The Price of Temptation (8 page)
C
reighton prowled through the corridors of his aunt’s town house, searching for something else to sell, something as valuable as the Gainsborough painting he’d already taken. If his family found out, he’d be disowned, but how else was he to survive?
He passed the ormolu clock in her private sitting room and glared at it. Above it, his aunt’s portrait glared back, an ugly thing that wouldn’t fetch tuppence. It was nearly ten o’clock. Where the hell was Bassett? It shouldn’t take this long to fetch a letter from three streets away.
He poked at a small landscape in a gilt frame, a view of the family estates in Devon. He hadn’t been there in years. The place meant nothing to him, but the painting might fetch enough to pay for a night’s wagering at White’s. His current losing streak couldn’t last forever.
He snatched the picture off the wall and tossed it on the settee. How he hated living this way, but he had little choice. His gut clenched as he considered the gravity of his situation.
He had to find Rutherford, and kill him.
He was here in London, somewhere, possibly watching him at this very moment. Creighton opened the door to his aunt’s bedchamber, knowing he was the first man to enter her private sanctum in forty years. He crossed to the window and checked the street. There was no sign of Rutherford, or Bassett either, for that matter. He turned to the massive jewelry chest that squatted in the corner and forced the lock, cursing Rutherford as he did so. He was reduced to this, stealing from his own family.
Sinjon Rutherford was the worst of fools, an honorable man, despite the fact that he had neither fortune nor title. Rutherford stood ready to right the world’s wrongs, save damsels in distress, and win the admiration of men of all classes.
He
would never stoop to pilfering an old lady’s heirlooms. Creighton hated him.
He remembered the day he met the good captain in Spain. Rutherford won a fortune at cards from him, money he didn’t have. He’d been forced to sign a vowel in front of a dozen witnesses.
He’d planned to cancel the debt, as he usually did, with a bullet between the captain’s shoulder blades. In war, men died every day, which was one of the things Creighton liked best about Spain. There were always new officers to game with, wet lads fresh out of England that he could cheat until they got themselves killed. But Rutherford managed to return from every fight unscathed, and covered in glory.
The day the vowel came due, Creighton was unable to pay it. He’d gone on patrol hating the man.
He ignored the neat rows of pearls and the garnet earrings, and pulled up the velvet lining of the drawer, searching for the key he knew must be there. Dust flew up at him, choking him.
It had been very dusty that day in Spain too, on the remote mountain road where he’d happened upon the pretty wife of a French officer, her coach crippled by a broken wheel. She’d faced her enemies with admirable bravery. Her husband was a wealthy colonel, she said, and would pay handsomely for her safe return.
Creighton had seen the possibilities at once, financial and otherwise. He let her write a note and send her driver running to her husband with it.
Then he’d given her maid to his men to keep them busy while he took his pleasure with the lady.
Sinjon Rutherford had found him in a most dishonorable position when he arrived, with his breeches around his ankles as he knelt between the lady’s naked thighs.
The woman started screaming, pleading with Rutherford in French, begging for help. Rutherford had sent him sprawling with a single punch, disgust clear in his eyes. With his breeches down, he couldn’t fight back, or defend himself. Now was that honorable?
By the time he got to his feet and found his sword, Rutherford had given the woman his coat to cover her torn bodice, and had her behind him, under his protection. The captain’s sword was pointed at his throat.
“Don’t be a prude, Rutherford,” Creighton murmured to the silence of his aunt’s chamber, recalling what he’d said then. “She’s the enemy.” He ripped the velvet lining out of the drawer and tossed it aside.
“She’s a woman, not a soldier, Creighton,” Rutherford had replied.
Creighton had tried playing the superior officer card. “Why are you here, away from camp, Captain?”
“I’ve come to collect my money. I wanted to be first in line, since you owe so much to so many others.”
Creighton had smiled, thinking luck was on his side after all. They were alone, except for the lady. A quick sword thrust was all it would take to cancel the debt.
“Please, Captain,” the woman pleaded. “I have sent a note to my husband. He is Colonel Jean-Pierre d’Agramant. He will come for me, pay for my safe return.” She didn’t look so pretty now, Creighton had thought, with her mouth bloodied by his fist, but she’d fought like a tigress, and he was still aroused. Once he killed Rutherford, he’d take her next to his corpse.
