A Dangerous Deceit (Thief-Takers) Read online

  “We should be. The train is full, we’ll slip away with the crowd. But how the devil did Kray get them all out? It couldn’t have been bribery alone. The amount of money it would take to secure the release of so many people…” He shook his head. “You could hire well-trained, experienced men for less. Then again, experienced, well-trained men are harder to find, and possibly less likely to do as they’re told without asking questions.” He paused briefly and looked at her with a curious expression she couldn’t quite read. “It’s been two days, now. We’ve given Fulberg and the Harmons a good head start.”

  “Do you think they’re in safe in Edinburgh?”

  “No, not yet. But as I said, they had a good head start.”

  She gaped at him as realization dawned. “You want to stop the chase. You want to stop baiting Mr. Kray.”

  “Yes.”

  “Absolutely not.” She’d not come so far only to give up now.

  “Jane—”

  “It is not up for discussion.”

  “On that point we agree. My decision will be final.”

  She leveraged herself off his lap and resumed her seat across from him. “This can’t be the first time the plan of a Thief Taker hit a little snag. Surely things go awry from time to time.”

  “They do. And from time to time we decide those snags warrant a change of course.”

  “This is not one of those times.” When he didn’t respond to that, she swallowed down a rising flood of fear and tipped her chin up. “You may abandon the Harmons and Mr. Fulberg if you like. I intend to go on as I have been.”

  When that produced no reaction, she folded her arms over her chest and glared at him defiantly.

  Come hell, high water, or Sir Gabriel Arkwright’s final decision, she was going to keep the Harmons safe.

  ***

  Gabriel had no reservations about working with women. He’d had countless female clients, and when Samuel had suggested that his wife, Esther, train and begin working as one of the Thief Takers, Gabriel had agreed without hesitation. He had done so knowing full well that, yes, from time to time, things went awry.

  In the past, however, he’d dealt with dangerous complications in a calm, rational manner.

  At present, he felt a little unhinged.

  It wasn’t merely anger he was experiencing. He knew anger. It burned bright and hot. A man could use it, bend it to his will like a carefully tended fire.

  This was something different. This was new. It wasn’t red hot. It was black, thick, and sticky as tar. It clung to every inch of him, inside and out. He could feel the weight of it pressing down on his lungs, and a nauseating, slick coat of it in his stomach.

  He didn’t know what to do with it, how to use it, or—currently more pressing—how to be bloody rid of it.

  It had just sprung up. The second he’d turned the corner and spied Jane struggling with the man in the alleyway everything had gone…a bit dark. It had taken an enormous effort not to aim for the man’s head. Too much effort. He’d never experienced bloodlust of that magnitude before.

  And that was nothing compared to the anger he felt toward himself. He shouldn’t have left Jane alone. He’d taken too long inside. He should have bribed the people ahead of him instead of waiting. He shouldn’t have made assumptions about where Kray’s men were to be found.

  He should have aimed for the bastard’s head.

  Gabriel rolled the tension out of his shoulders. It was reasonable to assume that the feeling would soon ease. It was equally reasonable to believe that he could avoid experiencing it in the future by tucking Jane away someplace safe.

  It was utterly asinine to believe she would ever agree to that.

  Which left him with one of two options. He could force her to give up the game, earning her wrath and rebellion, and possibly endangering her loved ones in the process. Or he could find a way to keep this new, unwelcome, and volatile emotion under control.

  “We go on as we were,” he agreed. “For now.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jane and Gabriel disembarked at the next stop, in a town which turned out to be significantly larger than the last. Jane couldn’t decide if that was to their benefit or not. One could blend and disappear into a crowd, as they did leaving the station. That was certainly helpful.

  On the other hand,anyone could blend into a crowd. As they worked their way toward the center of town amongst a throng of people, Jane searched one face after another, wondering if any of them meant her and Gabriel harm. She had no way of knowing for sure because, with the exception of Mr. Kray, she didn’t know what any of the men chasing them looked like. She’d only seen them through the window of her parlor, and it had been a brief and distant view.

