Read A Loving Scoundrel for Free Online Page B

not to take the chest. It was too big and she wasn’t even sure she could lift it out of the drawer, so she stuffed her coat pockets instead. She ran her hand across the bottom of the velvet-lined chest before she finished, just to make sure she hadn’t missed a dull piece of jewelry. She did not want to have to do this again if Percy’s two heirlooms weren’t in this stash.
    With that thought in mind, she even did a quick search through the other drawers, but found nothing else of interest. She also checked the desk, but it contained only papers. Lastly she moved over to the vanity table where she discovered a fat wad of money, a gold watch fob, and another ring that had rolled back among the cologne bottles, as if it had just been tossed on the table. She swiped those up as well, stuffing the money in her pants pocket, since her coat pockets were full.
    There was nothing else to look through. The night tables next to the bed didn’t have drawers, and she discounted the bookcase, reasoning that a man who left a fortune in jewelry unlocked in his bureau wasn’t likely to hide things in hollowed-out books.
    Relieved to be almost done, she headed toward the door, but stopped cold when Heddings started a fit of coughing. She ducked down at the foot of his bed. The coughing was harsh enough that it could wake him. He might even get up for a drink of water from the pitcher across the room. She was prepared to slip under the bed if he did.
    The coughing got much worse. It even sounded as if he were choking. The horrid thought came to her that he could die, and a vision flashed across her mind of her being accused of murder, standing before a judge, being sentenced to hang. Her palms broke out in a cold sweat. For a moment she wondered if she should try to help him. For a moment she was paralyzed with fear and couldn’t move to help him even if she was temporarily that stupid.
    It took still another moment to realize he was peacefully snoring again, the sweetest sound she’d ever heard. Well, actually, it quickly became an annoying sound again now that the crisis was over, and she wasted no more time in getting the hell out of there.
    All was still quiet downstairs. She quickly slipped back into the room she’d first entered and was immediately yanked back against a hard chest, a hand clamping over her mouth to keep her from screaming. She had no wits to scream with her heart in her throat. She nearly fainted…
    And then she heard hissed in her ear, “What took you so bloody long?”
    Him! And her relief lasted about a second before fury took over. She jerked about, snarled, albeit in a whisper, “ ’Ave ye lost yer flippin’ mind? Wot are ye doing in ’ere?”
    “I was worried about you,” he replied somewhat contritely.
    She snorted to herself. What a whopper. Worried that she was going to take off with their precious rings was more like it.
    “The next time ye want to scare someone ’alf to death, pick yerself. I’m done ’ere.”
    “You got the rings?”
    “This ain’t the place to discuss it,” she shot back. “I am so gone from ’ere I left yesterday.”
    “Quite right,” she heard behind her as she headed to the window—and tripped over a rug on the way.
    Falling took her by surprise. She wasn’t the least bit clumsy, and that rug had been nice and smooth when she’d walked over it on her way in. No doubt Malory had bunched it up. She reached for something to prevent the fall, but the only thing nearby was a tall pedestal with a bust on it. The pedestal was heavy and did stop her from falling, but she knocked the bust off it in doing so. It hit the floor with a loud thud.
    She groaned inwardly. In the still of the night, that noise had been loud enough to wake the dead, or at the least, one of the servants sleeping on the same floor. She turned back to tell Malory to get out immediately and saw the man standing in the doorway with a gun pointed at the nabob.
    Danny went so still she stopped