Delgatto tried not to think about Emily for the rest of the day. She might be a pleasant distraction, but he didn’t need anything to dilute his attention from his main goal of finding and stealing back the Heart of Saharanpur.
The image of the emerald kept flashing through his mind, teasing him, making him itch with desire. However, more than once, the jewel became mixed up with Emily, and his desire for the stone magnified into his desire for the woman.
Ridiculous, he told himself.
A simple transfer of affection. The emerald was his goal, his future, his mistress.
And even if Emily happened to be the perfect woman, his one true soul mate in the world, his duties to his family superseded any needs for himself. That had been drummed into his head from his childhood on. Every course he took, every skill he mastered, he did for the sake of his family’s royal heritage. Like his father and grandfather before him, he honed his thieving skills for the one chance to regain the stone and reclaim their honor.
No woman, no matter how beautiful, how desirable, how delicious . . .
An unquenchable pain of longing extended from the center of his body, radiating outward.
No woman, no matter how beautiful, how desirable . . .
The pain, the longing, built in his pants until it was almost overwhelming.
No woman . . .
Damn!
A cold bath didn’t work quite as well as a cold shower, but Delgatto figured it was his only recourse.
But as the water cooled down his libido, it chilled his thoughts as well. What would failure mean? What if the woman with the Heart slipped away? What if he didn’t find her?
Would he be stuck in the past? Would he return to his same fruitless future—a future without the Heart of Saharanpur?
No family honor. No reclaimed glory.
No love.
No Emily?
The old familiar pain rose again. This time, he tried to ignore it. When a cold shower didn’t work, the next best thing was physical labor.
Although the effort of climbing stairs wouldn’t really tax his energies, the effort of acting as if it was a long, laborious task would provide some of the distraction he so desperately needed at the moment.
So he dressed, picked up his crutches, and headed out.
This time, the curious stares were fewer and the long demands of Christmas had reduced the number of “Attaboy!” encouragements to the bare minimum. Couples were too busy with themselves to notice him. Parents were hustling cranky children up the stairs to their rooms. Most of the children had a death grip on some sort of newly cherished gift. The few kids who didn’t have a new toy in hand were busy scoping out the other children’s presents.
Delgatto watched as one little boy deftly picked the pocket of another child, stealing a candy cane. When the child looked up and realized he’d been observed, he shrugged and, with equal skill, replaced the candy.
You got a future as a thief. kiddo. Except you’re never supposed to give it back.
The rest of his exercise was almost uneventful. One old biddy gave him the evil eye because she evidently thought he was monopolizing the railing. But another gaggle of old women, led by Mrs. Biddle, put the evil-eyed woman in her place with a few choice retorts.
As she passed by, Mrs. Biddle remarked, “It appears as if your abilities are definitely returning, Mr. Galludat. Just make sure you don’t push your recuperation, or you’ll be paying a mighty stiff price for your efforts.” She cracked a rare smile. “Stiff price.” She turned to her companions. “I believe I have made a jest.”
They cackled in delayed laughter and wandered down the stairs toward the dining room.
A few moments later, two of the three Molderhoffens appeared. Gertrude was coming down the same side of the stairs Delgatto had claimed as his own. When she reached him, she smiled her coquettish, bucktoothed grin and stepped around him, making sure to brush against him slightly as she passed by.
She probably meant it as a provocative gesture, a tempting graze of her bare shoulder against him, but instead, she damned near knocked him off his two good feet. Had he been as feeble as he portrayed, she would have knocked him into tomorrow . . . or at least down the stairs.
Worse of all, the stench of her perfume was almost more than he could manage. Although he tried to stifle it, he sneezed.
At the sound, she whirled around. “Pardon? Did you say something? To me?” She wore the same wistful look as a child anticipating the first of many Christmas presents.
He sneezed violently again and, unable to speak, made the most polite “no” gesture he could manage. Once she got out of scent range, his sneezing stopped.
“I’m so terribly sorry. I do hope you get better,” she purred.
“Thank you,” he rasped.
