A Dangerous Deceit (Thief-Takers) Read online

  When the sun came out again an hour later, he was back to just being dirty.

  Jane’s cheerful mood of earlier dried up even faster and more thoroughly than the rain. Initially, he assumed she was dwelling on the dream. But she kept tipping her head back to look at his lip, a frown marring her pretty face.

  It wasn’t the dream that bothered her, he realized, and the next time she glanced at him, he gave her a smile. “Have I told you about the time Samuel broke Renderwell’s nose?”

  “What?” She blinked, and leaned back awkwardly for a better look at him. “No. He didn’t do it on purpose, I’m sure.”

  “Yes and no. He’d been shot. He’s been shot an absurd number of times, actually—”

  “Yes, I remember. The papers called him something… I can’t recall…”

  “Thief Taker Almighty.”

  She shifted and fidgeted, clearly seeking a more comfortable position from which to face him. Her bottom brushed against his groin and every muscle in his body tensed. “Yes, that’s it. I remember—”

  He caught her hip and tried to still her. “Don’t wiggle, Jane.”

  “But I can’t”—she scooted, squirmed, and nudged—“see you.”

  He swallowed a pained laugh as every erotic daydream he’d indulged in earlier sprang to the forefront of his mind, all of them demanding his immediate attention. “Jane. Sweetheart. Be still.”

  “But—”

  “Here.” He hooked a hand under her thigh and urged her to move her leg over the horse, seating her side-saddle. “Better?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He wasn’t quite so certain. For all intents and purposes, she was sitting on his lap. But at least she was sittingstill.

  “Tell me what happened,” she prompted. “With Samuel.”

  “Right.” He cleared his throat and did his best to ignore the soft, tempting weight of her. “He took the shot in the middle of the thigh. It missed the bone, but failed to pass through.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  He nodded in agreement. “Nasty business, digging out a bullet. Most men need to be held down for the procedure, but Samuel tolerated it remarkably well. Nevertheless, Renderwell and I sat by him in case restraint became necessary. At one point, the physician dug a little too hard, or in just the wrong spot. In either event, it was more than Samuel could stomach. He swung out instinctively. As Renderwell happened to be sitting closest to him at the time, he received the full impact of Samuel’s displeasure. Samuel caught him right on the nose.” He smiled a little at the memory. “God, what a mess.”

  “He must have been very angry.”

  “I think it was more that he was in an ungodly amount of pain.”

  “No, I meant Lord Renderwell. He must have been furious with Sir Samuel.”

  “I know what you meant. Of course he wasn’t angry.”

  “But how could he not be?”

  “Because Samuel is his friend, and he was in pain.” He couldn’t stop the grin that came as he recalled the details of that moment. “And then they both were.”

  “That amuses you?”

  “Immensely,” he said with feeling. “It was a toss-up who shed more blood that day. Taking a hit from Samuel is akin to sticking one’s face in front of a moving locomotive.”

  “Has he hityou?”

  “Not since we were lads.” He thought about that. “Well, not in the face. And not as hard as he could have—”

  “Good Lord, what sort of friends do you have?”

  “The sort who make allowances for extenuating circumstances, then forgive and forget. The good sort.”

  “What were the extenuating circumstances when Sir Samuel hit you?” she asked, her voice rife with skepticism.

  “The idiocy of youth, and too much drink.”

  She made a face at that. “Drunkenness is no excuse for losing control of oneself.”

  “You’re forgetting the youth part. That’s a reasonable excuse for damn near everything.”

  “Is it? Everything?”

  No, not everything. “Damn near,” he repeated. “It certainly excuses the drunkenness which led to the idiocy of two youths taking swings at each other over a particular young lady who, as it turned out, didn’t fancy either of them.”

  She winced in sympathy. “I’m sorry. Were you very heartbroken?”

  “Inconsolable for a day or two,” he assured her and laughed at her disgusted expression. “We’re off point. As long as there is no lasting harm done, why shouldn’t friends overlook some transgressions?”

  “Because behavior has consequences,” she explained patiently. “Or it should. If you allow your friends to strike you without—”

  “It’s not about allowing, Jane. I’m not their father. I’m their friend. It’s about understanding and forgiveness.”

  She was quiet a long moment. And then, without warning, she reached up and gently touched the tip of one small finger to his sore lip. “Are you trying to make me feel better about this?”

  His mouth tingled at the spot. “Yes. Is it working?”

  “Perhaps a little. Are we friends, Gabriel?”

  She looked somber again. That wouldn’t do. Hoping to tease her back into smiling, he asked, “Would you forgive me if, while having a bullet dug out of my leg, I accidentally swung at you?”

  “I… Well…” She lowered her hand. “How hard?”

  He laughed. He couldn’t help it. “I wasn’t in earnest—”

  “You could hit me hard enough to do lasting harm, I should think. What if I lost teeth?”

  “Good God.” What had been a ridiculous question only a moment ago was now a perfectly disturbing image in his head. “I would never hit you, Jane, not under those or any other circumstances.”

  “Do you have better self-control than Samuel?”

  “Samuel would have found the control he needed if Renderwell had been a woman. The question was meant to make you laugh. I didn’t think you’d take it seriously.”

