Page 27

Things were a right cock-up, and that didn’t even include the complication of the Ormonds and their sharp-sighted gardener. The best thing he could possibly do was take off, simply disappear for a few months until Stiles grew careless. It was what a sane man would do.

But that would mean he’d leave the Mannings unprotected, something he wasn’t willing to do.

At least Georgie would be over her inconvenient crush—that would simplify matters, particularly if he now had to spend more time with her to keep her safe. Martin—no, Martina, wasn’t enough. He was going to have to do better.

Georgie didn’t make one of her unannounced visits to the kitchen, and she wasn’t about to. He didn’t have to worry about running into her on the servants’ staircase, sneaking behind a baize door. She’d leave him strictly alone from now on, thank God, and he could concentrate on his duties?—

“Did you really kill a man?”

He jumped and swore. If he were going to let people sneak up on him, then he wasn’t long for this world. He turned slowly to look at her.

She was standing in the doorway of the storeroom where he’d gone to unlock the silver, and there was no bright, sunny smile on her face. In truth, it looked as if she might have been crying, and he wanted to curse. He didn’t want anyone making her cry, particularly not him.

“Yes,” he said, steeling himself. “More than one, if the truth be told.”

She flinched slightly, and he congratulated himself. “Were they bad men?”

He hesitated for a moment. “Very bad,” he admitted finally.

“That’s all right then,” she said, sounding much more like herself. “I wouldn’t like it if you killed good men. Were they trying to kill you?”

“Most of the time.” He waited for her to ask how many. He knew the number, and he didn’t like it, and neither would she.

But she didn’t. “Who was that man in the tea shop? Is he a very bad one?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to kill him?”

“Yes.”

She let out a sigh of relief. “Good. Because I don’t want him to hurt me, and he looked as if he very much wanted to.”

That wasn’t all he wanted to do to her, Rafferty thought. “He won’t lay a hand on you. You’re under my protection.”

Her smile was slightly wobbly, not the usual bright, self-assured one. “I know,” she said. And then, before he could guess what she planned to do, she reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him, so quickly he didn’t have time to respond. And then she was gone, and he wondered if he’d dreamed it.

No, it had been no dream. Her lips had been so soft, pressed against his mouth for that brief moment, but it had been enough to send a fiery streak of desire straight to his groin, and he’d wanted to put her up against the wall and show her what a real kiss was like.

Thank God she’d gone before he could give in to temptation.

Miss Georgie Manning was the most dangerous creature he’d met in years, and with Stiles onto her, she just might prove fatal.

The Mannings were at home that evening, gathered around the dinner table once more.

The beauty was in fine looks, as always, except for the petulant expression on her perfect face.

Neddy was sliding down in his seat, and he’d be under the table before the fifth course, but Georgie looked almost serenely happy, and he wanted to growl.

He could still feel the imprint of her mouth against his own, and it was driving him crazy.

He should have shoved her away from him, he should have grabbed her and deepened the kiss, he should have. ..

He should have never run afoul of the bloody Mannings.

It didn’t matter how damned much Belding’s cache was—he should have left it strictly alone.

He had more than enough money on his own—it was sheer greed that made him search for it.

Greed, and the desire to thwart Billy Stiles.

He stood as still as a statue beside the sideboard, his face a blank, his eyes alert, his mind a mass of confusion.

“I must say, Sir Elston,” began Lady Manning from the foot of the table, “that Bertha has been outdoing herself in the kitchen recently. I do wonder what has inspired her.”

Manning grunted, basically ignoring her as was his wont, but Georgie spoke up. “That’s because she has good food to cook. It was hard to make a decent dinner without the proper foodstuffs.”

“I suppose we can thank Rafferty for that too,” Norah said in her sinuous voice. “What wonders can we expect next? Oh, yes, something for George. You know, Rafferty, I begin to think you don’t like me, what with your marked preference for my little sister.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Norah!” her mother said with a gay little laugh. “No one could possibly prefer Georgie to you!”

“I wouldn’t have thought so, but there’s no accounting for tastes.” She was looking at him, a challenge in her vivid eyes, but he kept his expression stoic. “I had a question for you, Rafferty.”

This seemed to require a response, and he gave it. “Yes, Miss Manning?”

“What were you doing in my room this afternoon? I didn’t send you to fetch anything.” Her words were sweetly innocent for a python.

He had two choices—deny it, and brand her a liar, or to come up with some flimsy excuse.

He chose the latter. “I was merely inspecting your rooms to make sure the maids had done their work.” In truth, he hadn’t been up there at all.

He’d already searched the bedroom when the family was out and about, and there’d been nothing to find.

“Then perhaps you might explain to me why my diamonds were missing.”

He knew exactly what she was talking about—the one necklace that still retained its original stones, albeit in a remarkably ugly setting. He’d often wondered why those hadn’t been replaced with paste as well as all her other jewelry.

“What?” Sir Elston thundered.

“Oh, dear,” Lady Manning fluttered. “I’m sure Rafferty had nothing to do with it. What about the maids? We have no idea where they came from.”

“We have no idea where Rafferty came from,” Norah purred. “And besides, the maids had already left by the time I took my jewels out for the evening. It couldn’t have been them.”

“What are you saying?” Georgie asked in a dangerous voice. “Are you accusing Rafferty of taking your trumpery things?”

Norah smiled like a cat with a pitcher of cream. “Why, not at all. Why should I? After all, he’s been in this house for...how long? Five days? But those diamonds are almost priceless. And they’re gone.”

