A Loving Scoundrel (3 page)

“If ye insist on explaining,” she injected, “ye could at least make sense.”

A mere grumble. Encouraging. Apparently she was going to listen to him.

“The ‘legal’ way I mention was gambling.”

A snort. “That ain’t being robbed, that’s being stupid. A big difference there, mate.”

Jeremy grinned, and the wench became obviously flustered by it, which only made his grin turn knowing. He then explained that John Heddings was the culprit who chose not to play fair and that she was going to exact retribution for them.

“We’re taking you to Heddings’s house in the country,” Jeremy continued. “It’s rather big, will be filled with servants, and thus, they’ll be confident that no thief in his right mind would ever consider robbing them, and rightly so. Which is to your benefit, lad.”

“ ’Ow’s that?”

“The doors might be locked, but the windows will pro’bly be open this time of the year. The fact that they don’t expect to be robbed means they won’t be on their guard for it. And it’s past midnight, so the servants should be asleep and out of the way until morning. So you should have no difficulty entering the house.”

“And then wot?”

“You will need to enter the master bedroom undetected. Chances are Heddings will be in it when you do, but you’re quite used to that I’m sure. Like the servants, he should be fast asleep this time of night. Then proceed to do what you do best. Rob the man.”

“Wot makes ye think ’e won’t ’ave his valuables locked away in a safe?”

“Because he doesn’t live in London. The gentry feel much more secure on their country estates.”

“Wot do these ’eirlooms look like then, that I’m s’pose to be nabbing?”

“Two rings, both very old.”

“I’m still needing a description, gent, if I’m to pick them out o’ the pot.”

Jeremy shook his head at her. “It doesn’t matter, since you can’t just take Percy’s two rings. That would leave Heddings knowing right where to point the finger. Your job, dear boy, is no different than you’re accustomed to, to take everything of value you find. Your gain is that you may keep all the rest for yourself, thousands of pounds’ worth of jewelry, I’m sure.”

“Thousands!” she said, gaping at him.

He nodded with a chuckle. “Now aren’t you glad we insisted you come along?”

Those lovely violet eyes narrowed abruptly on him. “Yer a bleedin’ idiot if ye think any trinkets, no matter how costly, makes up for the trouble I’ll be in for not getting permission to do this first.”

Jeremy frowned, but not over the name-calling. “You’re on that tight a leash?”

“I’ve rules to abide by, aye, and ye’ve made me break most o’ them.”

His sigh was long and drawn out. “You
could
have mentioned this sooner.”

“I figured the barkeep would’ve stopped ye. Didn’t take ’im for no coward, big as ’e is.”

“No one likes to get a bullet in their face, lad,” Jeremy said in the barkeep’s defense. “But he can attest that you weren’t given a choice in the matter. So what, really, is the problem?”

“It’s none o’ yer concern—”

“Beg to differ, you’ve just made it my concern.”

“Like ’ell. Figure it out real quick, mate, that ye’ve interfered in m’life too much as is. Drop it, or we’re done talking about
any-
thing.”

A long moment passed before Jeremy nodded—for now. But causing their thief extended grief had not been part of tonight’s agenda. He’d have to accompany the girl home now, when they were done, to get whatever trouble he’d caused her set right.

There shouldn’t have been any trouble, though, and that’s where this situation was getting most odd. They were offering a thief a golden opportunity. Any
normal
cutpurse would have jumped on it and been grateful to have such a golden egg dropped in his lap. But no, they had to get the one exception, a thief from a gang that was apparently so bogged down in rules that they couldn’t even do odd jobs without getting permission first. Which defied reason. What bloody difference could it make when, where, or what, as long as the fat purse got brought home?

The coach stopped. Percy said with a sigh, “Finally.” Then: “Good luck, youngun. Not that you’ll need it. We’ve every confidence in you, ’deed we do. And can’t tell you how much this is appreciated. It’s deuced hard hiding from your own mother, specially when you live with her.”

Jeremy opened the coach door and ushered the girl out before Percy’s dissertation turned into his usual long-winded sort. They were parked in the woods near Heddings’s estate. He took her arm and led her through the trees until the house was in sight.

“I’d wish you luck as well, but you aren’t likely to need it,” he said in parting. “I’ve seen how capable you are at what you do.”

“Wot makes ye think I won’t be bolting for home soon as I’m out o’ yer sight?”

Jeremy smiled, though she probably couldn’t see it. “Because you have absolutely no idea where you are. Because it’s the middle of the night. Because we can get you back to London much, much sooner than if you try to find it yourself. Because you’d rather return home with your pockets full of dazzling gems than empty. Because—”

“That were enough becauses, mate,” she interrupted in a low grumble.

