The Secret Life of Lady Julia (18 page)

Chapter 26

I
t had started to snow, and Thomas felt the icy flakes melting against his cheeks. He’d be happier at home with a large whisky right now, but Erich was by his side, and he didn’t doubt the King of Thieves carried a brace of pistols in his pockets and a knife in his boot, and there was Donovan to consider.

“Are you ready?” Erich asked, his tone pleasant, as if this was a holiday instead of an excursion that could get Thomas shot—or worse. “As soon as the sentries look away, slip in and go around back. There’s a terrace, and you can climb to the second floor—”

“I’ve got it,” Thomas growled, though he wasn’t at all sure he did. How difficult could it be? He’d opened his brother’s safe, tucked behind a family portrait in his study. Every lord in England had a safe hidden behind a family portrait—usually his own, or a dull landscape. He doubted the British ambassador had brought a portrait of himself to hang in the embassy, not when there were so many top painters in Vienna and so many official portraits being painted.

It would be a matter of simply finding the right picture, and opening the safe behind it, Thomas told himself, hoping it would indeed be that easy.

“Once in the library, look for the safe,” Erich persisted with his instructions.

Except it wouldn’t be in the library. It would be upstairs, in Lord Castlereagh’s private quarters, hopefully in a sitting room and not his bedchamber. He imagined his lordship sitting up in his bed to regard him with his famous sober silence as he watched him search the room for the hiding place.

Erich believed that Thomas understood how the English aristocracy thought, where they were most likely to hide their valuables, and Thomas did nothing to dissuade him from his opinion—it was keeping Donovan alive. But this was different—there were
secrets
to be protected here, not just jewels, and secrets were far more valuable. If Erich knew that—

“If there are any official looking papers in the safe, bring those too,” the Austrian said casually.

Thomas didn’t reply. He felt a trickle of sweat roll between his shoulder blades, despite the cold.

“Do you have the watch?” Erich asked, making conversation. “Can I see it?”

Thomas couldn’t bear the idea of the perfection of the little family’s portraits clutched in the hands of the thief.

“Why, do you want to know what time it is?”

Erich grunted. “I just wondered why a man would go to such trouble, take such a foolish risk for someone he doesn’t even know.”

“I thought Robin Hood was chivalrous to ladies and the poor?”

Erich laughed coldly. “I am a practical man. Chivalry can get you killed. Think of all the dead heroes on the battlefields who fought and died for chivalry. Fools, every one of them.”

“Were you a soldier?” Thomas asked.

Erich chuckled. “Donovan was right. You are clever. Yes, I was a soldier. I fought at Jena, Austerlitz . . . so many other places over the years.”

“Then why turn from honor to crime?”

The thief shifted, and Thomas heard the slosh of liquid in a metal flask as Erich drank. He didn’t offer him any. Thomas could smell the schnapps on the thief’s breath. “Honor? Why are some men so obsessed with honor? This way—my way—is the only way ordinary men will get justice at this peace conference, by taking our share of the spoils. Why should the kings and the princes get it all? We were the ones who did the fighting and dying, and we’ve been dismissed and forgotten while they dance and flaunt the spoils we took. Forget the honorable ways. I will take my share by force.”

“I’m not a housebreaker, Erich,” Thomas said, hoping one last time to avoid this futile excursion.

“Oh? Donovan told me you broke into your brother’s homes, both in the country and in London. You opened his private safes and left them empty.”

He had taken a small amount of cash and some of his mother’s jewelry, which he would have inherited anyway. He’d left everything else. “I was a member of the family,” he said. “No one was surprised I was in the house. I didn’t expect a bullet in the back if I was caught.”

“A bullet?” Erich said. “Here they’ll probably hang you. At least if you’re caught, the fact that you are English, speak the language, look the part, may help you.”

Thomas doubted it. Every foreigner in Vienna feared thieves and spies. There probably wasn’t a lady in this embassy or any other who didn’t sleep with her jewels under the mattress and at least a very sharp letter opener beneath her pillow.

The scream of horses rang out, then shouts, as two coaches crashed in front of the palace.

Erich looked on calmly. “There’s your cue.” He pointed to the small side gate where the sentry had already stepped away from his post to see the accident. “Don’t even think of coming back empty-handed. Your friend’s life is in your hands.”

“And a good valet is so hard to find,” Thomas quipped, and slipped silently through the gate.

In moments he was moving along the terrace that ran the length of the back of the palace and overlooked the garden, wincing at the crunch of the dry leaves beneath his boots, trying to avoid the light from the stables where the guards were housed.

