The Gentleman Jewel Thief (3 page)

She turned to face her audience, and by their stunned faces concluded the diamond was, indeed, the same shade of blue-gray as her eyes.

“Well, then,” she said, feeling suddenly light-headed. “More champagne?”

“R
emember, Avery, this very spot,” Harclay said, pulling on his gloves. “I’ve the oddest premonition the evening shall end early.”

“Very well, my lord.” Avery shut the carriage door. “We shan’t move, nary an inch.”

“Good. Always such a crush, getting out of these things.”

He took a deep, vigorous breath as he made his way up the front steps. It was a fine night, a very fine night indeed, a clear night sky above, and the spring air soft and cool against his skin. Harclay couldn’t remember a finer night, not in all his days; for tonight he felt thrillingly, achingly alive. His every sense tingled; his blood coursed hot and ready through his veins. Since his meeting with Hope some days before, Harclay’s mood had been effervescent, joyful even—and now, at last, the time had come.

With no little satisfaction he noted he’d arrived at just the right moment and in just the right costume: Hope’s guests were just getting in their cups, and the mood was light, jovial, as if the heady anticipation of the night’s event had not yet worn off. Like half of those in attendance, Harclay was vaguely attired as a French courtier, with powdered hair and the most enthusiastically patterned jacket his valet could find. Even with purple paisley swirling about his breast, Harclay was hardly distinguishable from the other unfortunately attired gentlemen in the room.

The stage, it seemed, was set.

A footman appeared out of the ether and passed him a goblet of what looked to be claret. Harclay sniffed it and to his surprise discovered it was brandy. Rascal, that Mr. Hope, disguising his liquors as wine; rascal, and genius.

Before ascending the heavily carpeted staircase to the ballroom, Harclay allowed himself a few breaths to savor the moment. Sipping his brandy—Mr. Hope’s selection was always damnably good—Harclay allowed himself a moment to be lost in thought. He hated to steal from the man, truly, he did. Hope was an odd fellow, surely, but a good one, an intriguing one, and Harclay might think twice before robbing him if it weren’t for the man’s million-pound fortune.

The diamond—well, it was a drop in the bucket, really, and far too great a temptation for Harclay to resist. Besides, he’d return the gem to Hope in due time, once Harclay concocted a scheme as daring, as brilliantly ludicrous, as the one he was to set in motion tonight.

Making his way at last toward the ballroom, the earl found himself in a jolly enough mood to converse with a circle of pimpled debutantes and their perspiring mamas. Music floated through the hall, and in a nearby drawing room he caught a glimpse of a famous prima donna performing an aria. The crowd was growing, hundreds and hundreds of flushed faces, and Harclay followed it into the two-story ballroom, the roar of conversation echoing off its tall, coffered ceiling. With a secret smile he glanced at the trio of monumental windows that lined the back of the space, their ink-black panes reflecting the quiver of a thousand candles.

An audible hush trailed in his wake as those he passed began to recognize him. He caught a snippet or two that made him grin:

“The Earl of Harclay . . . they say he deflowered an entire village in Sicily. Yes, the nuns, too!”

“He’s never lost a bet. Man won ten thousand off the Duke of Kent—twice!”

“It’s said he wagered his palace up in Oxfordshire on a bet that a certain gentleman could not seduce a certain lady.”

Harclay allowed himself a small chuckle. One of his favorite wagers, that, and now a legend at White’s.

Sweeping his gaze over the crowd, his eyes caught on the gleaming baubles that hung from the ears and wrists and necks of several ladies, and the more discreet jewels that decorated gentlemen’s waistcoats, their pocket watches. All these were nothing, he knew, absolutely nothing compared to the French Blue.

But the jewel was nowhere in sight. He managed to press his way to the refreshment table, where he exchanged his empty goblet of brandy-disguised-as-wine for a fresh one. Pulse thumping gloriously in anticipation, he surveyed the gathered guests over the rim of his glass. Dancing was about to begin, and out of the crowd came shouted requests for a cotillion, a reel.

