Star Crossed Seduction Read online

  She let out a slow breath, recovering her poise. She must never underestimate him. He hadn’t repeated the mistakes he’d made that first time, tonight. He was as fly as she was. And the way he had crept up on her and stopped her with her hand half out of the flat’s pocket, just after she’d nimmed his ticker—he was good. Too good. He’d been alert to her tricks, too, here in the alcove. It would be tough to put one over on him again. She’d have to keep on her toes.

  But why was she thinking like that? He’d come tomorrow. Matron would send him packing, and that would be the last she’d ever see of him. Good riddance to him. He was a magnificent male animal, to be sure, but she must never forget he was an enemy who served their tyrant king. And she didn’t like the way his mind penetrated through the clouds of confusion she wrapped around herself and pierced them like a beacon shining through the London fog.

  She tied on her mask again, so she could rejoin the revelers. She was tempted to have another go at a pocket or two but thought better of it. The captain might have lingered, and she didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d been speaking the truth about turning her in if he were to catch her at it again.

  As she squared her shoulders and launched out from the shelter of the alcove, more than one man sent a speculative glance her way, wanting a piece of what they’d seen the pretty boy offer the sultan. Tough luck for them. Some women showed interest in her, too. She ignored them all. How pathetic it was how people let themselves be led about by that.

  She’d almost reached the other side of the assembly room when she felt a hand grasp her shoulder. She wheeled around, expecting it to be some twiddlepoop hoping to get his yard stroked, but stopped dead when she saw who it was.

  Snake. Though he was masked and wore the same monk’s costume as twenty other revelers, it could be no one else but him. No one else would have pinched her shoulder that hard. And it was just like Snake to choose the dullest costume. He’d have worn a cloak of invisibility had it been possible to buy one off the old-clothes man. He was a master at keeping himself hidden until he wanted to reveal himself, and when he did, he was like smoke, or a bad smell, arising suddenly without warning and so hard to get rid of.

  She took a deep breath, hoping he hadn’t come to collect the payment she still owed his master, the Weaver. She had a few shillings left from what Lady Hartwood had given her, but that wouldn’t be enough.

  As if reading her thoughts, Snake said, “A bit late with the grease, moll.” He spoke with a lisp, having had his tongue nicked in punishment for something long ago. “The Weaver’s not happy about that.” He gave her a moment to let his words sink in. “But you could still make the Weaver happy now that you’ve stumbled into a bit of luck.”

  So Danny wasn’t the only one who had heard of her good fortune. Time to set Snake right about that. “If it’s Her Ladyship you refer to, she won’t be putting up with the likes of me much longer.”

  “That ain’t the luck I was referrin’ to, moll. It’s the prancer.” The dragoon. “Looks like he’d be happy to put up with the likes of you for as long as you let him.”

  “Which is no time at all. You know I’m not on the game.”

  “So you’re putting it out for free, then. Shortsighted, but no business of mine. But the Weaver has his eye on the prancer, and being as the cove’s fond of you, we could use you. We’ll forget about the grease if you take on a little job.”

  “I want no part of any of the Weaver’s jobs. Everyone knows he does the king’s dirty work.”

  “Keep yer clapper shut!” Snake brought a finger to his lips. “ ’Tain’t safe to mention such things. But ’tain’t safe neither to refuse the Weaver when there’s work to be done. You know that, Tem.”

  “I know more than I want to know about the Weaver. And I’m not doing no job for him.”

  “Your Randall weren’t too fine to put his hand to the task from time to time.”

  “How can you dirty his name with such an accusation when he’s dead and can’t defend himself?”

  Snake’s brows shot up. “Died, did he? I’m that sorry to hear it.” His features arranged themselves in a somber expression. “He were a good ’un, Randall. How’d he go? I hadn’t heard Lady Lucy’d gone down. Or did it happen after he got to America?”

