Touch of a Thief (22 page)

For the first time in several hundred years, the English were uneasy allies with the French, but old animosities died hard. The count loudly told Neville he was “a silly fool of an Englishman” and if the British would only keep to their side of the Channel, the world would be a far better place.

“However,
cherie
,” de Foix said as he made a second attempt at an elaborate obeisance over Viola’s hand, “I have no aversion to the English sending us their women, provided they are as comely as you.”

“The French had no aversion to our men fighting alongside them in Sebastopol either,” Quinn said. He might have served in India, but he’d followed the battles in Crimea with intense interest.

“Ah! Lord Ashford, I perceive you are, like myself, a man of action. You, we will welcome.” His words slurred slightly and he seemed to have forgotten he was in the kingdom of Hanover, not France, and was therefore in no position to welcome anyone. The French count sneered at Neville who had moved on to the next clump of dignitaries. “It is only your puling politicians we resist.”

“In that, we find complete accord,” Quinn said.

“Lady Ashford.” Neville returned to them, leading a great bear of a man. “You will recall I mentioned a fellow who was recently returned from India. Lord and Lady Ashford, may I present Mr. Henry Chesterton, Esquire, lately of Peshawar, Delhi and Bombay?”

While Quinn made polite conversation with the newcomer about his time on the subcontinent, Viola’s belly turned backflips. The Mr. Chesterton she’d seen in the ruby’s vision had been slight and balding.

This man rejoiced in a full head of chestnut hair, a bit shaggy about the ears and definitely in need of a trim if he wished to affect a polished appearance. He was as tall as Quinn and easily outweighed him by two or possibly three stone.

Beneath the hum of multiple conversations and the clink of glasses, Viola heard the murmur of the diamond’s low drone. It was closer. The genuine Blood of the Tiger was somewhere in Schloss Celle, probably secreted on the person of the man before her. She was sure of it.

But the gentleman before her was
not
the real Mr. Chesterton.

Of that, she was also sure.

Schloss
Celle had never been used as a military stronghold, despite the highly visible presence of guards patrolling the grounds. It served as a sort of summer palace for the House of Hanover and the many generations of dukes who’d claimed the place since the tenth century.

Since there was no true host in residence, Lord Cowley stepped into that role and seated himself at the head of the long table. Neville had arranged matters so he was seated opposite Viola. She gave her crockery her complete attention most of the time. Quinn languished at the foot of the table, between the aging mother of a baron, who according to his mother was “in want of a wife” and a flighty young contessa who giggled almost constantly and spoke only Spanish.

Dining beside Viola was the stolid baron from Sussex, whose mother had led him about as if he were a prize bull calf at a fair. He winced each time he heard her extolling his virtues at the far end of the table.

“You’ll have to forgive Mother,” he said to Viola, his voice mild as milk. “I’ve tried to explain to her that a wife and family would only detract from my study of ancient Persian, but she remains undeterred.” The baron sighed. “She means incredibly well.”

“Do I hear you right, monsieur? You have no use for
les femmes
?” the drunken French count at Viola’s right leaned over her to ask the baron.

“No, it’s simply that my life is ordered to my liking without a wife.”

The Comte de Foix shrugged and spoke to Viola in a stage whisper that carried throughout the hall as well as the baron’s mother’s strident tones. “Vraiment, he has decided one woman telling him when to piss is enough, eh?”

Neville glared at the count. “My lord, there are ladies present. Kindly watch your tongue.”

De Foix laughed uproariously.

“I fail to see what’s so humorous,” Neville said.

“The hell, it is over frozen,” the count said. “An Englishman has presumed to tell a Frenchman what to do with his tongue when a lady is near. Believe me, the tongue is not for the watching. It has many other pleasurable uses which an Englishman obviously does not know.”

Neville looked as if he’d just swallowed a bit of herring that had turned. Viola brought her napkin to her lips to cover her smile.

Tension eased when the butler and footmen brought in the dessert course and a comely serving girl distracted the men as she ladled on the clotted cream. Viola spooned up the last of her warm apple torte, wondering when she and Quinn would be at liberty to search through Schloss Celle for the diamond. Based on the low thrum, she knew it was near. She’d be able to follow the sound to its source if she had no distractions.

And wore her protective jet and silver. Somehow, she’d have to find a reason Quinn would accept for her to wear it even as she slept. So far, he’d been too concerned for her health to tax her with questions, but as she grew stronger, she knew that would change.