Harclay dug his pocket watch out of his waistcoat. Nearly half past eleven; he didn’t have much time now. He glanced about the ballroom, his gaze meandering through the hundreds of bewigged heads. Hope’s hired guns lurked none too discreetly in corners and doorways; though dressed in full Sun King regalia, they were as conspicuous as foxes in a henhouse.

Harclay followed their gazes—there were so damn many of them! he thought with a thrill—until his own landed somewhere at the far end of the ballroom, close to the couples who were gathering to dance. At last his eyes settled on the bare shoulders of a single female.

The lady in question stood with her back to him. Licking his lips, Harclay couldn’t help but notice what a lovely slope of back it was: pale, smooth skin that rounded softly over sinew and proud but feminine shoulders. There was something distinctly erotic about her naked flesh, something seductive about the way she held herself. His eyes followed the line of her spine up to her neck; the tiny hairs there cast gold in the light of the room, and he imagined touching her fine skin, first with his fingers, then his lips . . .

No,
his blood roared, though it did nothing to quell the familiar tightening in his groin.
Absolutely not, you randy, rutting pig; now is not the time, nor this the place.

It was imperative that he focus not on lovely shoulders and skin but on the task at hand. The time was drawing near, and he needed his wits about him; the theft required a series of actions as deliberate and intricate as the steps of a country dance, and it wouldn’t do to be distracted by the charms of a lady, no matter how lovely her skin and shoulders.

But heavens, they were most lovely, delicious even; and when she turned suddenly to face him his breath caught in his throat, for to his dismay—or perhaps his delight; he couldn’t quite tell—her front was even lovelier than her back.

The earl loved women, admired them, and was, for a short spell five years before, even addicted to them. It was no great secret he’d enjoyed the charms of famous actresses, royal highnesses, an American or two. But of late his desire had cooled somewhat, for reasons he couldn’t quite comprehend. He hadn’t taken a lover for some months now, which, as England’s most notorious lothario, Harclay found rather depressing.

So it was at once unsettling, inconvenient, and wholly pleasurable to feel desire pulse through his veins once again at the sight of a beautiful woman.

His desire raced to fever pitch as Harclay’s eyes traveled from the lady’s round eyes to the enormous glittering jewel that rested just above an enticing slice of cleavage.

The French Blue.

How clever of Hope, thought Harclay, for the jewel appeared all the more alluring worn around this striking woman’s neck. Her eyes, gray-blue and dark, glittered the same shade as the diamond and were just as lovely. For a moment he lost himself in those eyes, impenetrable pools full of laughter and mischief and was that a bit of naughtiness twinkling at the edges?

His body went up in flames, pounding with desire: desire for her, for the diamond. It was lust like he’d never known, and he felt damnably, deliciously like himself for the first time in ages.

Harclay vaguely recognized her as Lady Violet Rutledge, daughter of the Duke of Sommer and heiress to his meager fortune. If Harclay remembered correctly, this was to be her third season; at her age, she was nearly on the shelf and, he mused, likely lonely, frustrated in more ways than one, and ripe for the picking.

It was too easy, really. If he’d known Hope had chosen
her
to wear the diamond, Harclay wouldn’t have hired all the gunmen, and certainly not the acrobats. Hell, with a few choice words, a discreet grope here and there, Harclay could have Lady Violet in his bed and the diamond in his safe by half past midnight.

Besides, after a few turns in the sheets, he could easily divert her thoughts from the theft to rather more unsavory things. After a few hours with her in his arms, he could surely make her forget the crime, the diamond, the chaos that was about to ensue.

Making his way toward her, the earl made no effort to suppress the achingly enormous smile that found its way to his lips.

 • • • 

L
ady Violet was chatting companionably with Mr. Hope and his Turkish antiques merchant when she felt the prick of someone’s gaze at the back of her neck. At first she ignored it—she was, after all, wearing the Sun King’s fifty-carat diamond about her neck—but when the sensation did not abate, and instead began to pulse with heat, she turned at last to face it.

