Dance of Seduction Read online

  “But Clara, must you use it all on the Home? You could give half to the Home and leave half to enhance your dowry.” Her pale brows knit in a frown. “But then there’d be nothing for fixing you up. Hmm, perhaps if we settled for an English modiste—”

  “I’m not using one penny for my dowry,” Clara snapped, her patience at an end. “Lord knows it’s ample enough already.”

  Her aunt’s hands fluttered against her pigeon breasts. “Dear girl, think what you’re saying. You’re getting on in years, you know.”

  “Thank you for pointing that out,” Clara said, mortified to be having this conversation in front of a stranger. “I’m only twenty-eight, hardly old enough to be reduced to buying myself a husband. There’s still plenty of time for marriage.”

  “Good lack-a-daisy, Clara—”

  “Enough! I’ve made my decision.”

  Aunt Verity appealed to Mr. Gaither, who’d been listening to the conversation with smug interest. “Do tell her she can’t use all the legacy on reform.”

  For the first time that morning, a smile lit Mr. Gaither’s thin, bookish features. “Mr. Doggett made no stipulation whatsoever on how the money was to be used, madam. He left it entirely up to his niece.”

  “Clever man, my uncle,” Clara muttered under her breath.

  Mr. Gaither went on, almost maliciously, “If she wants to use it to make gold cages for your little beasts, she’s perfectly free to do so.”

  Horror filled her aunt’s face. “Cages! Clara, you would never—”

  “Of course not, Aunt. I wouldn’t think of it.” Clara added teasingly, “Unless you persist in this notion of using it for my dowry—”

  “I’m only trying to help,” Aunt Verity grumbled. She was no fool—she knew when to retreat, though that didn’t mean she’d given up. “If you insist on ignoring the possibilities, I don’t suppose we can do much about it, eh, lassies?”

  The poodles’ yapping wiped the smile right off Mr. Gaither’s face. He leaped to his feet. “I’d best be going. I must pass on those other bequests, you know.”

  Clara smiled at the American as she rose, too. “Yes, to Uncle Cecil’s by-blows and mistresses. I don’t suppose you could tell me who—”

  “Don’t even think it, Clara Stanbourne,” her aunt protested. “Reforming pickpockets is one thing, but if you begin associating with those sorts of women—”

  “Actually, madam,” the solicitor broke in, “Mr. Doggett thought that his niece might ask such a thing, and he instructed me to keep everyone’s identities secret. I think he was afraid that if his…er…consorts knew of his exalted connections, they might take advantage of the association.”

  Tears sprang to Clara’s eyes again. It was so like Uncle Cecil to try to protect her. “Thank you, Mr. Gaither, for carrying out his wishes so faithfully.”

  To her surprise, he winked. “I’ll inform you when all the papers are drawn up, my lady, and you can collect the funds. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Yes, of course, I’ll just see you out.” Clara shot her aunt an indulgent smile. “Aunt Verity, I’m going to the Home, but I’ll be back for dinner.”

  “Do be careful, Clara,” her aunt called after her. “Take one of the footmen!”

  “I always do,” Clara said irritably as she ushered Mr. Gaither into the foyer.

  Samuel jumped to his feet and hastened to bring Mr. Gaither’s overcoat. But as the young man helped the solicitor into it, she saw his right hand flash.

  With a groan, she stepped forward to manacle Samuel’s wrist before Mr. Gaither turned around. “Oh, dear, Mr. Gaither,” she said smoothly, “I believe you’ve dropped your purse. Samuel seems to have found it.”

  Samuel colored, but held the purse out with such lightning speed that nobody but Clara would have known it had resided in his pocket for a full five seconds. “It was on the floor, sir. Is it yours?”

  With a look of complete bewilderment, Mr. Gaither patted his pocket, then said, “Bless my eyes, it is indeed.”

  “It must’ve fell out when you put on your coat,” Samuel said helpfully.

  “I suppose.” Mr. Gaither eyed Samuel with suspicion as he accepted the purse. Then turning to Clara, he made a sketchy bow. “Good day, madam. I’ll send a note round when everything is done. Perhaps it would be better if we meet elsewhere next time.”