The pair continued to ricochet down the stairs, accosting every man in their path. As soon as their attention was safely on to their next victim, Delgatto looked up to see Emily lurking in the shadows in the landing above him. He hurried his pace up the stairs. Thanks to Emily’s maid friend, he knew the missing Molderhoffen daughter was in town, attending a lecture at the library. Just as well, too. He didn’t need the distraction of knowing his fairy princess might be close at hand.
Once at the top of the landing, he made his way toward the Molderhoffens’ rooms. As he passed by Emily, he didn’t look toward her, but he whispered, “Be my lookout. If they come back, give me an early warning signal.”
“What sort of signal?”
“Something loud enough for me to hear in the room.”
She looked around and spied a metal tray on a serving cart in the hallway. After freeing the tray and wiping it clean, she tucked it under her arm. “I’ll drop it if they come back.”
“Good.” He paused and added a “thanks” that made her blush.
If the truth be known, he was a bit warm under his collar, too.
Delgatto stood by the door, pulled out his homemade picks, and made short work of the lock. Anyone observing him would simply think he had the key and was entering his own quarters.
Once inside the dark room, he locked the door behind him and waited until his eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness. While he waited, he made a few modifications to his attire, buttoning his jacket to the neck, using a dark scarf to cover his white shirt collar, and pulling on a pair of dark gloves he’d lifted from a large-boned woman who had hands like a man. He’d tucked his mask from the Christmas ball in his pocket, knowing that, should he be discovered, it might offer some protection of his identity during a getaway.
He’d learned long ago that anticipating failure wasn’t necessarily inviting it.
He squinted as his sight sharpened somewhat. What I’d give for a flashlight right now . . . He made do instead with a purloined candle and started his search.
Ten minutes later, he’d tossed the room, discovering several things. The daughters were slobs. Moving in their room was like walking through a minefield.
Discarded hangers hid beneath piles of clothes, ready to trip the unsuspecting. Hair combs were stationed in strategic areas, their sharp points turned up to spear the unwary. Used glassware was scattered all around the bed within arm’s length, like an early warning system.
The mother was not much better when it came to keeping things straight. A trail of clothes led from the armoire to the bed to the bathroom. Delgatto noted that the discards were actually rejects, all of which had split side seams. Evidently, Mrs. Molderhoffen was enjoying the haute cuisine a bit too much and was growing out of her clothes, which had been abandoned in messy heaps on the floor.
And the worst part was knowing that both rooms were cleaned every morning and they enacted this much damage in twelve hours or less.
But the biggest discovery was that none of them owned any real jewelry, much less the Heart of Saharanpur. What few pieces they had were paste or gems of such poor quality they had no real value.
Delgatto sighed, then jumped as he heard a loud, metallic bang in the hallway.
Emily’s signal.
Someone was coming.
He heard a curse outside and then, “Clumsy girl.”
The lock began to rattle. He had only moments. He hid behind the heavy drapes, hoping to find the window unlocked. Looking down, he judged the drop to be twenty feet, something he could manage if he could get the right footing and preparation beforehand.
But time was a scarce commodity.
The door open. The lights flared.
“But, Mother,” Gertrude whined.
“I don’t care if you’re hungry. I will not sit in that dining room with those . . . rude women. If they won’t keep their nasty comments to themselves, then we will eat by ourselves. I’ll have a tray sent up. Go tell that clumsy girl in the hallway we want two meals brought to the room immediately.”
Gertrude complied, and Delgatto could hear Emily’s response. She sounded nervous. He just hoped she didn’t tip her hand. He could still get out of this mess.
Somehow.
Gertrude slammed the door, and judging by the creaking springs, threw herself on the bed. “I hate it here,” she sobbed. “I want to meet a man. I want to get married. I want to get away from her!”
She sniffed and snorted. Then he heard the odd rustle of paper. She sniffed again and he heard her belabored words.
“Dear Diary, it’s Christmas and I did not get the present I so longed for. I know it’s Mother’s fault. She runs off any man who dares to look at me. Even worse, she stops me from approaching the men who really interest me.”
