His Sinful Secret (37 page)

Michael thought about the warmth of Julianne’s smile waiting for him when he returned. “It must be,” he said softly, swung on his heel, and walked away from all the secrets.

Read on for a preview of Emma Wildes’s enthralling historical romance

 

 

First in the Notorious Bachelors series Available now from Signet Eclipse.

T
he alley below was filthy and smelled rank, and if he fell off the ledge, Lord Alexander St. James was fairly certain he would land on a good-sized rat. Since squashing scurrying rodents was not on his list of favorite pastimes, he tightened his grip and gauged the distance to the next roof. It looked to be roughly the distance between London and Edinburgh, but in reality was probably only a few feet.

“What the devil is the matter with you?” a voice hissed out of the darkness. “Hop on over here. This was your idea.”

“I do not
hop
,” he shot back, unwilling to confess that heights bothered him. They had since the night he’d breached the towering wall of the citadel at Badajoz with forlorn hope. He still remembered the pounding rain, the ladders swarming with men, and that great black drop below. . . .

“I know perfectly well this was my idea,” he muttered.

“Then I’m sure, unless you have an inclination for a personal tour of Newgate Prison, which, by the by, I do not, you’ll agree we need to proceed. It gets closer to dawn by the minute.”

Newgate Prison. Alex didn’t like confined spaces any more than he liked heights. The story his grandmother had told him just a few days ago made him wish his imagination was a little less vivid. Incarceration in a squalid cell was the last thing he wanted. But for the ones you love, he thought philosophically as he eyed the gap, and he had to admit that he adored his grandmother, risks have to be taken.

That thought proved inspiration enough for him to leap the distance, landing with a dull thud but, thankfully, keeping his balance on the sooty shingles. His companion beckoned with a wave of his hand and in a crouched position began to make a slow pilgrimage toward the next house.

The moon was a wafer obscured by clouds. Good for stealth, but not quite so wonderful for visibility. Two more alleys and harrowing jumps and they were there, easing down onto a balcony that overlooked a small walled garden.

Michael Hepburn, Marquess of Longhaven, dropped down first, light on his feet, balanced like a dancer. Alex wondered, not for the first time, just what his friend did for the War Office. He landed next to him, and said, “What did your operative tell you about the layout of the town house?”

Michael peered through the glass of the French doors into the darkened room. “I could be at our club at this very moment, enjoying a stiff brandy.”

“Stop grumbling,” Alex muttered. “You live for this kind of intrigue. Lucky for us, the lock is simple. I’ll have this open in no time.”

True to his word, a moment later one of the doors creaked open, the sound loud to Alex’s ears. He led the way, slipping into the darkened bedroom, taking in with a quick glance the shrouded forms of a large canopied bed and armoire. Something white was laid out on the bed, and on closer inspection he saw that it was a nightdress edged with delicate lace, and that the coverlet was already turned back. The virginal gown made him feel very much an interloper—which, bloody hell, he was. But all for a good cause, he told himself firmly.

Michael spoke succinctly. “This is Lord Hathaway’s daughter’s bedroom. We’ll need to search his study and his suite across the hall. Since his lordship’s rooms face the street and his study is downstairs, this is a much more discreet method of entry. It is likely enough they’ll be gone for several more hours, giving us time to search for your precious item. At this hour, the servants should all be abed.”

“I’ll take the study. It’s more likely to be there.”

“Alex, you do realize you are going to have to finally tell me just what we are looking for if I am going to ransack his lordship’s bedroom on your behalf.”

“I hope you plan on being more subtle than that.”

“He’ll never know I was there,” Michael said with convincing confidence. “But what the devil am I looking for?”

“A key. Ornate, made of silver, so it’ll be tarnished to black, I suspect. About so long.” Alex spread open his hand, indicating the distance between the tip of his smallest finger and his thumb. “It’ll be in a small case, also silver. There should be an engraved
S
on the cover.”

“A key to
what
, dare I ask, since I am risking my neck to find it?”

Alex paused, reluctant to reveal more. But Michael had a point, and moreover, could keep a secret better than anyone of Alex’s acquaintance. “I’m not sure,” he admitted, quietly.

