The night was sky, all sky. If she lifted her arms, closed her eyes, and leaned out, she wouldn’t fall. She would dissolve into its vastness or rise like smoke and be tattered in the high, clear winds that scoured heaven’s underbelly.
The earth below was the more ephemeral element. It crouched beneath the fog like a leper hiding beneath his shroud. Up here her nerves were attuned to every nuance and her senses quivered in voluptuous surrender to her compulsion.
She glanced back through her bedroom window. Behind the frost-rimmed glass, a single candle glowed on a side table. Crumpled sheets twined across the bed and the silk puddle of a cast-off nightgown shimmered on the carpet.
Peering in like a secret spectator on her own life, Anne thought the room unfamiliar. She fancied that if she stood outside long enough gazing in, she would eventually see its exhausted tenant cross the room with a cup of warm milk.
The thought petrified her. So like madness, fancying two people inhabited one life.
Too little sleep, she thought, rubbing her fists into her eyes. Too much wine. Too many memories and obligations, too many regrets and wishes crowded her thoughts, her heart, her soul. She wanted freedom from them all.
She wanted to shed her humanity, abandon it to the animal prowling within her, that blessed conscienceless creature without past or future, just the single focus of its intent: Jack Seward, who courted her in one world and hunted her in the other.
She pulled the black cap down over her hair and readjusted the silk mask over her eyes. The length of rope draped across her chest felt awkward, and the pistol jammed beneath the waistband at the small of her back dug into her flesh.
The sky was black, the air was frigid, but at least it was hers. Tonight she visited Devil Jack, Whitehall’s Hound, a man who did terrible thingsbut none so terrible as making her believe she might have loved him, returning to her that destructive illusion, that killing hope. With a man like that, one didn’t take chances. The cold penetrated her joints and stiffened her fingers. It would have numbed her heart if that organ hadn’t already been deadened.
She needed this to awaken it, these intense and empowering moments when she risked nothing more important than her life, when she belonged only to herself and the night and the cold distant stars.
She trotted sure-footed along the rime-frosted roof. Her senses swam under a deluge of stimuli. Sound was a forest, color a feast, breath and muscle and movement an orchestration. And she reveled in it.
Damn Sophia and her father. Damn Julia Knapp. Damn Matthew’s crippled soldiers and Mrs. Cashman huddled on some foul street corner. And damn Jack Seward.
She peered over the eaves. A youngster by the park gate across the street lifted his clever face and searched the rooftop. Another of Jack Seward’s lackeys. Let him search.
She ran lightly, her breath making fog. The steep-pitched surface was not so easily navigated as the flat broad peak, but her figure would be hard to pick out against the black background. She did not consider the danger of unsure footing. She did not care.
She only wanted one thing from this night, an end to dreams and resurrected pain.
She went on, her direction unerring, her flight straight as a nighthawk’s. She knew where he lived, an unassuming address in an unprepossessing area of town, where the landlords catered to impoverished second sons and debt-ridden fashionables.
She came to a chasm demarcating a street far below and flung herself into the emptiness above it. She laughed as she landed on the far side, pushing herself to go faster, quicker than her betraying mind could form Jack’s face. Only exertion touched her now, dampening her skin with equal measures of sweat and pleasure.
Another street, another leap. Her muscles stretched and quivered, her pulse raced like a rabbit’s, and every pore of her skin breathed exhilaration. Heart pounding, she scrambled up the steep slate shakes to the top of the town house.
She was there.
She caught her breath. Beneath her Jack slept and dreamed and plotted her capture and her capitulation. He was too much involved with her, she thought grimly. He pursued the woman
and
the thief, and now he’d pay for that error.
A vague premonition tightened her mouth with pain and challenged the feral light in her eyes. She shivered, breaking free of its petrifying hold. Hadn’t she always taken what she wanted? Well, now she wanted Jack Seward.
