Ahead, Olivia happened upon a pair of vivacious twins and a scruffy little dog, the three engaged in a boisterous game of tug using a knotted scrap of rope. The twins couldn’t be more than four years old apiece. He kept an eye on the lively trio while Olivia presumably sought out a parent to secure permission to sketch the little group at play. Soon, she returned with a short, three-legged stool and began drawing to her heart’s content.
Which details would attract her artist’s eye? The single lock of hair that curled to the left across one twin’s face while curling to the right across the other’s? The way their identical smiles created identical dimples in their cheeks? The dog dancing to catch the bit of rope just beyond its reach? Had she noticed the quick darting glances between the boys signaling their next move, known only to them? A twin herself, she likely felt a kinship with the pair that few others understood.
Before long, the boys and their dog ended up in a cuddle that turned into naps for all. Olivia collected her materials and resumed her progress down the sidewalk. His feet kicked into motion behind her, and he found his gaze straying to rest on the sway of her derriere.
An unproductive thought popped into his mind: two days ago, she’d been partially clothed. It nagged at him, his haste.
She’d been thoroughly pleasured, that wasn’t in doubt, but he could’ve gone slower. He could’ve controlled the situation better. He could’ve had her naked, stripped of her clothes, layer by layer until nothing but air and his lips kissed her sensitive skin. He could’ve viewed every inch of her, touched every inch of her, gratified every inch of her . . . Once wasn’t enough topurgetheir systems of one another, even if she refused to admit it.
She didn’t need to say it. He’d seen the knowledge in her eyes yesterday.
With each passing day, she revealed a new facet of herself to him. Like a diamond, she hid her cuts in plain sight behind her sparkle.
Within minutes of first meeting her, he’d noted her depths, but he’d thought an experienced sailor, like himself, would have the ability to skim along her surface. Yet he felt his vessel taking on water, pulling him into her depths, drop by drop. If he kept to his current course, it was only a matter of time before he was entirely submerged.
Yet, the more he learned about her, the more he wanted to sink a little deeper, to discover more, convincing himself all the while that he wasn’t going too far, that he would be able to find his way back to the surface before he drowned in her.
Yesterday’s confession hadn’t helped that problem. It had only fed his growing fascination. She was more than a carnal obsession.
She wasprincipled,brave. At the same time that he wanted Mina’s path in life to be easy and clear, another part of him wanted Mina to be exactly like this woman. She would need to be, no matter how smoothly he paved the way for her.
He exhaled a humorless puff of a laugh. He admired the blasted woman. He was sinking deep, indeed.
Almost too late, he saw that she’d stopped in front of a humble gray door. He ducked around a delivery cart and slipped into the shadow of an abandoned doorway. She knocked and awaited entry, and he marveled at his first impression of her as nothing more than atonfrivolity. The rational side of him wished he could still see her that way. Instead, she’d become a mystery who dared him to solve her, and he couldn’t get enough, reason be damned. She’d become a physical ache in his body. Not since Mina’s mother had he felt this way about a woman.
Reality engulfed him like a cold blast of Arctic air. She, too, had been a physical ache in his body. And look how well that had ended. Disaster. Tragedy. Mina, yes, but heartache and public humiliation, too.
Olivia shifted on her feet and looked on the verge of moving on when the door swung inward and a man of Japanese descent stepped forward into the light. Attired as he was in the garb of an English dandy, it took a moment for recognition to spark and certainty to shoot through Jake. Surely, this was the man called Jiro.
Jake’s heart pounded in his chest as a side note to a memory long buried came to him. Fifteen years ago. Nagasaki. The powerful Kimura family’s compound. He’d shared space with this man who was Jiro, sitting unobtrusively in the corner of a state room, recording with his watercolors the events of the trading day.
This man had been a trusted member of the Kimura household, and he’d stolen the paintings and betrayed them, risking his life. For what reason? Not money. The man still possessed the stolen paintings. Then why? And why here in London?
Olivia stepped inside, and the door snapped closed behind her. Jake bit back a curse. He’d been too lax of late. Too focused on Olivia. What she and he shared was secondary to this.This—to find the thief and uncover his secrets—had been his reason for bargaining with her, not to understand her better. Not to know her every thought, her every feeling.
He’d been skirting the edge of disaster in his dealings with Olivia . . .LadyOlivia. Not only for his intentions regarding the art thief, but for his intentions regarding marriage, his intentions regarding his heart. Given his past failure at love, it was best if his head ruled his heart, rather than the other way around.
Today, Lady Olivia had fulfilled both ends of her side of the bargain. He must let her go.
He slipped into the shadow of an abandoned doorway and propped himself against mildewed stone, its damp seeping through his woolen overcoat, his eyes fast upon the empty door stoop, settling in for a wait.
Not ten minutes later, she reemerged, pulling powder blue gloves onto her hands, her business concluded. He pushed off the grimy wall. Now it was time to settle matters with Jiro.
He was crossing the street when the door again swung inward. Out stepped none other than Jiro, pulling on a pair of buff kid gloves. With no more than two seconds between him and discovery, Jake ducked behind the stalled delivery cart rank with rotten vegetables and caught sight of the man rounding a corner at the end of the block. Jake rushed forward and immediately stopped, thinking better of his actions.
A public confrontation would do him no good. He pointed his feet homeward.
Tomorrow, he would settle this matter, one way or another, and leave it in the past, where it belonged.
~ ~ ~
Evening
Jake opened a plain, white envelope, and two slips of paper slid out into his palm. One a note, the other a newspaper clipping, each unanticipated. He took in the note first:
Queen Street. 10 o’clock.
He glanced at his pocket watch. Nine o’clock. He had an hour.