He swore as a light appeared above him, and jumped back into the shadows as it illuminated the dark terrace. He pinned himself against the smooth stone of the building, waiting for a shout as they saw him, but there was only silence. He waited until his heart stopped trying to pound its way out of his chest, and looked up again.

Someone was still awake upstairs, and bound to hear him. He swore again.

He couldn’t turn back now. He looked along the facade of the building, trying to find another way. The rest of the windows on the second floor were dark, and he chose the last one, as far from the lighted room as possible.

He took a deep breath and began to climb.

Chapter 27

“M
ajor Lord Ives left word that he wished to see you in the sitting room when you got home,” Jamie’s nurse Mrs. Hawes said, waking when Julia tiptoed into the little nursery off her own bedroom to kiss her son good night. “He’s been a bit fractious tonight with his teeth coming in, but Lady Dorothea rocked him to sleep.”

Julia looked up. “Lady Dorothea?”

“She sang him a lullaby, and he was out like a snuffed candle, the little lamb.”

Dorothea had scarcely acknowledged Jamie in all the months they’d been in Vienna. Julia assumed it was the pain of losing her own child that made other infants, including Jamie, invisible to her.

“Does she visit often?”

“No, just recently,” the nurse said. “She’s quite taken with him. There’s no need to worry, though. I’m with him all the time. I know some mothers give their babes a drop or two of laudanum to stop the crying and make them sleep, but I would never allow such a thing.”

“Laudanum?” Julia’s heart stopped in her chest for an instant. She looked down at her son’s peaceful face, the long lashes resting on plump cheeks.

“I would never allow her to give him any, my lady,” Mrs. Hawes said again.

Julia managed a smile. “Of course not. Go back to bed. No doubt Jamie will be up early.” She tiptoed out and shut the door of the nursery quietly.

She glanced at the little clock on the desk. It was nearly three. She bit her lip.

She should go to the sitting room and give Talleyrand’s letter to Stephen at once, let him decide if it would be necessary to wake Lord Castlereagh now or if the matter could wait until morning, but she hesitated.

A kiss given in the heat of a frightening and stressful moment might be explained away as gratitude, but a midnight tryst could not. How many others besides Talleyrand’s spies saw that kiss, thought the worst?

No, the letter could wait until morning. She would see Stephen at breakfast, with Dorothea present, everything as correct and polite as could be. Still, she stood looking at the letter in the dim light, the dark lines of the ink crawling over the surface like spilled blood.

She pushed it under her pillow and crossed to open the curtains, not bothering to light a candle. The faint light from the city would be enough, since she only needed to undress and climb into bed. She stood by the window for a moment. It was snowing softly, and the bare black limbs of the trees were limned with white.

Plucking the pins out of her hair one by one she dropped them in a porcelain bowl, and shook the careful curls loose, letting the dark waves fall over her shoulders.

She heard a sound then, a thump, and froze. Was Talleyrand watching her, even now, in the privacy of her bedroom? How ridiculous she was. With all that had happened today she was likely to have nightmares anyway, and there was no point in adding to them with imagined fears.

She began to undo the pearl buttons on her gown, then turned, and gasped at a shape looming over her. The skeletal clothing rack reached for her from the corner, looking remarkably human in the dark.

“Twaddle,” she murmured, took off her gown and tossed it over the clothing rack, vanquishing the monster. There was no one here. She was perfectly safe in her own room, and the embassy was under guard. There was no safer place. No one was lurking in the dark, waiting to judge her, or blackmail her, or charm her. Tomorrow, in daylight, all that had happened today would be less frightening. She squared her shoulders.

Bold, decisive action. That was what was needed—with Prince de Talleyrand, with Lord Stewart, and with Stephen.

And yet, her mother always said she was too bold, and had often predicted it would get her into trouble someday. Julia’s actions at her betrothal ball had certainly proven her mother right, and seeing off a pack of robbers in the park had most definitely been bold.

Overbold and unladylike,
she heard her mother’s voice in her head.

She sat down to remove her stockings, her legs long and white in the dimness. She thought of her brother, James. He’d stood before the enemy guns, boldly screamed a warning, knowing he would die. He
must
have known. Or did he have hope of salvation? He’d done what was necessary, stepped out of the safety of the shadows to save the day.

But she was a woman, and a fallen woman at that. She
belonged
in the shadows. She stepped into the pale puddle of light that came through the windows. In the morning she would ask Stephen to make an appointment with Lord Castlereagh, and simply explain to his lordship everything she had heard and seen. It was her job to do so. Then she would have to speak to Stephen, tell him someone had seen them kissing and how the consequences might play out if it continued. Surely he would see—

A shadow passed by the window, blotting out the light for a moment, and Julia gasped. A cloud passing in front of the moon, perhaps?

