The Scoundrel and I: A Novella (10 page)

Bishop Baldwin lived on a quiet avenue in an austerely elegant house filled to the brim with every conceivable valuable item that a man of means might consider worth having. There were clocks and snuffboxes and ancient swords and decorative lanterns and crystal vases and lamps, a pair of oars signed by Admiral Horatio Nelson and a punting championship cup, three chess sets of blown glass, marble and wood, boxes and small caskets of all sorts, jewelry, two flutes, a brass trumpet, a worthy cello with its graceful bow, several exotic drums, three spectacular masks of the sort one saw in parades, a gilded birdcage in which a mechanical bird repeatedly pecked at a dish, a collection of beautiful quill pens, another collection of peacock feathers that burst from a sturdy Roman amphora tucked in a corner, oil paintings and watercolors and maps occupying every inch of the walls, a dish of rare coins, a string of Catholic rosary beads fashioned entirely of lapis lazuli, a number of interesting chairs, thick rugs of Eastern design in every room, and one suit of medieval armor.

Most of the objects were arranged on tables and windowsills, while some rested on floors and others hung from the ceiling. All were easily accessible to a person wishing to examine them.

The only item about which Elle truly cared was locked in a glass case.

“What’s this, Uncle?” the captain said, tapping his fingertips on the top of the case casually, as though he and she had not been throwing each other exasperated glances for an hour during which they drank tea, Elle pretended to be a Hungarian princess, and the bishop told them about every item in his collection except the Warburg chase.

“Ha!” the bishop exclaimed. “Never thought you’d care about that, my boy.”

For an instant, the captain’s fingertips ceased tapping. Then they started up again.

“Daresay,” he said. “Let’s open up this thing and see it, what?”

A gold watch chain stretched across the bishop’s waistcoat. Now he tugged on it and withdrew not a watch but a key that he fit into the lock on the glass case.

“Go ahead,” he said to his nephew. “Lift it out of there, boy.”

The sinews of the captain’s big, strong hands strained around the frame packed closely with type and Elle got instantly light-headed.

“Good God, Uncle Frederick, it weighs more than
Victory
’s anchor.”

“That, my boy, is no peas-and-pie lump of iron. That is part of a Warburg printing press, built in seventeen fifty-five. There are only six of ’em in existence today. One of ’em, Your Highness, is right here in London at a shabby little printing shop, sad to say. I imagine they don’t even know what they’ve got.”

“Mm,” she murmured, struggling not to guffaw, her nerves flying.

“Let her highness get a good close look at it, boy.”

That the bishop called this grown man “boy”—this victorious commander of a naval vessel whose hands she was imagining wrapped around
her
rather than around the chase—made a giggle well up in Elle’s throat. That he was inviting her to stand beside that so-called boy, arms touching and heads bent, so that she could smell his cologne and pick out every detail of the tiny scar on his chin and hear his breathing, made her want to shout thanks to the bishop and tell him to leave the room at once.

Then he actually did.

“I’ll go tell my man to bring up the Mesopotamian steele,” he said, shuffling toward the doorway. “I keep that one in storage, of course. Ever since that thieving footman stole my enameled Egyptian box a few years ago, I’ve kept the most valuable foreign pieces under lock and key. Like that German printing press there. No, no, you go ahead, Princess! Enjoy it,” he said, waving a knobby hand. “Ain’t very often it comes out of the case.”

“
Isn’t,”
the captain murmured and slanted her a wide smile. A lock of hair dangled over one eye and he looked indeed boyish and as giddy as she felt.

“Set it down,” she whispered, “so that we can both pick out the pieces. It will go more swiftly.”

“Better pick them all out yourself. Ensure it’s done right.”

“Oh no! I didn’t think—Did you bring a container?”

“S’why a man has pockets in his waistcoat, Your Highness.”

She reached into the frame. “So he can steal printer’s type?”

“And whatever other items appeal, of course. Quickly now.”

Pulling out two slips of metal, she let her hand hover near his coat.

“Now don’t get missish on me,” he said. “We’ve got a task to accomplish here.”

