All Men Are Rogues (12 page)

“I
cannot even stand to look at the man’s face,” Evelyn cried, pounding her fist on the scratchy wooden tabletop. “There’s no way I’ll nurse the vile bastard back to health so he can try to kill us once again!”

“Justin Barclay took a bullet for you,” Angel countered.

Evelyn ran her hand through her tousled hair, realizing it had been days since she’d last had a bath. The frantic escape from London to this remote village in the country had not allowed time for grooming. “Perhaps it was another of his deceptions. The man seems a master at manipulation.” His betrayal still burned hot in her heart, making her quick to discount any decent thing he might have ever done, including save her life. “Or perhaps he has grown to care for you.”

“Harrumph! The man does not have a feeling bone in his body.” Just the thought of his lean muscular physique and how she had allowed him to touch her made her want to spit nails.

Angel’s handsome features hardened as he rose from the wooden stool. “We’ve been over this before, Evelyn. We took him along with us because he is our most critical source of information. I’d bet my last farthing he knows who’s behind the scheme against you, who may have killed your father.”

“It’s not worth learning any possible information he may know. I cannot do anything about Papa now, and claiming my inheritance is just not
that
important.” She crossed her arms. “Mr. Tuttle can chase after my legacy, on the unlikely chance that I can still claim what is rightfully mine. Once it is safe to travel, I intend to be handily out of the British government’s reach.”

“What about Sully?”

She swallowed.

He pressed, “Sullivan has disappeared from New-gate, last seen being herded out by six guards. No one knows where he is, or even if he is alive.”

She ignored the searing pain tearing at her heart. Sully had to be alive. She did not think she could handle another loss. She rubbed her hand over her eyes to keep the unshed tears from spilling free. This was a nightmare, but all too real. She shuddered and took a deep breath, knowing she would do anything to save Sully.

“I will find out what he knows,” she stated flatly.

Angel stared at her hard, his chocolate brown eyes narrowing. “Take good care of him, Evelyn. Although he is somehow involved in the government plot, he is still a marquis and an earl and he has no heirs in his line. He can be very valuable to us, if the need arises.”

“Sully is worth fifty of him.”

“Perhaps to you, but not to the English.”

The specter of her father lying dead in her arms flashed through her mind. She shuddered, pushing away the thought. “I’ve never tended someone with a gunshot injury. Perhaps we can retain the doctor’s assistant or someone from the village to care for him.”

“The doctor removed the bullet; you just need to keep the wound clean and the fever away. Moreover, we need to keep as low a profile as possible. You need to be the person hearing his tales, no one else.” Evelyn recognized the tight, resolved look on Angel’s handsome face. His mind was set. Besides, he was right; although she would hate every minute of it, she was best suited for the job.

Sighing, she looked around the spartan kitchen that would be her home for the foreseeable future. “Very well. Shah and I will tend to him.”

“Remember, the doctor seemed equally concerned about the head injury.” He donned his long black cloak and black hat. “The caretaker is paid through the end of the month. He and his wife will leave provisions every other day by the end of the lane. They have no interest in coming closer.”

“What did you tell them?”

He smiled, but it was not a jovial thing. “They are good Christians who’ve fallen on hard times. They need the money but do not want to know about the sin transpiring in their cottage.”

She grimaced. “The only sin transpiring here will be me drawing out the knave’s toenails if he does not tell me what I need to know.”

Angel leaned forward and kissed her on each cheek. “Take care, Evelyn.”

She laid her hand on his arm. “Angel?”

He paused, then squeezed her hand. “I know,
caro
. I know.”

She pressed her lips together to keep from crying. She nodded stiffly. “Thank your father for me as well.”

“He would like the men who murdered your father to see justice, as much as I would, perhaps more.”

“I fear I’ve given up on justice. I just want Sully safe.”

He strode toward the door and opened it wide. The cool country air drifted in. An owl hooted in the distance.

