The Duke's Stolen Heart (London Scandals Book 4) Page 3

  “At your service. Might I assist you in disposing of that…” What in the hell was it, anyway? Havencrest squinted through the gloom. A vaguely person-shaped body lay half-in, half-out of the tipped-over wheelbarrow. Miss Lowry’s shoulders were a tense line in her poor-fitted jacket. There was no delectable derriere for his perusal, to Havencrest’s great disappointment. Her great coat’s flaps concealed everything.

  “Body,” Miss Lowry supplied. “I bought her in St. Giles earlier tonight. She stinks.”

  Havencrest barked a shocked laugh. “Are you a murderer in addition to being a thief?”

  “I am not, although I suppose I cannot expect you to believe any explanation I might supply for being caught dumping a corpse into the river at past midnight,” Miss Lowry sighed. “I bought her off a resurrectionist. By his standards, she was freshly dead.” Antonia’s nose wrinkled, and Malcolm didn’t know whether to laugh or shake her, aghast with astonishment.

  “Every time I think I have sufficient appreciation for your talents, Miss Lowry, I find I have underestimated you yet again,” he said ruefully, grateful to be far enough back from the body to avoid the smell of decay.

  “I am full of surprises, your lordship.” Antonia bowed. She did not remove her hat. Malcolm spied a length of black cloth knotted at the back of her head, presumably to cover her hair. A string held the hat in place. Beside her, the rug-wrapped body plopped onto the wood and unrolled to reveal a portion of pink gown. He recognized it as one of hers.

  “I conjecture you’re attempting to fake your own death,” Malcolm said with mild rebuke in his tone. “It is too bad your dress had to suffer in the process.”

  “It was my favorite,” Miss Lowry said with a note of wistfulness. “But dresses can be refashioned.”

  He had crept closer to her. Icy wind whipped through his warm woolen clothing. Antonia’s teeth chattered as she cast a glance downriver. Malcolm’s breath caught in his chest at the feral determination he saw there. This was a woman who depended upon no one.

  “You never saw me,” she declared. Antonia Lowry hoisted one end of the rug and heaved. The woman’s body rolled limply into the water. Horrifyingly, the corpse’s pink dress bubbled up until the body began to float. Havencrest seized an oar from the little boat bobbing in the river and gave it a sharp smack. Antonia startled. “Why are you helping me?”

  “I need your services.” Malcolm pushed the body away from the dock until the tide took her.

  “What do you want from me?” Miss Lowry asked in a tone as cold as the wind off the sea.

  “Not to kill yourself, firstly.”

  “That dead woman wasn’t me,” Miss Lowry explained slowly, as though he were a simpleton.

  “I am aware of that. You are, after all, standing next to me. Please,” Malcolm gestured back at his waiting footmen. “I cannot let you disappear. I also cannot permit you to be caught interfering with a corpse. There is only one logical way to be rid of the body.”

  “Who are you, really?” he asked after several minutes of silence. Havencrest estimated they had another twenty minutes before landing. Every question he’d wanted to ask her for weeks jostled for primacy. This was the question that had won out.

  “Miss Antonia Lowry—”

  “Bullshit. Give me the truth.” He cut her off. “There will be no games. Tell me who you are, or I hand you over to the magistrate.”

  She sat beside him in rigid silence, smelling of decaying flesh. “I was born to a serving woman in Virginia where I lived until the age of nine and my mother moved us to New Jersey—”

  “I said, give me the truth. If you don’t, I shall gladly hand you over to Bow Street. Aristocrats can purchase any measure of justice they desire.” Finally, he got through to her. Miss Lowry’s face blanched and her expression turned blank. It disquieted him, for Antonia Lowry—a name that would do for lack of any real one—like all women, was the most fearless con artist he had ever met.

  Not all women lie.

  But none could be trusted. Havencrest shook his father’s voice away. The man had done enough damage.

  “I caught you defiling a corpse. Please tell me you aren’t attempting to convince me of your respectability,” Malcolm’s words, clipped in frustration, were whipped away by a gust of wind.

