Page 114 of Where the Heart Leads
Stokes leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. “So what’s his plan—which houses, and why?”
“It’s not Smythe doing the planning, at least not the where, when, or what for. That’s all coming from Alert. He’s providing the details, Smythe is providing the expertise. And Alert, we know, is a gentleman.”
Penelope raised her brows, wondering what that last fact might imply.
After a moment Barnaby continued, “I’ve been thinking about what Grimsby said about Smythe needing so many boys because he was to hit a whole string of houses in one night.” He looked at Stokes. “That’s not Smythe’s—or any burglar’s—usual modus operandi. The ‘all in one night’ is being dictated by Alert. Butwhy? Why would a gentleman insist on a series of burglaries being done all in one night?”
Stokes stared back at him. Eventually he offered, “The only thing I can think of, as Grimsby also said, is that they’ll get no trouble from the police if the whole series—and one assumes there has to be some reason behind doing a series of burglaries in the first place—is done in one night. Once a burglary is discovered, it takes a day, more usually two, to organize more men on patrol, that sort of thing.”
Barnaby nodded. “Which leaves us with two points. One—correct me if I err, but increased police patrols and so on would only happen if the houses burgled are in Mayfair.” When Stokes nodded, Barnaby continued, “That confirms what we’ve suspected given Smythe’s need for burglary boys—that these burglaries are of a series of houses in Mayfair.However,to my second point, his insistence on the burglaries being done all in one night suggests that once the burglaries—even one of them—are discovered, the outcry will be significant, enough to make any further burglaries in Mayfair too risky.”
Stokes’s face blanked. “Hell.”
“Indeed.” Barnaby nodded. “The only scenario that makes sense of Alert’s plan—a string of houses in Mayfair that must be burgled all in one night—is that the items to be stolen areextremelyvaluable.”
Stokes focused on Barnaby. “Any chance of us getting the word out through the ton—putting households on alert? Possibly identifying households that have extremely valuable items of the sort a boy could lift?”
Barnaby looked at him, then glanced at the window and the louring sky beyond. “As to your first question, Parliament rose on Thursday. It’s now late Saturday afternoon.” He met Stokes’s eyes. “We’re too late for any general alert—most ton families will have left town by now. More than that, in the current political climate I don’t think it would be wise for Peel to suggest, however obliquely, that the police weren’t able to protect the mansions of Mayfair from the depredations of one burglar.”
Stokes pulled a horrendous face and looked away.
“As for identifying households containing smallish items that are extremely valuable,” Penelope said, “the entire ton is littered with such things. Every house in Mayfair would have at least one, and in many cases more than one.” She grimaced, looking from Stokes to Griselda, then back again. “I know it seems absurd, but generally those things have been in our families for generations. We don’t think of them as valuable, but as Great-aunt Mary’s vase that she got from her Parisian admirer. That sort of thing. The vase might be priceless Limoges, but that’s not why it’s sitting on the corner table, and it’s not how we think of, or remember, it.”
“She’s right.” Barnaby met Stokes’s gaze. “Forget any idea of identifying which houses.” He grimaced. “While we might now know the sort of item Alert is after, that sadly doesn’t get us much further.”
After a moment, Stokes said, “Perhaps not. But there is one other thing.” He looked at Barnaby. “If, as seems certain, Alert’s plan was designed to avoid police interference, then Alert, whoever he is—”
“Knows a damned sight more than the average gentleman about the workings of the Metropolitan Police.” Barnaby nodded. “Indeed.”
After a moment, he went on, “We can’t find Smythe, and we can’t identify the houses he’s targeting well enough to set any trap. By my reckoning, that leaves us with only one avenue worth exploring.”
Stokes nodded. “We go after Alert.”
She’d told herself it was frustration, disappointment, and simple impatience with the investigation that had driven her to seek distraction—but the truth was, she’d missed him.
Later that night, Penelope lay propped in Barnaby’s big bed. He lay beside her, on his back, one arm crooked above his head. The glow of candlelight fell over them. She let her gaze wander, and smiled with, she had to admit, possessive delight.
For the moment at least he was hers, all hers, and she knew it.
Reaching out, she laid one hand on his chest, then slowly slid it down—over the heavy muscle bands, down over his ridged abdomen to the indentation of his navel, then lower, to that part of him that always seemed eager for her touch. That despite their recent couplings, still grew beneath her hand.
The fact sent a sense of power shivering through her.
Not that the rest of him—all of him—hadn’t been glad to see her. Even though they’d made no assignation, when she’d knocked on his door earlier that night, he’d been waiting to open it; Mostyn had been nowhere in sight. He’d escorted her upstairs to his bedroom and locked the door behind them—all with an intent alacrity that had warmed her. That had set her heart pounding, set her senses stretching in anticipation.
She’d turned into his arms—all but flung herself at him—and simply let her hunger free. Let it burn. For him. And he’d reciprocated. They’d wrestled, as they always did, control first his, then hers, then his again. He’d finally pinned her, naked, beneath him on the bed, and joined with her in a frenzy that had left them both wrung out, deliciously sated.
Content again.
It had seemed that he’d missed her, too.
That had been the first time. The second…she had an excellent memory; she could recall in vivid detail the various positions described in the esoteric texts she and Portia had studied years before in their drive to educate themselves on all aspects of life. Those texts had been quite illuminating.
And clearly accurate. When she’d risen up on her hands and knees and asked whether they could try it that way, he’d been stunned—for all of a heartbeat. Then he’d been behind her, and inside her, joining with her through long, deep, excruciatingly controlled thrusts; he’d demonstrated very thoroughly just why that position had featured in most texts.
Afterward, they’d collapsed in a tangled heap, mutually sated to their toes.
Now…after the heady glow of aftermath had faded, she’d been left with a pervasive warmth, her body thrumming with a steady, purring content and a quiet joy she hadn’t known it was possible to feel.
