Andrea Kane (7 page)

“You know my name,” she whispered.

“Your name—and a great deal more.”

Those incredible hazel eyes searched his face, as if seeing clear through his mask to the man beneath.

“You’re wondering who I am.” Gruffly, he read her mind.

“I’m wondering many things. I have so many questions.”

He slid his hand around to caress her nape. “Ask, then. Anything but my name. Ask.”

She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “My head is spinning. I can’t seem to think.” A tiny smile. “I’m sure I’ll berate myself in the morning. But, be that as it may, you dare not tarry longer, for our servants are instructed to arise before dawn. Whatever questions I have must remain unanswered. Nothing is more important than your leaving Tragmore undetected.”

He stared at her mouth, possessed by the nearly uncontrollable desire to tear off his hood and kiss her.

She seemed to feel it, too, for her breath came faster, and the pulse in her neck began to beat rapidly. “I’ll pray for you,” she whispered.

“I don’t believe in prayers.”

“But you must. You answer them.” Tentatively, she brushed her fingers across his masked jaw.

A low groan escaped his chest. “Ah, Daphne.” Touching her in the only way he could, he sifted his fingers through her hair, wishing he could feel its silky texture. “Pray for me then.”

She smiled. “I always do.”

If he didn’t leave now, he never would.

“Good night, Daphne.”

“Wait—” She stayed him, blurting out her request as if it required all her courage. “I know it’s none of my business, but unless you have a specific workhouse chosen to receive tonight’s profits, would you consider donating them to an establishment I know to be especially needy?”

He said nothing, still combatting the fire in his loins.

“Please?” she repeated softly.

“What is this workhouse?”

“It’s located in Leicester and is called the House of Perpetual Hope.” Daphne gave a hollow laugh. “ ’Tis anything but.”

The bandit went rigid, his hand tightening reflexively on her nape. “Why this house in particular?”

Daphne paled, but she didn’t flinch. “I visited there once, as a child. I’ve never forgotten.” She swallowed, hard. “It would mean a great deal to me. Please, sir, it’s all I ask.”

“You ask very little.” Another pause. “What would your father say if he knew you were aiding me—to rob your own home, no less?”

Daphne didn’t hesitate. “He would beat me senseless.”

The bandit’s hand relaxed, shifting to idly stroke her cheek. “You are extraordinary, my lady. Truly extraordinary. I only wish—” He broke off, lowering his arm to his side. “Go back to bed, Daphne. Go back to bed and pretend none of this happened.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

He started. “Pardon me?”

“Sir, I assume you’ve brought some jewel from your last robbery and that your intention is to leave it in your customary tin cup upon my father’s pillow. Is that right?”

Beneath his mask, the bandit smiled. “Quite right.”

“Well, didn’t you hear what I told you? My father is a very light sleeper. He will surely awaken. And then—” she shuddered, a spasm of pain crossing her face. “Suffice it to say that your mission would fail and you would fall victim to his rather formidable temper.”

“I appreciate your concern. But, at the risk of appearing immodest, I’m excellent at my craft. Rest easy, your father will not be awakened.”

“You’re wrong, sir.” Daphne gripped his coat sleeves. “But don’t let that deter you. Give me the jewel and the tin cup.
I
shall place them on my father’s pillow for you.”

“And if he awakens?”

“I have a far better chance of explaining away my presence in Father’s bedchamber than do you.”

“But if he is as volatile as you say, don’t you risk inciting his anger?”

Her smile was resigned. “I’m accustomed to bearing the brunt of my fathers hostility. Moreover, I am but one person. Your cause protects many. ’Tis worth the gamble.”

Tenderness constricted the bandit’s chest. “And are you so proficient a gambler, my lady?”

A flicker of something flashed in her eyes. “So I’m told, sir. I’m also quite a bit smaller than you and extremely light on my feet. So, indeed, the odds are with me.”

“Very well.” He found himself extracting the small tin cup and the ruby from his sack and handing them to her—yet another unprecedented action. “Here.”

Daphne glanced down and grinned. “The stone is from that monstrosity of a necklace belonging to Lady Druige.”

“It was garish, wasn’t it?” the bandit agreed.

