LITMIR.BIZ

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to rebuff any man who approached her. For her charms were not so recondite as she imagined, and nor was she anywhere near so old, but of this she was blissfully unaware.

      In the Green Park, the fresh grass of the gently rolling meadows made her feel as if she was far from the metropolis. Her mind wandered from her business meeting back to that night, as it had done on countless occasions in the days which had elapsed since. Though she had scoured both The Times and the Morning Post on her visits to Hookham’s circulating library in Bond Street, she had found no mention of the theft from Kinsail Manor. Jacob had been as good as his word.

      The shifty-eyed investigator who had come calling at her lodgings in Hans Town had been equally reticent. She had absolutely no idea what had been stolen save that it was small, definitely not papers, and definitely extremely valuable. What? And why was Jacob so intent on silence? And how, when he was so intent, had the housebreaker discovered the presence of whatever it was in the safe when even Jacob’s wife had no idea of its existence?

      The housebreaker who had kissed her.

      Deborah paused to admire a clump of primroses, but her gaze blurred as the cheerful yellow flowers were replaced by a fierce countenance in her mind’s eye. Try as she might, she had been unable to forget him. Unable and unwilling, if she was honest. In the secret dark of night he came to her and she seldom had the willpower to refuse him. Never, not even in the early days with Jeremy, before they were married, when she had been so naïvely in love, had she felt such a gut-wrenching pull of attraction. Who and why? And where was he now? She had no answers, nor likely ever would, but the questions would not quit her mind. His presence had fired her imagination.

      Reaching the boundary of the Green Park, she made her way across the busy thoroughfare of Piccadilly towards Hyde Park, with the intention of walking along Rotten Row to the Queen’s Gate. Carriages, horses, stray dogs, urchins, crossing sweepers and costermongers made navigating to the other side treacherous at the best of times, but Deborah wove her way through the traffic with her mind fatally focused elsewhere.

      The driver of an ale cart swerved to avoid her.

      She barely noticed the drayman’s cursing, but on the other side of the road Elliot, emerging from Apsley House where he had been petitioning Wellesley—he never could think of him as Wellington—froze. It was her! He was sure of it—though how he could be, when he had not even seen her in daylight, he had no idea.

      But it was most definitely Lady Kinsail and she was headed straight for him—or at least for the gates to the park. She was dressed simply—even, to his practised eye, rather dowdily for a countess. The full-length brown pelisse she wore over a taupe walking dress was bereft of trimming, lacking the current fashion for flounces, tassels and ruffles. Her hair, what he could see of it under the shallow poke of her bonnet, was flaxen. She was tall, elegant and slender, just as he remembered. In the bright sunlight, her complexion had a bloom to it, but her expression was the same: challenging, ironic, a little remote. Not a beautiful woman—she was too singular for that—but there was definitely something about her, the very challenge of her detachment, that appealed to him.

      He should go. It would be madness to risk being identified. But even as he forced himself to turn away he caught her eye, saw the start of recognition in hers and it was too late.

      Elliot, who had in any case always preferred to court trouble than to flee from it, covered the short distance between them in several quick strides. ‘Lady Kinsail.’ He swept her a bow.

      ‘It is you!’ Deborah exclaimed. She could feel her colour rising, and wished that the poke of her bonnet were more fashionably high to disguise it. ‘The housebreaker. Though I have to say in the light of day you look even less like one than when you—when I …’

      ‘So very kindly broke my fall,’ Elliot finished for her. ‘For which I am most grateful, believe me.’

      Deborah blushed. ‘You expressed your gratitude at the time, as I recall.’

      ‘Not as thoroughly as I’d have liked to.’

      ‘I didn’t tell,’ she blurted out in confusion.

      ‘That I kissed you?’

      ‘No. I mean I didn’t report you. I should have. I know I should have. But I didn’t.’

      ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ Elliot stared at her in astonishment.

      Her eyes were coffee brown, almost black, with a sort of hazel or gold colour around the rim of the iris. A strange combination, with that flaxen hair. The pink tip of her tongue flicked out along the full length of her lower lip to moisten it.

      He dragged his eyes away. They were in danger of making a show of themselves, standing stock still at the busy entrance gates. Taking her arm, he ushered her into the park. ‘Let’s find somewhere more private, away from the crowds.’

      Deborah tingled where his fingers clasped her arm. It was most—strange. In a nice way. So nice that she allowed herself to be led down one of the more secluded paths without protest.

      He was taller than she remembered. In daylight his countenance was swarthy, the colour of one who had spent much time in the sun. The lines around his eyes, too, which gave him that fierce quality, looked as if they came from squinting in bright light. Snatching a glance up at him, she noticed a scar slicing through his left eyebrow, and another, a thin thread on his forehead just below the hairline. A soldier? Certainly it would explain his bearing, the upright stance, the quick stride which even her long legs were struggling to keep up with.

      He was exceedingly well dressed, in a rich blue double-breasted tailcoat with brass buttons, and the snowy white of his cravat was carefully tied, enhancing the strong line of his jaw, the tanned complexion. Brown trousers, black boots, a single fob, a beaver hat—though the crown was not tall enough to be truly fashionable. His toilette was elegant but simple. Like herself, he eschewed ostentation, though unlike herself his reason did not appear to be lack of funds. Housebreaking must be a lucrative profession.

      No, she could not bring herself to believe that he stole in order to dress well. Whatever reason he had for breaking into houses, it was not avarice. It appealed to her sense of irony that the famous Peacock was decidedly no peacock. Maybe his choice of calling card was deliberately self-mocking.

      ‘What is so amusing?’ Elliot brought them both to a halt by a rustic bench facing the sun.

      ‘Just an idle thought.’

      ‘We can sit here awhile,’ he said, after carefully wiping the wood down with his kerchief. ‘As long as the sun prevails we shall not get cold.’

      Obediently, Deborah sat down. There were so many things she wanted to ask, but as she stared up at him she was too overwhelmed by the reality of him, which was so much more than the memory of him, to order her thoughts properly. ‘Are you really the Peacock?’

      A word from her in the right ear and he would be dancing on the end of a rope at Tyburn. Though so far she had of her own admission said nothing. ‘Yes,’ Elliot replied, ‘I really am the Peacock.’

      ‘When I saw Jacob holding up the feather I could scarcely believe it.’

      It was a small bench. Elliot’s knees touched her leg as he angled himself to face her. A spark of awareness shot through him at the contact. He remembered the way she’d felt beneath him. He remembered, too, the things he’d imagined her doing to him since and prayed none of it showed on his face. He had to remind himself that she was married. Married! In England, that mattered.

      ‘Why?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Why did you say nothing to your husband?’

      ‘You mentioned him during our first conversation—if it could be called a conversation,’ Deborah said with a frown. ‘You said that I must blame him, or some such words. Blame him for what? What has Jeremy to do with your breaking into Kinsail Manor?’

      Jeremy! It had slipped his mind, but he remembered now that was the name she’d given Kinsail. ‘You

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