But it was a moonless night. She moved toward the window, then stopped in her tracks, her eyes widening. The black silhouette of a man’s body moved across the panes. She blinked, her heart faltering.

Impossible.
They were on the second floor. Her heart began again, thundering against her ribs. Perhaps it was a bird, come to roost out of the snow, and her imagination was making it more than it was . . . she was hallucinating. In a moment the bird would fly away into the night, go back where it came from.

But the bird quietly opened the window, and a booted foot invaded the room.

She backed into the shadows beside the bed, half hidden by the bed curtains, and held her breath, her mind racing.

A robber—the highwayman himself, perhaps, come for revenge. Her heart died of fright in her chest, dropped into the pit of her stomach.

She glanced at the door of the nursery, her eyes burning like brands in the dark. Her son was asleep in the next room, in danger. Surely once he’d dispatched her, the thief would look there next.

The figure paused. She held her breath.

What if it was Lord Stewart? She’d heard salacious tales of his daring seductions and bold escapes from irate husbands that included exactly this, a convenient window and a dark night.

Fear knifed through her as the intruder stood for a moment staring at the empty bed. Who would believe her if she said it was rape, not seduction, that the man had climbed the outside of the building to have his way with her in the very sanctuary of her bedroom? She had not even locked her door. She scarcely dared to breathe. In a moment he would see her, and then—

He began to cross the room, but instead of dragging her from her hiding place, he sank into a chair, his outstretched limbs a scant few feet from her own. He rested with a sigh. With a flare of anger, she hoped he was comfortable. He probably thought she had not returned yet, and was waiting for her to walk through the door. She scowled at the shadowy figure.

Then he bent over, his head down as he struggled with something, grunting like a bear. The hair on the back of her neck rose. He was releasing something—a dog, perhaps, some sharp-toothed creature that would attack her while she stood here wearing nothing but her shift.

She curled her bare toes into the carpet, waiting for a bark, the impact of teeth in her flesh, but the room was silent except for the rustle of his clothing, the sound of his breath.

He let out a long sigh, and dropped something heavy on the floor.

The next thought flared in her breast, bringing an instant of heat and fury. Obviously he wasn’t a burglar or Charles Stewart. It was one of Prince Talleyrand’s agents, come to steal more secrets he might use against the British. Did he think she would cooperate? Is that why he’d chosen her window?

She would not.

She reached out a hand, seeking a weapon, anything sharp or heavy within her reach. Her hand tangled in the bed curtain for a moment before it closed on the long handle of the copper bed-warming pan, standing cold and empty against the wall. She gripped it, felt the wooden handle warm beneath her palm.

She waited until the intruder rose to shut the window, and then took a breath and leapt forward. He was spinning now, turning back to face her, his countenance a dark blur, his gasp loud in the dark as she brought the bed warmer up and swung it with all her might.

It connected with his head, ringing like a gong.

He grunted and dropped heavily to the floor in a lifeless sprawl.

She stood over him with the pan raised, ready to hit him again if he dared to move. He didn’t. She felt panic fill her. Had she killed him too? This was becoming a dreadful habit.

Dropping her weapon, she knelt beside him, carefully feeling for a pulse under his chin. He didn’t move a muscle. She bent closer. He was breathing, at least. She could feel the warmth on her cheek.

There was no time to wonder what to do next. The door to the nursery opened and Mrs. Hawes came out. “My lady, I heard a sound—” Her scream split the night, and Jamie woke and began to cry too. Within seconds there were footsteps in the corridor, then the bedroom door was thrown wide against the wall, light invading the room, making her squint.

“Get some light!” She heard Stephen order. “Julia? What on earth—”

Light flared, chasing the shadows away, revealing everything.

The man was sprawled on his back, arms and legs spread wide, filling the room. He looked for all the world as if he were sleeping.

Julia watched as Stephen assessed the situation at a glance, took in the body on the floor as she kneeled beside it, only half dressed. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched suspicion bloom in Stephen’s eyes. Not worry or love now—he thought the worst.

The man groaned, and she looked down at him. He had a purple lump on his forehead that was getting bigger by the moment.

She felt the shock of recognition rush through her limbs as she stared down at the familiar face. Surely it couldn’t be—

But it was.

She hadn’t seen Thomas Merritt for over a year, yet here he was, lying unconscious on her bedroom floor.