reached down and brushed her shoulder and she turned. Recognition and confusion filled her eyes.

“Let me help,” he heard himself say. He held out his hand and she stared at it as if he offered her some devilish pact rather than his aid. Slowly, a bemused and helpless expression on her face, she placed her hand in his. He pulled her to her feet and led her toward the corner of the room.

There would be no privacy. Every act of procreation and survival was open for viewing in these places. But she wouldn’t know that. She would never know that, if he could help it.

He moved nearer, using the breadth of his shoulders to block her from the others’ view, creating a little space of refuge for her.

“Your hair has come down.” He sounded breathless.

He could smell her, the warm, clean fragrance of her skin. It was as foreign and intoxicating as roses in January, and it was far too much to deal with in this place after all these years. He closed his eyes. The discrepancy between her and this place was too great. It disoriented him, past and present swirling together, desire and loathing running tandem in his veins.

He felt light-headed. He cupped her shoulders in his palms and bent his head, his lips inches from her ear. Touching her set off a molten wave of longing in him. He lifted his hand, brushed a knuckle against her small, squared jaw. A butterfly caress.

“Let me.” He swallowed. “Let me help you.”

Dear God, he had to turn her around. He couldn’t stand looking into her clear indigo eyes a minute longer. He didn’t know what he’d do.

He pivoted her gently about. “Bend your head.”

She paused. Her head dropped forward.

He lifted his hand and touched her. Exquisite. Her fineness, her delicacy. He combed his hand through the thick dark mass of hair. It slid between his fingers like cool, resilient silk. He swept it up, exposing the nape of her neck.

Too vulnerable. Too tempting. Even in the shadows, the soft downy hairs gleamed. Her skin would be like plush, warm velvet. It would taste like soap or lavender water. His hand trembled.

“Are you done?” she asked in a whisper. She knew. She knew he trembled like a stableboy ogling the wet nurse’s breasts.

“Almost.” He twisted the glossy locks into a thick coil and untangled a tortoise-shell comb from near the crown of her head. He secured her hair and stepped back, aroused and haunted.

She turned slowly and looked up at him, her expression unreadable. Her mouth looked as soft and malleable as warm candle wax.

“Thank you, Colonel,” she whispered.

“My pleasure, Mrs. Wilder.” With supreme effort, he kept his expression simply cordial, his tone detached. But he feared his gaze would betray him, so he did not look at her.

And he missed the stark look of longing that she could not conceal.

Jack shed his coat and flung it over the chair outside the room Knowles had assigned for his use in Whitehall’s labyrinth. Though he’d left Anne an hour before, he still felt muddled and inchoate.

She must think him mad, a satyr. He’d barely been able to keep his hands from her, and when the lords and ladies had descended upon them a few minutes after she’d thanked him, he’d practically run.

Jack pushed the door open and stalked into the small barren room. He didn’t know himself anymore. This had to stop. He needed to focus himself, to wall himself off from all these distractions. He was losing himself, losing the control and distance that he so desperately needed to survive.

He turned around and started in surprise. Adam Burke stood behind him, waiting patiently. Jack bit down in frustration. He’d expected Burke, one of his better information gatherers. Indeed, he’d ordered Burke’s appearance and then forgotten him. The knowledge incensed him.

“I want an accounting of all servants employed in each of these women’s households,” he said coldly. “I want to know where they sleep, with whom they sleep, who their parents are, and where they are. Can you do this, or shall I assign Griffin?”

“No, sir!” Burke said with alacrity. “No reason to bother Mr. Griffin, sir. I’ve got meself—myself—hired on at Frost’s establishment, sir. You know how servants are. I’ll be able to pick up any bits of gossip right away.”

“I want more than gossip, Burke,” Jack said sharply. “I want facts. Am I clear?”

“Yes, sir. Very clear, sir. You’ll know the name of the tweenie’s second cousin by week’s end, sir!” The young man quaked visibly at Jack’s tone.

Jack saw his shudder and forced himself to relax. His aberration wasn’t the boy’s fault. “Don’t look so stricken, Burke. I’m in a foul temper. Excuse me. Didn’t mean to bite your head off.”

Excuse me?
Burke’s eyes widened with abject hero worship. Colonel Seward was the only man he knew who treated the enlisted men as courteous-like as he did the officers.

