“Of course. I’ll go.” She dove for the window, hooking her legs over in record time and jumping to the ground with an ungraceful thud. She straightened, standing between the two houses, but before she could look up at Westman’s window and contemplate the fool she’d been or her lost opportunity to find the treasure map, the window slammed shut and the lock fell into place.
Josie climbed through her own window and closed the drapes, but when she stepped back into the library, she felt as though the ground beneath her feet was crumbling away, inch by inch. She stood on the edge of a vast precipice, and she wasn’t sure it would have been too much of a tragedy if she’d fallen in and disappeared forever.
STEPHEN STOOD BEHIND the drapes in his library, one hand fingering the heavy brocade. He’d seen the girl land safely beneath his window before shutting the sight of her out. He heard her scrambling across the way, and flicked the drapes open a half-inch with one finger.
There she went, her round bottom disappearing over the window casement. When she was safely inside, he allowed the material to close again and stepped away.
Maharajah, who had been sitting under the desk, awaiting his master’s command to attack, trotted over and licked Stephen’s hand. Stephen patted him absently before lifting the lamp and carrying it out of the study and upstairs. But when he reached the landing, instead of turning right, to his own bedchamber, he turned left, walking all the way down to the far end of the hall, where he never ventured. He paused before a large painting and raised the lamp to shed a beam of light on the man pictured there.
James Doubleday, his grandfather, had been a handsome man. He had the blond haired, blue-eyed good looks of most of the Doubleday family. Like the men who had carried his name, James had an easy smile and a look of affability. Stephen peered closer to the portrait and saw the date of the painting was 1760. Those were the days when his grandfather and Nathan Hale had been sailing the high seas, wreaking havoc on the Dutch and Spanish ships.
The painting had been done only three years before James would be shot dead. What the hell did the man have to look so cheerful about?
Stephen stared harder at the picture, but try as he might, he could see no resemblance to himself in the young man painted on the canvas. In his youth— and Stephen had to laugh at the sad fact that at thirty-two years of age, he was no longer in his youth—he had often been told he was his grandfather all over again. His brother, James, might have born the physical resemblance, but Stephen had all of the spirit and passion for life that his grandfather had possessed.
This comparison had not always been given in such a complimentary fashion. Stephen’s father, the late Lord Westman, had called Stephen’s womanizing, gambling, and constant state of drunkenness a disgrace to the family. His mother had come away from reading tidbits about her younger son in the morning papers with red-rimmed eyes. In those years, she never called him a disgrace.
She’d never needed to.
His parents might hate him for shaming the family, but even their disgust was better than the indifference they’d showed when he was a child.
James was the golden son, and if Stephen couldn’t be golden, he’d be black.
The Doubleday’s black sheep had consoled himself with the knowledge that through his grandfather, he came by his dissolute life honestly. His friends loved him, the women adored him, and what would the ton do for gossip if he were not there to cause one scandal after another? But Stephen supposed that the sweltering, diseased, filth of India would cure any man of his predilection for scandal and attention.
And then his brother had died. When Stephen returned to England, prepared to assume the title and responsibilities of earl, he’d been a man who wanted nothing but Society’s respect.
He wanted to forget his past and become the man his father and mother had always wanted him to be. He relished the opportunity to restore the Doubleday name and fortune. The ton didn’t think he could do it. No wonder, as he’d been the one to lose most of it at the faro tables. But Stephen knew better than most that the ton was full of fools. Stephen’s grandfather had built the family fortune. How appropriate that Stephen would be the one to restore it.
He lowered the lamp, thrusting his grandfather’s portrait back into darkness, where it belonged. God help him if he allowed one pixie-faced girl to dredge up the past again, to send him on a wild chase for pirate treasure that didn’t even exist. Investments, the Doubleday estates . . . that was where his fortune lay.
He paced along the hallway until he reached his room, thrust open the door, and, setting the lamp on the table, fell onto the bed. He had no valet— though he could probably afford one now—and so he need not worry about being interrupted.
He stared up at the deep purple tester. He’d heard stories of the pirate treasure before. He’d even believed some of them, when he’d been particularly drunk. But he hadn’t ever seriously considered that the treasure might be hidden somewhere, waiting for him to find it. Stephen rubbed his temples and tried to recall the old story.
His grandfather and Hale had supposedly stolen a fortune in gold doubloons from one of the Spanish ships. On the voyage back to England, they’d sailed their ship into a hidden cove and hidden half the treasure.
It was a wonderful tale, and Stephen had begged his nurses to tell it to him when he’d been a small lad. But as he’d told Josephine Hale, it was a bedtime story. He closed his eyes, and her face came clearly into view. She had seemed so sure of herself, though. Her small face with its pert nose had radiated confidence when she’d talked of the treasure. And Stephen found that he could not so easily dismiss the myth of the treasure now.
Did Josephine Hale, Nathan Hale’s granddaughter, know something Stephen did not? Something had driven her to climb into his window tonight. But perhaps she climbed into men’s windows all the time? She was no novice window-climber. She’d had experience. Considerable experience.
She’d said she’d come because she wanted to take a lover. He snorted. A woman who looked like her could certainly find a lover without going to the trouble of climbing through his window. There were younger men, handsomer men, richer men.
Unless she had come to him because she had an ulterior motive. Unless she’d come because she thought he knew something about the treasure. Stephen sat up and pushed his hair out of his eyes. He was James Doubleday’s grandson, and she was Nathan Hale’s granddaughter. He supposed if anyone knew the secret of the treasure it was the two of them. Actually, if anyone knew the secret of the treasure, it was probably Josephine Hale. While Stephen had never known his grandfather, Miss Hale had reportedly known hers quite well. He’d lived a good forty years after James Doubleday’s death. Had he told his granddaughter something, given her something that revealed the secret of the treasure?
Stephen knew the idea was ludicrous. There was no treasure. It was a myth. A fable. But, goddamn it all to hell, what if it wasn’t?
What if there was a fortune in gold doubloons waiting for him? He’d more than restore his family’s finances then. He’d double them. As quick as the flash of gold from one of those doubloons, he’d be redeemed in the eyes of the ton, and more importantly, his family. His older brother’s name would no longer be revered. Stephen would be known not as the rake and the dissolute son, but as the man who’d saved the Doubleday name from ruin.
But Josephine Hale . . .
How was Stephen to put his faith in that willow of a girl, a girl known for her recklessness, her impulsivity, and the behavior of her equally outlandish cousins? What kind of woman was she? She couldn’t even be twenty, and yet she’d had the audacity to creep into his home and then proceed to make him an indecent proposal. What kind of woman did that sort of thing?
Stephen flopped back on the bed again.
Just the sort of woman that had always attracted him. But had he learned nothing from the past? Had his sins and those who’d paid for them taught him so little? Josephine Hale was the kind of woman that encouraged a man to sin. With that luscious mouth and that mischievous smile, those long, lithe legs and huge green eyes, she was the kind of woman he could bed again and again and never tire of.
She was trouble.