  “It was better than the fate than she’d have met at the hands of medical students,” Miss Lowry responded sharply. “At least, I’d have preferred the river to the alternative of being sliced open for curiosity’s sake,” she retorted. Her jaw snapped shut as if she’d said too much. Her expression went from stubborn to downright mulish. “I took a locket off the body. It’s not worth anything. Cheap metal, but there’s a word engraved on it. Idless. Have you ever heard of it?”

  “No.” Havencrest responded in a cold puff of breath. This wasn’t supposed to be so difficult. Miss Lowry ought to be cowed by a duke, not leading him about by the bollocks. Not that she knew she was leading him about by the bollocks. How could she? It was all in his head, this ridiculous attraction he did not want and refused to indulge. He needed her for a single purpose, and after weeks of chasing he had one opportunity to win her to his side. He was blowing this on every level. “Yes. It’s in Cornwall, I think.”

  Miss Lowry’s teeth began to chatter. Her body shivered incessantly. Cold wind ripped through them.

  “May I offer you my jacket?”

  “No. You may not.” Miss Lowry could scarcely speak with her teeth clattering. Stubborn woman.

  “We cannot stand here indefinitely,” Malcolm ordered.

  “Milord, if you fancy, I can fetch the coach—”

  “Leave us,” Malcolm shot back sharply. The lad’s head bobbed. He had to do something before they were seen and forced to explain this wretched outing publicly. There was no possible reason for him, two footmen, and an unmarried woman to be on the docks after midnight. None. He’d be forced to marry Miss Lowry to preserve her honor—if thieves possessed any such niceties. Malcolm shuddered from more than the cold.

  “Miss Lowry,” he ordered. Her eyes snapped up, fixated on him with an emotion he couldn’t read. Terror? Hatred? Either, or both. Anything it took to get them off this freezing dock.

  “You must take my jacket,” he insisted.

  “Sod your jacket.”

  “Freeze, then.” Malcolm turned his back. His innards were knotted, tight, and tangled. His muscles had turned stiff with cold. He would be sore in the morning.

  A scuffle and scrape made him whirl on his heel. “Damnit, woman. What are you thinking?”

  Miss Lowry had untied a leaky dinghy and pushed off from the pier. Oars splashed as she grasped the rough wood of the oar handles and pulled out into the current. Malcolm leapt into the neighboring boat and cast off with flailing oars. It was a donkey of a vessel, requiring constant prods and the occasional carrot to move in the right direction. The effort of pulling the dinghy toward the shoreline made him overheat in his fine wool overcoat. “You’ll drown,” he called out. Miss Lowry flashed a grin. She loved escaping by the skin of her teeth. He’d show her. He’d catch her and hold her feet to the fire if it was the last thing he did.

  Hauling the oars through heavy waves soon made him overheat. There was no time to abandon his great coat, however, for Miss Lowry was making better time. How the devil was she so strong?

  Cold wetness lapped his ankles. “Fuck,” he swore. The boat was leaking.

  “Miss Lowry,” he called out. “Unless you desire me to swim the river to catch you, I suggest you turn around.”

  “Oh, are we a fish now?” she laughed, turning to look at him. In the moonlight he saw her expression change. “You’re sinking.”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Stay there,” she commanded. Despite his predicament, Malcolm smiled.

  “As though I have a choice in the matter.”

  Amazingly, her boat executed an excruciating slow turn. By the time her hull was pointed against the tide, Malcolm’s vessel had drifted c
lose enough for him to grasp the side. With an awkward hop, he pulled himself into her boat. They sat there staring at one another like two cats meeting in an alleyway.

  “Why did you rescue me?” he asked after a long, tense silence. The current had carried his dinghy some distance away. It rode alarmingly low in the water.

  “Because I am not a murderer.” Miss Lowry grasped the oars and sliced him with a dark glare. “Yet.”

  Malcolm laughed. His toes were icicles and his cheeks numb but he had never before encountered a woman quite like Antonia Lowry.

  “Give me the oars.”

  Antonia’s brows knit together beneath her hat. She pulled. Frowned. Pulled again. Her teeth chattered whenever she wasn’t working to pull wood against water. “Oh, fine, then.”

