Page 8 of To Catch an Earl

The day she heard he’d returned from Waterloo had been one of the happiest of her life. She was fiercely glad that he was alive, saddened to learn that he’d been injured. She’d managed to glimpse him across a crowded ballroom. Apart from a small scar by his right temple, there seemed to be very little physical evidence of his injury, but rumor said he’d lost a degree of peripheral vision in his right eye due to a cannon blast. That, at least, was the excuse he used for his current refusal to dance.

The Alexander Harland she’d kissed had been a cheeky, confident, young man. The Alexander Harland who’d returned looked older, wiser. He smiled less frequently. And he’d acquired a new cynicism, a certain hardness to his chiseled features. He had a bleak, weary look in his eyes, as if he’d seen far more of life than he’d ever desired.

His opening of a gambling club in St. James’s had come as no surprise to her. Such a scandalous profession, skirting the very edges of what was socially acceptable yet pandering to the aristocracy’s never-ending desire for novelty and entertainment, seemed entirely fitting with his character.

A few months ago he and his fellow club owners, Benedict Wylde and Sebastien Wolff, has been awarded earldoms by the Prince Regent for “services to the crown.” Rumors had circulated in thetonfor weeks that they were working for Bow Street, and those rumors had been echoed by Sally’s network of friends and informants amongst London’s criminal fraternity.

They were truly on opposite sides of the law now, theRunner and the thief. And despite her undeniable attraction to the man, the more distance she put between them the better.

Emmy sighed. A Welsh acquaintance of hers had introduced her to the wordhiraeth. It had no direct translation in English, but it seemed wholly appropriate to describe her feelings about Harland. The word expressed a bittersweet sense of missing something or someone that you’d loved, while still being grateful for their existence. A longing for home, or a time that felt like home.

Four years ago, at nineteen, she’d felt at home in Harland’s arms. She’d imagined herself in love with him, but it had been a childish infatuation. She hadn’t known the real Alex Harland. She’d loved an illusion, the handsome paragon she’d made up in her mind. Their dance, their kiss, was frozen in time like a perfect vision, a moment that would never be repeated.

She was older now, and wiser. A little more cynical about life and men. A little more realistic about fairy-tale princes.

The snap of a whip and the shout of Harland’s carriage driver jolted Emmy back to the present. Amazed at her own inattention, she caught Camille’s elbow, turned her back on Harland’s conveyance, and marched them both swiftly away down the street.

Alex sat back against the seats with a deep exhale. When he breathed back in, a waft of feminine scent, something floral and unique, teased his nostrils and his heart gave an unsteady, disbelieving jolt. In the space of a single breath, he was transported to a moonlit garden, kissing the woman of his dreams.

His mouth dropped open. That perfume. Unmistakable.

It washer!

He lurched forward and thrust his head out of thecarriage window, craning his neck to identify the source of the scent.

Had he just passed her on the street? There had been a couple of women looking in Rundell & Bridge’s window, but he’d been so preoccupied with what he’d learned about the robbery that he’d barely glanced at them. The women had been on his right, in the black spot of his peripheral vision.

The carriage was pulling away from the curb. Alex cursed. Countless women thronged the street, a flurry of skirts and parasols in every pastel shade.

Which one was she?

He almost pulled the strap to stop the carriage, then imagined himself sprinting down Ludgate Hill, grasping each woman by the shoulders and spinning her around, peering into her face in some vain hope of recognition. Sniffing her wrist for evidence of that elusive, maddening perfume.

The image was sufficiently ludicrous to make him emit a laughing groan.

He was going mad. The possibility didn’t seem unlikely, considering the things he’d witnessed during the war. Sometimes madness sounded like a pleasant escape from reality.

His mind was playing tricks on him. The woman he’d dreamed of didn’t exist. Maybe she’d only ever been a figment of his imagination.

He inhaled again, but the scent was gone. All he could smell was coffee and horse sweat, tobacco and refuse. He sat back heavily against the velvet swabs and ran his hand over his face. He had work to do. A criminal to catch. A diamond to recover. He didn’t have time for other distractions.

Chapter 4.

“So, what did you learn at Rundell and Bridge?” Seb asked as Alex strode into the Tricorn’s private salon a short while later. “How did our thief get in?”

“He had himself delivered.”

Seb, seated at the dining table with a plate of ham and eggs, raised his brows in silent question.

“The Belle Sauvage,” Alex explained. “It’s the coaching inn located directly behind the jeweler. The Nightjar hid himself in an empty beer barrel and had himself delivered to the Belle Sauvage on a vintner’s wagon. According to the hostlers, the place is always teeming with people, so there’s no way of knowing exactly when that was. Either way, the barrel was taken down to the cellar, the southernmost wall of which is shared with the basement of Rundell and Bridge.”

Seb smiled, obviously impressed, and took another bite of ham. “Most enterprising.”

“Our thief climbed out of his barrel, removed the few bricks that separated the wine cellar from the jeweler tomake a small opening—which he concealed with another stack of barrels—and climbed through into the shop.”

“Did you look at the barrel? A brewery name might help.”

“I thought of that. It was sent from the entirely fictitious ‘Black Feather Brewery.’ Our thief has a sense of humor.”

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