Much Ado About Rogues (16 page)

Jack hadn’t said a word, not a single word, in the endless time it took for them to return to the mansion. She knew what he planned to do. Quickly change into riding clothes while the horses were saddled, and take off after the coach. He wouldn’t fight her when she demanded to accompany him. No man could be that foolish. She could ride, better than most men. Breeches, her hair tucked up inside her hat so as to not draw too much attention, no sidesaddle to slow her down.

They’d ride together. They’d face what had to be faced. Together.

“Come on,” he ordered as the carriage finally arrived in front of the Blackthorn mansion. He had the door open and the two of them on the flagway even as the wheels were still rocking back and forth, and up the steps to the front door a heartbeat later.

That door opened just as they reached it, and Wadsworth stood back to let them in. “I see you’ve figured the lay of it, Mr. Blackthorn. Good on you. Master Puck awaits you in the drawing room, and the doctor has just now left. Young Master Jock is with him, my lady, having his dear self a bit of a nibble.”

Tess clapped both hands over her mouth to hold back the sobs she’d been fighting for what seemed like hours, and raced up the curved staircase, Jack close behind her.

“Jacques!” she called out as she ran into the drawing room.
“Mon petit! Viens à votre maman!”

“Maman!”
the child called out cheerfully, putting aside a small dish of sugar comfits before turning onto his belly and then sliding down from the couch where he had been perched before running straight into her arms as she leaned down to him. “Uncle Puck played a game!”

Holding the boy close, she stood up, looking to the chaise where Puck Blackthorn reclined at his ease, his right arm tucked into a black sling. His jacket lay beside him, cut and dark with blood, dark red stains on his shirt and buckskins. “Oh, God…” she said as Jack approached his brother.

“You were attacked,” Jack said quietly.

“No flies on you, are there, brother mine?” Puck returned amicably as he struggled to push himself upright, aim his feet at the floor. “The question is, if you knew this could happen, why wasn’t I let in on the secret? Rather poor sporting of you, I think.”

As Tess watched, Jack’s body seemed to relax. He even smiled, which greatly surprised her. “I hope you didn’t hurt them all too badly.”

“There were only five of them. Hardly a contest. Who’s after you, Jack? This time, I mean. I suppose this is almost an everyday occurrence in your line of work.”

“They were after Jacques, not me,” Jack told him, motioning for him to move over so that Jack could sit down beside him. He picked up the ruined jacket, contemplated it for a moment, and then set it aside. He looked suddenly very tired.

Puck looked swiftly to the boy, still in his mother’s arms, and probably to remain there for hours, if Tess had anything to say on the matter. “The boy? That hadn’t occurred to me. In God’s name, Jack—why?”

“We’ll discuss that later. Tell me what happened.”

“You’re demanding, brother? Without first offering me a glass of wine to ease the telling? Expressions of gratitude aren’t your strongest suit, I’ve noticed.”

“I’ll apologize later, as well,” Jack growled. “Now talk.”

Emilie, who had been sitting unnoticed in a corner of the large room, came to extract Jacques from Tess’s embrace, her stern look brooking no nonsense from her former charge as she wriggled her fingers in a manner that demanded the boy be handed over to her. She leaned in and said quietly in French, “He was very brave, the pretty blond one. But he should drink the laudanum the doctor said to drink. His pain is not trifling. Now give me the child before you squeeze him to death.”

Tess reluctantly handed Jacques over to his nurse. She watched as they left the room, Wadsworth standing guard in the hallway and wearing the sort of expression that would make most well-armed men throw down their weapons as they ran for their lives, or their own nurses.

“Jack,” she then said, turning back to see him in the process of handing Puck a full glass. “Emilie says the doctor wishes Puck be dosed with laudanum and put to bed.”

Puck quickly grabbed the wineglass before Jack could withdraw it, and downed its contents in two gulps. “And Puck says the doctor is a horse’s ass—your pardon, Tess—and wine is clearly the superior medicine. Besides, I’ve been ordered to speak, and I can’t do that if I’m upstairs snoring, now can I?”

