Never Resist Temptation Page 11

  The papers confirmed Bellamy’s reputation as a dull man. Most of the letters concerned the business of his estate and investments. Alas, nothing struck her as significant. Such personal correspondence as existed was from relatives, and concerned children, visits, and the state of the writers’ health: the mundane stuff of daily life, so fascinating for those involved and so tedious to the outsider. The bills were unsurprising save perhaps in their modesty. Clearly Bellamy was not given to undue extravagance.

  By the time she reached the bottom of the pile, the sense of optimism that had launched the evening’s adventure had evaporated. What was she doing here, she wondered, pawing through the banalities of a stranger’s life? And with the deadening of hope came an appalled realization of her peril.

  The consequences of being caught here were terrible. Even being found breaking into a gentleman’s house could lead to imprisonment and transportation. Once the authorities discovered her identity, the hangman’s noose threatened. She couldn’t count on Storrington’s continued protection if he got wind of this little escapade. Every impulse told her to get out at once.

  But the house remained quiet and she steeled herself to remain and finish the job. She perspired under her wool coat, from the heat of the blazing fire and from fear. She shrugged out of the garment, then pulled a thick ledger from the last drawer.

  The volume contained three or four years’ worth of household and personal accounts. The script was neat and the letters commonly formed, save for oddly idiosyncratic curlicues on the descenders, as though the penman possessed some core of rebellion or artistry that emerged only in his handwriting. Her heart now thumping so hard she feared it would awaken the dead, Jacobin forced herself to apply logic to the final task. Candover and Bellamy had quarreled three months ago, so she would start by looking at entries around that date.

  She found it immediately and could scarcely believe her luck. The sum leaped from the page for the simple reason that it was so much larger than any other.

  Before she could digest the significance of the discovery and look further, she heard the front door open and the sound of voices in the hall. Hastily replacing the ledger and shutting the drawers, she snatched up her coat and dashed over to the window and behind the curtain, which luckily covered a narrow window seat.

  Please don’t let them come in here.

  Her luck had run out. Footsteps ascended the stairs, and the voices came nearer.

  “We’ll take tea in the library.”

  Jacobin shoved up the sash and scrambled out onto the window ledge. She could hear the library door open, and the voices became distinct.

  “I think I’ll drink a little sherry to warm me on this cold night. How about you, my dear?”

  Nothing like the cold he’d feel once they came into the room and realized the window was open.

  “I think you had enough to drink after dinner.” The peevish female response came from inside the library.

  Clinging to the lintel with trembling fingers, Jacobin took a deep breath and moved one hand to the top of the sash. She managed to push it down. Silence. She’d escaped just in time.

  But hardly to safety. She was perched on a six-inch-wide ledge a dozen feet from the ground, her face jammed against cold glass, holding on to frigid stone with the tips of her fingers. Added to that it was freezing cold. Her coat slipped from her arm into the garden below, and an icy breeze caught her midriff on one side. Gingerly she lowered a hand to pull down her shirt, which had come loose from the waistband of her breeches.

  The shirt had caught in the side of the thoroughly closed window.

  Oh God, she begged fervently and with more sincerity than her prayers had possessed since childhood. Get me out of here.

  She couldn’t imagine how the deity would manage it.

  Anthony strode along the narrow path to the end of the garden and turned when something caught his eye a couple of houses away. Someone was clinging to the stone architrave of an upper window. That was Bellamy’s house, wasn’t it? And seemingly in the act of being burgled. He meant to go indoors and order a servant to summon the watch, when something about the felon tugged at his mind. Even with her face to the wall he recognized the slim feminine figure in breeches and a white shirt that shone in the hazy moonlight.

  It couldn’t be. Even Jane Castle wouldn’t be so insane.

  How the hell was she going to get down from there without breaking every bone in her body?

  In three seconds Anthony was scaling the garden wall.

  “Jane,” he called softly, standing in the Bellamy garden just below her unstable perch. “Drop down and I’ll catch you.”

  “I’m stuck. My shirt’s caught in the window.” The normally confident voice broke on a sob.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered soothingly. “I’ll get you down.” He didn’t know how, but he had to prevent her from crying aloud and rousing the Bellamys. “How badly is it caught? Pull it gently. I’ll catch you if you fall.”

  It must have taken enormous courage for her to release one hand from her tenuous grasp on the lintel, but she did it. Anthony held his breath as she grasped the linen and gave it a firm tug. He sensed rather than heard her sigh of relief echo his own when the cloth came loose.

  “Well done! Now, do you think you can grasp the top of the sash and hang from it? You should be low enough that I can grab your legs.”

  She nodded, and one by one her hands followed his directions. Then—sensible girl—she knelt on the ledge before letting her body hang all the way down. The distance was less than he’d estimated, and with raised arms he grasped her waist. As soon as his hand touched bare flesh she shot upward out of his grip, lifting herself so that her chest was level with her hands on the sash.

  ’Struth, the woman was strong. He wasn’t sure he could do that!

  “Jane,” he hissed reprovingly. “This is no time for modesty.”

  “Your hands are cold.”