  And then there was the noise. So many voices all talking at once. She couldn’t hope to make out what anyone was saying—not even Gabriel. Her gaze jumped to him repeatedly, but he remained stone-faced and tight-lipped until they broke away from the larger group and made their way toward the town’s inn.

  Jane relaxed at the relatively peaceful environment, but she nearly groaned aloud when Gabriel immediately procured an enormous roan gelding for them. Sitting two to a saddle had seemed so romantic at first, but now the thought of it just made her legs ache. Assuming he had good reason for the arrangement, however, she kept quiet until they’d led the horse away to the privacy of a side street.

  “Are we safe here?”

  “It appears so, for the moment.” He turned away and bent down to adjust a strap just as a small group of boisterous young men leaving the inn briefly caught her attention. “If Kray’s men beard thespian what forest at the station.”

  Her gaze shot back to Gabriel.Kray’s men…something…at the station.What something?Beard thespian what forest. That could be anything. Anything at all.

  But it hadn’t been a question, had it? It hadn’t sounded like one, and he wasn’t looking at her.

  “Well, all right,” she ventured in what she hoped was a natural tone of voice. When he didn’t look at her as if she’d lost her mind, she casually maneuvered around to the other side of him, where she could see his face. Then she promptly changed the subject. “Why can’t we take two?”

  Gabriel paused in his work and glanced up at her. “Beg your pardon?”

  “Wouldn’t it be better if we rode separately? We’d be more comfortable, I’m sure. And we’d be able to move quickly if need be.”

  “You can’t ride.”

  “Of course I can,” she replied, a little insulted that he’d simply assumed she wasn’t able to seat a horse. “Maybe not with any great skill, but I manage.”

  She knew something was wrong almost immediately, because for several seconds he did nothing but stay exactly as he was, crouched over with the strap in his hand, and stare at her very much as if shehad lost her mind.

  There had been no assumption, she realized. There had been a miscommunication.

  Before she could think of a way to back out of her suggestion or minimize the damage, however, he pulled the strap tight, and straightened to look down at her with an awful, narrow-eyed suspicion.

  “Jane, we discussed this.”

  “Did we? I don’t recall.” She had no difficulty affecting an air of confusion. She really didn’t remember it. Over the last few days, there had been a number of comments and conversations she’d bluffed her way through. The subject of riding could have come up during any one of them. “Are you quite certain I—”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Well…”Damn it. She had a terrible urge to swallow nervously and look away. The first she suppressed, but she couldn’t stop her eyes from dropping from his mouth to his collar. “Obviously there was some sort of misunderstanding. Was it first thing in the morning? I’m not always at my best straight upon waking.”

  “You were fully awake. Look at me.” He caught her chin and held it steady. “Why are you lying to me about this?”

  “I’m not, and I didn’t. Not intentionally. I don’t r
ecall telling you I couldn’t ride. I suppose you must have asked me while I was woolgathering and I answered without thinking.”

  “You weren’t woolgathering. This isn’t like when you were listening to the wind in the pines. We were in the middle of a conversation.”

  “Obviously it didn’t have my full attention.”

  “You were a full participant. You were looking right at me.”

  Trying to decipher what he’d said, no doubt. “But evidently thinking of something else,” she replied and tried to add a hint of impatience to her voice. “I’m sorry for the offense, but honestly, it has been a trying few days. Anyone might find the current circumstances a trifle distracting. And it’s no good looking at me as if I contracted some great deceit on purpose. If I’d meant for you to believe I couldn’t ride, I’d not have just asked you why we have only one horse.”

  “Concocted, I think,” he said quietly, and a little thoughtfully, as if puzzling something through.

  “What?”

  “I think you meant concocted, not contracted.”

