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He was so close that his amusement vibrated through her. The sensation was uncomfortably intimate. A few more of those blasted deft movements and he snatched her weapon. He placed it beyond reach on the desk.
“I’ll scream.”
“There’s nobody to hear,” he said carelessly, and in that moment, she truly hated him.
“You’re despicable,” she hissed, trying and failing to free herself. Her heart galloped with fright and anger. With him, and with herself for being a stupid, weak female, prey to an overbearing male.
“Sticks and stones.”
He drew her into his body and took a sliding step backward. She became conscious not just of his size and strength—those had been apparent from the moment he caught her up—but also of his enveloping heat and the way that he smelled pleasantly of something herbal. Fresh. Tangy.
This ruffian took the trouble to wash regularly.
He reversed another step and opened the door with a rattle, containing her struggles beneath one arm with humiliating ease. Fear spurred rage. She wrenched hard against him and tried without success to sink her fingernails into his forearm.
“No, you don’t,” he huffed, tugging her closer.
“I’ll have your liver for this,” she snarled, even as his scent continued to prick her senses. What was that smell?
“You’ll have to catch me first.”
She wished she didn’t notice how laughter warmed that deep, musical voice. Any angry response died in furious shock as he brushed his cheek softly against the wing of hair covering her cheek.
“Au revoir, Miss Barrett,” he whispered in her ear, his breath teasing nerves she didn’t know she possessed. Then he shoved her away from him hard.
By the time she’d regained her footing, he’d slammed the door and locked it from outside with the key he must have palmed when he fiddled with the latch.
“Don’t you dare ransack the house, you devil!” she shouted, rushing forward and pounding on the door. But the vicarage doors were of solid English oak and hardly shook under her determined assault. “Don’t you dare!”
Gasping, she stopped and pressed her ear to the door, desperate to work out what he was up to. She heard a distant slam as though someone left by the front door. Could her presence have deterred him from his larcenous plans? She couldn’t imagine why. From the first, he’d had the best of the conflict.
Her hands fisted against the wood as she recalled his barefaced cheek in holding her so … so improperly.
“Improper” seemed too weak a term to describe the sensations he’d aroused when he’d captured her like a sheep ready for the shears. Like that sheep, she was about to be well and truly fleeced. She was in no position to stop the villain from taking what he wanted. Nobody would let her out until her father and aunt returned from the duke’s, and heaven knew when that would be. The Reverend Ezekiel Barrett adored hobnobbing with the quality. He’d be there until breakfast if Sedgemoor didn’t throw him out first. She’d have to go out the window the way the villain had come in.
Tears of frustration stung her eyes. However illogically, she felt the radiating heat of the burglar’s body against hers. It was like he still touched her. She wasn’t afraid anymore, at least not for her person. If the rascal had wanted to hurt her, he’d had plenty of opportunity. Her principal reaction, now that fear and unwilling fascination ebbed, was self-disgust. She’d acted a ninnyhammer, the sort of jittery female she despised. She’d had a gun. Why hadn’t she forced him from the house?
The ominous silence extended. What was the blackguard doing? Would there be anything left by the time he finished? She glanced over to the desk and thanked the Lord that the only genuinely valuable item here had escaped his notice. For a sneak thief, he wasn’t very observant, although he hadn’t struck her as a man deficient in intelligence. Or, she added with renewed outrage, impertinence. Nevertheless, any professional would immediately purloin the gold object on the blotter.
Something landed on the carpet near the open window. Curious, nervous, Genevieve grabbed the candle from the desk and lifted it high. On the floor lay the key.
Astonished and outraged, she rushed to the window, but darkness and the elm’s thick foliage obstructed her view. In the distance someone started to whistle. A jaunty old tune. “Over the Hills and Far Away.” Apt for an absconding thief, she supposed. Not that he’d betrayed any panic. Again, his confidence struck her as puzzling. The music faded as the whistler wandered into the night.
With shaking hands, Genevieve scooped up the key and balanced it on her palm. One completely unimportant fact threw every other consideration to the wind. She’d finally identified the smell that had tantalized her when he’d held her.
Lemon verbena.
Chapter Two
Richard drained his brandy and rested his head against the back of the leather armchair in Leighton Court’s library. Housebreaking left a man in dire need of a drink. The black mask draped disregarded from a bookshelf. He’d felt like a confounded mountebank wearing it, but as things turned out, it had been a wise decision. After six months of detective work, he’d found his treasure.