  “You’ll just have to put up with it.” Nevertheless he breathed on them and rubbed them together—she was right, they were cold—before returning them to her waist. This time she didn’t flinch.

  “Now let go, I have you.”

  It wasn’t a flawless dismount, though it could have been worse. They both remained on their feet, but a lurch as she hit the ground knocked a stone pot he’d failed to notice on the dark ground. To Anthony’s ears it cracked like a fifty-gun salute.

  “Let’s get out of here!” he murmured, snatching her hand.

  Leaving the garden wasn’t as easy as entering. The neighbors had a conveniently placed bench against the wall, but the Bellamy side offered nothing but ten feet of sheer brickwork. Anthony swung her up by the waist and she pulled herself up and over the other side. Lucky she had those muscles. He was glad to find, as he followed her, that his were in equally good condition.

  They collapsed onto the bench in the deserted garden, panting with exertion and relief. Anthony had an absurd urge to laugh and found himself shaking like a madman, silent chuckles rocking his chest. He hadn’t done anything so foolish, so exhilarating—so much fun—since the days of his misspent youth. Jane Castle was worth every penny of her outrageous salary in entertainment value alone.

  Impulsively he swung an arm around her shoulders and found that she too was trembling with mirth. Registering on some level that their escape had gone unnoticed and all was quiet next door, he exhaled a huge belly laugh, and for a couple of minutes they clung to each other, cackling like a pair of deranged hens.

  Another sensation invaded his consciousness. She wasn’t wearing anything under her shirt.

  His hand stroked a well-defined shoulder blade and tentatively crept lower and around her side, seeking her breast. She must surely be cold. That quivering wasn’t all laughter. In a smooth move he hoisted her onto his lap, opened his coat, drew it around her, and held her tightly in his arms. Just for warmth, of course.

  Her unbound breasts pressed against his waistcoat, and
her heartbeat seemed to match his own. A faint scent of vanilla warmed the wintry redolence of decaying vegetation and frozen earth. She raised her head from his shoulder, but it was too dark to see her expression. Neither did he know who made the first move. Perhaps it was a simultaneous advance.

  Her lips were soft and warm. Initially the kiss spoke of companionship and mutual appreciation. But not for long. She opened up to him, and he was lost in a sweet, shadowy retreat where only the two of them existed. A gentle tattoo pulsated in his chest. It felt like joy

  Tentative at first, her response intensified into hunger for the feast. They kissed for who knew how long, and he was content with the fruit of her lips, the honeyed tongue, the rich confection of her mouth. Not that he wouldn’t have taken more. His whole body tingled with knowledge of her nearness. But he made no gesture of increased intimacy. Jane Castle’s kisses were enough, for now at least, to make him entirely happy.

  It was she who changed things. Somehow she’d unbuttoned his silk brocade waistcoat so that the warmth of their bodies melded with only two layers of linen between them. The definition of her breasts against his chest sent a sharp message of desire to his nether regions and awoke him from his blissful trance.

  There was no more excuse for trifling with Jane Castle than there ever had been. She was still his servant. Reluctantly he withdrew his embrace and lifted her from his knees, placing her once more beside him on the bench.

  Jane Castle had some explaining to do.

  Out of the poêle, into the four.

  Except the sauté pan had been a freezing nightmare and the oven was a warm, delicious haven. Jacobin would happily have gone on kissing Storrington all night.

  Once again he’d come to her rescue. The contrast between the black despair of her situation on the Bellamys’ window ledge and the paradise of his embrace banished all fear. All she wanted was to be as close to him as physically possible. Her mind was incapable of considering the consequences of the evening’s business. The enchantment of his arms and mouth was everything.

  Sadly he didn’t feel the same way. She found herself bereft of his heat and unceremoniously dumped onto a cold bench. The sudden physical chill—and the chill of rejection—made her shudder.

  He shrugged off his coat and threw it around her.

  “You’ll need it,” she demurred as he thrust her arms into the sleeves.

  “I have my waistcoat,” he said gruffly, and buttoned her up to the chin, like a child. Her hands drowned in the sleeves of the garment, much too large for her slender figure. The fine wool with its silk lining was soft as a petal and smelled faintly of wood smoke and tobacco and a masculine soap.

  He rebuttoned his waistcoat. Heavens, she’d undone it herself. Now that she’d come to her senses she couldn’t believe her audacity. She felt deeply humiliated that she’d thrown herself at him but he hadn’t wanted her. And just when he’d gallantly saved her from a terrible pickle, instead of letting her tumble to injury or death, or calling the watch, which would have been the sensible thing for a respectable, law-abiding peer to do. And still could.

  “Now, Jane Castle.” He was no longer touching her but sat sideways and eyed her severely. As he spoke she could see his breath in the night air and feel it tickling her ear. “Why don’t you tell me what you were doing and why I shouldn’t turn you right over to the watch?”

  But his tone, though stern, was not hostile. She gazed at him, and as far as she could tell in the scanty light, he didn’t look unsympathetic. Nor should he, she thought with returning confidence. No one had forced him to come to her aid and no one had forced him to kiss her.

  With a touch of rebellious impertinence, she answered his second question with just a hint of a query in her tone. “Because you kissed me?”