  “Take my coat.”

  “No.”

  “Suit yourself. Stubborn woman.” Havencrest shrugged out of it and abandoned the thing in a sad pile behind his seat, between himself and Miss Lowry. By the time he could see the shore, the sky had lightened to predawn gray.

  “To the right,” she directed sullenly. Havencrest adjusted wordlessly. His fingers had frozen into arcs around the oar handles. With each pull he cut through the tide to inch them closer to shore.

  “I have it,” Miss Lowry said at last, when his shoulders had strained to the point of fatigue. There was the scrape of rope over stone and a bump of wood against rock. Where they had landed was anyone’s guess, yet they were alive. That was all that mattered.

  Havencrest worked his icy hands to secure the rough rope. He glanced up to find Miss Lowry had taken up his abandoned coat, after all. Now that he wasn’t rowing, sweat dried against his skin in an icy corset. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask for it back…but a gentleman would never take a warm garment from a woman.

  Even if she was a thief.

  Even if she was a murderer.

  Even if he was tempted to murder her himself.

  He couldn’t though. After all, he was the one who wanted Miss Lowry’s services. After tonight, Havencrest felt certain he had secured them.

  “Sir!” Malcolm’s footmen had followed with the coach. His joints ached for warmth. Thirty-six was too old to be playing midnight seaman. Malcolm’s liveried footman, eyed Miss Lowry warily. “Inside,” he directed, practically shoving her up the step into the relative warmth of his coach. What a sight, his fine horses and gleaming coach trawling the docks in the wee hours of the morning. He judged their adventure had taken more than an hour, and the time close to four. The vehicle lurched into motion. His skin had grown clammy with damp and cold. What would she do if he stripped naked and rode home in his small clothes? But all he asked was, “Why did you go to such lengths to make people believe you were dead?”

  Miss Lowry regarded him with pitying eyes. “Because I needed to disappear.” Imbecile. The insult was implied. “You don’t intend to let me, though, do you?” she asked softly.

  “No, Miss Lowry, I do not. When I next ask for a few moments of your time I expect you to grant them to me. It will be soon. In the meantime,” Malcolm eyed the dawn streaking the sky with pink. “I require you to maintain the facade you have cultivated over the past several months.”

  They had washed up in a working-class residential part of London well south of the wealthier center. Miss Lowry stood her ground several feet away, still wrapped in his coat.

  “To what point and purpose?” A shiver wracked her body.

  “You have something I want.” Havencrest hesitated. “And you can get me the rest of it.”

  Understanding blossomed over her beautiful face. “You need me to steal for you.”

  “Exactly.”

  Relief like a summer breeze wafted through him. This woman—whatever her real name was—could reunite the two halves of the Heart’s Cry necklace his mother had owned. A memory of rustling silk and perfume dragged his eyes closed.

  Blue dress like a summer sky.

  Hair piled high and powdered with lavender.

  Blood-red diamonds—not rubies as they were sometimes presumed to be—set in whorls of gold filigree so fine as to be spun by fairies. Or, so he had believed as a child. The sound of the two halves of a precious necklace clicking together. Silk rustling as his mother set him on her lap.

  “I am going out with your father this evening. Be good for Nana.”

  The scent of lilies, faint but growing stronger until the smell made him gag.

  Havencrest opened his eyes. Miss Lowry regarded him with feline wariness. An understanding passed between them.

  “If I can get you what you want, Lord Havencrest,” she asked softly, “what will you do for me?”

  Chapter 4

  “If you succeed in reuniting me with what is rightfully mine, I shall compensate you for your efforts by not reporting you to local authorities for defiling a corpse.” Havencrest replied idly, as though he weren’t threatening her life while examining the raw blisters seeping clear fluid over his palms. Antonia had drifted with the current on her way out to the middle of the river. She hadn’t given a thought as to how she might return to shore. She always took flying leaps of faith and prayed for a safe landing. One day, her luck would run out.

