Beware of Virtuous Women (16 page)

"You're right! He can't know that you work with the Black Ghost Gang rather than by yourself or with some other group. Nothing in your journal or anywhere in your desk implicates anyone in Romney Marsh, thank God, but only indicates that you are involved in free-trading. Lists of delivery dates, the cargos delivered, that sort of thing. You could simply be an...an opportunist."

Jack grinned. "Why, Eleanor, I think I'd be insulted, except that you're correct. I am an opportunist, and I've prided myself at being damn good at it over the years, too, until this afternoon. I only wish I knew for certain how he tipped my lay, as Cluny would term the thing. I was so careful.
Thought
I'd been so careful."

Eleanor was so excited with this new idea that she put her hand on Jack's as she said, "We were looking at this from entirely the wrong perspective. Let's begin again.
We
know what we're about, but all the earl can know is that you keep a journal that reveals you are somehow involved in the smuggling trade, whether that be in financing ventures or some other area, and that you have taken great pains to be introduced to him. Correct?"

"Correct," Jack said slowly. "He doesn't know about the Black Ghost Gang, knows nothing about you or your family—again, thank God. And now we've been invited to Chelfham's ball, haven't we?" He turned and put his hands on Eleanor's shoulders, pulled her in for a quick, hard kiss. "Maybe, wife, just maybe, all our worrying is for nothing, and I'm about to be invited to quite a different party."

Eleanor sat there, stunned by the kiss, Jack's words only slowly penetrating her brain. She'd been worried for no reason. 'It's...it's exactly what you wanted, what we planned, no matter that nothing happened quite in the way we planned. The earl is going to invite you— and your money—to become a part of the Red Men Gang. We almost have him!"

Jack rubbed his thumbs against Eleanor's upper arms, wondering if he could dare kiss her again. "Don't forget the other possibility, Eleanor, in which case you could be a widow by the end of the week."

The complete panic that flashed in her eyes was like balm to Jack's soul. Could he believe that Eleanor was more worried for him than she was dedicated to exposing the Red Men Gang?

"You're not amusing, Jack," Eleanor said at last, shrugging free of his hands and getting to her feet, her back turned to him as she hugged her arms to her waist. "We're playing a very dangerous game here and we can't assume or dismiss anything."

Jack got to his feet and stepped close behind Eleanor, his hands once more on her arms as he bent his head to whisper in her ear. "Why, Mrs. Eastwood, I do believe you're worried about me."

Eleanor closed her eyes, longing to lean back against him, give herself over to him even if he was only teasing her. "Jack...I—"

"Or are you only worried about yourself, your family?" he asked her, damning himself, but unable to hold back the question that had been burning in his brain for days. "Are you here to help me, Eleanor, or were you sent to watch me?"

She wheeled about in his arms, shocked to the core by his words. "What? What are you saying to me, Jack? We
trust
you. Don't you trust us?"
Don't you trust me?

"Ah, there she is, the sweet innocent Eleanor. Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth." Jack wanted to stop. Stop talking. Stop destroying the little he thought there might be between him and Eleanor, the much more their association might become. "I'm a fool, Eleanor, a damn bloody fool, and I very nearly let myself care for you, let myself believe you might care for me. Hell, I was idiot enough to think maybe you'd
been
caring for me for a long time, before I at last opened my eyes and finally looked at you."

"Jack, I don't know what you're—"

He smiled bitterly, shook his head. "This is all a game, isn't it, just as you said? A dangerous game. You, me, Chelfham, Ainsley, even Jacko. All a game of who trusts whom. And now I know. I'm the employee. I should have remembered that. I'm not a Becket. Tolerated, but never quite accepted, never quite trusted, never quite one of you. I could have lived with that, Eleanor, if you'd just stayed the hell out of my way, kept me from having ideas I never should have had."

Eleanor's heart was pounding furiously as she saw the pain in Jack's eyes, knowing she had put it there. Was amazed that she could put such pain there. "Jack, you're wrong. Papa trusts you, we all do. There's nothing. . .nefarious going on here, I swear it. And we're getting close now. We'll soon know everything Chelfham knows."

He felt incredibly sad. Looking in those huge, innocent brown eyes, knowing she was lying to him. It would be so easy to say he trusted her. Kiss her. Take her to his bed. Open that damn last door between them. "I saw your portfolio, Eleanor."

She tried to step back, run, but his grip on her arms was too tight, even painful. "You.. .you had no right."

"We're not going to debate rights here, Eleanor. How long did you and Ainsley and the rest know we were dealing with Chelfham? If I hadn't guessed it myself, would you have eventually told me? You were even
there,
Eleanor. Poor little cloistered Eleanor Becket, she's never set foot off Romney Marsh. And I believed it. I believed it all. I'm a damn fool."

Eleanor could feel herself shutting down as she withdrew within herself, within her memories. "I should have told you. I was going to tell you."