God in
heaven
, it was that cad William Townshend, Earl of Harclay. He was positively devouring her with his gaze. In principle she despised the man, as a lady of good breeding ought. But in his smug smile and overwhelming allure, Violet saw a challenge; in his eyes she recognized her own thirst for a thrill.

A fellow adventurer.

She couldn’t resist.

Harclay smiled, that
devil
, showing rows of perfectly straight white teeth as he approached from across the ballroom. The crowd seemed to part as he strode forward, falling away from the earl’s tall, broad figure. Despite Mr. Hope’s Versailles theme, the earl was dressed exquisitely in the very latest of fashion, a nonpareil the likes of which Violet had never seen. He wore an emerald coat of so dark a hue it appeared blue, and then black, when he moved this way or that; his purple waistcoat and black breeches were made of the finest satin and were cut so close Violet could easily discern the earl’s delectable physique.

His stiff white cravat, simply yet skillfully knotted, set off the square slant of his most perfect jawline. Swallowing the image of his person now that he was in full view, Violet’s heart caught in her throat and for a moment stopped beating altogether. He was handsome, darkly, devastatingly so; and like every woman with two eyes and a pulse, she was positively thrilled by him.

Every set of eyes in the room followed the earl as he took Violet’s hand and placed his lips on her fingers. He rose and smiled again. Violet drew her lips into the most lascivious grin she could manage, the area between her palm and first knuckle burning with the memory of his kiss.

He drew close, his breath warm on her neck, and whispered, “A most lovely costume, Lady Violet. A wood nymph, I presume?”

Lord Harclay was shameless, whispering in her ear like a drunken goat; despite the flutter of her pulse—a warning, a thrill—Violet was captivated. He was handsome, surely, but it was his confidence, his defiance of every rule and manner and courtesy, that drew her in as a moth to a flame.

Grinning ever so slightly, she flitted her gaze to his breeches and raised a single brow. “I daresay you’re the expert in wood, Lord Harclay.”

It was brazen, it was indiscreet, and God forbid anyone should have overheard her say it; poor Auntie would never recover. And yet the look on Lord Harclay’s face—barely contained shock, his color high with pleasure—made saying it well worth the risk.

“I have that effect on gentlemen,” she continued breezily. “The diamond doesn’t hurt, either. A beautiful spectacle, wouldn’t you say?” Violet splayed her fingers across her chest on either side of the diamond, her littlest fingers toying with the low neckline of her gown.

“Beautiful indeed,” he replied, drawing even closer.

The top of Mr. Hope’s enormous wig appeared over Lord Harclay’s shoulder.

“Lady Violet!” Hope said. He fingered her elbow while directing a look of consternation at Lord Harclay. “I trust you find your present company agreeable?”

Her eyes never leaving Lord Harclay’s, Violet replied, “I know the gentleman finds my company very agreeable indeed.”

“Most arousing, yes,” Harclay said with a small smile, fingering her other elbow.

Hope drew back, brow creased. After a moment he cleared his throat. “The two of you are already acquainted, then—”

Harclay wrapped his fingers about her arm and pulled her from Hope’s grasp. “You must excuse us, Hope, but Lady Violet is positively parched.”

She bit her lip. “But I’m not thirsty.”

He turned his head, eyes sparkling with laughter. “Oh, I do believe you are, Lady Violet. Though perhaps not for drink.”

The earl’s hand slid to grasp her own as he led her through the crowd. In her chest her heart skipped a beat as the warmth of his palm seeped through her satin glove. His grasp was gentle but firm; he moved through the crush of bodies with patient authority, nodding politely at acquaintances as he went.

At last they reached the refreshment table. She tried to drop his hand but he held fast. He pulled her very close to him, hiding their joined hands beneath the table.

For a moment they stood beside each other without speaking. Violet tried in vain to catch her breath; it didn’t help that, beneath the table, her hand kept brushing Lord Harclay’s leg. His flesh felt impossibly solid, unyielding to her touch. For a moment she wondered if the rest of him felt as hard, as warm, as strangely inviting.