Mad for Love (15 page)

What they needed to start the evening off right was a little disturbance. “Walk by the guard and drop yer parcel,” he whispered into her ear.

“Me?” The rosy vermillion faded from her face. “But what if they want to look at the parcel, and they see the old clothes?”

“They won’t be looking at the parcel,” he assured her. “Just drop it near enough to distract their attention, and while ye’re bending to retrieve it, ye’ll very likely show a bit of yer well-turned ankles—they’re lovely, yer ankles, by the way. So ye might think to use them. Simple, very easy plan.”

Her face suffused with that delicious dash of delicate color at the compliment. But this was no time to let himself be distracted by Miss Blois’s angelic beauty. There was sleight of hand to be done. “Off ye go.” He put his hands to those seemingly fragile, but strong shoulders, and pushed her in the runner’s direction.
 

And damned if she didn’t manage it all as well as a veteran actress upon a Drury Lane stage—a little fumble, a cooing sound of embarrassment, an innocent bending over of a shapely bottom, finished off with an elegant show of ankle.

Rory had to take himself firmly in hand, tear his eyes away from the pleasing sight, and do his part. The moment the runner’s attention was so brilliantly diverted, Rory dodged behind the ropes dividing the public space from the private, quickly lifted the key from the rack he had located at the back of the stairwell on his previous visit, and unlocked the small door to the broom closet under the stair.

And before Miss Blois had even had a chance to recover her poise, he was back at her side, taking up her parcel and her arm like the most solicitous of swains, and escorting his partner in soon-to-be-crime away to safety. But not before he sent the runner an absolutely filthy look over his shoulder for presuming to ogle her ankles.

Just as he had so clearly required, damn his eyes.

Needs must while the devil drives. “Well done, my dear. And so we are set.” He took the precaution of consulting his pocket watch. “With three minutes to spare. Well then, I suppose we have a few minutes left for cultural improvement.”

“Three minutes until closing?” she asked. “But what are we going to do then, when the exhibit closes?”

“I am glad ye asked.” He steered her toward the entryway. “What we are going to do is not panic. Like this gentleman”—he indicated the large self-portrait of Sir Joshua that graced the entryway—“I am going to rely on the instinct we all have to ‘protect what is ours.’ Or more precisely, to depreciate that which is
not
truly ours.”

She frowned and looked from the portrait of Sir Joshua back to him. “I do not understand.”

“Let me demonstrate.” He led her on to the next painting—a large Rubens from the Duke of Bridgewater’s collection—where a runner stood. “Is this Dutch?” he asked the chap.

The liveried runner curled up his lip, and shrugged with supreme indifference. “Dunno, gov.”
 

“Ah, thank you.” Rory moved on to the next painting. “Ye see, all this terribly nice and terribly expensive artwork is not his. And without a profit motive, like there is with thief-taking, the runner will be paid whether he guards this priceless Holbein
Still Life with Pheasant
, or some other painting of a meal he will not eat.”

“Oh, I see.” She looked up at him with something perilously close to respect. “A little.”

“Then let me explain further.” He indulged himself with the feel of the warmth of her sleeve under his fingertips as he led her on to another painting. “The nice thing about complicated mechanical devices, such as specially made, alarmed locks”—he circumscribed the air in front of the painting as if he were discussing the merits of Caravaggio’s opulent rendering of fruit—“is that very few people know exactly how to use them. And when they go off, these alarms, especially for the first time, everyone gets a fright, and everything goes to hell in a hand cart. And that is when we shall take our ride.”

Just saying the words brought a tingle to his palms and a pleasurable tightness to his chest.
 

And she felt it, too—that anticipatory rush of excitement. Her mouth fell open just a tad—just enough for the very tip of her tongue to dart out to wet her plush lower lip—and it was everything he could do not to take her heart-shaped face in his hands, and kiss her with everything he had in him.

But now was not the time. Later, perhaps.
 

Later, definitely.

“Ah!” he exclaimed as they came to the next painting, very near to the large fireplace. “Superb Raphaelo.” He consulted his watch again, and found the hour was nigh. “Now, Miss Blois, we have reached what we may safely call the point of no return. In precisely one minute, the closing gong will sound, and we can be logical, and leave with the others, and go have quiet dinner
chez moi.
Or we stay, and then we are well and truly committed. From that point there can be no going back. But before we do one or the other, ye have to decide if ye really want the statue that much—if ye are truly willing to risk everything ye have, everything ye are.”

She did not hesitate. “
À tout prix.
” She nodded, even as she bit her lip. “I am, at any price. I must do it.” She pulled a shaky breath into her lungs, expanding her chest beneath the filmy cover of her modest linen fichu. “But you do have a plan that you think is going to work, do you not? You are not just—”

“I think it will work. Yes. I am confident.” Lord, he hoped so, or he would have a lot of explaining to do. Not that he wouldn’t have a great deal of explaining to do no matter what happened, but he was prepared for all eventualities. “If ye’re sure?”

She nodded again, stepping infinitesimally closer. Putting herself into his care.

Rory felt his own lungs expand with that addictive tingle of anticipation and excitement. “I put myself in yer charge.” He eyed the position of the runners one last time. “Just do exactly as I tell ye.”

And then the gong was going off—one of the runners wound his way through the whole of the exhibition rooms ringing out the time—and everything changed.
 

