Escape with A Rogue (24 page)

But the first thing she did, after he led her horse Penelope behind a small group of trees, was pull off his cap and touch his hair. Her hand skimmed gently over his shaved head. He could focus on nothing but the wave of need that washed through him.

“It dramatically changes your appearance,” she declared.

He’d never expected to feel like this when he saw her again—as though his place was at her side. “I dyed it with henna.” He took the cap from her and clamped it on his head. His years in prison had changed his appearance—he was more grizzled, more scarred, much thinner. It was enough to disguise him. Fortunately there were only two grooms left who had been in the stables two years ago, both were older men with poor eyesight. “I did love your hair,” she said softly. He had to clench his fists to keep from embracing her. From dragging her into a kiss that would set them both aflame.

“Oberon didn’t hurt you?” he asked, trying to hang onto cohesive thought. “I kept watch over you as long as I could.”

“How did you escape the chains and the armed men? That should have been impossible.”

“It wasn’t so complicated. I asked for a smoke—and did so repeatedly until one of the guards decided he yearned for one himself and went to the kit on his saddle. That left me with one guard. Fortune was with me, as he was the one with the keys and easily overpowered. I unlocked myself and got out before that one came to and the other returned.”

She licked her lower lip and his hands gripped her horse’s reins with white-knuckled force. “You should have run, not come here. Oberon left three men on the estate to watch for you —”

“I know. What did they do to you?”

“Nothing. Mr. Oberon escorted me with respect—he didn’t touch me. His colleague, Captain Livingston, made my skin crawl. He looked as though he wanted any excuse to slit my throat.”

She spoke with her familiar disapproval, but tension emanated from her. The old rage welled up in him, the impotent anger that used to come when he watched his mother take a man’s blows. “Did
Livingston
touch you?”

Panic flashed in her eyes and she grabbed his wrists as though preparing to stop him from punching something. “I chose the wrong words. There’s no need for violence, Jack. Neither man harmed me. If you confront either of them, you’ll get yourself killed.”

She was afraid he would rush off and kill someone. Did it mean she was afraid of him? In the stews, a man was safe when others feared him. But he couldn’t stand for Lady M. to be afraid of him. He knew it was stupid—after all, he’d worked hard to make her distrust and despise him. “I won’t. Did they threaten you?”

“Yes, with imprisonment. Livingston advised me I might avoid hanging or transportation. I kept denying that I had helped you.”

“You were supposed to say you were my hostage.”

Adamantly, she shook her head. “I told Mr. Oberon I had become lost in the fog when the driver I’d hired abandoned me. I said I left the carriage and was in danger, since men were firing muskets all around. You came to my rescue. We returned to my carriage to find it had vanished. I pointed out that if you had not risked your own safety to rescue me, I would have perished.”

He groaned. “You were supposed to tell him I kept you under control with threats.”

Her chin went up. “I know you wanted me to sacrifice you, but I could not do it.”

Damn his heart for lightening at her words. “You should have.”

“Why, Jack? Because of what you’ve done? Oberon told my family you gave money to reformists. He said you promised him the names of these people. Is that true?”

Hades, he should have realized the Crown agents would tell her.

“Is it, Jack?”

“I did promise him names. That’s the only truth to his story.”

“How could you know the names of reformists unless you were one of them?”

“I was never involved with traitors, Lady M. But my business partner had joined them. He took a lot of money that belonged to me. I hired some investigators to watch him and I found out the truth. Those investigations gave me the names of his co-conspirators. I dangled that in front of the Crown, gambling they’d wait to hang me until they got information out of me.”

She was so cool and composed that he almost went mad. “I had no idea these men intended to assassinate anyone. I thought they held meetings to shout about a rebellion they would never have the courage to launch. If I’d known they were really violent . . . Anyway, I didn’t commit treason. I told you I have no political interests and that’s the truth.”

Why should she believe him, when all he’d done since he’d first met her two years ago was lie to her?

“I knew there was a murderer out free. I knew you could be in danger,” he said. “Keeping myself alive in prison gave me the hope I could escape and ensure you were safe. It took me two years to do it.”

