Escape with A Rogue (21 page)

“What do you want, Mr. Oberon? An admission of guilt? How would that serve you? I believe you want something else.”

A look of admiration flashed across his face, then vanished. His answer came in measured tones. “There is information I need and I believe Jack Travers would give it to me, in exchange for your safety and freedom, my lady.”

So that was it. If they could get enough evidence to send her to prison—or worse—they knew Jack would sacrifice himself to protect her. They thought he would give them anything they wanted. Then they would . . . kill him.

“What about the murderer who is still at large?” she demanded, fear making her voice strong. “Who took two young lives and has never paid? That is of no consequence to you?”

“I believe the law works as it should, Lady Madeline. I believe the murderer has spent two years in prison.”

Her composure crumbled. Stupid, arrogant men. If a woman spoke words, they heard nothing of them at all. She threw up her hands. “That murderer, Mr. Oberon,
shot
at me.”

Oberon stopped pacing. The husband and wife were cowering in the corner of the room. The woman gasped and the man glared angrily at the soldiers who had stormed into his home.

“Explain this, please, Lady Madeline,” Oberon commanded.

“It is not difficult to understand. Once I knew Jack Travers was innocent and had been imprisoned and not hanged, I went to the magistrate to have him exonerated. I wrote to the gentlemen who had been at the house at the time of the murders to tell them Mr. Travers was innocent. Shortly after that, someone took a shot at my head on the grounds of my home. Fortunately, that person missed.”

Silence settled for several moments and her heartbeat sounded as loud as a drum.

“Can you prove the person who shot at you is the same person who murdered those two women years ago?” Oberon asked finally.

Reluctantly, she shook her head.

“Jack Travers is not an innocent man. Are you aware of that, Lady Madeline?”

Was his plan to turn her against Jack? “What is it that you truly want, Mr. Oberon, from Jack Travers?”

To fit beneath the low beams of the cottage, Oberon had to stoop. “Captain Livingston, bring Travers in here. He’s chained—he won’t be moving anywhere too quickly.”

She steeled herself to see Jack in chains again. After Livingston left, she defiantly lifted her chin. “Two years ago, when the murders took place, there were four gentlemen visiting my home, Eversleigh. I’ve invited them to come back. I intend to find the real murderer, Mr. Oberon, and it was
not
Jack.”

The captain returned in a few seconds, his face brilliant red and his eyes bulging. Spittle flew from his lips as he shouted, “He’s gone. The bloody wretch escaped.”

Madeline gaped. Escaped? She had seen the shackles fastened to his wrists and ankles, the heavy chains that ran from one iron cuff to another. How had he defeated the locks?

“The guards?” asked Oberon coolly. “Did he kill them?”

“No, just knocked them out. Though they’ll wish he’d killed them after I’m done with them,” Livingston barked.

It eased her heart to think he had left the men alive. Oberon’s face showed no displeasure, but a vein throbbed in his temple. He stalked over to stand in front of her.

“He’s deserted you, my lady.”

“Left you to hang,” Captain Livingston cackled. He sidled up next to Oberon, and she looked at him as though he were horse dung she’d discovered on her best slipper.

“He—” She was about to say Jack wouldn’t, but she bit her tongue. Unfortunately, it was too late. She’d straightened in her chair, thrust her chin out. It was obvious she was going to leap to Jack’s defense.

Oberon pounced. He grasped the arms of the chair and bent over her so abruptly she leaned back on the worn wood seat. “You don’t believe he’d leave you, do you, my lady? Are you in love with him? Was it your plan to run away with him? Or to hide him on your estate?”

She tried to look at the agent the way her brother Philip
should
look when playing whist at gaming hells: emotionless to the point of jaded, autocratic boredom. But Oberon smiled, a slow, triumphant smile. He believed he’d won.

“I’d like to propose a way for you to spare yourself punishment for your actions, Lady Madeline. A way to spare your
family
the scandal and disgrace. What would it do to your ailing mother to see her daughter imprisoned? Or your father? I believe you have a younger, unmarried sister. It would be a shame if she were tainted by your fall into disgrace.”

Madeline glared at Oberon. He
had
won. Somehow he knew all this about her family when all she had given him was her name. Was it because he knew about Jack and the murders that he knew about her? He had figured out exactly how to control her. All she could do was wait for him to speak, but she believed she could guess his plan.

