When You Wish Page 3

  “Indeed?” His voice was mild, but Sarah sensed a flare of amusement at her firm announcement.

  “You know who I am,” she said without apology. “You also know my childhood was decidedly untraditional.”

  “Yes.”

  “If I am to help you, then you must not question my methods nor attempt to interfere.”

  “You quite frighten me, Miss Cresswell.” His lips twitched as he stretched out his legs and crossed his glossy boots at the ankles. “Do you intend to be thoroughly dishonorable?”

  Sarah was hard-pressed not to allow herself to smile. He might be aggravating, condescending, and arrogant to a fault, but she could not deny he possessed his share of charm.

  “Not at all,” she denied with what she hoped was her usual calm demeanor. “But I will be forced to travel through neighborhoods you would not approve of and at times pretend to be someone I am not.”

  His dark gaze made a thorough inspection of her well-defined features, lingering an odd moment on the generous curve of her mouth. “Why have you agreed to help me?” he abruptly demanded.

  Unprepared for the question, Sarah gave a startled blink. “Lord Scott asked me,” she said simply.

  “And you always do what he asks of you?”

  Sarah felt herself stiffen. She had no intention of discussing her relationship with Lord Scott with anyone. It was one of the few secrets she possessed, and one she intended to keep. “That is really none of your concern.”

  His gaze narrowed at her sharp tone, but, as if realizing she would not be pressed into confessing more, he gracefully retreated. Not that she believed for a moment that he had abandoned his curiosity. He was simply too wise for a frontal assault.

  “Very well.” He met her gaze squarely. “I have a few requests of my own.”

  Sarah was not at all surprised. It would be an ongoing battle for control.

  “What are they?”

  “I wish to be included in every aspect of the search.”

  Sarah gave a faint frown. For heaven’s sake, she did not wish to be forever tripping over this gentleman. It would be bad enough to endure the occasional encounter. “You would only be in the way,” she assured him in stern tones.

  He dismissed her less than flattering remark with an elegant wave of his pale hand. “An unfortunate inconvenience, I fear. I will not waver from this point.”

  “You do not trust me?” she charged.

  He pointedly glanced toward the diamond pin lying on the table. “You have effectively assured me I should trust no one.”

  This time Sarah could not prevent her impulsive laugh. “Touché.”

  His dark gaze appeared to be captured by the sudden lightening of her features. Then, with the faintest shake of his dark head, he slowly leaned forward. “Be assured, my dear, that while the Chance diamonds are quite valuable, my sole concern is protecting my mother from unnecessary heartbreak. I will do whatever necessary to assure her peace of mind.”

  She did not doubt his sincerity. He clearly cared a great deal about Lady Chance. “Very commendable.”

  “I must have those diamonds before Christmas.”

  “I shall do my best.”

  “As shall I.” Lord Chance smoothly rose to his feet and crossed to Sarah. “I will return tomorrow.”

  Her eyes widened.

  She had not agreed to allow him to be involved in her investigation. Certainly she did not wish to have him trailing behind her, interfering in her business. But the distinct challenge in his midnight gaze made her hold her tongue. He seemed to dare her to decline his presence, as if she were uncertain of her skill.

  Sarah predictably bristled with annoyance. She might not always appreciate her odd upbringing, but she did know she possessed all the skills necessary to retrieve the diamonds. She would show this gentleman she was more than a match for a common thief. “Very well, my lord.”

  His first genuine smile softened his features as he slowly reached down to grasp her hand and lift it to his lips. “You are quite an extraordinary woman, Miss Cresswell,” he murmured. Then, as Sarah sat there stunned by his unpredictable behavior, he turned to leave the room.

  Absently rubbing her hand, which tingled from the heat of his lips, she decided Lord Scott had a great deal to answer for.

  Surely he had realized Lord Chance was precisely the sort of gentleman to stir her usually placid temperament.

  But then, perhaps that had been his intention, she acknowledged with a flare of insight. On how many occasions had he chastised her for being far too content with her independence for a lady of five and twenty? He charged her brisk competency frightened away prospective suitors.

