Escape with A Rogue (25 page)

She was lying. What were the monsters she’d had to confront? He hungered to know. But he surged to his feet and held out his hand. “Let’s go to where the shot came from.”

She gaped at him. “You know? But how?”

“When I stood on the bench, I saw two small, open areas in the woods that would have given someone an unobstructed line of sight and a clear shot.”

Lady Madeline looked at him with open admiration again. He basked in the look, but in his soul, he knew he didn’t deserve it.

* * *

Jack struck out in the lead, tramping a straight line through the woods. Skirts hampered her, but he easily lifted her over fallen logs and scattered stones.

The first spot yielded nothing and Madeline fought disappointment. The second was further away, closer to the road. From there, when she squinted, she could barely make out the bench against the brown tree trunks. “It’s so far.”

“A rifle’s sight would make the view clearer.” Jack’s chest brushed her shoulder. She felt a quiver of awareness, but he moved abruptly away.

“There must have been a lot of rain,” he observed. “It’s churned up the ground, except here—” He pushed aside the branches of a low-growing shrub, then dropped to a crouch. Part of an imprint of a boot toe remained. The boot looked smaller than her brother’s, but she couldn’t be certain. Jack’s hand closed around something and he stood. She moved to him as he unfolded his fingers. The brass tip of a bullet gleamed in his bare palm. But she also saw the healed welts on his hand.

“The shooter must have dropped it. He must have waited here.” Jack looked up, spearing her with his bewitching green eyes. “He could have chosen this spot by tramping the woods until he found a clear sight of your bench.”

She shivered. “Wouldn’t that have taken a long time?”

“Hours—or perhaps less. Possible to do in a day. It would have taken much less time if he knew the woods well.”

“You mean that Philip knows the woods well and might have immediately known the best place to shoot at me.”

“That is not what I said, Lady M.” Sharp lines crossed his forehead beneath the brim of his cap. She knew that was exactly what he had been thinking. Her brother must be guilty, for he’d had the best opportunity to watch her and take a shot at her.

“We should return to the house. You’ll need to get dressed for dinner.” He took her hand and helped her back to their horses. He behaved with gentlemanly consideration—helping her over logs and rocks—but he looked grim and haunted. Once they reached the track, both Penelope and Jupiter whinnied in greeting. Out of the corner of her eye, Madeline saw the warm smile Jack gave his horse. Foolishly, a twinge of jealousy touched her heart.

They rode to the lawns. She remembered his words in the stone hut, when he had told her about his best friend’s wife.
Love is something I know nothing about.
I’m not even capable of it.
She could not believe it was true of a man whose touch had gentled Jupiter, a horse that had been badly abused. She had thought Philip mad for buying a horse that shied from everyone. But the change Jack had brought about was astounding.

Jack waited for her to dismount, so he could take Penelope back to the stables.

“If it was the murderer who shot at me . . .” She spoke softly, but her voice seemed to explode in the silence that hung between them. “My plan is to try to make one of the men reveal he knows where I was shot—because only the murderer would know, wouldn’t he?”

“What?”
If she’d slugged him with a horseshoe, Jack couldn’t have looked stunned. “You are
not
going to try to make one of the men reveal his guilt. I won’t allow it.”

“You will not
allow
it? This is my house. You cannot dictate to me
here
—” She stopped. She’d haughtily reminded him he was her groom, socially beneath her, powerless in her world.

“You were shot at once.” His eyes narrowed to dark slits. “If the murderer did it, you’ve shown him you won’t be frightened. Do you not see what he will realize?”

She had insulted him, but his only concern was for her. She had never had anyone care for her this way. “That the only way to stop me is to kill me? Yes, I know.”

She moved to ride away to the house, but Jack urged Jupiter ahead and then caught hold of Penelope’s halter. The fury in his snapping eyes made her recoil. “Good Christ, how can you speak so calmly? Do not play the lady of the manor now. Knowing your life is in danger should
stop
you.”

“I’m willing to face danger, Jack, to prove your innocence. And Philip’s.”