A current of understanding passed between them. “Go, sir,” Daphne instructed softly. “I’ll finish your task. Only please, give the funds to that workhouse in Leicester, if at all possible.”

“Consider it done.”

“Thank you.” Daphne’s voice shook. “Meeting you was an honor, sir.” She turned and hastened to her bedchamber door. “Oh.” Pausing, she looked back over her shoulder. “I have a message for you. The children in the village school asked that, should you and I ever meet, I make certain you know you’re their hero. Which, given the vast potential of their loving hearts, is a most glowing tribute.”

“Now it is I who am honored.”

“Good night, sir. God bless you.”

“Good night, Daphne.”

He watched her go, assailed by a wealth of feeling as unexpected as his desire. Slipping out after her, he waited only until he’d heard her enter her father’s chamber before he followed, determined, with or without Daphne’s knowledge or consent, to ensure that she remained safe, undiscovered and unharmed.

She was impressively light on her feet, he noted, flattening himself against the wall outside Tragmore’s room and watching in admiration as she tiptoed across to her father’s bed. And her timing was impeccable. She executed the placement of the cup precisely as he would have, waiting until the marquis was drawing an inward breath, when he would be least apt to notice her whisper of a motion. Then, she acted, her touch as light as her step.

The bandit grinned. He’d learned at a dismally early age that in order to succeed in life one needed to possess three traits: cunning, skill, and instinct. Armed with all three, one’s future was ensured, one’s possibilities limitless.

Fortunately, cunning and skill could be taught.

Unfortunately, instinct could not.

Like compassion, instinct was a gift to be born with, not acquired.

Daphne Wyndham had been born with both.

He wasn’t surprised. He’d told her as much just yesterday.

When she’d placed her first wager at Newmarket.

D
AMN, HE WAS TIRED.

Pierce shut the front door of his house against the mid-morning sunlight, wearily extracted the folded mask from his coat pocket, and stuffed it into its customary hiding place beneath the floor planks.

His night’s work was now complete.

He’d waited only until an unsuspecting Daphne had tiptoed back into her room before leaving Tragmore, riding the ten miles from Northampton to his home at a breakneck pace. Arriving in Wellingborough at half past three, he’d awaited his contact’s arrival, prepared to leave the instant he and Thompson completed their transaction in order to reach Leicester and return before dawn.

Thompson arrived moments later, unnerved by Pierce’s hasty summons—delivered by messenger, to Thompson’s shop just before closing time—altering their customary meeting place from London to Wellingborough. Swiftly but expertly he inspected the jewels, then muttered, “Thirty-five hundred pounds.”

“Done.” Pierce didn’t question the offer. Over the past five years, he and Thompson had routinely concluded numerous successful and unorthodox business transactions in the back roam of Thompson’s Covent Garden jewelry shop. Thompson was too smart to try something as rash as swindling Pierce.

Once Thompson had gone, Pierce combined the thirty-five hundred pounds with the marquis’s notes and coins. In total, it added up to just over four thousand pounds.

Pierce then sweetened the pot—more than usual, given the circumstances.

The tin cup he left at the Leicester workhouse contained ten thousand pounds.

Daphne would be pleased, he reflected, although she had no notion that her touching sentiments had stirred feelings long suppressed, that she’d forced him to confront a time and a place he’d sworn never to revisit—his past.

It had been eighteen years since he’d left those detested walls behind, but the painful memories remained, hovering just below the surface, needing only one glimpse to trigger their return.

They’d accosted him full force the moment he’d stepped inside the House of Perpetual Hope.

Every rotted corner was as he remembered it, every crack in the ceiling as vivid as it had been years ago when he’d lain awake, staring up and praying fervently for a miracle. The blistered plaster seemed to taunt his naiveté, squelching those boyhood prayers, and teaching him that prayers were for the haves, self-reliance for the have-nots.

Pierce could still recall the day he’d approached his mother with those all-important questions: Who was his father? Why weren’t they living with him? Why did he allow them to stay in this horrible place?

Cara Thornton had answered her five-year-old son with tears in her eyes. His father was a wealthy, married nobleman. She’d been a tavern maid until her pregnancy was discovered, at which point she’d been discharged. She’d gone to Pierce’s father, but, because of his wife and his social position, his hands were tied. To acknowledge their child was impossible. Surely Pierce could understand.

