Chapter Five
Verbally sparring with Annabeth Greene was as aggravating—and invigorating—as he remembered.
Calling her a ‘general’ wasn’t too far off the mark. The majority of the ton may have found Anna unpolished and as tarnished as common coal—though with a bit of shine now that her brother was a viscount—but Jackson had always seen the gem beneath the soot.
He’d hoped to have the discussion of their future—and good Lord, having children—in a quiet room where they wouldn’t be disturbed.
Yes, a part of him also wished the security and advantage of the impressive Grandfellow furnishings around him, complementing him and their arrangement.
But Annabeth Greene didn’t play by anyone else’s rules but her own.
Imagining her hosting a ball, the most discerning eyes of society’s matrons watching her with the intentions of carrion birds to a wounded animal—and her inevitable triumph when she told the ruffled vultures to fly off—who could blame him for gleefully anticipating the carnage?
No one would know what to do with Annabeth Greene.
Including his household.
Jackson led her down Picadilly, the impressive columns of the Grandfellow townhouse at the end of the street standing twice as tall and twice as thick as the gas streetlamps standing sentry along the way.
Passing through the black, wrought-iron gate, the gray gravel underfoot crunched loudly.
No flowers in the window boxes, no ferns or greens of any kind in the large pots on either side of the staircase leading up to the front door.
The nature of his arrangement with the Home Office meant he spent most of the year in town, but he’d never found solace in the ducal city residence, never sought to make the place more inviting or habitable.
A rundown, single-room inn or the lavish trappings of any of the six Grandfellow properties, the location he rested his head at night hardly mattered.
He did little more there than sleep, a few hours a night, before he was back to work. It was easier that way.
But that wouldn’t be so easy now.
He ascended the stairs leading up to the door and raised his hand, but he didn’t knock.
His instructions to his butler were to lock the doors and retire if he hadn’t returned by midnight.
Jackson glanced over his shoulder toward the east. The gray on the horizon said dawn wasn’t far off.
A key. That was what he needed. He always kept a spare one on him, never presuming his staff to keep to his irregular hours as a Home Agent.
Of course, his servants knew nothing of his connection with the government.
A libertine coxcomb, if he had to imagine their perspectives of his coming in at all hours and in constant states of torn clothing—altercations with numerous blades and fists, in all fairness, but he wasn’t about to share that fact with those individuals in charge of darning his wardrobe.
“Are we to stand out here freezing our toes off the rest of the night?” Anna asked beside him, her mouth set in a sardonic line.
He was unable to resist teasing, “Shall I remove your boots and rub the feeling back into them?”
She smiled, the scary one. “Only if you desire a kick to the teeth.”
He shouldn’t find the idea of her naked toes—or the loss of enamel—so enticing. “As soon as I find the key, I will see to your toes . . . with a warm fire.”
He padded his pockets. Cold metal in his lower vest pocket. He extracted the object with a victorious, “Huzzah—” and went hot at the ears at the pocket watch that swung from the length of chain in his hand.
Anna blinked. “Bravo, Duke. Shall we time how long it takes you to locate another useless item for the situation?”
Words most men would take for a fowl.
Jackson wasn’t most men.
He cocked a brow, his competitor’s spirit igniting at her insulting tone. “You can do better, can you?”
“With my eyes closed,” was her response.
The temptation was too great.
“Prove it.”
She smiled. Full, guileless, and as bewitching as ever.
“I’ll make you eat those words, Duke,” she vowed.
Sparks of anticipation fired in his blood. He couldn’t wait.
“Hold this.” She shoved her reticule into his hands as she loosened the drawstring. But ten seconds before she pulled out the strangest-looking lockpick tool—two different-sized nails fused together?—and bent so the door’s lock was eyelevel.
She turned her head, her gaze piercing even in the shadows of the townhouse. And then the fierce green disappeared under her lids as she did, indeed, close her eyes.
A brush of her fingers over the hole in the door before she guided her tool into the lock. A quick twist. More guiding with her other hand. Two more twists.
She couldn’t mean to—
Clunk.
Anna’s eyes popped open. She straightened, and that bright smile of hers brimmed with light. “How was my time, Duke?”
Jackson stared. ‘Time’? How could he be bothered to check his watch when she was his own personal sun? “You unlocked the door with a nail,” he said stupidly, looking again at the tool in her hand. “Is that handmade?”