“You see, Rutherford? She’s about to be ransomed. An afternoon’s sport won’t harm her. When her husband arrives, he’ll pay me, and I’ll pay you.” He reached for the flask in his pocket and held it out. “Let’s have a drink while we wait. It will be some while before her husband gets here. We might as well pass the time pleasantly. I’ll even let you go first.”
As long as he lived, Creighton knew he would never forget the way Rutherford’s face twisted with revulsion.
He tore open yet another drawer in the damned Chinese puzzle of a jewel box, and scattered the contents.
“We’ll wait for the Colonel, Creighton, without harming the lady,” Rutherford had said.
For a moment after that, things began to look up. His men emerged from the bushes, fastening their flies. They assessed the situation—and their own guilt—and chose to side with him. They took Rutherford’s sword, held him at musket point.
Creighton stripped Rutherford’s coat from the Frenchwoman and began to drag her away for a little privacy.
“I’ve heard d’Agramant is the best swordsman in France,” Rutherford called after him. “Rape his wife, and he’s more likely to kill you than pay you. Is an afternoon’s sport worth your life?”
That had certainly shriveled any hope of enjoying the lady’s favors, and his men started to mutter among themselves.
“We vote that the lady remains unharmed,” his sergeant spoke up.
He’d twisted her arm behind her back until she screamed. “This is not America!” he shouted. “You don’t get a say in this. The woman is mine!” He raised his pistol, and the nearest man went down with a cry, clutching his leg. The French bitch began screaming again, a shrill, earsplitting sound. He hit her to make her stop, knocking her unconscious, just as her husband arrived with a troop of French Guards.
There’d been murder in d’Agramant’s eyes when he saw his wife. Creighton remembered the burn of fear in his belly. He’d dragged the woman against his chest and held his knife at her throat. “I’ll kill her,” he warned.
Now, he picked up a letter opener from his aunt’s desk and threatened the back of the cabinet, looking for a secret compartment.
“And I’ll shoot your men, one by one, until you let her go,” the colonel had replied, imagining that he cared about their sodding lives.
It made him laugh even now. He pressed the letter opener into a promising crack in the jewelry chest’s mahogany frame the same way he’d pushed the knife against her breast.
“Throw down the ransom and go,
monsieur
. I will send her to you when you are out of shooting range.”
The colonel’s expression didn’t change. At his nod, one of his men shot the first British soldier. Rutherford threw himself in front of the rest of the cowering redcoats.
He faced the Frenchman without a trace of fear in his eyes. “They’re innocent.”
The colonel gave Rutherford the cold, sour, superior French smile usually reserved for English visitors to Paris. He pointed his pistol at Rutherford’s heart.
“
Et vous, monsieur?
Are you innocent as well?”
Rutherford hadn’t answered, didn’t plead for his life. Creighton would have, if there’d been time, but d’Agramant didn’t wait. He glanced at his wife’s battered face, her torn dress, and gave the command to fire.
In the deafening volley, every man on the road was running, screaming, dying in the hot yellow dust. Rutherford dropped and rolled. He landed next to Creighton and the woman. He actually
stood
in front of her, Creighton recalled, protecting her even then.
Did the fool think he was impervious to death? When the firing stopped and the air was filled with the acrid stink of burnt powder, d’Agramant dismounted and stalked toward them, his eyes locked with Rutherford’s. Creighton flinched as the colonel’s sword dimpled the skin of Rutherford’s throat.
“Your wife is unharmed,
monsieur
. Take her and go,” Rutherford said, his voice steady.
“Unharmed?” the colonel hissed. “You think I can allow you to get away with this?”
“Do it,” Creighton encouraged as the Frenchman’s sword pressed deeper into Rutherford’s flesh.
He used the letter opener to destroy another drawer, imagining it was Rutherford.
The Frenchwoman woke and began to scream at her husband in rapid French, explaining everything. Creighton would have hit her again, or stabbed her, but Rutherford turned on him like a wolf, moving even before the colonel could put up his sword. D’Agramant’s blade carved a long deep gash in the captain’s neck, and hot blood splashed across Creighton’s face as Rutherford wrenched the knife out of his hand. His only thought then had been of escape.