As he gaped at her, she learned forward and tried to yank his hand from the leather bridle. She could see one of Oberon’s men patrolling near the pond. She could not let him see her arguing with a groom.

“Lady M., promise me you won’t talk of the murders with these men—” He stopped. “No, don’t. You’ll give your word, and I’ll look in your beautiful eyes and know you’re lying to me. I wish I could take you away from here.”

That took her took her breath away. How could he mean it when he looked at her like he wanted to wring her neck? “You have to go, Jack.”

“You inherited a fortune, Lady M. Who gets all that money if something happens to you?”

“You couldn’t truly think—”

“Yes, I could.”

Icy horror gripped her heart. “The money remains in a trust, but the income would be divided equally between my mother and father.” Almost defiantly, she threw at him, “The income is over forty thousand a year.”

He blinked in apparent surprise, but his expression quickly hardened. “What about your brother? He needed money for gaming. Perhaps he still has debts to repay.”

His biting tone made all the tension in her snap. “He gets nothing until Father’s death.” She dismounted and threw the reins toward Jack. “Philip does not get the money if I die. My brother had a weakness in his character that drove him to the gaming hells, but men like
you
exploited him.”

“I told you, Lady M. I didn’t commit treason, and you can trust me to give my life for you, but I am beyond redemption.”

She should appreciate he’d told her the truth instead of placating her with a lie, but she couldn’t. Whirling on her heels away from Jack, she stalked toward the house.

Chapter Fifteen

Madeline marched up the terrace steps. She could sense Jack’s piercing gaze following her. She felt it like a lick of flame on the back of her neck. But she squared her shoulders and refused to look back.

“No, milord. I’m a good girl.”

Beneath Madeline’s hand, the ridges of the stone balustrade drove into her palm. Every night since returning home, she’d been plagued by dreams in which she heard Sarah and Grace begging for their lives. In the nightmares, she ran through the maze, desperate to save them, but she couldn’t find them. Was her imagination playing tricks now, while she was awake?

“
No, milord. Please!”

The voice was
real
. Madeline hauled up her hems and rushed along the terrace. Skirts rustled and a man’s chuckle floated out through the open glass-paned door that led to the scarlet drawing room. The laugh made her nape hairs stand on end. It was filled with lust.

“Why resist, my dear? I can be very kind to my lovers.”

Pitched low, hoarse, and husky, the voice belonged to a gentleman, but she could not guess who. The gloating pleasure in it made her heart thunder in horror.

The girl—a maid, surely—sobbed. “I can’t. My father will kill me if I get with child and lose my place.”

“That won’t happen, my dear. I can be generous when I’m pleased.”

“Don’t make me—”

Madeline grasped the doorframe and swung into the room to confront the
gentleman
inside.

Broad shoulders stretched a coat of dark blue and black trousers clung to strong legs that were splayed wide so he could keep his prey—Annie, an auburn-haired, blue-eyed upstairs maid—pinned against the wall.

Madeline knew him. Instantly. “Philip! What are you doing?” Heavens, his voice had been so raspy with desire, she had not recognized it.

He jerked around, and his face became both sullen and ashamed. “Go away, Madeline.”

His hand was at the girl’s breast. Annie’s hand was clamped around his wrist, apparently trying to push him away. The girl stared hopelessly at her, shaking in fear. Dear heaven, Philip was not moving away from the maid even though he’d been caught.

Instead, he swayed on his feet. He was already drunk.

Madeline stalked in, her heart sinking with every step. She wanted to believe in Philip, and he insisted in making it impossible. Her anger at Jack sat like a sour taste in her mouth now. “I will not tolerate this behavior. Let the girl go.”

Her head pounded. Was Jack, in his cynicism, right about her brother? Philip dallied with the maids, especially when he drank, but she’d thought he seduced them with charm. She’d never dreamed he would force himself on a woman.

“Go on,” Philip said to the frightened girl. “Get out.”

Wringing her hands, the girl glanced from Philip to her, then to the door. “Milady—”

“You may go, Annie.”

“I didn’t—” The maid stopped, staring fearfully back to Philip. “There was no—”

“I know exactly what has happened, Annie. You may go back to your work.”