Michael’s hazel eyes gleamed with interest even in the dim light. “Yet here we are, breaking into a man’s house.”

“It’s . . . complicated.”

“Things with you usually are.”

“I’m not at liberty to explain to anyone, even you, my reasons for being here. Therefore my request for your assistance. In the past you have proven not only to think fast on your feet and stay cool under fire, but you also have the unique ability to keep your mouth firmly shut, which is a very valuable trait in a friend. In short, I trust you.”

Michael gave a noncommittal grunt. “All right, fine.”

“If it makes you feel better, I’m not going to steal anything,” Alex informed him in a whisper, as he cracked open the bedroom door and peered down the hall. “What I want doesn’t belong to Lord Hathaway, if he has it. Where’s his study?”

“Second hallway past the bottom of the stairs. Third door on the right.”

The house smelled vaguely of beeswax and smoke from the fires that kept the place warm in the late-spring weather. Alex crept—there was no other word for it—down the hall, sending a silent prayer upward to enlist heavenly aid for their little adventure to be both successful and undetected. Though he wasn’t sure, with his somewhat dissolute past—or Michael’s, for that matter—if he was at all in a position to ask for benevolence.

The hallway was deserted but damned dark. Michael clearly knew the exact location of Hathaway’s personal set of rooms, for he went directly to the left door and cracked it open, and disappeared inside.

Alex stood at a vantage point where he could see the top of the staircase rising from the main floor, feeling an amused disbelief that he was a deliberate intruder in someone else’s house, and had enlisted Michael’s aid to help him with the infiltration. He’d known Michael since Eton, and when it came down to it, no one was more reliable or loyal. He’d go with him to hell and back, and quite frankly, they
had
accompanied each other to hell in Spain.

They’d survived the fires of Hades, but had not come back to England unscathed.

Time passed in silence, and Alex relaxed a little as he made his way down the stairs into the darkened hallway, barking his shin only once on a piece of furniture that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. He stifled a very colorful curse and moved on, making a mental note not to take up burglary as a profession.

The study was redolent of old tobacco and the ghosts of a thousand glasses of brandy. Alex moved slowly, pulling the borrowed set of picklocks again from his pocket, rummaging through the drawers he could open first, and then setting to work on the two locked ones.

Nothing. No silver case. No blasted key.

Damn
.

The first sound of trouble was a low, sharp, excited bark. Then he heard a woman speaking in modulated tones—audible in the silent house—and alarm flooded through him. The voice sounded close, but that might have been a trick of the acoustics of the town house. At least it didn’t sound like a big dog, he told himself, feeling in a drawer for a false back before replacing the contents and quietly sliding it shut.

A servant? Perhaps, but it was unlikely, for it was truly the dead of night, with dawn a few good hours away. As early as most of the staff rose, he doubted one of them would be up and about unless summoned by her employer.

The voice spoke again, a low murmur, and the lack of a reply probably meant she was talking to the dog. He eased into the hallway to peer out and saw that at the foot of the stairs a female figure was bent over, scratching the ears of what appeared to be a small bundle of active fur, just a puppy, hence the lack of alarm over their presence in the house.

She was blond, slender, and, more significantly, clad in a fashionable gown of a light color. . . .

Several more hours, my arse. One of Lord Hathaway’s family had returned early.

It was a stroke of luck when she set down her lamp and lifted the squirming bundle of fur in her arms, and instead of heading upstairs, carried her delighted burden through a door on the opposite side of the main hall, probably back toward the kitchen.

Alex stole across the room, and went quickly up the stairs to where Michael had disappeared, trying to be as light-footed as possible. He opened the door a crack and whispered, “Someone just came home. A young woman, though I couldn’t see her clearly.”

“Damnation.” Michael could move quietly as a cat, and he was there instantly. “I’m only half done. We might need to leave and come back a second time.”

Alex pictured launching himself again across more questionable, stinking, yawning crevasses of London’s rooftop landscape. “I’d rather we finished it now.”