Burke had been in the army six years, half that time in “special service” to Colonel Seward. A fairer, harder, and more decent gent couldn’t be found—on either side of the blanket. No matter what the gossips said about him being workhouse slag, Burke knew quality and the colonel was the standard for it.

“And the women themselves, sir?” Burke asked.

“Might as well make a start of it,” the colonel answered. “I want to know any and everything pertaining to these four women. I want to know if their brothers have expensive habits, if their uncles have French mistresses. Anything.”

“You’ll have it, Colonel,” Burke said, and then sobered. “I’ve only been there a few days, sir, but I have picked up some information. Mr. Frost, sir, the servants say as how he’s kickin‘ up rough. Drinking heavy and talking wild. About you.”

“Grief, Burke. He’s lost a son.”

“But he blames you, Colonel. He says that you, uh, that, um . . .” Burke fidgeted.

“That I threatened to publicly accuse his son of treason if he attacked my social status?” Jack asked mildly.

“Yes, sir.”

“So I did.” Jack leaned back in his chair, studying Burke impassively. “Do you have a problem with that, Burke?”

“No, sir. You always done what had to be done, no more, no less, and no pleasure in it for you. No, sir, I do not have a problem. But Mr. Frost does and I think I’d keep a weather eye out for him. He’s the type what thinks a man don’t shut up on the say-so of ‘is inferior—not that you are, Colonel—and it eats at ’im something fierce.”

“Your ‘hs,’ Burke,” the colonel reprimanded gently. “Manner and deportment will ensure your entry anywhere, but only if you can eradicate any spore that leads back to your birthing den. Language is a telling spore.”

“Yes, sir. But, ah, begging your pardon, sir, your own accent has a Scotsman’s burr to it.”

“Not always,” Jack replied equitably, “and only because I choose it. It’s my talisman, Burke.”

Burke nodded though he didn’t understand what the colonel was driving at. Still and all, Seward, having come from the meanest beginnings, was his model, and if the colonel wanted Burke’s “hs” in place, in place they’d be.

“About Mr. Frost,” the colonel continued, “I appreciate your concern and shall do my best not to test the gentleman further. Now, are there any other cautionary words you’d care to impart?” At the mildly sardonic tone, Burke reddened.

“No, Colonel. I’ll be on me way.” Burke bowed smartly and left. On his way out he nearly knocked over an elderly, balding gent trudging purposefully down the hallway. Probably another of the colonel’s useful old dodgers, thought Burke. The colonel had dozens of them, each working without knowledge of the others.

Burke grinned at the oldster. “Hope you got him somethin‘ useful. Looks like tryin’ times our colonel’s havin‘.”

The elderly man grunted noncommittally and ducked into the room.

Once inside, Sir Knowles cast an irritated glance over his shoulder. “Who was that impertinent young Adonis?”

“Adam Burke,” Jack replied in a distracted voice.

“And Burke is . . . ?” Knowles pressed.

“Enlisted man. He is in constant demand as a footman in all the superior houses because of those Adonis looks. The more exacting employers demand servants not only serve but please the discerning eye while they do so. A good, sound man, too. He’s recently been employed in the Frost household.”

“I see,” Knowles said, huffing slightly as he lowered himself into the leather chair.

“Forgive me my manners, sir. Can I have some tea brought in?”

“
Damn
your good manners, Jack,” Knowles said equitably. “I’ve come to see how you progress and to inform you that some chap in the Admiralty received a rather strident demand for your head yesterday.”

“Oh?” Jack asked.

“Frost charged in and began making all sorts of aspersions on your character.”

Once more the damnable grieving father. “I hope they were accurate aspersions. It seems a waste of the language to pin imprecise adjectives to my name when there are so many applicable ones.”

“Don’t know. Don’t care. He was sent on his way, of course.” Knowles dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief. “Still, can’t have the ton racing around down here mucking about, getting in the way.”

“No, sir.”

“Good. Now then, Jack, you’ve been mincing about in the ton’s drawing rooms for over a fortnight. Tell me what you’ve learned.”

“I’m sure Jamison has shared my reports—”

Knowles broke in with a loud snort. “You’re sure of no such thing. Jamison dribbles only the information he suspects I already have, or will have, and no more.”