  “But I asked you if we were friends, and that was your response.” She tipped her head at him, a furrow across her brow. “Did you think my question was meant to be funny?”

  “No, I just…” He’d just wanted to make her smile. He stifled a sigh. “Very well. No, you would not lose teeth.”

  “Then, yes, I would forgive you.”

  “Excellent. I’d forgive you for it as well. So there you are.”

  “That makes us friends?”

  “It’s as good a yardstick as any. Unless you’d care to get drunk and fight over a woman?”

  “No, thank you. Do you know,” she began thoughtfully, “I believe I would forgive you even if you did knock out a tooth.”

  “Well, it’s nice to know one of us would.”

  “You are helping me, after all.”

  “The cost of that help is not one or more of your molars. Besides, I told you, it’s not help exactly. It’s—”

  “Responsibility, yes,” she said dismissively and then grew quiet again for a long time.

  “What are you thinking, Jane?”

  “What you said about youth being an excuse for everything.” Her amber eyes settled on his, searching. “Are you really not ashamed of anything you did as a child?”

  “I…” He hadn’t said that. He would never say that. He’d said only that a good friend would forgive a mistake that caused no lasting harm. “On the contrary, I am soundly embarrassed by any number of things I did in my childhood.”

  She nodded slowly, as if they had both agreed on something very important. Only he wasn’t entirely sure what that might be.

  “So am I,” she whispered.

  There was a wealth of sadness and regret in those three words. He wondered if she realized it, if she knew how much of herself she’d given away.

  And he wondered what a young Jane could possibly have done to earn the censure of her adult self.

  If he pressed, he could have the answers. He had years of experience interrogating peopl
e. He knew how to draw information out of uncooperative suspects and unwilling witnesses alike.

  Instead, and to his own surprise, he brushed a kiss over her hair and said nothing.

  She would tell him when she was ready.

  ***

  Jane wished there were something she could say to Gabriel besides, “Sorry.” It seemed completely insufficient for what she had done.

  She didn’t want to look at him. And yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself, and every time she saw his reddened lip, she felt utterly ashamed.

  Not that he seemed to mind the injury. She supposed it was a relatively minor wound for him. But it was significant to her.

  She hadn’t hit a person in years. She hadn’t lost control of herself since she’d been a child, when the frustration of always being wrong, constantly being misunderstood, would build and build until it finally tripped over the line into anger. The smallest thing would set her off—a single insult, a challenging lesson, a snappish tone. There was a reason she’d had so many governesses over the years, and why many of them had been perfectly happy to lock her in the nursery after dinner and leave her alone. No one liked to care for a child who not only failed at her lessons but also routinely left bruises.

  It could be argued that some of them had more than deserved her temper. A few of them had been nothing short of completely vile human beings. But the shameful behavior of others did not excuse her own. She was better than that. She had been better for a long time. She never wanted to go back to the frightened, furious little girl she’d been.

  Not even in her dreams.

  Chapter Ten

  As the day wore on, they stopped to rest periodically, but only once did Gabriel leave to visit a small farm, and that was for a fresh horse, not to leave a trail for Kray’s men.

  “We’re too far from our original starting point to leave any sort of trail for those men,” he explained as they made their way back into the woods. “We need to be seen in a town. And soon.”

  “Well, there must be one nearby. What did the people at the farm tell you?”

  “That the nearest village by road is six miles in the wrong direction.” He shrugged at her grimace. “We’ll find something.”

  Two hours later, Gabriel was rethinking his decision not to head in the wrong direction. They were finding nothing.

  The forest had grown steadily denser, until it became nearly impossible to see past the next stand of trees, let alone rooftops or even chimney smoke in the distance.

  Behind him, Jane shifted for a better look over his shoulder. “We could be quite near a town and never know it.”

  He brought the horse to a stop, dismounted, and helped Jane do the same. “We need higher ground or an open view. Wait here a moment.”

  “But—”

  “I won’t be gone long. Walk about. Stretch your legs. But don’t go far,” he tossed over his shoulder as he strode away. “Stay where I can find you.”

  He pushed a little farther into the woods, where the trees looked to be thinning out a bit. As he’d hoped, they soon opened into a small clearing. Unfortunately, it offered no better view of the horizon. But it did have something Gabriel had been dreaming about for the past twelve hours—water. Fresh water in the form of a small, clean pond that looked deep and felt invitingly cool to the touch.

  He ached to strip down on the spot, dive in, and soak himself until every last speck of dust and grime floated away. He needed to be clean again, so much so that it was starting to become a distraction. Old memories were popping into his mind unannounced and with increasing frequency. For now, he could still push them away or ignore them, but the dirtier he became, the harder that was going to be. The memories would stay, and nag, and remind him of that day he’d stood in his grandparents’ parlor, covered in filth from head to toe, and told Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright one dirty lie right after another.

  Just to save his own skin.

  “We were traveling. Mother wanted to travel while the captain was at sea, and then—”

  “For three years? Without telling anyone? And all alone?! Your mother ran off with you…all by herself?”

  No, there had been a man. A big man with a grand smile, booming laugh, and eyes the exact same shape and shade as Gabriel’s.