Angel paused in the threshold and turned. “Remember, Evelyn, the marquis is the key to unraveling at least part of this mystery and may prove to be our final gambit. He might even turn out to be an ally, in the end.”

She shivered. “He has no honor; no matter the odds against us, we are better off without him on our side.”

“It seems we could use all the help we can get.” He stepped through the doorway into the cold black night and slammed the door closed behind him.

Evelyn rose from the rickety chair and barred the entry. She leaned back against the rough wood grain and wrapped her arms around each other, hoping to fortify herself for the task ahead.

No use putting off the inevitable. She pushed away from the door and strode to the adjacent room.

The chamber smelled of the odd poultice the doctor had left behind. She could discern mint and linseed in the mix; the mint was probably to cover up the other unpleasant odors.

Two candles rested on each of the side tables to the bed, illuminating the body lying prone and lifeless under a brown woolen blanket.

At Evelyn’s entry, Shah got up from her chair in the corner.

“He has not woken?” Evelyn asked.

The stout maid simply shook her head. A dark scowl lined her features. Shah had been hard-pressed to believe that the marquis had betrayed them. Instead she had clung to the supposed fact that he had saved Evelyn’s life, a fact Evelyn found equally galling and unbelievable.

She stepped closer and leaned over his still form. A layered white bandage wrapped his head, contrasting with his bruised and ashen face. With his eyes closed and his features softened with sleep, he looked almost harmless. But she knew better.

Shah hung back in the corner. Evelyn knew she was not comfortable looking after a man but was prepared to assist in any way she could. Evelyn did not know how she had been so fortunate in her friends.

She peeled back the blanket and stared at his naked body, trying to see him as an object to be tended, not as a man she abhorred. His pale skin shone in the candlelight as she perused his lean, muscular body, her eyes resting on the bandages encircling his broad chest. Blood had seeped through the layers near his right side, staining the white in an egg-sized circle of red. “I suppose I will have to clean the wound.”

“The doctor said to change the bandage in the morning,” Shah supplied. “That it might bleed some was expected.”

Evelyn yawned, accepting any excuse not to touch him. “Right, then. The morning it is.” She checked the thin leather strips binding his wrists and lowered the blanket further to examine the bindings at his ankles. She kept her eyes far from the private area covered only with white men’s drawers.

The doctor had scoffed at restricting the wounded man, insisting that he would be as weak as a newborn, but Evelyn was not about to take any chances. She and Shah were alone in this house, and he was as clear an enemy as ever she’d known.

Evelyn dropped the blanket, rubbing her hands over her eyes. “Go lie down. I’ll tend him if he wakes.”

“You need rest too.”

“My head is racing too much for sleep. You go on.”

Knowing it was useless to argue, Shah drifted out of the chamber to the bedroom next door. The accommodations were anything but lavish, but Evelyn was thankful they at least had a few rooms, some semblance of privacy for when the man awakened.

The doctor had suggested that it might take weeks for the marquis to recover. Evelyn prayed it was not even close to that time. She just needed him conscious enough to answer questions and yet not be a threat. Anything beyond that was a problem. No matter what she had told Angel, she was not prepared to nurse the man back to health. The authorities might deem the man worthy of a trade, but a knife in the back would be all she could expect once the marquis was back in his domain.

She went back to the kitchen and sat at the rough wooden table. She placed paper, ink, quill, and blotter before her, thanking Angel’s foresight for her purgatory in this place. He was generous to her in all ways. She did not know how she would ever repay him.

Blotting the quill, she began the task of sorting the crazed web of her thoughts to set herself a strategy for the days to come.

What we need to know:

 

1. Where is Sully?
   
 

 

2. What do you want from him and from me?
   
 

She scratched her nose. That question presupposed that the marquis was behind the whole scheme, which did not fit the facts. She had to begrudgingly admit that if he was behind the matter, he would not have interfered with the attack the other night. Which meant someone else was orchestrating events.

