Page 8 of The Duke and Lady Scandal (Princes of London #1)

By six in the evening, Drake had completed much of the paperwork he’d ignored during the blackmail case and set two detectives to make further inquiries regarding M—a challenge when he could tell the men virtually nothing about the high-discretion blackmail case. There were few clues to follow, but the empty townhouse in Bedford Square was a start. He’d begun working on two new cases in earnest too, questioning suspects and visiting the site of a young man’s murder.

But even with a day of busyness, the demands of his job did not wholly occupy his mind.

His thoughts strayed again and again to one petite, talkative antique shop owner. He retraced the memory of her smile, the way pleasure had brightened her eyes and echoed in his own chest when he’d seen her at Hawlston’s. Flashes hit him at the oddest moments. The way she’d commandeered the objects on his desk. The way her hands danced through the air while she talked. The temptation of her lips curved in a smile.

Yet each time he got lost in such musings, he forced his mind back to the more pressing matter—his advancement.

Normally, he took Haverstock’s word on any matter without challenge. But he’d checked on Stanhope, who Haverstock claimed would be “moving up” soon.

Turned out the man had already moved up, and not just up but out. He’d left his role at Scotland Yard and was now at the Home Office.

It appeared that Haverstock was obfuscating to hold him back, and Drake refused to be hobbled professionally by anyone. Even by a man who’d mentored and championed him as Haverstock had for the past few years.

In truth, he did not want to work for Special Branch. It had seemed an intriguing opportunity and Haverstock had encouraged him, but after the business with the blackmail scheme and the death of Howe, he’d found much more satisfaction in dealing with the cases he’d set aside the last few weeks. Those cases dealt mostly with working-class Londoners.

He identified with their struggles, and he was looking forward to discussing the working-class housing bill with Lord Wellingdon at the dinner he’d been invited to.

For the first time in a long while, he was finishing work at a reasonable hour. But as he donned his overcoat, raised voices in the hallway outside his office drew his notice.

The moment he reached for the handle of his office door, he recognized one of the voices.

A distinctly feminine sound.

Miss Prince was back.

Unbidden, a grin stretched the muscles of his face, and he could not will it away.

He was beginning to think he’d never pass a future day without encountering her, and he was terrified at how much the thought delighted him.

Someone twisted the latch on his door. He pulled the door open and she came with it, stumbling against his chest.

He wrapped his arms around her, and her hands went to his shirtfront, as if to brace her fall. But he wouldn’t let her fall. He held her steady, and she hesitated as if stunned, her warm breath gusting against his neck.

The sort of adrenaline that rushed his veins when he was on a case heightened his senses now.

Long lashes. Pink lips. Those tip-tilted eyes. Curves that snugged against him as if the two of them had been made to fit together. He dipped a hand lower, pulling her just an inch closer. So close he could count her freckles. So close he could feel the fierce thud of her heartbeat. So close he could kiss her if he dipped his head but a few inches.

Stop, some distant warning voice told him. She’s not yours.

“I wished to see you,”

she whispered.

It was at that moment that he noticed Ransome in the hall behind her, hands on his hips and a glower on his face.

“I tried to stop ’er, Duke.”

“No need,”

Drake told him, then tried to ignore the way the sergeant gaped at him in slack-jawed shock.

“Are you all right?”

he asked her quietly.

She nodded and then pushed away from him, past him, and strode into his office.

He followed her and glanced down at his chest—he felt the imprint of her soft curves there still—and everything in him wanted her close again. He licked his lips and shoved a hand through his hair. Her nearness shook him more than he could fathom.

“I must speak to you, and you’ll want to hear this, Inspector.”

Her eyes were wide and blood had rushed into her cheeks. She looked very much as she had yesterday morning. As if whatever she wished to say was all but ready to burst out of her.

“Go on.”

“He came to Princes,”

she said with quiet intensity. “The tall man from Hawlston’s walked right into my shop.”

Drake worked to give nothing away. He’d honed the ability to withhold reactions, especially any emotion. It wasn’t out of a desire to be cold, merely a necessity of the job. Emotion clouded judgement.

But she’d already broken through, aroused him, confounded him, and the fight for cool dispassion was harder now.

Fear, which he’d learned to beat back years ago, made his pulse tick in his neck. All the heat of their momentary collision turned to a trickle of ice down his spine.

