The Duke's Stolen Heart (London Scandals Book 4) Read online

  At intermission, conscious of her need to stash diamonds and rubies like a squirrel, hoarding acorns in the fall, Antonia eyed the clasp on a lady’s bracelet. One snip of her tiny jewelers’ shears through the second link in the chain would drop the row of foil-backed sparkles directly into her palm. She slipped her forefinger and thumb through the slits she had cut in the tips of her elbow-length gloves. The clever innovation had been her own idea. Gloves got in the way of the tactile experience she needed to quickly relieve women of their ornaments. Yet, she couldn’t exactly strip them off without attracting notice.

  The mirror opposite made it easy to snip through cold metal. A jostle of the shoulder and a muttered, “My apologies—so clumsy,” gave Antonia the chance to tuck her index finger into the small gap and tug. The broken link gave, and a weight landed in her palm. Satisfied, Antonia slipped her hand into the slit on the seam of her gown and into a padded pocket tied to her stays.

  “Are you ready to return to our seats?” asked Margaret.

  Her heartbeat quickened, but Antonia smiled as if she had all the time in the world. “Of course, lead the way.” Whether the lady found her arm bare in a minute or an hour, Antonia intended to be far away from the scene.

  They worked their way through the crowd but had not gone five yards before Antonia sensed a presence at her back. Every nerve went on high alert. Two seconds later, a large, unyielding hand landed upon her arm.

  “Give me one reason not to call the magistrate directly,” a familiar masculine voice declared in low tones.

  Antonia stiffened. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

  There was a low, humorless chuckle from above her right shoulder. “Alas for you, I am. Make your excuses to Lady Margaret Evendaw and meet me on the balcony. Trifle with me this time, Miss Lowry,” he ground out in a tone that barely carried to her ear, “and I promise you I will testify as witness to seeing you clip Mrs. Weston’s bracelet from her wrist.”

  A duke’s testimony against her was a death sentence, and Antonia knew it. “Give me five minutes,” she whispered.

  He dropped his grip. All the time, he had faced away from her. In the crush no one would catch their brief interaction, to her great relief. No one, except Lady Evendaw. She was not at all hazy like her sister-in-law sometimes was. Antonia’s best bet might be to return home early, pack her belongings, and run. Yes, flight was the best plan—she would be a fool to stay after Havencrest had caught her a second time. For she had no interest in handing over the part of the Heart’s Cry necklace she had already taken, and less in stealing the other half.

  Chapter 6

  The sheer cheek of this woman. Malcolm crumpled her latest, infuriating missive and tossed it at the fireplace. It missed. He snatched it up. A red haze blurred his vision as he read it again.

  Then I suppose you don’t need Heart’s Cry after all.

  Twenty thousand pounds was affordable, but it meant cutting in other areas, perhaps selling a parcel of land. Miss Antonia Lowry had forced him to think long and hard about how much he was willing to risk to obtain his mother’s favorite parure.

  Five years before, his father had passed on in his sleep and the dukedom had passed to Malcolm. In clearing out his father’s effects he had come across a tiny square of painted ivory that had upended his entire understanding of his parents’ marriage. Memories of rustling silk and gentle, floral-scented kisses were punctuated by what had come after. Specifically, his mother’s untimely death at her own hand, after she had caught his father in the arms of another woman.

  His parents’ marriage was supposedly a love match. His father’s excuse, hammered into Malcolm’s head from the day his mother had died, was that he had married his duchess for love, but he could not compete with her unyielding expectations. The bright, bold woman who had tempted the previous Havencrest to cross enemy lines in a blood feud with the Summervales—the source of which had been lost to faded memories—had given him a son and prompted the duchess to fall into a melancholy so deep it stole her away from them both. Malcolm, who had been but a child, remembered little besides hushed arguments punctuated by the sound of pottery breaking against marble.