  America? Her heart stopped. “What are you talking about? Randall was murdered in London after the Cato Street Conspirators were betrayed. A cursed dragoon shot him and threw his body into the river.”

  “Don’t know who told you that, but I drove him down to Portsmouth meself the day after they nobbled the conspirators. I saw him board Lady Lucy. He got off safely.”

  Ice ran in her veins. “Lady Lucy?” she demanded. “Who’s she?” she said, keeping her voice unnaturally steady.

  Snake looked surprised. “Not who, but what. She’s a tea clipper out of Boston.”

  The room spun. She struggled to breathe and fought the lump rising in her throat. No tears. She couldn’t fall apart. Not here. Not with people watching. And not in front of Snake.

  But it couldn’t be true. Snake was lying to get her to do his master’s bidding. He must be. But Lady Lucy had been one of the names written on the list Becky had shown her. Those names etched into her brain as if by acid. Could Randall really be alive and safe in America?

  She advanced on Snake. “Why would Randall have turned to you for help when the conspiracy failed? Everyone knows you’re the Weaver’s man.”

  “Who else would he turn to, moll? The Weaver looks after his own, and after the bang-up job Randall did for him that night, he’d have trusted his safety to no one but me.”

  “Randall wasn’t working for the Weaver. The Weaver serves the king. He was fighting for liberty against the king and his government. ”

  Snake looked at her as if she were an imbecile child. “You’ll spin a hempen necklace for yerself if you keep clacking on ’bout things no one should gab about. ’Twas your Randall betrayed the conspirators—and he was well paid to do it. But enough jawing. Be at the usual place tomorrow, and you’ll learn what the Weaver has in mind for you.”

  “I won’t do it,” she managed to choke out. “There’s nothing you can say to change my mind.”

  “If that’s your decision, I wouldn’t want to change it. There’s plenty of others who would be happy to have a chance to serve the Weaver. I was doing you a favor, I was, in asking you, though it looks like I wasted my breath But I’d watch my step now if I was you, moll. It don’t pay to displease the Weaver, not when he’s already at the end of his patience with you. Turn down this job, and you’d better say good-bye to the prancer right quick. Stick with him, and I don’t give it a month till they drag you out of the river.”

  It was late when she got back to the Refuge. The household was sound asleep, but she pounded loudly on the door, throwing her whole weight behind each blow and finding release in the pain that shot up her arms. She didn’t care if she woke the whole neighborhood. When the groggy porter let her in, she rushed up the stairs to Becky’s room. The gibbous moon showed the girl’s thin form curled up on her bed. Temperance flung herself toward her, grabbed a hank of her hair, and tugged it to force her awake.

  “Cor blimey, Tem, what’s up?” Becky cried in a harsh whisper. “ ’Tis the middle of the night!”

  “I don’t care if it’s the middle of your funeral. Get up and tell me. Did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “That he was alive.”

  “Who?” Becky said, but the look that flitted over her features as she said it told her she had known. Temperance felt sick.

  “You knew, and you didn’t tell me.”

  “Well, what if I did?” Becky had sat up and was shaking her head as if to clear it. “No one could tell you anything, not where he was involved. He had you right where he wanted you from the day he first brought you into the gang, fresh from your papa’s mansion, your lips still wet with country cream. I tried to warn you, more than once, ’cause I knew what was c
oming, but you were too wrapped up in being his flash girl. Well, I’m glad you finally found out—and I’m glad it wasn’t me who had to tell you.” Becky’s voice dropped. “Who was it who did?”

  “Snake.”

  “Good. He won’t get into trouble for spilling the beans. He’s in good with the Weaver, he is.”

  “Did everyone know but me?”

  Becky shook her head. “No, just me. I found out when I caught Sukey Cowly trying to steal our last farthings when she was packing her stuff so she could sneak off and join that slubberdegullion the day after he disappeared. I shook the truth out of her and kicked her out.”

  “That bitch went with him?”