Nothing was priceless, Rafferty thought, his expression blank. But Miss Norah Manning was willing to pay a high price to rid the house of her nemesis.

“I’m afraid I know nothing about them, Miss Manning,” he said smoothly.

“Of course not,” Norah said. “But you were in my room.”

Sir Elston had thrown his napkin to the table and risen, his round face almost purple with anger. “We’ll see about this.”

“Oh, dear,” Lady Manning fluttered. “A thief in the house? Why, we all might wake up with our throats cut.”

“There’s no thief in the house!” Georgie cried furiously. “Norah’s just trying to get Rafferty into trouble.”

“Then it won’t do any harm if we search his rooms,” Norah said sweetly.

“What if he’s already sold them?” Neddy raised his head blearily, more aware of the conversation that Rafferty would have thought.

“He wouldn’t have had time,” Norah said. “They’ve only been missing for a few hours. And I suspect I know exactly where my jewels are.”

I suspect you do too , Rafferty thought.

By this time everyone at the table had risen, with the exception of Neddy. “Where the bloody hell are your rooms, Rafferty?” Sir Elston said with something short of a bellow.

“Oh, dear, oh dear,” Lady Manning fluttered again.

But Rafferty simply bowed. “If you’ll follow me, sir.”

“You’re a beast,” Georgie hissed at her sister. “You’re just trying to cause trouble for Rafferty!”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” Norah said innocently. “I just want to know where my jewels are. They’re very precious to me.”

They were a strange procession past the baize door and down the servants’ staircase into the vast kitchen beneath the house.

Bertha was sitting at the table, a cup of tea in her hand, and the new scullery maid was scrubbing pots in the huge iron sink.

“What’s all this, then?” Bertha demanded with the temerity of an old retainer, but no one answered her as they marched down the hallway to the comparatively sumptuous butler’s quarters.

There were two rooms—a small sitting room and a smaller bedroom, with his narrow bed neatly made—no sign that anyone had been there since he’d first left that morning.

Sir Elston had gone to the cupboard and begun tossing things about, as Lady Manning kept up a litany of “oh, dears.”

“What’s this?” he said, emerging, with Rafferty’s serviceable pistol in his hand.

“It’s a gun,” Georgie said unnecessarily. “He has to have something to protect us, doesn’t he?”

“Oh, dear, a gun,” Lady Manning moaned.

But Sir Elston wasn’t interested in firearms, and he tossed it back on the shelf with a singular disregard for the safety of everyone.

“I’m not looking for a gun, I’m looking for the Vandevere diamonds.

Not your diamonds, missy,” he informed his smirking daughter.

“They’re from your mother’s family and I have yet to recall they were ever given to you. ”

That made the beauty pout for a moment, but he knew it wouldn’t slow her down for long. As far as he knew, she didn’t have the eye to differentiate between paste and real diamonds, but it was unfortunate it wasn’t paste that was missing.

“I’ve heard that criminals hide things under their mattresses,” she offered in a silken voice. “Why don’t you search there?”

Rafferty leaned back against the wall, perfectly composed. “Would you prefer I do the hunting, sir?” he inquired in his best butler’s voice.

“Don’t be impudent!” Norah snapped.

“I can look,” Georgie offered, starting toward the bed, but her father was ahead of her, and Rafferty breathed a tiny sigh of relief.

He truly didn’t want to see Georgie diving beneath his covers—he’d never have a peaceful night’s sleep again—and he was an idiot to be thinking such things with her irate family surrounding him.

Sir Elston had already thrown back the covers and yanked the horsehair mattress from the wooden frame. There was nothing beneath it.

Norah’s smug smile turned blank for a moment, and then she started forward. “It has to be there!” she cried.

“Why?” Georgie demanded, glaring at her sister suspiciously. “Did you put it there?”

Sir Elston was standing straight now, a thunderous expression on his face. “What’s going on here? There’s something havey-cavey about this entire thing.”

“My necklace was stolen!” Norah said stubbornly, the trace of her usual pout back on her face.

“Your mother’s necklace!” Sir Elston reminded her in a biting tone.

“Well, if that’s all it is, then who cares?” Lady Manning said with a titter of laughter. “It’s an ugly old thing—I never wear it.”

Her husband rounded on her. “The diamonds just happened to be the most valuable things in this household,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “And if they’re lost, then we’re lost.”

“Don’t be absurd, Elston.” His wife dismissed his statement with an airy wave of her beringed hand.

“We’re hardly wanting for the elegancies of life.

Now apologize to Rafferty and we’ll go back upstairs and finish our dinner.

I can’t imagine why you insisted on dragging us all away on such a ridiculous pretext.

Rafferty has done nothing but take very good care of us—he’d hardly want to steal from us, now would you, Rafferty? ”

“No, ma’am,” he said politely.

“I’m not apologizing to some damned butler!” Sir Elston grumbled. “Not even Rafferty.” He stomped from the room.

“I think you’re horrid!” Georgie whispered to her sister.

“You’re a stupid baby!” Norah hissed back. And then she met Rafferty’s bland eyes, and there was a real threat in their magnificent depths.

He was so tempted to reply with a smug smile, but he wasn’t about to give in to temptation. He’d perfected his butler’s expression, and he kept it in place as he ushered them out of his wrecked rooms, back to the dinner table. It was going to be a long night.