Escape with A Rogue (12 page)

There had been something about the man whose touch could tame an abused stallion, whose low-pitched voice could soothe a mare through the birthing of twin foals. Something undeniably alluring . . .

Madeline pushed aside the image of Grace standing by Jack as he groomed a horse or worked to train one, of Grace savoring the feel of the sun, the scent of flowers, and talking of intimate things . . . dreams and hopes, fears and desires.

“So you fought with her in the maze because she was determined to ruin herself?” she asked. “Why should that have mattered to you, Jack?”

For a long time, he stared at his empty bowl.

Steadiness dissolved like syllabub on her tongue. It would have mattered to him if he had loved Grace. It would have made him furious to love Grace and watch her try to seduce a gentleman with better prospects. Grace
had
been lovely—a delicate, dark-haired, peach-and-ivory type who made men protective.

Jack braced his right foot on his chair and leaned on his knee. “I liked Grace and I could see what her future would be. Not the forced marriage she hoped for, but poverty and despair.”

“She did not want to listen?”

“No. She told me she feared she was already with child—”

“She was with
child
?” Madeline clapped her hand to her mouth.

“Yes. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to marry the father. But she believed she could still force a union, because she had made love with another gentleman in your house.”

 “You mean, she slept with two men? She meant to lie to one of the gentlemen and tell him the child was his?” Heavens, Grace had always seemed so demure.

“She was frightened and desperate,” Jack said softly.

And Philip had gone to see Grace in the maze.

Madeline’s stomach tightened so quickly the stew almost climbed back up her throat. Had Philip been the baby’s true father or had he been the man Grace had hoped to trick into marrying her?

If Philip were the father, what would he have done to cover up an indiscretion with a governess that had resulted in a child?

She felt Jack’s steady gaze raking her face. “She was a conniving fool.”

Jack shrugged. “As you say, my lady.”

He sounded so sorry for Grace, and his harsh tone revealed he didn’t approve of her
lack
of sympathy. Madeline frowned. “She did not deserve to be murdered, but you can’t tell me that lies and deception can be excused.”

“I can understand desperation. Apparently, the right to lie and deceive depends on your class.”

Heat pricked her cheeks. “My grandfather lied, and, no, I do not expect you to forgive that, either.”

“There was an innocent victim in the mess,” he said, and his green eyes darkened with sorrow. “The child. I offered to help—”

“With what? You had nothing.” Her words rang out in the cottage, echoing off the low timber breams.

“A man might live a simple life but it doesn’t make him impoverished.” He paused. “I had a bit put by. I could have kept her from disaster and spared the child a life in a workhouse.”

“You would have
married
her?”

“I offered it, even though I’m not the sort of man a lady marries—even a ruined one. But she was determined to try to blackmail her way to a title, and I . . . Hades, I became impatient with her.”

“So you grabbed her and shook her.”

Stark pain flashed over his face. “I don’t use physical force on women. That’s why I must have been staring down at my hands when you saw me, Lady M. It could be why my kerchief fell off.”

“And the murderer found it and used it.
You
are innocent. So is Philip.” That came out almost defiantly. A twitch of a rueful smile on his lips deepened the lines on the sides of his mouth, but she continued, “One of the other gentlemen must have met her in the maze. One of the others she hoped to force into marriage. Perhaps even the real father of her child.”

Jack took his foot off the chair, and she could not draw her gaze away from the slow, languorous sweep of his long leg. “You should prepare for bed, Lady M. There are rings under your eyes, you’re paler than chalk, and you must need rest.”

“It had to be one of the other men who were guests in the house.” Madeline ran over the list in her head. The house party had comprised three of Philip’s friends: the Marquis of Deverell, Viscount Braxton, and Lord Harold Blythe who has inherited the title now—he’s now the Earl of Mayberry. The three men had brought their sisters and mothers. Grandfather had also invited a young, handsome musician named Peregrine Rhodes, who was a viscount’s younger son and therefore a gentleman.

One of those men must have been Grace’s lover. One of them must have strangled Grace. Other than Peregrine Rhodes, Madeline had known each man since she was a girl. Yet one of those gentlemen must have killed to escape marriage, or because he had discovered his mistress was carrying someone else’s child.