Yeah, like every guy in the place doesn’t cringe and look for cover when you bat your eyes at them.
“There was this man at the ball dressed as a highwayman. I know he saw me and I know he was interested—he kept giving me these looks.”
That was panic.
“But Mother wouldn’t let me go to him, and I don’t know who he was because of the mask. I’ve been looking for him among the guests, but so far, no luck.”
Thank God.
“I’m sure he wanted to meet me, sweep me off my feet, and marry me.”
What part of Disneyland do you live in, sister? Fantasyland?
“Mother thinks Lucretia is the ‘pretty one’ but all Lucy does is read books. She didn’t even go to the ball. Instead, she stayed here and read. But Mother . . .”
She broke down in fresh sobs. Suddenly, something hit the curtains and fell at his feet. In the light from the moon, he could see the earnest schoolgirl handwriting on the open pages stained with tears.
His disdain for her melted somewhat.
She wasn’t more than a kid.
And kids had the right to dream and wish and hope . . . And not live in the shadow—the enormous shadow—of their parents’ unfulfilled dreams.
Maybe he could kill two birds with one stone. He pulled on his mask, ran a hand through his hair to mess up the count’s neat ’do, and took a deep breath.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said in a deep voice as he stepped around the curtain and into the room.
She gasped, but luckily didn’t scream. “Who—who are you?” Reaching down, she pulled at the quilt as if she were partially unclothed and needed to cover herself. However, he could see she was fully dressed.
“What do you want with me?” she asked through chattering teeth.
“Please.” He held up a gloved hand. “I will not harm you.” He took an artful pause. “I could never harm you.”
She squinted. “I saw you at the ball. You were the . . .” her voice trailed off.
He nodded. “The highwayman. I saw you there and I wanted to talk to you, but fate wasn’t kind.” He cringed. He’d never be able to forget the bucktoothed Marie Antoinette.
“I never found a chance to speak to you alone, my Queen Marie Antoinette. Our chance to meet was . . . foiled by another queen.”
“Mother,” she growled as if describing something floating in the gutter. “Cleopatra,” she spat, as if her mother should find that asp, and quick.
He made the mistake of shifting toward the bed, which she misinterpreted. But he couldn’t tell whether she was afraid he was going to attack her or fearful he would not.
To dilute the meaning of the movement, he dropped to one knee. It was nonthreatening and also suggested more romance than sex. He could pretend to be infatuated with her, but the prospect of actually being with her was more than he could take.
“I couldn’t let a day pass without trying to speak to you. There were so many things I wanted to say last night.”
She was getting into the mood, discarding the protective coverlet and moving toward the edge of the bed and sitting primly. “And there were so many things I wanted to hear you say.”
“I . . . I could love you,” he started, then turned his head away. “But I have promised my love to another.” He added a shuddering sigh. “For our families’ sakes, I was forced to accept her hand, and we are to be married.” He turned back toward Gertrude. “But when I saw you at the ball, I knew you were special—that if I were free to choose, I would choose you. But alas”—he almost raised his hand to bite his knuckle in the time-honored gesture of the melodrama hero—“I’m not allowed such freedom.”
“You poor thing.”
He tried not to smile. He’d transformed her “poor pitiful me” emotion into sympathy for someone else. It could become a healthy start to building some self-esteem.
“Yes, poor in spirit because I will never be allowed to follow my heart and see where it leads. We may have been magic together . . . but we’ll never know.”
“Never?” she asked in a strangled voice.
“You temptress, you. My heart knows what my body will never feel. But I’m a man of honor, and I can’t pledge myself to you when I’ve promised my troth to another.”
“Then why did you come?”
“To tell you what a powerful effect you had on me, so that we can both savor what might have been. I may be forced to offer my body, my spirit, to another, but you shall remain in my heart. It truly is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
Even thieves steal from Tennyson.
He reached out, gently lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed it.
“Arrivedercci, mi amore.”
A new light reflected in her eyes, one that relished the concept that someone could love me. She reached up and gently caressed his cheek. “But I don’t even know your name.” Her fingers hovered below his mask. “Or what you really look like.”
