London Jewel Thieves

Chapter 8

Cass smoothed her hands over her skirt, then she tucked another stray strand of hair behind her ear. It was hardly fair. Whatever she'd done-and she didn't shrink from the facts of it-she'd been pinioned, tamed, forced into the theft of each shining sovereign, each gleaming jewel.

How damn dare the bastard be so dutiful as to want to see her hang for the loss of a little of what that pretty silver candelabra said he'd a mansion of. It wasn't even as if it was his damned necklace. So why get so precious?

Because obviously he was like his whole class. So singularly ungrateful for the silver spoon he'd been born with in his mouth, he wanted the whole canteen. It wasn't as if he'd gone to prison or anything. A duke's son? That would take the sodding-Ruby's words not hers--biscuit jar. She flicked her gaze over Belle standing a foot away. At least she could put her off the scent.

"But I think he is interested in you. You know, men are notorious for playing hard to get. The thing is not to let them see how desper--"

"I beg your pardon? Shall we just begin? Hmm? Thank you. People are staring. I just personally hope it's not at me."

Cass's sipped breath was a claw hammer in her heart. So, she hadn't put Belle off the scent? Christ, just wait till the Hawley bastard saw she couldn't play a note. Then the game would be up. It was probably up right now. Just like he was too for some reason. Was that kiss, the feel of her fingers clasping his rock hardness all those years ago so memorable, he hadn't had better? Because he knew her. Imagine that. And he was dying to blab it too. Probably right at the end of the recital. 'This is Sapphire.'

Then? Well, if they dug up that coffin in the cemetery, she'd be all right. Providing there was a body in that coffin in the cemetery. What if there wasn't? What if that damned undertaker had sold her short? Christ, that wouldn't be a first. Besides, only the Sisterhood knew the location and alleged contents of that grave and they were scattered to the four winds now. She couldn't very well say, 'I'm buried there,' could she?

Belle clasped her hands together and warbled. "Eef I-eye were a-ah tin-eeh-eh elfeen ... "

Jesus God, why couldn't Belle just pronounce the word if like any other self-respecting person? Why the hell did she need to she screech it to death? Tiny and elfin too? Then mutilate the corpse, before Cass had time to splay her fingers on the yellowed keys and batter out ... what exactly?

To manage through the first line with Devorlane Hawley's contemptuous stare burning holes in her and Belle's vaulting soprano bawling in her ears, her elbow all but banjoing Cass off the stool onto the floor, was going to be a miracle that ranked with some of that same God's finest. And she didn't manage it. The opening bar ... Lord, what was that twang? That screech too?

"I woulds't but fly all day. Fl-ah-ah-ah-eye-eye-eye-eye away."

Belle's screech soared to the rafters as if she was going to sprout wings and follow and fly about the beams, to the horror of the assembled multitude -lovely but worth sod all except for firewood. The beams that was, although the assembled multitude, in terms of usefulness, were probably worth even less.

Devorlane Hawley's brow twisted in agony. Whether it was due to Belle's caterwauling, or her own clanking efforts at accompaniment, or the wound he'd suffered in the Peninsular, or the choice of this particular song for his home coming, or the fact he'd come home at all, or all five for that matter, was hard to divine. But she struggled to sit there.

He didn't look the least like the kind of man who wanted to be a tiny elfin and fl-ah-ah-ah-eye away. What he looked was the kind to snap the pianoforte lid down on her fingers, to spare his ears further assault. Assault? He looked like he'd gladly sacrifice his life and everyone else's, unfortunate enough to be present, for a pair of socks to jam in his ears to shut out the eviscerating racket.

For an instant his anguished gaze collided with hers and she caught a knowing glint in his cool emerald eyes. A glint that was almost conspiratorial. As if he'd cheerfully assist her in strangling Belle in order to put an end to the torture.

She struck a wrong note. Then another. And another, to add to the symphony she'd already struck. How awful this was. Since Matthew's death, no one had ever exchanged such a look with her though. She'd never exchanged a look with them. She and Matthew had stood alone against the world. Not just because they were brother and sister, but because they were friends.

This Hawley man wasn't her friend. He was never going to be her friend. What was more she hadn't missed the measuring glint in his eyes earlier.