  “What do I have to do to avoid being turned over to the authorities?” Steal jewels, obviously, but the more she knew about his expectations the better Antonia could evaluate whether to run at the first hint of freedom. As mistakes went, Antonia had a hard time remembering when she had last made an error this grave. Dukes we not known for leaping into leaky boats to chase down thieves in the middle of the night. She had underestimated Havencrest. Worse, she had disappointed herself.

  “You were watching me,” she said accusingly after a winding mile or so through London’s side streets. Across the seat, the Duke of Havencrest examined his bloody palms.

  “Yes,” he said with feigned boredom. “My employee, anyway.”

  That must be how he knew she had it—but this was one pilfered bauble she had no intention of giving up. The gold filigree pendant’s exquisite workmanship was the only reason Antonia had not yet melted it down to sell. Ever since she had clipped a single chain link and snaked the gem from an older woman’s bosom at an opera house several months ago Antonia had been unwilling to part with the bold red tear-shaped diamond at the center.

  It was her savings, Antonia told herself.

  “I need your…” Havencrest paused. His gaze flicked down her body and back up so quickly she barely registered his brazenness. “Assistance,” he finished.

  Antonia grinned. Needing her made the man despise himself for weakness. When the time came, she would use that leverage to make her escape. Antonia was nothing if not practiced at biding her time. In the meantime, men who needed to control the people around them were often the easiest to manipulate.

  “I see,” Antonia smirked. “My assistance. With bandaging your hands?”

  Where the devil had that offer come from?

  Havencrest stiffened. He tucked his hands behind his elbows, arms crossed over his broad chest. “My hands are fine.”

  “You had best clean the wounds and bandage them to prevent infection. I further recommend you take leave of your heavy schedule of scowling at ladies lest your injuries provoke an excess of heartfelt outpourings. You might find yourself saddled with a duchess.” Antonia prodded him with any combination of words she could think of that might provoke a reaction.

  All he did was scoff. Antonia felt like a kitten dangling by the scruff of her neck, hissing with impotent fury.

  “I hardly set foot in London society, as you well know.”

  She did know. Antonia made it her business to observe. Havencrest, apparently, did too. Well, now that the man had caught her dead to rights defiling a corpse, she had little choice but to cooperate with his plan.

  “I need specifics,” Antonia insisted as color bloomed across the morning sky over dark rooftops. “What is it you want me to steal?”

  Havencrest hes
itated. “The other half of the necklace you stole. I know you’re capable of it. You’ve done it before.”

  “Perhaps.” Antonia shrugged. If she was not mistaken, the way the scowling man’s gaze flicked over her body indicated interest beyond the mercenary. She could use that, too. “Whose?”

  “The Dowager Duchess of Summervale’s.”

  Antonia crossed her arms over her chest. “You hardly need me for that. Any fool could clip the chain. I doubt she would even notice it was missing until…”

  A faint smirk quirked up the corners of the duke’s lips, the shape of which she ought not to be noticing at this inconvenient moment. Antonia’s eyes narrowed. The bastard had as good as tricked her into a confession. It was one more powerful piece of leverage he held over her. Anger flared in her breast. No man controlled her. Not now. Not ever.

  The tension between them shifted subtly. Havencrest’s mouth softened. His blue diamond gaze bored into hers until she averted her eyes and lifted her chin. “My point is, any fool could nick the old lady’s necklace in a trice.”

  “How do you do that, Miss Lowry?” he asked roughly.

  “Do what?”

  “Mimic my accent to perfection.”

  Antonia shifted in her seat. She had always been able to copy another person’s mannerisms and accent with a few minutes’ study. It was how she had turned herself into a shy maid, and then an American heiress, and countless other identities over the years. Garbed in a stable boy’s shirt and trousers, Antonia hadn’t even realized she had slipped into another person’s skin.

  “I wasn’t trying to,” she snapped. The carriage jolted around a turn and she slid a few inches across the seat. Antonia stomped her boot to the floor and braced her arm against the side of the coach. Her fingers dug into plush velvet. When they completed the turn, she found her foot trapped between the Duke’s gleaming Hessians. Unbidden, her gaze followed the line of his long leg up to the knee where black leather became buff trousers. Thick thighs a few inches apart from one another invited her to look where no lady’s eyes should wander—