Suzanne Robinson (3 page)

“Get her out of here,” he said wearily. Without glancing at her, he lay his holster and revolver next to the silver teapot and lifted the china cup.

She felt an elbow prod her arm. Loveday poked her again. Backing up, Liza turned and fled. Racing through the servant’s door, she sprinted downstairs as if chased by rabid dogs. Once in the scullery, she found water and gave herself a wash. She noticed for the first time that her hands were shaking. Never had she seen anyone like Jocelin, Viscount Radcliffe—part gunman, part nobleman. What was worse, as barbaric as his American side appeared, she was beginning to realize that his aristocratic side might be as dangerous, and was certainly more sinister.

J
ocelin leaned back in the Louis XVI chair, his legs crossed at the ankles, and listened to the plump little maid run from the room. He regretted drawing on her. But, hang it, she should have let him know she was there.

He’d been out west too long. He’d made the trip to California and back through Colorado and Texas to forget the war, to erase Balaklava and Scutari from his memory—and for other, less benign reasons. The cure had been successful, as long as he’d been in America, but the cure had its price. Tension had permeated his body and mind over the countless weeks on the trail. His senses had magnified. He heard single drops of rain in a storm, he smelled
campfires across mountain ranges, sensed the mute presence of a Comanche. So he drew on little maids kneeling at a hearth in his town house.

Shifting uncomfortably, he pulled a pair of nickel-plated iron handcuffs from his back pocket. He tossed them on the tea table. The clank drew a glance from Loveday. Jocelin favored him with a bitter smile, but refused to react to the I’ve-just-smelled-rotten-pork expression on his valet’s face. He fished in his vest pocket and withdrew the key to the handcuffs and a leather cigar holder.

Loveday floated over to the table and picked up the handcuffs with his fingertips, holding them at a distance from his body. “I may store these away along with our other American accoutrements, my lord?”

Jocelin took a big gulp of tea and grunted.

“I noticed that Mr. Tapley has not returned with your lordship.”

Leaning back in his chair again, Jocelin folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. “Ah, yes, Mr. Tapley. Poor Tapley ran afoul of Comanches when we took the stage from Texas to California. Darned shame. But then, I warned him about how dangerous it was when I told him about all that gold in California. Real shame. The coach broke a wheel, and we were stranded on the road for the night. He wandered away from camp. Told him not to go gallivanting off by himself.”

“How foolish of him, my lord.”

Jocelin opened his eyes and met Loveday’s drill-like gaze, unperturbed. “Yup, foolish. I had to do it, Loveday. It was the only way to get the bastard away from his victims.”

Still dangling the handcuffs, Loveday nodded and withdrew a sealed envelope from his coat pocket.
“Our mail has been sorted, my lord, and it can wait until we’ve rested from our journey, but I saw this.”

Taking the envelope, Jocelin sat up and drew the lamp nearer. He glanced at the seal. It bore the impression of a stylized guillotine. Nick had a taste for the macabre. He broke the seal and read the enclosed letter, then glanced at the sheet behind the missive. His gaze ran over a list of five names and addresses. The clammy chill of the fog outside his window seemed to creep into his body. Like a slave’s burden, his own living nightmare settled on his shoulders again.

Loveday had lit the fire. Jocelin handed him the letter, and the valet touched it to a red coal. Rising abruptly, Jocelin began rolling the list into a cylinder as he left the room.

“My bath?” He heard himself pronounce the word with the accent he’d acquired at Sandhurst. The West was wearing off him a little.

“The footmen should be bringing the water shortly, my lord.”

He went to the sitting room, ignoring the symmetrical delicacy of its silver-and-gray plasterwork. He walked to the fireplace. On the mantel rested three vessels. A Wedgwood urn, a nautilus shell Jacobean drinking cup, and a pedestaled flask carved of lapis lazuli. It was an antique from the Italian Renaissance, once owned by Francesco de’ Medici. He grasped the flask. Trimmed in gold, it had a narrow neck and a hinged top. He opened it and slipped the cylinder of paper inside. Closing it, he replaced the vessel on the mantel and went to his desk.