  That man had taught him how to dance, how to shoot a rifle, how to play with other children. He’d shown Gabriel the value of kindness, affection, and courage. He’d shown him how to carve out a bit of joy from every day, and how to fit love into every second of it.

  “Gabriel?”

  That man had been the most admirable human being Gabriel had ever known. He’d been the greatest father a boy could have possibly hoped for. And he had loved his son unconditionally, without a moment’s restraint or reserve.

  But that incredible man had not been his mother’s husband, the illustrious Captain Arkwright.

  And that man was dead. He couldn’t help his son now.

  “Gabriel, you must answer your grandmother—”

  “Yes. By herself. We were alone.”

  Suddenly, the dirt and grime accumulated over months of living in the cheapest boarding houses, as well as weeks spent on the road, seemed to seep into his skin and sink down into his blood. He imagined his insides turning dark and thick as mud.

  He was a filthy liar. A black-hearted coward. He’d never deserved his father. Nor the Arkwrights. Not even the captain. He wasn’t fit to…

  “Stop it.” Next to the pond, Gabriel said the words aloud.

  He wasn’t in the habit of talking to himself, but he didn’t want to remember that day. Reliving it served no purpose. The chance for him to do the right thing had come and gone, and he had squandered it. There was no getting that opportunity back again, no way for him to undo the damage his lies had caused. So what was the point of dwelling on it? It was far better forgotten, or at least tucked far, far away in the back of his mind where he didn’t have to think about it, or the guilt, or the perpetual fear that someday, somehow, someone was going to discover the truth.

  Shaking off both memory and fear, he indulged himself with a quick wash of his face, neck, and arms.

  Then he pulled out the folded sheets of paper in his pocket and stared at the contents.

  With Jane at his side, he’d had little chance to study Edgar Ballenger’s list of informants. But the few times he’d managed to sneak away and look it over, he’d been struck by the feeling that there was something off about it. Something that niggled at him, but which he couldn’t quite place.

  That particular puzzle, however, would have to wait until Jane and the Harmons were out of danger.

  He refolded the papers, tucked them back in his pocket, and headed back to Jane.

  “You see?” He called out as he neared the spot where he’d left her. “Wasn’t gone but a—” He came to an abrupt stop. She wasn’t there. “ Jane?”

  Slowly, he turned in a circle, eyes scanning the woods. “Jane?” She couldn’t be far. He’d told her to stay close. “Jane!”

  “Up here!”

  Gabriel’s gaze shot up at the sound of Jane’s disembodied voice, coming from far over his head. When he found her, he took two full steps back. “Good God.” She was halfway up an enormous tree. “What the devil are you doing?”

  “What? Oh! Isn’t it obvious?” She glanced up at the higher branches, then back down at him again. “I’m climbing a tree.”

  “Yes, very helpful, thank you. Come down. You’ll break your neck.”

  “I told you…” She swung a leg over the next branch and hauled herself up. “I’m not clumsy.”

  She was agile as a cat from the looks of it. He watched her as she clambered from one branch to the next with the speed and skill of an acrobat. “That’s high enough. There’s no need—”

  “What?”

  “I said that’s high enough!”

  She shook her head at him and reached for the next branch. “Stop talking. I’m trying to concentrate.”

  “J
ane—”

  “Hush!”

  Hush?Surprise warred with amusement. He was a Thief Taker. A national hero. A knight. One did nothush a Thief Taker.

  Only one could, evidently, because Gabriel kept his mouth firmly shut for the next ten minutes while Jane made her way up the tree. Oddly enough, the higher she climbed, the more his concern for her abated. She was uncommonly skilled. She reached for branch after branch, never faltering, never hesitating. Until, at last, the tree began to significantly narrow, and she halted her progress.

  “There!” She called out and pointed northeast. “Rooftops. A village. I think. Could be a large estate.”

  “Good. Excellent. Come down now, please.”

  She didn’t respond, but she did begin the laborious journey back down.

  At last, she reached the bottommost branch which, for the life of him, Gabriel couldn’t imagine how she’d manage to climb atop in the first place. It was a good six feet off the ground.

  “Did you pull yourself up there?” he asked once she’d safely settled herself on the branch. Her feet dangled in front of him. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and catching one small boot.

  “Yes, a bit.”

  “A bit?”

  “I pulled up with my arms and climbed the trunk with my feet. Haven’t you ever climbed a tree?”

  “Well, yes.” Not that long ago, in fact, but for very different reasons. He’d needed to shoot a man through a set of balcony doors. “But I’m a head taller than you, and quite a bit stronger.”

  “Then I suppose we climb trees differently. It’s easier to jump down this last part rather than climb,” she added, motioning him aside. “If you would, please?”

  Relinquishing her foot, he backed up a few feet, then immediately stepped forward again when she dropped from the branch. He hadn’t meant to do it. There was no good reason he should have reached for her. She was perfectly capable of managing the short jump on her own. But he’d caught her around the waist anyway, simply out of reflex.

  And when she gripped his shoulders and leaned back to look up at him, he decided he wasn’t the least bit sorry he’d done it.