  “Certainly,” she agreed quickly. “Good day, Mr. Gaither.”

  The door had scarcely closed behind him before she whirled on Samuel. “I cannot believe that you—”

  “It ain’t what you think, m’lady,” Samuel hastened to say. “I would have returned the purse before the carriage drove off, truly I would. I was just practicing.”

  “For what? You’re out of that life now.”

  “I got to keep my skills up, because you never know…” He trailed off as if to keep from saying too much.

  But he’d already said enough. She knew what he was thinking. Because you never know when you’ll lose a position. Because one day the dream will vanish as so many others have, and you’ll have nothing to stand between you and starvation but your skills.

  She took one look at his anxious face and sighed. “From now on, please practice only on me and the servants, all right?”

  He blinked at her. “You mean you’re not dismissing me?”

  The hopeful yearning in his face made her heart hurt. “No. Though if you ever do anything like that again—”

  “Oh, yes, m’lady…I mean no, m’lady…I mean I’ll never do it again, I swear!” Grabbing her hand, he kissed it with a slavishness bordering on desperation. “I won’t disappoint you. I’ll never pick a pocket again, and I’ll be the best footman ever to work at Stanbourne Hall!”

  “You’ll certainly be the most nimble.” When he looked downcast, she smiled reassuringly. “There, there, you’re a good, hard worker, and I have every faith that you’ll put your quick fingers to better use than you have in the past.” Gently she extricated her hand. “Now go on with you, and summon my carriage.”

  With a quick nod, Samuel scurried off. She shook her head as she watched him go. Samuel was one of her successes, yet even he had his moments. How much hardship must it take to bludgeon such a promising young man into believing he had no hope of a future beyond stealing? That he must always expect life to hand him lemons?

  She squared her shoulders. She was here to counteract all that bludgeoning, and with this new source of funds, she could do it on a grand scale.

  The carriage rumbled up at once. As Samuel took his place on the back, she climbed inside and began to contemplate plans for her new inheritance. There were the practical improvements, of course, expansion of the children’s dormitories and a new stove for the kitchen, not to mention at least two more teachers and a whole slew of books. Mama had always wanted better heating. Indeed if they’d had adequate heating during the cruelly bitter winter of 1812—

  She sighed at the dark memory. Her mother had died of pneumonia during that winter. Clara herself had taken ill, for they’d spent many hours at the Home trying to keep the children warm. But her mother hadn’t possessed the youthful constitution to survive frequent exposure to the dank, cold air.

  Tears stung Clara’s eyes, and she brushed them away impatiently. How silly to dwell on what couldn’t be changed. The news of Uncle Cecil’s death had made her morbid.

  She smoothed out the skirts of her practical worsted gown, the sort she always wore to the Home, and straightened her spine. The best way to honor the dead was by making their passing useful to the living. Mama would be pleased to know she’d indirectly contributed to the Home’s present windfall. Indeed, if not for Mama’s steadfast insistence that Clara associate with the Doggetts as well as the Stanbournes, Uncle Cecil would never have known his niece well enough to warrant giving her such an inheritance.

  Clara smiled. She hoped Mama was watching from heaven and smiling, too.

  By now they’d entered the grimy, despair-ridden environs of
Spitalfields. The passing of her carriage was scarcely noted—the bleary-eyed denizens of the streets were used to seeing the black-and-gold Stanbourne equipage trundle by nearly every morning. Clara had been coming this way alone for the seven years since Mama’s death, and for three before it.

  They lumbered onto Petticoat Lane, a street notorious for its receivers of stolen goods, who often worked out of pawnshops. She gathered up her leather reticule and striped wool shawl as they rode within sight of the Home.

  Then something caught her eye in the alley very near her destination. Normally, she wouldn’t give a second glance to two people squabbling, but a flash of red arrested her attention.

  Johnny Perkins in his favorite scarlet coat. And the twelve-year-old, a resident of the Home, was having a spirited discussion with a tall, broad-shouldered stranger, who seemed to be restraining the boy from running off.

