Desire Wears Diamonds (4 page)

Of course, if any of them had bothered to
ask, she’d have assured them that she had no desire to marry. Grace
hated nearly every aspect of the confined and careful life of an
English woman; but she knew better than to reveal it. As Mrs.
Dorsett retreated, she began to write all the weekly expenses into
the house’s journal in her neat careful hand. She knew to the
half-penny where the budgets were allocated. Over time, she had
added a woman’s touch and turned a dreary dark house into a light,
cheerful and elegant home.

Once the ledger was up to date, she set the
accounts aside and took a deep breath of relief. She fingered the
buttons of her blouse’s high collar at her throat and leaned back
in her chair. The house was in order, the chores in hand, the menu
set and she had the afternoon to herself and a few precious hours
to do exactly as she wished.

A few precious hours to escape…

A new story she’d been working on with
savage pirates and an underwater kingdom beckoned her back to the
pages she’d hidden away. She’d been up until two in the morning
wrestling with krakens and trying to decide if her heroine’s
prayers for rescue should be answered in this installment, or the
next chapter.

Grace eagerly unlocked the large hidden
drawer underneath the rose painted surface of her ladies desk and
pulled out the well worn leather bound notebook that was her one
secret source of solace in the world.

Respectable ladies did not write nonsensical
stories and outrageous tales for the working class. Respectable
women did not entertain naked tribes of cannibals and leagues of
wizards in their heads. Respectable women had no notions of murders
and mysteries and would turn their noses up at the very suggestion
that there was entertainment to be had with harrowing encounters
with dashing highwaymen or in the discovery of secret societies of
vampyres.

Yet Grace did not write tame poetry or weak
prose. Her soul’s fabric was not suited to dainty fairy tales. And
no one who knew her had any idea…

Her older brother simply thought her a
strange creature with no gift for social situations and Grace had
allowed it. After all, it meant that her interior landscape was her
very own to manage and it allowed her to plot her path out of the
stifling cage she occupied. So long as her brother believed she was
only scribbling away in some kind of girlish journal, Grace was
free to do as she wished.

She pulled out the linen wrist covers she’d
made to protect her sleeves from getting ink stains and settled in
with a sigh of blissful surrender, dipping her favorite pen into a
heavy glass inkwell at the ready.

Their tridents gleamed in the silvery depths
as they cut off Captain Martin’s escape. “Poseidon will have your
bones to atone for this trespass!” cried the—

Grace’s hand froze when the jarring sound of
the front door’s bell rang out.

She had to bite her lip to keep from crying
out in disappointment at the interruption but there was nothing to
be done for it. It was a small house and the crisp click of Mrs.
Dorsett’s heels on the wooden floors downstairs as she moved to
answer the door was unmistakable.

Grace held her breath for a moment, hoping
that whoever it was, might have business that the ever-efficient
Mrs. Dorsett could manage without spoiling the—

“Right this way, sir.” Mrs. Dorsett’s sharp
voice carried up the stairs through the floors and Grace’s head
tipped back with a sigh as she relinquished the breath she’d been
holding. But disappointment at the interruption was almost
immediately replaced by a stronger emotion.

Shock.

A male caller? Did she say ‘sir’?

The low rumble of a man’s voice in reply to
Mrs. Dorsett made her sit up a little straighter, her curiosity
completely piqued. Grace put away her tools and her writing as
quick as a cat, locking her things away and made a rushed inventory
of the sitting room to make sure that it was presentable.

She stood, her nerves jangling, and smoothed
out her skirts just in time as Mrs. Dorsett rapped on the door and
then opened it before Grace could answer her.

“A man to see you,” Mrs. Dorsett stated
flatly and then turned before she’d even shown the gentleman in, as
if the intrusion of a visitor was her least concern, much less the
rituals it might require or the impropriety of leaving her mistress
alone with a strange man.

Grace bit her lip to keep from groaning
aloud at the bungled social niceties but the sight of the tallest
man she had ever seen
ducking
under
the doorframe to
enter her sitting room ended her ability to protest.