The Comte de Foix interrupted her musings when he disturbed the gathering with a drunken outburst again. “You there, Monsieur Chesterton.” The count waved a lacy handkerchief toward the fellow seated beside Lord Cowley. “You have the stone for your English queen with you, non?”

All conversation stopped.

“
Quelle?
Do not make to give me the oh-so-shocked faces.” The count spread his hands before him in a classic Gallic gesture. “Come. We all know this man bears a fabulous gem bound for the Royal Collection of the English queen,
n’est ce pas
?”

“If we didn’t, we do now,” Neville said through clenched teeth.

“
Alors,
we all are here to wait for your Prince’s men to escort it across the Channel, non?” the Comte de Foix said. “But I am thinking, what would be the harm if Monsieur Chesterton showed it to us here in the safety of Schloss Celle?”

It occurred to Viola that the count’s speech was much less slurred than previously. His dark eyes were bright and sharply focused. He wasn’t as drunk as he seemed.

“We will never see such a famous red diamond again,” de Foix said. “Do you refuse us a small peek only?”

Mr. Chesterton glared at the Frenchman, but Lord Cowley put a hand on his forearm. “I think, sir, the burden you bear is secure in this company,” the ambassador said.

The man grumbled, but he drew a small silver snuffbox from a pocket inside his waistcoat. Viola decided it was deucedly clever of him to keep Baaghh kaa kkhuun in a snuffbox—a homely disguise for something so fabulously valuable. When he opened the box, the low drone grew louder, but it was still bearable. Viola was safe behind her silver and jet armor.

Mr. Chesterton pulled a square of linen from his pocket and used it to pick up the red diamond without touching it directly.

He knows
, Viola thought.
He understands Baaghh kaa kkhuun’s power. And respects it.

She also noticed Mr. Chesterton was wearing a pinky ring of tarnished silver set with a black stone.

He must also be sensitive to gems
, she realized. She’d often wished she could speak to someone about her gift, but she’d never met another soul who shared her unusual ability. One glance at Mr. Chesterton’s hard features told her he was not the one to whom she could unburden herself.

With extreme care, Mr. Chesterton slid the handkerchief with the diamond to the Austrian duchess at his left.

“Oh, my! It is so unusual,” she said in heavily accented English as she touched the red stone. “This jewel gives me tingles right up my arm.”

The men tended to pass the diamond along without touching it, not needing a case of the tingles evidently, but each woman felt compelled to run a fingertip over the rose-cut surface. When the count slid the handkerchief with the stone in front of her, Viola fully intended to pass it directly on to the Persian-obsessed baron.

Then the stone began speaking to her.

There were no words she could discern, but it was a definite summons. There was no pain or threat in it. Only a mesmerizing pattern in the low, undulating tone. Warmth. Light. Pleasure. When she lifted her hand toward the diamond, the sound intensified.

It began to stroke her, wrapping the rumbling timbre around her like a lover’s caress. She felt the vibrations up her forearm before her fingertip reached the diamond’s surface. It washed over her skin, slipping under her gown and tweaking her nipples to aching pertness. The waves rushed downward, flooding her groin with wicked sensations.

The room faded around her.

Someone moaned. It might have been her.

Quinn called her name, but she could no more have stopped her palm from covering the diamond than she could stop her heart from beating.

As it happened, that was something Baaghh kaa kkhuun intended to do for her.

“Viola! Viola!” Quinn would have leaped across the table if he’d thought it would get him to her side faster. He shoved the French count across the room. “Out of my way.”

She was lying on the floor in a heap, having collapsed like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Her eyes were open, but unseeing, her face pale as parchment. Her body was limp except for one tightly clenched fist. Quinn dug the cursed diamond out of her curled fingers and slammed it back on the table, not caring where the damn thing went.

She sucked in a rasping breath and blinked three times.

Quinn clutched her to his chest.

She whimpered. “Away. Need to go. Away.”

Quinn scooped her up. She trembled violently. “Somebody send for a physician to tend my wife.”

He strode from the room and took the stairs two at a time up to their chamber. By the time he laid her on the bed, she’d stopped trembling but her breath still came in shuddering gasps. Quinn lit the candle on the nightstand and its light wavered uncertainly over her drawn features.