“She’s got the jewel, all right, after playing coy with my agents about whether Great Aunt Amelia left it to her. When I climbed through the only open window I could find, it sat on the desk, plain as that big beak on your face.”
“No need to get personal.” Camden Rothermere, Duke of Sedgemoor, rose from the matching chair across the hearth to refill Richard’s glass. The duke’s green eyes below his ruler-straight black hair lightened with the humor that only his friends saw.
Right now, Richard knew he took advantage of that friendship. Only a good friend would rusticate on this obscure estate to support a pal when he could be enjoying the delights of his principal seat in Derbyshire. Cam’s house in Little Derrick gave Richard a base in the neighborhood. Cam’s name would provide an introduction to the locals.
Cam hissed with impatience. “Why the devil didn’t you steal it then and there if the damned thing was ripe for the taking? Nice quick job. You can slink back to the fleshpots and I can go north to supervise the harvest at Fentonwyck.”
“Bad form to steal it, old man, bad form.” A faint smile tilted Richard’s lips as his free hand dangled to toy with his dog’s ears. Sirius, a hound of indeterminate breed, snoozed on the floor beside the chair, his long nose resting on his front paws. He hadn’t appreciated missing out on tonight’s excitement. “I’ll give the chit a chance to sell it to me first. If I steal it, I can’t brandish the bauble to demonstrate that I’m the title’s incumbent and society had better bloody well respect that.”
Richard spoke more casually than circumstances warranted. Until tonight, he’d only seen the jewel in watercolor sketches in the family papers. The urge to pocket the gold and enamel trinket had been deuced strong, but tonight’s burglary had always only been a reconnaissance mission.
His agents had approached Miss Barrett several times to purchase the jewel and none of them could get the damned woman to admit that she had the troublesome artifact. She’d neither denied nor confirmed, although every trail ended at Little Derrick’s vicarage. Tonight’s burglary had been a last-ditch attempt to discover whether to proceed with the plan that even he admitted sounded outlandish.
The rage that had gripped him in Lord Packham’s ballroom still soured his days. Laying his hands on the jewel had become a quest to assert his worthiness to a world too eager to discount him as a sham.
“I’m glad I don’t have to add theft to your list of misdemeanors.” Cam eyed Richard without favor.
“I’ll try persuasion first.” He sipped his friend’s excellent brandy, his pleasure in recalling the vicar’s fiery daughter vying with the anger that had simmered for six months. Longer. His whole life. “Anyway, Miss Barrett had a gun.”
A surprised gust of laughter escaped Cam. “Did she, by Jove? Good for her. I wondered if you’d encounter the mysterious Miss Barrett when her father and aunt turned up to dinner without her, but it was too late to warn you that the vicarage wasn’t empty. I swear the reverend gentleman could talk the leg off an iron pot. Even if you’d caught a bullet, I had the worst of the evening.”
“I owe you.” Richard stretched his long legs across the blue and red Turkey carpet. Pleasant weariness weighted his limbs.
“You do indeed. Although I have to say Leighton Court is dashed appealing. I should have been quicker to check out Uncle Henry’s bequest after he turned up his toes last year.” Cam subsided into his chair. “So was the scholarly spinster what you imagined? Bad skin? Round shoulders? No bosom? A squint from poring over all those dusty tomes?”
A surge of purely male appreciation warmed Richard’s blood. The body he’d held had definitely sported a bosom. Quite an impressive one if he was any judge of women. Which of course he was.
“The lady is … interesting,” he said musingly, fingers stilling on Sirius’s shaggy head. The dog grumbled softly at the cessation of attention.
“If she countered your nonsense with a pistol, she certainly is. I take it you’re proceeding with this ramshackle scheme.”
Richard smiled, recalling the girl facing him down as cool as you please. Instead of a dried-up old maid, he’d encountered a glorious Amazon. Tall. Blond. Flashing silver eyes to make mincemeat of his unflattering expectations.
“Richard?” Cam prompted when the silence extended.
“Hmm?”
“Stop mooning over the damned filly. I gather she was something of a beauty. Answer me.”