Indeed the sight of a very handsome and very
large man in a simple dark suit with his hands gripping his hat in
front of him shyly dwarfing her ended every intelligent impulse or
thought she had hoped to have to make up for Mrs. Dorsett’s
failings.

Dear God. He’s so…impossible!

“I was not expecting any callers, sir.” She
swallowed and prayed as hard as she ever had in her life that the
heat she felt in her cheeks was miraculously invisible. For here
was not only an unexpected male caller but one that not even her
own overworked imagination could have conjured. Thick black curls
streaked with white in a salt and pepper effect offset the beauty
of rugged masculine features, a square jaw and the gentle light of
his eyes. Despite the white touches in his dark hair, he was not
old but a man in his prime. He was broad and lean and appeared as
solid and unyielding as any bronze statue in a park—except this
chiseled wonder was standing in her sitting room. She curtsied
slightly, at a loss for how one proceeded when demigods came to
call. “I am Grace Porter.”

“You’re…” His voice trailed off, his
expression reflecting genuine misery as his hat suffered from his
white-knuckled hold in its brim. Pale grey blue eyes the color of a
winter sky darted from hers as he took in the room. “I should have
thought this through past the front door,” he said softly.

Grace blinked. “Is it a visit or a tactical
siege?”

It was his turn to look at her in surprise.
“A visit, I hope.” He replied as if asking if such a thing were
acceptable.

Her next impression was that the man was
undoubtedly the shyest human in the British Isles with the set of
his shoulders and tentative stance.
Why he looks like he’s
getting ready to run from a fire breathing dragon!
Grace warmed
to the knowledge, courage flooding through her. “Then I should tell
you that you are welcome. Would you care to take a seat?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think I
should.”

“It
is
the first step of a social
visit,” she offered. “Sitting. Or so I’m led to believe…”

He shook his head again, openly eyeing the
delicate legs of the chairs, all carved to resemble bamboo and
birds. “It may be but I don’t think your furniture will survive the
attempt.”

Grace tried to see the room from his vantage
point. It did look a bit dainty. “Perhaps it’s a wicked custom to
give a woman’s dull life a bit of humor to see gentlemen attempting
to navigate through our gauntlets of glass trinkets and silk
pillows.”

“That sounds like a frighteningly real
possibility,” he replied. “Please pardon my manners,” he said, his
cheeks reddening. “I am…ill-suited to…drawing rooms on my best days
but this visit is particularly challenging. It’s a lovely room but
I won’t linger long.”

Grace’s stomach fluttered with butterflies
at the effect of his presence.
This is ridiculous and if I don’t
stop staring at him, he’ll declare me an idiot and there’s an end
to it.
“I’ll accept the compliment and the brevity of your
intended stay, if only to try to save your hat.” She bit her lower
lip. “I’m sure it’s stopped breathing by now if you care to release
it.”

He smiled shyly and relaxed his grip
slightly on his cap. “There. A life spared.”

“Well, that’s one thing set right. But I’m
probably the one to apologize for a lack of manners.” She
straightened her back, doing her best to compose herself and
channel a more serene countenance. “I have the habit myself of
speaking first without thinking although I don’t recommend it to
anyone for its consequences. But let’s ignore the rules and stand,
shall we? Even so, you’ll need to provide your name if we’re to
make another start. Don’t you think so?”

He nodded, becoming instantly more somber.
“I am Michael Rutherford. I…I met your brother, Sterling, in
India.”

Grace nodded, pleased that he was in the
right house after all but mortified anew at her candor with an
associate of her brother. Sterling hated wit in a woman and had
complained more than once that she had the decorum of a dairymaid.
Then again, she didn’t expect her brother to allow him to call
again so it hardly mattered. “Oh! Well, I’m afraid, Sterling’s not
here. I don’t expect him home until the evening, Mr.
Rutherford.”

“What?”

Something in the way Mr. Rutherford asked
the question made her heart skip a beat. He hadn’t asked it as if
he wasn’t sure of his hearing. Instead he was suddenly looking at
her as if her sanity were in doubt.