  Sarah had always dismissed his lectures. It did not matter if her independence or her connection to the Devilish Dandy had kept any prospective suitors far from her door. She had learned to accept her role as a spinster and was determined to be content with her lot. After all, she had her home, her work at a local school for the underprivileged, and, of course, her younger sisters, Emma and Rachel.

  Her life was quite filled, she assured herself, and the last thing she desired or needed was a gentleman such as Lord Chance creating difficulties.

  With a suddenly brisk motion, Sarah rose to her feet. Good heavens, what was she thinking? Lord Chance would hardly be in her life long enough to create difficulties. Once she had located the Chance diamonds, she would never view his handsome face again. A thought, she assured herself, that filled her with absolute joy.

  Ignoring the diamond stickpin still lying on the table, Sarah moved from the room. She certainly possessed more productive things to do with her time than brood upon Lord Chance. Turning toward the stairs that led to her chambers, she was abruptly halted by the distinct sound of whistling coming from her small library.

  More startled than frightened, Sarah promptly veered to cross the hall and step into the narrow room lined with bookcases and boasting a fine Louis XIV writing desk.

  “Watts?” she called, expecting the always alert butler to be hovering near in the event she might need his ready fist. It was not Watts, however, who suddenly stepped from behind the velvet curtain.

  Sarah stood frozen in shock. The gentleman had changed since she had last clapped eyes upon him. His tall frame was leaner, his brown hair streaked with gray had grown longer and was gathered at the neck with a black ribbon, a full mustache covered his upper lip, and a black satin eye patch was placed over one eye. But for all the changes there was no mistaking the Devilish Dandy. “Father.”

  “Good morning, my dearest.” He offered her an elegant bow.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Although not precisely a handsome man, Solomon Cresswell possessed a rakish air and an elegance of style that had allowed him to charm his way into the highest circles of Society. Attired in a striped coat with a fall of lace at his wrists and in shoes with jeweled buckles, he appeared a veritable dandy rather than a desperate criminal in hiding.

  “You did not believe I would abandon my beloved daughters,” the intruder demanded with a distinct glint of amusement in his green eyes. Or at least in the eye he had not covered with the absurd patch.

  Her shock slowly faded, to be replaced with anger. Really, for a grown gentleman he could be remarkably foolish. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” She moved to stand in the center of the room. “If you are captured . . .”

  “Fah.” With supreme indifference, Solomon measured a pinch of snuff from his emerald-encrusted box. “Those imbecile runners will never outwit the Devilish Dandy.”

  “They have little need of wits if you deliberately walk into their arms,” Sarah said in dry tones. “I thought you had fled to India.”

  “India? Egads.” He gave a dramatic shudder. “I should as soon remain at Newgate. No, I merely left a few clumsy clues so those chasing me would blunder about while I slipped quietly into the country.”

  A sharp pang twisted Sarah’s heart at the mention of Newgate. She still awoke
in the middle of the night from dreams of her father in that horrible place. “Why did you not remain there?”

  “Really, Sarah, I presumed that you would be delighted to have the company of your father.”

  “Not when most of London would dearly love to place a noose about your neck,” she retorted.

  The Devilish Dandy merely laughed. “As charmingly blunt as ever, eh, Sarah?”

  “Merely practical.”

  Strolling forward, Solomon regarded her with a critical eye. “I see you are wearing my necklace,” he said, referring to the sapphire pendant about her neck. It had arrived shortly after his disappearance, along with an emerald pendant for Emma and a ruby pendant for Rachel. “It is just as beautiful on you as I had hoped, although I cannot say the same for that gown. Truly, my dearest, you could be a splendidly handsome woman if you would just halt this foolish notion of behaving as a spinster.”

  Sarah took no offense at her father’s chastisement. He had been forever attempting to encourage his daughters to follow in his flamboyant footsteps. Sarah and Emma had firmly resisted, preferring a quietly modest existence. Rachel, however, had inherited her father’s reckless spirit as well as his charm, a fact that had given Sarah more than one sleepless night.