  Becky turned away, unwilling to say any more.

  Temperance had thought she couldn’t possibly feel worse, but she’d been wrong. “You could have said something, Beck, instead of letting me go round wearing the willow for the bastard, thinking he’d died a hero’s death. I thought you were my friend.”

  “I am your friend. How long do you think you would have lasted if it weren’t for me? You weren’t born on these streets, and though you learned how to patter flash, there’s a lot you’ll never know. Your cradle was too soft. I did what I could to keep you safe. I may be a small, crooked thing; but I know a bit of this and a bit of that, and there’s those who know it’s worth it to keep me sweet. I kept your precious Randall from forcing you onto the game by teaching you how to steal. Otherwise, it would have been Mother Bristwick’s for you as soon as he’d tired of you.”

  “He wouldn’t have done that. Whatever he did later, I know he loved me—at least for a while.”

  Becky’s eyes were full of pity. “Mother Bristwick offered him twenty pound for you, after you’d been with us that first year. He was tempted until I convinced him you’d earn him more on the prigging lay.”

  It took her several moments to get her breath back after that. Could she have really been that blind? The pain that seared her heart gave her the answer. She had wanted so much to believe in him. She’d given up so much to join him. It had been impossible to face the truth.

  “He was a charmer,” Becky said, relenting. “You weren’t the only blowen that fell for his rig. And I would ha’ told you he wasn’t dead if I could ha’. But I had no choice about it. You wouldn’t have been safe if you’d known. The Weaver was glad to have you carry on like he was dead as last week’s cod. Your weeping and wailing kept them off the scent—the conspirators he betrayed. The Weaver would have silenced anyone who let you know the truth.”

  “So Randall really was working for the Weaver—not for the cause of freedom.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper.

  “There was no blunt to be had, fighting for freedom.”

  Temperance threw herself down on the bed, unable to summon the strength to hold herself upright a moment longer. Her friend tried to draw her into a comforting embrace, but she pushed her away. “Does Clary know?”

  “No.”

  “It better stay that way. Because I’ll tell you this. If you let a word out to anyone else, I’ll go to the beak, I swear it, and tell him about every single thing you ever stole.”

  “You’d end up in the jug yourself, if you did that.”

  “Do you think I care?”

  “No, not now. But you’ll get over it. The bastard isn’t worth killing yourself for. We all learned that about him, every one of us girls in the gang. He was a flash man like the rest of ’em. He just had a better line of patter. He had us all thinking we were special to him—at first. That’s how they work. But you, being gently raised, you wouldn’t have known that.”

  Her expression softened. “Chin up, duck. You’ll get over it. You’re a game one, and you’re well shot of him. And don’t worry about the others knowing. I’ll keep my trap shut. You can trust me for that.”

  “I’ll never trust anyone again.”

  She stamped out of the room, slamming the door when she reached her own chamber. But as she tore off the fatal boy’s costume, she knew it was worse than that. It wasn’t others she would never trust again. It was herself.

  Chapter 7

  When Temperance awoke the morning after the masquerade, the sight of the mourning gown that had absorbed so many of her tears, lying where she had folded it before donning her costume, brought back the whole humiliating business. She considered ripping it up and stuffing it into the fire, but to do so would only excite comment.

  She must give no hint that anything had changed. It would be too mortifying for anyone to know how badly she’d been taken in. She’d feed it to a bonfire when she left for America, which she would do, as soon as she could figure out how. Liberty beckoned her there, as it always had, but now there was something else. Once she got herself to those promised shores, she’d hunt that bastard down and show him he hadn’t got away with it.

  But, of course, he had. He’d played on her desire to believe in him and given her just enough encouragement to keep her from looking at what was right under her eyes. Becky had been trying to protect her when she pretended the others didn’t know how he’d taken her in. But they must have—just like they knew that Monty, the one-legged beggar, had a sound leg tucked inside his enormous breeches.