“You lied so you wouldn’t be killed. You tried to escape—because you were worried about me? You were
tortured
to give up those names.”

The rich sympathy in her voice stunned him. “I was afraid once I gave up everything I knew, they’d hang me.”

“Dear heaven,” she whispered. “I confronted Oberon about what I saw had been done to your back—”

“You grilled the man?”

“I was not going to let him intimidate me.” She touched his shirt, close to the open throat. Her finger brushed his chest and Jack’s breath left in a harsh rush. “How could you have taken all that punishment just to protect me?”

His body was going to combust. The nearness of her was like a burning flame being carried into a ship’s hold filled with gunpowder. “Lady M., you have to be careful around the Crown’s men.” He could not soften the truth. For her sake, he had to make her see the danger. For his own sake, he had to stop the caress of her hand on his skin.

“I found Beausoleil at an inn.” He drew her hand away and told her Beau’s tale. “The woman could have been shot to ensure her silence. You can’t trust any of the Crown’s men. I overheard Livingston and Oberon talking, when they had you captive in the cottage.”

“Where were you?”

“Perched in a tree branch above their heads.” Jack paused. She stared at him with an admiration that wrapped around his heart. “Livingston was talking about traitors among the Crown men. You cannot trust anyone. It means turning myself in is not an option. It wouldn’t guarantee your safety.”

Icy horror gripped Madeline’s heart. “Of course it’s not an option. You cannot give yourself up.” But how was she to achieve what she wanted—Jack’s freedom—now?

“You’re shaking.”

Her shoulders gave a betraying tremble, even as she cried, “I’m not.” But she was—and she knew why. It was the fear of losing Jack forever.

“It’s no sin to be frightened, Lady M.”

“It’s pointless to be frightened,” she threw back. “What good does it do to hide under the bed and cower from monsters? It makes far more sense to face them head on.”

“What monsters, my lady? You sound as though you’re speaking from experience.”

She had said too much. She had forgotten herself, and her control had slipped. “My experience doesn’t matter.”

Jack stepped closer to her. He smelled warm and spicy, with the fresh smell of hay, and the scent of his skin that she smelled in her dreams.
She couldn’t lose him. There would be no way on earth she would let him turn himself in.

“You can share your monsters with me.” His voice slid over her like warm bathing water or cool silk. “You don’t have to bear everything alone.”

She could not tell him about her secret. She’d promised she would never tell anyone. But he spoke as if he truly cared to know what was in her heart. And no one had ever cared before.

“Tell me, Madeline,” he urged. His breathing was like hers: a symphony of restraint and frustration.

She stretched up on her toes, until her mouth was an inch from his. When he touched her, held her, she felt safe. She wanted to grasp that sensation now, and if she was kissing him, she couldn’t talk.

She pressed her mouth to his, tentative and soft, and he gave a ragged groan. His strong hands—hands that had pulled her from a bog—clasped her and drew her close. Her breasts squashed hard against his unyielding strength.

Suddenly they were kissing as they had in her cottage. His mouth was hot, and he played with her tongue as though she tasted like the finest wine. Her bosom tightened, her nipples peaked. The ridge of his erection pressed against her belly. Her body responded at once. In a heartbeat, she became molten and aching between her thighs, hotter than the sun above them.

He caught two handfuls of her skirts and lifted them up her legs.
Dear heaven, yes
.

Her skirts fell abruptly. “We can’t do this again,” he rasped. “Your home is being watched, and you aren’t supposed to be kissing grooms.”

“We can if we’re careful.” She sounded like a pouting child.

“Kissing you does not make me careful.” He backed to the fence. She’d never seen a man look more haggard his life. He’d face the threat of death with a calmer look. Guilt made her cheeks burn with embarrassment. She knew he wanted her, but he’d decided he was not going to have her. She was torturing him—and herself—by throwing herself at him. She had to stop.

He’d tied Penelope’s reins to a branch. He undid them now. “Your mount, my lady.”

