It was almost dawn when she awoke. She lay on her side and watched the light change, from dove grey to pearl white and wished they could have stayed in the darkness forever.
Harland had released her at some point during the night. He was still asleep beside her, lying on his back, and his features became clearer with every passing minute. He was so handsome, it almost broke her heart. His hair was rumpled, his bare chest visible above the sheet that had fallen around his waist. She remembered the silky feel of that hair beneath her fingers.
Several small scars marred his skin, and she resisted the urge to reach out and trace them, to smooth her palms over the defined ridges of his muscles. He reminded her of the statue she’d seen in the British Museum. Not the gladiator—although he was similarly muscled—but the dying slave. His austere face was relaxed, his beautiful lips soft and dreadfully tempting. He looked powerful and yet strangely vulnerable, almost boyish.
Emmy sighed.
No more dreaming. It was time to face the new status quo.
Her exhalation roused him. His slate-blue eyes snapped to hers. For a moment she saw confusion and then incredulity in their depths, before recollection came to him and he went from asleep to fully alert in an instant. That ability must be the result of so many years as a soldier.
He sat up in a swift move and was off the bed and standing by the door before she could even blink. He reached down and picked up her shirt and breeches from where they’d fallen on the floor, and her skin heated at the reminder that she was completely naked beneath the sheet.
He tossed them to her, his face expressionless. “Get dressed. I’ll be waiting out there.”
As soon as he left, Emmy made use of the chamber pot and splashed her face with water she found in the wash jug. The cotton drying cloth smelled of him. One glance in the shaving mirror confirmed her worst fears; she barely recognized herself. Her hair was a tangled mess and her lips seemed fuller than usual. She ran her hands through her hair, then braided it in one long plait and used a thread of cotton pulled from the washcloth to secure the end.
Muscles she’d never noticed before in her stomach and thighs protested as she bent to put on her breeches, but once she was dressed, she felt better armed to face whatever was to come. She straightened her spine, opened the door, and strode into the lion’s den.
He’d taken up position in the chair behind the desk and gestured to the seat across the polished expanse of wood. Thankfully he’d donned a shirt; she doubted she’d have been able to think straight if she’d had his bare chest to distract her.
“Sit.”
Emmy sat.
He cleared his throat and levelled her with a piercing stare. “I believe we need to clarify our respective roles in this play, Miss Danvers.”
She winced at his return to formality but managed to match his tone. “Is it a farce? A comedy? A tragedy?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
He placed his hands flat on the desk. She would not think of those hands on her body.
“Do you deny that you are the thief they call the Nightjar?”
She lifted one shoulder in an easy shrug and threw him an appeasing crumb. “That was my father.”
He frowned at her. She raised one brow. Battle lines had been drawn. Last night she’d been too panicked to think clearly, but this morning she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
“The only thing you can prove I’m guilty of is breaking into your bedroom,” she said calmly. “And that’s not much of a crime. I bet I’m not the first woman to visit your chamber uninvited in the middle of the night.”
She quashed a hot flash of jealousy at the thought.
He sent her an impatient look. “Your father is dead. A dead man didn’t break into Rundell and Bridge. A dead man didn’t steal the blue diamond from the British Museum.” He leaned closer. “A dead man didn’t call me an unresponsive lump of rock.”
Emmy bit her lip to suppress a smile. So that still rankled, did it? Good.
“What do you want me to say? That I took over as the Nightjar from my father? Do you think anyone will believe that? I’m just a weak and foolish woman.”
That, hopefully, would be the opinion of a bench full of judges, should she ever be brought to trial. She would play upon their standard male prejudices: A young woman like herself was too stupid to mastermind a string of audacious thefts, too feeble to carry them out.
“You didn’t work alone. I know full well your brother is involved. And that housekeeper of yours, Sally Hawkins.”
Damn. Emmy tried to keep her face impassive. She was prepared to take sole blame for the Nightjar’s crimes, provided the rest of her family were spared. Perhaps it was time to divert his attention. She sent him a wistful smile. “I truly wish we’d met under different circumstances, Lord Melton. But the fact of the matter is, I’m—”
“A criminal?” he supplied smoothly.
She inclined her head but refused to admit it out loud. “And you’re—”
“Not?”
“Indeed. So we shall ever be on opposite sides. Like Wellington and Napoleon. But I like to think we could have been friends.”
He snorted. “As well ask a prosecutor and a defense lawyer to be friends.” He gave her a look from under his lashes that made her stomach twist. “I think we’re destined to be passionate enemies instead.”
