To Seduce an Angel (14 page)

Emma took a breath and crossed to the desk, conscious of invading his territory. The volume facing down was a treatise on tithes. It instantly brought back the night. She leaned to look at the stacked books and read their titles, all on the law. She turned to the papers. She dared not disturb them. On one was a long list of names under the heading “Contributions to the Reverend Bertram Bredsell's School for Boys.” Emma ran her finger down the list of names—Dorward, Lambert, Palgrave, Ruddock, Wenlocke. She fixed her gaze and read more carefully. The Duke of Wenlocke had contributed a thousand pounds to the school.

Emma could not imagine the icy duke acting out of compassion for boys. She lifted the top page of the pile and peeked at the next page, looking for Wenlocke's name again, and there it was in a curious sentence like a journal entry.

She slipped her finger under another loose sheet of paper to lift it when she heard voices in the corridor. She dropped the page and turned to face the open library door. Daventry strode in, and came to an abrupt halt.

Their eyes met, and in his a quick flash of warmth instantly cooled. “Finished your lessons this morning?”

“Your afternoon boxing plans distracted the boys. I let them go early.”

He came to stand beside her with a glance at his desk. “Were you looking for me?”

“To apologize. I regret that my nightmare disturbed you last night.”

“Your presence in the house disturbs me, Miss Portland.”

“Will you send me away then?”

Dav knew he should. To find her in his library standing over the pages of Norwood's report roused the worst suspicions. “The lessons going that badly, are they?”

“As well as the study of tithes, I suspect.”

Dav didn't trust himself to speak for a moment. The word hung in the air between them. It brought back the heat and closeness of the night. He needed distraction, but the only thought he could summon came from the thick tome he'd been reading when he'd heard her cry out
.
He had spent hours in the room next to hers, not trusting himself to undress, working his way through great and small tithes, predial and personal tithes. In Adam's absence awareness of Emma Portland had dominated his consciousness.

She made a little distracted motion as if reaching for something in her pocket and discovering it wasn't there. He remembered her touching that pocket on her first day.

“Tithes can be troubling.” He thought that sounded safe. Instead of something like,
Kiss me, let me touch you.

“And do you have a problem with tithes now?” Her empty pocket plainly bothered her.

“I do. Some fellows cut oak wood for a portion of the estate, and the bishop claims the wood is subject to a tithe that wasn't paid. His suit goes before the Court of Exchequer. The question is was the new wood grown from old stumps or from acorns?”

“Have you put the problem to the boys?”

“You think it might make a lesson for them?” She hadn't come to his library to speak of tithes or his wards.

“I think you might show them how much reading helps you in your position.” Again she made the distracted gesture.

“Miss Portland, you touch your pocket repeatedly. Did you lose something?”

She nodded. The blue of her eyes vanished in a bleak gray like the color of loss.

“Something valuable?”

“It was my brother's. I must have misplaced it. I will look again.”

He was aware that in her distraction, she was speaking a truth.

“I'll ask again then. To be sure that you find it.”

She nodded. “If you'll excuse me, it's my afternoon for a walk to the village.”

 

 

THE boys huddled in the chapel. Lark held the prize in his open palm for all of them to see. Taking it from her had been easy. What to do with it was the question.

“What is it? Looks like a moon.” Robin leaned over Lark's hand for a closer look.

Jay pushed Robin back. “Some kind of medal.”

“Is it gold?” Swallow asked.

“It is.” Lark had seen enough gold in Daventry's house to know the real stuff.

“We should give it back,” Robin said.

“Ah, Robin's sweet on her,” Raven sneered.

“Am not.” Robin gave Raven a shove.

Raven, bigger and tougher, shoved back. “Are so.”

“What are the words?” Finch wanted to know.

“Doesn't matter.” Lark didn't want them trying to read the blinking thing. As if they could.

“What does it mean?” Swallow asked.

That Lark could answer. He had known from the moment he'd palmed it. “It means she's not who she says she is.”

“So we take it to Dav, right?” Finch, always wanting to do the safe thing.

“We give it back?” Robin really was sweet on the grinder.

“No, not yet. It stays with me. I say what we do with it and when. Not a word now.” He made them put their fists together. “Swear it, all of you.”

 

 

To the roof, lads,” Dav ordered after lunch. Whatever Emma Portland was missing, he had a suspicion his band knew something about it.

A stiff breeze blew and leaden clouds gathered, but they shed jackets and shoes and neckcloths, and he let them enjoy the freedom of the place, sliding on tiles and walking precarious edges. Jay hand-walked the length of the highest peak. Finch did his bent-kneed slide down almost-vertical surfaces, arms spread. Even Robin had grown into the kind of balance needed for navigating the place, though he still couldn't leap far.

They collapsed around him after their burst of energy against sun-warmed slate in a lee of the wind, a reminder of their old habits. It didn't smell like London, but it felt like London to lie against stone with the wind whipping over them and the sky above.

“It's like old times.”

“Except Daventry'll dirty his fine clothes,” Swallow warned.

“That's why he has a valet,” Lark said.

“And a butler and footmen,” added Finch.

“And laundresses and cooks and maids,” shouted Swallow.

“And grooms and gardeners.” Jay punched a fist into the air.

It made them all laugh, the unreality of it, living in a palace instead of on the rooftops of London with only the elements to warm or cool them, and their own luck and skill to keep them alive and ahead of landlords, police, and worse.

“A marquess has everything,” Robin said solemnly.

“Don't forget the problems,” Dav reminded them.

Lark was instantly alert and scornful. “What problems does a marquess have?”

“Is your grandfather up to more deviltry?” Jay asked.

