Touch of a Thief (26 page)

Qui
nn listened with growing consternation as Viola told him about her visit to her former fence’s shop.

Willie had greeted her with a surly glower, rebuffing her initial queries for news of the Blood of the Tiger, but once Sanjay joined her in the shop, he’d turned surprisingly accommodating. Yes, Willie had admitted, the word slithering around Cheapside was that an illicit purchase of legendary proportions was about to take place.

Quinn frowned. “You shouldn’t have gone there.”

“Nonsense,” Viola said. “I was perfectly safe. Though I had no idea how threatening Sanjay can appear when he wishes.”

“It was not me, Lady Viola,” the prince said with a selfdeprecating shrug. “A Beaumont-Adams in one’s sash always makes a suitable impression.”

“I suspect your snapping black eyes and fierce scowl helped immeasurably. Thank you, Sanjay.”

The Indian prince bowed and left the room, claiming he needed to prepare the brougham for the evening’s plans.

“What plans?” Quinn asked.

“Willie gave us all we need to intercept the diamond before it changes hands.”

“Out of the goodness of his boot-black heart?” Quinn folded his arms across his chest.

“No, I had to promise him a goodly sized ruby, but I believe you have one you can spare.” Viola untied her bonnet and laid it on the side table, then tore open one of her parcels to reveal its contents. She handed Quinn a black domino and shook out a folded garment that turned out to be a matching silken cape. “You’ll need this.”

“Why? Are we going to a masquerade?”

“After a fashion. The buyer of Baaghh kaa kkhuun wants to maintain his anonymity.” She held a purple half mask before her face. “Mr. Chesterton is meeting him this evening at Vauxhall on the Druid Walk sometime between eleven and midnight.”

“How is this good news?” Quinn demanded. “Didn’t your fence know where Chesterton was staying? We might provide a diversion to draw him away from his domicile and then you and I could break in and snatch the diamond.”

“That’s no good. According to Willie, the diamond never leaves Chesterton’s person. Apparently he learned his lesson when he almost lost it to the Comte de Foix.” Viola crossed over to Quinn, put her arms around him and kissed his cheek. “Don’t look so glum. Trust me. This will work to our advantage.”

He buried his nose in the juncture of her neck and shoulder and inhaled her sweet scent. How could he put her in jeopardy, even for the sake of his adopted country?

He certainly couldn’t reveal her identity to that blasted Fenimore. He might have promised a pardon, but Quinn wouldn’t bet a farthing on it. Even if a pardon was forthcoming, Viola would be devastated if her adventures as the Mayfair Jewel Thief became grist for the gossip mill, as they would if the authorities were involved. Nothing in government was ever a secret for long. Perhaps the best course would be simply to give the damn diamond to Sanjay and let him return it quietly to the temple of Shiva. Yes, that would settle matters after a fashion.

His mind made up, he kissed her neck.

But if he gave the diamond to Sanjay on the sly, the bureaucrats would sort out the sepoy rebellion in their usual ham-handed way without even the hint of an olive branch to offer the Indians once they were “pacified.” Of course, the whole argument was moot since there was still no sure way to steal The Blood of the Tiger back.

“I don’t see how the fact that Chesterton has taken to keeping the diamond on him will help us,” Quinn admitted.

“Really?” She pulled away from him and held out her palm. One of his pearl wrist studs shimmered up at him. He hadn’t felt her take it. “Do you see now?”

“How did you do that?”

“Before I mastered the tumbler lock, I realized most people forget they are wearing jewelry and if properly distracted, won’t notice it’s missing until much later.” Viola shrugged and bit her bottom lip. “You have no idea the number of hours I practiced lifting items from a dressmaker’s dummy in the attic before I tried it on a living person. I thought my heart would leap from my chest the first time, but I must confess”—her hazel eyes sparkled with hidden fire—“it’s really rather exciting.”

