Page 25 of Stolen By the Rogue
George did a double take. He knew the smell and taste of blackmail only too well. He just hadn’t expected to hear it come from her.
He was still trying to absorb the shock of her demand when the door opened and through it walked Alice and Harry.
“Has he agreed to help?” asked Harry.
“Not yet. I think poor George might be in shock,” replied Jane.
A grinning Alice raised an eyebrow in George’s direction. “She is good. In fact, she reminds me very much of myself. Brains and beauty, but with a spine of steel.”
Harry turned his back, and from the snorts and trembling of his shoulders, it was obvious he wasn’t making much of an effort not to laugh.
Bastard.
Alice and Harry quickly made themselves comfortable on a nearby sofa, pouring cups of tea and offering cake all around.
George glared at Harry when he put a seedcake under his nose. “Thank you, no.”
With a sigh, Jane opened the folio and handed George a piece of paper. “Read it,” she said.
There is one way possible that you may get a swiving from me . . . you must excuse my plain expressions . . . you may be conveyed into the stool-room which is within my bedchamber while I am at dinner; by which means I shall have five hours to embrace and nip you.
George frowned and quickly handed the note back. “I don’t know what this is, apart from the obvious. It’s some old letter offering to have a sexual liaison with someone. What could that possibly have to do with you demanding that I buy you a house?”
Jane grinned at him. “It’s a letter written by King Charles the First to his mistress, Jane Whorwood. A letter that for many years was considered to only exist in fanciful legend. But my father believed in it, as did I. It took me many months to locate the original coded letter at the British Museum, and just as many to find the cypher to unlock its message.”
George’s heart began to race. As his excitement rose, he suddenly understood why the tea had been brought in. His mouth was dry and parched. “Go on.”
Alice clapped her hands together in unrestrained delight, but Jane still held his attention. “My father also believed in the treasure that my namesake was supposedly given by the King before his unfortunate execution. A treasure that has remained a secret for nearly one hundred and seventy years, along with its location.”
George was enraptured. “And you think the letter might hold a clue?”
“During the English civil war, Jane Whorwood moved secretly about England and at times the continent, all the while helping to smuggle funds for the King in his battle against the parliamentarian forces of Oliver Cromwell. What no one knew was exactlywhereshe stayed in London. Or where the treasure might be buried.”
Jane tucked the letter back into the folio and then closed the satchel. She got to her feet. “Do you feel well enough for a short walk?”
The air in the room was electric with expectation. George still didn’t fully understand why Jane and the others were telling him about the letter and the hidden treasure, but he found himself fully invested. “Please tell me you have found where Jane Whorwood lived.”
She motioned to the door. “Get your coat. I am going to show you the house, and then you are going to buy it for me.”
Chapter Sixteen
It was little over a mile from 16 Grosvenor Street to 11 Coal Yard Lane, but it could have been a world away such was the difference between the two addresses. While Harry and Alice’s fine mansion was elegant and spotlessly clean, the house which Jane stopped out the front of was dirty and rundown.
Jane met George’s questioning gaze. “I will grant you that it is not a nice part of town. I don’t expect that even in King Charles’s day it would have been particularly attractive real estate, but that is the beauty of it. No one would ever come looking for a king’s secret mistress in such a hovel.”
He stared at her for a moment. Alice was right in her assessment of Jane Scott. She was a woman in possession of a sharp mind and steady nerves. And he had been a fool to pretend otherwise.
And to think I betrayed you. I am an idiot.
“Come on.” Jane led him to a shop several doors down from the house, the outside of which was black with years of filth and smoke. As they stepped through the doorway, George discovered, to his disgust, that inside was no better.
Behind a long, dusty counter stood the shopkeeper. In front of him sat several loaves of what appeared to be moldy bread. Some poor soul was going to pay good money to buy that food, and then eat it.
He shuddered at the thought.
I can’t believe that man has the hide to sell rotten food.
The shopkeeper wiped his hands on his filthy, stained apron and considered them both. He gave Jane a salacious smile, which made George’s already offended stomach churn.
