Twice the Temptation (25 page)

 
That was enough of that. Connoll climbed to his feet. “If your worry, my lady, is that Gilly will find herself belittled and broken by her spouse, you have nothing to fear. I will, however, ask that you stop doing to her the very thing from which you claim to wish to save her.”

 
Lady Munroe clamped her jaw closed again. “I’m sorry if I’ve been such a burden to you, Gilly,” she ground out, and left the room.

 
Lord Munroe blew out his breath. “I’d best go fetch her something. That should improve her mood.”

 
“Papa,” Gilly said, before he could leave, “why have you let her rule you? Obviously you do have…”

 
“A mind of my own?” her father finished. “I love your mother. I met her father; I knew what sort of man he was. I’ve done my best to not be anything like him. Apparently I’ve stepped too far in the other direction, and you’ve
paid the price.” He glanced at Connoll. “Or very nearly.”

 
“I wish I’d come to know you better.”

 
He grinned. “Heavens, girl, I’m not dead yet. And she’ll come around. It’s mostly that she’s terrified you’ll make the wrong choice. Once she sees that you’ve done well for yourself, I think some of the chill will leave the air.”

 
“I hope so, Papa. Thank you.”

 
He gave a slow smile. “And thank you. Both of you. The wind seems to have changed; perhaps I’ll keep the breeze blowing.”

 
As the viscount left the room, Connoll swept Gilly into his arms and kissed her again. He meant to spend a great part of each and every day from now on doing that. “So, my dear, I believe we have a wedding to plan,” he said. “I think a special license and a marriage next week might be appropriate. And you?”

 
She slipped her arms over his shoulders to look up at him. “I think that is a good idea,” she murmured, leaning up to kiss him once more. “A very good idea.”

 
Six weeks later

 
Evangeline took a turn about the upstairs drawing room of Rawley Park in Devonshire. Connoll had several times told her the size of the house, and mentioned the splendid fishing in the lake at the rear of the estate. Setting eyes on it, though, had been startling.

 
“Are you dancing again?” his low, amused drawl came as he leaned into the doorway.

 
“I can’t help it. I knew you had excellent taste in paintings, but this is the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen.”

 
“And it’s yours.”

 
“Ours,” she corrected.

 
He straightened, joining her by the window. “We could wrestle for it. I can almost guarantee that you’ll win.” He slid his arms around her waist, and she leaned back against him.

 
“‘Almost’?” she repeated, chuckling.

 
“Very well. I can absolutely guarantee it. You know me; it’s the wrestling part I enjoy.”

 
“Mm-hm.”

 
A hand rapped at the open door. “Lady Rawley, another box just arrived for you,” Doretta said, hefting a wooden container about the size of a hatbox in her hands.

 
“It’s smaller than the other ones, anyway,” Connoll said, releasing her. “Perhaps you’re finally running out of clothes to be delivered.”

 
“Nonsense,” she shot back over her shoulder as she left the window to take the box. “This is probably the earbobs.”

 
“Good God,” he muttered. “In that case, I’ll go have the stable expanded.” Kissing the back of her ear, he headed out again.

 
Evangeline laughed as she scooted Elektra off the bed and sat to pull open the lid. A small mahogany box rested in a pile of straw, a note wrapped around it. “Connoll,” she said, instinctively pulling her hands away from the box.

 
Immediately he turned around and strode back into the room. “What’s wrong?” he asked sharply.

 
“It’s—”

 
“Damnation,” he said, spying the box. “I thought she’d decided we had a slight chance of having a tolerable marriage.”

 
“I did, as well.” Wiping her palms on her skirt, she reached in and untied the string holding the note to the box.

 
“Gilly, don’t. I’ll throw the whole thing in the lake.”

 
“That would probably kill all of your very tasty fish. And I’m touching the letter; not the box.”

 
“I doubt the Nightshade Diamond cares about semantics,” he noted darkly.

 
She understood his uneasiness. With the news she’d given him yesterday, they both had reason to want nothing but good luck for the next eight months or so. Still, her mother wanted grandchildren, and she couldn’t imagine that the viscountess would risk that out of vindictiveness.

 
With a shallow breath she opened the note. Swiftly she read through it, and then handed it to Connoll as tears welled in her eyes. “Here,” she said, wiping her cheeks.

 
“Good God, Gilly,” he grunted, wrapping his free arm across her shoulders.

 
“Read it.”

 
“‘Dearest Evangeline,’” he obediently began aloud, “‘I have recently discovered that a woman can learn important lessons from her own child—children, for I must include Connoll in this.’” He glanced at Gilly’s face. “That’s the first time she’s referred to me as other than ‘that man.’”