The chair creaked as Jack rose. The shirt she’d acquired for him was too big and open at the throat. She glimpsed the tanned line of his collarbone, the firm swell of his chest muscles, and a few curls of dark brown hair. He towered over her, concern plain in his green eyes.

“You met all the men who were visiting us for the house party, didn’t you?” she asked.

He frowned. “Yes. I took care of their horses. I know your grandfather had gathered up men he believed would make good suitors for you: a marquis, an earl, and a viscount.”

She grimaced, and he shook his head, his frown deepening to cut shadowed lines in his forehead. “You want to know which man I’d wager on for the murder—is that it, Lady M.?”

She nodded.

“Speculation isn’t wise.”

“I don’t care. I want to know what you think. You must have wondered who actually did it.” She took a deep breath—and drew in the musk of his body. After his scrubbing with the washcloth, Jack’s scent was rich and earthy and good. Her cottage was dark, with only the light of a low fire and the circular glow of a candle, but it was not the gloom that made everything but Jack insignificant. It had always been this way since he had come to her home. Once she was with him, he was all she wanted to look at.

“Yes.” His voice still held the deep, almost magical tone that had lured her to talk and talk to him. “I’ve wondered that in my every waking moment.”

She could imagine how horrible it must have been.

“It might not have been one of the gentlemen in your house,” Jack said. “It could have been one of the servants. Or a man from the village.”

She had no right to be staring at his face and be aware of how chiseled and beautiful it was. Talking of the murders almost felt like a safe retreat. “No one from the village could have been able to get in and out of the maze so easily. As for the servants—I questioned the men. All had alibis that could be substantiated.”

“I’m thankful it wasn’t your sister who died,” Jack said.

She gaped in surprise. Jack had always been able to look in her eyes and guess what she was thinking. That was what always haunted her: her younger sister Amelia had been chasing Sarah in the maze that afternoon. It was believed Sarah had been killed because she had stumbled upon the murder of Grace Highchurch in the maze. Amelia could have been the victim.

“Or you.” Deep pain flashed in his eyes as he whispered it. “I can’t tell you which man might have done it, Lady M., but I wish I could. Deverell had a bully’s temper. Mayberry was weak—under his mother’s thumb, which could have made him desperate. Braxton was a strong Corinthian who liked to fight. Rhodes was an oily charmer who liked money.”

She held her breath, waiting to see which man he would name. Of all of them, she couldn’t begin to guess. Was an arrogant man more likely to kill than a weak one? Fear could make anyone commit the worst crimes.

“That is enough for tonight.” Jack held out his hand to raise her from her chair.

A simple gesture, but one that set her heart galloping. “Won’t you tell me?”

“You need your sleep,” he murmured.

“I have a nightgown for me, but no nightclothes for you,” she admitted.

He gave her a lazy grin that made her heart trip. “No worries, my lady. I’ll give you some privacy.”

Madeline stood and went to the bed, where her nightgown waited for her.

Once she had Jack at home and safe, she could hunt for the truth. All the gentlemen were returning to her house. She had invited them to question them and watch them, to try to find out which man had killed Grace and Sarah. Someone had shot at her on the grounds of the estate, and she feared it had been one of those men, who’d done it to try to keep his secret safe.

She sank down on the edge of the bed and shut her eyes. In her mind, she saw Jack on one knee in front of beautiful Grace Highchurch, offering her marriage for the sake of a child.

* * *

Jack sat with his back to her so she could change. He’d found a bottle of burdock wine and had already drunk a couple of glasses from a cracked teacup. Madeline drew her faded linen nightgown on over her shift. In case she had to flee, she would keep her stockings on, but she took off her boots.

She fumbled with the ties of her nightdress. “You cannot sleep on the floor.”

Jack’s head jerked up. “I’ve been in prison, Lady M. I will not climb into bed beside you.”

“I’m not thinking about ruination.”

His low laugh spoke of a man’s awareness of things that were, to a lady, just illicit shadows and half-formed fantasies. “By ruination, my lady, I suspect you mean the social problem if we were both discovered here, in the same bed.”

