Escape with A Rogue (5 page)

Jago Wycliffe, the Cornish smuggler, had his bare foot propped on Jack’s bed. Instead of hammocks, boards and thin mattresses were used for the beds in the new cells. Wycliffe had pushed Jack’s shoulder and now his muscled arms crossed over his bare chest. “We’ve got to decide what’s to be done about that apty cock, Hammond Faulkner.”

Jack shook his head, fighting to drag his thoughts from Madeline. His threadbare blanket had slid off him. He’d knocked his thin pillow off and it rested in the corner, propped against the iron bars that divided his cell from Beausoleil’s. Unlike the prisoners of war, they weren’t housed in one large barrack-type room. The militia had forced them to build their own cells in the cockcroft of Prison Block One, with walls of close-spaced bars, heavy timber floors, and iron-encased doors.

‘Apty cock’ was a Cornish term for ass. He was going to ask Wycliffe what he was talking about when Beausoleil leaned against the bars of his cell. “Piss proud this mornin’?” he inquired politely.

Heat washed over Jack’s neck—it must have turned scarlet. He stared down at the ridge lifting his coarse trousers. “You’re as big a bloody fool as I am,” he muttered to it.

“
My lady
would be impressed—” Beau began on a wide grin.

“Speaking of bloody fools . . .” Wycliffe shifted his foot from the bed and began to pace. He kept clenching his fists to flex his big biceps. “That ass Faulkner is planning to betray us and do a runner ahead of us. He does it and we’ll never get out. If he uses our plan, then our game is up. I’ve got to get out—I’ve a wife to find.”

“So do I,” Beausoleil added.

In the cell beyond Beausoleil, a huge man known only as “Black” gripped the bars and gave a rumbling growl like a caged animal. In all the months they’d been in the prison, Black had spoken only once—to tell them he was in prison for murder, but he was innocent. After that he hadn’t said a word. Hammond Faulkner’s cell was empty, as was young Simon’s. The seventeen-year-old had been the last of the English prisoners to arrive.

“Guards took them both at dawn to be questioned by Captain Livingston,” Wycliffe grumbled.

Jack scratched his jaw. At least he was wilting now below his waist, which meant he could put his mind back on the escape. “Faulkner won’t betray us. He wants out as much as we all do. He won’t tell Livingston.”

“He intends to get that key from you, Travers, even if he has to rip out your belly to do it.”

Faulkner? “He’s a forger, not a fighter.” The man was five feet tall, flabby, and weak. His skill was in replicating banknotes, official letters, and coins. That was what had landed him in prison. Faulkner was like a vole—small, scurrying, ready to run for cover at a frightening sound.

“Don’t make the mistake of underestimating Faulkner,” Wycliffe warned. “He’ll try something. Are you keeping the keys on you?”

Was this all a ruse to get him to reveal where he’d hidden the keys? “Think I’d be mad enough to do that?” Jack responded casually. “They’re well hidden. And safe.”

Wycliffe shrugged. “That doesn’t mean Faulkner won’t try to stab you, thinking you’ll tell him where you put them. You’ve got to tell us where those keys are. If you’re dead, none of us are getting out.”

Jack returned the shrug with one of his own and gave a slow grin. “Then keep me alive, Wycliffe.”

* * *

Dear Catherine,

I have not been successful in my petitions to have Jack Travers freed. I shall come home at once. Thank you so very much for taking care of Mama for me—

Madeline pushed her pen back into the inkwell and stared down at the letter. Catherine, Lady Lindale, was the only person who knew she was really in Dartmoor, not in Hampshire, visiting an old school friend. Should she write and let Catherine know she would be coming home? Or should she just arrive? Which would be better for a woman who intended to smuggle an escaped convict with her?

Rain pattered against the window of her small moorland cottage. Madeline stared out at the vast, wet landscape. It haunted her still, what she had said to the magistrate on the afternoon of the murders. It had all been circumstantial. It had all been
wrong
. . .

Grandfather had encouraged her to speak to Sir Roland immediately. She had known she must not wait to give her evidence, even though she’d felt so . . . empty. Cold, stunned, and empty.

Sir Roland was the local magistrate. He had sat at Grandfather’s desk, waiting patiently for her to speak.

“Miss Highchurch came to us originally as a governess for my sister Amelia,” she’d begun. It had been hard to speak, but she had known it was her duty. Back then, she’d believed so strongly, so stupidly, in duty.

“Amelia is seventeen,” she had explained, “but Miss Highchurch stayed on to be a companion for my mother, who sometimes becomes very confused, and wanders, and needs a watchful eye.”