“Of course I’m going on.” Richard rose and without invitation refilled his glass. He waved the decanter at Cam, but his famously abstemious friend shook his head. “I can’t see I’ve got much choice. I could go through the courts and prove Aunt Amelia had no legal right to bequeath the jewel to Miss Barrett, but chancery cases take forever and you never know how those blasted judges will rule. Miss Barrett won’t deal with my representatives, even after they said I’d give ten thousand guineas for the jewel.”
“Money clearly doesn’t move her.”
“Something will, and I’ll discover what that is. Luckily for me, her father takes in paying students. It’s a matter of infiltrating the household and keeping an eye for the main chance. Everybody has a price—I’m sure I’ll learn the female prodigy’s.”
Cam still looked unconvinced. “She’ll know what you want the minute she hears your name.”
Richard’s lips curled in a sly smile as he lounged against the mantel. “Meet Christopher Evans, rich dilettante from Shropshire.”
Cam’s voice flattened. “You mean seduction.”
For one blazing instant, the prospect of plundering Genevieve Barrett’s Viking charms dazzled Richard, until reluctantly he shook his head. “No need to sound so disapproving, old chum. I’ll soften her up with a bit of flirtation, but I won’t ruin her. I don’t mean the girl any harm, whatever dance she’s led me over the jewel’s whereabouts. I’ll give her a few weeks of masculine attention and a nice fat purse, then leave her with a smile and the jewel in my pocket.”
“A female who holds you off at gunpoint mightn’t be an easy conquest.”
Richard shrugged. “I know enough to get round an innocent country miss. She’ll be eating out of my hand in no time.”
“If tonight’s any indication, she’s more likely to bite your fingers off. You’re sounding like such a coxcomb, I’d almost like to see that.”
Richard’s laugh held an acid note. “I can act the charmer when I have to. Good God, I learned that lesson long ago. My amiable ignorance in response to insult saved me a parcel of beatings from our dear schoolfellows.”
He shuddered, recollecting the tortures their friend Jonas Merrick, also illegitimate, had undergone at Eton because he was too stiff-necked to play the game. Well, Jonas had had the last laugh last year when he’d been named Viscount Hillbrook. Richard intended to have the last laugh too, even if only to irritate the high sticklers by flashing the legendary Harmsworth jewel under their supercilious noses.
Cam looked unimpressed. “Nothing will change the circumstances of your birth.”
“Perhaps not,” he said with a bitterness that he’d reveal to nobody else. “But surely you of all men understand the need for defiance.”
The murky details of Cam’s conception had been subject to even more spiteful gossip than Richard’s. Cam’s mother, the duchess, had divided her favors between her husband and his younger brother. Nobody, including reportedly the duchess, knew which Rothermere had fathered her son. Scandal of that magnitude at the highest levels never lacked repeating.
All their lives, Richard and Cam had paid for their parents’ sins. At Eton with Jonas, they’d forged a bond based in shared adversity. Until recently, Jonas had gone his own way, but Cam and Richard’s friendship had never faltered, despite Cam being a pattern card of decorum and Richard’s flair for outraging the prudish. In a rare contemplative moment, Richard had concluded that Cam strove to live down his notorious parentage by proving himself worthy of his title.
Still, through his harum-scarum existence, Richard had reason to be grateful for this steadfast friendship. Take the case in point. Loyalty brought Cam, even if vociferously objecting, to this small Oxfordshire estate.
“Any victory will be purely symbolic,” Cam said.
“Symbols can be powerful.” He summoned a smile as he returned to his chair. “Come, Cam. Let me have one last adventure before life becomes odiously flat. This next season, I intend to become a respectable married man. High time I set up my nursery with a virgin whose unimpeachable pedigree will restore some prestige to the sadly tainted Harmsworth name.”
Cam didn’t look any happier. “Marrying a woman you love can be an adventure.”
“Love, my dear fellow?” Richard’s laugh rang with cynicism. “I plan a fashionable marriage. No mawkish attachment. All I require of a wife is an unquestionably legitimate heir.”
“You’re selling yourself short. If any man deserves a happy family life, it’s you.”
Richard shifted uncomfortably. That was the confounded problem with old chums; they saw beyond civilized boundaries to places in a man’s soul that he never wanted to visit. “Dash it, Cam, I never thought to hear you turning sentimental.”