Nothing about the man visiting her shop made sense except in the worst of scenarios. If this was the man she’d overheard, and he’d had the audacity to go to Princes, Drake suspected there was a plot afoot. Perhaps the thief wanted no witnesses who could connect him to the mischief he was about to get up to.

“Did you speak to him?”

As forthright as she was, he imagined she might confront him on the spot.

“No. In fact, I stayed in the back room and did my best to remain hidden.”

She swallowed hard as if recalling the moment. “Mr. Gibson dealt with him. He’s our resident goldsmith and gem expert, though he knows antiquities too.”

“Did he buy anything?”

“No. He inquired about having a gem cut.”

Drake arched a brow and his mind spun with possibilities. The one difficulty of stealing famous jewels was disposing of them to buyers who would not recognize them as filched gems. That required a jeweler and gem cutter of skill and discretion.

“Is your Mr. Gibson a trustworthy man?”

“Of course he is.”

She crossed her arms and glowered at him. “He ran the shop with my father for years and is all but a part of our family.”

“Very well.”

He raised a hand and softened his tone. “I meant no offense. So you saw this customer from a distance? Could it have been another man with a dark beard and dark glasses?”

That was the most sensible conclusion. The description was vague enough to fit a hundred men.

She drew her lower lip between her teeth rather than answer, and he felt a bit of the dread in his gut ebb away. Perhaps it wasn’t the same man after all.

“You’re not certain?”

he guessed.

“I am.”

She curled her hands into fists. “But he did not . . . look exactly the same,”

she finally confessed.

“Ah.”

“But it was the same man. You yourself implied that he might have been concealing his appearance the first time I saw him.”

“He may have been, which makes this identification all the more dubious.”

In most cases, he’d dismiss the matter now, and he wasn’t sure why he found himself willing to entertain her story.

“I know his voice. I’ve replayed the whole thing in my mind over and over, hoping to remember something new or find some additional detail.”

Good grief, the lady sounded like him when a twisted case gnawed at his mind.

She held his gaze and said nothing. In those blue eyes of hers, he saw certainty and could not detect a single flicker of doubt.

“I know it was him. Do you ever get a sense here?”

she asked him, pressing a hand against her chest. “Or here?”

She moved her hand lower, splaying her fingers over her middle.

He was transfixed. His imagination spun too-vivid thoughts—his own hand spread across her body, encircling the gentle curve of her waist, gripping the curve of her hip, pulling her against him. He still felt the heat of her, of that brief moment of holding her in his arms.

Then he cursed his wayward thoughts and racked his brain to remember what she’d asked him.

“The sharpness of my memory tells me it was the same man, the same voice, but my intuition knows too,” she said.

“I do know that feeling.”

The insistent tug of intuition, the hunch that led him to hidden facts.

“Then please believe me, Inspector.”

She took a step closer, then another. Soon she was near enough to touch again.

Madly, he considered reaching for her. Though he had no right at all.

“I have more for you.”

A mischievous grin curved her lips. “I have a lead.”

For a detective, there were no more enticing words in the English language.

She drew a card from her pocket and offered it to him. When he grasped the edge, his fingers brushed hers and a shock of pleasure shot through him.

She was so damnably soft, so enticingly warm.

So he focused on the card in his hand, the thick, fine paper in a deep crimson shade, gilded so excessively as to be gaudy. And a name: Lord Thomas Holcroft of Belgrave Square. The lack of a house number was odd. It reeked of arrogance, implying that anyone living in Belgravia would know Lord Holcroft by reputation alone.

Miss Prince watched him expectantly. “It does seem strange that a nobleman would set out to steal from the Crown, doesn’t it?”

“He wouldn’t be the first aristocrat to cross his monarch, though it rarely ends well for them.”

He recalled a few lords and ladies known to support the Fenian cause, but the name Holcroft did not strike him as familiar.

“Will you question him?”

She made the query sound very much like a suggestion.

“Not yet. First, I’d like to see what I can uncover about the man.”

A nobleman would be easier to find than most suspects, even without a house number listed. Though it made little sense to question or confront the man. A simple denial would surely follow. The wisest course was to have Holcroft watched and discover whether his activities or associates could be linked to any sort of plan.

She frowned, clearly not satisfied with his strategy.

“Thank you for the lead, Miss Prince,”

he told her. “May I keep this?”

“Yes, of course.”

She made no move to depart and the expectant look remained.

He sensed she wished him to begin the hunt for Holcroft now and that if he’d asked her to join him, she would have eagerly agreed.