  There had been happy moments, though. His mother had sketched paper shapes and colored them with pencils or gouache. She had spent hours cutting out intricate paper dragons and knights on horseback to tell him stories of princesses rescuing fallen knights. Before her marriage, Lady Havencrest had been an acolyte of Mary Wollstonecraft’s, to her mother’s great consternation. She liked to pretend the princesses rescued the men as often as the men saved the ladies from destruction. It had driven his father mad.

  “Your mother was daft as a rat in a chamber pot,” he’d insisted with exasperation every time Malcolm tried to broach the topic. By the time he was ten, four years after his mother’s death, he had fully accepted his father’s version of events.

  Specifically, Lady Havencrest had caught her husband in the arms of another woman while they were supposed to be attending a performance at the opera.

  When his father arrived home that evening, she had gone missing. Lady Havencrest had walked out into the night wearing her best gown and the Heart’s Cry parure her husband had given her as a wedding gift. Two days later, her body was found in the moors. A hole in her temple told the story. It had required every ounce of his father’s influence, but he managed to have her death declared an accident under suspicious circumstances.

  Lady Summervale held the duke responsible anyway. All her arguments with her daughter were cast aside in favor of blaming the previous Lord Havencrest. Malcolm had inherited her continued animosity along with the title.

  No wonder that when he had offered to purchase the top half from Lady Summervale, she had laughed in his face. Really, Miss Lowry’s fee was a relative bargain—if they didn’t get caught. Even his status as a duke couldn’t fully protect him from the consequences of stealing a valuable and storied necklace.

  Lost in his ruminations, Havencrest almost missed the sight of Antonia Lowry sweeping down the stairs in her ivory gown. She made a beeline to the coat check.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” he whispered into the night. The man took his time retrieving her cloak. Miss Lowry didn’t pause to put it on. It billowed out behind her as she swung the garnet-colored wool over her shoulders. She stopped short, her breath steaming into the night air.

  “I had wondered whether you’d attempt this,” Havencrest muttered as he clamped one hand around her arm just above her elbow. Startled, Miss Lowry glared up at him.

  “Why do you need it so badly?” Antonia demanded, eyes narrowed with annoyance. Havencrest’s heart caught in his throat.

  “That is not a discussion for here,” he said tightly. Havencrest motioned for his footman. His large gleaming coach, the same one that had carried them away from the riverbank a few days before, glided up to the curb. Antonia eyed it warily.

  “Get in.” Malcolm ordered.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Shall I summon the magistrate?” he asked. He wouldn’t do it. Antonia Lowry was too magnificent to meet her fate at the end of a hangman’s noose—not that he could afford to let her know the direction of his wayward thoughts. He didn’t like her, but a certain begrudging respect for the lady was impossible to suppress. Wily, smug women were a luxury no man could afford if he wanted to keep his sanity. It was too bad his cock didn’t know better.

  Miss Lowry made a moue of disdain. She bounced into his coach in a huff of silk and wool and settled herself with the ruffled disdain of a duchess.

  “Explain to me, Lord Havencrest,” she said coldly as the vehicle lurched into motion, “Why this particular gem is of such great importance to you?”

  Havencrest shifted. His hand was halfway into his inner pocket before he thought to pause. Hell, he had to tell her the whole sordid story eventually. But the thought of showing Miss Lowry the object in his pocket still gave him pause. After a beat of silence, he withdrew the oval of ivory
and held it out.

  Miss Lowry’s fine eyebrows knit together over the slope of her nose. “Her face has been scratched out. Is this deliberate?”

  “No. It happened quite by accident. This was a portrait of my mother. I found it amongst my father’s personal belongings after he passed five years ago.” Why was he sharing this with a woman who was no more forgiving than your average shark?

  “Well, it’s too damaged to see much of her face now…” Antonia tilted the rectangle into the light. “There’s a gold necklace set with a red stone. I can barely make it out.”

  “You already have half of it in your possession.”

  Miss Lowry inclined her head, neither confirming nor denying.

  “The stone is a red diamond said to have first surfaced in Peshawar, shortly after its discovery. Before it was cut, the man who brought it to the city to sell perished in a building collapse. According to legend, his widow found the body and the two pieces of the broken stone. She used the sharp edge of the broken gem to cut her own throat.”

