Let Me Be The One (49 page)

"My God," North said softly, shaking his head. "They are a pair."

"It was something of a game to them. A chess game comes to mind. Certainly I was a pawn. My father and stepmother also. There are probably others, although I cannot begin to suppose who they are. Until you told me about the stolen papers I believed Louise and Harrison were only guilty of practicing the worst kind of cruelty: amusing themselves at the expense of others. I never guessed at this other side, even when Louise began to place more pressure on me."

"Pressure? In what way?"

"To attend more functions. To steal more often. From your mother. Your friends. I never told her you were looking for the thief, but I have to believe now that she knew it very well. I think she wanted you to catch me... to save me... to make certain that you were also complicitous. Louise did not understand that you are more honorable than that. She did not realize you would not be compromised by your affection for me."

North's short laugh held little humor. "Louise is a better student of human nature than you are. Perhaps if all I felt for you was affection, I might not defend you so vigorously. Loving you, though, presents challenges I could not have anticipated."

Elizabeth turned her head to look at him."Does this mean I shall not be transported?"

He could not help it. Her question was everything sincere, but he reacted too quickly to take that into account. The sixth Earl of Northam laughed long and hard. It required Elizabeth's elbow in his ribs to encourage him to take a different tack. "I'm sorry," he said, wiping tears from his eyes. "It struck me as humorous."

Elizabeth, who had always been attracted to North's laughter, was now wondering why that was. "I was quite serious," she assured him.

"I know." His laughter almost broke through again. He managed to confine it to a rumbling in his chest. He gave her an apologetic smile when she looked at him sharply. "Forgive me."

Sighing, Elizabeth settled back into the crook of his shoulder. Now that he was no longer shaking with mirth it was a comfortable shelter. "I am a thief," she reminded him. "It was a perfectly reasonable question. Many people guilty of far less than me have been sent away. I should consider myself fortunate if I am not hanged."

That sobered North. "It is not a possibility," he assured her. "Trust me."

Elizabeth realized then that she most surely did.

* * *

They shared a bounty of breakfast in bed. The maid informed them that Lord Worth would see them in their bedchamber if they were not inclined to remove themselves by the noon hour. North told her to assure his grandfather they would see him in his library, but when she was gone he locked the door in the event they were otherwise occupied at the appointed hour.

"What hints?" Elizabeth asked, seemingly out of nowhere. In truth, she had been mulling over the puzzle for the better part of the morning, or at least the part of the morning that was not made better by North's lovemaking. "Last evening you said I presented you with hints about my identity as the thief. Do you think I meant to give myself away?"

"It has occurred to me," he said. "Perhaps it was not your willful intent, but rather a more subtle wish. There was the matter of the snuffbox, for instance. Not only did you take an immense risk stealing it back from the baron, but you skillfully maneuvered the treasure hunt so that either Southerton or I would find it. It settles the question of who helped whom on that occasion. You led South and me around by the nose, I think. I imagine Battenburn was furious."

"More so Louise. I returned the gold fob and ruby pendant to her, but she would not be placated. I suppose it was then that she conceived of the plan to place her diamond necklace in your trunk. I knew nothing about that."

North nodded. "So I gathered." Over the rim of his teacup, he watched Elizabeth brush out her hair. It crackled with each long stroke. "You also climb trees."

Her hand paused mid-stroke. "What?"

"It was another clue," he explained. "At Rosemont you were climbing trees with Selden. He said you promised to teach him. I should have thought that your injury would have prevented you. Indeed, when we were at Battenburn you made some remark about a fear of falling. It was all so much smoke and mirrors. Very effective, though. I did not see through it."

Elizabeth resumed brushing. "There is no satisfaction for me in having fooled you," she said. "It was done of necessity."

"I know that."

"My infirmity was Louise's idea. She was persuaded that a limp would make me an even more unlikely suspect. I suppose the fact that I was a woman was not enough." Elizabeth set down the brush gently and turned on her stool to face North. "My back began to ache from the pretense. Even now, after weeks of resting here at Stonewickam I find there are times when my hip stiffens. The longer I practiced the deceit, the more it interfered with my ability to climb. At Battenburn no such skill was required of me. I could use the secret passages to move about, but once we returned to London..." Elizabeth could only shake her head at the position in which she had found herself. "As difficult as I found spending time with Louise, it also offered some respite. When I was with anyone else I had to maintain the sham of my physical limitations. The night South escorted me to the duchess's ball I was very nearly caught out because I was so stiff."

"Bloody hell," North said softly. He banged the back of his head lightly against the headboard. "That was you."

Elizabeth looked at him oddly. "Of course it was me. Isn't that what we've been discussing?"

"Yes, but..." Closing his eyes momentarily, North ran his fingers through his hair. "Bloody hell," he said again. In his mind's eye he could see her just as South had described, hanging off the lip of the roof, pulling her leg up at the very last moment so she could escape over a succession of rooftops. "You might have been killed."

"It was not such a narrow thing as South would have you believe," she said quickly.

North grunted, not so gullible as that.

"I admit my situation would have been improved if someone had confided South's plan to me. I don't think you can properly appreciate my surprise when he appeared in the duchess's bedchamber."

North simply banged his head again.

Elizabeth fought down a smile. "Perhaps it would be better if we said no more about that particular evening, though I suppose you must wonder how it was all accomplished."

"Believe me when I say I wish it were otherwise."