But as grateful as he was for a potential lead that might allow him to settle the matter, she had involved herself too much already. Especially if the man had gone from whispers in a coffeehouse to visiting her shop.

“I was just on my way out for the evening—”

“Please don’t tell me that you don’t need my assistance, Inspector, and that I should go on my way and forget the entire matter.”

He’d considered saying exactly that. “You brought me a lead, Miss Prince. You’ve done a great deal.”

“I could do more.”

Her eyes sparked and her mouth curved in a cat-in-the-cream smile. “You may not wish to question him, but would you like to get a look at him? He’s coming back to Princes tomorrow afternoon.”

She’d done this to herself, all but insisting that Inspector Drake come to Princes and wait for Lord Holcroft’s return in order to get a good look at the man.

And now that the Scotland Yard man was here, just where she’d wanted him, she’d never been more distracted in her life.

He’d strode through the front door at half three while she was helping a customer. The wealthy industrialist, Mr. Snodgrass, was seeking a gift for his wife.

Allie usually took care with Snodgrass. He’d come to Princes many times for gifts or unique items for his home. But the minute Inspector Drake walked in, her attention was entirely his.

Not that he sought it. Like any polite customer, he noted that she was with another patron and busied himself with browsing the shop.

But she was too curious not to watch him. Too pleased to see his handsome face again not to follow him with her gaze. She had a knack for knowing what sort of object might intrigue a customer, but with the inspector she was at a loss. He didn’t linger over the furnishings, vases, coins, books, or gems. Just took everything in. Assessing.

“I say again, Miss Prince, could you put it in special wrap? Perhaps add a ribbon?”

“Forgive me, Mr. Snodgrass.”

The poor man had been speaking and she’d heard it only distantly. “Yes, of course. I will package it with care.”

“Very good. Send it to my office as you have the others, and it must arrive by Tuesday.”

“I promise that it will.”

Allie flicked her gaze toward Inspector Drake. She’d momentarily lost sight of him. “Good day to you, Mr. Snodgrass.”

“And to you, Miss Prince. Excellent choice, as always.”

His mustache wiggled as he offered her a smile, then departed.

“What did you choose for him?”

Inspector Drake emerged from one of the back aisles and sauntered toward the counter where she stood.

“An opal-and-amethyst ring for his wife’s birthday.”

“He must trust your judgement a great deal.”

“I’m good at choosing what a customer might like.”

He shot her a look. “So you’re good at assessing people.”

Drake inspected the Roman coins arranged beneath glass in another display, then lifted his green gaze to hers. “What would you choose for me?”

Allie’s mouth went dry, and her heartbeat galloped in her chest. Something in his eyes, the low intensity of the question, felt like more than a challenge. It felt a bit like an invitation to solve a particularly interesting puzzle.

The distinct note of challenge in his tone thrilled her.

“Hmm.”

She tipped her head as if she was the detective and he was her case to solve.

He held still for her perusal, watching her with an intensity that made her skin prickle, and when she took her time and didn’t immediately offer up a suggestion, a hint of a smile lifted the edges of his mouth.

Oh, he was enjoying this. But so was she.

This close to him, she noted aspects she’d missed in their earlier encounters. The glint of bronze in his hair where the waning sunlight bounced off a mirror and caught the color. A scar at the edge of his mouth and another on his chin. And two grooves between his brows as if he pondered very hard and very often.

“Am I so very baffling, Miss Prince?”

He pitched his voice low and teasing.

As soon as the sound rumbled over her, she knew.

“Not at all. I’d never concede so easily.”

She crooked a finger at him. “This way, Inspector.”

She led him to a shelf where several unique objects were arranged. They weren’t the items that generally caught customers’ notice, but Allie thought them some of the most interesting pieces they carried at Princes.

“This, I think.”

With both hands, she lifted a polished wooden box off the shelf and held it out for his inspection.

“It is a pretty thing.”

The box was covered with elaborate carvings and accented with inlaid abalone shell.

“It’s more than pretty,”

Allie told him. “It’s a puzzle box imported from China. In order to open the box, you must solve the mysteries of the box’s design.”

A smile flashed across his face, and Allie felt as if she’d seen a burst of sunlight on a cloudy day. She felt a bit of pride for inspiring that stoic face of his to ease into joy. If even for a moment.

But soon the pensive frown came again. “It does seem a very obvious choice, Miss Prince. Detective. Mystery box.”

Allie laughed. “You impugn my skills.”

She pointed at the box. “But you are intrigued, aren’t you?”

