Touch of a Thief (23 page)

Vio
la covered her face with both hands. “There, you see. You think I’m a lunatic. I can see it in your eyes.”

“No, I don’t.” He schooled his features into an impassive mask. She’d already told him her sister was dotty. Perhaps madness did run in her family and she was afflicted with a mild case, too. At least he hoped it was mild. “What”—he stopped, wanting to choose his words with care so she’d continue to confide in him—“what did the moonstone say?”

She arched a brow at him. “You don’t think gemstones speak English, do you?”

“No, of course not. How . . . silly of me.” He took the hand that had suffered the burn and stroked the back of it. “What language do they speak?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a sigh. “Not a human language. Just sounds, vibrations, screeches sometimes. Every stone is different.”

Her mania had a sort of logic to it. If she was hearing voices, at least they weren’t encouraging her to fly out a window or hack her family to pieces.

“That’s how I can tell if a jewel is genuine. Paste gems are silent. Jet is the only stone I can bear for any length of time.”

“Not very talkative?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “They merely hum. It’s really rather pleasant.”

Very logical. Her tale had the ring of truth, even if it was too outlandish to take seriously. “I take it the Blood of the Tiger spoke to you this evening?”

“Yes, but I could bear the sound because the jet and silver muted the power of the diamond’s voice. When I became ill this afternoon, it was because I heard the stone arrive and wasn’t wearing my shielding.”

Her story was beginning to make sense. She did recover from that bizarre flash fever after donning her jet jewelry. “Score one for hokum,” he said under his breath.

Fortunately she didn’t seem to hear him. “Usually I have to touch a stone to hear it, but the Blood of the Tiger is very powerful.”

There was a glaring flaw in her tale. “Several of the ladies at supper touched the diamond. No one else at the table was struck down.”

“I’m beginning to think it’s rather like hay fever. Some can work in a garden all day with no ill effects and others develop puffy eyes and runny noses at the first sight of a flowering plant. No one else at the table was susceptible to gems,” Viola said. “Except perhaps the Comte de Foix. He’s the one who insisted on seeing it after all. He must have sensed it was near. And of course, Mr. Chesterton. He took care not to handle the stone directly and he’s wearing a jet and silver ring. Except . . . he’s not really Mr. Chesterton.”

“Who is he then?” Quinn’s chest ached. She was making less sense by the moment.

“I don’t know, but he’s not the Mr. Chesterton the ruby in Paris showed me.”

Quinn’s gut roiled. She was more ill than he realized. “The ruby
showed
you?”

“If I maintain contact with a gem long enough, it sends me a vision.” She sat up, as if to emphasize her point. “The ruby we almost pinched in the ambassador’s office showed me the real diamond and its courier. I saw that the Blood of the Tiger would come through Hanover, even though I couldn’t tell you at the time. I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

“Fancy that.”

She evidently didn’t hear the irony in his voice. “But I thought a short bald man would be carrying it. The jet and silver shield protected me from the diamond’s voice this night, though I could still hear it.” She shivered. “I shouldn’t have touched it, but when the Blood of the Tiger sets itself to charm, you have no idea how compelling its song is.”

Quinn hadn’t heard a thing while the diamond was shuttled round the table.

“When I touched it, the diamond showed me the real Mr. Chesterton’s murder.” Her face crumpled. “It was horrible, Quinn. He begged and cried and—”

She covered her mouth with her hand and fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. “Oh, God, he wanted to live so badly,” she said between gasping breaths. “Even after he . . . oh, Quinn, the man who killed him and took his place . . . he may look like a person, but he’s really a beast.”

She was sobbing inconsolably. Quinn put his arms around her and held her while she wept. An anvil settled on his heart. The woman he loved was mad and he feared her malady was beyond anyone’s power to help.

“Hush, now,” he said softly. He was a wealthy man. He’d find someone who understood the workings of an ill mind. They’d travel to the best sanitoriums in Europe looking for a cure. America, even, if need be. “It’ll be all right.”

“How? How can it be all right that a man was murdered and no one knows and—” She turned in his arms and slanted a look at him. “You don’t believe me.”

“If it’s any consolation, Sanjay would believe every word.”

“But you don’t.” She pulled away from him.

“Viola, I’m a simple man. A soldier. I trust what I can see. What can be proven.” He tried to smooth her tumbled hair, but she batted his hand away. “Try to look at it from my perspective. There’s nothing to support what you say.”

“You want proof?” She glared at him, her eyes brittle as glass. “Fine. I know what happened at the lake when you were a boy. I saw your brother drown.”