  “How grisly.” Miss Lowry made a face. She squinted at the miniature. “Your mother must be so proud to wear a symbol of so much misery.”

  “She was. If you listen, you’ll understand why.” He inhaled deeply. Ordinarily, Malcolm avoided thinking about the jewels’ macabre history. He hated to think that a gift given from love had contributed in any way to his parents’ unhappiness. “The couple were buried, each with one half. But rumors of the great diamonds led thieves to disturb their rest and steal the gems. The rubies were cut, polished, and sold. Yet before they could enjoy the proceeds, the thieves died in strange and violent ways. Lore has it that whomever owns the jewels will die until true love breaks the curse.”

  “I take it, your mother believed she had broken the curse?” Miss Lowry held out the miniature.

  “She and my father, yes.” He tucked it back into his pocket. “That is, until my mother wandered out into a field in a laudanum-induced haze and froze to death.”

  “Oh.” Miss Lowry’s eyes widened in the darkness. “I hardly expected that ending.” There was a beat of silence. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “It is hard to lose a mother.” An undertone in her voice suggested an intimate familiarity with this specific sort of heartache. “The miniature is badly damaged.”

  “It is.” Havencrest’s throat tightened. “The last time I saw her, my mother was wearing the Heart’s Cry parure. You can hardly tell from the picture anymore, but the top half is cut in the shape of a heart and the detachable bottom half holds the teardrop-shaped ruby. You already have the lower half, the teardrop. I saw you take it from the bosom of Mrs. Conley, who was my father’s lover at the time of my mother’s death. I had been planning to approach her about selling it before you absconded with the gem.”

  “Does this mean I am destined to die horribly, if I were to help you?” Miss Lowry asked archly. “Because if so, you may as well call the magistrate. I wasn’t exactly headed for a peaceful death. I also doubt you and I are the ones to break the Heart’s Cry curse.”

  Havencrest threw back his head and laughed. A grin pulled at Miss Lowry’s sensuous mouth until she caved and revealed even white teeth. His laughter faded until he became gradually aware of the scant space between their knees. A familiar, unwelcome tension tightened his midsection. Fluttery shadows of emotion he refused to acknowledge stirred within, ghosts of memories he did not like to think about.

  The silence turned heavy before Miss Lowry broke it with a taunt.

  “So, little boy Havencrest—do you have any other name, or am I being a rude American to ask?—lost his dear mama and now he is desperate to have her favorite necklace.” Havencrest had never been so relieved to be savagely mocked. It put them back on even keel, where a moment ago he had felt as if they were about to topple sideways into the cold sludge of the Thames. That was not an experience he wished to contemplate.

  “My given name is Malcom. Hepworth Dunn.”

  “Malcolm Hepworth Dunn, Duke of Havencrest,” Miss Lowry repeated as if testing the syllables on her tongue. A shiver touched the back of his neck. They must return to the opera soon, before the last act. Going off in a carriage had, in hindsight, been a stupid risk to take. “I admit I expected an altogether less ordinary given name. You look more like an Azrael, or Lucien.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means, sir, that you have the countenance of a brooding man who wants to bend the world to his will and might break it if he doesn’t get his wish. You look like an avenging angel.”

  Havencrest grunted. “Does this mean you’ll tell me your true name? We both know Antonia Lowry is a fiction.”

  “Antonia Lowry is not a fiction. She is a woman who passed away in her sleep twelve years ago in Boston, at the age of ninety-three, surrounded by her seventeen cats. I highly doubt she has any objection to my use of her name.” Miss Lowry the imposter flicked a stray bit of lace back into place on her sleeve. “Now that we have had a” —she glanced around the luxurious coach— “most improper introduction to follow our even less proper initial meeting, I must ask you to return me to the theatre. It will not help you if I am thrown out of the Evendaw’s home. They are touchy about their reputations. I am touchy about my freedom. It is not a relationship destined to last.”

