He was opening the barn door. "I am sure he will revive in a moment or so," he said, returning to the driver's seat. "He used to box. Lightweight, of course. He never quite recovered. I think you may have gotten an old injury."
"Oh, dear." Annabel realized that he planned to hide the car in the barn. She said admiringly, "This is brilliant."
He slowly drove the automobile forward as if he did not hear her. Annabel walked into the barn behind him. She smiled at the sight that greeted her-a horse and carriage, the horse already in the traces. "Truly brilliant," she said, more to herself than him.
He stepped out of the car, slamming the door. This time, briefly, his glance met hers.
She watched him pull Louie from the vehicle, leaving him on the ground. He then took a medium-sized satchel from the carriage and slipped off his tailcoat. Annabel watched him removing the jewelry he had stolen from one small compartment sewn into the jacket's lining, transferring it to the satchel. "You have thought of everything," she said.
"I hope so. You might want to turn around," he remarked, removing his bow tie.
Annabel blinked as he reached for the buttons on his snowy white shirt. He smiled at her. She realized that he was undressing, and watched as his shirt parted, revealing a broad slab of chest dusted with midnight-black hair.
Immediately she turned her back on him. Of course he would change clothes. She berated herself for not realizing earlier that he would do so. But what had possessed her to stare? And she was certain that he had known that she had been staring.
She could feel herself flushing, and as she heard his clothes rustling-he was stepping out of his trousers, she presumed-she walked around the Packard to give herself something to do. He was tall and lean and handsome. He was bold and exceedingly cool. His accent was the coup de grace. If Harold had been at all like this man, she wondered if she would have objected so strenuously to the match.
Not that her family would ever allow her to marry a thief. It was a ludicrous thought.
Besides, she did not want to marry. All women turned into fools when they married, endlessly redoing decor, shopping until dropping, planning teas and babies. That was not for Annabel.
"Done," he said cheerfully a moment later.
She turned and found him clad in a sack jacket and
paler trousers. His evening clothes had been stuffed in the front seat of the Packard. A huge oilskin tarp was folded up on the floor, nestled among bales of moldy hay. "If you truly want to help, take up that end," he said with a nod at the tarp.
Annabel hurried to obey. "Does anything scare you?" she asked as they lifted the tarp in tandem and settled it over the Packard.
"Very little," he said, with a smile.
"You like this," she said after a moment. "You liked eluding the police."
"Didn't you?" he returned.
She refused to answer. "You have thought of everything," she mused. "Do you do this often?"
"Often enough," he said with a grin. He had a dimple in his left cheek, a cleft in his chin.
She watched him kneeling over Louie, gently slapping his face. "So you are a professional thief."
"Hmm. I do not think I need to answer that."
Suddenly Louie moaned, his lashes fluttering. "Thank God," she breathed.
"Didn't want to be branded a murderess?" he said somewhat mockingly. "An accomplice, perhaps, but murder would be too much?"
She met his gaze. There was a gleam there, perhaps of amusement. "I had no intention of hurting him. Murder is never justified."
He folded his arms and stared. After a long pause, he said, "It is time for you to go home, Miss Boo the. And I am afraid you will have to make your own way."
She stiffened. "You would not abandon me now!"
"Not only would I, I am doing so."
Her eyes widened, her heart lurched.
"Gawd, wot happened?" Louie said, sitting up groggily, one hand going to the huge bruise on his temple.
"The lady dealt you a severe blow," Braxton said with
real amusement. "Change your clothes, my friend. We must be on our way.*'
Louie had now recovered enough to moan and glare at his partner in crime at the exact same time., Then he looked darkly at Annabel.
"I'm sorry," Annabel said, meaning it. She hurried to the thief. "You cannot leave me here-on the West Side -in my drawers and petticoats."
He smiled. "You are a fetching sight, my dear. I am sure that in no time at all you will be aided and abetted by some concerned and civic-minded gentleman and on your way back to the altar."
"I want to come with you! I can help-"
"No." He turned his back on her and reached down for Louie. "Let's see if you can stand," he said.
Louie stood with Braxton's aid and went around to the other side of the carriage to change his clothes. Annabel rushed over to the thief. "What must I do to convince you to let me stay with you-just for a few days?"
He folded his arms across his chest as he studied her. "You are very tempting. Just what are you offering, Miss Boothe?"
She swallowed. Did he mean what she thought he did? "I cannot return home. If I return, they will all try to force me back to the altar."
"That is hardly my problem." He was impatient now. "Louie! Hurry up."
"Aye, guvnor."
She gripped his arm. "Braxton. I will go back. But when I do, I must be ruined."
He was finally surprised. His eyes had widened. "Well, well. So you wish my services in this endeavor?"
She hadn't meant it literally. She had meant that she could not return until her reputation was smeared, enough so that no one would want her, and then she would be free to continue her life without interference from her father or all the silly, useless men he kept in-
troducing her to. For then no man would want her. Annabel bit her lip. His gaze was fixed on her face.
If she told him now that she meant she wanted to be ruined in name only, not in fact, he would abandon her, she was certain of it. She would tell him that later. "I cannot go back now. Not now. It is too soon."
Silence reigned as Louie reappeared from behind the carriage, clad now in a plaid shirt and corduroy trousers. He glanced from one to the other. "We got to go, me lord." He carried the clothing he had changed out of in his arms.
Braxton gave him a piercing look, which Annabel did not understand.
"Please," she said, stepping closer to him. Her heart beat wildly. She was not a fool. What if he ruined her, not in name, but in actuality?
There were worse things, she decided, than this man's kisses.
A lifetime spent with Harold Talbot, for one-or with some idiot just like him.
Braxton's jaw set. He strode to Louie, took his bundle of clothes from him, and shoved them at Annabel- against her chest. "You can dress in the carriage while we leave the city. Get in," he said.
Chapter Three
George Boothe paced his library with savage strides. He had removed his tailcoat and was in a waistcoat and his shirtsleeves.' The John Constable landscape, which was usually hanging over the marble hearth, stood on the floor, propped up against a tufted ottoman. The metal vault above the hearth was open, forming a dark and gaping hole.
Another gentleman, clad in an ill-fitting suit and a bowler hat,, sporting a handlebar mustache, sat on one of a pair of pale green velvet armchairs, a notebook in his hand. A brass-knobbed walking stick was at his side. Lucinda Boothe sat on the gold and green sofa in her gold evening gown, a cashmere throw over her shoulders, her daughters on either side of her. The two girls' husbands stood behind the sofa, also in their shirtsleeves. Lucinda was sniffing into a hankie. Her eyes were red from hours of intermittent weeping.
"Well, Boothe, I can only say that you have been had, and that this Braxton fellow has done a damn good job of it. Oh, excuse me, ladies." The mustachioed gent stood, snapping closed his notebook and pocketing both that and his lead pencil.
"I could have told you that, Thompson. What are you doing to get my daughter back?" Boothe demanded.