  Reminded of this morning’s incident with Samuel, she shouted, “Stop the coach!” As it shuddered to a halt, she opened the door and leaped out. Telling the coachman to go on and Samuel to wait at the top of the alley, she headed toward the imposing gentleman dressed in a ragged frock coat and battered beaver hat.

  The alley stank of fried herring and cabbage and the quiet fear that pervaded Spitalfields. It wasn’t fear, however, but alarm that spurred her toward the man gripping Johnny’s shoulder with firm intent. Because morning sunlight glinted off the gold watch dangling from Johnny’s hand, and that could mean only one thing.

  Another one of her pickpockets was headed for trouble this morning.

  Chapter 2

  …converse not with any but those that are good,

  sober and virtuous. Evil Communications

  corrupt Good Manners.

  A Little pretty pocket-book: intended for

  the instruction and amusement of little

  Master Tommy and pretty Miss Polly, John Newbery

  Vainly trying to smother her distress, Clara vaulted the rest of the way down the alley. She was just in time to hear Johnny’s squeaky voice say, “Now see here—”

  “Johnny!” she said sharply.

  The boy’s head whipped around, and his ruddy cheeks paled to the color of milk. “Bloody hell,” he mumbled as she approached.

  She leveled on him her famous Stanbourne Stare, which generally sent her children scurrying to behave. “Give the gentleman back his watch this minute!”

  Johnny hesitated, then handed the watch over. As soon as the stranger had it, he lifted cool black eyes to her. Fear banished her irritation at Johnny. The only men in Spitalfields with that direct a stare were watchmen. Or worse, officers of the law.

  Sick with worry, she stepped up to place a proprietary hand on the other shoulder of her hapless charge. “Please, sir, I’m sure Johnny didn’t mean to take your watch—”

  “What concern is it of yours whether he did or not, madame? Are you the lad’s mother?” The man’s hand still gripped Johnny’s shoulder and seemed to tighten as they both stood there holding on to the boy.

  Her panic increased. The stranger’s faintly accented English wasn’t a foreigner’s exactly, but it wasn’t an Englishman’s either. Which didn’t rule out his being an officer.

  She forced a conciliatory smile to her lips. “I’m a guardian of sorts to him.”

  “Me mum is dead,” Johnny interjected helpfully. “This here’s Lady Clara.”

  “Lady Clara?” Instead of tipping his hat or begging her pardon, he muttered a French curse under his breath. Then he surveyed her hair, her gown, and even her boots with a brusque, impersonal scrutiny. “What’s a lady of rank doing in Spitalfields?”

  “I run the Stanbourne Home for the Reformation of Pickpockets. It’s the brick building on the next corner. Johnny is one of my residents.”

  A thin, ironic smile touched the man’s hard mouth. “I see that his reformation is progressing nicely.”

  She colored. “Lapses happen occasionally, sir, but they’re unusual. I’m only sorry you had to witness this one. Now if you’d be so good as to release Johnny, perhaps we could better discuss the…er…situation.”

  Johnny remained silent, his gaze bouncing anxiously between her and the stranger.

  The man stared at her long enough for her to glimpse a native intelligence in his fathomless eyes and wary expression. Then he shrugged and dropped his hand from Johnny’s shoulder. Casting the watch a cursory glance, he shoved it into his coat pocket.

  She breathed easier. “Thank you, Mr…. Mr….”

  “Pryce.” Then he added, almost as an afterthought, “Captain Morgan Pryce.”

  Oh, dear, a captain. But what kind? When he offered no more information, she examined him more carefully. He dressed shabbily—patched fustian coat and waistcoat, decidedly ragged stock, scuffed boots—and his black hair curled far down past his frayed shirt collar. But other details of his appearance revealed a man with gentlemanly habits. He’d tied his stock with considerable care, and his fingernails were clean and well groomed.

  Still, that didn’t make him an officer of the law. “Are you a captain serving with the River Police? Or the Lambeth Street Police Office?”

  At Johnny’s inexplicable snort, the gentleman cast the boy a quelling glance. “I’m a captain serving Her Majesty’s Navy.”

  “In Spitalfields?” she blurted out.