“What happened to your arm?” Jack asked, taking the empty glass and refilling it, then drinking down its contents himself.

“A slice, that’s all. Damned bloody, but a bit of clever stitching by the good doctor has it all sewn up again nicely. Admirable work, really. Admirable. Wouldn’t you rather I began at the beginning?”

“You’ve already had wine, haven’t you?” Jack asked, sitting down once more, this time on a low stool he’d pulled up facing his brother. “A good quantity of it, at that.”

Puck smiled, and then winked at Tess. “His intelligence is near to terrifying, isn’t it? Of course I’ve had wine, Jack. Or have you never had anyone darning several inches of your forearm as if it was a bloody sock? My apologies again, Tess, for my crudity. Regina would have my liver if she heard me like this. She’ll probably have my liver anyway, now that I think of it. I’ve promised her after the last time that I’d never do anything even remotely heroic again.”

“But you were heroic, weren’t you, Puck?” Tess said, longing to hug him. Clearly there were depths to Puck Blackthorn she hadn’t noticed…or he’d kept well hidden. “Would you please tell me what happened? Jack can listen, but we won’t allow him to ask any questions.”

Puck grinned, rather lopsidedly. His blond hair had come free of its ribbon and was falling around his face, making him boyishly handsome. He wagged his finger at Tess as he looked at Jack. “I like this gel. Too good for you by half. Have I said that before? Probably. It’s obvious enough, isn’t it?”

Jack got to his feet. “Never mind, Puck. Let me help you upstairs.”

“No, no, I want to talk now. Not that there’s a whacking great lot to tell.” He screwed up his expression and then seemed to settle on a starting point, because he nodded, as if in agreement with something he’d just thought, and then spoke.

“Let’s see. Not even an hour outside of London. A fair amount of traffic on the roadway, so that the attack was even more of a surprise than it might have been. Clever ploy, don’t you think? Five riders appearing as if out of nowhere. One going to the lead horse, two engaging the outriders behind us, the other two on either side of the coach, pistols waving, shouting. You know how that is, all that blustering, meant to shake a person to his boots. In any case, I couldn’t really make out what they were shouting, but it was apparent they wished for me to open the door to them, even as the coach was still moving. I, of course, declined.”

Tess was forming a picture in her mind of how it was. The men were slowing the coach only enough that Puck could pass Jacques out to one of them before they disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. How? How could her father have planned to catch anything so dangerous
with her son?

“Jacques said you played a game,” she said, thinking of the boy being jostled about as the coach was forced to a halt.

“That’s true enough. A simple matter of lifting the seat on my side of the coach even before those two riders came fully abreast of us, and dumping him into the storage space below. I told him it was a game, and then had Emilie exchange seats with me and, well, sit on him. Plucky. That boy has real bottom, Tess. He didn’t cry at all, and it must have been dark as pitch inside that space.”

She resolved yet again that she was not going to cry. She refused to cry. But, oh, she had not promised not to become incensed!

“I won’t bore you with details, except to say that the rider on my side of the coach became impatient and made to lean down and unlatch the door himself, pulling it open. At which point—not realizing that I’m left-handed—his knife made a dead set at my right side, while I employed my own sticker with my left. To considerably more effect than he, I might add. Emilie, bless her stout French heart, used one of her knitting needles to persuade the gentleman on her side of the coach to withdraw, howling. I gave her a smacking great kiss square on her mouth for that one, something else I suppose I’ll have to tell Regina.

“At any rate, with the door already happily open, I then climbed rather inelegantly up onto the roof, availed myself of the blunderbuss the coachman hadn’t been able to reach while still trying to keep the horses moving, dispatched the bugger holding the off-leader’s harness—and that was that, and here we are, and yes, I really do think I’d like to go upstairs and lie down, if you don’t mind. Oh, and you owe me a new jacket. And a new shirt. And new buckskins, now that I think of it. Shall I simply have my tailor send you a bill? Yes, why don’t I do that?”

