Free A Private Duel with Agent Gunn (The Gentlemen of Scotland Yard) by Jillian Stone Page B

drawers.
    “Are you planning to sleep over, Finn?”
    He closed the cabinet door and met her gaze. “Sleep is not advisable when in pursuit of a burglar.”
    Her eyes smoldered with interest. “Mmm-hmm.” More of a purr than an acknowledgment. She sidled close, like a cat looking to do a bit of rubbing against him.
    He reached for the key on the crystal oil lamp in her hand. “And I’m afraid company is out of the question.” He turned down the wick.
    Her pout was adorable. Christ. What man with a cock between his legs wouldn’t want the lovely Lady Lennox? He escorted her to the door of her bedchamber. “You’ll have to sleep in the earl’s bed tonight.”
    “First, I’d have to remember where to find it.” She sighed. “I shan’t be sleeping in that musty old museum piece. Too many degrading and distasteful memories.” The lady wrinkled her nose. “I shall retire to a guest room.”
    Finn leaned against the door frame. “Good night, Gwen.”
    “If you happen to catch the man, please do wake me. I’ve never met a jewel thief.” There was a tease in her smile as she backed away. “Just down the way, first door on the left.”
    Finn pulled up a footstool and stretched out his legs. Hooking a finger into his fob pocket, he withdrew his watch. He squinted at the hands. Half past one in the morning and not the barest stir in the air. Not since that meager bit of scratching at the window over an hour ago. The disturbance had turned out to be an ivy branch pushed about by a breeze drifting through the square.
    Things were calm. Perhaps too calm. Even his pulse remained steady at seventy beats. He yawned. It was possible he was losing his edge. No doubt Monty, his unorthodox physician, would surmise it a good thing.
    The hypervigilance that served him well in combat had only alienated him from civilian life. But on a night like tonight, all of his history in the northern frontier came hurtling back to mind. His body craved the tension in the same way a lotus-eater must have his opium. All of the nervous symptoms he suffered in civilian life could be traced to those bleak mountain passes northwest of Kandahar. The raids, the constant skirmishes. The only way a soldier survived was to remain yary—soldier-speak for sharp and alert.
    In the fortress, on watch, he had used recitation to stave off sleep. Back then he’d favored Shakespeare, but not tonight. This evening called for something eerie, with a touch of whimsy. “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary. Over . . .” He whispered a cadence of nonsense in place of forgotten words. “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping . . .”
    The hair on the back of his neck sensed the movement before he saw it. A trace of shadow on the wall. He lowered his speech to inaudible, even though he continued to mouth the words. “Tapping at Lady Gwendolyn’s chamberdoor. ‘’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, ‘tapping at her chamber door. Only this, and nothing more.’ ”
    Finn swept his gaze to the set of Palladian windows. A figure crouched on the ledge of the open windowsill, wearing a peaked cap and a rucksack over one shoulder.
    Lennox House overlooked the north end of Belgrave Square. The flickering from streetlamps provided just enough illumination to observe the second-story man at work. The thief pushed up the sash and slipped through the opening in silence. From his chair set deep in the shadows of the draped poster bed, Finn admired every stealthy move.
    Slight of build, with a youthful spring to his movements—possibly a chimney sweep. Used to heights and being tethered to a rope, the lads were often conscripted as parlor-jumps by master thieves.
    There was a kind of fluid manner to each movement that smacked of experience. The intruder dropped into a crouched position, ready to spring to the window and escape at the first sign of discovery. Not an exhale of breath could