His hands were large enough to all but enclose the box completely and yet he handled it gently, turning it this way and that. Allie found herself mesmerized by his deftness, and she noted that the abrasions on his knuckles had already begun to heal.

“I am absolutely intrigued.”

The look he shot her from under his brows made her doubt he was talking about the box and hope he was talking about her. A syrupy warmth spread through her body.

She tried to say something in reply, but for once in her life, she struggled to form words.

When she heard movement in the back room, it was as if she’d been tugged out of a trance.

“Mr. Gibson.”

Panic welled up and she reached for Inspector Drake instinctively. “I haven’t explained your presence to him. Give me a moment?”

Drake had locked his gaze on her hand where she held him. When he looked at her again, his eyes seemed brighter. “Of course.”

“I don’t want to alarm him, but I think he needs to know the truth.”

Drake’s brows knitted. “The difficulty is that we don’t yet know the truth. This Holcroft may or may not be the man you saw previously.”

Allie gritted her teeth. He still doubted her.

Then he shocked her by laying his hand over hers. “But even if he is, what he said at Hawlston’s does not constitute a genuine plot.”

Drake stepped back and fixed his gaze over her shoulder. She turned to see Mr. Gibson emerge from the back room.

“I’ve returned from lunch, Miss Prince. Just letting you know.”

Mr. Gibson offered Inspector Drake a brief glance. “Pardon me for interrupting.”

Before he could return to his workshop, Allie called to him. “Mr. Gibson, this is Detective Inspector Drake of Scotland Yard.”

“I see.”

The goldsmith observed Drake with new interest and what seemed a degree of respect.

“He’s come to . . . observe Lord Holcroft. We’ll remain in the back room during his visit.”

Allie suspected Drake might decide to follow the man after his departure too.

“Do you plan to apprehend the man inside Princes?”

Mr. Gibson’s jaw tightened, and Allie imagined that he feared for the shop’s reputation. She did too, of course.

“Not at all.”

Drake glanced at each of them. “I merely wish to get a look at the nobleman for now.”

“Very well. Shall I take over up here, then? And I am still to accept the man’s gem and cut it to his specifications?”

“Yes, we should treat him as we would any customer. At least for now.”

Allie counted herself lucky that Mr. Gibson was willing to aid them without delving much deeper into the details.

Twenty minutes later, he’d settled into his spot behind the counter, and Allie found herself sequestered with Inspector Drake in the back room. The area was spacious, but the detective’s size made the room seem shockingly diminutive.

Allie watched as he subjected each item in it to the same intense perusal he’d given the antiquities on display in the front of the shop. He even stopped to read the clippings, mostly about Dominic’s finds and Eveline’s talks, that she’d pinned to the wall above her desk.

“I take it this is your work area.”

“Seems an obvious deduction, Inspector. Shopkeeper. Desk in the shop’s back room,”

she said pertly, daring to tease him as he’d teased her.

“A shopkeeper who likes flowers, is running out of ink, and enjoys reading.”

He side-eyed her and then bent his head to read the spines of several books she kept at the edge of her blotter. She waited for his reaction. The pile mostly contained pirate histories.

“Your taste in books runs to the criminal, Miss Prince. Should I be concerned?”

When he looked up again, his mouth was curved in a mischievous grin that revealed dimples. Allie had the mad impulse to trace them with her fingertips.

“I’ve been researching lady pirates,”

she told him, then bit her lip when his dark brows shot up with interest. She licked her lips and blurted the rest. “Perhaps one day I’ll write a book about them.”

His grin softened to an expression that was less mischievous and full of sincerity. “I’d like to read your book.”

The comment felt like a warm breeze rippling across her skin, and then all that warmth rushed into her cheeks. It shocked Allie how much his comment pleased her. It shocked her how much the detective’s nearness made her body hum with awareness.

“Then your taste in books runs to the criminal too, Inspector?”

That flash of a smile again. So quick she might have missed it if she’d blinked.

“Even before I joined the force, I tended to favor stories of adventure or detective tales.”

“Are they what inspired you to join the Metropolitan Police?”

“No.”

He said the word so sharply, she snapped her gaze to his eyes. They had darkened to a stormy green. “I wanted to stop feeling powerless. Thought perhaps I should devote my energy to seeing justice done.”

Allie took a step closer. “I admire that impulse,”

she told him earnestly, “and I understand it. The desire to do what’s right.”

He matched her approach by taking a single stride himself.