  Sarah gave a faint shrug. “I am a spinster.”

  “Nonsense. You simply have not encountered a gentleman whom is capable of stealing your heart.” A speculative gleam entered his blue eyes. “Of course, if any gentleman were worthy of my daughter, it would be the Flawless Earl.”

  Sarah was forced to battle the most ridiculous urge to blush. Goodness, what was it about Lord Chance that disturbed her usual calm?

  “Lord Chance was merely here to seek my advice,” she retorted in repressive tones.

  Solomon was undaunted. “Why would a wealthy lord seek your advice?”

  “We are not discussing Lord Chance.”

  “No?”

  “No.” She placed her hands on her hips. “We are discussing your return to the country before you are discovered.”

  “Bah. I have no stomach for such bucolic surroundings.” He regarded her with an oddly knowing gaze, as if he sensed she was hiding something from him. “Besides which, I have a certain premonition you are in need of my presence.”

  “Why will you not accept that it is far too dangerous?” she demanded in exasperation.

  “What is life without danger?”

  “Peaceful.”

  “Absurd.” He dismissed her suggestion with a shrug. “Besides, I am in disguise.”

  She regarded him with raised brows. “What disguise?”

  He tapped the ridiculous eye patch. “You do not see before you the Devilish Dandy. Instead I am your Uncle Pierre recently arrived from France.” He swept an elegant bow. “Enchante, ma enfant. ”

  She gazed at him in disbelief. Although less than a handful could actually identify Solomon Cresswell with any certainty, those few would not be misled by a change of hair, a mustache, and an eye patch. It was ludicrous.

  “You must be jesting?”

  “Not at all.”

  “No one will believe you are some mythical French uncle.”

  He lifted his hand to his heart in a wounded fashion. “You underestimate my acting skills, Sarah. I can make people believe whatever I wish them to believe. It truly is a pity I did not turn my talents to the stage. I should no doubt have made Kean cry with envy.”

  Sarah gave a shake of her head. “I do not doubt your acting skills, Father, but this is no stage.”

  “Do not fear, my dearest. I shall be perfectly safe.” His expression became uncharacteristically stern. “Now tell me of Lord Chance.”

  Her father rarely used such a tone with her, preferring to allow his daughters to more or less have their way. Sarah heaved a sigh. There would be no distracting him now. “Someone stole his mother’s diamonds and he wishes to retrieve them,” she said in clipped tones.

  The Devilish Dandy gave a low whistle. “The Chance diamonds. Well, well.”

  “Do not even think of it, Father.”

  “Why, Sarah, I am wounded,” he retorted with a sniff. “You are gazing upon a reformed gentleman.”

  “Poppycock.”

  Again the room was filled with the Devilish Dandy’s laughter. “Well, perhaps not thoroughly reformed, but I will admit my brush with the noose has made me realize I was growing decidedly too old for such capers. Now I only wish to be a comfort to my daughters in my advancing years.”

  Sarah was far from convinced. Her father was a born rogue. “Very pretty.”

  “Ah, I see I shall have to prove myself.” He accepted her suspicions with ease. “My first task shall be to lend my aid in your effort to help Lord Chance.”

  Her eyes widened in dismay. The Devilish Dandy and Lord Chance together? The mere thought was enough to make her break out in a rash.

  “Absolutely not.”

  He blinked at her fierce tone. “Who better to locate a jewel thief than a jewel thief?”

  “I am perfectly capable of locating the jewels on my own ...”

  She bit off her low words as Watts abruptly stepped into the room. The butler revealed only the vaguest hint of surprise at the sight of his former master.

  “Pardon me, miss, but Mrs. Surton is here to see you. She refuses to leave.”