  Havencrest gave his driver the new direction. “You are the master thief, Miss Lowry. I leave it to you to devise a strategy.” On impulse, he leaned forward and caught her chin in his palm. Miss Lowry froze at the unexpected contact but did not pull away. Defiant brown eyes met his. “I expect you to communicate with me about every plan. Do not disappear on me again. I will find you.”

  She jerked her head away.

  “I accept your offer of twenty thousand pounds,” she said. “Though it is less than I deserve.”

  “It is twenty thousand pounds more than any thief ‘deserves’” Havencrest pointed out. Had there ever been such a stubborn woman in history?

  “I’ll start when I see the five thousand you promised me deposited into an anonymous bank account, It will be under a false name.”

  “Done.”

  Miss Lowry appeared momentarily startled by his agreement. “Who is the current owner of the Heart’s Cry?”

  “You have half of it in your possession. I’ll want that back, as well. Consider this ten thousand for your services, and ten thousand for the necklace. It is more than you can expect by selling it to an intermediary.” As he was not connected to shadowy underworld thieves, Havencrest did not know this for a fact. He was throwing a spear blindly and hoping to hit a target.

  “The Dowager Duchess of Summervale.”

  Antonia Lowry stared at him. “It couldn’t be one of your cast-off courtesans, or another of your father’s mistress, could it?”

  “Alas,” Malcolm shrugged. “My mother gave the earrings to one friend and the bracelet to another. She gave the two halves of the necklace away, one to her mother, the other to my father’s mistress. It was meant as a gesture of forgiveness, I think.” A lump formed in his throat. His gentle mother had not been easily angered. More often she was moved to tears. The memory of his child’s hands clicking the halves together, then taking them apart, echoed in his mind. “My father insisted it was revenge. However, I have since come to learn that the previous Duke of Havencrest’s opinions about the fairer sex were not always correct. In fact, many had proven to be altogether suspect. It had taken his own personal disaster to understand this.

  “The woman I took the lower half from wore so many layers of necklaces that it was a simple matter to clip one link. I followed her into her box and yanked it free when she rose to applaud the actors. Simple, really. But upon closer examination I decided it was too fine to sell.”

  “The diamond, you mean?” asked Havencrest absently. That was the obvious response, yet Miss Lowry surprised him.

  “No, the goldwork. I had seen a similar piece once…” She trailed off. “I see many jewels, of c
ourse.

  “How did you know it wasn’t paste?”

  “I didn’t care about the jewel.” The maddening woman lifted one shoulder as though one of the most valuable gems in the world held little significance. “The red teardrop is surrounded by layered filigree. It is an astonishingly good example of smithing by signares. Very distinctive. One doesn’t usually find them set with large gems.”

  Havencrest did not know what a signare was, and this did not seem like the right moment to expose his ignorance. “Now that you know it has a matching complement, wouldn’t you like to see them reunited?”

  “I admit it…intrigues me,” the woman confessed grudgingly. Havencrest held back his smile. He recognized temptation when he saw it. “But as with the first piece I obtained, I am less interested in the stones than in the setting.”

  “Wise, as the gold is less likely to cost you your life,” Havencrest said as they rounded the corner onto the street leading to the theatre. Carriages and horses lined the roadway. He tapped for the driver to stop. “It can be melted down, unlike cursed diamonds.”

  “I put no stock in stories. After all, if the diamonds are cursed, how has Lady Sumervale survived for so many years in possession of one-half?” Antonia’s gown rustled over the seats. “How did I live through our misadventure on the river? It would have been an ideal time for a bewitched diamond to kill me.” She flashed him a grin. “If you weren’t ready to do the honors.”

  “You are the most provoking woman, Miss Lowry. How is it you remain unwed?”

  “No one ever asked,” Antonia snapped. Her teeth snapped closed.

  “I understood you had come to England—alone, most unusually—because of a broken engagement.”

  “Fine. I have been asked, accepted, and spurned. I suppose you’re in the market for a duchess?”

  “Perhaps I am. Do you know any women with a tolerance for dukes with a reputation for being as broody as a laying hen?”