He’d never cared for the desk, for it crawled with elaborate decoration, from the pictorial marquetry to the gilt ormolu mounts. However, it was big enough to
hold most of his correspondence—at least, his ordinary correspondence. He unlocked and shoved back the top, selected a pen and plain paper.

By the time the footmen arrived with his bathwater, he’d finished a response to the writer of the list. He handed the envelope to Loveday to post and dismissed the valet for the night. He went to the bathing room and stripped. Not daring to remain in the hot water for fear of falling asleep, he got out and was soon in bed. He tried to sleep, but couldn’t, in spite of his drowsiness. In desperation he retrieved his revolver from an armoire and slipped it under his pillow.

Still, he couldn’t relax. He hadn’t expected his father to be there when he arrived. He certainly hadn’t expected Yale. He hadn’t seen his uncle in over a year, and before that, seldom. Not since he was fourteen. Quickly his thoughts skimmed past the memories of his fourteenth year. He’d excised them and shoved them deep into the void inside his head where he kept other remembrances that brought pain or shame.

Instead, he concentrated on looking forward to seeing Asher. Dear old Asher was preparing to run for Parliament. Now that Jocelin was back, they could resume their political meetings. No doubt Asher had recruited several more allies, perhaps even that old scoundrel Palmerston. With Asher in the House of Commons and himself in the House of Lords, they could gain much.

He was beginning to grow drowsy when he heard tapping at one of the windows. His hand was instantly on his revolver. He whipped back the covers. Chilly air made goose bumps form on his bare flesh. He slipped on a fur-lined silk robe and parted the curtains over the window. A pale face floated in the
mist outside. Jocelin cursed and opened the window. Two wet boots thrust inside and landed on the carpet.

Jocelin shivered as he closed the window. “Hang it, Nick. I got your note. You didn’t have to come.”

“Is he dead?”

Jocelin surveyed the young man who was stamping his dirty, wet boots on his Aubusson carpet. Damp brown hair sprang out from beneath a worn cap. His neck and chin were shrouded in a torn wool scarf, above which gleamed pale, angel-blue eyes. He remembered when he’d found Nick, years ago, in Houndsditch. He’d stumbled over what he thought was a pile of rags and bones. It had been Nick, who had run afoul of a procurer in a gin shop. Now Nick worked with him.

“Well, is he dead?”

From the first Nick had never called him “my lord.”

“Yes.”

“You got me note? Good. I come to—came to—see if you’ll be wanting to do a prowl.”

“Acquiring breeding, are you?” Jocelin asked as he returned to bed.

“I’m fixing me—my grammar. Now I got plenty of money, I got to act quality.”

Tossing aside his robe, Jocelin slipped under a pile of blankets. “And dress like a costermonger?”

“You know I been on a prowl. I got wind of a place in Spitalfields. Lots of young ones for the gentry. Posh carriages, white silk scarves, and bleeding degenerates. Just your kind of place, love.”

“Damn you, I just got home. I was trying to sleep.”

“Well, we both know how much of that you do.”

“This time I won’t have any trouble. Now go away.”

Nick shrugged and sauntered toward the sitting room.

“Not going back out the window?” Jocelin asked.

“Nah. Too much trouble, and I need practice sneaking around big houses. Don’t want to lose me—my touch. Never know when I might need to steal something. Ta, love.”

Jocelin groaned and burrowed down among the covers until they shrouded his head. He listened for an uproar among the servants, but it never came. He drifted off to sleep and dreamed of Nick climbing the walls of his house, and of a plump, peevish maid.

It was still dark when he roused. Lying motionless, he took stock of his situation. He was lying on his stomach, his arms and legs sprawling across the bed. What had awakened him? A rustle. He heard it again, near the bed. It was close to where he’d dropped the boots he’d been wearing last night. He waited until the rustling stopped, grabbed his revolver, and sprang up from the covers like a dragon launched from his cave. His free hand snatched hold of something as he cocked the revolver and aimed it at the intruder.

He heard a squeak and groaned. Yanking his prisoner close, he peered into the darkness to meet the terrified gaze of the plump maid. They gawked at each other, nose to nose. He had hold of her wrist. His thumb pressed into a small bone while his fingers sank into mushy flesh.

