Chapter Two
Jacqueline.
Jacqueline.
Jacqueline.
Byron kept repeating the minx’s name in his head as he made his obligatory rounds, his distant smile and vague salutations allowing him to move from group to group while his gaze performed a continuous search for bewitching green eyes and tendrils the color of flame.
But if his elusive quarry was amidst the crowd of society’s elite, she was either excellent at hiding .
. . or possessed the power of invisibility along with her mischievous charm.
When his circling brought him shoulder to shoulder with his host at the lemonade bowl, his artificial smile deepened into a genuine grin as the two men shook hands.
“Ambrose,” he said, a decade of casual friendship permitting the use of the Duke of Southwick’s given name. “Your son put on quite a performance.”
Ambrose snorted. “Henry is more tone deaf than I am, if such a thing is possible. But Mara insists that he play a musical instrument and the violin teacher quit last week, so here we are. You’re a good sport for attending. How is your mother?”
“Enjoying the ocean breeze in Brighton. I just returned yesterday from visiting her.”
“And what was it before that? Trout fishing in Warwickshire?”
“Weymouth,” Byron corrected. “I did invite you.”
The duke ran his hand through ebony hair that had begun to silver at the temples. “It was Emily’s second birthday,” he said, referring to his youngest child. “We had a picnic at the castle. Very important business.”
Only eight years separated Byron from Ambrose, but given how different their lives were, it might as well have been a hundred. Once a renowned bachelor, the Duke of Southwick was now a committed husband and devoted father while the only thing Byron remained committed to was his independence.
To the growing frustration of nearly every mother in the ton, including his own, he had no interest in marrying.
Even less in producing an heir. Shouldering the responsibility of his title and the various properties that came along with it was more than enough to occupy his time.
He didn’t need to add a wife into the mix.
Particularly if that wife came from High Society’s current crop of vapid, self-absorbed debutantes.
Jacqueline.
While his attendance at social events had been admittedly infrequent due to his general disdain of, well, socializing, he was sure that he’d have remembered if their paths had crossed before.
She wasn’t the kind of woman a man forgot easily, if ever.
But if she wasn’t a debutante, then who was she?
A governess, perhaps, with a taste for fine whisky.
Or a lady’s maid that had strayed too far from her lady.
“My beautiful wife beckons,” Ambrose announced, his eyes taking on a distinct glow of unbridled adoration and pride as he gazed at his duchess across the crowded parlor. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Of course.” Absently reaching into his jacket for his flask to improve the taste of the watery lemonade, Byron frowned when his hand closed on nothing but a stray thread and a piece of peppermint reserved for his horse.
He must have put the flask in his left pocket by mistake.
But when that, too, revealed itself to be empty, his confusion was rapidly replaced with incredulous disbelief.
Jacqueline.
Why, that brazen little thief!
She’d lured him in with her big eyes and her velvety voice, all the while plotting to steal from him.
Was she even a guest here, or nothing more than a conniving opportunist?
It did explain why she’d disappeared so quickly.
But how the devil was he supposed to get his flask back?
Aside from its sentimental value as a family heirloom passed down from his great-great-grandfather, it was the principle of the matter.
He’d shared with her in good faith, and how had she repaid his kindness?
By robbing him! A risk one took upon themselves if they were bold enough to take a stroll through St Giles, but not in Grosvenor Square.
Grinding his teeth together, he returned to the scene of the crime, but a second search of the garden yielded no better results than the first. Jacqueline—if that was even her real name—was gone, along with his flask.
Bidding a curt farewell to his host and hostess, he retrieved his horse, a retired thoroughbred steeplechaser with a penchant for peppermints, and swung his leg over the saddle.
But instead of directing the gelding toward home, a terraced townhouse on Wimpole Street, he turned left and headed for Covent Garden, instead, where the streets were bustling with carriages and the spring air carried the distinct scent of brackish water from the Thames.
Handing his horse off to a stable boy who excitedly pocketed the shilling that Byron tossed to him with the promise of another if he came back out to a horse that had been groomed and watered, he knocked on a nondescript black door and, giving his calling card, was promptly admitted into a private office dominated by a large mahogany desk covered with neatly stacked piles of paper.