  Had she saidcontracted?Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

  “I suppose I did,” she said coolly, and pushed his hand away. She desperately wanted to say more, to somehow turn things about so she was back on the offensive, but she couldn’t trust herself to speak without compounding the problem. She was often at her worst when her temper was high. The best she could do was pretend an air of slight annoyance. “May we leave now?”

  He stared at her a moment longer, his expression unreadable, then finally nodded. “We’ll take two horses. You ride sidesaddle, I assume?”

  “I can ride astride just as well. Mr. Harmon taught me.”

  There was another extended silence as he studied her with unnerving intensity. “Two it is.”

  A half hour later, Jane had changed back into trousers and was comfortably astride her own dapple-gray mare. Comfortable was a relative term, however. She was no longer traveling with a saddle digging into her middle and thighs, but the trail Gabriel chose through the woods was thick with brush and thorns that continuously caught at her clothes and skin. And the unintended consequence of being separated from Gabriel was silence.

  She kept waiting for him to attempt conversation, but he was abnormally quiet. Under other circumstances, his reticence might have been welcomed, but Jane couldn’t help but worry over the direction of his thoughts.

  Did he still believe she had purposely lied to him? Or was he thinking now of all the other past misunderstandings and awkward moments between them, and wondering if it all added up to more than a woman with a preference for solitude and a funny little quirk?

  He’d looked at her so intently earlier. Was he coming close to guessing her secret? The very idea made her palms itch to tug at the reins. She wanted to turn her mount round and head off in the direction of Ardbaile.

  But retreat and isolation were no longer options. And neither was lying her way through the rest of their journey. It was time she accepted that.

  Her affliction simply wasn’t something that could be kept hidden indefinitely. At some point, there would be too many jumbled words, too many misunderstandings, too many times she responded inappropriately, or not at all, or got tangled in the increasingly absurd lies she told to cover her mistakes.

  Eventually, she thought with a heavy sense of dread and resignation, Gabriel was going to discover the truth. The only question now was whether he heard it from her, or figured it out for himself. The latter allowed for a bit of stalling. If she was very careful, and if he continued to eschew conversation, she might have another day, even two, before things came to a head. On the other hand, waiting would mean answering an accusation rather than explaining the situation on her own terms.

  Also, it was quite cowardly.

  It would be better, she decided,much better, if she told him herself.

  Notnow, of course. Not while they were two yards apart on separate horses. She would tell him once they’d stopped for the day…or possibly first thing in the morning. That would leave her plenty of time to figure out exactly what she wanted to say. And howmuch she wanted to say. And how, exactly, she wanted to say it. And…

  Oh, she didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to risk seeing his eyes fill with disgust or fear or pity.

  She didn’t know if shecould do it. She’d never had to explain herself to anyone, not even the Harmons. They’d known before she’d arrived at the cottage.

  For as long as Jane had been aware there was something wrong with her, secrecy had been her one and only consideration. The need to be honest had never presented itself. She didn’t know how to go about it. Where did she even begin? Where did she stop? How honest, exactly, did she have to be?

  Perhaps not too honest. She had a right to her privacy, after all. She had a responsibility to the Harmons as well. If the unthinkable occurred and she was sent away, what would happen to them?

  There were so many things to consider, and Jane spent the next few hours lost in the seemingly impossible task of accounting for every conceivable risk and complication. She also spent considerable time convincing herself that simply building a new set of lies to cover the old ones was not a viable option.

  It wasn’t until a cold wind blew in that she pulled herself from her thoughts, and finally noticed the thick bank of hulking clouds moving toward them at an unnerving speed. She watched the sky darken with growing trepidation. A night spent under the stars was one thing. A night spent under freezing rain was quite another.

  She steered her mount around a group of weathered tree trunks to get closer to Gabriel. “I don’t suppose you have a tent in that bag of yours?”

  “No.” He looked over his shoulder at the brewing storm. “We’ll need to shelter indoors.”