Maybe he wanted to see her hang, but it wasn't all the salacious bastard wanted. What if he dragged her to supper next? She'd choke. How would that look before this lot? She must go. Much as she wanted to prove her innocence, how could she?

"Fly. Fah-ly. Fly. Fly. F-ly-eye-eye-eye-eye ... "

Just as Cass wondered if the elfin did anything else-be tiny perhaps-Belle soared to a triumphant halt on the word, "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah. Ah-way." Merciful too.

The startled silence was immediately followed by a rush of applause. Cass stole her gaze sideways. Then back. It was clear as the stars on a starry night everyone wanted her and Belle to shut a certain kind of something up.

What other reason could there possibly be for so many people not just banging their hands together like frozen kippers but surging forward too? Stampeding, like a herd of cows, actually.

Since Devorlane Hawley had stepped into the library, Cass had been thinking about what it was time for: Time to think. Time not to. Time to go. Time to be silent. Time to be inventive.

She had instructed Barron to collect her in the carriage at six. Now was not the time to wait.

Now, like the tiny elfin, it was time to get the hell out of here.

***

As she rounded the bend in the road, Cass's scalp froze. Clip-clop. Clip-clop. Clip-clop-clip. Almighty God. And coming her way. She should have gone the quick way, through the secret gate between the two properties. Then she'd have been home by now. But in her panic she hadn't been able to find that path, twisted and tangled as much as she was right now.

And she was in a panic. Even now the heat of that moment when Devorlane Hawley had offered his arm and then tucked her fingers firmly beneath it, lay on her skin like a snake. It wasn't right-not when it was a good half hour since he'd as good as dragged her to the piano-that her arm should still tingle. Or that she should imagine she smelled his scent. She didn't. Especially now the damned man came after her like this in cold so perishing, her breath hit the air in a white puff and she veered sideways in the moonlight because she was having difficulty holding to the path.

How could-how could he even have missed her-when what she needed, what she wanted, was to get home to Barwych?

She clasped her side, also gnarled by a stitch. If she could see the outline of the trees and bushes skirting the road, then it stood to perfect reason she could be seen. It wasn't that she didn't expect to face Devorlane Hawley-God, no-she just didn't want to do it here, when the fact she'd run away, leaving her cloak behind, said she was guilty as hell.

No. If she was to stay-and first she must discuss with Ruby and Pearl the perilous menace of this threat-it must be on an equal footing.

She'd tried to do that. Wasn't she the queen of jewel thieves after all? But the business of Matthew and that evening had shredded her control. There had even been a time-short, very short, short enough to be minuscule, after Starkadder had beaten her senseless-when she'd actually thought of Devorlane Hawley. Dreamed about him. Not just coming for her, actually turning the whole of London upside down to find her.

Of course, she had been delirious, with a raging fever. Now the dream was coming true, it was a nightmare. If ever he had turned London upside down to find her, it was probably to wring her neck.

At all costs she must get off the road. She grasped her skirts, stepped across the ditch at the road side, cursing as her foot slid down the opposite edge. Treacley water squelched halfway up her leg, soaking her stocking.

Clip-clop. Clip-clip-clop. She mustn't be seen. Clasping a clump of grass, she dragged herself into the open field, or would have had her foot not caught a trailing bramble. My God, how the blazes could she let him see her like this, with her dress coated in mud and her topknot lying about somewhere, having pinged straight off her head as she went flying half way across the field and landed on her nose?

The clattering hooves slowed for the bend.

A bush. A tree. There must be somewhere to hide. The mist at her feet even. She tore a breath, pushed herself to her feet.

Maybe she was surrendering unnecessarily to terror? Maybe it wasn't Devorlane Hawley at all? She raised her chin, peering through the soft curls of mist.

Something large and heavy, something with dust flying and blazing lamps, drawn by horses, rattled by on the ice-slicked road. A voice which probably belonged to the driver cursed both the sharp bend and the dark.

Seeing who was inside, she fought a gasp. Then a shudder.

Not Devorlane Hawley but worse.

The tombstone with her name on it wasn't worth a damn, after all. Nor what was in it.

The knowledge held her immobile.

Gil Gressingham. Starkadder's right hand man.

And she thought hell lay back down the road at Chessington?