  A faint amusement crossed the surprisingly handsome face. “In case you hadn’t heard, England isn’t fighting any wars these days, so there’s little call for naval captains. We’re all on half-pay.”

  While his profession explained his educated speech and air of command, it didn’t explain what a foreign-sounding gentleman who’d managed to obtain a captain’s commission was doing in an alley in her part of town. “Half-pay or not, surely you can afford to board your family in better surroundings than Spitalfields.”

  “I have no family. And I live here because I own a business concern in the area.” He jerked his head toward the tumbledown building on her right with a door that stood half ajar. “That’s the side entrance to my new shop. I sell nautical goods to sailors.”

  “But why here, of all places?”

  “Why not? Plenty of sailors live in this part of London. Should I have set up my business in the Strand among the milliners and the tailors? So I could tap the lucrative market for young ladies buying compasses?”

  His sarcasm made her arch one brow. “Certainly not. But there are parts of town where you’re less likely to risk having your shop robbed.”

  Oh, bother, thievery was the last thing she should have mentioned.

  He shot Johnny a meaningful glance. “Excellent point.”

  She sucked in an anxious breath. Captain Pryce might not be a police officer, but some navy men could be rather surly about such things as being robbed in the street. And he definitely seemed the surly sort. “I hope you realize, sir, that little would be accomplished by taking Johnny before the magistrate.”

  Johnny flashed Captain Pryce a panicked look. “I ain’t going to no magistrate, am I?”

  “No,” Captain Pryce said firmly. “Of course not.”

  Relief flooded her, but she couldn’t risk the man changing his mind. “Where you’re going is back to the Home this very minute.” She squeezed Johnny’s shoulder. “Go on then.”

  “But you gave me leave to visit Lucy this morning—”

  “Which you used to ill effect, so your leave has been revoked.” Lucy was Johnny’s sister. If necessary, Clara would take him to visit Lucy herself later. “Now go tell Mrs. Carter I said to put your clever fingers to work in the kitchen. A long stint helping peel potatoes will give you time to contemplate how close you came to disaster this morning.”

  “I could connemplay it better dusting the parlor,” Johnny offered hopefully.

  “Contemplate,” she said, enunciating the consonants. “It means ‘think.’ As in, ‘think about your sins.’ Perhaps you could do it best by cleaning out the chamber pots.”

  “O
h no, m’lady!” Johnny looked appalled. “Now that I consider it, peeling potatoes is just the thing for thinking. Aye, just the thing.”

  “Good choice.” She shoved him none too gently toward the entrance to the alley. “Go on with you. I’ll be there in a moment.”

  Casting Captain Pryce a last furtive look, Johnny scurried off. She held her breath until the boy slipped past Samuel and around the corner, then let it out in a long whoosh. Another disaster averted.

  Well, not entirely. She still had to deal with the suspicious captain. But when she turned to face him, she read interest rather than suspicion in his eyes.

  This time when his gaze swept her, it wasn’t brusque or impersonal. It was slow, thorough, and intimate—the look of a man examining an attractive woman. To her annoyance, it set off an unfamiliar fluttering in her belly. And when his gaze rose to her mouth, as if drawn there by her quickened breath, the fluttering in her belly grew positively frenzied.

  How absurd. He was a neighbor, nothing more. A decidedly attractive neighbor, true, and certainly more interesting than any other man she’d met in Spitalfields, but still merely a neighbor.

  She fought to regain her composure. “Thank you for your indulgence with Johnny, sir,” she said in a breathier voice than she would have liked. “I know he’s given you the wrong impression of my children, but I assure you that most of them are not like him.”

  The gaze he lifted to hers was once more icy and remote. “You mean, they’re not foolish enough to get caught.”

  This captain might be handsome, but his manner was worse than the gruff Beast’s in her favorite tale by Madame Le Prince de Beaumont. “I mean, they try to avoid behavior that lands them in trouble.” When he cocked an eyebrow skeptically, she stiffened. “They are only children, you know. They do err from time to time.”

  “As long as you keep them away from my shop, I don’t really care what they do.”

  His bluntness brought her up short. “If you’re worried they’ll steal from you—”