Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) (35 page)

While Madeline would be… nervous.

The coach pulled up before the Weasel, and Jack assisted Madeline to alight. The street was muddy after several days of moderating temperatures, but straw
had been spread to preserve the ladies’ hems.

“Your presence here will cause heads to turn,” Jack said, offering Madeline his arm. “People will stare, not because a former chambermaid
is dancing among her supposed betters, but because Lady Fanning is stunningly lovely in her new dress.”

Lady Fanning
. At least some of Madeline’s nerves were attributable to her new station, but most of her anxiety came from a sense that trouble was
brewing—trouble she’d caused—and tonight was the logical time for that trouble to escalate.

Jack—
her husband
—was breathtakingly handsome in his evening finery, and that realization let Madeline relax a bit. He was the
magistrate, wealthy, formidable, and
all hers
. If heads turned, it would be to stare at him and wonder why such an impressive man had chosen
Madeline Hennessey for his wife.

Jack’s first maneuver was to introduce Madeline to a dark-haired fellow standing beside a woman Madeline recognized from the occasional market day.

“Lady Valentine, may I make known to you my wife, Madeline…” Old, old lessons from girlhood struggled up from memory, and Madeline
managed to get through the introductions without stumbling. To have a courtesy title, though, the man Madeline had so casually been introduced to was the
son of a marquess or possibly even a duke.

“Jack, would you excuse me while I fetch a drink?” Madeline asked. 

Lord Valentine looked vaguely puzzled.

“I will fetch you a drink,” Jack said. “Lady Valentine, might I do the same for you?”

Her ladyship was a lovely young woman and clearly held in great affection by her husband. “No, thank you, Sir Jack. You may leave your bride in our
keeping and brave the punchbowl. We’ll ask her only the usual questions.”

Jack winked at Madeline and sauntered off, just as Jeremy, Lucy Anne, the aunts, and Mrs. Fanning emerged from the cloakroom. Further introductions ensued
as two violins and a cello tuned up in the corner.

Perhaps Higgans wouldn’t come. The room was filling, and at any moment, Tavis, the informal master of ceremonies, would offer a welcome.

“Are you looking forward to dancing with your husband?” Abigail Belmont asked. “Jack cuts quite a dash on the dance floor.”

“Madam,” Axel Belmont muttered, “where is your spousal loyalty?
I
cut quite a dash on the dance floor. Sir Jack is
competent.”

Jack returned with the punch, and nearly twenty minutes of chatting, smiling, and congratulations ensued. Just when Madeline thought she’d go mad
from inactivity, Tavis tapped a spoon against a glass to bring the assembly to order.

“On behalf of the Weasel, welcome friends and neighbors. I’ve had a special request for the first dance, in honor of nuptial vows spoken
earlier today. We’ll start the evening with a waltz, and the dancing will be opened by Sir Jack Fanning
and his new wife
!” 

“Smile,” Abigail commanded, smiling ferociously herself, while applauding madly. The clapping was slow to begin, but soon the entire room
reverberated with happy thunder.

Jack led Madeline to the middle of the dance floor. He bowed, she curtseyed, and they assumed waltz position.

“I don’t know how to waltz,” Madeline said. The dance was a recent acquisition from the Continent, and thus hadn’t been among the
ones she’d learned as a girl.

“I do. Simply follow my lead, and when the rest of the crowd joins in, we’ll slip away.”

Jack did know how to waltz, and he knew how to explain the dance to Madeline without words. They at first moved in a conservative square of steps, then
more boldly, until Jack had turned Madeline down the room, and the Belmonts had joined in along with other married couples.

For thirty-two measures in triple meter, Madeline simply danced with her husband. Regret crept close, for all the dances Madeline had been denied by her
father’s intemperance, all the lovely moments, but had she not been in service, she never would have joined Jack’s household.

“You have an aptitude for this,” Jack said, pulling Madeline close on a turn. “Not all ladies do.”

“I have an aptitude for being your wife. I forbid you to kiss me when this dance ends.”

The gleam in Jack’s eyes became the fire of determination, and of course, when violins lilted into the final cadence, rather than allow Madeline to
sink into a curtsey, Jack held her close and gave her a kiss such as every bride ought to be given on her wedding day.

Then
Jack bowed, and Madeline curtseyed, amid more applause.