“Quite right. But one last assurance. If for some inexplicable reason you are apprehended, don’t panic. I’m not sending you to the wolves, dear boy. I
will
see to your release no matter what it takes. You may depend upon it.”

I’
M NOT SENDING YOU TO THE WOLVES
. Who did he think he was kidding? He was the bleeding wolf. But she could breathe normally again, now that he was no longer near her and looking at her with those penetrating blue eyes.

She’d nearly given herself away, with all those blushes, and that had frightened her, too, that she’d been unable to control what that gent made her feel. She usually dealt well with men, she was “one” of them, after all. But then she’d never come so close to one of Malory’s caliber. Just looking at him flustered her, she found him so attractive!

Danny had never been so distraught in her entire life, with possibly one exception. But she’d been too young to realize the danger she had been in then, hadn’t known that if she’d stayed where she was she’d surely die, only knew that she was completely alone in the world, with no one to turn to for help.

She wasn’t alone anymore, but she might as well be. She’d been living on a tightrope of anxiety for several years now because she was getting too old to hide that she’d never fill out with manly proportions like the rest of the boys eventually did. Sooner or later, someone was going to realize and reveal that she’d deceived everyone from the very beginning.

It had been easy, keeping that secret over the years, much easier than she could have hoped for, and all because Lucy had been right. Bringing her home to the pack in ragged knee breeches, a shirt too big, a coat too small, that old hat she’d found to keep the rain out of her eyes, and with her long hair chopped off to the neck had left a lasting impression that had never altered.

She quickly became “one of the boys.” She’d learned to steal with them, learned to fight with them, learned everything they did—well, except when they went looking for female companionship of the type Danny didn’t want to know about.

There were fourteen of them at present, and they lived in a dilapidated house that Dagger paid the rent on. There had been many houses like it over the years, even a few abandoned tenement buildings when there wasn’t enough money to pay for rent.

Dagger never stayed in one place long. The current house had four rooms: a kitchen, two bedrooms, and a large living area. Dagger had one of the bedrooms for himself. The girls got the other bedroom to sleep in, or work in, if they were old enough to start whoring. Everyone else slept in the large living area, Danny included.

There was a small backyard. Though no grass grew in it, it was still nice for the younger children to play in. Danny had enjoyed backyards herself, once she got over her aversion to being dirty. Bathing wasn’t an option for her, at least not in the communal tubs set up once a week in the kitchen. She snuck off to the river instead, when she could manage to. And the rain became her friend.

Lucy was her only confidante. Lucy didn’t get the pox as she’d feared, but she did end up selling her body at Dagger’s insistence. Danny understood his logic, even if she didn’t like it. Being a comely woman, Lucy would have gained too much notice from the victims she intended to rob. A pickpocket had to be almost invisible to his target. Lucy couldn’t be that, and how else was she to earn her keep then?

Dagger had been the oldest among them back then and he still was, so he was their leader by default. There’d only been a few rules to start with, nothing anyone could really mind. But Dagger seemed to think if he didn’t add more rules every so often, then he wasn’t doing his job.

Danny never argued with him. She did what she was told to do without complaint. His was the only keen eye she really worried about because, aside from Lucy, he was the only one left who had been there the day she’d arrived with Lucy, and eventually it was going to occur to him to count up the years—and wonder why a twenty-year-old man still had the face of a twelve-year-old boy.

He was thirty himself now or thereabouts, thirty and still running a pack of orphans. He could have moved on. Most of them did when they reached their high teens, wanting more than the pack offered, wanting to be able to keep what they stole, rather than turning it all over to Dagger to buy the food and pay the rent and bring home the occasional trinket to make one of them smile. Dagger could have moved on himself to more lucrative crimes, but he hadn’t.

He meant well, even if he was abrasive. Danny had concluded years ago that he had a kind heart hidden somewhere in his scrawny chest. As leader, he probably thought he had to be hard and unbending. But she guessed he didn’t see himself just as their leader, but also as their father. And that’s why he hadn’t moved on with the rest. More orphans joined them, more left. Their numbers never really got higher than twenty or so, but they never got lower then ten either. There was always someone who needed looking out for.

The number one rule of the pack was never, ever, rob the gentry in their own homes. That was the surest, quickest way to get them up in arms and to have the authorities come sweeping through the slums in search of the culprits. Finding a house full of orphans who weren’t official orphans would be a dead giveaway. And the horror stories that Dagger told about real orphanages were enough to enforce that rule. He knew firsthand, since he’d escaped from one years ago. Danny was breaking that rule tonight.

Not that the gentry were off-limits, no indeed. But they were only to be robbed when they were found out and about, on the streets, in taverns, at market or otherwise shopping, where they might not even notice a few coins missing, and if they did, might think they’d merely dropped them by accident or spent them without remembering.