There was an awkward pause.
“There’s no walking away from this,” he said softly. “You know that, don’t you?”
Her delight at their banter evaporated, replaced by a heavy sense of fatalism.
“Talk to me,” he commanded. “Tell me how you became the Nightjar. This is not something you’ve taken on suddenly. Your skills must have taken years to hone. Who taught you? Your father?”
Emmy closed her eyes. So it began. The relentless questions designed to wear down her resistance. There really was no point in trying to wriggle out of it. He would break her eventually. He wouldn’t stop until he had the answers, the evidence he needed. Even if she stalled him now, it would only be a temporary reprieve. It might even be a relief to finally confess.
She sat up straighter in her chair and tried to emulate Camille’s worldly confidence. “I did everything in my power not to become a criminal, but it was inevitable, given my father’s decisions. And since I had no choice in the matter, I decided to see it as a personal challenge. If I was going to be a thief, then I would be the best thief London has ever seen.”
Harland’s expression of surprise was delightful. He clearly hadn’t expected to get a confession out of her so easily. She smiled. “I am a damned fine criminal, if I do say so myself.”
“You were,” he said brutally. “Until you got caught.”
Her chest tightened at that irrefutable truth.
“Why jewels?” he asked. “And why only ones from the French royal collection?”
Ah, so he’d made that connection. She’d thought as much. How else could he have predicted she’d go for Lady Carrington’s ruby and not some other prize?
She gave a sad half smile. “What is that phrase? ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions.’”
He leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingertips on the arms. “You do know the true, legal definition of stealing, do you not? As in, taking something that doesn’t belong to you without intending to return it?”
A burst of righteous anger welled up inside her. “I have every intention of returning them! Just not to the people from whom I stole them. They will go back to their rightful owner.”
“And I suppose you’ve determined who that rightful owner is?” The sarcasm in his voice could have cut glass.
“Of course. The people of France.”
The silence that followed her pronouncement was profound. Harland stared at her as if the concept of her actually having a noble reason for stealing the jewels had never entered his head. She felt vaguely insulted. Had he really thought her so venal?
“You feel no remorse for what you have done?” It was more statement than question, but Emmy answered it anyway.
“Honestly? No. I feel pride. If you‘re expecting an apology, you’ll be waiting until doomsday. I will never apologize for doing my duty. My duty to my father, and my patriotic duty to France.”
Stealing back the jewels was morally the right thing to do. Emmy truly believed that. She just wished the responsibility had been foisted on someone else. Patriotism was all well and good, but in pitting her against Harland, a man she cared for, it had removed any possibility that they might have had a future together.
He sighed. “The diamond you took from Rundell and Bridge belonged to the Prince Regent. He wants it back.”
“Well, he can’t have it. It’s not his.”
“Tell me where it is.”
“I can’t,” she said in perfect honesty. She had no idea what Danton had done with it.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “You little fool! This isn’t a game. It’s a damn risky business. Who put you up to this? Your brother? Your grandmother?”
“Nobody. It was all me. Working alone.” She curled her fists against her thighs. “You don’t understand. I had to do it.”
His eyes flashed, and she desperately tried to think of something that might appease him. “What if I collaborate?” she said quickly. “I’ll return the diamond, and the blue from the British Museum, in exchange for immunity from prosecution.”
She had no idea how she’d get the jewels back from Danton, but still—
“The Prince will never accept that. He wants the Nightjar punished to the full extent of the law. And what about all the other jewels that have been stolen over the years? We’re just supposed to forget about those, are we?”
He let out a long, frustrated exhale. Emmy turned her face to the wall and focused on the bottle of her perfume that still sat on the side table. She was in no position to negotiate. She was doomed. But she could still drag Danton down with her.
“All right. I’ll tell you who ‘put me up to it.’ A man named Emile Danton, a Frenchman.”
She told him about Danton’s letters. His threats and demands. The Rundell & Bridge heist and the one at the museum, making sure not to implicate Luc, Sally, or Camille in her testimony. To his credit, Harland didn’t interrupt her. He just sat and listened, and when she’d finished, she felt strangely light and unburdened.
His chair scraped backwards as he stood, his expression impossible to read. “I have to go out.”
“Where?”
“To Bow Street. I’ll have your brother released.”
Her shoulders sagged with relief, even though Luc was only being freed because she’d condemned herself so thoroughly. “Thank you.”
