Chapter Twenty-Six #3
Valentin stared up at the ceiling, a small smile playing at his lips.
“It happened the night I took up Talybridge’s offer of temporary accommodations at their lodgings in Florence.
I had spent the entire evening ensuring Mr Chesterton and Talybridge were too well oiled to oversee the parure stowed away.
By the time he retired to bed, Talybridge could barely recall his own name, never mind confirm his diamonds were in a Chubb safe.
And, after imbibing the best part of a bottle of brandy, Chesterton’s snores would have been audible from as far away as the Duomo.
In the dead of night, I paid a visit to a sleeping Miss Amelia’s bedchamber.
The parure was lying in a jewellery box on her dressing table. ”
Mickey grinned. “You visited Miss Amelia’s bedchamber?”
Valentin put a finger over his lips. “Shhh. It is our secret. Willoughby must never know.”
They kissed, long and slow. Time ran through their fingers. Already, Valentin was withdrawing; Mickey sensed it. Soon, all he’d have left of his lover would be the parure and bittersweet memories.
“Surely they ransacked your rooms at Albany after you were arrested?” Mickey fondled the necklace, picturing Ashington’s delight at its return. “And found nothing. How did you hide it from them for all of this time?”
Valentin gave him a last lingering kiss. Mickey tried to hold on to the taste of it. “I didn’t.” Mickey felt his smile around the kiss. “You did, mon coeur.”
Mickey pushed him away. “I…what?”
“It was here all the time. Secreted behind one of your travel books.” He jerked his chin towards Mickey’s small bookcase. “That one, the lesser-thumbed, heavy tome full of endless maps of Europe. You see it? Bound in red leather. I placed it there when I first visited your bedchamber.”
“But you hardly knew me! What if I had selected to read that one and discovered it?”
Valentin shrugged. “I took a chance on trusting you. And you should take a look at that book sometime. Some of those old maps are truly fascinating; I don’t speak with any particular expertise, but many of the French ones are not as imprecise as one would first believe.”
At that moment, the maps could lead to a pirate’s treasure chest for all Mickey cared. “But how could you be sure that one day I’d invite you into my bedchamber once more to retrieve them?”
Valentin’s gaze flicked down to his groin. “I have never described myself as a modest man.”
“You have very little to be modest about. But I may have still discovered it.”
“You may,” Valentin conceded. “And you would have done the right thing by taking the parure to Tommy Squire, who would have discussed it with Ashington, who would have recognised it instantly and then paid me a visit.”
“If that had happened, Ashington could have made life here in London very uncomfortable for you.”
“Perhaps. But the duke loathes scandal—you’ve said so yourself.” Valentin shrugged. “I think we would have contrived to come to some sort of arrangement. I would have divulged what I knew regarding Talybridge and my father, and we would have avenged the marquess some other way.”
When Valentin put it like that, hiding the parure with Mickey, a virtual stranger, didn’t seem such a terrible idea after all.
“So why didn’t you approach the duke first?” he asked. “Once you arrived in London?”
“I wanted the proof of the letter in Talybridge’s safe,” Valentin explained. “So that my father could safely return.” He threw Mickey a naughty look. “And I…must admit, when I stole the original parure in Florence, it was not with the intention of…ah…ever returning it to its rightful owner.”
Mickey was an ass. Of course. Valentin was an inveterate thief, not a saint. His mission had been his father’s safe return and more money than a man could ever spend. “But you are doing so now,” he observed.
“Yes.” Valentin toyed with Mickey’s fingers.
“As I believe I have already mentioned, my appetite for thieving has been quite ruined.” He flashed Mickey a smile.
“Mostly. But that parure has caused enough misery. I’m not sure any good would come of owning it, nor from money gleaned by breaking it up and selling the gemstones.
It is best that the thing is returned to Ashington’s safe for good. ”
With a final kiss to Mickey’s forehead, Valentin carefully detached himself. He sat on the side of the bed, refastening his trousers. Mickey turned his head away, hardly able to look.
“Come with me, Mickey? If not now, soon. When you have missed me too much to bear my absence any longer.”
Mickey shook his head as a tear made its way down his cheek, uninvited. “I wouldn’t know how to find you.”
“Yes, you do.” Valentin indicated the bookcase. “You have maps, atlases, travel journals. Listen. This—you, us—is worth a thousand priceless parures. Saying goodbye to you now tears the heart from my body.”
“I feel it too.” Mickey’s throat closed over. “But for now, it is the only way.”
Valentin stood. “For now? Then this is not goodbye, London, so I shall not draw our parting out any longer. This is merely au revoir.”