  They would need to do it soon, Jane thought. The wind was picking up steadily and brought with it the scent of rain.

  They made their way through a particularly thick section of woods and came out on a small road. A short time later, Gabriel led them off onto a narrow, rutted drive that brought them to a small stone cottage and matching stable. Jane was apprehensive about being a guest in a stranger’s home, but it quickly became apparent that the house was unoccupied. There was no movement on the grounds or in the windows, the small flower beds flanking the front doors looked overrun with weeds, and they soon discovered the stable empty of life.

  They took care of their mounts quickly, then dashed to the house.

  Jane was envisioning a warm fire and soft bed as Gabriel knocked on the front door. He didn’t wait long for an answer before he pulled something out of his bag and crouched down in front of the door handle.

  Jane peered over his shoulder and watched him fit a small tool into the lock. “Are you trying to pick the lock?”

  “No, I’ve succeeded in picking the lock,” he corrected, and demonstrated by straightening and opening the door with a flourish.

  Gabriel stepped inside, but she hesitated at the threshold. This was someone’s home, she thought, and she didn’t have permission to be there. The moment she stepped inside, she became an intruder, a trespasser.

  “Jane?”

  “This is illegal.”

  “A bit, yes. But—”

  “We’ve broken into someone’shome.”

  “It doesn’t appear to be anyone’s home at present. And, strictly speaking, nothing’s been broken, but—”

  “We don’t have permission to be here. Maybe we should look elsewhere for shelter.”

  As if in response, or possibly in mockery of her hesitation, the storm chose that moment to let loose a great rumble of thunder and a heavy sheet of rain. The latter would have soaked her to the skin, but she was over the threshold and closing the door behind her in less than a second.

  And then she just stood there in the modest front hall that reminded her a little of Twillins, and marveled at the fact that she was now, officially, a mad, idiot trollop,and a criminal.

  Gabriel cleared h
is throat. “You can leave a note of apology if you like.”

  If she hadn’t been staring right at him, she’d not have known he was grinning. “Don’t make fun. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  “I’m not in the habit of picking front doors belonging to innocent people myself,” he replied and waited for another long crack of thunder to pass before adding, “but I find my conscience completely untroubled at the moment.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “Would you begrudge a traveler taking shelter from the storm in Twillins tonight?”

  “No, I suppose not,” she conceded. “Provided they were respectful about it.”

  “Why assume the owners of this house are less generous and compassionate than yourself? You’re insulting them, really.” He tsked and shook his head. “And in their own home.”

  “Stop it,” she chided, but couldn’t hold back a small laugh. “I think Iwill apologize to them, and I don’t…” She paused as a new idea occurred to her. “Would you write the note? They might find it more reassuring coming from a famous former police officer.”

  He tipped his head at her, his grin turning thoughtful. “Is it that important to you, leaving a note?”

  “Yes. I know you think it’s silly, but a person’s home is…” She trailed off, unable to find the right word to describe what a home meant. “Well, it’shome.” She gave a small shrug. “A home should always feel safe, and it’s frightening to think of people having been in one’s house while one is away. But if they left a note…”

  “They’d seem a bit less like strangers and a little more like unexpected guests,” he finished for her, and she smiled, delighted that he should understand so perfectly. “I’ll write it,” he continued, “but you should know you’re wrong—”

  “I’m not—”

  He cut her off by stepping close and pressing a single, chaste kiss to her cheek. “I don’t think it’s silly,” he said simply. “Come on, let’s see what our hosts have left for us.”

  As the storm blustered outside, Jane and Gabriel made their way through the cottage. Had it not been for the sheets that covered most of the furnishings, and the dust that covered everything else, one might have assumed that the residents were expected home at any minute. Every room in the house was fully furnished. There were paintings on the walls, lamps and candles waiting to be lighted in every room, a stack of books sitting atop a desk in the largest bedroom, and just a general sense of life in the cottage having stopped rather suddenly.