The Rogue (46 page)

He
felt her chest heave mightily and held her while she coughed out the
smoky air filling her lungs. As she gasped and choked in his arms,
Ethan let his forehead drop to her wet neck as he clutched her
tightly to him, rocking her in the light of the flames, surrounded by
a circle of cheering men.

Jane
lived. At this moment, it was enough. It was more than enough.

Jane
drew one blessedly cool breath after another, safe in the circle of
Ethan's arms. The skin of her arms was scorched and she was fairly
sure she'd lost some hair, and her head pounded like a smith's hammer
on an anvil, but she was alive and she was with Ethan.

Finally,
her breath came slower and easier, though her lungs still burned. She
opened her eyes to see Ethan's dirty face hovering over her own.

"You're
a sight," she said huskily.

He
laughed damply, clutching her more tightly. With wonder, Jane
realized that his face was streaked with tears.

"You're
a much worse sight," he said, his voice choked with emotion.

Jane
realized that his shoulder was wrapped in bandages beneath his open
shirt. She reached one hand to touch, then pulled back when she
realized how dirty her fingers were. "Are you injured?" Her
voice was only a croak.

He
blinked down at the bandages as if he'd forgotten all about them.
"Oh." Then he shook his head. "I'll be fine."

Someone
laughed nearby. Jane turned her head to see a handsome dark-haired
man grinning at them and rubbing his jaw. "I thought you
couldn't fight," he said to Ethan. "You took out six of us
with a bullet wound in your shoulder!"

"I
never said I couldn't fight," Ethan replied absently, stroking
the mud from Jane's cheek with his thumb. "I said I didn't want
to."

The
man laughed again. "Until now."

Jane
blinked at the man, confused. Then she abruptly remembered something.
"Oh!" She fumbled in her pocket, her scorched fingers
clumsy. She pulled out a strip of sodden card paper and handed it
triumphantly to Ethan. "Here!"

He
let go of her long enough to take it from her. Her heart ached to see
his burned and blistered fingers. He held the nasty wet thing
tentatively. "What is this? It's ruined, I'm afraid."

Jane
smiled and laid her head on his shoulder once more. "Good, for
that is your Chimera's passage ticket off English soil." She
heaved a blessedly deep breath and closed her eyes. "I picked
his pocket, just as you taught me."

The
man stood in the fog's concealment, watching the group gathered
around the burning cart. He'd made it to the ship in time, only to be
put off when he'd been unable to prove he'd bought passage.

Check
and mate. There would be no obtaining the passage ticket now. Of
course, there were other ways of returning home.

Ire
swirled within the man as the Liars succeeded in rescuing Lady Jane.
He'd sacrificed the gambler Maywell, one of his best pieces, in this
game and he'd still been neatly checked.

He
felt his pulse pound with unaccustomed fury. Odd. He usually managed
to keep his emotions cool, but the bloody damned Liars—

The
man took a deep breath. He was the Chimera, the myth, the man of many
faces who appeared and disappeared at will. And not checkmated, not
yet.

As
his anger diminished until not a ripple of emotion marred the glassy
pool of his concentration, the man smiled slightly. If he was not
meant to leave this damp, stinking island yet, then so be it.

There
was always work to be done here. At the moment, he rather relished
the idea of taking on the Liars again. And if they thought him
struggling to find his way out of the country…

His
smile widened, but did not reach his flat pale blue eyes.

Time
to set up the game once more.

«
^
»

Jane
leaned her head against the back of her chair and allowed her eyes to
close for a long, lovely moment. She was clean and wore a borrowed
dressing gown, seated before the fire in a bedchamber in a most
curious place, a gentlemen's club, of all things.

She
strongly suspected that this was the same club Mother had told her
about, but she was playing innocent for now. Later, however, Mr.
Ethan Damont had some explaining to do.

Her
hands were bandaged and all her scrapes and cuts and bruises—there
was a dismaying amount of them— had been inspected and dressed
by the gruff, kindly Dr. Westfall. She raised her head and opened her
eyes to smile at the man, who was even now putting his supplies back
into his doctor's bag.

"How
are Mr. Damont's hands, Doctor?" She'd ridden back to the club
in Ethan's arms, before him on his horse, but when they had arrived,
he'd handed her over to the other Liars without a word. She hadn't
seen him since.

Dr.
Westfall grunted without turning. "His hands are burned, of
course. The damned fool, sticking his hands in the fire. Most people
learn better before they turn two."

Jane
began to protest that he'd been injured saving her, but the good
doctor only raised his hand to stop her. "No, my lady, I don't
want to know. I don't ask, and this lot doesn't tell, and we're both
the happier for it."

She
smiled, understanding all too well. "Will he recover full use of
his hands? They were so blistered…" The memory made her
trail off as she pictured the raw, seared flesh of Ethan's
magnificent, talented hands.

The
doctor did up the clasps of his bag, finally turning to her. "My
lady, Mr. Damont will recover eventually. And when he does, I fully
intend to win back the small fortune he took from me earlier this
year." The man's eyes twinkled despite his gruff tone. "Now,
does that please you?"

Jane
smiled. "Yes, Doctor."

He
strode to the door. "You've the constitution of an ox, my lady,
but even you must rest now." He wagged a finger at her. "You'll
not stop the headaches until you do."