He captured her hand and brought it to his lips again. “You know my name in your heart.” He stood, inching toward the door. “Farewell, my sweet. I will remember you always.”
There was a sudden knock at the door.
“They’ve found you!” Gertrude bounded out of bed. “You must hide!”
Delgatto figured the knock simply meant supper was served, but he’d allow her to play out this little fiction. “I must have been followed. I must leave. To save your reputation.”
“And yours,” she added in honest concern. “Under there,” she pointed to the bed. “No, that’s the first place they’d look. In there!” He allowed her to push him toward the bathroom door.
Once there, he realized there was no convenient window for escape. If he wanted to leave Gertrude with the perfect ending, he had to escape now. The only other passage was through her mother’s room.
Maybe she was asleep.
Maybe he could simply run through the room and out the door before she could realize what was going on and stop him. It would take mere seconds to turn himself back into the count, who might even volunteer the direction the miscreant fled who had burst from her room.
Whatever he did, he couldn’t stay there. If he wanted to leave Gertrude with a better sense of self and keep her from longing after him long after she should, he needed to disappear.
Now!
That meant a trip through the mother’s room. He took a deep breath, flung open the door, and prepared to race across the room. But the sight of what he saw shocked him to a standstill.
Mrs. Molderhoffen preened in the mirror, dressed in nothing but her undergarments—a lacy chemise and a set of pantaloons done up with scarlet ribbons. To top it off, she had a red feather boa draped around her neck, and she seemed to be dancing.
When she saw him reflected in the mirror, she opened her mouth to scream. Delgatto went with his instincts. He sprang to her side, slid an arm around her waist, pinning her arms down, and put one palm over her mouth.
“Don’t scream,” he commanded in a low voice. “I won’t hurt you. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“If I remove my hand, will you remain quiet?”
She nodded again.
He removed his hand, noticing the scarlet imprint of her lips on his glove.
Great bet that won’t come out.
“Have you come to r-rob me?” She shuddered. “Or worse?”
He could feel her heart thundering through her chest. To his surprise, she leaned her head backward against his shoulder and spoke in a husky whisper. “Do with me what you must. Just . . . be gentle.”
He stood there, having no clue what to do next. But she did. She pivoted around, breaking free of his grasp. Instead of laying him low with a knee in the groin, she threw her arms around him and began to pummel him with kisses.
The force of her momentum pushed them backward onto the bed, where they landed—he on the bottom, she on top. She continued to shower him with sloppy kisses while she fumbled with his clothes, specifically the waistband of his pants.
It took his sluggish brain a moment or two to realize what was happening. She was attacking him! His muffled words of protest sounded weak and ineffectual in his ears.
“No . . . stop . . . let me up . . . don’t do that. . . don’t grab . . . ouch! . . . that.”
She paused to shoot him a grin which dripped with wicked hunger. “Oh, would you prefer to be on top?”
In one swift and almost effortless move, she bench-pressed him up a foot, then flipped both of them so she was now on the bottom with him straddling her. He would have been amazed at her strength if he wasn’t already petrified by her behavior.
“Are you going to tie me up?” she asked breathlessly. “There are some silk scarves in the top drawer of my bedside table.”
He swallowed hard. This was not a woman who had a priceless gem to protect.
No way, no how.
“Perhaps you should undress me first,” she said, licking her lips and arching her back so that her enormous bosom quivered in his direction.
Delgatto couldn’t help it. He panicked.
He jumped off the bed, landing on his butt on the floor. There, he began scrabbling backward like an upside-down spider, doing anything he could to get away from her. Flipping over to his hands and feet, he continued to crawl, trying to find enough balance to stand and run like hell.
She tackled him at the door, snagging his feet and dragging him back toward the bed, one meaty hand on each of his ankles.
“You’re not getting out this easy,” she said in a commando voice. “You’re going to ravish me, understand?”
He held onto the edge of the table nearest the door, but it offered him no anchor as it fell over, dumping her purse to the floor. The bag gaped open and he saw the shiny grip of a small derringer in the bag.