3. Who do you work for/with?

 

4. What is their goal?

 

5. What is their weakness?

 

6. Do you make a habit of seducing your victims, or was I a special case?

 

 

She blinked. Where did that question come from? She rubbed her eyes. She must be more exhausted than she thought; she was allowing her anger to overshadow her purpose. Father had always said you need decent sleep to keep a clear perspective.

Sighing, she pushed aside the papers and went to the bedroom where the marquis lay. She propped a pillow in the wooden chair in the corner and sat down, glaring at the man who lay at the heart of this tangled fabric, slumbering as if he had all his days to rest. She hoped he had a nightmare.

“He sleeps too long,” Shah commented worriedly.

“I agree.” Evelyn paced the room. It had been three endless days of sitting on pins and needles watching the man, who did not rise to consciousness. He had barely responded when she had changed his bandages. She could only imagine the pain from his wounds; that he did not complain or even moan vested her with unknown fear. Evelyn had removed Justin’s bonds, realizing that her own safety was the least of her worries now.

“We must eat,” Shah commented while drifting out of the bedroom.

The small sick-chamber reminded Evelyn of a cabin on a ship, but a vessel that had lost its moorings. The wind had died, the sails were flat, and the crew waited desperately for the promise of land. She felt as if she and Shah hung on simply to endure the next squall, their spirits were so low.

Justin’s ashen face, bloodied body, and shallow breath terrified Evelyn. Foolishly, part of her wondered if all of the hatred she’d directed at him had somehow manifested in his poor recovery. Could the powers that be have somehow interpreted her loathing as a death wish for him? She hoped not. She cleaned him, cared for him, and watched over him. What else was in her power?

Evelyn found herself doing something she had not done in a very long time: praying. She crouched on her knees before the small window in Justin’s chamber, somehow sensing that God would be outside on this glorious day, rather than in the stale, malodorous chamber. Evelyn could hear Shah in the kitchen, probably saying a few prayers of her own.

Evelyn pressed her forehead to her clutched hands, not knowing what to say to the heavenly father. It seemed odd to beseech the Lord to save Justin, the man she hated with an abiding passion. Would God sense her incongruent feelings on the matter? Could He read her heart when it was so befuddled with hatred, anger, fear, and the quiet cries of desperate longing?

As her thighs cramped and her knees burned raw, she finally concluded her course would be to ask the Lord to sort things out as best as He saw fit. But to save Sully, take care of Shah and Ismet, and, finally, to help Justin. She hated him, yes. But she sincerely did not wish for him to die. She could not imagine this world without him. She could not ignore the good deeds he had done in his life, including saving her life and winding up in this terrible state. The memory of his throwing himself in front of the discharging bullet played through her mind, over and over, making her feel as if her ties to Justin were not nearly severed. There was still much between them, no matter how hard she wished to deny it.

She rose on shaky feet, more certain of herself than she’d been in days. Evelyn swept into the kitchen. “Get me some water from the stream,” she ordered Shah. “Do not heat it. We will bathe him and then try to wake him.”

Wringing her hands in her apron, Shah nodded. Her usual scowl had deepened even further, if that were possible.

Together they washed his body with icy water. He did not wake. They tried shouting, shaking him, propping him up, to no avail. They even tried sticking pins in his feet. Nothing evoked a response. Evelyn was growing frantic. If he died, how was she going to return his body to his family without setting the authorities upon them? If he died, how could she help Sully? If he died, how was she going to ever know why he betrayed, and then saved, her?

The dark cloud that hung over the isolated cabin did not abate, even when Angel sent a message reporting that Ismet was all right. There was still no word on Sully.

Evelyn began reading to Justin from her father’s journal. Somehow saying the words out loud gave her comfort and added some semblance of beauty to her strained world. If only the ghost of her father would appear with some brilliant insight, showing her a way out of this sordid mess. If only the words she read off the page would give her the answers she so urgently needed.