Page 8 of Anastasia and the Duke
Get yourself together man, he chided, as the carriage trundled its way through the heaving London traffic towards home.
Oliver was a duke, the miss he had kissed was a thief--one who had left him doubled over in pain as she made an escape--it was absurd for him to even think of her, let alone pine for her. What was wrong, he thought decisively, was that he was without a mistress. As his grandmother had rightly commented, his affair with Constance, Lady Rubenhold, had come to an end. This was thanks to the fact that on the fateful night Lady Jersey's jewels had been stolen, Oliver had left Constance alone while he had unknowingly dallied with a maid. Lady Rubenhold had not taken kindly to being snubbed and had let him know, by way of note, that she would be transferring her affections elsewhere.
Without Constance to warm his bedsheets, Oliver now had surplus of unspent desire. It was not unreasonable to think that he had mistakenly projected his urges onto the last woman he had held in his arms, he thought, glad to be able to apply some rationality to his uncharacteristic feelings.
He would have to remedy matters soon; another mistress, perhaps, or even a wife, might do the trick. As long as she had spirit, lips that tasted like soft summer rain, and curves that melted against him, he would be able to banish the memory of his she-thief for good...
Chapter Three
When Sidney had first shared his plan with her, Hannah had been sceptical. Not to mention horrified; stealing was one thing but preying on a lonely old woman was another matter entirely.
"I didn't know you had a conscience, sweetheart," Sidney had chuckled, "You were always a tough little thing; you've gone soft in your old age."
"There's a difference between plain theft and an elaborate deception, Sid," Hannah had retorted darkly, "I'm not so bad that I'd not baulk at stealing from an elderly woman whose only crime is to mourn her child and grandchild."
"Nuffink bad about it," Sid had shrugged, "Do you think Lady Lansdowne's grief is any more important than yours, or mine, or that of anyone else in the Seven Dials? Just walk outside and you'll meet half a dozen women who've lost a bairn--or several--and they don't have the luxury of mourning their child in comfort."
Hannah had not replied; he spoke the truth. St Giles' was the worst slum in London, where misery clung to misery for warmth. Henrietta Street was on the ward's periphery, so Hannah was sheltered from the worst of its horrors, but as a child she had known whole families to succumb to this ailment or that--or simply plain poverty--with no one to mourn them.
"Besides," Sidney had continued, "It's not like you're not stealing something that's not already been stolen. The aristocratic class like to dress their thievery up like it's something proper and good, but I doubt the Indians they stole from feel the same way."
Hannah had bit back a sigh at this statement; Sidney liked to convince himself that he was motivated by a desire to right the wrongs of the ruling-classes, when really he was just as bad as them. Had he truly cared about the plight of the people of India, he would want to return their stolen jewels to them, not keep them for himself.
For that was the plan; to steal the loot that Lady Lansdowne's father had stolen during his time inLa Compagnie française des Indes orientales--the French East India Company, pawn it to the highest seller, and divide the spoils between them.
The pickings would be considerable, by the sound of things. Lady Lansdowne's father, Jean Tavernier, had been the governor of a southern port town at the time of Dupleix's rule as Governor-General of France's Indian Territories. When his superior had unsuccessfully sought to further the cause of the French in India, against their Dutch and English rivals, Tavernier had used the ensuing military turmoil to his advantage, secreting piles of stolen treasures from all sides of the fracas back to France. From there, he, his treasures, and his family, had set sail for England, where they had set themselves up as wealthyémigrés.
The treasures that Tavernier had stolen had funded the family's lavish lifestyle and, upon his death, what remained of them--the most sacred and rare objects of his haul--had passed to his daughter, now Lady Lansdowne.
"Rubies the colour of pigeon's blood, lizard-green emeralds, jewel encrusted swords and daggers, and best of all--the Blue Diamond of Andhra Pradesh."
Sid had recited the inventory with a reverence that had bordered on fanaticism, and even Hannah had been carried away by his zeal. The thought of riches that might take her and Nan away from London, poverty, and their life of uncertainty was enough to quash her doubts about the means as to how she was to acquire said riches.
Though doubt still niggled at her conscience.
Lady Lansdowne's daughter, Giselle, had moved to France upon her marriage to the Comte de Bonneval, for whom she had borne a daughter. Despite the outbreak of the Revolution, the Comte had preferred to remain in France, for he supported--as his good friend, Louis, Duke of Orléans also did--the idea of a constitutional, rather than absolute monarchy, like the British.
The Comte found favour within theConvention nationale,but when Orléans was accused of fraternising with the enemies of liberty and imprisoned at the Conciergerie, de Bonneval had realised that he too might find himself declared a traitor.
The family made plans to escape France to England, but word of their intentions somehow became known. In August 1793, just after the Duke of Orléans had been beheaded by guillotine, a group of rabid Montagnards had descended upon Château de Bonneval and burned it to the ground, killing everyone inside.
It was a tragic tale of pointless loss; the Comte and Comtesse had perished alongside their four-year-old daughter, Anastasia, though the child's body had never been found.
Lady Lansdowne, in her grief, had spent years convinced that her granddaughter had somehow survived. She had placed ads in newspapers, spent considerable sums of money on investigators, and had fallen victim to several villains who wished to make her think they knew her granddaughter's whereabouts.
"And now we shall be another set of schemers," Hannah had sighed, when Sidney had finished explaining how he expected her to seize hold of Lady Lansdowne's treasures.
"We shall be entirely different from all the other schemers," he had assured her, as though the difference in their cruelty was what mattered, "We won't claim we know where Anastasia is, we're going to lead the countess to believe that she has found her herself."
Hannah had been a thief for as many years as she could recall. When Nan had worked as a seamstress for The Theatre Royal, Hannah and her gang of stragglers had spent their evenings picking the pockets of the drunkards in the stalls. From there, under Sid's tutelage, she had progressed to petty theft in shops, burglary in houses, and, finally, elaborately planned larceny, such as her night-time plundering of Lady Jersey's dressing-room.
The people Hannah stole from were nameless, faceless entities, and though sometimes they haunted her dreams, it was easy to push her guilt aside--especially given that she rarely profited from her misdeeds.
Now, she was planning to deceive an elderly lady in the worst possible way, and then make off with her most prized possessions, all for her own gain.
The conscience that Hannah had hitherto not believed she possessed made itself known, and she had been about to object, when Sid had offered a casual morsel of gossip,
"Jack Owens 'ad his trial this morning," he had commented, his eyes sidling to her face to catch her reaction, "Sentenced to 'ang, poor chap. You recall Jack?"