"Then I shall say it all quickly." Elizabeth proceeded to do just that, racing through her explanation with barely a breath while she ticked off the major points on her fingers. "Battenburn arranges a change of clothes for me if we believe one will be necessary. The location of the jewelry is known beforehand because Louise always discovers it. Sometime during the evening I excuse myself from the dancing, usually completely unnoticed, and find the host or hostess's valuables. At the duchess's ball I did not go to another rooftop as South suggested. I merely dropped to the other side of the house, entered by a window I had left open for just such a purpose, and—"

North held up a hand. "If you have any feelings for me, you will stop this recitation. I am still seeing you hanging by your fingernails from Lady Calumet's hip roof."

"It was not—" She cut herself off because he lifted his hand a fraction higher. "Very well." Under her breath she added, "Not so very different from what you did at Battenburn."

He pretended not to hear that. "What about the times jewelry was taken from necks, ears, and wrists that were wearing them?"

"I am afraid you will think me immodest, North, but it is not so difficult after one learns the way of it."

"I take it there was a great deal of practice in the beginning," he said dryly.

"Hours and hours."

"Louise and Harrison taught you?"

"They hired... tutors, I suppose you would call them."

"I would call them thieves."

"They were that. Very accomplished."

North was finding it hard to credit he was having this conversation. He realized he was shaking his head a lot. "The baron and baroness are not always present when the thefts occur."

"That is true. Over the years I would say perhaps a third of the time."

"I will have to share my information regarding dates with you, but that would likely correspond closely to those events where documents were stolen. Who is the more probable thief? Battenburn or his wife?"

"I could not say. You must allow that it may be neither. There could be yet another person engaged by them."

North considered it possible, though not likely. The nature of the stolen papers was such that the thief would have to be astute and discriminating in order to make the correct choices. It was not the sort of thing well left to others. "We have to return to London," he said, watching her carefully.

"I know." Her voice was wistful. She was already missing Stonewickam. "I should like to visit your grandfather again soon."

He smiled. "I am not certain which one of you is more enamored of the other. He likes you immensely."

Elizabeth rose and walked toward the bed. She held out her hands to North and when he took them, she pulled him to his feet. Standing on tiptoe, Elizabeth slipped her arms around his neck. "I like him also," she said, her mouth just a moment from his. "But I love you. No one will ever love you so well as I do."

He remembered saying much the same thing to her once. She was tipping her head back, watching him, the sweetest emotion there in her eyes. She remembered it, too. "Ah, Elizabeth," he whispered. He kissed her then. Their mouths lingered tenderly, and when the kiss dissolved they did not move apart. North's cheek rested against her hair. Her fingers ruffled his.

"I do not know if there will ever be a right moment to say this," he said, "so it may as well be now—while you are feeling charitable toward me." Before she could guess at what it might be, he continued quickly. "There was a time not so long ago that I thought the colonel had been your lover."

Elizabeth's head reared back and she looked up at him, eyes wide, her mouth gaping. "You are quite serious," she said.

"Well, yes." When she simply stared at him, he felt compelled to explain. "You love him. You've said so. And he is only your mother's cousin. The difference in your ages is not so great and he was credited to be quite handsome when—"

"He is still handsome," she said. North reluctantly acknowledged that was so. "It seemed that you wanted to avoid him. You were not pleased to see him at our wedding, and then—"

Elizabeth set one finger to his lips, halting him. "He is like an uncle to me. It was always that way, nothing more. I began writing him less when I became involved with Louise and Harrison. I did not want them to know he was important to me because they would have tried to compromise him also. They are trying to do it anyway, in spite of what I've done to protect him. It is likely they were the ones who encouraged him to come to our wedding. South may have penned the invitation, but Louise or the baron, or both together, prompted it." She moved her hand to North's shoulder. "But that is not the only reason I have not wanted to see him. He confronted me with the other truth at West's. He knows that my reluctance has been because he is ill. He is more like my mother than you can imagine, and being in his company is as extraordinarily sweet as it is painful."

Elizabeth touched North's cheek, tracing the line of his jaw. "I am not sorry you told me this, for I plan to see much more of the colonel in the future, and I would not want you to have any doubts about the place he has had in my life." She lowered both her hands and took his, drawing them toward her heart. "Adam's father is dead, North. In January it will be five years. It was in a place called New Orleans. There was a battle there. A senseless thing, really. The war with the United States was already ended, but word had not reached either side."

"I am sorry, Elizabeth." And he was. He meant the words most sincerely. "How did you learn of it?"

"Louise. My naive confession to her left out nothing, not even... not even his name. She made inquiries and eventually found what had become of him. It was not a kindness that she did this. She would have used him in some way if he had not been killed." Elizabeth's eyes darkened. "I hate her, North. I hate her and her husband and I hate what she has encouraged me to become. I hate that I did not say no to them, that I have always believed I could not." Her voice dropped to a mere whisper, yet remained intense and clear. "Sometimes I think I could kill them both."

It was only partially to comfort Elizabeth that North held her close. He did not want her to see that he shared this same thought.

* * *

"So you are returned." Louise looked Elizabeth up and down. She made her assessment as if from a superior height, although it was Elizabeth who stood and she who reclined casually on the chaise. "Open the drapes, dear," she said. "It is rather gloomy in here, is it not? I fear the day will not be improved by sunshine."

Without a word Elizabeth crossed the sitting room and fixed the dark green velvet drapes with tiebacks. Fog pressed against the windowpanes. The houses across the square were visible only as a vague outline. Immediately below she could see her driver hop down from the carriage to tend to the grays. When she turned away, Elizabeth was unsurprised to find Louise still watching her closely.