Perhaps Higgans had stayed home. Perhaps the meddlesome gods who had frowned on Madeline’s fortunes so often in the past were done with her. Jack
offered his arm, and Madeline took it, for she had no intention of dancing her night away. Mr. Belmont would likely insist, and Jeremy was certainly
entitled to a turn, but other than that—

A commotion came from the direction of the cloakroom, and Dr. Higgans emerged with two yeoman bringing up the rear.

“I’ve found the scoundrel!” Higgans cried. “Caught him red-handed with stolen goods!” The doctor held up a battered black
satchel, and the two yeomen each had Pahdi by one arm.

Rage had sustained Jack when he was being starved, beaten, ridiculed, and threatened daily with death. He’d been determined to live, to get back to
his garrison, and to his wife. For a time, he’d been insane with anger, crazy enough to dig at packed earth with a bent spoon, to drag himself
through jungles teeming with predators, to push on despite starvation, fever, and despair.

That rage had been on his own behalf, and it had saved his life.

The rage he felt watching Higgans hold that damned black satchel aloft was rage on behalf of Pahdi, who would no more steal than he would denounce the king
in the middle of Sunday services.

And beneath that was a cold, coiled disgust that this… this lying excuse for a physician would sully
Madeline’s wedding day
.

“Dr. Higgans,” Jack said, “the dancing has begun. If you have business with me, we’ll take our discussion outside so our neighbors
can continue to enjoy themselves.”

Jack considered arresting Higgans for disturbing the peace, but that would be an abuse of the magistrate’s office, more’s the pity.

The room had gone silent, of course, the better to catch every word for repetition over tea or ale tomorrow.

“You’ll hear what I have to say right now,” Higgans said. “Before these witnesses, you’ll charge this… this houseboy of
yours with robbery.”

“You claim the man who has been
my butler
for nearly ten years took that bag from you, by force or fear, with intent to deprive you of it
permanently?”

Higgans lowered the satchel. “The rascal took it from my home.”

No, he did not.
“Ah, then you refer to burglary. I assume you have witnesses?”

“I did not see him take the damned bag,” Higgans said.

“Language, Higgans. Ladies are present. Shall we step outside?” Jack kept his tone civil—he’d negotiated with rajas who employed
assassins by the dozen—but his mind was reeling. What was Pahdi doing with the bag, and how was Jack to extricate him from being charged with a
crime?

Pahdi met Jack’s eye with a calm, almost apologetic gaze, and Jack
knew
.

Pahdi had seen Madeline steal the bag and leave it in the livery, and he’d hidden the bag rather than let the crime be laid at Madeline’s feet.
Madeline’s horrified expression said she’d grasped the facts more readily than Jack had.

Jack had interviewed every patron of the lending library who’d been present on the night of the theft… except Pahdi.

Damn, blast, pox, plague, and perdition.

“I’m not about to let you talk your way out of arresting this man,” Higgans said. “He had my bag, and the whole shire knows it went
missing. That means he was in possession of stolen goods—a very serious crime, indeed—even if nobody saw him take the bag.”

The crowd at the edges of the dance floor murmured, probably agreeing with Higgans’s logic, but Jack simply didn’t care.

“We have yet to establish that your bag was stolen in the first place,” Jack said, which was true from an evidentiary perspective as far as
Higgans was concerned. “Moreover, your bag went missing more than a week ago. In all that time, nobody has corroborated your accusations against
Pahdi, and I strongly suspect that you have jumped to inexcusable conclusions. Pahdi, what were you doing with Dr. Higgans’s bag?”

Pahdi bowed to Jack with punctilious courtesy. “I was returning the bag to its owner, esteemed sir. I know you have spent considerable effort this
past week searching for the doctor’s bag. I was visiting with John Coachman outside the livery tonight, when I saw this bag next to a pile of
horse…  blankets. Knowing this medical bag to be of great sentimental value to the worthy, respected, most learned, honorable, and revered
doctor, I sought to bring it to him straightaway. He stopped me in the street as I approached his house. These gentlemen kindly assisted me to join this
august assemblage before any explanation was sought from me.”

Thank God for quick thinking, and for an ability to recite a credible version of the truth. Jack aimed a glower at Higgans’s henchmen.