  Now she knew what lay behind the odd looks the other girls in the crew had given her over the years. She’d dismissed them as being due to envy because she was Randall’s favorite. But it wasn’t just the other girls’ looks she’d made herself ignore, but all the other things that didn’t add up. The pressure he put on the girls to bring in money. The way that money always disappeared. The way everyone accepted that Randall must have better food than they did because the “work” he did was so important. She’d turned a blind eye to it all because the alternative would have been to admit she’d been a fool to run off with him to London, no matter what her father had said or done. She hadn’t had the guts to face the truth.

  The humiliation choked her. How could she ever again walk the London streets where everyone had known her as Randall’s flash mort—and his gull. She had no choice now but to go to America. It wasn’t a distant dream any longer but one she would have to make real in a hurry. It would cost a lot to buy passage—but she’d find the money somehow. She’d have to. If she stayed in London much longer, she would end up in the river, and not at the hands of the Weaver’s henchmen, but from sheer mortification.

  Trev spent the morning after the masquerade debating what to do about the assignation he had set up with the bewitching pickpocket. Now that Fanshawe had given him something else to occupy his energies, there was no need to continue with the game of cat and mouse he’d let Temperance draw him into. In the cold light of morning, his obsession with her seemed hard to justify.

  Still, he owed it to her to return her precious keepsake. And if he couldn’t resist the bait she’d dangled before him, well, he’d taken no vow of chastity. If she were working for a madam, where was the harm in taking what she offered? If he didn’t, someone else would.

  He would give her more pleasure than she’d find in a brothel for the little time left before he must marry. And when he must leave her behind, he’d do something for her. She’d end up better off than she’d been before he met her though the mercenary nature of the transaction took much of the pleasure out of the idea of consorting with her.

  Where to keep her for the few weeks he might spend with her posed a problem since he was living under his mother’s roof. His knowledge of London was not thorough enough to give him an answer. So, after breakfast, he strolled over to visit the major and ask his advice.

  “You can keep her here, Trev. Nothing easier,” the major replied, raising one bushy eyebrow.

  “With you? Not on your life! One look at your handsome mug, and she’d have no more time for me.”

  The major chuckled and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I didn’t mean in my chambers, my boy. I didn’t think your tastes would run to a threesome. But there are other rooms to let in this lodging house. The
price is quite reasonable, and it might not be such a bad idea to have a friend at hand should you find yourself in need of one.”

  “You still don’t trust her, do you?” Trev observed.

  “Do you?” the major shot back.

  “Not a bit.” Trev grinned and headed downstairs to see what he could work out with the landlord.

  Temperance was choking down breakfast when a maid informed her that Lady Hartwood awaited her in her office. Her benefactor must have cast her real chart. Now she would have to listen to a lecture on her many character flaws. That was all she needed. But she had no choice except to get through it.

  Lady Hartwood greeted her with an annoying smile that lit up her frank and open countenance in a way that made Temperance yearn to slap her. No one had a right to be that cheerful, especially not when she herself felt so bad.

  Her Ladyship set aside her cup of tea, and said, “I’ve been thinking over our discussion a few days ago and feeling that perhaps I let my own nature make me too harsh. You can’t help being what you are. And since you are a Scorpio, I shouldn’t have expected you to be frank. Especially not when the ruler of your Scorpio planets is placed in Cancer. That would make you even more self-protective than the average Scorpio. But with so many strong Scorpio influences on your nativity, your self-protection may all too easily turn into self-destruction.”

  She stopped to take a sip. “So I was wrong to threaten you with expulsion the way I did. It was just what an untutored Scorpio nature would have wished me to do, for it allows you to blame me for the self-destructive step you would be taking if you left the Refuge. I apologize. Your situation is difficult, and I fear I may have made it worse with my thoughtlessness.”

  That was big of her, but the last thing Temperance needed now was to dwell on her many imperfections. “I can take care of myself,” she snapped.