“What did you say?” Quinn’s face blanched and Viola’s insides wilted. He was covered with guilt.

“You’re not a simple man. Not just a soldier. You’re a baron, in line for a viscountcy because your brother died. I’ve been trying to deny what I saw, but I can’t any more. You’re hiding a terrible secret. I saw you do it.”

“Do what? What are you talking about?”

“Do you remember the day I fainted and had that headache in Paris?”

He nodded mutely.

“I had touched your signet ring while you were shaving. I thought it would tell me more about you, and I guess it did.” The horrific images she’d tried to forget rushed back to her. “The stone showed me that day at the lake.”

Quinn didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He seemed to be holding his breath.

“Your brother was floundering in the water. I saw you running along the dock, then you reached out a hand to him. He loved you so. He thought you were trying to help him.” Her throat threatened to close over the words. “Then you held him under.”

Quinn rose and walked to the window, leaving the circle of light thrown by the candle near her bed. He leaned against the sill. Backlit by the moonlight, he was a dark male shape outlined in silver.

“That’s not what happened,” he finally said. “It wasn’t me.”

“But I
saw
you.” From her vantage point, through Reggie’s eyes, she’d seen very little actually. Water weed and the underside of the rotting dock. But Quinn’s young face in her vision was crystalline in its clarity. She’d remember Reggie’s sense of terror and betrayal till she breathed her last. “I saw only you.”

“Then your vision wasn’t complete,” he said wearily. “My father was there, too.”

“Are you saying he’s the one who did it?”

“Reggie was too soft, he always said,” Quinn explained, with quiet bitterness. “Our father was never satisfied with either of us, but at least I showed some promise on a horse and could manage a cricket bat. Reggie was . . . a gentle soul. I loved my brother. I would never hurt him.”

She desperately wanted it to be true. Viola scoured her memory. There’d been a look of panic on young Greydon’s face as he pounded down the length of the dock. Then Reggie had disappeared beneath the surface again and she’d only seen the sickly green water. Their father might have been following at a distance and joined Quinn on the dock while Reggie was beneath the surface.

“I should have gone in after him, but . . . I was afraid. I’d heard a drowning person will take his rescuer with him often as not. I tried to reach Reggie from the dock, but my arm wouldn’t stretch far enough.”

Viola searched her vision. Yes, that much was true. Greydon had leaned out, his fingers splayed, his eyes wide.

“I was a damn coward,” Quinn said. “And Father was so disgusted by Reggie’s flailing attempts to swim, he held him down. ‘To toughen him up,’ he said.”

Lord Wimbly had said Lord Kilmaine was hard on his boys. According to Wimbly, the viscount claimed to have been at the lake when Reggie tragically drowned. Now that she thought about it, Quinn’s boyish fingers wouldn’t have covered Reggie’s entire crown the way the long, strong ones in her vision did. Quinn’s version of the facts made sense. She hoped it was the truth.

“Oh, Quinn.” Viola’s chest ached for him. No wonder he didn’t want to be called Greydon because it was one of his father’s names.

“I don’t think he meant to, but he held him down too long. He was so angry when Reggie drowned. As if it was my brother’s fault for dying. I thought he was going to throw me in next,” Quinn said with a catch in his voice. He rubbed his forehead as if he could rub out the memory. “ ‘Sons are easy enough to get,’ he said. He told me I’d better keep my own counsel if I knew what was good for me.”

“You were only a child. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It’s always felt as if it was.” He slumped onto the bed by her feet. “The truth will never come to light. It would kill my mother. My father will never be called to account.” He ground a fist into his thigh. “It’s so damn unfair.”

Viola realized that was why Quinn railed so against injustice wherever he saw it. Why returning the diamond to Sanjay’s people was so important to him. If he righted other wrongs, somehow, he was making up for the wrong done to Reggie. The wrong that could never be undone.

“There is a Higher Court,” she whispered. “Your father will face a reckoning someday.”

“I hope you’re right.” Quinn looked at her searchingly. “Do you believe me?”

Viola nodded. She loved this man. She had to believe him. “Do you believe
me
?”

“It’s hard, but I have to.”

She moved to the end of the bed and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Let us agree to keep each other’s secrets.”

“Agreed.” Quinn turned and tipped her face up to his, sealing their bargain with a deep kiss.

“I’m sorry I touched your ring,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done that. It was wrong of me, like reading your private journal.”

Quinn gathered her in his arms. “I’m glad you did. I don’t want to have any secrets from you. I doubt I’d have believed yours any other way.”

She smiled at him. “Careful. You’re giving me permission to be nosy.”

