Mad for Love (12 page)

At least that was what she assumed he was doing—she was just getting nervous. Inside her gloves, her palms had gone damp with apprehension.

And they were only “touting the case,” as he had said.

But besides looking, it seemed as if her thief might be succumbing to the Diana’s charms. Time and time again he circled back to the middle of the hall, staring at the Verrocchio. And then at Mignon.
 

“What is it?” she finally asked.

“I could swear.” He very gently took her face in his hands, and tipped her chin to one side, narrowing his eyes in contemplation. “Aye. I see it. There is a remarkable resemblance.”

She twisted her chin out of his supple, thieving fingers. “Do not be ridiculous. I am not three hundred years old.”

“Most decidedly not.” He gave her one of his slow roguish smiles. “But just to be clear, where were ye in the middle part of the fifteenth century?”

Mignon kept her porridge cool, and let Mr. Andrews lead her on another seemingly casual ramble about the hall, before they fetched up in front of an empty mantelpiece. Mr. Andrews busied himself for a moment with an examination of the medieval tapestry on display as a fire screen in front of it, but then seemed only to be consulting his own image in the mirror hanging above.
 

Mignon was about to give him her less-than-flattering opinion of such a self-centered waste of her time, when she saw that he was in actuality tracking the movements of a footman—actually one of the liveried Bow Street Runners—who seemed to be tucking something into a small broom closet under the wide marble stair.
 

“Wait here,” Mr. Andrews directed. “And make a bit of an ass of yer lovely self, if ye can manage it.”

Mignon had no time to voice her outrage at his execrable language, before he slipped away behind the velvet ropes that had been set up to cordon off the area behind the stair to visitors. Belatedly realizing he meant to investigate the closet, she quickly stepped in front of the footman on guard, and tried to create a diversion by fumbling and dropping her hat pin so that the man was obliged retrieve it for her.

Her play acting must have worked, because before she could re-secure the black felt
bergère
, Mr. Andrews reappeared at her side just as suddenly as he had disappeared. “Nicely done, Mignon.”
 

And before she could protest his over-familiar use of her family name, he signaled her to silence, took her arm, and steered her in the wake of a one of the liveried footmen-guards switching places with another.

Mr. Andrews surreptitiously checked his pocket watch before launching into a lengthy exposition on a small portrait. “Oh, aye, lass, do examine closely this Rembrandt. Old Master. Take note of the salient feature of the contrast of the beautifully revealed subject emerging from the dark background…” His lecture trailed off as the guard they were following disappeared behind a door.

“Wait here,” Mr. Andrews instructed again.

“And make an ass of myself?”

His slow smile of appreciation was devastating in its charm—she instantly felt warm all over, as if she was bathed in a soothing cup of tea. “No. Once was more than enough to ask of ye. Just enjoy yerself for a few moments, while I look into things.”

Mignon hid her pinked cheeks in contemplation of Rembrandt’s dramatic juxtaposition of light and dark—
chiaroscuro,
she could have told Mr. Andrews, or anyone else who asked. But no one did, because Mr. Andrews returned before she had even got to an examination of the masterful brushwork.
 

“Well, that was instructional.”

Instruction could be good or bad. “How?”

He did not answer. “Come walk with me.”

He took her out into the fresh spring wind roaring up off the Thames for what became a long, leisurely, but silent stroll about the courtyard, before he led her just as silently out onto the Strand, where he waved away his tiger—a shifty-looking young fellow who lounged about ogling passing females instead of tending to the horses’ heads.

But if Mr. Andrews did not care what his tiger did, then it was no business of hers.

But about that which
was
her business—the recovery of her father’s Verrocchio—she most certainly would ask. “Are you going to tell me what you found instructional behind that door?”

“I found a guard’s room, where they take their ease whilst off duty.” He turned her to walk eastward along the Strand. “And some information about the charwomen who come in the night to tend to the place.”

“What on earth do charwomen have to do with us?”

He shook his head and smiled, all at the same time. The effect made a hot
pot de crème
of her brain. “Ye’d be surprised.”

“How so?” she managed.

“Before I tell ye, I feel it is my duty to first try dissuade ye from this particular endeavor.” He linked his arm with hers. “I know a charming little gallery on Pall Mall we could very easily knock off, just to get our feet wet before we move directly into full-fledged catastrophe.”

“No.” While she appreciated his cheerful candor, she had to convince him that only the retrieval of the Verrocchio would do. “There is no time for any other.”

“Then at least tell me why we must steal this particular statue—why steal something that already belongs to ye?”

“Well, you do not think I would steal something that does
not
belong to me, do you? That would be…dishonest.” She had certain scruples that had to be maintained, even in the midst of thievery.

“Ye don’t say.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair, disrupting the smooth sandy queue. “Look here. The Diana statue will be returned to ye when the exhibition is over—why not wait until it’s back in yer home, and steal it then, without a bit of bother? That’s the sort of easy caper for which I would be delighted to offer my services.”

She had to make him understand. “If I could do that then I would not need your services, would I? You do not understand. This is not a jape or a prank or a whim. I must get that statue away from here or else…There is no ‘or else.’ I simply must, and for that I need real, professional, criminal help. And you are the only criminal I know.”

“I see.” He did not, really—she could tell by the frown etched between his brows. But he was trying. “I must look at the facts impartially. We cannot get in or out through the alarmed doors. We cannot get in or out through the alarmed windows. We can’t get rid of the runners. We simply—”

“Cannot get in or out.”