“He’s at his office at the Company, near the
East India Trading Docks. There was a shipment from the Congo that
required his attention, he said. Are you unwell, Mr.
Rutherford?”

He barely moved, his reply soft and careful.
“Sterling Porter. Is at his office.”

“He is.” She clasped her hands together,
unwilling to let trembling fingers betray how unsettling it was to
be at the center of Michael Rutherford’s keen study.

“Your brother. Your brother who was in
Bengal in 1857 is in London. Your brother, Sterling.”

“As I said. But Sterling speaks so rarely of
his time in India that…” Grace caught her breath. “I’m sure he’ll
be glad to hear that an acquaintance stopped by to—“

“No!” Mr. Rutherford blurted out, only to
hold up a hand as if to make amends. “I mean, I would rather
surprise him, if I can. It was—such an amazing experience and I
know he has fond memories of our time together. Please, don’t tell
him I called.”

“Don’t tell him?” Grace put a hand against
her heart, taken with the unexpected turns in the conversation.
“What a perfectly mysterious thing to ask!”

“No great mystery, I assure you.” His gaze
never left hers and Grace tipped her head to one side to study the
puzzle he presented. He appeared as sincere as a vicar on Sunday
but there was something stern and desperate in his face. And the
writer in her was enrapt at the idea that he was caught in some
heroic conundrum.

“Please, Miss Porter.”

It was the way he said “please” that did it.
Grace had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling at
the impossible bubble of rebellion rising up from her toes. A man
she did not know was asking her to conspire to keep secrets from
her brother and despite all logic, she couldn’t think of a single
reason to say no. “He hates surprises.”

Mr. Rutherford held his ground. “Most men
do.”

She smiled at the wicked admission of their
conspiracy. “Very well. If as you say, there is a bond between you,
then I wouldn’t wish to be the one to spoil your reunion.”

“You are too kind, Miss Porter.” He took a
firm step backward and then bowed awkwardly, his eyes never leaving
her face. “May I call here again?”

Her mouth fell open in shock. “You could
if…” It was a lovely bit of irony. Normally, it would be Sterling
who would forbid it but since the call was a secret and Mr.
Rutherford only wished to return to surprise her brother—there was
no chance for a refusal. Grace managed to nod mutely in assent.

“Thank you.” He straightened and turned
without another word, ducking out the doorway and showing himself
out of the house with quiet footsteps on the stairs.

Grace stood where he’d left her until she
heard the front door open and close as he exited to the street
outside and then she sat back down at her desk a few seconds before
her knees turned to rubber.

I should make Captain Martin a good deal
taller, I think…

CHAPTER TWO

Michael Rutherford was running.

He’d been so relieved and surprised when his
Bow Street runner had quickly uncovered a London address for Mr.
Sterling Porter and indicated that his sister was in residence.
He’d rushed over there, sure of finding some version of a plain
spinster with black crepe-draped portraits of her dead brother in
the front hall. He’d braced himself to deliver the grim
confirmation of a man’s passing and wasted no time in stopping off
cards or making appointments.

After all, social graces weren’t his
forté.

But now…

Michael moved away from the house as quickly
as he could, every instinct warning him that the last thing he
wanted was to be caught in the open if Sterling returned home
early.

Sterling Porter was alive.

Which meant one thing.

Sterling Porter was the Jackal.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

It all made sense but he’d never seen it
coming. Only a man who’d been there would have had knowledge of
what they’d taken but the dark—something as primal as the dark had
kept them from him all this time. He’d never seen the faces of the
Jaded and he’d left them there too quickly to learn much about
them. Probably because he hadn’t expected them to survive, much
less return to England with the treasure that Sterling must have
been after all along.

How Sterling had escaped was a greater
mystery to Michael but one he set aside for the moment.

He started to hail a hackney cab and then
dropped his arm because at the moment, he had no idea where he
should go first. His head was spinning with revelations tangled up
with the image of a diminutive woman with pale skin and hair the
color of rose gold pulled back in a plain chignon. The delicate
creature who had nearly made him forget his purpose with her
surprising references to sieges and the labyrinth presented by
sitting room furniture.