"What? Did you say something, Innocent Eleanor? You whispered, but I think I heard it. You should have

told
me?Yes, Eleanor, you should have. Ainsley should have. But now I've figured it out on my own, haven't I? Well, at least you won't have to worry about sacrificing yourself by seducing the gullible hired help, will you? That should be a great relief to you. After all, there are limits, even for family."

Eleanor swung from her heels, acting, for once in her life not thinking, the flat of her hand connecting with Jack's cheek with a force hard enough to send his head sideways on his neck.

She, Eleanor Becket, who had never so much as raised her voice in her life, had just raised her hand to the only man in her life she had ever believed she could trust with her heart.

She turned and slowly, carefully, walked out of the room.

"You surely do know how to make a mess of things, don't you, boyo?"

Jack shot Cluny a look that might have terrified anyone who hadn't spent weeks on end in the muddy battlefields of the Peninsula with him. "She lied to me. You saw it, you saw the watercolors. How could I not call her on it?"

Cluny pursed his lips as if considering this, then said, "While you, my good friend and lieutenant, are as pure as the driven snow, with not a secret to you. You, who not so long ago said you weren't looking to apply for sainthood. A good thing, that, because what you'd be getting is fire and brimstone. How hard did she hit you?"

Jack allowed himself a small smile. "Hard enough. There are hidden fires to that woman, although I think she might have been as surprised as I was to find that out." He pushed himself up and out of his desk chair. "This is ridiculous. She didn't even come down for dinner. We can't go on like this. I should go apologize."

"For what, boyo? For peeking at her pretty pictures? Can you do that, and then not ask again about how they came to be in her portfolio? Your questions, her answers, and you'll be back where you started, with only another knock to your thick head to show for your trouble."

"I know that. But I think I've figured out what to do."

Cluny turned in his chair, put out his leg to stop Jack as he headed for the door. "Not quite yet, boyo. What have you figured out? Oh. Oh, no. You're going to trade secret for secret, aren't you? Jack, you can't do that."

Jack retraced his steps, settling one hip against the edge of the desk. "Why not? It seems logical. I show that I trust her, and she returns the favor."

Cluny sighed, shook his head. "Didn't think such a little dab could hit that hard, but she's rattled your brains, hasn't she, boyo? Think, Jack. She spills so much as a word of what you're planning to tell her, and the Beckets will be cutting you up and using you for bait, they will. Not to mention what they'll do to your loyal Irish friend. I have plans, boyo, and they include dying of simple old age."

Jack knew the risks. He'd spent most of the day circling the problem, looking at it from all angles. "I don't think she'll do that, Cluny. I think she was more disappointed in me this afternoon, for questioning her, than she was angry that I'd found something she obviously didn't want me to see. If I show her that I trust her— trust her with my life—she won't betray me."

Cluny pushed himself to his feet. "I think I'm going to be losing my supper any minute now," he said, pressing one hand to his ample belly. "What a bag of moonshine, Jack. Anyone would think you're soft on the girl."

"I respect her, Cluny. She's a very brave woman. Not a girl at all."

"Respect her, is it? What part do you respect most, boyo? Those big brown eyes? Or maybe that trim little figure?"

"Don't do that, Cluny," Jack said tightly. "We're friends, but don't do that, you understand?"

"O-o-o-oh," the Irishman said, holding out his hands as be backed up a few steps. "So the wind truly blows that way, does it? Never thought I'd see the day your good sense went flying because of a woman."

"Don't exaggerate the thing, Cluny," Jack said, pushing away from the desk. "We've got a mission here, remember? Worm our way into Chelfham's good graces and let him lead us to the leaders of the Red Men Gang, and stop the drain on our purses. That's why we're here, that's why Eleanor is here."

"Even if she and that papa of hers already knew Chelfham was one of them, but didn't see the need to tell you?"

"Even if that's true, yes. We're in no more danger now than we were when we started this thing. Granted, Chelfham seems to be onto me, knows I'm in the same
business
as he, but that's what we wanted. We're close, Cluny, and getting closer. The more I think about it, the more it doesn't matter that Ainsley might have been a step or two ahead of me."

"And the flowers will come again in the spring, tra-la, tra-la." Cluny reached for his wineglass and downed its contents in one angry gulp, then threw the glass at the fireplace. 'Then go on. Go! Tell her all your bloody secrets. Am I still to have your back?"

Jack knew his friend was angry, disappointed. "If you're still willing, yes. Now come on. I don't have to make my confession to Eleanor tonight, do I? Let's the two of us call for my coach and take ourselves for a ride down Bond Street, maybe stopping in somewhere for a—
what in hell was that?"

Jack was running even before he heard the first high-pitched scream, for the sound of shattering glass, followed quickly by a muffled
thump,
seemed to have been right above his head.

He raced up the servant stairs three at time, Cluny already far behind him, and could smell smoke as he made the next landing. "Eleanor!" he shouted, heading straight for her bedchamber. "Fire! Cluny! Sound the alarm!
Fire!"

He flung open the door in time to see Eleanor on her knees, rolling a screaming Beatrice inside a small rug. Behind her, the drapes were on fire. "Eleanor!"