Without another word, the maid ran out.

“You think I did it, don’t you, Maddy?” Philip stalked over the fireplace and picked up the poker, though there was no fire to prod, not in an unused room filled with August warmth. “Just like all the rest, you think I’m a murderer.”

She was his sister—his half-sister, at least. She was
supposed
to believe in him. But she couldn’t now. “I would have defended you until death, Philip, but you were forcing that girl.”

He glared at her like a petulant boy. “I’m tired of seeing the suspicion in everyone’s eyes. The hatred, fear, and disappointment.”

Her heart ached. She remembered how Jack had looked when led out of the
cachot
. Like a man who was close to the end of his endurance. That same heaviness and pain flashed in Philip’s gray eyes. He had not been physically punished, but he had been persecuted socially. “I know it is hard, Philip, but that does not give you the right to hurt a defenseless woman. If you hate to see disappointment, don’t cause it.”

He glared at her with such anger she took a step back.

“You have no bloody idea, Madeline. I’m damned tired of my mother patting my hand, pretending she’d never think badly of me, when she fears I’m a murderer. Father will not even look me in the eye. Amelia jumps out of her skin when I walk into a room.”

After being chased by rifle-toting soldiers, his language did not shock her. “I’ll talk to them, Philip.”

“
Talking
to them won’t change a thing. You cannot make everyone do what you want, Madeline. Holding our purse strings won’t change that. You’re just like Grandfather.” He slammed the poker back into its ornate holder with a thunderous clang.

“I am trying to help you. Grandfather looked out for you. Philip, he bailed you out of many disasters.”

“But he left all his money to you and made a fool out of me.”

A sick feeling took root in her stomach. She could not forget Jack’s question. But it was more than the need for money that had made her family furious about the will. Grandfather’s decision to put her in charge had wounded them all. “I don’t see how,” she said gently. “You’ll have the estates someday. You were left ten thousand pounds.”

“Ten measly thousand? Grandfather let you—a woman—control my purse strings. He knew the estates couldn’t survive without the income from his wealth. This place is a moldering old ruin.”

“It’s hardly that. I would know—I’ve cared for every inch of this house since I was fifteen.” She would not hurt him more by pointing out Grandfather had feared Philip would gamble any inheritance away. The ten thousand had already evaporated on a faro table.

She
wanted
to be angry with Jack for his past, but she could not. How could he ruin men like her brother—and some had families who were also ruined—but risk his life for her? He was a mystery to her. Try as she might, she could not resist the urge to solve it.

“How could Grandfather have discounted me like that?” Philip’s angry voice broke in on her whirling thoughts. “You’re not even one of us.”

She froze. He couldn’t
know
, could he? Only Father, Mother, and Grandfather actually knew. She had vowed she would never breathe a word to anyone else. Surely, none of them had revealed the secret they’d insisted she keep.

Her brother glared at her malevolently. “I know you’re a bastard, Maddy. There’s not an ounce of Ashby blood in you.” Hurt and envy screamed in his eyes. “Grandfather didn’t care about that. Said you were his granddaughter, still. He said I was to allow you to stay in this house as long as you wanted. It was his condition for the last loan he gave me. I gave my word.”

So that was why Philip knew. Grandfather must have revealed it, before making Philip promise to never bar the house to her.

Grandfather had warned her that, when he was gone, life would be hard for her.
“You are the only one I can trust,” he had said. “Your father has no head for business, your brother gambles, and your sister is always lost in a book and refuses to be practical. I know I can trust you to take care of them. I know your shoulders are broad enough.”

She hadn’t understood what he’d meant—she’d had no idea then she would inherit almost everything. But her shoulders
were
beginning to crack from the weight of her family’s disappointment and anger. She was more alone and isolated than she’d ever been in her life. “Grandfather is dead. You owe me nothing.”

It would be so easy to win back their hearts. She could turn some of her income over to Philip, to her parents, to Amelia, instead of giving it out herself. But Grandfather had been correct. Every member of her family was a spendthrift. Whatever she gave them would be spent as quickly as they got it. She had made a vow to look after them and she would.