Mad for Love (11 page)

“I do, indeed,” he admitted without a shred of remorse. “What on earth are ye doing haunting St. James’s?”

“Looking for you, of course. Why else would I come to Brooks’s Club? You said to meet you here.”

“I did indeed. But my dear Miss Blois, ye were meant to send a note first.”

“You did not say that.” She was all exasperation—her lovely brow puckered in a frown. “You said—”

“Aye, and that was very imprecise of me.” He took her arm and steered her down the pavement toward the slopes of Green Park. “But I’m an art thief, not a secretary. Ye’ll have to give me some leeway.”

Much to his surprise, Miss Blois did not even attempt to lecture him. Instead she nodded, all eager conviction. “Yes, I am very glad to hear that, as it is in that capacity that I have come to speak to you on a matter of urgent business.”

He was instantly leery—this was the lass who had spoken of hydrogen water. “What kind of business?”

“Urgent business,” she repeated. “In your line of business.” She leaned closer and spoke in a low voice, lest any of the passersby notice. “I find I have need of someone with your talents and skills.”

Better and better. He had many talents, and still more skills, the thought of which ought to make him blush. But they did not—they were too useful. And far too pleasurable. “In what particular capacity, Miss Blois?”

“I need you to gig a case.”

“What?” It took him a moment to translate the vulgar, cant term. “Oh, ye mean to break into someplace—to burgle.” She could not have shocked him any more if she had said she
was
the one forging paintings. “Mademoiselle Blois, wherever did ye learn such language?”

“I was not born yesterday, Mr. Andrews. I have met my share of scoundrels.” Her pointed gaze told him she counted him in that number.

“I see. I must rearrange my impression of ye.”

“By all means, do. Because what I have in mind is a bit more—” She lowered her voice to a whisper, and leaned even closer to impart her secret. “
More
than a mere burglary.”

Rory could not imagine sweet Miss Blois engaging in anything so dishonest—so bloody cheeky—as a burglary. And he had imagined her doing many and various things—most of which involved night clothes.
 

But far be it for him to discourage her. “How much
more
?” He gave her his best confidential, tell-me-all-your-secrets smile. “Whom do ye want to burgle?”

“Not a who, a what—Somerset House.”

Rory nearly tripped on the uneven grass. “Ye’re mad. Not on yer life. Or mine, for that matter.”
 

She grasped his forearm. “But what if I told you it
was
on my life?”

He took a step back so he might take a good hard look at her. A look that might make him see past her beauty and fragile air, and examine the very real possibility that perhaps Miss Mignon Blois was more of a scoundrel than even he might have thought.

“Ye are mad. Why on earth would ye want to break into Somerset…” It came to him with horrible, sudden clarity. “The Verrocchio.”

She nodded grimly. “The Verrocchio.”

“But it belongs to ye!”
 

“Well, it is not exactly mine—it is ‘in the family,’ if you will. But that has nothing to do with it.”

“It has everything to do with it,” he insisted. “Why do ye want to steal a statue ye already own?” He wanted to shake her—just a little. “Why? Is it for the notoriety?” he prompted. Stranger things had been done to increase the visibility, and therefore the value, of an art collection. “The money?”

“No, not at all.” Her reply was emphatic. “Quite the opposite. The less attention paid, the better. And there is no money to be made. The Verrocchio is not for sale.”

“But stealing it—if such a thing were possible, and I’m not saying it is—would garner an
enormous
amount of attention.” He could imagine the banner headlines Archie would write for the Spectator now.
 

“If it is money you are concerned about, I will pay you for the job,” she pressed. “Not as much as the value of the statue, of course—it’s worth at least ten thousand pounds.”

“Aye, and there have got to be at least a thousand Bow Street Runners surrounding it.” He started walking again. “I don’t like the rate of exchange.”

“You exaggerate. There are not so many as that.”

“There are more than I could ever deal with. And there are more than Runners to deal with—the whole place has been alarmed to the teeth. Weren’t ye listening to Sir Joshua the other day?”

“Yes, but surely there is something…”
 

“Nay.”
 

She stilled, and the animation drained from her face, like a flower wilting from lack of sun. “Does that mean you won’t do it?”

“Nay,” he repeated, only gentler this time. “I won’t. I can’t.” For many reasons involving ethics and his reputation, and the fact that he was not, in reality, a particularly good thief. He was no longer the thief he had been in his boyhood at all.

“Are you
sure
?” Her voice was soft and pleasing and very, very hard to resist.

He tried a little bit harder. “Quite sure. I’m sorry. But I thank ye for thinking of me. I’m flattered.”

She was everything dejected. “I do not want to flatter you, I want to hire you.” She heaved a big sigh out of her delicate little dove grey chest. “Then could you give me another name, as a professional reference?”

“Another thief? Good God. Are ye quite serious?” There was no way on earth that he would, or could, give her over to a real, actual thief—the Blois townhouse would be picked clean in days.
 

“Yes. I told you, I must get it.”

He had to dissuade her. “Ye’ve seen the way the Verrocchio is protected. The locks and bolts, and all the runners, not to mention all the various and sundry members of the Royal Academy, and members of the public who fill the galleries.”

“Well”—she turned those enormously appealing black eyes up to his—“I was hoping to leave those sort of details to your experience.”