Puck stood up then, and swayed where he stood, his complexion alarmingly pale. Jack swore under his breath as he reached out to catch his brother before he could fall.

“Wadsworth!”

The butler was there in an instant, and between them they managed to half walk, half carry Puck from the room. Puck was singing snatches of some faintly bawdy French ditty as they disappeared up the stairs.

Tess stood alone in the drawing room, her hands clutched tightly in front of her, her knuckles going white with the strain of holding back her feelings for the past hour, the past eternity.

And then she slowly followed them up the staircase, as the tears began to fall.

CHAPTER TWELVE

J
ACK
LEANED
AGAINST
the brick wall in the alleyway, one foot bent-legged against it, watching Tess as he smoked his cheroot.

She was a woman on the edge. Of something. Murder? Mayhem? Collapse?

In the past few days she’d lost everything she’d ever believed about her father, her life, her brother’s death. Yesterday, she—they—could have lost their son.

He’d barely spoken with her since their arrival back at Grosvenor Square the previous afternoon to find Puck drunk and bleeding and Jacques stuffing his cherubic mouth with sugar comfits. By the time he and Wadsworth had gotten the happily inebriated Puck settled, she’d climbed up to the third-floor nursery, and hadn’t come down again until this morning. When Jack had knocked on the door, begging admittance, the so recently knitting needle–wielding Emilie had opened it a crack, shaken her head, and warned him to take himself off.

“Puisque que vous vous occupez d’elle, monsieur, laissez lui à ses larmes.”
As you care for her, sir, leave her to her tears.

And so he had, taking himself off to the study, grabbing up the decanter of brandy and slowly, steadily downing most of it, until he finally slept the last few hours of the night slumped in the desk chair.

Now, as he watched, she walked to the edge of the building and once more looked out and across the narrow street to Number 9 Cleveland Row before sighing, and then returning to the spot she seemed to have chosen to stand—completely on the other side of the alleyway from him.

She looked magnificent, something he had decided he wouldn’t waste his breath telling her. Once again clad in her brother’s clothing, she’d tied her hair up and shoved it beneath a low-crowned and wide-brimmed brown hat. Only a fool would believe her male if given a moment to consider the thing, but Jack was sure she hadn’t chosen the rigout for its benefits as a disguise. No, she wanted to be ready to run, if it was running that was required of her.

He didn’t ask her if she had a knife secreted in her boot top. He was certain he already knew the answer to that.

She walked to the edge of the alleyway again. Less than thirty seconds after her last reconnaissance.

“Dickie will give the signal,” he reminded her. “In the meantime, best we stay out of sight.”

“I know that,” she returned rather testily, he thought. “What I don’t know is why you trust either one of them.”

“I don’t. I’ve another man on the roof of the building just above us. If Dickie’s alert comes even five seconds after Jeremy’s, I’ll have my answer as to which one of the two is riding in Sinjon’s vest pocket, won’t I?”

She shrugged one shoulder and returned to her self-assigned position. “You seem to have thought of everything.”

“Not everything, Tess,” he said, thinking about Jacques. They had to talk about this, sooner rather than later. “I’d first have had to lay myself down in a gutter for a week to think up what Sinjon tried yesterday.”

She nodded, speaking quietly: “I don’t know if I want to confront him, or if it would be better if I never saw him again. How is it possible to hate one’s own father?” Her hands drew up into tight fists. “How did I live with such evil, and not know it? Not know it—God, Jack, I
worshipped
it, didn’t I? His supposed brilliance. His never-ending heartache over the death of my mother. And he’ll tell me he did it all for my own good, René’s own good. For Jacques.”

“Perhaps that’s what he believes,” Jack offered. “He duped me as well, Tess. We can’t waste time on regrets, or let what he’s done confuse us now. All that’s left is to play out his little game until the end. He’s had to change his plans now, remember, thanks to Puck…and Emilie. He wanted Jacques safely hidden in order to gain our cooperation. I wonder what was in the note that would have arrived in Grosvenor Square yesterday evening, don’t you?
The boy for the Gypsy and my safe passage to—
Well, we won’t know that now, either, will we?”