He wanted Jack. She would make good bait.

* * *

Perched on the branch, Jack stayed absolutely still. Many years ago, in London, he’d learned how to gain complete mastery over himself—both his emotions and his body.

Using that discipline, he could stay hidden in the leaves without making a sound or movement. A cry of rage told him someone had discovered his leg and arm irons behind a gorse bush at the edge of the cottage’s clearing. They would assume he’d run.

Two men stood beneath him. The short one with the red face and barrel chest he recognized from the regular questionings in the governor’s offices at Dartmoor. Captain Livingston. The other man was named Oberon—he’d learned that from the angry shouts that had passed between these men and the two now-conscious soldiers who had guarded him. Oberon towered over Livingston by a good six inches and looked surprisingly amused by the situation. It appeared he worked for the Crown, and while his rank had not been disclosed, he was Livingston’s superior.

“We’ll find him.” Livingston waved his fist. “How far can he go?”

“Not far, but he’ll be elusive.” Oberon removed his spectacles. “This time he will be unencumbered by a slower-moving woman. I doubt he will be found.”

Livingston flushed beet red. “You propose to let him go? What do we do with her? She doesn’t sound as though Hart forced her to flee with him. It sounds like she helped him.”

Jack’s stomach dropped and his heart lurched. Just as he’d feared—noble Lady M. would not sacrifice him to save herself.

Oberon stared pensively across the dark moor. “I still believe if an earl’s daughter with more money than the Prince Regent chose to help a man escape, they wouldn’t be running across the moors. But I do see she is soft on him.”

Livingston’s head jerked back in surprise. “She’s that rich?”

“She is the sole heir to banker Laurentide Knightly’s fortune. Knightly was her maternal grandfather. He made almost one million pounds in business ventures, and he was astute enough to ensure the war did not depreciate his worth.”

“Hades. I should’ve been more charming.” Livingston scowled. “How do you know so much about her?”

“I studied the details of the crime Jack Hart committed—the murder of the two young women. Whilst doing that, I learned a great deal about Lady Madeline Ashby.”

“We could use her to flush Hart out,” Livingston said.

“That is my plan,” Oberon said. “It makes infinitely more sense than to charge across the moors searching for him. But I’ve no real right to keep her under lock and key, nor does it suit my purpose to hand her over to the law.”

“So?” Livingston demanded. He made a fist and cracked his knuckles.

“We escort her ladyship back to her home. He might follow her there.”

“What if he doesn’t? My guess is she means nothing to him. He’ll likely jump aboard a ship and leave England.”

“Then he’s already gone,” Oberon said. “She might know where he’s headed.”

“She won’t reveal that unless we beat it out of her.”

It took all of Jack’s focus not to jump out of the tree and beat Livingston.

 “I do not have the authority to take such measures on a lady, Livingston,” Oberon replied archly. “Even then, I suspect the woman would hold her tongue. She has admirable strength.”

“Meanwhile, he’s vanished to the West Indies.”

“If so, it is easy enough to purchase assassins in the grubbier parts of the world. But I believe he’ll pursue her.”

“He’d be a fool,” Livingston spat.

“She believes he’s in love with her.”

“Jack blinkin’ Hart? Rumor has it he slit his own mother’s throat for a shilling. Men are criminals for one of two reasons. Either they like the money and ’aven’t got the brains to get it elsewhere, or they’ve got a kick in their gallop—they’ll never run straight. That’s Hart, if you ask me. He ruined the son of an old friend of mine in his bloody hells. He should have had his neck stretched long ago.”

“I believe it is too late for that now,” Oberon stated. “A public hanging would no longer be possible.” He peered over his spectacles at the captain. “What about the other prisoners?”

Livingston rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks turning scarlet again. “None have yet been recaptured. But we’ll get them.”

“Indeed, I am confident we will. After you left the room, Livingston, Lady Madeline informed me that she has invited the gentlemen who were at her house two years ago to return. It is her plan to flush out the true murderer.”

Jack’s foot slid off his branch. He tightened his grip before he fell.
Christ, Lady M., what are you thinking?