She crept to the edge of the roof and hung over. Directly below a window gleamed blankly, its ledge no wider than a man’s hand.
She snaked over the eaves, balancing on her hips, and released one hand to search the top of the window frame for a hold. Mortar crumbled beneath her fingertips. She dug into it and pivoted out and over, swinging onto the ledge.
She peered in on an empty room as she wiggled a thin sliver of metal between the casements and loosened the catch. Then she slid the window open and slipped inside, looking about. She was in the bedroom of a small town house, like hundreds of its neighbors, neither character nor charm distinguishing it, merely convenience. She’d been in its like before.
Through the open door to her left would be one more bedchamber and a dressing room beyond that. Below this would be a formal dining room and a salon, maybe a library, and on the ground floor the kitchen and pantry and servants’ quarters.
She moved cautiously to the open door and peered in, giving her eyes time to adjust to the darkness. She was right. It was a bedchamberJack’s. She could just make out his long body stretched over a narrow bed. She moved into the room, cataloguing the contents.
It had to be something mocking, threatening. Something to make him aware of his own exposed position, to make him feel anger, frustration, and loss. Something to make him renew his efforts to find her.
She searched among the impersonal collection of toiletries, books, and unassuming possessions that lined his bureau. There was nothing except . . .
The idea took hold of her imagination, refusing to be shouted down. It would be so easy, so perfect. And afterward he would hate her, rising to her provocation like a hound to the scent.
He would become single-minded in his pursuit of her and thusoh God, she nearly laughed with the bitter humor of ithis attention turned once again toward the thief, the widow would fight free of his fascination. That’s all she needed. A bit of space. But first he had to lose his composure, be provoked beyond his ability to resist giving chase . . .
With a small sleek hiss of steel she pulled his ceremonial sword free of its ornate sheath. To use his own weapon against him would be a good start.
Jack’s breathing hitched, but in this man’s dreams such a sound was a boon companion. Steel, the smell of gunpowder, the call of dying men, all were too customary to call him back to the sentient world. She recognized the truth of her intuition beyond question and the recognition stopped her. He was no longer a stranger to her. She knew him.
And
he
thought he knew
her. Fool
.
The slender sword still in her hand, she padded to the window. Carefully she drew back the drapes, letting in a weak illumination. She peered down, frowning at what she saw. His window backed against a cramped alley thirty feet below. Black with soot and unadorned, there were no easy handholds. A brick watercourse no more than a few inches wide was all that broke the sheer expanse.
She leaned farther out. One other window gave out from his apartments. Set catercorner six feet below and four feet over, it was too far away to be useful. She returned to his bedside, lifting a light wooden chair on her way and carrying it with her. She set it down beside his bed, keeping her eyes averted from him. A man like Jack would feel himself being watched even in his sleep.
She swung a leg over the chair, settled lightly on the edge, and lifted his sword. It glinted in the moonlight. She pointed its tip directly at Seward’s throat and, taking a deep breath, nudged the bed with her foot.
He came awake without movement, only the sudden silence that his exhalation should have filled alerting her that he was conscious.
“Yer awake, Cap. Dinna take me fer a fool,” she whispered roughly.
His eyes opened, clear and so utterly alert she wondered if he’d ever been asleep at all. His pupils reflected back a darkness as clear and brilliant as any color.
“My thief.” The soft, rich tone held a greeting. His gaze traveled to the point a few inches from his neck. Even in the shadows she could see the bitterness in his smile. Without asking her permission he sat up. The bedsheet slipped to his waist. The collar of his nightshirt had come unfastened during his sleep and twisted. The opening was pulled wide across his upper torso, exposing his chest, shoulder, and upper arm. The sight brought the blood racing to the surface of her skin.
The muscle of his biceps bunched. Gilding him like a statue in moonlight, what light there was clung to the powerful swells and tensed, flowing lines.
“Put yer arms up. Yer not thinking to pitch yerself at me, are you? I’d pith you like a toad.”