Everyone started to race slowly, like tortoises, toward the entrance door. Everything sped up and slowed down. Everything sounded louder, and more muted. Everything narrowed to the feel of his hand on the perfect curve that was the small of her back as he guided her into place beside the chimney piece, and the rest of the runners started herding the visitors toward the doors, picking up pieces of litter and discarded exhibition sheets as they went.

Before the runners came nearer to where they stood, Rory pulled out the handkerchief he had prepared with a handful of coins carefully folded into the center, and propped it negligently, just so, on top of his exhibition program, on the corner of the marble-topped credenza upon which a small bronze cherub figure was displayed.

He turned his back and moved slowly away, smiling at Mignon to keep her attention focused on him, and not on what was about to happen behind him. For just as he had hoped, the runner tried to brush the litter into his wicker bin, causing the hidden cache of coins to spill from the handkerchief, and cascade across the floor. And just as he had hoped, the runners scrabbled after the coins, grubbing around on hands and knees, while he put his hand on top of Miss Blois’s neat little black hat, and stuffed her down behind the tapestry screen, and into the deep recess of the fireplace.

Rory waited only another moment to check to make sure the runners’ attention was still diverted, before he slipped in beside her, turning his black-clad back to the mouth of the fireplace, and wrapping his arms around her.

Within the close confines of the sooty smelling space, there was nothing but their warm, co-mingled breath, and the taut press of Miss Blois’s sweetly rounded hip against his thigh.

Lucky damn thigh.

But he couldn’t simply lose himself to the pleasure of her closeness, all curled up beside him—he had to listen carefully to the retreating footfalls, and auger the exact moment when the runners had vacated the room.

When there was nothing but silence filling the exhibition space, Rory cautiously raised his head over the fire screen, to find the coast was clear, and then he hustled her up and out of the fireplace, and down to the small, unlocked broom closet under the stairs. Which had just about enough room for half of him. Poor Miss Blois was practically plastered right up against the whole length of his body, from torso to toes.
 

It was quite perfect for his purposes.

“Comfy?” he whispered, as he silently shut them in.

“No. I mean…” Her whisper was a little frayed at the edges. “I had not thought it would be quite so…close. Or dark. I do not like closed spaces.”

He tried to charm away her discomfort. “My apologies. It’s a sad crush, but what can one do? We’ll pretend we’re at an overcrowded soiree. If ye just give me a moment…”
 

He shifted his position just enough so that the thin line of light from under the bottom of the door gave them some illumination by which to reach into his rather copious pockets, and produce a very small, portable, shuttered lantern favored by housebreakers. “This is what’s known in the trade as a ‘glim,’” he explained as he knelt down. “If ye could watch yer skirts
 
while I light it?”
 

“You must have the eyes of the cat.” He waited through a supremely pleasurable interlude while fabric shushed and whispered against his face, as she pulled her shirts and petticoats aside. “Will that do?”

He, of course, had to run his hand from her tiny feet up across those marvelously trim ankles to the top of her stockinged shins. For safety’s sake.
 

“That will do nicely.” It took some doing to strike the flint against the oil-impregnated wool wick, but in another moment or two the small lamp was glowing, and they could take stock of their close confines. The closet held an assortment of brooms, mops, and pails for the char women. There was barely room for the two of them to stand chest to chest, and Rory had to stoop so as not to bash his head against the low ceiling. But if they sat, there would be more room in the low, sloping portion that ran under the stairs.
 

Miss Blois— No, Mignon—it was beyond ridiculous to stand on formalities when he couldn’t even stand. Mignon had followed the dim light on its cursory inspection of the space, but then looked to him, her eyes wide and dark with something more than mere discomfort.

Some instinct he hadn’t known he possessed had him wrapping his arm lightly around her back, but even under the guise of comfort, Rory could feel her shallow breathing and erratic pulse practically leaping through the intervening layers of their clothes.
 

“We’ll get more comfortable in a little while,” he assured her in a low murmur against the delicate whorl of her ear. “After the initial danger passes.”

“Danger?” There was more than tension in her voice—there was something dangerously close to irrational panic.

“Of being discovered.”

He heard her quick gasp, but the moment was already upon them—footsteps were approaching. “Hush, now.” He doused the glim, and in the pressing darkness Mignon Blois quite naturally clung to him, putting her hands and face against his chest as the sound of the footfalls grew louder.
 

Rory did the manful thing and held her tight while whispering sweet comforting nothings into her ear. For her sake, of course—she was practically shaking with fear. Especially when the heavy tread could be heard around the back of the stair. And then closer, at the very door to the closet.
 

And the moment he heard the metallic snick of the latch, Rory did the logical, expedient, and entirely practical thing, and kissed her.

Chapter Fifteen

His mouth covered hers.

Mignon was too astonished and too afraid to make a sound, though she had never in her life been kissed the way Mr. Andrews was kissing her now, with his whole mouth on hers. With his whole being. Deeply. Intimately. Madly.

She had seen them on the streets here in London, as well as in Paris—the couples entwined in each other’s’ arms and oblivious to all but the press of their lover’s lips—but she had never expected to become one of them.

But it felt rather nice and warm and interesting and somehow safe to be held so by Rory Andrews. In his arms, the panic of the dark ebbed, and something far more pleasurable flowed in to take its place.