fire, she studiously avoided looking in the mirror above the mantel as she did so, having no wish to see her shame confirmed in her wanton reflection. Concentrating on trying to get her breathing back under control, she made her way back to the hallway. Elliot was as dishevelled as she. Clothes awry. Neckcloth untied. His lips looked frayed. Such kisses! Deborah held the candle aloft, well away from her own face, turning her gaze to the floor. ‘Here it is.’ The canvas had rolled under the table. She picked it up and handed it to him, embarrassed in the frail light, mortified by her behaviour in the dark. She had more or less ravaged the man. Savaged him more like, for she clearly remembered biting into him, her nails tearing at his skin. Oh God!
Elliot made no attempt to look at the painting. He wished to hell he’d let the bloody thing lie. Another minute of those kisses of hers and he wouldn’t have given a damn. Looking at her now though, seeing the way she avoided his gaze, he knew the chances of him having another minute of her kisses were almost nil. Whatever had caused her to let go that iron control of hers was now firmly leashed.
And it was probably just as well. He, who prided himself on his finesse, had all but ravished her in the hallway, for God’s sake! To say nothing of the fact that in their lust they had forgotten all about the extremely valuable painting they had stolen. A painting which was now looking rather the worse for wear. A wholly inappropriate desire to laugh took hold of him. He struggled, but could not stifle it. ‘I’m sorry,’ Elliot said helplessly, ‘it’s just—well, ludicrous. I assure you I didn’t plan it. The last bit, I mean—at least not like that. Only you were so—and I was so—and there was the painting abandoned on the floor, after we went to such extremes to get it.’
To his surprise Deborah’s face lightened. She did not smile back, but she looked as if she might. ‘Is it always like this? After you have committed a crime, I mean? Is it always so—so intoxicating? Inflaming?’ she asked, daring to meet his gaze now.
‘I don’t know, I’ve never had an accomplice before.’
‘The painting—it’s not damaged, is it?’ Deborah asked anxiously.
Elliot unrolled the canvas and shook his head. ‘See for yourself.’ She came closer to inspect it. Her hair was perfectly straight, hanging well past her shoulders. If he looked, he would see the outline of her breasts under her shirt, for she had not put her coat back on. With a huge effort of restraint, he stopped himself.
‘Such an ugly man,’ Deborah said softly after a while of staring at the portrait. ‘I would not like to have this on my wall. Is it valuable?’
‘It’s by Velázquez. I should hope so.’
‘Will you sell it, then?’
Elliot began to roll the canvas back up, carefully this time. ‘Yes,’ he said tersely, ‘I’ll sell it.’
Deborah opened her mouth to ask what he did with the money, then thought better of it. Tiredness washed over her. Her shoulders began to ache. Anticlimax in every sense weighed like a heavy blanket, muffling her. ‘It’s late,’ she said wearily.
‘Yes.’ Elliot hesitated. He was edgy with frustration. She had been so aroused, he was sure he could easily rekindle the flame between them, but something held him back. Is it always like this? ‘It wasn’t the housebreaking that made me turn to you like that,’ he said, running his hand down the smooth cap of her hair, ‘it was you. Ever since we met, I’ve wanted you. You must know that, Deborah.’
She jerked her head away. ‘It will be light soon.’
‘I see.’ He didn’t see at all. Rebuffed, puzzled by the extreme swing in her mood, and too tired in the anticlimax to make sense of it, Elliot picked his hat up and, shrugging into his greatcoat, tucked the painting into a large inside pocket. ‘Did it work?’ he asked. ‘Did it do as you hoped, banish the black clouds, make you feel alive?’
Deborah smiled tremulously. ‘While it lasted. I shall keep a look out for reports of our heinous crime.’
‘And paste them in a keepsake book?’
‘Something like that.’
He kissed the fluttering pulse on her wrist, telling himself that her vulnerability was simply exhaustion. ‘Goodnight, Deborah.’
She swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘Goodbye, Elliot. Be safe.’
The door closed softly behind him. The parlour clock struck three. Only three. Wearily, Deborah picked up her man’s coat and made her way up the creaky wooden stairs to her bed.
Outside, Elliot made his way home by a circuitous route through alleys and mews. She was like a chameleon, changing so quickly that he could not keep up with her. Her kisses. He groaned and the muscles in his stomach contracted. Such a delightful mixture of raw passion and innocence. Hot, burning kisses that even now made his blood surge and pound, yet they were neither knowing nor experienced. Deborah kissed with the savagery of a lion cub.
Elliot stood in the shadow of a stable building as the watch passed by, informing the empty street that all was well. It had frightened her, her passion; she had been far too eager to blame it on the extraordinary circumstances, as if by doing so she could distance herself from it. What kind of marriage had she had with that bastard of a fortune hunter?
He stepped out of the mews and made his way across Russell Square, letting himself in silently. A candle stood ready in the hall, reminding him of the clatter of the candlestick from the table at Deborah’s house. The evening had been full of surprises. He should not have allowed her to come down that rope, but the sight of her dangling over him had been …
Mounting the stairs, he tried to put if from his mind. He was exhausted. Carefully stashing the painting, he willed himself to think of the chain of events he must set in train to dispose of it, but as he climbed into bed, the memory of Deborah—her mouth, her hands, her breasts, those long legs, that pert derrière—climbed in with him. He was hard. Persistently hard. Lying back against the cool sheets, Elliot surrendered to the inevitable.
Deborah jerked awake, exhausted from lurid dreams in which she was always in the wrong place, with the wrong person, in the wrong attire, at the wrong time. Dreams in which she was endlessly chasing the shadow of the man who had made a shadow of her. Dreams in which no one could see her, no one would acknowledge her, in which she existed only to herself. When she spoke, the words were soundless. Time and again, she tumbled into the room where he was, only to have Jeremy look straight through her.
In her dreams, she was sick from her failures, sick from knowing that no matter how hard she tried, she would fail again. The familiar weight of that failure made the physical effort of rising from her bed a mammoth task. No amount of telling herself that it was just a dream, nor any reminder that it had no basis in reality, could shift that lumpen, leaden feeling, for the truth was that Deborah believed she had failed, and it had been her fault.
Long experience had shown her that hiding under the covers and willing fresh dreamless sleep had no effect whatsoever, save to nourish the headache which lurked just under the base of her skull. Slowly, with the care of a very old woman afraid of breaking brittle bones, Deborah climbed out of bed and went through her morning ablutions, blanking her mind against the lingering coils of her monochrome nightmares, forcibly filling her head with colourful