He felt as if he were drowning in her plea. “Ah. Aye, my experience. Well, experience will only get ye so far, and I’m afraid it won’t be far enough. Those are not mere details.”

“But I must— I must do something. Surely there is another—”

There could be no others.
 

“I’ll tell ye what,” he said before his brain could catch up with his mouth. “I’ll sleep on the idea. It’s too late to go there now—the galleries at Somerset House will be closed. But we’ll go round there together in the morning, and have a look, shall we? We’ll tout the case”—he gave her the thieves’ cant—“tomorrow.”

“Really?” Her smile was a warm sunrise after the darkest of nights, dawning softly across her face. “Oh, excellent.” She turned and put out her hand for him to shake, like a gentleman. Just as if they were two men, on any pavement, anywhere in the city, sealing a well-made bargain.
 

But she was not a man. She was everything small and soft and feminine and enticing. Everything he wanted. And would do anything to get. Even break into Somerset House.

And he had taken her hand before he had time to think. Before he had time to warn himself, or prepare for the delicious shock of her cool, delicate flesh meeting his.
 

She gripped his hand evenly, with firm, unyielding restraint, and he felt an entirely different part of himself—something deep within his chest—stir to life. Something entirely different from casual infatuation or shallow lust. Something warm and earnest and protective.
 

Oh, dear God. He was an idiot—she had, with one flutter of her lashes, made him so.

Well, in for a penny, in for ten thousand pounds. “Why don’t ye let me see ye home, Miss Blois. Or as the day is young, let me show ye a bit of London.”

“No, thank you, Mr. Andrews. I know London quite well enough. My mother was English, you know.”

He didn’t know, though he should have. He’d have to make a note to be more careful in his research and reconnaissance next time. “Then why don’t ye show London to me? I’m only lately come up to town from Scotland, ye see.”

“Scotland?” The light in her face waned into skepticism—she put up her guard. “I had rather keep our dealings on a more professional footing, if you don’t mind.”

He did mind, but a fellow had to try. “Certainly we can keep our acquaintance professional. It is professional to understand intimately all the needs a client might have.”

She still looked skeptical, her natural reticence and personal modesty making her regard him out of the corner of her eyes. “Had we not better meet in the morning?”

He gave in to the surprising strength of her restraint. “Yes, that would be lovely. But I find that such jobs are most successful when all the parties involved are entirely relaxed and at ease, so why don’t ye come to my house for a nice leisurely breakfast, and—”

“Mr. Andrews.” Her objection shimmered across her breathless voice. “I most certainly will not. We will keep any and all association between us strictly governed.”

Again, a fellow had to try. “Quite right, Miss Blois. Forgive me. I’ll meet ye at the corner of Coventry and Haymarket tomorrow morning, at ten o’clock sharp.”

And out came the sun—her smile spread across her face in pleased relief. “Ten o’clock it is.”

She nodded twice before she replaced her veil and swept away down the lawn, and out of sight in the trees.

 
And Rory went home to pour himself a drink. A large drink. Large enough to take a hot bath in.

Chapter Eleven

The dangerous, and dangerously charming Mr. Andrews bowled up to the corner of the Haymarket and Coventry streets in that high perch phaeton so tall and dazzling and frightening, it took her breath away. And from the moment he handed her up, she could not seem to catch her breath for the entirely of their journey down the Haymarket and onto Cockspur Street, until they swung onto the Strand, where traffic made a breakneck pace impossible.
 

“That’s the King’s Mews.” Mr. Andrews pointed with his whip as they looped around Charing Cross. “With the all the King’s men.”

“Yes?” She craned her neck back to see what he was talking about, but no group of horse followed. “Do you refer to the groomsmen?”

“They’re not just grooms,” he informed her. “They are ex-military men, mostly veterans of the North American wars—the king having a soft spot for his soldiers. And they are also more than mere soldiers—they are very often former cavalry troopers, and hard men.”

“I did not know that. But what does that have to do with us?”
 

He did not answer directly, but continued his nonsensical travelogue, pointing to a mansion on the south side of the street. “And that is the Duke of Northumberland’s House.”
 

“So? He is nothing to do with us.” Although she was quite sure His Grace the
duc
did have one of her father’s forgeries—a tiny, luminous
faux
Rembrandt—hanging in his famous picture gallery.

“My information tells me the duke keeps a large host of well-trained footmen, who resemble nothing such much as a private army, and has done so since Wilkes' election riots some twenty-five odd years ago.”

Before she could ask what point such information was meant to make, he reined his pair to a stop before the tripartite arch of their destination. “And here is Somerset House, with all its bustle and guards laid on for the course of the exhibition. And do ye know what’s right up there past Catherine Street?”

“The Drury Lane Theatre?”

He shook his head as if she were the veriest infant. “Bow Street and the magistrate’s office. Where the runners come from. And ye want to stage a robbery for a ten-thousand pound piece of artwork in the middle of all this.” He made a neat circle before her. “Very handy. I can practically taste the bread and water.”

Mignon didn’t dare accuse him of losing his nerve—not when she was rapidly losing her own. It was one thing to think about breaking the law, and breaking into a hallowed institution, but it was quite another to ask another person to risk everything they had to do so.
 

So she saved her breath to cool her porridge, as these English liked to say, and silently followed him into the crowded exhibition rooms as he walked and looked and studied the layout.