Brushing the front of his coat aside, she found the waistcoat pocket. When her fingers met the silky fabric and the hard body beneath, she nearly fumbled the type. Cheeks burning, she managed to deposit them in the pocket. She repeated the action several more times before he spoke.

“Have you got the missing pieces memorized?” His voice was unusually rough.

“I thought it best, given our need for haste.” She slipped another two into the pocket, allowing her fingertips to linger on him. “But I think I had already memorized them out of sheer guilt and dread anyway.”

“You are extraordinary,” he said so close she felt the words stir her hair.

“Twelve, thirteen,” she counted as she dropped two more into his pocket. “Because I am guilty and filled with dread, or because I can memorize fifty-three pieces when it is my task every day to read hundreds and hundreds of them?”

“Yes,” he said as though the word came from his chest. Elle had never felt quite so hot in her life, except perhaps in the library when he had been kissing her.

She glanced up at his face.

So close.

Such intensely blue eyes.

And his mouth.
His mouth
…

“Clement’s bringing up that tablet now.” The bishop’s creaky voice sounded in the foyer.

Elle pushed the type together to fill the tiny holes in the frame and backed away from the captain.

“Shouldn’t need more than a few minutes to find it.” Bishop Baldwin shuffled back into the room. “Had enough of the Warburg, have you, Your Highness? But it’s true, females ain’t got the head for machinery, even royal females. Put that in the case, nephew, and I’ll lock it up.”

The captain did as bidden. Elle’s stomach twined with panic as Bishop Baldwin tucked the key into his pocket. Beckoning her toward the stone tablet that his butler carried into the room, he launched into a dissertation on its inscriptions.

The captain extracted them from the house, then, with fantastic efficiency.

“Well, that is that,” she said as he snapped the reins.

His face was set in stern lines.

“Daresay,” he said firmly.

Her stomach was in knots of equal parts panic over the remaining forty missing pieces of type and distress over the finale of their quest. He had done what he could to help her. Now his part in the ruin she had made of her life was over. He would drop her at Brittle & Sons, turn the stolen type over to her, and drive away to be charming and handsome and delicious with some other woman.

“Thank you for making the attempt.”

“Thought it’d turn out better,” he said upon a frown.

“I am sorry you went to the trouble of it all.”

“No trouble.” He sounded sincere, but the frown lingered.

“I hope you will give Seraphina my thanks, and tell her I will return the gowns to her tomorrow.” She fingered the pleats of the gown the modiste had loaned her to take tea with the bishop, silk exactly the color of the captain’s eyes. “She has been very generous.”

“She’s a good girl.” He cut her a quick glance.
“Woman.”

Perhaps this had not all been a waste. At least if this one member of the elite began to understand Lady Justice’s message of equality between people, even between the sexes, something good had come of it. Ensconced in her prison cell, Elle would find comfort in that.

“No choice now,” he said and his voice sounded different. A hint of a smile creased his cheek.

“No choice?” she said.

The smile became a full-blown grin. “We’ll have to break in.”

~o0o~

“I repeat, this is a mistake,” she said as Tony pulled the curricle into the mews and jumped down from the box. Not waiting for him to go around, she slid her perfectly curved behind onto the driver’s seat and extended a hand for him to take. He grasped her waist and lifted her down.

She pulled away swiftly and made a show of smoothing out her skirt. To hide her pink cheeks, he suspected.

Today she wore the same dress from tea with his uncle the day before. But whatever she wore, simply looking at her made him hot, hard, and desperate to put his hands on her. When she had been fiddling with his waistcoat, her hands that had been plenty eager on him in the library were tentative to the point of maddening. He had nearly dropped the box and done what he really wanted to do, what he’d wanted to do again for days.

She, however, was keeping her distance. Markedly so. Despite her blushes—and those questing hands at the ball—she clearly didn’t want any part of him now. Since he was not in fact a scoundrel, he had to respect that.

He didn’t have to like it.

“Not a mistake,” he whispered, taking her hand and drawing her to the rear entrance of the house. Pulling a key from his pocket, he fit it in the lock.

“Where did you get that?” she exclaimed.

