Taking the Earl (Heiress Games Book 3) Read online

  The Briarleys were unlike any family he’d ever heard of. And the objects at Maidenstone had never been meant for sale, or hoarded for their value — they were part of Lucy’s life.

  And he was going to take that life from her.

  But he listed the objects for Titus anyway, dispassionately, as he was expected to. When he finished the list, Titus whistled.

  “We should have brought a wagon to toss everything in. Should we take it all to America, or try to sell the jewels to the collectors we know in London first?”

  “Let’s see how the thieving goes before we decide that,” Max said. “A lot depends on Atticus and whether anyone comes looking for us. We may have to run without selling anything — I don’t want to walk into a trap in London.”

  Titus shifted in his saddle. They’d kept their horses to a walk while they talked, but Titus looked like he was ready for a long gallop away from the house. “We might have problems here, even before we get to London. There are a couple of guests who might recognize me.”

  “Who could possibly recognize you here?”

  “Lord and Lady Salford,” Titus said. “Salford is Ferguson’s cousin-in-law.”

  Max had met Lord and Lady Salford at dinner the night before, but he’d never seen them in person before. Salford was a renowned collector with a London townhouse full of valuable objects. “I know we considered breaking into Salford’s house last spring, but his collection was too unique to resell easily. He couldn’t have recognized you from our initial planning for that job.”

  Titus nodded. “He’s not a threat. But Lady Salford used to be Miss Prudence Etchingham, and she had business dealings with Ostringer. I saw her around his shop sometimes.”

  Ostringer was an antiquities dealer whose business was mostly — but not entirely — aboveboard. He had hired Titus as a stableboy shortly after Max and Titus had been separated, eventually teaching Titus everything he knew about forgeries. Titus still worked for him occasionally, since Titus’s forgeries were more lucrative than any brute-force theft he might have been involved in. And Ostringer sold some of Max and Antonia’s safer “acquisitions” without asking any questions about their provenance.

  Max frowned. “Would Lady Salford recognize your handiwork?”

  Titus shrugged. “Don’t know. I’m sure she wouldn’t want anyone knowing it, but she’s a decent forger herself — mostly pottery and rocks, not handwriting. Ostringer sold some of her goods. If she remembers seeing me at his shop, it might give her ideas.”

  Max didn’t like coincidences. And he didn’t like realizing that he had left the papers that “proved” his claim with Ferguson. He’d thought they had at least a few days before someone could discover the problems with his story — it would take time for a messenger to go to London and come back with any news. But Max hadn’t known there were forgery experts residing at Maidenstone.

  “Stay away from Lady Salford,” Max said. “Maybe you should skip the mausoleum decorations tonight and use that time to search the house for the safe — there won’t be many servants or guests here to catch you. Lucy showed me everything at Maidenstone except for the jewels, it seems.”

  “So it’s still Lucy? Did she show you where they ring the wedding bells?” Titus asked.

  Max had sent his horse into a gallop then, ignoring Titus’s question and the way his laughter had floated over the field after him. But he couldn’t ignore the question forever.

  The previous day, and the tour Lucy had given him, should have been another step in his bigger plan. He’d seen a fortune in objects. She hadn’t shown him the Briarley rubies, but that moment would come.

  But the only way to make that moment happen was to spend more time with her. And he’d learned something else the previous day: he couldn’t spend time with Lucy without wanting to kiss her.

  If he were honest, he wanted to do a hell of a lot more than kiss her.

  But as he’d ridden through the fields around the remnants of Maidenstone Wood, he had tried to see it through her eyes. She didn’t see the riches or the objects — not as sellable goods, at least. She saw them as tangible links in a chain that stretched over centuries. She saw it all as a birthright, a legacy — a living memory, not a fortune left to her by the dead. Something she was responsible for, not just a beneficiary of.

  If he didn’t marry her, and he stole everything…it wasn’t going to be the legal power of England that he would have to run from. Lucretia Briarley would seek him out and murder him herself.

  He must have been utterly mad, because the idea of Lucy tracking him down in New Orleans and calling him out didn’t scare him — it only made him want her more.

  He wanted to go to her and ask for another tour — or another anything. He knew he should keep his distance. But even beyond her kisses, even beyond the rubies, there was another simple fact.

  He enjoyed her company. He had enjoyed having a few hours where it felt like he was making a friend.

  When was the last time he had felt like that?

  But it was only half past ten in the morning. Yesterday had been an anomaly; their early meeting with Ferguson had brought her out early. But proper ladies would take breakfast in their rooms, and Lucy wouldn’t make an appearance until early afternoon. That schedule, at least, had been made very clear to him by Claxton. The servants wouldn’t say a word about their mistress, but they were exacting about making her expectations known to the guests.

  Still, when he heard a knock on his bedroom door, he hoped that it was her. Before he could reach the handle, though, he heard the familiar scrape of a key — or a pick — in the lock.

  Antonia slipped into the room a moment later.

  “I would have let you in,” he said.

  “I need the practice,” she responded, shutting the door. “We’ll want to know how the locks work here.”

  “They don’t work very well, apparently.”

  “That one was too simple,” she sniffed. “You’d think an earl would have better security.”