“Is that what you wish, Miss Prince? To do what’s right?”

At the moment, all she truly wished was for him to grin at her again, to see those dimples carved above his sharp jaw. This close, she could smell his cologne, feel the heat of his body just a few inches away.

No man had ever overwhelmed her senses the way he did.

When she didn’t answer his question, he stepped closer. The toe of his boot brushed the edge of her skirt.

“Miss Prince?”

His gaze traced her features, then settled on her lips.

Her breathing quickened and she searched her addled brain, trying to focus on the question he’d asked rather than the effect of his nearness.

At the distant chime of the bell, they both stilled. Allie strode toward the half-open door, expecting to see Lord Holcroft. Instead, she recognized the postman who delivered their afternoon mail each day.

“Not him,”

she told Drake. He’d positioned himself behind her, a spice-scented wall of masculine heat at her back. She held still a moment, savoring the warmth of him, then tipped her head back. “Not long now.”

They both glanced at the clock on the wall. It would be four in less than a quarter of an hour.

“Will you follow him?”

Allie asked, finally turning to face him.

He stepped back, giving her space that was entirely appropriate.

“That is my intention,”

he told her. “Though it may take others to maintain watch and days to determine anything of use.”

“I suppose there’s nothing to confront him with at this point.”

“No, and if I did, he’d simply issue a denial.”

“Yes, he would. This gem he’s bringing Mr. Gibson to cut. What if it’s stolen? If they were plotting to steal the Crown Jewels, perhaps jewel theft is their stock-in-trade.”

“Once I’ve seen the gem and know the details, I’ll make inquiries to see if it matches any reports of stolen gems.”

Allie began pacing. It was her usual method for working off agitation when she had nothing else to do.

In contrast, Drake settled into a straight-backed chair. “Is that an antique or used for play?”

He’d chosen a chair in front of the chess set that their mother had used to teach Allie and her siblings how to play. It had been Allie’s idea to put it in the back room, where she could play Mr. Gibson on the long days they spent in the shop.

“It’s both. My mother used it to teach me and my siblings. Do you play?”

“Occasionally, though my sister is a fierce competitor and has an unchallenged string of victories against me.”

Allie laughed. She found herself intrigued by his chess master sister. “Perhaps you need a few pointers.”

“Teach me how to beat her, and I’ll be forever in your debt.”

Allie gulped down the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat at the thought of having Detective Inspector Benedict Drake indebted to her, and she pushed away the notions that came to mind of how he could repay her because they involved intimacies she had no right to.

In repayment, may I trace your dimples with the tip of my finger?

Good grief, less than an hour alone with the man and she was becoming a wanton.

The multiple clocks on the shop’s shelves as well as the pendulum wall clock in the back room all dinged in near synchrony, indicating the four o’clock hour.

Allie peeked through the door, which stood ajar by a few inches.

Mr. Gibson shrugged and glanced at his watch. “Perhaps he’s running late.”

“Perhaps he is.”

Allie turned back to find Drake had picked up the white queen and was examining the intricate details of the marble piece.

“I suppose I have time to teach you a few tricks.”

Allie settled into the chair across from him and reset the board. Though she usually took white, Drake sat on that side today, and she quite liked the notion that he’d move her usual pieces around the board.

“Show me one of your opening moves, Inspector.”

He slid a pawn forward as did she. Then, after a few moments’ consideration, he advanced another pawn. A sacrifice.

Each time he slid a piece from one square to another, he hesitated, tapping his index finger atop the marble figure. Allie found even that small tell fascinating. He surveyed the board, even in these early moves. Detective Inspector Drake was not impulsive. He took his time, then slid his piece toward her with utter confidence.

When he put his knight in play next, he shot her a questioning look.

“A potentially disastrous gambit.”

Allie beamed. “It’s one of my favorites.”

“I’m playing as Helen does.”

“Your sister is quite clever.”

“Tell me why it works.”

For the next while, Allie showed him why the gambit could work to white’s advantage. She felt as if she was giving away arcane secrets by showing him how black could thwart the aggressive maneuvers.

They practiced a few variations, not truly playing a match. Drake asked excellent questions and seemed to genuinely appreciate her knowledge of the game.

“Still no sign of him,”

Mr. Gibson informed them, peeking his head into the back room. “But there is something odd.”

“What’s that?”

Drake asked, curiosity deepening the two grooves between his brows.

“Another man has been watching the shop from across the street for the last forty minutes.”