Cam’s expression remained grave. “I can’t help envying what Jonas and Sidonie have. He’s a better man for knowing her. It makes me think love is worth seeking, whatever the risks.”
Richard wasn’t fool enough to dismiss the genuine love Jonas shared with his wife, nor the joy he’d found as father to his daughter. “Jonas is a lucky devil. But Sidonie’s one in a million. I wouldn’t wager sixpence on the chances of finding a woman to equal her.”
But as Richard lounged in Cam’s luxurious library, so different from the dilapidated room he’d invaded earlier, he couldn’t help thinking of another woman. Prickly, clever, and surprisingly appealing Genevieve Barrett with her sharp tongue, snapping gray eyes, and voluptuous body. After tonight’s escapade, he found himself anticipating the coming days with an eagerness that would have astounded him this afternoon. Luring the vicar’s daughter into surrendering the Harmsworth Jewel promised entertainment beyond compare.
Chapter Three
First Genevieve noticed the dog.
She sat by the window staring vaguely outside, her embroidery ignored on her lap. The vicarage’s parlor overlooked a back lane running off the Oxford road. Across the room, her widowed aunt strove to entertain Lord Neville Fairbrother, who had called to see her father. This afternoon the vicar was with a parishioner and Lord Neville, to Genevieve’s regret, had decided to wait instead of returning to his nearby manor Youngton Hall. His lordship funded her papa’s scholarly endeavors, but she couldn’t like the man. Something about his deep-set eyes made her skin crawl and his oppressive presence sucked the air from a room.
When a large mongrel trotted along the lane, she straightened with surprise. In Little Derrick, stray dogs received scant welcome. The brindle hound sat on his haunches and checked back toward the corner. Within moments, a high-perch phaeton of an elegance rarely seen in these parts bowled into view.
Curiosity glued Genevieve to the window. The driver wore a beautifully cut coat and a beaver hat tipped at what even she recognized as a rakish angle. With the merest touch of his fingers, he controlled the pair of showy chestnut horses drawing the yellow and black carriage.
What brought such a swell to deepest Oxfordshire? He must be lost. The narrow lane led only to the vicarage’s stables. No man of style would find their humble abode of interest. Actually she couldn’t imagine why a man of style associated with such a déclassé mutt. The gypsies camped by the river would disdain such a dog, yet it was clear from the animal’s cheerful bark that he belonged to the driver.
The carriage and its spectacular horses, trailed by the less spectacular hound, disappeared around the wall surrounding the back garden. The man would discover his mistake soon enough and turn around, she supposed.
Genevieve waited for the man and his dog to reappear. A small drama to punctuate a dull afternoon. An afternoon that would have been considerably less dull if Lord Neville hadn’t hindered her scholarly pursuits. She had plans in train to change her life and his lordship’s presence interfered with their progress.
When the carriage didn’t immediately return, she lifted her needle with a sigh. She had little talent for embroidery, but it gave her an excuse to avoid talking to their visitor.
Dorcas, their maid, opened the door, clutching a small cardboard rectangle in her hand. Aunt Lucy had struggled to inculcate the habit of placing calling cards on a salver, but Dorcas couldn’t see the necessity. So far, Dorcas was winning that particular war. “Begging your pardon, missus, but the vicar has a visitor.”
Aunt Lucy stood to take the creased card, then passed it to Genevieve. Christopher Evans. The name meant nothing to her. “Did you say my father isn’t home?”
“Yes, miss. But he asks to wait.” Dorcas’s cheeks flushed a becoming shade of pink. “He’s ever so handsome, miss. Pretty as a picture. And such a gentleman.”
Despite herself, Genevieve glanced at Lord Neville. He didn’t bother to hide his disapproval of Dorcas’s flutterings. “Tell the fellow to make an appointment, girl.”
How Genevieve would love to remind the arrogant oaf to mind his manners, but her father would never forgive her for alienating his patron. The vicar’s living and scholarly work covered essentials, but luxuries came thanks to Lord Neville’s support. “It could be something important.”
“Indeed.” Aunt Lucy ignored his lordship’s interjection. “Please invite Mr. Evans to step into the parlor.”
Genevieve laid aside her embroidery frame. Rising, she smoothed the skirts on her plain green muslin gown. The man who strolled into the room was the phaeton’s driver, as she’d expected. Although for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine what business such a tulip of fashion had with her father.
