The Perfect Temptation (41 page)

well, don't you?"

"If
your idea-" He blinked and looked back. The man
at

the rear of the carriage was
gone.

"Aiden? What is it?"

"I'm sorry." He
summoned a chagrined smile and a lie as

he searched for another glimpse
of the man. "I
 
was looking

for Barrett's carriage and driver
and thought for a moment

that I
 
saw them. Would you like to get something to eat now

or after we do a bit of silver
hunting?"

"I'm not really all that
hungry."

He had to be there somewhere. He
couldn't disappear

into thin
air.
"Then
we'll be dutiful for a while."

''There he is," Alex
exclaimed, sending his heart into his

throat. “The carriages past St.
Bart's Tavern."

The driver. Aiden swallowed down
his heart and made one

last sweep of the line. Nothing.
Not so much as a shadow.

''Where shall I tell him to take
us?"

"Whitechapel Road."

A good choice, he decided as he
and Alex made their way

down the walk. Whitechapel was
poor, but it was decidedly

Anglo. An Indian man would be far
more likely to stand out

in a crowd there. He'd slipped
twice now. There was bound

to be a third. And when that
happened, the bastard was going

to find himself staring down a
gun barrel and answering

some hard questions.

"Since I don't know anything
about silver," he began,

handing Alex into their vehicle,
his plan made, "I think you

should take charge of the
search."

"Sensible," she replied
as she settled onto her seat.

"I'll pretend to be your
beleaguered, utterly bored husband

and spend my time gazing
longingly out the shop windows."

Laughing, she took up his game.
''And at what will you be

gazing, my poor, dear
husband?"

Hopefully a startled Indian face.
But until then ... Damn,

if
she didn't have the most lusciously inviting smile.
Lips

made for kissing and an openness
that always made his blood

sing. God, what he wouldn't give
to say to hell with the Westerham

silver, have the driver take them
to Haven House and

spend the rest of the day making
love to her. Which, now that

he thought about it, might, with
the right touch, be within the

realm of possible.

''The hope," he said,
grinning roguishly, "of being wildly,

passionately rewarded for my incredible
patience."

Her smile was instant and
brilliant, her laugh full and

throaty. Delight shimmered in her
eyes as she wagged a finger

at him and declared, ''That,
Aiden, is exactly the same

wicked look as your
father's."

"It
worked for him on my mother. How do you feel about

it?"

"You are
such
a
temptation."

"And you're not? I'll
surrender if you will."

"We have silver to find. We
promised Barrett."

But if he pressed, she'd abandon
it. He
knew
it. "All right,

my dutiful darling," he
teased. "We'll look for a couple of

hours so that your conscience
isn't bothered. After that, the

rest of the day is ours to spend
as we want."

"What do you have in
mind?"

"We'll think of
something," he answered, knowing the

value in letting her imagination
run on its own. With a grin

and a wink, he added, "We're
both resourceful people."

She laughed and in it he swore he
heard the angels sing.

He'd done just fine with his
pretending for the first forty-five

minutes or so. He'd followed her
into one shop after another

and in each one done the same:
he'd milled around a bit and

then stationed himself by the
front window, crossed his arms

over his chest, and rocked back
and forth between his heels

and his toes while gazing out on
the street and the people.

And for a while he had seemed
genuinely interested in life

on Whitechapel Road.

It was at the forty-five-minute
mark-and after the sixteenth

shop by her count-that he'd
sighed, struggled to

smile, and suggested that they
were wasting their effort, not

to mention their very precious
time.

At the hour, his hands were
stuffed in his trouser pockets

and he'd abandoned the effort to
smile altogether. At an hour

and fifteen, he not only gave up
the milling around part of his

performance, he quit the rocking,
too. He simply walked in

behind her, stalked to the
window, and stood there glowering

out, apparently giving serious
consideration to turning

Whitechapel Road into smoldering
rubble.

Alex, for her part, was giving
serious consideration
to

killing him. Not that he'd noticed
her increasing frustration,

she privately groused, moving
along the walkway with him in

reluctant tow. She passed a tiny
doorway and slowed just

enough
to
give a
passing glance to the clutter on the other side

of the rippled, thickly hazed
front window. Two steps beyond,

an object registered in her
brain. Whirling around, she headed

for the door.

"No, Alex. Please,"
Aiden practically moaned, spreading

his arms to block her access to
the door. "It's nothing more

than a junk shop."

''There's a silver teaspoon in
the window," she countered.

"Where there's one piece,
there could be more."

"A
pathetic
junk
shop."

"With a silver spoon in the
window."

He sighed and dropped his arms.
"This is the very last

one, Alex. I mean it," he
announced as she stepped around

him and pulled open the door for
herself. ''This is a complete

waste of our day."

Alex silently disagreed. She'd
learned something of incredible

importance in the last hour or
so. Aiden was a wonderful

man. He was handsome and brave
and kind and

strong. He had a wonderful sense
of humor and a delightfully

devilish charm. But he also had
the lowest tolerance for

tedium of any human being she'd
ever met and she was

never, ever, ever going
to
take him
shopping with her
again

no matter how long she lived.

"Can I help ya?"

Alex looked around. trying to
find the woman who belonged

to the voice. The store wasn't
much larger than a single

room in her own shop but it was
ten times as full. There

were piles and mounds and heaps
everywhere. And
all
of it

without any discernible
arrangement or order or readily

apparent value. Aiden had been
kind in calling it a junk shop.

"Is anyone there?"

Alex pulled her skirts through a
narrow passage in the warren,

moving toward the rear of the
shop and the voice. There,

behind a counter made by placing
a warped plank across two

rickety produce crates, sat an
old woman
dressed
in a worn

dress and tattered knit shawl.
Hunchbacked, her eyes hazed

white, she held a teacup in one
gnarled hand as she tilted her

head to hear.

"Good morning, madam,"
Alex began, and the woman's

attention came instantly to her.
"My sister is marrying and I

want to present her with a set of
silverware. I saw the spoon

in the window and thought perhaps
you might have more.

Would you by any chance have a
set for sale?"

"Got three sets,
honey," she said, pointing off in the general

direction of Alex's left.
"Complete ones they is, too.

Fine pieces."

It took a few moments to find
them, but they were there;

three sets of silverware, each
badly tarnished, haphazardly

bundled, and tied with a frayed
piece of twine. One set was

on the floor, having obviously
tumbled away from the two

remaining on the precarious tower
above. Alex retrieved all

three
and laid them on the counter. A large Shell pattern
engraved

with an
A
and a C, a
small Shell pattern engraved

with a
K
and ...
Alex stared in stunned disbelief. And the

Westerhams' Fiddle.

"How much are you asking for
this set?" she asked casually,

holding the set out so that the
woman could touch it and

identify it.

She didn't move. "It's what
you're lookin' for?"

"It might do," Alex
began cautiously, afraid that it was

going to cost the moon and stars
to ransom. "Her married

name will be Timmons.
If
the price
is right, it would be

worth having a silversmith remove
the current monogram.

The
W
would hardly be
appropriate."

From the window, from the other
side of the maze, she

heard Aiden softly swear.

The shopkeeper instantly cocked
her head. "Is someone

else here?"

"My husband," Alex
supplied as Aiden slipped sideways

into the narrow corridor and
shuffled toward them. She leaned

closer to the woman and added in
a whisper, "He's the worst

shopper in the world."

The old woman chuckled.
"Never been a man any good at

it. How does five pounds sound to
ya?"