Chapter Twenty-Six
IN SEMIDARKNESS, MICKEY slumped against the back of the chair, his eyes half-lidded as though they could no longer bear the weight of the day.
He couldn’t even summon the wherewithal to light a lamp or a candle.
Though bone tired and craving his bed, his mind refused to quieten, the highs and the lows of the past few hours a nauseous swirl inside him, their sharp edges digging into his soft, tender places.
But at least it had ended on a high. Thanks to Lady Luck, a litter of blasted piglets, and the combined efforts of Ashington’s bloody Eight, Valentin was free, and nothing else mattered.
Wherever Valentin was now—and Mickey prayed to God it was halfway across the choppy winter seas en route to France—he was very much alive.
Tears, unbidden and warm, slipped down Mickey’s cheeks as he bent over to unfasten his boots, then eased them off, taking care with his healing ankle.
Valentin had only visited Mickey’s rooms once, yet already, they felt quieter and emptier than they should.
His cravat came next; for a moment, he studied the plain metal tiepin resting in his palm.
In wonder, he shook his head. Three guards and three pearls, one for each.
Payment in exchange for looking the other way.
And a damned silver tiepin for the clasp of his shackles.
Slippery? Yes. As coal tar soap.
Mickey stumbled to his feet, feeling older than his years. He let his trousers fall to the floor and left them pooled there. Stepping out of them, he unfastened his sleeve buttons. Elation battled with weariness, with emptiness mixed in the pot too. Valentin was alive but gone.
Brushing away his tears, Mickey heaved a sigh.
Tomorrow, he would rise from his bed at the same hour he always did.
He’d plant his feet on the wooden floorboards, cold beneath him, and ablute at his wash bowl, scrubbing away the final remnants of the night.
He’d dress, probably with more haste than he now undressed, and go about his business downstairs.
And everything would be as it was before.
Mickey cast a final glance around. He used to like these rooms. The garret of a bedchamber and a tiny salon with a closed off area screening the privy weren’t much.
He didn’t have many possessions either—hadn’t needed them—but what he had were his, and he’d once been attached to them. Proud of them.
Gathering up his own tiepin and sleeve buttons, Mickey hunched over on the edge of the bed.
Perhaps after he put them away, he’d choose a book from his bookcase and read a few pages of something.
Perhaps it would soothe his mind, lull him to sleep.
With that decided, he reached towards the wooden box on his chevet and lifted it into his lap.
Until the box rattled, he didn’t notice it felt heavier than usual.
Too preoccupied with his own head, he didn’t especially remark upon the rattle either, not really.
Not until it rattled again when it should have been empty.
Ra-ta-ta, ra-ta-ta. Mickey didn’t own another set of sleeve buttons, nor another tiepin, so he took good care of the ones he had, putting them away in the box each night.
Gently, Mickey gave the box another shake.
Ra-ta-ta, ra-ta-ta. His heart stilled for a beat.
Not empty. The box didn’t have a key; it certainly didn’t have a complicated Chubb key.
The simple metal catch on Mickey’s box would struggle to tax a small child for more than half a minute.
A skilled jewel thief would manoeuvre it open in less than a second.
Slipping unseen into the back entrance of Squire’s, for example, would be a far trickier undertaking.
If Mickey were a skilled jewel thief, he’d pay a street urchin to momentarily divert Sidney’s attention to the front door.
Running up the backstairs would take a few more seconds, especially if one added in a touch of hesitation at the top, careful to select the correct turn along the dark passageway.
But if one had visited before, even just once, one might remember the route.
When Mickey held it still in his lap, the box stopped rattling.
Instead of opening it and placing them inside, he put his ordinary sleeve buttons and plain tiepin on the chevet, setting them down carefully, so as not to send one rolling across the floor and under the bed. Then he squeezed his eyes shut.
There are artisans in Florence so skilled, I swear they could create diamonds from drops of rain.