“Hang it, woman. What are you doing in here?”

“Th—the fires. I do the fires. And, and your boots, my lord.” She held his boots before his nose. “I
got to clean your boots. Mr. Choke sent me special, since the knife boy ruined your others.”

He thrust her wrist away. Uncocking the revolver, he laid it aside and plumped his pillow. Furious at how she’d caught him unaware and made him act the barbarian, he lay back, allowing the covers to fall to his hips. He put his arms behind his head and watched her turn crimson. Irritated for no good reason other than being startled awake, he nodded at her.

“Continue. Do this hearth first.”

She had been scuttling toward the sitting room when he spoke. Now she turned and stared at him.

“Light the lamp,” he said.

When she had obeyed, he got a clearer view of her. She had a brown little face, oval and wide of forehead. Her lips were pursed, making them appear thinner than they were, and she kept her gaze away from him. Still, he got a glimpse of eyes of a strange, indeterminate color between brown and blue-gray. Squiggles of light brown hair corkscrewed at her forehead and temples. He waited while she built and lit the fire. She was almost to the door when he stopped her.

“You forgot something.”

He almost smiled at the reluctance she displayed to turn around. He could read her thoughts. She was angry at his treatment of her, and furious that she couldn’t show it. Her little hands were doubled into fists. Some perverse devil was prodding him to taunt and irritate her. As she turned, he sat up, allowing the covers to slip so that they barely covered his groin. He leaned over the bed, exposing a bare hip, and picked up his boots. Holding them up to her gaze, he smiled.

“Come and get them.”

He could hear her grinding her back teeth. She
even glanced at the iron poker beside the fireplace, which caused Jocelin’s grin to widen. She stalked to the bed. As she reached for the boots, he moved them so that she was forced to lean over him to catch hold. Then he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled. She lost balance and toppled onto him. Dropping the boots, he hugged her and laughed.

She tried to kick him in the groin, then gasped at her own audacity. “Let go of me! I mean, please, my lord, let go of me.”

“Damn it, woman, you could have gelded me.”

Clamping his teeth together against the pain near his sensitive parts, Jocelin wrestled with her as she pushed at his chest. Her blackened hands were cold against the heat of his flesh. He forced her chin up with one hand and met her horrified gaze.

“The next time you sneak into my room, you’ll pay for it.”

“I wasn’t sneaking. I have to build the fires. Don’t!”

Jocelin’s brow furrowed as he squeezed her mushy body. He could feel her breasts, but they had an odd consistency. Before he could comment, she wrenched herself from his grasp. He let her go, having achieved his purpose. Her knee dug into his thigh. Flesh ground against bone, and he yelped. She hopped backward off the bed, dragging the covers with her. She faced him, gave a sharp cry, and turned her back to him. Jocelin rubbed his thigh, but his grimace of pain turned into a smile as he pulled a sheet back over his hips.

“Next time tell Choke to send a footman.”

This time she ran. He heard the sitting room door slam. All at once, returning home didn’t seem so bleak. Sparring with plump little maids did wonders
for melancholy spirits. He sat up straight, his head cocked to the side as if he were listening, while he examined his feelings. Unprecedented. His anger, always just beneath the surface of his emotions, had faded to a murmur located somewhere deep inside his chest.

Where was that feeling of crabbed malice? The plump little maid had taken it with her. Jocelin smiled—a genuine smile free of mockery and rancor. He was still smiling when Loveday entered with his breakfast tray. Instead of lingering in bed, smoldering and thinking snakelike thoughts, he bounced through his morning toilet.

Dressing proceeded in companionable silence, for Loveday had been with him since he’d gone to Sandhurst Royal Military College. Father had sent him young, at sixteen, and not because Jocelin had been precocious, though he had been. The duke had wanted to put his son somewhere out of the way. His one concession to a lonely and distraught boy had been to hire Loveday as a combination valet and guardian. He hadn’t anticipated that the servant would take upon himself the responsibilities of a fanatical and intelligent duenna.