Lady Light-fingers
. She certainly lived up to the name he’d first given her. He didn’t doubt she could do it, but Baaghh kaa kkhuun was one jewel that might very well steal her in return. “No, Viola. I don’t want you to touch that bloody diamond.”

“But that’s the beauty of this plan. I won’t have to.” She smiled, her face as flushed and excited as a debutante at her coming-out. “We already know Mr. Chesterton keeps the diamond in a silver snuffbox in his waistcoat pocket. So long as I wear my shielding jewelry and keep the box closed, I’ll sense its presence, but the diamond won’t be able to harm me.”

“But what about him?” Quinn asked. “Do you think Chesterton can sense the diamond’s presence as well? He might notice it was gone sooner than we’d like.”

“He wore a silver and jet pinky ring at Schloss Celle, but that’s all. Fairly light shielding.” She frowned, considering the matter. “That shows he understands some of the diamond’s power—enough to take precautions against it—but I don’t think he’s that sensitive or he wouldn’t have been able to withstand the stone this long.” She sighed. “It does call to one.”

Like a siren on the rocks, if her longing expression was any indication.

“Come, Quinn. It’s the only chance we have of retrieving the diamond.” Viola put her arms around his neck again and pressed her body against his, drawing her palms down his arms. “It’ll be fun. I promise. Please.”

He grasped her wrists and held them immobile. “Am I about to lose something else?”

She laughed musically. “No, silly. In fact, I just put your stud back.”

He snapped his wrist up between them. Sure enough, the pearl stud was back in place. He shook his head and smiled. “You’re good at being bad.”

She pulled his head down for a bruising kiss.

“No, I’m a good thief,” she said breathlessly when their lips finally parted. “You’re the one who taught me to love being bad.”

The woman crowded his senses, pushing aside everything else. His body roused to her with a granite-hard cockstand.

“If we’re quick about it”—he thumbed open the buttons in a line down the front of her bodice—“there’s time for another lesson in debauchery.”

“Lead on.” To his delight, she swung one leg around him and hooked her heel at the base of his spine. There were layers of petticoats and lace between them, but he could feel her heartbeat throbbing between her legs. Her head lolled back as he kissed the exposed skin above her chemise and corset.

“Oh, yes, Quinn,” she slurred. “Tell me we’ll find the diamond tonight.”

His head snapped up at that and he looked down at her. The last thing he wanted to hear from her before he swived her silly was more about the damned diamond.

Her lips were parted and her eyes closed. A fine sheen of perspiration bloomed on her skin. She trembled. If someone had told him she was an opium fiend in need of a fresh dose, he’d have believed it.

The red diamond’s power was a drug to her, he realized with a jolt. It had touched her once and made her long for it again, even though it had tried to kill her.

Her eyes fluttered open. “Quinn, what’s wrong?”

He unhitched her leg from around him and forced a little distance between them. “If we go for the diamond, you must promise me something.”

“What?”

“If I think it’s too risky, if I don’t like the situation we find, we’ll stop then and there. And if I call it off, there will be no argument. Understand?”

She sighed. “I understand, but it’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

“As soon as you have the snuffbox with the diamond, you must give it to me immediately. Agreed?”

She didn’t answer.

“This is nonnegotiable, Viola. I don’t want you to hold the box a second longer than absolutely necessary.”

“Quinn, you’re being a tyrant.”

“No, just a man who doesn’t want to see you hurt. I mean it. I’ll have your word on it or we’re not going anywhere this night, even if I have to tie you up to keep you here.”

For a moment, Quinn imagined her strapped spread eagle to his four-poster, breasts bound with silk, her secrets bared and vulnerable. He could keep her teetering on the edge of release for hours. How prettily she’d beg before he’d relent and let her come.

“In fact, that’s the best idea I’ve had in ages.” He put his mouth to her ear and whispered a few of the lewd and loving things he’d like to do to her.

Her eyes flared with scandalized surprise. “As much fun as letting you tie me up sounds, I’ll pass on it for now. You have my word.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “I’ll give you the diamond as soon as I have it.”