Creighton could tell by the look in d’Agramant’s eyes that he knew the truth. He shoved the woman at Rutherford and ran, leaving the honorable fools to see to her.
He hadn’t gone more than a mile in the hot Spanish sun, with Rutherford’s blood drying on his face, before he began to have doubts. If the Frenchman let Rutherford go, or he escaped, what then? Wellington hanged men for rape. It was his word against the captain’s. Creighton had ridden hard for headquarters.
He’d told them how he found Rutherford selling secrets to the French. His men were all dead, killed by Captain Sinjon Rutherford.
When Rutherford returned, he was conveniently in possession of an expensive French sword.
Creighton had insisted they hang him at once, but the officer in charge, yet another honorable fool, had insisted on a proper court-martial.
Then O’Neill stumbled into camp, wounded but alive. At least the sergeant had a saber slash to the jaw that rendered him mute.
Creighton sent Private Bassett to finish both Rutherford and O’Neill, but he was too late. Both men escaped.
Who knew Rutherford had so many friends? Officers who liked the captain demanded immediate payment of the gambling vowels Creighton held, and refused to play cards or even share meals with him. Lord Wellington decided it was best if he returned to England.
Creighton stared at the wreck of the priceless chinoiserie cabinet littering the floor of his aunt’s bedroom. There had to be a key to the safe where she kept the real jewels, but it wasn’t here.
He ran a shaking hand through his hair. He needed money. He couldn’t hide like a rat in this house forever. The plain gold chains and silver lockets mocked him, an old lady’s sentimental treasures, all worthless. He kicked at them with a curse that sullied the spinster’s chamber. He sank to the floor and rubbed a hand across his mouth, wanting a drink.
Perhaps he was safe. He hadn’t actually
seen
Rutherford since the day the captain, ragged and hollow-eyed, accosted him on the street and foolishly challenged him to a duel. Rutherford hadn’t turned up for the dawn meeting, but he was here somewhere, an outlaw with a price on his head, waiting for his chance.
He’d hoped Rutherford would do the honorable thing and walk into Horse Guards. They’d hang him on sight, of course.
Invisible, hidden, Rutherford was even more dangerous. He still had the French sword, and Creighton feared it would end up buried in his back on some dark night, unless he found Rutherford—and O’Neill—first.
He heard familiar heavy footsteps on the stairs and got to his feet. Bassett was back at last. Creighton employed the burly ex-soldier to keep an eye out for trouble, guarding his life, running his errands. He went into the sitting room and closed the door on the bedroom, so Bassett wouldn’t see the mess and suspect there was a greater gain than he was offering. Straightening his coat, Creighton waited for the man to deliver Evelyn Renshaw’s very welcome letter into his hand.
It had been an incredible stroke of luck to discover that Evelyn Renshaw was selling off her husband’s treasures. By chance, an infamous portrait of Renshaw’s mistress was being offered at the same auction where he’d sold his aunt’s Gainsborough. The portrait was the tamest part of Lord Philip’s collection of erotic art and books. It was being sold under a false name, and after the sale Creighton followed the man who collected the proceeds, hoping he would lead straight to Renshaw, so he could claim a reward or possibly blackmail the traitor.
Remarkably, since Renshaw was the least charitable man in England, the seller had delivered the bulging purse to the Foundling Hospital. There were rumors that someone was making large anonymous donations to charitable institutions. The betting books held that it was the Earl of Darlington, a potty old fellow who’d vowed to give away every penny of his fortune before he’d leave it to his hated relatives.
It hadn’t been hard for Creighton to see that the gifts were coming from Evelyn Renshaw as she sold off her husband’s collection. It had pained him to see Renshaw’s fortune wasted on orphans and widows.
He’d been wondering if he could blackmail the traitor’s wife when, quite by chance, he met her when he went to visit Anne O’Neill, in hopes that she had news of her dear brother.
He’d held Anne’s hand as she cried over Patrick’s unknown fate, and it had been easy to convince Evelyn that he was a great believer in charity. He let it slip that he was on his way to Devon, to endow an orphanage near his family home. As he’d hoped she would, Lady Evelyn graciously provided a gift of her own to accompany his.