Dry-mouthed, Mickey opened his eyes. He opened his soul, too, up to God; he prayed his jewel thief be delivered safely to his home at Verdille.
He prayed that the lavender fields remained verdant, that the stream still gurgled, and the chimneys still smoked.
He prayed that the French skylarks still soared high above, creating beautiful music.
Slippery? Yes. As coal tar soap.
And then, with trembling fingers, Mickey opened the box.
Blinking, winking, and glittering back at him, lay all seven of the Duke of Ashington’s brilliant, sparkling diamonds. Between them, the sapphires shimmered like the surface of midnight seas. The two earbobs—twin bursts of violet and cobalt—rippled as if Mickey had rudely jerked them awake.
“Hello, London.”
Low, sultry, and familiar, that voice would forever do peculiar things to Mickey’s heart. Right now, it threatened to stop it dead. As the screen in the corner of Mickey’s room shifted, the solid floor beneath his feet fell away.
“Valentin?” Urgently, Mickey felt for the bed behind him. Hysteria tickled the edges of his throat; he didn’t know whether to surrender to the gleeful madness of it or collapse under the crushing ache of seeing his lover’s smiling face as he strolled towards him from behind the screen.
“You…you are not in France” was all he managed, and even that was a struggle.
“Not yet. A merchant boat headed for Le Havre leaves Thames docks later tonight. I have secured passage on it.”
“But you are not there now.” Though Mickey’s mouth formed the words, it felt as if someone else spoke them.
“I am waiting for cover of darkness; I have but an hour. I had something very important to do first.”
Mickey dragged his gaze back to the box. “This. This is the original Ashington parure.”
“Yes.”
“You came to return it to its rightful owner. The duke.”
“That as well. I mean, yes. Perhaps.” Valentin shrugged his beautiful Gallic shrug. “Though, to me, it is a task of far lesser importance.”
Than what? For a second, Mickey couldn’t make sense of it, and then Valentin was there, arms outstretched, pulling him up from the bed, pulling Mickey towards him.
Pulling him in, flooding Mickey’s senses in one overwhelming wave.
On instinct, his hands found their way around Valentin’s back, fingers digging into the fabric of his coat.
“Oh God,” he half sobbed into his lover’s warm chest.
Tightly, Valentin crushed Mickey to him, so tightly Mickey felt he might not draw another breath. He couldn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
“I came because I had to say goodbye. How could I not?”
“It is dangerous. Surely, they are searching for you.”
Valentin took Mickey’s shoulders in his warm grip. His forehead rested against Mickey’s. “Holding you again, my love, is worth the risk.”
He cupped Mickey’s face in his hands. He brushed a lock of Mickey’s hair back from his temple. His breath caressed Mickey’s ear before he inhaled Mickey’s scent.
“My London,” he sighed, just once, and then his warm, tender mouth pressed against Mickey’s in a kiss.
One which started soft and then went firm and then ardent, turning into the kind of kiss during which the parure could be pilfered from its box and Squire’s club burn to the ground without Tommy’s second in command noticing.
When they briefly parted for much needed air, Valentin eased Mickey back onto the bed, still kissing him as if he was already missing him.
The next time they surfaced to breathe, Valentin’s tongue licked against the underside of Mickey’s chin before roaming down the line of his throat to the notch of his collarbone.
His faint whiskers tickled against Mickey’s skin, and his hands pushed at Mickey’s linen until it was bunched up around his chest. And then Valentin laughed.
“Given that I am pressed for time, it is considerate of you to be already mostly unclothed.”
Valentin wriggled from his tailcoat and tossed it to the floor. He loosened his cravat. He loosened his trousers, too, shoving them down low enough to straddle Mickey.
“My beautiful London,” he whispered, devouring Mickey’s bare flesh with his eyes. With the very tip of his finger, he touched the wetness already dripping from Mickey’s cock and brought it to his lips. “How exquisitely you were created, just for me.”