Neville rushed in, dragging behind him a man who claimed to be the ambassador’s doctor. For once, Quinn was grateful to see Beauchamp.

The physician checked Viola’s breathing with a mirror held beneath her nostrils. It fogged reassuringly. He put an ear to her chest.

“Is your wife increasing, my lord?” the doctor asked.

Quinn blinked in surprise. “I don’t know. We haven’t been together long.”

“It doesn’t take long,” the doctor said with a wry grin.

“Could that cause her to . . .”

He had no words to describe the strange scene he’d just witnessed. It was as if she were overpowered by the diamond, as if it
took
her, and she was powerless to resist.

“Women who’re bearing do all sorts of odd things,” the doctor said. “I’ve seen them keel right over and nothing to be done.”

“You can’t help her?”

“I didn’t say that.” The doctor reached for one of Viola’s hands, but she pulled it away from him. “What’s amiss here?”

Quinn took her hand and she allowed him to uncurl her fingers. The center of her palm was red and blistered around an angry mark roughly the size of the diamond.

“She’s burned herself on something and it’s set off some ill humors, no doubt.” The physician rummaged in his bag and drew out a blood encrusted lancet set. “Bleeding always steadies a body.”

“No,” Viola said weakly, cradling her hand. “It doesn’t even hurt. No bleeding. Quinn, please.”

“You heard the lady,” he said. One of his friends in India was an army surgeon who was fastidious about the cleanliness of his saws and lancets. It made sense to Quinn not to mingle Viola’s blood with remnants of the doctor’s previous ill patients. “What else can we do, doctor?”

“I suppose I could mix up a purge for her, if her ladyship will deign to listen to my advice,” he said loftily. “After all, Lord Cowley trusts me implicitly.”

“Then he must be fonder of chamber pots than I,” Viola said, rolling on her side so she faced away from the doctor. “I need rest, that’s all.”

“Hmph! She evidently has no need for a physician since she’s capable of self-diagnosis. Here’s a salve for her hand if she’ll let you use it on her.” The man gave Quinn a small jar, replaced his instruments and closed his bag with an injured snap. “However, Lady Ashford will have to find rest on her own. I don’t provide lullabies. Or laudanum, if that’s what she’s angling for. Too much resorting to opiates in my opinion.”

Quinn agreed with the sentiment. He’d lost a couple friends to opium dens. He ushered the doctor and Neville out the door, then returned to hitch a hip on the edge of the bed. “Viola, what happened to you?”

“Go away.” Her voice was strong and full of vinegar. Though she was pushing him away, her obstinacy eased his fears for her.

“Not until you tell me. Something made you ill. I want to know what happened. Do you think the doctor might be right?”

“Not likely.”

“So you don’t think you might be . . . with child?”

“No. You don’t need to worry about that. My curse just ar—” She caught herself before she became indelicate. “Well, I’m certainly not bearing in any case.”

Quinn was surprised to feel a stab of disappointment. If she was pregnant, it would give him an excuse to press her again on the subject of marrying him. “Does . . . do you often swoon when the custom of women comes upon you?”

“No. This is not something we’ll discuss.”

“Then what is it?” he asked, frustration creeping into his tone. “How can I help you if you won’t tell me what’s happening to you?”

She rolled over and looked up at him, her eyes clear, if a little bright. Her cheeks were pink with health. “You’ll think I belong in Bedlam.”

He smiled at her. “I already think that half the time, so you’ve nothing to lose.”

She covered her mouth with her hand for a moment, her brows drawing together in distress. “But I’ve never told anyone.”

“Have I given you reason to trust me?”

She nodded slowly.

He leaned over her and cupped her cheek. “Trust me with this.”

She swallowed hard. “When I was a child, I loved seeing my mother’s rings and necklaces and ear bobs, but I was never allowed to touch any of them. So my sister and I made daisy chains and fashioned love-knot pendants from locks of our own hair. On my eighth birthday, my father gave me my first piece of real jewelry. A moonstone ring. My birthstone.”

Quinn was glad her father had taken note of her wants, but couldn’t imagine how the story related to her collapse at dinner. He thought it was best to humor her so she would continue talking. “You must have been happy.”

She shook her head. “I threw it down the well and told my parents I didn’t know where I’d lost it.”

“Why?”

“Because I couldn’t sleep.”

He raised a questioning brow.

“The moonstone wouldn’t stop whispering to me.”