 
“Keep reading, Conn.”

 
“I am, I am. ‘Your father took the Nightshade and hid it from me. Since then he and I have had several interesting—and enlightening—conversations. As a result of them and your marriage, we have decided to journey to Scotland for the autumn. And I cannot—no, I WON’T—take the diamond with us. I seem to have developed some
good luck, and I don’t wish to jeopardize it. So the Nightshade is yours again, since your Aunt Rachel continues to deem you the most worthy. Do with it what you think best. My most loving regards, Your Mother.’”

 
They sat silently for a long moment, looking at the box. “That’s unexpected,” Connoll finally said.

 
“What are we going to do with it?”

 
“I have an idea.” Stepping forward, he lifted the larger box, the diamond container still inside. “Come with me.”

 
“You can’t just throw it away. Someone will find it, and then whatever happens to them will be our fault.” She followed him down the stairs to his office, where he sat behind the desk and pulled out a piece of paper. “What are you doing?”

 
“Writing a warning,” he said, continuing to scrawl out something. “I’m not going to throw it away.” He blew on the paper, then folded it. Taking a breath, he opened the box and glanced inside, nudging something inside with one finger. “It’s there, in the velvet bag. And I told you that I have a plan.”

 
“And you’re still not telling me what it is.”

 
“I’m showing you.” He shoved his note inside the mahogany box and slammed the lid again, then lifted the larger box. “This way, my heart.”

 
This time they left the house, heading out to the large stone stable. He shooed the half dozen grooms out, and walked to the far back corner of one of the stalls. Finally he set the box down.

 
“You’re going to bury it in the stable.”

 
“No.” He pulled over another large box and stood on it. Then he reached out just above his head and pulled at one of the stones. After a bit of wiggling, it shifted and
came loose in his hand. He set it down beside the box. “I used to hide my treasures in here when I was little,” he said, glancing at her over his shoulder. Reaching in, he pulled out a lead soldier and a shilling. “Very little,” he continued, handing them down to her.

 
“Do you remember,” Evangeline said as he stepped back down and gingerly picked up the mahogany box, “what I told you about my aunt’s explanation of the curse?”

 
“About good luck following bad once you set the damned thing aside?”

 
“Yes, that.”

 
“I remember.”

 
Carefully he pushed the box with its note deep inside the wall, then retrieved the stone and set it back in place. Once he was finished, the corner looked as though it hadn’t been touched in decades.

 
“You’re a very brilliant man,” she concluded, taking his hand as he jumped to the ground again.

 
“I know. I married you.”

 
“Do you really think it’ll be safe there?”

 
“Not only do I think it’ll be safe, I think that the Addisons for generations to come will benefit from having it lodged in the Rawley Park wall.”

 
“As long as no one tears down your stable.”

 
“As long as no one actually finds it.” He grinned, tilting her chin up to kiss her. “And if they do, I can only hope they know how to read and put it back immediately.”

 
She kissed him back, reveling in the feel of his strong, warm arms around her. “Or that they’re so unlucky the Nightshade will have no effect on them whatsoever.”

 
“You’re talking about our descendants, Gilly. They can’t possibly be unlucky.”

 
Evangeline laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck as he scooped her up off the floor. “But sometimes bad luck can become good luck. You’re a prime example of that.”

 
“And don’t you forget it.”

 
Diamonds Are Not a Girl’s Best Friend

 
Chapter 1

 
June 2007

Wednesday, 8:51 a.m.

 
“Forget it, Rick!” Samantha Jellicoe calledover her shoulder. “You volunteered me for this job, so keep out of it!”

 
“It’s my building!” the low, British-accented drawl came in return.

 
“It’s your building being loaned to the V & A. Butt the hell out.”

 
To prevent further argument, and to keep him from hearing her laugh, she shut the garden gate and strode out through the Devonshire sunshine toward the old Rawley Park stable. It actually wasn’t a stable any longer; years ago an ancestor had turned it into storage in favor of a new, larger stable. And then Rick Addison had further converted it into a huge temperature-controlled safe room for paintings and works of art he didn’t have room to display.

 
And it wasn’t even that, at the moment. “Hey, Armand,” she greeted as she reached the locked door and the very properly dressed bald man standing in front of it. “Sorry I’m late.”

 
“No worries, Miss Jellicoe,” Armand Montgomery returned, looking as though he were fighting the instinct to salute. “I only just arrived, myself.”

 
He was lying, because she’d seen his blue Mercedes pull up the long estate drive twenty minutes earlier. But he was also British, and even the assistant curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum would never complain about being made to stand around. “Here’s the new alarm code,” she said, pulling a card out of her jeans pocket and handing it to him.