Livingston shook his head, frank disbelief written on his beefy face. “So she’s doing that, is she? She really believes Hart innocent.” He sneered. “The woman’s a fool. He was distributing money through his bloody gaming hells to men who want to overthrow the Prince Regent and the king. He’s bribed other Crown men to help him, and it’s time to root out the rot—”

Oberon held up his hand and Livingston quieted. In his hiding spot, Jack took in the words with surprise. His partner and friend, Stephen, had made it appear Jack was the one giving money to traitors. Had Stephen also bribed agents of the Crown?

Jack remained still and silent, in the shadows. It could explain why he’d been attacked by men who wanted to kill him, not recapture him. It could explain the attempt on his life in prison. What if it hadn’t been Faulkner who’d paid the Frenchman to try to knife him, but someone working for the British Service?

Livingston had been at the prison again to question him the day before the attack.

What kind of danger was Madeline in now?

Below him, a slow smile came to Oberon’s face. “I am confident I am correct. Jack Hart will follow his lady. All we have to do is wait.”

Chapter Thirteen

Mrs. Dorset, the innkeeper’s wife, eyed him suspiciously. “A lady and two gentlemen? I’m not at liberty to say who patronizes our establishment, sir.”

Jack slid a gold sovereign across the counter.

She snatched it up. “Two days ago, sir,” she said promptly.

He’d missed Lady M. by two days. He was moving faster—he’d been three days behind them at the last inn. He held up another coin. “The lady was not injured or hurt in any way?”

“Injured? What do you mean, sir?” Mrs. Dorset’s tongue ran over her lower lip. “The lady was angry to be with them. She didn’t have bruises that I could see, but she did wince when one of the men grabbed her arm.”’

Rage boiled in his gut, but he had to appear calm. “Did they mention where they might stop next?”

She shook her head, so he asked the taproom barmaids. They could give him no further information, and he strode into the yard to unhitch the horse he’d won with dice.

Outside, men drank ale and slapped their knees while a fiddler played. In the shadows, a woman gave a screeching laugh. “Be off with ye, ye slick-tongued charmer!” She stepped into the glow of a lamp, straightened her bodice and stalked off. Jack was about to turn away when he glimpsed the charmer’s pale blond hair.

Beausoleil.
Jack’s hands fisted. If Beau hadn’t taken their horses, Lady M. would not be in the hands of Livingston and Oberon now.

He remembered Beau had once revealed one of his wives lived near Bath—this inn was at the intersection of the roads leading north to Bath and east toward Madeline’s home.

Before Beau reached the taproom door, Jack grabbed him by his shoulders and hauled him back to the shadow by the stable wall. He slammed the man against whitewashed mortar and lifted his fist. “I owe you this for taking our horses.”

Beau gaped at him, then grinned. “You made it across the moor. And your lady friend? She’s safe?”

“She’s been taken by agents of the Crown.”

Beau flicked a glance at Jack’s fist. “You blame me for taking your horses, leaving you both to walk. I did it to save your lady, Travers.”

“You’re lying. She heard you talking to a man at the hut circle.”

“It was an armed man looking for
you
. He wasn’t interested in capturing Simon and me. But when I denied you were with us, he put his pistol against Simon’s head. I told him you were ahead of us and I knew which way you’d gone. I led him away.”

He didn’t believe it, and Beau must have seen the doubt. “It’s the truth. I was afraid for your lady’s safety.”

“Who was he?”

“Surprisingly, he didn’t say. He was big and bald, with a thick neck. Had a coarse London accent. He said he’d known you a long time.”

The man on the Tavistock road had known him, as had the three assassins. Now this one. “What happened to him?”

“He became suspicious that I wasn’t leading him to you. He hit me around the head a few times with the pistol, so I led him into the bog and left him there. If God smiled upon him, he got out.”

Jack unclenched his fists. “If you’re telling me the truth, I owe you thanks for saving my life.” He was so accustomed to the combative world of London’s gaming hells and criminal underworld that he couldn’t imagine anyone doing him any favors. But he did believe Beau would have protected Simon.

Beau’s expression became serious. “You need to know this, Travers. Simon got shot. After he and I escaped the gun-wielding idiot, we made our way across the moor and reached Chagford. We got food and clothing from a widow who lived on the outskirts of the village, then set off, only to be caught a mile away by two masked men. They didn’t try to capture us—they just shot at us. Simon was hit, then we managed to outrun them on the horses.”