She lifted her chin and looked into Jack’s eyes. “The boy? I told you, Jack. He loves Jacques. The way he’d stand at his bedside when he was sleeping, just staring at him. For hours. And Jacques adored him. He would have gone anywhere with—
Oh, my God…
”

He hated doing this to her. But he’d had all night to think, to put himself in Sinjon’s shoes. “Watching him, thinking, plotting.
How do I use this child to my best interests? Is it time? Is he old enough to be without his nurse? No, not yet. And no sign of the Gypsy. I still have time. I’m still safe. Thessaly must believe my devotion, feel safe allowing Jacques to leave the estate with me, think nothing of it. Jacques must come willingly. Is he old enough now? No, not yet. But look, here, in the newspaper. It’s him. He’s back. I’ve got to make my move soon or it will be too late. Too young, the boy’s still too young. If only I had some way of assuring he’d be brought to London. Then I could take him. But of course! Jack. I should have seen it sooner. Jack will bring him to London when he comes to rid me of the Gypsy…
”

Tess wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Stop it, Jack. Stop it.”

“I’m wrong?”

She shook her head. “I want you to stop because you’re probably right. A man who could pretend infirmity for over two years could certainly feign grandfatherly love for three.”

“One thing more, Tess,” Jack said, pushing himself away from the wall to cross the alley to her. “Jeremy? My man on the rooftop? He returned from a rushed visit to the manor late yesterday, and I spoke with him early this morning, before you were awake. I probably don’t need to tell you what he told me.”

He watched her slim throat as she swallowed hard, her eyes closing for a moment before she shook her head. “No. You don’t have to tell me. The rest is gone, isn’t it? The
things.
He took the Mask of Isis to be sure that if all else failed, he had the best of it, but he was never planning to leave the rest behind. Just Jacques and me. And…and he had you to take us away from the manor, leaving it unprotected so that everything else could be safely removed. He has another Gypsy. Doesn’t he?”

“I don’t think so, no.” Jack had thought long and hard about that possibility as well, and dismissed it. “He has hirelings now. Two less today than he had yesterday, thanks to Puck, but that’s all he has. It would be interesting to hear how he thought he would manage to rid himself of them once their usefulness was over, but not interesting enough to make me care. Four years, Tess. He’s had four years to plan this. That we’re as close as we are, that we know or have guessed at as much as we have in just these few days, is a compliment to the way he trained us both. In the end,
we
will be his downfall. You and I, Tess, working together. He trained us, and yet he has underestimated us both. It’s Sinjon’s most damning fault—his absolute belief in his own superior brilliance.”

The low whistle had them both turning their heads toward the end of the alleyway.

“Dickie. Ah, and there’s Jeremy’s alert, close behind him.” Jack pulled out his watch and noted the time. Not quite eleven-thirty, with the deadline being noon. He wondered how many there would be. “Shall we?”

The signal was to come when the first person approached Number 9, presumably to deliver a written application to view the items to be displayed for purchase. And while Dickie and Will watched each delivery, Jack and Tess would wait to see what happened at noon.

“And there’s Jeremy now,” Jack said as his man approached Number 9 shortly after the first messenger had departed, to slide the application Jack and Tess had written into the metal box nailed to the front door that was straight on level with the street. “He makes a tolerable Nabob’s page, don’t you think?”

“Do Nabob’s page boys wear turbans?” Tess asked, watching as the agent retreated back down the steps and walked away.

“I have no idea, my education not stretching to that degree, I’m afraid.”

“I doubt they’re that tall, in any case,” she added quietly. “Do you really think Papa’s somewhere close, watching?”

Another messenger, and close on his heels, another. What was that now, four? And how many others could be in that box, from earlier today, even from yesterday from those too anxious to obey Sinjon’s instructions to deposit their requests at noon today? If the box had even been there yesterday, which it hadn’t been, at least not when Jack had checked.

“Would you be?”

