Mad for Love (19 page)

Which he suspected was not truly a Verrocchio at all. But which he intended to steal anyway.

Chapter Eighteen

Even though she was watching from the shelter of the closet door, and even though he had warned her, and even though she had warned herself, nothing could have prepared Mignon for the unholy din that was the sound of the Tildesley alarm lock going off.

It was as if a runner were actually taking a hammer to the bell, so loudly and incessantly did it ring. And as soon as he set if off, Rory came pelting back across the floor, and into the closet, and into her arms.
 

And even though Rory did flick the lock on the closet door before he pulled it shut, locking them in, she did not mind. Because this time, it felt safe and secure. Because the moment the door closed, he took her in his arms, kissing her passionately, before he urged her down to the floor, and into their low hiding place under the stair.

In comparison with the first time the runners had made their organized rounds of the exhibition rooms, this time was utter chaos—their footfalls were thunderous as they ran from one room to the next, shaking the very walls of the closet as they pounded up and down the stairs in their haste to check every single lock upon every single window and door.

There must have been a great many locks.
 

But they seemed to have located the alarm under the Diana statue, for the din finally ceased, and from their vantage point under the stair, they could hear a conversation close by.
 

“Everythin’s in order, sir,” a voice reported.
 

Another voice confirmed, “Nothin’ is missin’.”

“Damned alarm went off for no reason,” another groused.

Mignon could feel Rory’s unrestrained grin against her forehead. “Why are you smiling?” she asked in a whisper.

“Because it’s working—they’re getting annoyed.”
 

Outside, in the exhibition space, more footfalls could be heard tramping back down the stair. “Are all the alarms reset?”

“Aye, gov’nor,” and “Aye, sir,” came the responses, but it was a longer while until all of the footsteps finally retreated, and silence once again reigned over the empty rooms.
 

Mignon’s heart eased slowly back into a more normal rhythm. More normal, but not entirely normal—because she wasn’t normally lying under a stair with a handsome man plastered all down the length of her with his legs tangled in her skirts. Because never before this evening had a man put his hand so intimately into the small of her back, and held her tight, and kissed her until she thought her heart would rise out of her body. Never before had she laid her head against a gentleman’s chest and listened to the strong steady beat of his heart.

It was certainly a night for firsts.

Rory eased back and reached for the glim, and the low mellow light illuminated their hiding spot once more. “All right, then?”

“Almost. Even though I knew what would happen, my heart was thumping as if it would come right out of my chest.”

“I’m sorry for the fright. Ye’ve been an absolute sport about this. I could not have asked for a better confederate in crime.”

“It must be my tainted blood.” Her papa was a scoundrel of the first order—why should she not be a scoundrel of some lesser order? Perhaps all her trying to be good and safe and normal was just working against her own true nature. Perhaps she was destined to become a lady thief. “But I do not know if I could stand the worry and the constant fright. I had no idea what you had to endure. If I had known I doubt I would have had the courage to ask you to you this.”

“Well, that’s very kind of ye to say. I do appreciate yer consideration. But if ye hadn’t asked me, what would ye have done about Mr. Cathcart?” He said the name quietly, watching her face for her reaction.

Which was, she feared, all too obvious—she felt stupid and lightheaded, as if all the blood drained from her heart, leaving her hollow and empty. Even her voice was faint. “How do you know about Mr. Cathcart?”

“It’s my business to know,” he said in a perfect echo of what he had said that first night, when he had known her father would be out at the exhibition. He put his hands on her shoulders to steady her. “And I know that tomorrow, he is supposed to turn up to test your ten thousand guinea Verrocchio.”

She tried to swallow, to ease the breath she couldn’t seem to draw, but her throat was too tight, her mouth too dry.

But she didn’t have to speak. He already knew—she could see the hard knowledge in his eyes, even though he spoke quietly to soften the blow. “It’s a forgery, isn’t it?”

There didn’t seem to be any point in lying now, and he deserved to know, really, while he was putting his life and certainly his liberty on the line for her. But the admission of one forgery would no doubt lead to another, and she had to at least try and keep Papa out of it. “Well, you see…” she hedged.

“Nay.” He stopped her with a firm squeeze on her shoulder. “We haven’t got time for long involved stories at this time of night—and our business is not yet finished. So if ye please, just nod your head, aye or nay. Is the Diana a forgery?”

She closed her eyes against the shame of it, but she nodded.

“Ah,” was all he said, but when she opened her eyes to look up at him, his face was suffused with a look of warm satisfaction. “I was right,” he explained. “I thought there was something fishy right from the start. But it’s too old, too well known in the Blois Collection, even before the revolution. And besides, yer father never studied sculpture that I know of.”

And it was his business to know all about her Papa. Her gentleman thief had a wealth of knowledge she had never dreamed of.

“Who carved it?” he asked.

Mignon took a deep cleansing breath, and gave herself the relief of telling the truth for once. “My grandfather.”

“Ah. The old
comte
’s brother, yer father’s father? I see.” He ran a hand into his bright, sandy hair, as if in contemplation. “And who posed for it?”