  “Oh ... damn.” Sarah threw her hands up in frustration. Mrs. Surton was the leading patron of the school Sarah had founded and an endless source of irritation. Not a day passed that she was not arriving upon her doorstep with some officious demand or some complaint of Sarah’s inadequacies. As a rule, Sarah accepted her unpleasant companionship with a calm grace. After all, the woman did donate a great deal of money to the school and just as importantly bullied every other matron of Society to follow her example. Sarah considered the woman’s rudeness a small price to pay for keeping the school doors open. At the moment, however, she was in little mood for the woman. “I shall have to see her.” She pointed a finger directly into her father’s thin countenance. “You stay here.”

  “But, my dear . . .”

  “Stay.”

  With one last warning glare, Sarah turned on her heel and marched from the room.

  So far today she had endured an arrogant lord, a renegade father, and now an overbearing tartar. Perhaps I should be the one to retire to the country, she acknowledged ruefully. Feeding chickens and tending a garden had never seemed so appealing.

  Three

  Mrs. Surton was a tall, gaunt woman with sour features and an unfortunate manner of speaking her mind. It was generally conceded that her timid husband had hastened to his grave to avoid her poisonous tongue, a rumor Sarah readily believed.

  Still, for all the woman’s annoying faults, Sarah could not deny her school had flourished because of Mrs. Surton’s generosity. From a cramped cellar with five students, they had moved to a refurbished warehouse with thirty students and three teachers as well as a kitchen that served a much needed meal to the poor children. Sarah had assured herself she could endure the cutting remarks and endless rudeness to save so many children from the streets. That, however, did not make it any more pleasant to receive daily visits from the obnoxious woman.

  On entering the foyer, she found Mrs. Surton bristling with impatience. As usual, she was attired in forbidding black, her thin brown hair scraped into a knot. Her narrow features could have been chiseled from stone as she watched Sarah approach.

  “Mrs. Surton,” Sarah murmured.

  The woman’s thin lips nearly disappeared. “Do you realize that ruffian you have hired as a butler attempted to have me turned away?”

  Sarah swallowed a smile. Watts had been a top bruiser in his day, knocking out no less than fifty-seven men. He had saved her father on countless occasions and had proved to be a valuable source of protection for a maiden on her own. But not even he could prove a match for Mrs. Surton. “I fear I have been suffering from a headache and requested that Watts announce that I was u
navailable.”

  Far from sympathetic, Mrs. Surton regarded her in an accusing fashion. “I never suffer from headaches. I hope you are not of a sickly constitution.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Good. It would not be at all convenient if you were always taking to bed with some malady.”

  Sarah was in full agreement. She had never pretended to be fashionably delicate, but instead maintained a robust constitution that was hardly seemly for a maiden.

  “Is there something you need?” She attempted to bring the conversation to the point of Mrs. Surton’s visit. On a normal day, she found Mrs. Surton’s presence annoying. On a day with her father just upstairs, she found her presence nerve shattering. She did not trust the Devilish Dandy any farther than she could toss him.

  Mrs. Surton sniffed at her abrupt tone, but thankfully allowed herself to be diverted. “I wished to inform you that Lady Milhouse has agreed to become a sponsor for the school.”

  Sarah did not need to pretend her flare of pleasure. Lady Milhouse was not only extremely wealthy, she was also of a social position to ensure that where she led, others would soon follow. Her patronage would certainly inspire further donations.

  “That is wonderful.”

  “Yes. It shall mean we will be able to take in at least five more students.”

  “I shall have them there by the end of the week,” Sarah promised.

  “We might also be in the position to purchase a few coats and boots for the children if we practice the utmost economy.”

  “Of course.”

  “I hope tomorrow that you . . . Oh.”

  The officious words stumbled to a halt as Mrs. Surton glanced over Sarah’s shoulder. A deep foreboding filled Sarah’s stomach as she slowly turned to view her father mincing down the stairs with a smile she knew all too well. The Devilish Dandy was intent on mischief, and there wasn’t a bloody thing she could do to halt him.

  “Ma petite,” he drawled in an outrageous French accent, “why do you hover in this so damp foyer? Surely your guest would be more comfortable in the salon?”