That smile of hers turned sly. Two gloved fingers placed on the side of the door. “It is,” she said, pushing.
The door opened on silent hinges, revealing the intricate black-and-white tiles of the foyer in the dim gray light.
He remained rooted to the spot. She used to practice opening the back gate that divided the Grandfellow estate from the neighboring lands when they’d been children.
He’d stand on the other side talking to her as he’d waited for her to get the latch to unlock.
Ten minutes, sometimes fifteen if it was a dark night.
They’d never risked bringing a lamp, knowing any flickering light would be visible from the house.
Not only was she making her own tools . .
. Eyes closed, it hadn’t been thirty seconds before the lock had given this time.
Not any old, rusty lock meant to keep poachers and farmers’ children from trespassing on the duke’s lands.
This had been a top-of-the-line lock manufactured by The Chubb Lock Company all the way up in Wolverhampton. Said to be unpickable.
Admiration swirled in his belly with something that might have been regret. “Your lockpicking has gotten better.”
Of course it had.
Her father had been hailed as the greatest locksmith in England before he’d died, his genius and expertise in constant demand.
The reason Anna had often been left in the care of a trusted, elderly chaperone in the village that was not too far from Grandfellow.
And the reason Anna had never been caught sneaking out to meet the local lord’s son in the middle of the night.
But Anna was nothing if not observant. Little chance she hadn’t learned everything there was to know about locks—and lockpicking—from her father when he had returned in between commissions. A true master craftsman. Like father, like daughter.
All locks of London, beware!
She returned her tool to her reticule and tilted her head. “No lecture on such unladylike hobbies prepared, Duke?”
“They aren’t standard scripts,” he said, coming back to himself. “I can give it a go, if you wish?”
“This should be good.”
He cleared his throat, needing no rehearsal to tell the truth. “That was magnificent.”
She turned away as if displeased, but her lips were turned upward. “Someone needs to take you aside and inform you a lecture should not be so complimentary.”
“Excuse me!” He puffed out his chest in mock affront. “Who is giving the lecture here?”
“You, oh, faultless lord.”
“The most infamous criminal couldn’t have picked better,” he went on.
She snorted. “Now I do feel a sudden urge to repent.”
Perish the thought.
Jackson’s good humor returned. “How convenient, we shall never be locked out of the house again.”
“Speak for yourself, Duke.” There was a sly tilt to her mouth. “I could be persuaded to render my services, however, for a fee.”
He laughed. “You’d charge me?”
“You can afford it.”
“We can afford it.”
“Hmm.” She stepped into the house, and that cocky grin of hers disappeared, replaced with wide eyes and parted lips.
Moonlight cast everything in pale light: marble floors; large, round table holding a stylized clock with a gold-rimmed face; tall dome ceiling housing a crystal chandelier it took over an hour to light. Opulent, yes. Excessive? Indubitably.
As soon as dawn broke, the hand-painted frescos on the wall would come alive in vivid color, the classic scenes a common theme throughout the house.
“Well?” he asked.
She stared up at the chandelier as she circled below. “I want to say it is appallingly gauche.”
“But . . .”
She stopped and threw him a look. “It is appallingly gauche.”
He chuckled, the surfaces around him taking on new life with her in view. “Shall we continue our battle in the library?”
Her brow quirked at his motion to indicate the door at the end of the hall. “Eager for your utter defeat, Duke?”
“I’m far more intelligent than that,” he said.
“Your surrender, then?”
He shook his head. No one could argue like Anna. Less an argument and more a one-sided brawl.
“I believe I’ll hold off flying the white flag until you’ve told me why you were at the gaming hell.”
She stiffened. “And if I told you it was all a misunderstanding?”
“I’d eat my hat willingly.”
There was a slight puckering between her brows. Her tell.
He sighed. Ridiculous to be disappointed he wouldn’t be dining on black silk tonight. “Come. I believe I’ll need a drink to get through the next assault.”
Her booted feet clipped against the tiles as she followed him down the hall. “I hope you have better luck with your liquor consumption, Duke, than you do your debating skills?”
Jackson stopped in front of the library door and turned with his hand on his chest. “My dear Miss Greene, your barbs are positively vicious.”