Darcy Darlington and the Diamond of Desire by Maya Rodale

Darcy darlington and the diamond of desire

Chapter seven ~ In which our heroine embarks on another midnight adventure.

What she attempted was madness. It was long past midnight when Darcy once again slipped out of her room and retraced the steps from her bedroom door to the stairs. Seven and twenty steps down. Five and fifty steps from the last stair to the fourth door on the left, which lead to the bedchamber of The Evil Lord Hartshorne.

She scarcely breathed. She scarcely made a sound—other than the beating of her heart thudding so heavily in chest she was sure the noise would wake the dead.

She placed her hand on the doorknob, twisting it firmly and slowly. The door creaked slightly upon opening, and golly if it didn’t echo all over Mayfair.

Laudanum, Darcy reminded herself. She had procured some from Mrs. Betts for a headache she didn’t have and, instead, slipped it into The Evil Lord Hartshorne’s decanter of brandy earlier in the evening.

Once inside his bedchamber, she paused to get her bearings. The fire had not died down completely; the smoldering embers emitted just enough light to conceal her but to reveal the bed and the outline of a man sprawled beneath the covers.

Reaching into her pocket, she removed the sewing scissors she carried for the purpose of cutting the cord around the Evil Lord’s neck.

He slept on his back, thankfully. She stood above him for a moment to discern that he was well and truly asleep, but not so long as to give him a queer feeling that would cause him to wake. Holding her breath, she reached out and touched his chest, feeling around for the cord and key.

His skin was warm. She had the odd desire to giggle. She was a baron’s daughter, a proper young miss—and yet here she was in the dead of the night in a notorious murderer’s bedchambers, touching his bare chest, and planning to steal from him. If word of this leaked, she would never get a voucher for Almack's.

It was disappointingly easy, really, to cut through the cord with one quick and soundless snip. Her fingers closed around the key and held on tight. As quickly as she could without breaking into a run, she quit his chambers.

Twelve steps down the hall until she reached the fourth door on her right, The Evil Lord’s private study. The fire still burned here, too. Well, if it wasn’t her lucky night!

Darcy quickly pulled up the loose marble (third from the left) and pushed it aside, pulled up the box, slid in the key, and turned it to the right. Nothing.

She turned the key to the left. A click of release, and a sigh of relief…and then a sigh of disappointment. There were no diamonds! Just two portraits: one of a small child with the same coloring as the Evil Lord and one of a young woman wearing the diamonds.

Darcy returned the box to its resting place. She stood, and found herself at eye level with the urns.

“Brilliant,” she whispered, as the realization dawned on her. She knew where the diamonds were!

She also knew the feeling of the cold blade of a knife pressed against her throat, of a large, warm body trapping hers, and of getting so close to her prize only to have it wrenched away. She felt all of that now. She had been caught.

Was the Evil Lord Hartshorne the one to hold her captive?

To Be Continued…

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