Donnelly grinned. “As I said. Slightly. Though in truth I trust you as much as I trust anyone. It’s just that I’m not by nature a trusting man. ”
“Which is why we’re so well-suited. Don’t worry about Lady Miranda. She’ll have no regrets. At least, not in the beginning. And who can say that her life would be any better with another choice?”
“Thanks to you she doesn’t have many choices, now does she?”
“So now I’m making up for it,” Lucien said with a sweet smile. “She’ll get to be a countess. ”
Donnelly shook his head, rising. “She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who’d care about such things. I’d think twice about it if I were you. ”
Author: Anne Stuart
“All women care about such things, Jacob. Don’t worry about me. We all do things that are perhaps unwise. I should keep away from Lady Miranda. You should keep away from practicing your thieving skills and let your associates do the job. But what’s the fun in that?”
Donnelly laughed. “You have a point. Except you stand to benefit with a tidy portion of the proceeds from my little gamble. Whereas if you marry that girl I’ll get nothing but headaches. ”
“You’ll get a business partner who’s more versed in dealing with revenge and business at the same time. Now go away and let me get some sleep. ”
“It’s only four. The shank of the evening,” Donnelly mocked, heading for the French doors that led directly to the gardens, bypassing curious servants. “Don’t let that girl tire you out. ”
“It will be the other way around, as soon as I can manage it. I expect I will be taking her away once I have her, rather than let her family interfere with our so-happy honeymoon. So you can count on my presence in London being sporadic for several months. I trust our business can survive without me?”
“‘Course it can, guv’nor,” he said, letting his voice drop into a thick cockney drawl. “Just be careful it don’t survive so well that we don’t need you back. ”
Lucien smiled thinly at him, the expression that could put the fear of God into his servants, his associates and anyone he happened to run across. It left Donnelly completely unmoved. “I’m not about to give up my investments that easily. ”
Donnelly snorted. “Then I’ll be wishing you many felicitations. Maybe I’ll have to give your blushing bride some of Lady Carrimore’s diamonds as a wedding present. ”
“If my wife needs diamonds, I’ll see to it. ”
“I’ll come up with something. ”
A moment later he was gone, into the shadows with the same grace that he’d used since he was a boy, Lucien thought. Theirs was a strange business arrangement, complicated by an unlikely friendship.
They had known each other for many years. Young Jacob had found his way onto a ship borne for the tropics, indentured to a pair of wealthy male planters, and he’d run away, ending up at the decaying ruins of La Briere, the plantation house of the de Malheurs. Lucien had been living there alone, the only survivor of a virulent outbreak of cholera, and the two young men, barely more than boys, had bonded together, determined to escape.
Escape they had. Jacob had ended up back in London, and within a decade was responsible for the thieving kens and smuggling imports controlling half of the city. He no longer had to do the dirty work himself—he had scores of eager underlings.
And Lucien had gone on to Italy, where he’d made his first fortune at the gaming tables, and a second, as well. By the time he made his first appearance in London he was wealthier than his family had ever been, due to a gift with the cards and a willingness to cheat when need be. His partnership with his old friend Jacob only profited his overflowing coffers.
He’d lied to Lady Miranda, of course. He studied his enemies well and she was, by dint of her family, his enemy. He knew asking for friendship would touch her as nothing else could.
Friendship wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. If he needed one, Jacob would do.
But if anyone was going to be draping diamonds on Miranda Rohan’s beautiful white flesh it was going to be the Scorpion.
And it would drive her family mad.
5
The white vellum envelope lay on the silver salver, her name written with a perfect hand, a delicate, feminine one. Miranda looked at it in surprise when her butler brought it in, and Jane, who was sitting on the floor amidst a welter of brightly colored ribbons, looked up.
The arrival of Jane Pagett had almost broken Miranda free from the doldrums that had assailed her after her brief taste of friendship. Jane was engaged to marry Mr. George Bothwell, a worthy gentleman indeed, and she’d come to town for a visit and a bit of early wedding shopping. Her mood, however, had been almost as glum as Miranda’s.
“That’s an invitation,” Jane said, stating the obvious. “I didn’t think you ever got any. Do you think you’ve finally paid enough penance to be allowed back in society?”
“I doubt it,” Miranda replied. She was loath to open it. The obvious source would be Lucien de Malheur. It had been more than a week since she’d been to his house, and she hadn’t heard a word from him. She’d expected at least a note, perhaps flowers, some recognition of the wonderful evening they’d spent together, but so far there’d been nothing.
She’d come to the conclusion that it was not nearly as wonderful for him as it had been for her. Which shouldn’t surprise her. It had been her first adult, intelligent conversation in weeks, and the first with someone outside her family in almost a year, not counting Jane, who really was family.