“Shh.” He laid his forefinger atop her intoxicating lips. “I stole it from Clement before we left yesterday.”

“The butler?” Her eyes were perfectly round, her lashes like starbursts. “You
stole
it?”

“When he gave me my hat. Out of his pocket.” He drew her inside and left the door ajar behind them. “Done it a hundred times before. Since I was in shortpants.”

“I am beginning to understand how you were so blithe yesterday about this theft,” she whispered as he led her along the cool basement corridor past the kitchen and butler’s pantry, to the stairs. “You should have been a pirate, or at the very least a privateer.”

“Considered it,” he said quietly, peering up the stairwell. Evening was falling and there were no lights above yet and her hand was snug in his and all was well. “Dashed fond of the naval uniform.”

“You are wonderfully profound, Captain,” she said dryly.

He looked down into her face to which he was developing an addiction. “And honorable.”

“Are we going up, or shall we just stand here in the dark all night discussing your penchant for theft?”

“I’m game for standing here in the dark all night if you are. Or standing anywhere else in the dark with you, for that matter.”

She tugged her hand free and slipped around him to mount the steps. He followed, considering how she might respond to him wrapping his hands around her hips and pressing his mouth to the small of her back. Probably
not well
.

Once on the ground floor she went on silent feet to the drawing room that was swiftly sinking into darkness. On the floor above, his uncle was sound asleep. For at least thirty years, Bishop Baldwin had bedded down at half past seven each evening, and his servants either hared out for the night or hid away in their quarters above. It was already eight o’clock. They were in the clear.

Halting before the glass case, she turned her face to him. The silvery light of the summer evening splashed across her skin, and he wanted her like he’d never wanted a woman before—from the back of his throat to the balls of his feet and everywhere in between. Everywhere.

“Did you steal the key to this too?” she whispered.

Slipping a rigging knife from his pocket, he snapped the lock open. The sound echoed through the room, along with her little gasp of delight. Lifting the case’s lid, she plucked type from the container.

Tonight she had taken care to bring a sack with her—no more accidental caresses at his waist—and she stuffed it into his hand. It filled swiftly, heavier as each piece of type fell into the sack with a soft
chink
.

“Nephew?
Princess?”
The crackly voice came from the doorway. “What in the devil are you doing to my Warburg?”

Her moan of defeat nearly unmanned Tony. Setting down the sack he turned to his uncle. But she spoke first.

“I am sorry, my lord,” she said shakily. “So very sorry.”

“What’s happened to your voice?” the bishop demanded. “What in the devil is going on here, boy? So help me, if you’ve filched so much as a mote of dust from this house, I’ll see you thrown off your ship and out of the navy as quick as you can say Blackbeard’s wooden leg.”

“Already out, sir,” he noted. “But that’s neither here nor there at present, of course. I—”

She moved forward. “It is not his fault, my lord. It is entirely mine. You see—”

“Uncle Frederick.” Tony stepped in front of her. “She’s about to try to take the blame, but it’s not hers. She’ll say, ‘Me and the scoundrel—”

“The scoundrel
and I,
” she muttered.

“—hatched an elaborate plot to rob you of an item in this case.”

“There’s only one item in that case, you nincompoop: my Warburg!”

“But she didn’t. It was my idea, and I dragged her along into it. So if anybody’s to be strung from a yardarm it should be me.”

His uncle peered across the dim room. “Are you a Hungarian princess?”

“No. Forgive me, my lord.”

“Ha! Put one over on everybody at Lady B’s, did you? Hm. Well, my holy orders oblige me to forgive you, missy, so you’ve got my forgiveness. But you’re a fool to hang about with my nephew, and that’s the truth of it. Never known a more thoroughly addle-brained ninny in all my life.”

“Laying it on a bit thick there, Uncle, what?”

“Get out! Both of you!” He waved his spindly arms about. “And don’t you darken my door again, boy. Odd’s bod, my sister should’ve drowned you in the river at birth. We’d all be better off for it.”

In the foyer, the butler was holding the door wide open for them.

“Clement, you fool,” the bishop shouted. “How did they get into this house today? Did you let him steal your key again? Out of here, I say! Out, now!”