“Just another lawsuit. This one's to get money for some trees that were cut.” No tithes had been paid from the moment his brothers brought the lawsuit on his behalf, and trust his grandfather to know to the penny the sum of those unpaid tithes. Dav had not been marquess a week before the local bishop had brought a suit in the Court of Exchequer for arrears of tithes. There was no question but that his grandfather was behind the suit.

“He'll bleed you dry.”

“Not if my lawyer's smarter than his lawyer. Let me tell you the problem and get your opinion.” Dav explained the tithe problem. They all had opinions.

“Fighting in court is not real fighting, is it, Dav?”

“It's not like a mill, where the other fellow is right there, and you can knock each other down until one cries enough.” Dav had to agree. He would prefer a good mill with his grandfather rather than a war of shadows.

“You'll never give in, will you, Dav?”

“Do we stay here forever then? Or can we go back?”

“Do you want to go back?”

“Sometimes.” Robin was honest at least.

“We can't go back if we forget how to prig. We'll end in Coldbath Prison or worse.”

“We'll be transported.”

“No, you won't. You'll go back when you're ready with money enough in your pockets so that you never have to prig again.” It was hard to say, but true. He would let them go. He wanted them to be ready to go, but he supposed that even that wouldn't be in his power.

“How much money is that?”

“Good question, Finch.”

“If I have five quid, will I never have to prig again?”

“If you had five hundred quid,” Lark scoffed.

Raven gave long whistle at the sum. “Five hundred quid? 'Oo has that kind of blunt?”

“I bet Dav does,” Robin said loyally.

Lark sprang to his feet and stood over them, facing Dav. “What are we doing up here? We're dreaming, aren't we? She narked on us, didn't she?”

Dav didn't move. He looked up at his defiant second in command, whose troubled eyes gave away his guilt. “About what?”

Suddenly none of them could meet his gaze. He waited a long, sinking moment.

Lark looked out over the greening landscape before he turned back to Dav. “Nothing. You believe her, not us, that's all. I saw her go to your library.”

“She did come to the library. She recommended I share some of the estate matters with you.”

Dav could see that Lark didn't believe him. The others had the grace to look ashamed, but no one would admit to taking anything. He'd taught them that himself.

Swallow spoke up at last. “We'll thank miss for the idea, but we can't solve your problems today, Dav. Today's a training day.”

 

 

EMMA concentrated on the road to Somerton. It was possibly the worst road in England because it had Wallop at one end and Daventry at the other. Daventry would make her forget her purpose. Just a few minutes with him in the library, and she'd forgotten what she was searching for there.

She looked at the road. She needed to know its dips and turns and ruts so she could pass along it at night. She picked out landmarks and noted the threads that marked her hiding places. Her supply line was almost complete. There was a sharp bend after the bridge at the end of the hall drive, a long flat stretch, then a boggy patch where lumbering wagons had sunk deep before the last rise into the village. She balanced precariously on the narrow dead grass margin. Still her petticoats were six-inches deep in mud when she reached the village.

She was late, and she had lost Leo's pin. Her empty pocket where she had kept it for so long lay flat against her hip. Leo had worn his uniform so proudly before the French came and ended their old life. His coat had been deep blue with a red collar and cuffs, cut to show off his fine physique with a double row of gold buttons down the front and bright gold epaulets on his shoulders. A light blue sash crossed his chest, and at the top of the sash were pinned his honors, a row of overlapping ribbons with his medals dangling from them. When they'd had to leave home for good, she and Tatty had sewn the medals into the hems of their gowns. The gowns had fallen to tatters in their cell, and on the long journey to England they had sold the medals one by one. Emma had had just the one left, a crowned half moon, a little bigger than her thumb.

She banished the image and tried to recall whether she had tucked her talisman in her pocket as usual. She thought she had.

This morning the dream and Daventry's kisses had left her weary and not at all clearheaded. She had not taken proper charge of the boys, and they had been quick to take advantage. The boys were on their feet for the morning counting lesson when Lark had begun a game of tossing a small bag of beans about. She understood that boys would toss any loose object within their reach, but this time the game led to chairs being overturned. They had abandoned her lesson, laughing and shouting.

The moment came back to her then: when she had been watching Lark, and Rook had bumped into her and steadied her on her feet. She stopped in the road. They had orchestrated it. Rook had been so contrite. Their bumping her had ended the little game, and the boys had gone back to their desks and behaved well for ten whole minutes. She had been thoroughly gulled. Once released, they had run off.

Standing before Daventry in his library, reaching for the pin's comfort and courage, she'd realized it was missing. She could blame no one but herself. She had ridden the pony. She had had the nightmare. She had accepted comfort from Daventry in the night that had left her with the intelligence of a flea.

She sank down in the dry grass. A coach rattled past headed for the inn. Wallop was waiting. Wallop first, then her pin.

Josiah Wallop was eating a mutton chop when she entered the inn's private room, a large napkin tucked under his chin. Grease from the chop gleamed in his black side whiskers. He greeted her with avuncular heartiness for the innkeeper's notice, but when that worthy left them, he eyed her coldly.

“Yer late, missy. And 'Is Lordship is not pleased with you. Got ta bring you up to snuff, squeeze more out of you,'e says. Do you want Josiah Wallop to squeeze you, girl?”

Emma wisely did not answer. Wallop washed down a large bite of mutton with a draft of ale.

“Did you find out when that whore's whelp plans to leave the hall?”

Emma shook her head. “He has not mentioned his plans.”

“Well, you'd best get 'im to mention 'em. We know he's going to go to London. His mamma begs him not to come in every letter. We steam her letters, you know, every one.”

Emma kept her face blank. It was what spies and secret police did everywhere. They steamed letters and rummaged papers and lurked in banks, cafes, and restaurants. They bribed footmen and housemaids, and they could find you a thousand miles from home. She was supposed to be one of them.