“Since your vision about Reggie wasn’t completely accurate, I’m giving you permission to ask me anything instead.” A frown pulled his brows together. “If the vision from the lake was incomplete, do you think you might be wrong about Mr. Chesterton, too?”

She explained that when she’d had the vision of Reggie’s death, she’d experienced it all through his eyes. Her other Sendings had been viewed from a safe distance, which enabled her to see clearly what the stone wished her to see. In this case, there was no ambiguity. She was certain the man posing as Mr. Chesterton was a cold-blooded killer.

She shook her head. “We don’t have to wonder what he intends. That diamond will never make it to the queen’s collection. At some point, he’ll switch it and try to fob a lesser stone off on the queen’s men.”

“Then we’ll simply make the switch for him,” Quinn said. “I have a ruby we can leave as a substitute.”

“He’ll know,” Viola said. “He’s like me. Jewels speak to him.”

Quinn cocked a brow at her. “All right, I’ll trust you on that. You’d know, if anyone would. What do you suggest?”

“We steal it outright.”

“Fair enough. We’ll have to be ready to fly afterward then, but I’m changing the rules. When we go for Baaghh kaa kkhuun, I’ll be the one who actually lifts it. I don’t want you to touch it. Not ever again,” Quinn said. “Is that understood?”

“I’ll try not to, but I can’t promise I won’t. The diamond is very compelling.”

“Then I’ll keep you from it.” Quinn wrapped his arms around her and held her close. “I won’t risk you. Not for anything.”

It wasn’t a declaration of love, but it felt like one. It wasn’t about lust. It wasn’t about thievery. It was about two souls who’d found their odd bits and pieces; their imperfections and private shames seemed to fit together to form a less broken whole. A warm glow shimmered over Viola. She relaxed in Quinn’s embrace, perfectly content to remain there till morning.

An ungodly shriek pierced the night and lights winked on in every room of Schloss Celle.

“Stay
here,” Quinn ordered.

“Not likely.” Viola scrambled off the bed and toed on her slippers. Fortunately, she was still dressed, but even if she’d had to take to the drafty corridors of Schloss Celle in her nightshift and wrapper, after that scream nothing would keep her alone in the chamber without Quinn.

Viola couldn’t say for sure whether it came from a man or a woman. It was bloodless. Disembodied. She gave a superstitious shudder.

Together, they bolted down the hall and took the stairs at a brisk place. Other guests joined them, all talking at once, all wondering what had happened.

“Quiet!” Quinn commanded and everyone fell silent.

Voices echoed from a lower level. The group followed the sound, keeping their own speech to a whispered hum. They slowed when they came to the foot of the stairs and found Neville Beauchamp and the ambassador with several other guests standing around a prone figure.

Viola peeked around Quinn. The French count was sprawled on the flagstones. His face was waxy and pale in the flickering light of the wall sconces. His unblinking eyes were bleached of all color, the irises mere shadows on the whites.

A serving girl sobbed into a corner of her apron and rattled on in German.

“What’s she saying?” Quinn turned and asked.

“She doesn’t know how it happened,” Neville translated in a flat voice, clearly unnerved by the unnatural appearance of the count’s body. “She found him like this.”

Quinn squatted down and checked for a heartbeat at the French count’s throat. He shook his head.

“Did he fall down the stairs?” Neville asked.

Quinn turned the count’s head to one side. “No blood. No evidence of a blow. His neck’s not broken.”

“Where’s that doctor?” Neville looked around, but the ambassador’s physician wasn’t among the group. “Check for a wound of any sort, Lieutenant.”

Quinn moved the count’s arm from across his chest. It was limp as a noodle. His fingers dangled as if his bones had dissolved inside his body. Quinn jerked his hand away and de Foix’s arm flopped to his side, palm up.

“His hand,” Viola said. “Look.”

There was a burn in the center of the flesh between his lifeline and heartline. The angry hole was so deep it nearly went all the way through his hand. The burn on her own palm, which hadn’t hurt at all before, flared in sympathy.

Viola had no doubt the Blood of the Tiger had killed de Foix.

Quinn glanced at her hand and a flash of understanding passed between them.

“Where’s Chesterton?” Quinn asked, rising to his feet.

The ambassador cleared his throat noisily. “The prince’s men arrived shortly after Lady Ashford was taken ill at supper with orders for Chesterton to depart with them immediately. The escort took time only to eat a quick meal in the kitchen while Chesterton packed. They should be leaving now for the port of Bremen to sail with the next available tide. The sooner the burden he bears reaches the Royal Collection, the safer it will be.”

