Art and Artifice (11 page)

“Absolutely not.” She dropped her hand to
stalk away from him, down the corridor toward the next door. He
fell into step beside her.

“Perhaps I should be investigating you,” he
said, keeping his tone light. “The belle of the ball must have some
other reason for escaping to the upper floors besides following a
fellow around.”

“I’m hardly the belle of the ball,” she
replied. She paused before the next door. Jamie could almost feel
her indecision. He’d seen Lord Robert leave the ballroom, but he
hadn’t been able to escape his post before Lady Emily and Miss Tate
had hurried after the villain. The Marchioness of Skelcroft might
scruple to deal with him knowing his family history, but she had
been only too happy for him to pretend the part of a footman if
that helped him fulfill his commission from her husband. He didn’t
know where Lord Robert had gone, but if he was in one of these
rooms, Jamie might just be able to prove his culpability at
last.

And if Lady Emily saw the truth about Lord
Robert Townsend, she’d have her reason to stop the betrothal.

That shouldn’t matter. Her betrothal was none
of his affair. For all he knew, Lord Robert might become violent if
he was caught. Jamie ought to send Lady Emily back downstairs to
safety, tell her to find her chaperon and behave for once. But some
part of him wanted to see Lord Robert exposed for all he was before
the very woman he now claimed to love.

He put his hand on her shoulder, drew her
gaze to his. “Listen. I know we have been at odds with each other,
but let’s call a truce for tonight. We find Lord Robert together.
Agreed?”

She narrowed her eyes at him as if she
suspected some trick. “Very well,” she said at last.

“Then allow me,” he said and threw open the
door.

Lady Emily joined him in peering into the
space. Though no candles were lit, someone had opened one of the
shutters, and moonlight trickled into the room. He could make out a
bed, dressing table, and wardrobe, all neat and tidy. Very likely
it was a seldom used guest room. He started to close the door.

Lady Emily put her hand on his, a gentle
touch for all its urgency. “Wait. Shouldn’t we look under the bed,
in the wardrobe?”

“He won’t be interested in this room,” Jamie
told her. Still, he waited until she drew back her hand before
closing the door. The memory of those supple fingers stayed with
him as they turned the corner of the corridor.

“Why wouldn’t he be interested?” Emily asked,
moving along beside him, her smoky brown skirts whispering against
the carpet. “Why is he up here?”

Jamie glanced in the open door to the
withdrawing room. Plenty of valuables there, from the porcelain
figures in a glass case along the wall to the gold-plated clock on
the mantel of the marble fireplace. None of them would have
appealed to Townsend. “Why do you think he’s up here?” he asked,
continuing on to peer into the next room.

“I have no clue!” She must have realized her
voice had risen, for she hastily lowered it as she looked into the
open door of what was obviously a breakfast room, with a cozy set
of table and chairs. “Is he planning a dalliance?”

She didn’t sound the least bit upset over the
possibility. Jamie couldn’t help smiling. “Perhaps. I would be if I
was betrothed to you.”

He thought she might blush, perhaps tease him
back. Instead, she stopped and put her hands on her hips.

“I thought more of you, Mr. Cropper,” she
said, “than to turn sarcasm on a lady.”

She started to push past him, and Jamie
caught her arm. “Sarcasm? I meant every word I said.”

She glared at him, dark eyes stormy. “Unhand
me this instant, ruffian.”

Jamie dropped his hold and bowed. “Of course,
your ladyship. Anything for the duke’s daughter.” He straightened
to find her rubbing her arm where he’d held her.

“Stop that,” she said, though she dropped her
gaze as if to soften the words. “I cannot abide people who bow and
scrape.”

“That makes two of us.” Jamie puffed out a
sigh, gathering in his temper. “Forgive me, Lady Emily. I simply
don’t like hearing you talk of yourself as if you aren’t valued. If
Lord Robert or anyone else for that matter has put such thoughts in
your head, tell them to jump in the Thames.”

She raised her chin, but he thought a smile
was tugging at the corners of her lips. “I shall do better than
that, sir. Now, are you going to open the next door or shall
I?”

He bowed again. “I await your good
pleasure.”

She stalked past him and opened the door.