He nodded, crossed to a handsome mahogany chest, and pulled out a cravat. Emmy thought he’d put it on, but he disappeared into the bedroom, and she was mystified to hear the splash of water in the porcelain washbowl. He returned with the dripping length of cloth twisted in his hands.
“Cotton is stronger when wet,” he said by way of explanation. “Put your hands behind the chair.”
Emmy gave a groan of protest, even though she hadn’t truly expected him to leave her alone in the room, unsecured. “I promise I won’t run.”
He didn’t justify that with an answer. She tried to ignore the feel of his warm breath on her neck as he crouched behind her and secured the wet cotton around her wrists.
“This seems to be a theme in my life recently,” she said lightly, to cover her panic. “I am forever being confined in places I have no wish to be. Barrels. Sarcophagi. Gentlemen’s chambers.”
“I apologize,” he said gruffly. “It won’t be for long.”
No, of course it wouldn’t. He’d probably return from Bow Street with a set of Emmy-sized iron shackles. She was surprised he didn’t have a pair lying around the place, ready to use in just such a situation.
He gave the bindings a final tug and stepped back, apparently satisfied. She gave her wrists an experimental twist and bit back a curse. They really were inescapable, damn him.
She heard the rustle of clothing from behind her but staunchly refused to look as he finished dressing. When he stepped in front of her, she had to suppress a scowl. He was unreasonably handsome. His broad shoulders and long thighs—both of which had been intimately pressed against her only hours ago—were outlined by his tan breeches and immaculately cut jacket.
She wanted to kick him in the shins.
His eyes rested for a moment on her flushed face, as if memorizing her features, then dropped to her chest where her breasts were pushed forward by the unnatural position of her hands. He raked his fingers through his hair in a distracted gesture and a flush darkened his cheekbones.
She raised her brows at him imperiously.
“Stay here,” he ordered.
She sent him an exasperated look to remind him just how ridiculous that was. “Go away.”
Alex locked the door, pocketed the key, and strode down the corridor, desperate to leave the confounding woman behind. He could barely contain his need to do violence. Not to Emmy, but to the bastard who’d placed her in such an untenable position.
The irony of the fact that he’d completely reversed his position, from being angry at her to being angry for her, did not escape him. The desire to protect her, from Danton, from herself, from her own foolish choices, was almost overwhelming.
He’d witnessed the infinite possibilities of violence in his three years of war. He knew the damage that could be inflicted on the human body. The thought of someone hurting Emmy made him break out in a cold sweat. If this Danton harmed a single hair on her head, he’d tear him apart with his bare hands.
Alex exhaled slowly and tried to calm the pounding in his blood. He needed distance. Not proximity. Emmy Danvers was dangerous. She sucked all the air from his lungs. No wonder he couldn’t think straight; his poor brain was permanently deprived of oxygen whenever he was near her.
What did he want from her? He let out a despairing laugh. He wanted her to be a different woman. He wanted her to be the perfect, innocent girl he’d held fast in his memory for so long. He wanted her not to be a criminal.
What if she hadn’t been the Nightjar? He forced himself to complete the thought. What if he’d simply recognized her across a dance floor as the girl from the garden and learned she was a paragon of virtue, perfectly socially acceptable. Would he have been contemplating marriage?
He doubted it. Because although he might have been physically attracted to her, he couldn’t imagine having much in common with a paragon. He’d have been bored with a perfect, automaton, society wife who only wanted to throw dinner parties and go shopping. It was Emmy’s passion for adventure, her bravery, her brilliance, that attracted him.
He usually lost interest in a woman once he’d bedded her. The thrill of the chase was gone, the mystique shattered. He should have been immune to her by now. But he was even more drawn to her this morning than last night, if that were possible. Even after she’d confessed.
He should be feeling elated. He’d captured the Nightjar and made her admit her crimes. But that paled in comparison to the triumph he’d felt when he’d joined his body with hers, the satisfaction of holding her in his arms. He wanted her again.
No. Last night’s lapse could be dismissed as temporary insanity brought on by shock and a whole host of other, contradictory emotions. Taking her to bed a second time would be a colossal mistake for which there was no excuse. He’d averted complete disaster by not finishing inside her last night, but he didn’t trust himself to be able to repeat the task if he got carried away again. She made him forget his own name.
He regretted the need to restrain her. The sight of her, her chest rising and falling in anger, should not have filled him with such lustful thoughts. He knew there were places, clubs, in London that catered for those with such proclivities, and he’d never imagined he’d find it titillating to have a woman bound and at his mercy. Until now. He was still hard in his breeches.
Bloody woman. What was he going to do with her?