Viola realized Lord Cowley spoke the truth. The diamond’s low drone was gone, but she couldn’t say precisely when the sound had stopped. It had become such a habitual background noise, she’d ceased to note it since her silver and jet jewelry protected her from the diamond’s power. She hadn’t marked its absence until now.

Viola looked down at de Foix’s body. She could imagine what had happened. Mr. Chesterton would have changed from his formal clothing into a traveling ensemble. The Frenchman must have realized the diamond was being taken away and moved quickly to snatch it while Chesterton packed.

But the comte wasn’t cautious enough. Either he didn’t know to protect himself from the stone or the diamond beguiled him into holding it in his bare hand while it sucked the life out of him.

If Chesterton was sensitive to the stone, he would have been aware in short order that it was no longer in his possession. He must have found the comte’s body before the serving girl. Chesterton had pocketed the diamond and left de Foix as he lay, then strolled out to join the waiting escort without so much as a backward glance.

Quinn put his arm around her waist and led her back up the stairs, leaving the ambassador and Neville to see to the disposition of the body and any further investigation. “There’s nothing more for us to do here.”

She suspected he was talking about more than the poor comte. With the diamond gone, there was no reason for them to tarry in Schloss Celle. No reason to follow the diamond since it was unlikely they’d be able to slip past the prince’s men.

No reason for them to continue the charade of being husband and wife. Their adventure together was over.

Her chest hurt. Her palm burned. She ached all over.

They continued in silence up to their room. The door thudded behind them with finality. She ducked behind the dressing screen to change into her night clothes.

“Viola, we won’t follow Chesterton across the Channel,” Quinn said.

“Naturally not. With the diamond under royal guard, we’ve little chance of pinching it now.”

“No, it’s not that. Whatever defenses a man can devise, another man can find a way around. But after what happened to de Foix, I don’t want you near that thing.”

His words sent hope dancing through her veins again. He did care about her. “Your reasons for wanting to steal the diamond are still the same, still strong.”

“Yes, but now my reason for
not
stealing it is stronger.”

She wished he’d say more, but she didn’t want to press him.

He stepped behind the screen with her and undid the back of her gown without being asked, his movements easy and unhurried. It was a simple thing.

A husbandly thing.

He dropped a soft kiss on her shoulder, then left her to finish preparing for bed behind the screen alone. He undressed on the other side of the room, hanging up the pieces of his dress uniform so it wouldn’t wrinkle. He made no effort to shield himself from her eyes, totally unconcerned by his own nakedness.

The soft light of the candle kissed the smooth skin of Quinn’s broad back. Viola’s gaze followed the line of his spine down to his bare buttocks and muscular thighs.

He was such a fine man. She wished he was truly hers. She wished her menstrual flow hadn’t begun and she was bearing his child. She wished she could walk around the dressing screen and seduce him into loving her.

He pulled a silky banyan around his body and knotted the belt at his waist. When he turned, she averted her gaze.

“Do you need anything?” he asked.

Only you
. “No,” she lied.

“Then come to bed.” He held out a hand to her.

She came around the dressing screen and took it with a little sigh. “Oh, Quinn, everything’s gone wrong. Even if we did want to tail the diamond, we can’t very well follow it to Bremen because Sanjay is still in Hanover. The fake Mr. Chesterton would recognize us and know why we followed him.” She leaned her forehead against his chest, her crown fitting neatly under his chin. “What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to bed.” He cupped her chin, tilted her face up to his, and shot her a wicked grin. He kissed the tip of her nose. “There are plenty of delightful possibilities in that plan, but I think this time we should try to get some rest. I don’t know about you, but I could sleep for a week.”

She climbed into the bed and under the covers. He pinched off the candle flame and followed, pulling the bed curtains behind them to shut out the world.

But the world wouldn’t stay out. Unresolved questions niggled at Viola’s brain. “I wasn’t asking what we’d do now. What will we do in the future?” She really wanted to ask what would become of
them
, but Baaghh kaa kkhuun seemed like a safer subject. “About the diamond, I mean.”

“I know what you meant,” he said, snuggling her close so her head was pillowed on his shoulder. “We’re not going to think about it for the next twelve hours or so.”

His breathing grew deep and rhythmic.

Viola raised her head and tried to make out his profile in the darkness. How did men do that? Could he really shove aside all the loose threads of their life and decide not to tug on any of them?

Apparently, he could.

But Viola’s mind chased the endless possibilities around the bedpost for hours before exhaustion claimed her and she sank into oblivion.