It was a woman’s bedchamber, with rosebuds
painted on the creamy silk decorating the walls and gilded edges on
the slender white furniture. Candles glowed in sconces and lamps,
and the covers had already been turned down as if ready for the
occupant.

Emily met his gaze, her eyes wide. “This
cannot be Lady Skelcroft’s room.”

Very likely it was. Jamie couldn’t imagine
the bulky Marquess of Skelcroft bedding down on the dainty
furniture. But what interested him more was the brooch that lay
gleaming on the carpet.

He swooped down and snatched it up. Gold
filigree setting, a ruby in the center surrounded by pearls. It
couldn’t be.

“What are you doing?” Emily whispered,
joining him.

Jamie slipped the brooch into the pocket of
his borrowed jacket. “Completing a task.” He studied the room
again. “Where would you hide in here?”

Emily glanced around as well, then pointed
toward the far wall. “In the dressing room.”

Now Jamie noticed a faint vein that cracked
the wallpaper, masking the door. He whirled and put both hands on
Emily’s shoulders. “Stay here. I’ll come back for you.”

She pushed off his hands. “You said we were
partners!”

“Not if it puts you in danger,” he promised,
then he turned to run for the dressing room door and yanked it
open.

“Bow Street!” he declared, glancing in every
direction. “Surrender now!”

No one moved. Indeed, there didn’t seem to be
space for anyone to so much as breathe. The room was crowded with
drawers and hooks and clothing a gentleman should pretend not to
know about. But the door to the corridor was ajar.

Jamie ran for it and skidded out onto the
carpet. He just caught sight of a shadow going down the stairs and
started after it.

Emily’s hand on his arm forced him to
stop.

“What?” he demanded. “Did you see him
somewhere else?”

“If I had, I would certainly not tell you,”
she informed him, gaze smoldering. “You are no gentleman, Mr.
Cropper. Our truce is off. I’ll discover Lord Robert’s secret
myself if it’s the last thing I do.” She swept past him for the
stairs before Jamie could tell her that was exactly what he
feared.

Priscilla met Emily on the landing outside
the ballroom, her arm firmly grasped by Lady Minerva. The
chaperon’s foot was tapping against the thick carpet as she looked
down her long nose at Emily.

“I cannot leave you two alone for a moment,”
she complained. “Did you at least find what you were looking
for?”

“No,” Emily said with a warning look to
Priscilla.

Just then James Cropper came down the stairs.
His head was bowed, and he passed them as if he were no more than
any other servant intent on his duty. But as he rounded Lady
Minerva he was so bold as to wink at Emily over her chaperon’s
shoulder. Honestly, the audacity of the man!

Lady Minerva seemed to find Emily and
Priscilla the more audacious. She was sufficiently put out with
them that she insisted on calling for the coach. Emily longed to
tell Priscilla what she had seen upstairs, but she didn’t want to
confess what had happened between her and the dashing Bow Street
Runner in front of her aunt. Besides, he’d snatched something off
the floor in Lady Skelcroft’s bedchamber, something that had
gleamed before he tucked it away. She didn’t like the thought that
he might be the thief she had named him when she’d first met
him.

Yet she could think of another explanation. A
theory was beginning to form in her mind about Lord Robert. The
only way to test it was to air it before a critical audience, and
she could not ask for a more critical one than Lady Minerva.

“Warburton informed us this afternoon that
Mr. Cropper has been investigating the theft of your pearls,” she
said to her aunt as the coach set off across Mayfair.

For a moment, Lady Minerva merely stared at
her across the coach. Then she raised her chin. “Bow Street was
called, but I am not pleased with Mr. Cropper’s skills. A good
sennight has passed, and he has produced no results.”

Emily nudged Priscilla, who was seated beside
her, with her foot. “He seems to suspect Lord Robert.”

Priscilla stiffened, but her aunt snorted.
“Lord Robert? If that is the best you can do by way of a story to
feed your father, gel, you’ll be married in days.”

“Not necessarily,” Emily insisted. “Think on
it. When we followed him to Bond Street, we saw him enter an
establishment where pearls might be sold.”

“She’s right,” Priscilla put in with an
encouraging nod.