“If Lady Amelia has returned alone, it should be fine,” Michael murmured. “She’s unlikely to come into her father’s bedroom, and I just need a few more minutes. I’d ask you to help me, but you don’t know where I’ve already searched, and the two of us whispering to each other and moving about is more of a risk. Go out the way we came in. Wait for her to go to bed, and keep an eye on her. If she looks to leave her room because she might have heard something, you’re going to have to come up with a distraction. Otherwise, I’ll take my chances going out this way and meet you on the roof.”

With that, he was gone again and the door closed softly.

Alex uttered a stifled curse. He’d fought battles, crawled through ditches, endured soaking rains and freezing nights, marched for miles on end with his battalion, but he wasn’t a damned spy. But a moment of indecision could be disastrous with Miss Patton no doubt heading for her bedroom. And what if she also woke her maid?

As a soldier, he’d learned to make swift judgments, and in this case, he trusted Michael knew what the hell he was doing and quickly slipped back into the lady’s bedroom and headed for the balcony. They’d chosen that entry into the house for the discreet venue of the quiet private garden, and the assurance that no one on the street would see them and possibly recognize them in this fashionable neighborhood.

No sooner had Alex managed to close the French doors behind him than the door to the bedroom opened. He froze, hoping the shadows hid his presence, worried movement might attract the attention of the young woman who had entered the room. If she raised an alarm, Michael could be in a bad spot, even if Alex got away. She carried the small lamp, which she set on the polished table by the bed. He assumed his presence on the dark balcony would be hard to detect.

It was at that moment he realized how very beautiful she was.

Lord Hathaway’s daughter. Had he met her? No, he hadn’t, but when he thought about it, he’d heard her name mentioned quite often lately. Now he knew why.

Hair a shimmering gold caught the light as she reached up and loosened the pins, dropping them one by one by the lamp and letting the cascade of curls tumble down her back. In profile her face was defined and feminine, with a dainty nose and delicate chin. And though he couldn’t see the color of her eyes, they were framed by lashes long enough they cast slight shadows across her elegant cheekbones as she bent over to lift her skirts, kick off her slippers, and begin to unfasten her garters. He caught the pale gleam of slender calves and smooth thighs, and the graceful curve of her bottom.

There was something innately sensual about watching a woman undress, though usually when it was done in his presence, it was as a prelude to one of his favorite pastimes. Slim fingers worked the fastenings of her gown, and in a whisper of silk, it slid off her pale shoulders. She stepped free of the pooled fabric, wearing only a thin, lacy chemise, all gold and ivory in the flickering illumination.

As a gentleman,
he reminded himself,
I should look away.

 

The ball had been more nightmare than entertainment, and Lady Amelia Patton had ducked out as soon as possible, using her usual—and not deceptive—excuse. She picked up her silk gown, shook it out, and draped it over a carved chair by the fireplace. When her carriage had dropped her home, she’d declined to wake her maid, instead enjoying a few rare moments of privacy before bed. No one would think it amiss, as she had done the same before.

It was a crime, was it not, to kill one’s father?

Not that she
really
wanted to strangle him in any way but a metaphorical one, but this evening, when he had thrust her almost literally into the arms of the Earl of Westhope, she had nearly done the unthinkable and refused to dance with his lordship in public, thereby humiliating the man and defying her father in front of all of society.

Instead, she had gritted her teeth and waltzed with the most handsome, rich, incredibly
boring
eligible bachelor of the
haut ton
.

It had encouraged him, and that was the last thing she had wanted to happen.

The earl had even had the nerve—or maybe it was just stupidity—to misquote Rabelais when he brought her a glass of champagne, saying with a flourish as he handed over the flute, “Thirst comes with eating . . . but the appetite goes away with drinking.”

It had really been all she could do not to correct him, since he’d got it completely backward. She had a sinking feeling that he didn’t mean to be boorish; he just wasn’t very bright. Still, there was nothing on earth that could have prevented her from asking him, in her most proper voice, if that meant he was bringing her champagne because he felt, perhaps, she was too plump. Her response had so flustered him that he’d excused himself hurriedly—so perhaps the entire evening hadn’t been a loss after all.