Paintings on the far wall depicted scenes of battle, while the near was filled with bookshelves.
Helping himself to a heavy tome on the penal law for the Kingdom of Bavaria, he was halfway through a chapter discussing the merits of imprisonment versus capital punishment when the door opened and Robert Briar, captain of the Bow Street Runners, walked in.
A short man with a deceptively mild expression and the jowls of a hound, Mr. Briar had first made Byron’s acquaintance two years ago after a group of jewel thieves had sent the ton into a blind panic and the Runners had gone door to door to reassure the uneasy noble class that the case would be brought to a swift conclusion.
While Byron hadn’t been concerned in the least—he had no jewelry to steal—he’d invited Mr. Briar into his drawing room for a brief respite and the two men had engaged in a lively conversation over their mutual interest in horse racing.
The thieves were apprehended a week later, the ton moved on to another scandal, and Byron hadn’t thought of the Bow Street Runners since . . . until this afternoon, when an impertinent, bewitching redhead had taken what belonged to him.
“Your Grace.” Mr. Briar gave a cursory inclination of his head before he sat behind his desk and flipped open a worn, leatherbound notebook to a blank page. “How can I be of service?”
The captain’s pen scratched across the parchment as Byron told him about the events leading up to his arrival at No. 4 Bow Street. He even included his brief discussion with Ambrose, but left out Henry’s terrible pianoforte playing, as it didn’t seem terribly relevant.
“. . . when I realized my flask was missing, I went to the garden, but Jacqueline was gone. Then I came straight here.” He shifted in his chair.
“While the flask is of little monetary importance, it does have significant personal worth and I would like its prompt return as well as the true identity of the woman who stole it.”
The pen made a few more scribbled lines of black, then lifted. “Can you describe this woman in more detail? How tall was she? What was she wearing? Her approximate age? Any defining birthmarks or distinguishing physical characteristics that you could plainly see?”
“She came up to my shoulder with a slight build. She was wearing a pink dress. No, yellow.” Truth be told, Byron had been too busy gazing at her countenance like a besotted fool to take much notice of her attire aside from a short, subtle glance down at her lovely breasts.
Those, he recalled quite clearly, had been framed with a strip of scalloped lace.
“I would say one and twenty, or thereabouts. She had freckles, here.” He lightly pinched the bridge of his nose.
“And her hair was the red of a sunset before a storm.”
Mr. Briar’s brow raised every-so-slightly. “Did she give you a surname?”
“No, just Jacqueline. But she could have made it up for all I know. She was . . .” His mind worked to conjure the right word.
How did you describe lightning in a bottle?
The blinding spark of it. The jolt of electricity.
The breathtaking beauty of nature in its wildest form.
“Unique. Both in appearance and demeanor. I’ve never met anyone quite like her before. ”
“Committing a robbery in such an intimate setting, particularly in the middle of the day, is unusual,” the captain agreed. “Are you certain the flask was stolen and not . . . misplaced?”
It was Byron’s turn to lift a brow. “I’m certain.”
“And you’re never made her acquaintance, even in passing.”
“I would have remembered if I had.”
“Then it appears we have a random act of crime. Unusual, given that what was taken. A cravat pin or a timepiece would make more sense from a pecuniary point of view. But I have learned in this line of work that motive is not always dictated by money. People steal for all kinds of reasons. Love. Revenge. Even boredom.” Mr. Briar tapped his pen on the desk.
“Did you ask the Duke and Duchess of Southwick if they had invited her? That would be the simplest way to learn her true identity.”
“Did I ask my esteemed hosts if they’d invited a common thief to their son’s recital?” Byron asked dryly. “No, I did not. I would like this matter to be handled professionally and discreetly. That is why I am here.”
“I can take the case, Your Grace. I don’t anticipate it will take long, given your detailed description and the number of witnesses who could potentially identify our suspect.” The captain closed his notebook. “Discretion, however, is an additional fee.”
“I’ll pay whatever it takes.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I want my flask returned, and I want to look Jacqueline—or whoever the hell she is—in the eye when she returns it.”
“Then consider it done.”