She kissed him again. Her mouth under his pushed all thoughts of the diamond out of his mind. She gave herself over to him, helping him free her breasts from their whalebone prison.

He captured a nipple and suckled hard till she moaned his name. Then he turned his attention to her other nipple. Her nimble fingers teased their way down the front of his trousers. She unfastened the horn buttons at his hipbones and shoved his smallclothes aside, plunging her hands in to fondle and stroke him.

He yanked up her skirt. She guided him through the slit in her drawers and he swived her against the wall, mindless as a ram in rut.

“Harder,” she urged.

Her words released him and he stopped holding back. She welcomed his feral thrusts with little cries of pleasure. Her body stiffened and her release pounded around him. He joined her, spilling into her in hot pulses, the precaution of a French letter the last thing on his mind.

He gasped for air, not realizing he’d held his breath while they throbbed as one. When the insanity of lust faded and he started to help refasten her bodice, he realized something. He needed Viola like he needed food and water and his next breath.

She was his opium, his own private poppy field. Each time he loved her, he wanted more of her. She enslaved him with each sigh, each kiss, each bone-jarring swive. Though he ought to have been fully spent, his cock rose again, ready to claim her as his.

She was his light, bright enough to blind him, but he couldn’t look away. She was salt, preserving and abrading at once, but without her, his life was tasteless and flat. She was the lifeblood coursing through his veins. She might be addicted to the red diamond, but he was addicted to her. He’d never be free of his obsession with Viola Preston until he was dust.

Please God.

For almost two hundred years, Vauxhall Gardens had lured Londoners out to revel in its groves. At one time, Handel’s music debuted in its pavilions and the upper crust dined on Vauxhall’s famous paper-thin ham. Families with children rode across the Thames in little coracles to see the spectacle of the gas lamps winking on throughout the expanse of green.

Of course, since the pleasure gardens were open to the public, the seedier side of the city had always enjoyed its own brand of revelry there as well. Young bucks and girls of questionable virtue could be seen cavorting about pagan, vaguely phallic Maypoles. Bonfires blazed and instead of Handel, gypsy tunes filled the air in the less lighted sections of the garden. All manner of sexual congress was available for a price behind the thick shrubbery of the Druid Walks.

The gardens had fallen on exceedingly hard times. The ton had all but abandoned Vauxhall, except for those looking for a randy adventure with the added spice of anonymity. Almost everyone of consequence wore masks or dominoes to conceal their identity.

Viola and Quinn strolled the length of the Druid Walk, looking for Mr. Chesterton, no mean feat since that part of the park was not lit by gas lamps and the moon was on the wane. Every time a man of the correct height and girth appeared, Quinn asked Viola if it were he.

“No,” she said, cocking her head to strain for the low sound. “The diamond isn’t here.”

She might not recognize the man, but there would be no mistaking Baaghh kaa kkhuun. When she’d first heard the stone at Schloss Celle, its voice had been excruciating to her, nearly knocking her flat. But after she’d actually touched the stone, the sound changed.

She ached to hear its deep, rhythmic song again. There was something primal about the diamond’s voice, elemental as the rush of the tide, a good hard swive, or the beating of her own heart.

Sanjay claimed Baaghh kaa kkhuun was evil and he was probably right. But that didn’t stop her from wanting to be near it again. She couldn’t help it. The diamond had claimed part of her and she wouldn’t feel whole until she heard its music, inexorable and demanding, pounding inside her head.

She hoped it wouldn’t be too terrible or too beautiful to bear.

The nearly-healed burn on her palm tingled. Her lust for the diamond made her shiver as they walked along, though she wasn’t the least cold.

She wondered if she’d recognize the diamond’s buyer based solely on his desire to possess the stone. Her own wanting was so keen-edged, she suspected if she were naked she’d find her nipples perked and her crotch damp. She moaned in frustration.

Quinn pulled her close. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She leaned into his warmth. Solid. Male. Comforting. Quinn would protect her. Even from herself.