  “He probably didn’t have many thieves running around. Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be helping Cressida?”

  “Your Miss Briarley just took her away. Something about a modiste.”

  Max hadn’t spoken to Antonia alone since they’d arrived at Maidenstone. It would be hard for him to see her without attracting attention, since the duties of a normal lady’s maid shouldn’t have brought her into his room. Titus must have told her about the secret engagement, if she was calling Lucy “your Miss Briarley.” But Max didn’t respond to the implicit question. “Why would she take Cressida to a modiste?”

  Antonia shrugged. “Probably digging into Cress’s background. I wanted to go with them and try to redirect the conversation, but Cress ordered me to stay behind.”

  “That’s just as well,” Max said. “Lucy has dozens of servants. She would find your behavior inexcusable if you interjected yourself into their conversation.”

  “Well, we’d best all hope that Cress can keep from giving anything away. But as long as she’s with Miss Briarley, we should take the opportunity to search her room.”

  “Cress’s room?” Max asked blankly.

  “Don’t be dense,” Antonia said. “Miss Briarley’s room. She’s hiding something. I haven’t heard a scrap of gossip about her from her servants, and Titus hasn’t either. Something ain’t right. And we should find it before whatever it is causes problems for us.”

  She was right. Max knew she was right. But then he thought of digging through Lucy’s private things — things she would never expect him to see. Things an honorable man would never look for.

  He’d never hesitated to break into anyone’s room before. But as Antonia turned toward the door again, he said, “No.”

  “Oh, so your lordship is too good to break into her room?” she teased.

  But then she saw the look on his face. “You’re serious,” she said. “I cannot believe it.”

  “There’s too much risk.”

/>   “There’s risk in any job. Right now, the bigger risk is we’ll be caught up in whatever she’s hiding.”

  Antonia was still right. But Max crossed his arms. “We won’t break into Lucy’s room.”

  She turned to the door. “If you won’t, I will.”

  He grabbed her shoulder. “We aren’t breaking into her room.”

  Antonia turned back to face him. The look she gave him was identical to the ones she used to give him when they’d first reunited — the look that said she wasn’t ready to trust him, or to help him, after so many years apart.

  “So you would value her privacy over our job?” she asked.

  “There are some places where honor should win.”

  But he knew he sounded defensive. Antonia gave him a derisive laugh. “There’s no honor among thieves. Which is what we are, ain’t it? Or has all this talk of you being the earl gone to your head?”

  “Of course it hasn’t,” he snapped.

  “Hasn’t it?” she said. “Marry the princess, keep the house, live the life of an idle lord. But the price will be too dear — Durrant will bleed you dry if he ever learns that you have Maidenstone to pay him off with. And how will you tell the Briarley chit that Titus and I are your siblings and not your servants?”

  “I won’t have to tell her because we’re not staying,” he said firmly. “The plan is still to leave England. Together.”

  Antonia’s eyes were shuttered, her feelings hidden behind a contemptuous mask. “Papa would have killed for the chance to be the earl. I’m sure he’d be proud of you for believing all his silly stories.”

  “I’m not going to be the earl,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “You’re good at pretending to be highborn,” she said, continuing as though she hadn’t heard him. “You talk like ’em. Even starting to smell like ’em,” she said, sniffing the air in the room. “Or maybe it’s the old earl what I’m smellin’, innit? He died in that bed there.”

  She was laying on her street accent, thick and strong, a cloak over her anger. He knew she was needling him, but it didn’t stop the flash of guilt.

  “I won’t betray you, Antonia,” he said. “I gave you my word that I would take care of you. I will keep that promise.”

  She patted her thigh, right where she kept her dagger. “Seems I’ve always taken care of myself.”

  At that moment, he was tempted to prove to Antonia that he was still the thief he’d always been — that nothing mattered more than blood.

  But searching Lucy’s room was a far greater betrayal than outright stealing. One day very soon, he would betray Lucy. He would abscond with everything of hers that he and his family could carry.

  And she would hate him for it. But not as much as she would hate him if he dug through her personal effects, looking for secrets she’d worked so hard to bury.

  Stealing, though — he could do that without it being personal.

  Or, at least, he could tell himself it wasn’t personal. Lucy probably wouldn’t feel that way.

  He sighed. “Trust me. Please. Whatever secrets Miss Briarley has, I doubt they have anything to do with us. We’re going to steal a fortune from her. We don’t need to betray her trust as well.”

  “It isn’t that you don’t need to betray her trust. You don’t want to,” Antonia retorted. “I think you’re too close to her. It’s only been two days and you’re already talking about her like her feelings matter. Are her feelings more important than Atticus’s life?”

  “Of course not,” he snapped. “But we’ll do this with as much honor as we can afford.”

  They glared at each other for a long moment. Antonia’s brow was furrowed. “If you don’t want to search her room, can you tell me where the jewels are?”

  Max shook his head. “There’s more here than jewels, luckily. We’ll have no problem walking away with something, but I do have my sights set on the Briarley rubies.”