She cringed at his use of her title. His harsh expression softened. “I hate to ask this of you, my lady, but I need you to show me where you were shot. It’s going to be almost impossible to find clues to what happened two years ago. But that happened recently. I want to see if I can find evidence to prove whether it was more than an accident—and who did it.”

That startled her. It was exactly what she’d thought.

“The sooner we find this killer, my lady, the better.”

For her safety? Or so he could leave her and escape?

“We can go now,” she said crisply. “While it is still light. It will look perfectly natural if I have a groom accompany me.”

* * *

“It happened here.” Madeline waved her hand to encompass the small clearing in the woods. A stone wall followed the edge, and an ornate bench had a view of the house, the gardens, the overgrown maze, and the pond. An oak spread its branches behind the seat. “I was sitting there.”

Jack had ridden with her from the stables upon Jupiter, who had been astonishingly well behaved. They’d followed the gravel path past the maze. There, it branched in two directions—one path led through the gardens to the pond and the other went to the woods.

“The sh—shot hit the tree about two feet above my head.” Her voice wavered. She was more aware now of how near her death had been than she’d been when she’d actually sat on the seat and felt bark rain down on her. Then, she’d been shocked. And angry.

Jack jumped on the seat. He took a small knife from a pocket and poked at a hole in the trunk. “The hole slants on an angle, so I’d say the shot came from the west and not from the direction of the house.”

“You think it was an accident, then?”

“I just mean the shooter would have run a much greater risk of being seen if he’d been close to the house.” He shook his head. “If the person had aimed lower—”

He broke off and closed his eyes. He looked more distraught than when she’d kissed him.

“It
could
have been an accident,” she said. “There are village men who poach on the estate. I allow them to have some game. They do have families to feed.”

“It was a bullet from a rifle. It drove cleanly into the tree.”

She must have looked perplexed, for he continued, “Most poachers use a shotgun
.
It was not an accident.” He jumped down. Suddenly, he grasped her shoulders and forced her down to the bench. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so blunt.”

“I don’t need to sit,” Madeline protested.

“I do,” Jack growled. But for bad aim, he would have lost her. A horrific image filled his head and he couldn’t drive it away. Lady M. with her eyes blank, her body limp. Dead. Lost.

Pain tightened around his heart, its grip cold and unyielding. He fought it by scanning the woods to the west, trying to determine where the shot had come from. “We don’t have proof the shot was fired by the same person who killed Grace and Lady Sarah. Either way, I want to find out who did it.”

“It couldn’t have been Philip. He would not have deliberately shot at me.”

Jack stayed silent. Lord Philip could have done so, planning to miss all along. He could have done it to frighten her. Philip was the kind of shallow, arrogant gentleman who would never imagine his scheme could go wrong and he could accidentally hit his sister. “Do you know where he was at the time?”

Expecting her anger, he was astonished when she said, “Yes. I asked him. Philip swore he would never fire a rifle in the woods, and not at that time of day, because he knew I walked up to that spot to sit.”

Despite Lady M.’s support of her brother, she had shown she did not entirely trust him. “But did he have an alibi?”

“No. However, I still believe in him.”

“If it was someone not on the estate, that person had to get into the woods with a rifle. He must have gone along the road and passed through the village. When did it happen?”

“Three days before I left for the moors. I thought of that, Jack. I asked in the village and in the neighboring ones. No one had seen any of the gentlemen. But that does not mean one of them did not come here and shoot at me.”

“He would also have had to know you came to this spot.”

“I come here almost every day. At the end of the afternoon, I like to have a few minutes to myself—to escape. When you were in the stables, I would visit you.”

Her soft words resonated in his heart. But he had to ask, “Who else knew you came here?”

“Everyone in the household, I believe,” she said grimly. “The other gentlemen—Braxton, Mayberry, Deverell—knew it two years ago.”

“What were you escaping when you came to the stables, my lady?”

He’d hoped the question would catch her off guard. A fetching blush came to her cheeks and she stuttered for a moment before looking him square in the eye. “Daily annoyances and domestic troubles. The work of planning menus, writing guest lists, selling the crops to vendors, and repairing the buildings.”