  She wasn’t sure that was strictly correct. She might have kissed him first, but he’d definitely participated.

  “True. And I shouldn’t have. Once again I must apologize.” He looked grim. “But I must insist on knowing why I find my pastry cook clinging to the wall of my neighbor’s house late at night.”

  There wasn’t any point to further prevarication.

  “My lord,” she began, taking a deep breath and clutching his coat around her. “I am wanted for attempted murder.”

  He took this dramatic statement calmly. “I know. I heard the investigation was concentrated on the search for one Jacob Léon, a missing cook.” After a pause for consideration he continued. “I rather think it was a mistake for you to have fled. Even had you lost your position when your sex was revealed, you could doubtless have found a new one. It’ll be difficult now to persuade anyone of your innocence. Given tonight’s events I can see that you are given to rash impulses.”

  Unable to reveal the real reason for her flight, she could hardly argue with his assessment. Ignoring the just accusation of impulsiveness, she stood up and flung out her arms in agitation. Thinking about the injustice of her situation, she didn’t have to feign indignation.

  “Exactement. They won’t look for the real villain because they are sure I am guilty. So I have to find out who poisoned Lord Candover. I must help myself.”

  “And where, may I ask, does the Bellamy family come in? Do you have some notion that Chauncey Bellamy tried to kill Candover, or perhaps Lady Caroline? God knows her personality is poisonous enough.”

  Jacobin waved aside Storrington’s note of sarcastic disbelief.

  “Yes! And I think I’m right. Three months ago Mr. Bellamy had a furious quarrel with Candover and threatened to kill him.”

  Storrington raised his eyebrows. “And whence came this fascinating information?”

  She tapped her nose knowingly. “We servants have our sources.”

  He laughed shortly and without humor. “And so you do. And on the basis of this nugget of gossip you decided to burgle Bellamy’s house.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re crazy!” He leaped to his feet and towered over her, a furious glower creasing his forehead. “Do you have any idea what would have happened to you if I hadn’t come along and seen you trying to climb in that window?”

  “I wasn’t climbing in,” she said. “I was leaving, and I would have been perfectly safe if they hadn’t left your house so soon. It must have been a dreadfully dull party that the guests left so early. If I were a hostess I’d make sure people were enjoying themselves enough to stay till a decent hour.”

  He looked ready to burst with irritation. “That’s neither here nor there. The fact is, you took an intolerable risk with little or no chance of finding anything.” His voice rose to a shout. “What were you thinking?”

  Although when she was sitting in Bellamy’s library her own thoughts had been identical, Jacobin was irked by his high-handed attitude, and she refused to give an inch. “As it happens,” she said with a superior smirk, “it was well worth it. I found something very interesting.”

  “About Bellamy? He’s nothing but a stuffed shirt.”

  “What would you think if I told you he lost twenty thousand pounds to Candover at piquet?”

  That got his attention. “The devil! Twenty thousand, you say. Are you sure?”

  “It was there in his accounts book. Candover. Piquet. Twenty thousand pounds. About three months ago.”

  Storrington was now pacing, hands behind his back and his head bowed as though in deep thought.

  “It’s important, yes?” she pursued. “To lose such a sum must surely be a motive for hatred.”

  “Perhaps,” he replied, frowning. “It seems so unlike Bellamy. He’s such a model of dreary respectability, and notorious for his disapproval of gambling and cards. I’ve never seen him play so much as a game of penny whist.”

  “So he wanted to keep it a secret! It makes perfect sense.”

  Storrington nodded. “He’d certainly want to keep it from his wife. If I’m not mistaken she’s the master in that household. It was a brilliant match for him. Her father’s the Duke of Wensleydale, and the
whole family are ardent evangelicals. Very worthy people of course, supporters of Wilberforce. But not likely to tolerate such a huge slip from the straight and narrow.”

  Enthusiastic as she was about this line of reasoning, Jacobin couldn’t help seeing a flaw. “If he wanted to keep it from his wife, why would he record it so openly in his accounts?”

  “I don’t know, but I do believe that Bellamy bears looking at in the Candover matter.”

  “Will you help me? Will you tell the Bow Street runners to investigate him?”

  “I don’t see how I can do that without revealing how you found the information.” He placed a slight stress on the word you, a warning that his forbearance toward her ambiguous situation went only so far. “I’ll poke about and see what I can find out. At the very least I should be able to discover if he was in Brighton, or anywhere nearby, at the time of the poisoning.”

  Jacobin barely refrained from casting her arms round his neck and kissing him again. It was so wonderful to have someone on her side, to feel she wasn’t completely alone anymore.

  He grinned down at her, his facial expression less guarded than any she’d seen him wear. “I have a feeling I’ll regret this,” he said, but his words had no bite. “We’ll probably end up together in a cell in Newgate. I just hope they’ll allow you to provide the meals.”

  She thought she’d melt. Not only was he kind and helpful and a wonderfully timely rescuer of maidens in distress, not only was he madly handsome and an incredible kisser, but he even had a sense of humor.

  His next words reminded her that he was also an arrogant, domineering beast. “I’m sending you back to the country tomorrow.”