While Dorcas might lack refinement, there was nothing wrong with her eyes. Mr. Evans was, indeed, handsome. Remarkably so.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Evans. I’m Mrs. Warren, the vicar’s sister-in-law.”
“Your servant, Mrs. Warren.” Mr. Evans bowed over Aunt Lucy’s hand. Genevieve noted her aunt’s dazed admiration. “Please forgive my intrusion. Last night at Sedgemoor’s, the vicar was kind enough to ask me to call.”
Last night, the vicar had attended another dinner at Leighton Court. He’d come home in an incoherent lather at the attentions he’d received from the duke and his guests.
The newcomer’s voice was smooth, educated, and oddly familiar. Genevieve frowned as her mind winnowed where they’d met. Unlike her father, her life was not awash with new acquaintances. The only stranger she’d encountered recently was her mysterious burglar four days ago on the night of the vicar’s first visit to the manor.
Half-formed thoughts hurtling through her mind, she studied the stranger. Mr. Evans shared the burglar’s height but not his bright gold hair. This man’s hair was dull brown. His hair was the only dull thing about him. His face was lean and distinguished. His jaw was firm and determined. His clothing was remarkably elegant, for all that he dressed for the country.
What a fool she was to imagine a fleeting similarity. The Duke of Sedgemoor would hardly play host to a sneak thief. Her nerves were still on edge after the break-in.
“He didn’t mention your call,” Genevieve said steadily.
Mr. Evans turned to Genevieve and dark blue eyes, guileless as the sky, surveyed her top to toe. Lord Neville inspected her in a similar manner at every meeting. This time instead of aversion, she felt a frisson of feminine awareness. Every nerve tightened with warning. This man had predator stamped all over him.
“Is this an inconvenient time? I can come another day.” A quizzical expression lit Mr. Evans’s face and Genevieve realized he’d misunderstood her scowl. Apparently awkward social behavior at the vicarage wasn’t confined to the maid. Color pricked at her cheeks.
“Mr. Evans, I’m—”
A storm of screeching and hissing drowned her answer. Hecuba, her aged black cat, leaped onto Genevieve’s shoulder, dug her claws in, then launched herself at the high shelf lined with china plates. The dog barked once, then settled at his master’s heel.
“Good God!” Lord Neville jumped back. Aunt Lucy shrieked and cowered against her chair. Mr. Evans, who had until now struck her as a rather languid gentleman, moved with impressive speed to save a blue and white Delft plate that Genevieve had always hated.
“I’ll put Sirius outside,” he said calmly, handing her the dish.
The dog regarded her with reproach. He was behaving perfectly, so she felt like a traitor when she agreed. “That might be wise.”
“But first I’ll rescue your cat.”
“Hecuba doesn’t like men,” Genevieve said quickly, but Mr. Evans had already reached up. To her astonishment, Hecuba dived into his arms as fast as a gannet plunged into the sea after a herring.
“I see that,” he said solemnly. Somehow she knew that beneath his grave demeanor, he laughed at her.
“How bizarre,” she said, momentarily distracted from the chaos. Even from a few feet away, Genevieve heard purrs of delight as the big, lean man cradled Hecuba to his dark brown coat. She’d rescued Hecuba as a kitten from neighborhood lads attempting to set fire to her tail. Since then, the cat couldn’t abide the touch of any human male.
With a gentleness that made Genevieve’s foolish heart skip a beat, Mr. Evans passed Hecuba across. Hecuba’s reluctance to forsake her new beau was audible. The man snapped his fingers at the dog. “Come, Sirius. Outside.”
Genevieve still recovered from her odd reaction to the sight of those capable, deft hands handling her cat. She bent over Hecuba, hoping that nobody noticed that the usually unruffled Genevieve Barrett was indisputably ruffled.
Who was this fellow? Gentlemen of such address never came within her orbit. Or her father’s. Well, apart from the Duke of Sedgemoor. But he was so far beyond her touch, he hardly counted as a mortal man. Lord Neville might be wellborn, but he lacked the newcomer’s polish.
“Let Sirius stay.” She cursed her breathless tone. What on earth was wrong with her? At twenty-five, she was well past the giggly stage. Yet Mr. Evans had an extraordinary effect on her. He made her feel as though her world span out of control. And he’d done it with an ease that she couldn’t help resenting.