He turned to regard her with those bright blue eyes. “I didn’t say that.”

There was something about him—a calm sort of mischief—that lit the dry kindling of hope within her chest. “Then you have an idea?”

He winched up one eye, as if he was not yet prepared to say. “A faint inkling of an idea. Walk with me.” He let out a sharp whistle that brought the tiger leading the pair in their wake.

Mignon tried to bank the warming light of her enthusiasm, and allowed him to lead her along.

“I think better on my feet,” he explained. “So, no in and out….” He muttered half to himself, and sidestepped just in time to avoid being splattered by the contents of a pail emptied from the alley, where two tired old scullery maids were sitting down in the thin sunshine to smoke their pipes in all their worn, soggy-skirted glory. “Like birds,” he murmured, “drying their wings in the sun.”

“‘Birds of a feather flock together’ you English say,” Mignon remarked. “Or as the French would have it, ‘
Qui se resemble s’assemble.’
”

Her gentleman thief frowned, as if he could not quite ponder out what she was saying. “Those who resemble each other, assemble together?” And then, his face cleared and his eyes went wide and bright with the spark of an idea. “Oh, God, yes.”
 

He grabbed her by the shoulders, and before she understood what he meant to do, he graced her with a wildly enthusiastic, smacking kiss.
 

Her breath froze in her throat, only to be thawed by the warm tingling that emanated from her lips. Mignon did not remember when she had been so shocked—excepting that moment when she had finest encountered her gentleman thief—until he spoke, and shocked her anew.

“Devil take me, Miss Blois. I think ye’ve got it!”
 

Chapter Twelve

“Quickly now, Miss Blois.” Rory whistled sharply for Archie to bring up the phaeton. Now that he had made up his mind, there was no time to waste. “Let me hand ye up.”

“Sir, if you think I will allow you any further liberties, just because I let you kiss me—”

“My dear Miss Blois, that kiss was not a liberty. That kiss was a celebration of ye solving the mystery of how we are going to steal yer statue.”

Mignon Blois went still with excitement. “Then you
are
going to steal it?”

“
We
are. But only if ye get in. Quickly now.”

She cast a wary eye upon his wickedly fast little carriage. “Where are we going?”

“Petticoat Lane, away to the east”—he pointed the way up the Strand—“to test yer resolve. I cannot do this thing without ye, so I want ye to take a long last look at the blue sky, the green grass, the blowing trees, and the gray river, all of which I loathe, personally, which means I won’t much mind a nice long stint in a small dank prison. But ye may mind. Ye may like yer liberty.”

“My liberty? My help? You are mad.” Her look of consternation—all lush lips crushed between white teeth—was more than enough to convince him he would be mad
not
to include her. “You do not need me to put my hand to this dough. I am not a thief.”

He could not help the smile that slid across his face at her mangling the French idiom for aiding and abetting into English. “Nonetheless, ye’ll do, Miss Blois. Ye’ll do quite nicely. But ye’ll have to agree right now to two particular things.”

It was something of a revelation to watch her decide—to watch her quiet wariness slowly gave way to the temptation. He smiled encouragingly—raising his brows and nodding—to help her along the crooked path.
 

“What sort of things?” she finally asked.

He was not going to make it so easy. “Ye have to agree before I tell ye.”

He could almost see the change—those dark eyes took on a steely glint of purpose, and she took a deep breath to calm her growing excitement. “And if I agree to help you, then will you agree to steal the Diana?”

He took his own deep, calming breath. “Aye, I’ll help ye steal the Diana.” God help him, but he would likely do anything she asked, even if she didn’t agree to help him.

He was rewarded when her face was instantly suffused with a vermilion pink sunrise of pleasure. “Then I agree as well.” Her voice was all breathless delight. “I am quite determined to go to any lengths to retrieve the Verrocchio.”

Oh, he knew in that moment that he would never want to knowingly disappoint that hopeful, trusting, happy, heart-shaped face. He would do anything—even the impossible, because how would she look at him then, when he had got her Verrocchio for her? How would she reward him?
 

It made the prospect of ruining his career quite worth it.
 

Of course, infatuation was no basis for making a sound decision. He firmed his voice, to make it sound more businesslike. “Good. That’s settled. Now, the first thing is that ye have agreed to follow my lead unconditionally.” When she nodded he went on. “And the second is that ye’ll have to get in the carriage.”

Despite just having promised to help him, and do as he bade, she eyed the yellow monstrosity as if it were a spider.

“It’s too late to turn back,” he reminded her. “Ye’ve already agreed, and I mean to take ye at yer word.”

Poor Mignon Blois gathered her courage along with her skirts, and climbed up, and set her hands to the edge of the seat in a death grip. Which he very kindly noticed. “I shall go it at a crawl, Miss Blois. I shall be everything prudent and sedate, and let ye breathe.”

He was true to his word, and took it at a nun’s pace straight up Strand to Fleet Street, and on through the Temple Bar toward East London, through the working, bustling, swearing, sweating, shouting heart of the city. The West End and all its refinements had much to recommend it, but it was the east of the city that Rory loved best—where the men and the city worked as almost one animal. It was the part of the city that reminded him best of the wharves of Leith, at the watery edge of Edinburgh, where he had spent his formative years as an unacknowledged by-blow of the Earl of Cathcart. And where, despite the intervening years of education and erudition, he still felt most at home.