Lady Minerva shook her head. “You are
resorting to fancy, I tell you. He could have been selling some
trinket he dislikes.”

“I doubt it,” Emily said, assurance growing.
“You and His Grace both said Lord Robert had been lingering about
the house. He might well have noticed your pearls. There must have
been some bustle to prepare the place for me, to get you packed to
come to Barnsley. In all the leave-taking, how simple to slip away
with them. And I am beginning to think he had need of them. His
father may have gambled away the family fortune.”

Lady Minerva frowned as if she wasn’t sure
whether to give the story credence. But Priscilla clasped her hands
together before her evening cloak.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” she
said, excitement dancing in her voice. “It means we have something
against Lord Robert. Now all we have to do is get him to confess,
and we’ll have saved the Ball!”

Emily could only wish it was that simple. If
she was right, she didn’t think Lord Robert would spill his secret
so easily. As Lady Minerva shook her head, Priscilla suggested any
number of stratagems, such as telling him how much Emily admired
jewel thieves or pretending to drop a diamond and seeing how he
responded. None set well with Emily.

But the note that was waiting for her at home
was worse.

Warburton brought it to her when she was
sitting by the fire in her dressing gown, trying to think of the
appropriate way to bring up the topic of pearls with Lord Robert
without appearing confrontational. She was ever too good at
speaking her mind. Yet surely she shouldn’t simply blurt out her
suspicions. He’d either laugh them off or make up a clever story,
and she’d have lost her chance to gain any proof.

She almost didn’t hear the scratch at the
door, forcing Warburton to tap before she called out permission to
enter. When he held out the silver platter with the card on top,
she merely frowned at it, then at him.

“From Lady St. Gregory, I believe,” her
butler said. “In answer to your note, perhaps?”

Emily felt as if a rock had suddenly dropped
into her stomach. She picked up the missive with fingers that
trembled. The answer inside could spell her future, or her
doom.

It was more of the latter. “Thank you for
writing,” the lady had said in precise lines of black ink. “I am
entirely too busy with the Season to think of enrolling any more
members to the Royal Society for the Beaux Arts at this time.
Perhaps in the autumn. If we have openings, I shall write to
you.”

Emily carefully folded the note.

“Do you wish to respond, your ladyship?”
Warburton asked, voice kind.

How was she to respond? With anger at being
so summarily dismissed, her work not even deemed worthy of viewing?
With a stinging rebuke that the doorkeeper to the prestigious
society could not be bothered with opening the door? With a threat
that her father might have something to say about the matter?

No, never that.

“No, Warburton,” she said. “No reply. If my
father or my aunt asks after me, would you tell them I’ve retired
for the evening?”

He bowed. “Certainly, your ladyship. Sleep
well.”

Sleep failed her that night. As she lay in
the four-poster bed, staring up at the painting on the underside of
the canopy (an inferior piece; she could do better), thoughts kept
circling her. Could Lord Robert really have stolen her aunt’s
pearls or was she merely seeing treachery where she longed to find
it? Did James Cropper suspect Lord Robert as well? Was that why he
was following her betrothed? Or was James Cropper truly a thief,
masking his work under the cover of his position at Bow Street? Was
there some other connection between the Bow Street Runner and Lord
Robert?

She was glad when all her friends called the
next morning. She and Priscilla shared their adventures of the
night before with Ariadne and Daphne. Ariadne, of course,
immediately praised Emily’s theory about Lord Robert being a jewel
thief, though Daphne insisted that Lord Snedley would not have
approved. Both, however, agreed that her best approach was to force
a confession from Lord Robert. Now if she could only determine
how!

She did not feel the least prepared when he
arrived that afternoon to escort her to see the Marbles. With the
two of them being affianced, and the outing to be entirely out of
doors where anyone might see, Lady Minerva allowed her to go with
him alone with no more than a stern look of warning to behave.
Emily had dressed in her favorite gown, a gray-striped taffeta
walking dress with a matching jacket. It was cool and crisp, and
she needed all the encouragement she could get, particularly as
Lord Robert looked rather impressive in a blue coat of superfine
wool and cream-colored trousers tucked into gleaming boots.