“I don’t think so, no. It would be too risky. Here comes another one, just stepping out of that hackney. And clearly another costume, unless anyone would be fool enough to send his own footman in full livery. Do you recognize it, Jack? I thought the entire idea of this sort of thing was anonymity for both buyer and seller. Jack? Jack, what’s wrong?”

He watched the footman deposit a folded piece of paper in the metal box and then reenter the hackney coach he’d exited moments earlier and drive off immediately. He’d been tall, noticeably so. Well muscled. Red hair, tied back with a black ribbon, a short, full gray cape reminiscent of the French King Louis’s musketeers of a bygone age. The brim of his slouch hat worn low, hiding his eyes. The process hadn’t taken more than five seconds, start to finish, and the man, with a sweep of his short cape, was gone.

“Nothing,” he said, preferring to keep his observations to himself. It was already too late to attempt to follow the hackney; they all had to remain in place until noon. Damn. “It’s just that we’ve got an even half dozen now, with one of them our own Nabob and one quite possibly an agent of the Gypsy. If Sinjon includes them all when he sends out his
invitations,
we’re going to have a more difficult time sorting through them, and keeping them out of harm’s way, for that matter.”

“There are no innocent people,” Tess reminded him, sighing.

Church bells all over the city began pealing the hour of noon. All that was left now was to watch to see what happened to the box. Would the door open, the contents of the box snatched up? Would they wait an hour, five hours, before anything else happened? He should warn Tess to stop pacing back and forth and conserve her energy, but that would be a waste of his breath.

Before the final chime faded an urchin who had been busying himself kicking loose cobblestones at passersby suddenly turned and scampered to the door, grabbed the responses out of the box, and then ran straight out into the street just as a hackney pulled to a halt. Strong arms reached out to grab him up, and the hackney moved on.

Quickly followed by the small farm wagon driven by a disguised Dickie Carstairs, Will Browning appearing out of a nearby doorway and throwing himself up onto the plank seat beside him.

“‘There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now yet it will come: the readiness is all.’”

Tess looked at him as if he’d inexplicably lost his mind. “What are you babbling about?”

“Nothing, just some small remembrance from
Hamlet.
What it comes down to, Tess, is this—timing is all. So far, Sinjon’s timing is excellent, rather like a well-choreographed play. Shall we take the stage to play our part now?” Jack said, indicating that they should cross the street now. “And lend ourselves to our own small part in the performance?” He didn’t put too much hope in the possibility they’d learn anything of consequence, no more than he put in the idea that Dickie and Will would discover anything by following the hackney. But they had to try. They had to play out their roles as Sinjon would expect them to do if they hoped to convince him they had no other choice. Which, unfortunately, they hadn’t.

Puck had been a complication Sinjon had not expected. Puck was often unexpected, as he preferred people to view him as delightful, but harmless. That Sinjon had lost two of his hirelings to Puck, not to mention Jacques, called for some alternation of the man’s plans. At the moment, that might be the only
edge
they had over him.

“Come on, Tess, come on,” he said moments later, standing in front of her, blocking the view of any interested passersby as she bent over the lock to the front door of Number 9. “You used to be good at this.”

“I’m still good at this,” she said as she worked to undo the lock. “I simply don’t usually have to do it with someone
nagging
at me like an old washerwoman.”

“My apologies,” he said, and then turned and followed her as she pushed open the door. She wasn’t simply good, she was magnificent. “No doubt an inferior lock.”

“Yes, no doubt,” she said without rancor as they stepped into the small, gloomy foyer, Jack putting himself between her and whatever they might find, whomever they might find.

There were no stairs, the building having been constructed with a separate entrance for the upstairs rooms, so that it didn’t take long to see that the place was devoid of furniture as well as people. There was nothing. Not so much as a scrap of paper on the— “Damn it!”

“What?” Tess asked, heading back into the small foyer. “Oh, for the love of— He stuck it to the back of the door?”

“With a knife obviously from his collection. How dramatic,” Jack said, removing the ancient, ornately jeweled knife and sliding it into his boot top. “Let’s go.”

“You don’t want to read it now?”