The second rule that served them well was that they were to stick to their own areas and never go off to steal in places they weren’t familiar with. Dagger assigned each an area and changed it weekly, so the normal residents in those neighborhoods wouldn’t start to recognize any of them. Danny was breaking that rule, too.

Another rule pertained only to her and a few others, since their age and height marked them as no longer children. The logic was, the taller they were, the harder time they’d have reaching their hand into a pocket. So when they reached a certain height, they graduated into the “specific jobs only” class, which meant they did no stealing on their own, only jobs that Dagger sent them to do. Danny was definitely breaking that rule.

Dagger had arrangements for these jobs with three taverns and one inn. And because Danny was very recognizable due to the color of her hair and eyes, Dagger no longer let her do any job other than “sleepers.” She’d never failed before, but then, she’d never walked into a deliberate trap before either.

The trouble she was in pertained only to her though. If one of the other boys had been captured instead, she had no doubt Dagger would have called it an exception and been glad of the unexpected riches that would tide them over for quite a while. There would be pats on the back and a celebration. But because
she
was the one captured and forced to break the rules, Dagger’s attitude was going to be just the opposite—because he’d been looking for a reason to give her the boot.

For over two years now, nearly three, she’d been on the outs with Dagger. Whereas they used to get along just fine, used to joke and laugh a lot, now it seemed that he despised her. He singled her out for reprimands every chance he got. He criticized her constantly, deserved or not. He couldn’t be more obvious that he wanted her gone, but she’d given him no reason to kick her out. Until now.

She didn’t even know why he’d turned against her, but it had started about the time she’d surpassed him in height. It could just be that as leader, he figured he should be the tallest. But he wasn’t a tall man to begin with, only about five feet seven inches. And she was flamboyant in her dress, whereas Dagger was nondescript. This impressed the children. Many of them modeled themselves after her and came to her when they needed something.

She supposed Dagger might be fearful that she wanted to take his place. She didn’t. She didn’t even like to steal herself, so she certainly didn’t want the responsibility of sending out others to do the same. She felt it was wrong, an ingrained feeling that she’d never been able to shake. But she hadn’t had much choice in the matter, living among thieves. However, she’d tried to subtly reassure Dagger that his position didn’t appeal to her, without actually discussing it, but it hadn’t seemed to help.

She could lie to Dagger, say they’d carted her out of the tavern to take her to jail, but she’d managed to escape, that it just took her a long while to find her way back home. Dagger couldn’t kick her out just because she’d walked into a trap. She had to settle for that hope.

Her distress stemmed not just from knowing what she’d have to face when she got home. It was also him, that Lord Malory. He’d disturbed her so much she couldn’t think, couldn’t even breathe. But not only that, he frightened her to her core because he mesmerized her.

Danny had never in her life imagined anyone could look like him. He wasn’t just handsome. His looks were so far beyond handsome, she simply couldn’t find a word to describe them. The closest she could come was
beautiful,
yet in a masculine way, which was a combination that was utterly amazing—and mesmerizing.

It was a wonder she’d been able to talk to him at all, he so flustered her. And she knew exactly what it was that turned her senses to mush and stole her breath when she looked at him. He appealed to her sexually, something she’d never really had to deal with before. Other men had caught her interest over the years, but none had made her wish she could actually do something about it. Playing the role of a man meant she had to ignore such things and that had been easy enough to do. Not this time. And that’s what frightened her the most about Lord Malory.

She’d spent fifteen years, her entire life, actually—at least all that she could remember of it—avoiding Lucy’s fate. And she had done it only for one reason: to not end up a whore. Nor had she ever changed her opinion about it. Lucy might have settled into the job, might not have complained as much after the fact as she had beforehand, but Danny still saw it as the worst sort of degradation.

For her, it would be the end of her life, and not just metaphorically, because she would rather starve to death in some alley than suffer strangers paying for the use of her body. But here was a man who could make her jump willingly into that role. Worse, he’d looked at her as if he knew her secret, as if he could see right through to her core—as if he wanted to touch her. Surely her imagination was playing tricks on her, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew, especially when his look turned so sensual, it nearly melted her on the spot.

He’d be a
lover.
Lucy’s term. Lucy had put all men into one category or another, depending on how they wanted to use her and for how long. The names she gave them were mostly derogatory, and some were explicit, like the
grapplers
and the
beasts. Good-bye Henrys
she liked the best since they didn’t take up much of her time, in and out in under five minutes, not there long enough to say hello to, just good-bye. Lovers, she claimed, were rare, a man who actually wanted to give pleasure as well as receive it.

A definite danger, Lord Malory was. A danger to Danny’s senses, her peace of mind, her secret. The sooner she saw the last of him—well, it couldn’t happen soon enough.