Undoubtedly true. Jamison and Knowles played an endless game of Blindman’s Bluff with each other, relating just enough information that the other might act in tandem with his own purposes. All other information they hoarded, intending that it should be kept for their own uses. Unfortunately, all too often the stakes were other men’s careers, futures, and sometimes even their lives. As with John Cashman.

The thought sobered Jack.

“Jamison is adamant that once apprehended, this thief should meet with an immediate ‘accident,’ ” Knowles said. “He insists that should the contents of this missive be leaked, the potential for disaster is enormous.”

“So I’ve been told. Repeatedly.”

Knowles bit at one of his nails and spat the little paring away. “I believe he’d like everyone who even knows of the damned thing to meet with an accident.”

“Everyone?”

Knowles sighed. “Shouldn’t be surprised. Jamison’s loyalty to the monarchy grows extreme.”

Jack digested these covert bits of information. The letter had some connection to the monarchy, and Knowles considered it a distinct possibility that once it had been recovered, or its destruction verified, Jack might be considered expendable.

Even more interesting was why Knowles had informed him at all. It bore careful thought . . . something he seemed incapable of lately.

“This thief, Jack—”

“The Wraith has disappeared since our confrontation. But I’m convinced that it will only be a matter of time before another robbery occurs. I intend to anticipate it.”

Knowles nodded with satisfaction, heaved himself to his feet, and crossed to the door. “Very well. But let’s do bring the thing to an end before Jamison has us all butchered in our beds for glimpsing his precious letter.”

“Yes, sir.”

Once more Knowles paused. “I know this is probably a waste of breath, but believe it or not, I am your friend, Jack, and will remain so should you ever need me.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jack said politely, waiting for a sign as to how Knowles wished him to respond. None came and the door opened and closed without Knowles uttering another word.

Confounded, Jack dropped into the chair. He couldn’t begin to discern Knowles’s motive in offering his aid, but then he could discern little enough lately. If it was possible, he would have suspected his mind had been poisoned.

Each night a woman-thief infiltrated his dreams to play out innumerable, erotic scenes. He awoke in the morning tense with sexual frustration and urgent with unfulfilled needs. Yet daylight offered no reprieve because with morning he incurred a subtler longing. By day Anne Wilder monopolized his thoughts. He enjoyed her unfashionable directness, her conversation, and even her oddly erotic and unconscious dishevelment.

The damnable part was he knew why. She might have married an aristocrat, but her antecedents were not so far above his own. Not really. Even more unforgivably daft, he suspected that deep within his black heart he harbored some dim aspiration, some flicker of impertinence that insisted she might not be appalled by his attention.

Absurd.

Anne Wilder, whatever her own history, had married a man whom all of society considered a paragon of virtue and loving devotion.

After such a union, what could she possibly find favorable in a man like himself?

Sweat covered Jack’s body. His belly muscles seized in the painful grip of ungratified arousal. He rolled over, trapping the taut, slight body beneath him. The thief’s thighs wrapped around his ribs. Her hands raked through his hair and dragged his head down to meet hers.

He covered her, entered her, and her hips pitched in a thick, slow roll, deepening his possession, establishing her own. He shuddered with the overwhelming heat of her and was welcomed by a deep, internal embrace.

He cupped her bottom and lifted, thrusting deep inside. She inhaled on a long, shuddering breath.

“Do you want me?” She gasped. He answered with a jolt of his hips, wanting more than simple words could express.

“Do you want me?” she insisted, her palms slipping down over his back to hold him deep inside her.

He wanted to drink passion from her lips, to feel her climax. The physical tension raked him with talons of need. His body thrummed with a desire for completion.

He heard his breath, ragged and laboring. His muscles trembled with urgency.

“Do you?” she whispered.

“Yes,” he confessed. “Yes!”

She vanished. Dissolved. He flung back his head and howled with fury—and woke.

Disgust and sexual urgency greeted his waking state. He was taut and hungry, whipped to a lather of sexual frustration by these damned dreams.

It had been a month since his encounter with the thief, but in the last ten days these nightly encounters had increased. Each was explicit and erotic; each of them ended with an exacting lesson in sexual torment.

Not tonight. He reached down, closing his fist around his turgid member. He closed his eyes. He tasted the burgundy on her tongue, felt each supple line and soft curve of her body pressed to him. His hand moved.

Tonight he’d find satisfaction where he could. But, he thought as the rhythm and darkness worked a harsh release, for her sake he hoped that when he caught his thief, they were not alone.