“Is that true? Was Pahdi approaching Higgans’s house with the bag in plain sight?”

The larger of the two mumbled something.

“I beg your pardon?” Jack prompted.

“It’s true, he was walking toward the house, but it was dark. From across the street—”

“Thank you,” Jack said. “Higgans, what sort of thief brings the contraband to the scene of the crime?”

“My medical bag didn’t take itself to the livery, Sir Jack. What was this fellow doing in town tonight, if not trying to return the item he
stole? He knew I’d be at this gathering, and chose his opportunity with the cunning his kind is known for.”

Jeremy put a hand on Jack’s arm, as if sensing that the temptation to violence was growing irresistible. Higgans was befouling an evening that should
have been special for Madeline, and he was threatening a blameless soul.

“Perhaps Pahdi was patronizing the lending—”

“The lending library is closed tonight!” Higgans bellowed. “Arrest this man, or admit that you have no more care for the king’s
justice than this brigand does for—”

Madeline prowled across the room and plucked the bag from Higgans’s grasp.

“
Enough
of your bile.” She opened the bag and spilled its contents onto the dance floor. A scalpel tumbled out—none too
clean—along with two bottles of some patent remedy or other, a double-ended scent bottle, and a cracked hand mirror.

Also a sizeable silver pocket flask.

Madeline jabbed a finger toward the floor. “
That
is your stolen property.
That
is your excuse for ruining the life of a man who did
nothing to harm you.
I
stole your pathetic bag. It has been returned to you by one innocent of wrongdoing. Shall you ask the magistrate to arrest
his own wife?”

Oh, Madeline. No.

Higgans gazed upon the detritus on the floor, his bravado faltering. “I never meant—I only wanted my bag back. A physician needs… This is
all very brave of you, Miss Hennessey—”
 

“
Lady
Fanning,” Madeline snapped. “I stole your bag because you refused to pay a call on an old, ailing woman who had nobody
else to turn to for medical assistance. You treat the wealthy, you ignore the rest of us even when we have coin. I might be a criminal, but you are a
disgrace.”

Higgans picked up the flask and stuffed it in his pocket. “Miss—Lady—madam, I appreciate that you’re loyal to your husband’s
staff, and one can see, given your antecedents, that is…” Higgans pointed at Pahdi. “Enough of this posturing. I’ll not be
dissuaded by some female’s hysterical babbling. I want that man arrested.”

Jack would never cease being proud of his wife, but he’d had more than enough of Higgans.

“I agree, Higgans,” Jack said. “The idea that Madeline would resort to thievery, even though you disregarded a possibly fatal situation
within her family, need not concern us. I stole your bag.”

Madeline blew him a kiss. Jack bowed.

“Oh, go on with the two of you,” Axel Belmont scoffed. “I stole your bag, Higgans. You know how botanists are, always taking what
doesn’t belong to us. We go about the shire stealing plants from the very marshes and lanes. We’re little more than nature’s
pickpockets.”

“Mr. Belmont,” Abigail retorted, “It’s new mothers who cannot be trusted around smelly old medical bags. I took that bag while you
were out in your glass house, and do not argue with a lady.”

 “I would never argue with a lady,” Jeremy said, “but Jack ought to arrest us all, for I sense that if we didn’t exactly steal
that bag personally, perhaps we should have. Not the done thing, Higgans, to neglect our elders when they’re in need, or to turn our backs on the
sick, or the poor, or the stranger far from home.”

Mortimer Cotton cleared his throat. Hector McArdle stared into his cup of punch.

Lucy Anne knelt and gathered up the mirror, bottles, and scalpel from the floor, put them into the battered satchel, and handed it to Higgans.

He took the bag and held it to his middle as he peered around a room gone silent.

“I’m sorry I took your bag,” Madeline said. “I meant to return it after you’d spent a few days fretting. My aunt might have
been taken from me, and I wanted you to know a little of that helplessness and upset. I should not have taken your bag. If you seek damages, I will gladly
pay them, but no sum on earth could have compensated me for the loss of my aunt.”

Apologize to my wife.
Jack almost started forward to roar those words at Higgans, but Belmont was to Jack’s left, and Jeremy to his right. They were waiting to grab Jack
by the arms, and that alone prevented Jack from letting his temper loose.