  He briefly told her what he’d learned in his reconnaissance, giving her the same list as Titus — items that were particularly valuable, as well as rooms where it was apparent, based on the symmetry and the location of the doors and windows, that there were no safes hidden in the walls.

  She committed it all to memory. “I’ll see what else I can find while everyone is decorating the mausoleum. Do you still want tomorrow night to be when we take everything and run?”

  That was what they had agreed to while planning the job — that they would spend three nights at Maidenstone and leave on the fourth, before anyone could possibly return from London with evidence.

  “If we can find the safe by tomorrow,” Max said. “But if we can’t, I think we should risk one more night. I haven’t seen anything as portable as the jewels would be, and they’d be a lot easier to sell as we go than figurines or other pieces of art would be. Depends on whether anyone suspects us of anything, though. I’ll get a message to you tomorrow with the decision.”

  Antonia nodded. “I won’t take anything tonight while you’re at the mausoleum, then — wouldn’t want anyone to notice anything missing. And I’ll tell Titus and Cress to wait for your word before starting the next part of the plan. Just don’t ruin the job by falling in love. You know better than to make that mistake.”

  “I won’t,” he said.

  But he couldn’t quite meet her eyes when he said it.

  Chapter Twelve

  That evening, Lucy looked down at the basket of flowers in her hand. Her gardeners had plucked every bloom from a section of the garden grown specifically for tonight’s activities. The annual ritual of decorating the Briarley mausoleum required thousands of flowers, planted in anticipation of one of the most important dates on the local calendar.

  Those flowers were already at the cemetery, taken there by the cartload. But Lucy had cut the flowers in this basket herself. She touched the head of one of the roses, remembering the last bouquet she had taken to her grandfather in his sickroom. It had been almost a year since his death and she hadn’t visited the mausoleum since.

  She still didn’t want to visit him. For once, spending the evening making inane conversation with her houseguests would be preferable.

  But her houseguests were all chattering amongst themselves, preparing for the walk to the Briarley family graveyard. Their voices were too loud. Their laughter showed a lack of awareness that this was a sacred ritual, not a garden party. To them, this was a quaint, amusing country tradition.

  Emma joined her in the entrance hall. “You can’t murder your guests,” she murmured in Lucy’s ear.

  “And why do you think you must remind me of that?” Lucy asked.

  Emma smiled. “For one, you’re a Briarley. For another, your face says it all.”

  Lucy tried to school her features. “No murdering. But you surely know that I’d rather not visit the graveyard tonight.”

  “I know.” Emma’s smile faded. “I’d rather not either. But we can’t ignore tradition, can we?”

  The groundskeepers would have already gathered the wood for the bonfire. The chef had prepared a meal for hundreds of people — not just the wellborn guests who were staying at Maidenstone Abbey, but the tenants and villagers as well. The food would already be loaded onto trestle tables near the cemetery. The villagers would already be there, waiting for Lucy and Emma to arrive and lay the first bouquets at the base of the mausoleum.

  Lucy had never, ever refused to follow through with a tradition.

  But tonight, she was tempted.

  Thoughts of fleeing flew from her head, though, at Max’s arrival. He wore a black suit with a white armband on his sleeve. It was exactly the choice her grandfather, and every earl before him, would have made — part mournful, part penitent. Cressida walked with him, wearing one of the white muslin dresses that the modiste had quickly made over when Lucy had offered to pay for the dresses Callie and Thorington had abandoned.

  Her heart sped up as soon as he walked into the room. It was as though it recognized him even befor
e her eyes did. The desire to see him had hummed through her all day like a buried stream — until she saw him, and her yearning sprang forth and flooded her.

  He looked around and found her immediately. He walked directly toward her, not caring that everyone watched his path and guessed his destination. He didn’t care that he snubbed three people who tried to claim his attention on the way to her. He didn’t care that Cressida was clearly less interested in talking to Lucy and more interested in joining some of the men who were making eyes at her.

  He seemed as singleminded in his desire to see her as she was in her desire to see him.

  Lucy very nearly cursed under her breath. This was all going exactly to plan. She needed him to want her — it was crucial to make him desire her, and want to keep her, if she had any hope of winning Maidenstone.

  But she wasn’t supposed to want him in return. That kind of desire was far too dangerous.

  When he reached her, he bowed. She curtsied, as though he really was an earl, and extended her hand. “Are you ready to visit your ancestors, my lord?” she asked.

  She had intended it to be a joke. But the curtsey and the honorific — neither of which she’d given him before — suddenly didn’t feel humorous. They felt right.

  He took her hand, brushing his lips over her gloved knuckles. It was the casual sort of gesture that men and women made every day in the ton — but she saw the careful, intent look in his eyes.

  “This can’t be an easy night for you,” he said, in a quiet voice that wouldn’t carry through the curious crowd. “Or you, Lady Maidenstone,” he said, including Emma with a nod of his head. “Is there any way that I can be of assistance?”

  He may have intended to comfort her, but that statement — one none of the other guests had thought to make — came as a complete shock.

  “Did you just offer to help me?” she blurted out.

  She blushed before he could even arch an eyebrow. “Would you rather I not offer to help you?” he asked, in that dry voice she was starting to recognize — the one he used when he wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or amused.