Jane
pressed a fluttering hand to her throat and batted her lashes. "An
ox? Why, you are too kind, sir!"

The
doctor let out a single booming bark of laughter as he opened the
door. Mr. Tremayne was waiting outside and Jane saw him give the
doctor a startled glance.

The
doctor brushed past him with another grunt, although Mr. Tremayne
greeted him politely. Then Mr. Tremayne tapped politely on the
doorframe. "May I enter, my lady?"

Jane
leaned forward eagerly. "Yes, if you tell me how Ethan is, Mr.
Tremayne."

Collis
glanced away. "Oh, he's all right. He's probably resting now, as
you ought to be."

Jane
gathered herself up. "I don't want to rest. I want to see
Ethan." She started toward the door. "Will you take me to
him?"

Collis
stopped her with a gesture. "Damont… well, you see…
he has this cat…"

Jane
frowned at him. "Speak, Mr. Tremayne."

Collis
sighed. "Ethan isn't here. He went home."

Jane's
heart sank. "He went home? He left me here, without so much as a
word?"

Collis
shrugged. "I'm sure he would have said goodbye, but with the
doctor here…"

Jane
narrowed her eyes. "Mr. Tremayne, you seemed fluent in English
before."

He
blinked at her, then flushed. "My God, you are a ferocious
creature, aren't you? I think you two might very well deserve each
other after all."

Jane
nodded. "Thank you. I think so as well. Now tell me why he left,
and pray do not wax inarticulate."

Collis
folded his arms and grinned at her. "He said, and I quote, 'I've
caused quite enough wreckage in her life.' "

Jane
sighed. "I knew it. I knew he was still trying to chuck me."

Collis
tilted his head to smile at her. "Well, are you simply going to
stand there and let him?"

Jane's
head ached. In fact, her entire being ached, within and without. She
felt weak. Drained. How could she keep fighting Ethan's persistent
retreat from her? How could she bear to lift up her sword again?

She
pressed a hand to her forehead. "I think—I think I'm going
to have to think about it tomorrow."

Collis
seemed disappointed, but he nodded. "Very well, then. I'll leave
you to rest." He turned to go but stopped at the door. "By
the way, Dalton sent a message to your cousin to let him know you
were safe and sound."

Jane
froze. "My—my cousin?" How had they known?

Collis
looked at her oddly. "Yes. The current Marquis of Wyndham is
your cousin, isn't he?"

Jane
let out a horrified breath. "Mr. Tremayne, I need my clothes,
quickly!"

Ethan
let himself into his empty house, fumbling the key with his bandaged
hands. The burns hurt, but the physical pain was only a dull echo of
the ache in his chest. He felt as if his ribs would cave in from the
pressure of it. The house seemed more empty than it ever had before.
Ethan gazed about him dispassionately at his most prized possession.
Bricks and mortar, that was all he saw now. Yet it was more than Jane
had.

He
went to his study and went straight to his desk. There, in an inner
drawer, he found what he sought. He pulled the inkstand closer and
clumsily uncapped the ink using both bandaged hands. Then he pulled a
sheet of foolscap from another drawer and wrote silently for a long
moment, his customary scrawl even larger and less legible than usual.

He
folded it, but didn't bother to light a candle to seal it. There was
no Jeeves, so there was no fire in his hearth, no lit candles
awaiting him. There was only a cold, empty house that he didn't want
anymore.

Jane
had come bloody close to dying because of him. More than once,
actually. She'd told him the story of her journey in the trunk while
they'd ridden back early this morning and he'd been horrified at how
close she had come to suffocating.

He'd
made one stupid mistake after another. They were all so obvious now.
He rose from the desk and threw his scorched, bullet-ridden, bloody
coat to the floor of the study as he made his way to the brandy.

His
first had been to remain in London for one minute after Lord
Etheridge had made his "proposal." He ought to have been on
the first ship to the West Indies.

His
second, third, fourth—oh, God, his infinite mistake!—had
been to give in to his attraction to Lady Jane Pennington. He'd been
weak, desperate, breaking every one of his own rules three times
over. Damn, the brandy was upstairs. "No virgins. No virgins. No
virgins," he muttered to himself.

"Too
bad you didn't remember that earlier."

Ethan
whirled, raising his ridiculously muffled fists in defense.

A
man not much older than himself sat in Ethan's chair, before Ethan's
cold hearth in Ethan's study. His sharply cut features had a watchful
quality as he gazed stonily at Ethan. Zeus slept on the man's lap,
lounging on his back with all four white paws in the air. The
traitor.

"Who
the bloody hell are you?"

The
man remained seated, disregarding Ethan's fury entirely. "I'm
here to talk to you about a certain virgin."

"Jane?"
Too late, Ethan realized he ought to have kept his bloody mouth shut.

The
man nodded. "Apparently. She spent several nights here with you,
I hear." He tilted his head. "Unchaperoned," he added
sourly.

"Who
the bloody hell are you?"

Ethan's
front door burst open and light, running footsteps sounded in the
hall, footsteps Ethan knew all too well. He turned. "Janet?"

She
halted, disheveled and breathless, in the doorway. She was so
beautiful his chest hurt anew. "Oh, dear," she said faintly
when she saw the two of them.

"Hello,
Jane," the man said, his tone warming only slightly.

Ethan
couldn't believe it, but Jane actually paled. "Hello, Stanton,"
she said diffidently.