“My grandmother.”

“Aah.” This time, his smile was all pleased mischief, spreading across his face like jam. “I was right—there is a resemblance between ye and that statue.” He kissed her on the tip of her nose, as if that would prove it.
 

“You are the only one who has ever noticed,” she grumbled. But Mignon was glad it was out in the open—it felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. But still, she wasn’t altogether comfortable—they were still locked in a closet in Somerset House, and they still had to steal the statue to keep it from the diabolical Mr. Cathcart.

“Well, I’m very sensitive and perceptive about beauty.” Rory tipped his head in that charming, considering way of his, and ran the backs of his fingers down her neck in a lovely, sweet caress that eased her discomfort.

“When did you suspect that the statue was a forgery?”

He smiled, and tipped his head to the other side, as if he might hedge. But then he said, “The moment ye asked me to steal it.”

If he hadn’t had his arms around her, Mignon thought she might have fallen down, so unexpected was his answer. “But if you knew…then…why? Why are you in a closet with me in Somerset House in the middle of the night, helping me to steal back a worthless forgery?”

“Because,” he said solemnly, “I like ye.” And then he kissed her.

He kissed her with something more than mere like. He kissed her with passion and heat, and something more elusive—something new, that she hadn’t met with before.
 

He kissed her with promise.

A promise of trust and loyalty and abiding, steadfast warmth and safety.

He kissed her as if she mattered.
 

What a strange thought. She had always mattered to herself, and to Papa she supposed. But it was altogether different to matter to someone like Rory Andrews, a clever, dangerous thief. But a person she had come to hold in such regard.

“You love me,” she said, as much to convince herself as him. “I think you must.”

“I think I must.” His next kiss was slower—it took him forever to lower his lips to hers, all the time staring down at her with that absolutely focused smile—but even more filled with carnal intent. He kissed her with hunger, as if he might devour her. As if only she could feed the hunger within him.
 

Until she could not.

Because he pulled abruptly back. “I almost forgot. Ye’re engaged.”

“Not at all, truly,” she hastened to assure him. “I only got engaged to get rid of him. Because he would not take no for an answer. Even though it is the only answer I mean to give him.”

His chest expanded with the breath he let out. “So ye’re definitely not going to marry the Duke of Bridgewater?”

“Definitely not.” How could she marry someone like the Duke of Bridgewater, when she was falling quite in love with another man?

“That’s better, then. May I kiss the bride-not-to-be?”

She felt as if her smile might take wing and fly her into his arms. “Oh, yes please.”

But she kissed him just as much as he kissed her. She was too full of something beyond hunger, beyond want. Something that filled her head with daydreams, and her heart with a longing that could only be called hope.

They were becoming dangerous, his kisses. They made her feel as if anything were possible. As if there might somehow be a future for her with a forger for a father, and a gentleman thief as something altogether more singular, and intimate.

He smoothed the hair away from her face, and then opened the shutters on the small lantern to check his watch. “Second lap around the course, coming up. Are ye ready?”

“For the alarm? If you can stand that din, then I must as well.”

“Good sport. Don’t go away.” He rubbed his thumb along her bottom lip before he kissed her one last time. “I want to mark my place.”

And then he slipped out into the darkness of the exhibition space, and once again set off the alarm under the Diana statue. He was back in a flash, taking the hand she held out to him, locking the door, and then folding himself into her as they slid into their hiding place in the cool dark under the stair.

Outside the cozy confines of their closet, chaos reigned, but not quite as energetically as before. Though they could hear footfalls tramping out into the rooms and up the stairs, this time the guards steps were not as rushed. In fact some were downright sluggish. Even when they came right to the closet door.
 

“Lot of rot, this is,” the unseen guard muttered as he fumbled with the closet key, and opened the door just as the alarm was turned off.

Mignon tucked her head into Rory’s chest, and squeezed herself into the smallest, stillest bundle possible, while the runner fumbled with something on one of the closet’s small shelves—something liquid, that sloshed in its bottle, and had a cork that popped off with an audible squeak.
 

“Ahh,” the runner breathed out his relief.

“D’ya hear tha?” Another set of footsteps drew near.
 

“What?”
 

Mignon—and she assumed Rory as well—could hear him shove his bottle back onto the shelf, where it tipped over.

“Yar man at the door. ’E sez as someone come from the Duke of Northumberland next door. Sent his man round to ask what all the damn racket wus.”

“Did’ya tell the guvner?”
 

“I did. He dint like it, not one bit.”

“I’ll lay ya a groat ‘e turns that bleedin’ mal-functionin’ thing off.”

With that the runner slammed the closet door closed, and locked it. And then the alarm bell rang out one more time, before it was abruptly cut off.

Then the footsteps retreated. And silence reigned.
 

Under the stairs, Rory didn’t move, presumably waiting and listening. But when nothing else happened—no sound, nothing but silence—he sighed, as if he had been holding his breath. “My God,” he finally breathed. “I think it worked. I’ll have to test it of course, but I think it actually worked. I think he actually has turned the blasted thing off.”

Chapter Nineteen