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Darling Jack. Mary McBride
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He kept her in suspense while the waiter poured their coffee. By the time Jack had gone through the ntual of lighting his cigar, she was nearly on the edge of her seat.
He aimed a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “What do you know about the Baroness Von Drosten?”
Anna smiled, more to herself than at her companion. Well, at last! She’d felt like a fool all during supper, maintaining a grim silence while trying to contend with slippery lemon wedges, fish bones, and a whole drawer’s worth of utensils. She might not be an experienced supper companion, she thought now, but she’d been an attentive file clerk for the past six years, and she knew more than a little about the infamous baroness.
“Chloe Von Drosten,” she said with some authority, “is believed to be a jewel thief.”
“She is a damn jewel thief,” Hazard shot back.
“Ah, but no one has proven that yet. Even you, Mr. Hazard, were unsuccessful last year in your attempt to recover Mrs. Herrington Sloan’s missing emerald necklace.”
“It isn’t missing,” he said flatly. “I know exactly where it is.”
Anna shook her head. That couldn’t be right. If the necklace had been found, the case would have been closed and she would have moved the file to the Inactive drawer. She knew for a fact that she hadn’t transferred the file. “The case is still active, Mr. Hazard,” she insisted. “No one has recovered that necklace.”
His fingers tightened on the handle of his cup. “No one ever will.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I didn’t say the necklace had been recovered, Mrs. Mathn. I said I know where it is. And I also know why it will never be recovered now.” His gaze drifted to Anna’s full cup. “Would you care for a brandy with your coffee?”
He was lifting a hand to signal the waiter when Anna snapped, “No. I’d care for an explanation. I know what’s in the files at the Pinkerton Agency. Mrs. Sloan’s necklace is still missing. How can you claim to know its whereabouts?”
“Chloe told me.”
Anna laughed. “Well, she may have confessed and disclosed its location, Mr. Hazard, but the necklace is still missing.”
“Technically,” he said very coolly, “it isn’t even missing. The fact is, Mrs. Matlin, it’s being worn by the queen of England.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “And worn quite frequently, as I understand.”
Now Anna gave her glasses a little nudge up the bridge of her nose, as if that would help her see the situation more clearly. The man had lost her somewhere. If…
“She got away with it, you see.”
Anna blinked. “Victoria?”
“Chloe. She presented the necklace to Her Majesty, not merely as a gift from herself, but as a token of esteem from the American government.” His mouth twisted in a wry smile, and then he added, “Victoria was quite touched, I hear.”
“But…” Suddenly Anna understood how something could be at once lost and found. She pictured the square-cut emeralds circling the little queen’s neck. Her royal neck! “No one would dare demand them back,” she breathed.
Hazard’s smile twisted tighter. “Exactly.” He leaned forward now, and when he spoke again, his voice was low and harsh. “Rather brilliant of the baroness, wouldn’t you say? She earned not only the queen’s favor, but her own guarantee of innocence, as well. Victoria cannot be wearing a stolen necklace, therefore there was no crime.”
“More diabolical than brilliant,” Anna muttered. She was thinking of her orderly files now, and she felt some irritation that one would be erroneously placed. Forever. When crimes were solved, the files moved from Active to Inactive. It was a part of her job that she enjoyed. Moving those files gave her a sense of participating in justice, somehow. But now…
Now she became doubly irritated as she realized that Johnathan Hazard had just spent a good ten or fifteen minutes talking about a past assignment, rather than their current one. Her voice was uncharacteristically brittle when she asked him, “Just what does the baroness have to do with anything?”
“Everything.”
The word was simple enough, yet it had come from Hazard’s lips like a curse. For a second, his face seemed less like an Apollo’s than that of an avenging angel. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the fury vanished. His smile turned affable. One dark eyebrow arched. “What do you know about horse racing, Mrs. Matlin?”
“Other than recognizing a horse when I see one, and knowing what a race is, Mr. Hazard, absolutely nothing,” she snapped. “Does this have anything to do with our assignment?”
He didn’t answer, but picked up his cup and drained it of coffee. Then he signaled the waiter for more. Anna’s cup was still full. If she had even a drop of it, she thought, she’d be awake until dawn, lying in bed, staring at the—Suddenly she pictured that bed again, and her gaze flicked to the man across the table.
His dark hair had an almost sapphire luster now that the candles had burned down some. Their muted light carved the planes of his face with shadows and touched his cheekbones with gold. She allowed herself, for just a moment, to appreciate his legendary handsomeness. She let her heart skip just one beat.
After the waiter had refilled his cup and disappeared, Hazard took a sip and set the cup back with long-fingered grace. “Particulars, Mrs. Matlin,” he said then. “We’ll be posing as man and wife. But you already know that.”
Yes, she did. Anna nodded, while trying to move that infernal bed out of her head. At last her partner had seen fit to apprise her of some facts, and now she could hardly take in his words. Not with that dratted bed taking up so much room in her brain.
“When I said that excess was part of the plan, I meant exactly that,” he continued. “We’re not only posing as a married couple, but as an extremely wealthy and free-spending couple.” A small frown skimmed across his forehead now. “Since Chloe knows me, there’s no reason to use an assumed name. And since she knows I’m not a fabulously wealthy man, the assumption will have to be that I married well.”
Anna couldn’t help it. A small giggle fought its way up her throat. “So I’m the rich one.”
Hazard tilted his head. “Yes. Does that amuse you?”
“Well…yes, I suppose it does. I’ve never been rich. I’ve always been rather poor.”
“Rich is better, Mrs. Matlin. Believe me.”
“It probably is.” She shrugged. “I’ve never given it any consideration.”
“You’ve never dreamed of being rich?” His blue-gray eyes opened wider.
“I’ve never dreamed of anything,” Anna answered, and then felt her cheeks flush because that wasn’t exactly true. She had, in fact, dreamed of the man across the table from her now. And that bed, which was still looming like some square and monolithic granite monument in her head. “Well, nothing much,” she added in a whisper. She cleared her throat, lifted her chin and forced a hopeful smile. “So, we’re in pursuit of the baroness, then? Has she stolen more jewels?”
“Probably.” Jack let out a bitter, almost brutal laugh. Its viciousness surprised even him. He wasn’t used to disclosing his emotions that way. “It doesn’t matter. Not even if she’s made off with the crown jewels. What matters is Chloe’s Gold.”
“She stole gold?”
The mouse’s blue eyes were huge behind her glasses, magnified by candlelight and curiosity. They were an intense blue. For a second, Jack felt as if he were swimming