Pierce understood perfectly.

His father was a have. He and his mother were have-nots.

Two years later, Cara Thornton died, succumbing to a racking cough and a defeated heart.

Prayers would not bring her back.

Nor would prayers punish the heartless bastard who’d thrown her into the streets when she’d told him she was carrying his child.

It was on that day that Pierce made two irrevocable decisions.

As a have-not, he would ensure his own future, never leaving it in fate’s unpredictable hands. And never again would he fall victim to the power of the nobility.

Somehow, some way,
he
would victimize
them.

Tonight he had done himself proud.

Heading upstairs to bed, Pierce reflected on how damned good it had felt to place the tin cup of money right on the headmaster’s desk, to brazenly invade the bloody sanctuary he hadn’t dared enter as a child—not if he wanted to live. Not when it was Barrings’s domain.

Thankfully for the current workhouse occupants, that scum had died five years ago, and his replacement was reputedly a compassionate sort who would use the money to better the workhouse, rather than to line his own pockets and the pockets of the two corrupt noblemen who’d ensured his position.

Noble
men.

Dropping wearily to his bed, Pierce gritted his teeth, recalling the first time he’d overheard those unscrupulous blackguards talking with Barrings.

Hunger pains had awakened him that winter night, gnawing at his gut until lying down became an agony impossible to bear. He’d slipped from the sheets, the cold air invading his blood, causing his eight-year-old body to shake uncontrollably. But still, he’d stolen down to the kitchen to pilfer some food.

Taking a shortcut back to his bed was a mistake, for it led right by the headmaster’s office. By the time Pierce spied the light burning through the crack in Barrings’s door, it was too late to retreat, and the cold in his bones was replaced by terror. If the headmaster found him up and about, and with stolen bread, no less, he’d whip him mercilessly.

Inching past the door, Pierce prayed that Barrings had fallen asleep at his desk.

“Here’s a hundred pounds more, Tragmore.”

The headmaster’s voice dispelled that hope.

“Excellent. And the rest?”

The sound of a fist slammed on the desk. “Dammit, Tragmore! The local vicarage only donated three hundred pounds. Certainly you don’t expect me to give all of it—”

“I most certainly do,” Tragmore interrupted. “Three hundred pounds, divided equally between Markham and myself.”

“And what of me?” Barrings snapped. “What do I gain from this little arrangement?”

“What you always gain. The opportunity to retain your upstanding position as headmaster. Isn’t that right, Markham?”

“Fine, Tragmore. Right.” The third man’s chair scraped as he rose to his feet. “Now let’s end this meeting and be on our way.”

Taking advantage of their noisy preparations to depart, Pierce had bolted, not stopping until he’d reached the safety of his bed.

But all night he was plagued by memories of that conversation and its implications—implications even a child could understand.

Once again, the haves were prospering at the expense of the have-nots.

Dragging himself back to the present, Pierce swore softly, rubbing his eyes, wishing he could just as easily rub out the memories. He half wished he’d never promised Daphne he’d go to the House of Perpetual Hope. The other half of him, however, felt a smug and overwhelming satisfaction that the money he’d provided to aid this particular workhouse was pilfered from the very nobleman who’d exploited it for so many years: the despicable Marquis of Tragmore.

Pierce doubted not that the funds would be wisely spent. He’d ensured that by adding a little something to the money in his tin cup: a note that read,
Use this endowment for the workhouse, or I’ll be back.

A sudden thought sprang to mind, making Pierce chuckle, despite the night’s fatigue and emotional upheaval. Daphne would approve of that additional touch. Doubtless she would applaud the bandit for his cleverness and integrity. He wished he could see her face when she read the details in the newspaper.

Daphne. Just the thought of her made Pierce smile. She was the most bewitching, complex enigma he’d ever encountered.

He could see her as vividly as if she stood right there in his bedchamber, shy and withdrawn, intelligent and tenacious, principled and compassionate.

And so bloody beautiful that she stole his breath and his reason, prompting him to take a risk that might have meant his downfall.