“Yes. And—”

“What you aren’t considering,” Jack went on cheerfully, watching her from beneath his dark brown brows and sultry lashes, “is what I could do to you in that bed.”

“I have been considering that,” she said in honesty. “I have been considering it since I knew you were innocent.” Her heart pounded.

Grandfather had left a fortune in trust for her and had made her vow to look after the family. He had also told her not to marry. With her money, she could be independent, and he believed she was of an independent mind.

In truth, she couldn’t marry.

She couldn’t marry because she had promised Grandfather, her mother, and Father—at least the man who had always pretended to be her father and who had raised her as his own child—that she would never tell anyone she was illegitimate. That she would never reveal her father had actually been the estate’s land steward. She’d promised she would not even tell a husband. And she refused to marry if she had to keep secrets from a husband.

Jack looked as though she’d spoken to him in a foreign language. “I’m not willing to put myself to that much of a test.”

“There is no test,” she whispered. “No need to restrain yourself.”

His breath sounded harsh and angry in the quiet of the cottage. “I’m either dreaming . . . or maybe I didn’t make it past the guards, and this is what heaven is like. My lady, are you asking me to fuck you?”

She recoiled at the coarse word. If he’d said anything else . . . if he’d said make love, or tup, or roger, or even swive, but that word was like a slap. Her face burned. “You don’t want to.”

“That doesn’t matter. I won’t.”

Embarrassed, she felt her heart lodge in her throat as Jack picked up a blanket and began to arrange it on the floor.

She felt so guilty. He would have a terrible, uncomfortable night, because she had made a stupid, indecent suggestion. “Don’t be so wretchedly stubborn, Jack. I trust you to sleep in the bed with me. You need to rest.”

“And so Eve tempts Adam with the promise of frustration and a painful night. I never sleep for long, Lady M. And I’m no stranger to discomfort.” Jack lay down on a blanket with a groan, and pulled the other blanket on top—a folded one made a simple pillow. “If you trust me not to ravish you, you’re the only one in the cottage who does.”

* * *

Blearily, she could see a man with a white wig. Voices rang around her, echoing off the tall ceiling . . .

She sat in the Exeter court, looking down upon the dock where prisoners stood. Narrow, steep stairs led up to the dock from the cells below. Guards marched Jack up to those stairs. She could see him slowly moving up as if rising from the depths of hell.

Then came the verdict. Each word echoed in her soul. Guilty . . . hanged by the neck until he is dead . . .

Madeline opened her eyes, jerked to sit up in the bed. She fought to breathe—

“Lady Madeline, you are supposed to be asleep.”

She almost leapt out of her skin. She hadn’t realized Jack had woken up.

“Do you often have nightmares?” Like smooth, dark chocolate, or the very best brandy, his voice flowed over her.

She gulped down a long breath, savoring the way her chest expanded.

He was sitting up on his blanket, waiting for her answer. His hands were held up, as if he’d stopped himself from getting up and embracing her.

“On some nights,” she admitted. “I dream about your trial in Exeter. You must have been very angry.”

“No, I wasn’t angry.”

“How could you not be? You must have been frightened. Dear heaven, you’d been sentenced to death.”

In the moonlight, she saw Jack tip his face heavenward and shake his head. He rose and took easy steps to the fireplace. Taking up the poker, he stirred the shimmering ashes. “Don’t fret, imagining what I must have been feeling. I’m resourceful and a fatalist.” He turned back to her, his eyes narrowed suspiciously, coal-black in the shadows. “Since you’ve known I was innocent, have you lain awake at night, worrying about me?”

She nodded.

“You should not have done that for me.”

“I had to.”

“Lady M., you should have put me in your past.”

“It was not that easy!” she exclaimed. “The murders changed everything.” He wouldn’t want to hear about her family—he must despise them—but her words rushed out. “My family changed irrevocably. Father now hides almost all the time in his study and drinks too much. There are times when Mother cannot recognize me. Her madness is such that she expects to see three young children and cannot understand why we are grown up. And Amelia, who was Sarah’s special friend, retreats from any gentleman who shows her preference, even if he is just commenting on the weather. I want to help them, but I can’t seem to change them back.”