Good God, she’s armed!
The revelation made him fight for purchase that much harder. The rug buckled beneath him.
“You’re . . . coming . . . to . . . bed . . .” Mrs. Molderhoffen said between gasps for air, each word accompanying a new tug at his legs. She released one of his ankles and used her free hand to claw up his leg, evidently looking for a better handhold . . . perhaps the one particular handhold that might make him more responsive to her wishes.
His only solution was to fight back, violating one of his most basic and sacred tenets: never hit a lady. But then, Mrs. Molderhoffen wasn’t acting much like a lady.
He flipped himself over and, now facing her, cocked his arm back and let his fist fly, only to have his punch intercepted by her big mitt of a hand.
Although he pushed with all his might, she held his arm at bay. “Maybe I’m the one who needs to do the tying.”
She used her other hand to clip him on the chin, making stars explode in his head. He collapsed, feigning unconsciousness, hoping it would buy him a few moments to devise a quick plan.
They both heard a voice in the next room.
“Mother, I heard a noise. Are you all right?”
Mrs. Molderhoffen sang out in a sweet voice, “I’m fine, dear. I merely knocked over my purse.”
“Shall I come in and help you pick it up?”
Delgatto sneaked a peep at his captor, who wore a panicked look. “No, dear. I’ve gotten it already. I think I shall retire early tonight. I’m feeling rather under the weather. Tell Lucretia not to bother me when she returns from town. She can tell us about the lecture in the morning.”
“All right, Mother. If there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know.”
Delgatto realized Gertrude might be his only savior, his best bet for getting out of this predicament with his virtue left. He tried not to telegraph his plans, taking in an unnoticeably slow breath before getting ready to shout her name. He opened his eyes in time to see Mrs. Molderhoffen coming at him. Suddenly, he was pinned to the floor by her entire weight, blinded, and with his air completely cut off. Belatedly, he realized that the woman had slammed into him, smothering his face with her enormous cleavage.
He clawed for freedom, trying to extricate himself from the mountain of flesh. If he ever got out of this even remotely intact, the memory of her mammaries would fuel his nightmares for years to come.
Somehow, he managed to find her long braid of hair, evidently dislodged by their struggles. Using it like a rope, he pulled her head back, causing her to yipe in pain and release him.
His qualms about hitting a lady had vanished completely and he landed a good blow on the side of her head which made her reel for a moment. While she recovered, he extricated himself from beneath her and made a lunge for the door. He almost reached it, but a large hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.
Her meaty fist caught him on the side of the head. This time he wasn’t faking as he slid to the floor, fighting to stay conscious.
“Mother, I heard another noise.” The voice emanated from the bathroom. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Mrs. Molderhoffen moved with surprising speed and agility to the bathroom door. Glancing back and assuring herself he was going nowhere, she stepped out of view into the connecting bathroom.
Delgatto knew this was his one and only chance. He forced himself to his feet, stars notwithstanding, stumbled toward the bathroom door, and slammed it shut. He grabbed a chair and stuck it beneath the doorknob.
It would slow her down for as long as she failed to realize she could exit through her daughter’s door and enter her own room from the hallway. But Delgatto counted on it taking several seconds for her to recognize her options.
He stumbled toward the door leading to the hallway, ripping off his mask along the way. By the time he hit the door, Mrs. Molderhoffen was using her considerable weight to try to dislodge the chair.
Staggering into the bright hallway, he ripped off his scarf and unbuttoned his jacket as he ran . . . or at least tried to run. He was still wobbly from Mrs. Molderhoffen’s right hook.
“Sir!”
He pivoted, figuring someone had seen him exit the room and the jig was essentially up.
“Over here.”
It was Emily, beckoning him to an open door. He stumbled in her direction, almost falling twice as waves of darkness spotted his vision. He made the last five feet on instinct alone and stumbled into her arms as he crossed the threshold.
She staggered under his weight, but managed to both hold him up and close the door behind him.
“I’ve got you,” she said in a voice that promised protection—perhaps even something else.
He smiled. Then the world faded into a comforting black.