“Would you?” His tone was no more than curious, but his muscles relaxed and he eased fractionally back into his pillow.
She trusted his relaxation less than his tension.
“And why wouldn’t I? Yer become problematic-like and yer interferin‘ with me lay.”
“Lay.”
“Me job. Me scam. Me livelihood.”
“Forgive me for importuning you,” he said. “But all you have to do is give me back the letter you stole from Lord Atwood.”
What letter? she wondered. Atwood had no letter. He
Jack edged forward and her attention snapped back to him. The movement had further exposed his chest. Not that it mattered to him. He took no more account of his partial nudity than if he’d been fully clad. She was not so fortunate.
His bones carried the weight of his heavy musculature with clean and elegant ease. His skin looked dark against the white sheets, taut, fine-grained, and smooth. A light furring of dark hair glinted on his chest and a night’s worth of stubble further shadowed the hard angle of his jaw. Lying recumbent in the dim room, he looked incredibly, hypnotically masculine.
Latent sexuality stirred in the air between them. She could nearly feel his tongue against the seam of her lips, his hands on her . . .
She did not want to be overpowered by this. Too much in her life had already overpowered her, left her spirit scattered on an ocean of regret. She was in control now. She would have mastery here.
“You’ve annoyed me!” Her voice sounded weak and petulant, mewling like a weak, spineless creature.
“Once more, I’m sorry.” The whiskey-smooth apology mocked her, yet uncertainty kept his gaze vigilant.
How far would she go? he was asking himself. Of what was she capable?
She needed him to be more than uncertain of what she might do. She wanted him to think she was capable of committing any crime, any act. And wasn’t she? Didn’t she shed the widow’s fretful life when she took to the rooftops?
He’d hounded her thoughts and her person. He’d followed her into her dreams and into her world. He’d harried her and cornered her and now she’d turned on him.
And she
wanted
to do this. She wanted to own all the power he represented.
“ ‘Sorry’ won’t do, Cap. Maybe I should just ends it now. With you out of me way, I’d have a fair clean go of things.”
“Murder? My, what a wee bloodthirsty thing you are.”
She cocked her head. “I wouldna ‘ave to sully me immortal soul with murder, now would I? I’d just have to cripple you like.” With a short, savage stab, she speared the sheet, pinning it an inch from his side. He emitted a sharp, involuntary hiss. She smiled.
“Fascinatin‘ feelin’, ain’t it? Not knowin‘ if the next minute will be yer last. Knowin’ yer enemy holds yer fate in ‘is hands and there’s naught ye can do about it.” She leaned close enough so that she could see him breathe in her scent, trying to place it and name her. Even now, even here, he still pursued her.
She drew back, furious she’d been unable to instill in him any of the fear he awoke in her. “ ‘Ow does it feel bein’ the ‘are rather than the ’ound?” She jerked the sword, wrenching the sheet off him.
He surged forward, his face breaking free of the shadows, for a moment clearly illuminated in the light from the window. But she’d already swept the sharp tip of the sword back, denting his dense pectoral. “Sit back!”
For a second a nerve twitched beneath his fine, clear eyes then he slouched back into the murky half light. His chest rose and fell in deep controlled measures. Heat and a tingling abrasive sensation rode over the surface of her skin, into her belly and breast and thighs. She’d stopped him. She’d bent him to her will.
For a long minute they stared at each other.
“Up, Cap,” she said, and rose from the chair. She pulled the pistol from her belt, holding both the sword and gun level on him.
“And if I refuse?”
“Ever seen a stallion gelded, Cap?” The sword tip dropped, lightly flirting with the linen covering his groin.
Their gazes locked for the space of a heartbeat. Without a sound, Jack backed away from the implicit threat and hefted himself from the bed. He was tall, so much taller than she was, and yetdark sensuality shivered in her veinsshe had power over him. Even at the distance of two yards, he stood towering over her, his stance relaxed, his gaze watchful.