She’d swallowed hard. “I left the house to search for Amelia and her friend Lady Sarah,” she continued. Sir Roland knew Sarah, Lord Lindale’s daughter, of course. “It was five minutes past four o’clock and they were supposed to practice music. I knew they were in the maze—”

The maze consisted of one mile of seven-foot-tall hedgerows, meticulously shaped to create a series of winding paths. There was only one way out. Madeline had grown up with the maze, but she had never been able to find her way through. She was very adept at hiding her panic when she found one dead end after another, but it had always welled up to almost consume her.

“If you wish to wait—” Sir Roland began.

“She is strong and capable,” Grandfather had interrupted. He had been seated in the straight-backed chair beside hers. “She knows the importance of this.”

She knew now why he’d pushed her. He had wanted to seal Jack’s fate as quickly as possible. Grandfather—Mother’s father—was the wealthy businessman Laurentide Knightly. Sir Roland had been predisposed to agree at once with anything Grandfather said. It had been so easy for Grandfather to get what he wanted.

“It took me several minutes to walk through the maze,” she had continued. “I found M-Miss Highchurch first. She was lying on her back, with her arms outstretched—” She’d swallowed hard, remembering. Grace’s white face had been tilted to the side. Her blue eyes had stared up at the sky but no longer saw the sun or the swallows or anything at all. Her neck had been ringed with large bruises of purple and blue . . .

Sir Roland had been gentle and kind, coaxing her to keep talking.

“I was frightened for my sister,” she told him, fighting to distance herself from fear. From horror. “I called her name. I went forward into the maze. Around the first corner, I found Sarah’s body. She had been strangled, too.”

“Tell him the rest, Maddy.” Grandfather had patted her shoulder.

“I found a red kerchief in the base of the shrubbery beside Lady Sarah’s body.”

Sir Roland nodded. “Do you know whom it belonged to?”

“Jack Travers. He is the head groom. I saw him leaving the maze, furtively, a half an hour before I went looking for the girls.” She did not want to continue—she did not want to say the words—but she understood her responsibility. “I was walking in the same direction as he was. He didn’t see me at first, but I saw him stare down in perplexed wonderment at his hands. I hurried to catch up with him, and he swung around, surprised by my footsteps.”

Jack had hesitated for a moment, apparently startled, then grinned at her. She’d fallen into step with him, and they talked as they did at the stables sometimes, as though it was just a normal light-hearted afternoon.

“Your sister was unharmed?”

She’d nodded, determined not to give in to tears.
Jack, why?

“Do you believe this Jack Travers strangled both Miss Highchurch and Lady Sarah?”

“I don’t know. I can only tell you what I saw. What I found.” But she had been sick with shock. “There are other gentlemen visiting—my brother invited them for a small house party.”

Sir Roland studied the paper before him and read the names. “The Marquis of Deverell. The Earl of Mayberry’s eldest son, Lord Harold Blythe. Viscount Braxton. Mr. Peregrine Rhodes.” He waved his hand as though to dismiss the idea a gentleman could have been responsible for murder.

“I want this Jack Travers fetched at once. He was seen behaving suspiciously near the scene of the crime.” Sir Roland had turned to Grandfather. “I suspect in him, we will find the culprit.”

Grandfather had nodded with satisfaction. He had looked very pleased.

Madeline picked up her pen once more. Sir Roland had arrested Jack that afternoon. Everyone had believed Jack guilty—had
wanted
to believe he was guilty. Jack Travers was a groom, not a gentleman. It was a much more convenient solution. Jack had never had a chance. But she would ensure he had one now.

Chapter Three

Would she come today?

Jack pulled a packet of tobacco from the waistband of his trousers. Using a scrap from the sheet of paper that he’d scavenged from his last trip to the governor’s office, he sprinkled a few grains along its center, rolled it, put it between his lips, and struck a light. The tobacco was constantly damp and made for a choking smoke, but he needed something to calm his hands.

The crowd of French prisoners milling at the iron gates gave Jack cover. He kept his face ducked away from the guards and stayed in the shadows cast by the gray stone prison blocks.

He’d used the fake key he’d carved from bone to leave his cell. To make the key, he’d patiently watched the guards use his cell key, day after day, committing the shape to memory. He’d made keys for all the cells, and they were sewn into a secret pocket in the waistband of his trousers. That set of bone keys was insurance for his life.

Two redcoats swung open the market gates. The Frenchmen poured through. In the middle of the mass of bedraggled men, Jack let himself be swept in with the crowd, head turned away from the guards. Once beyond the gates, he had to take the risk of raising his gaze from the ground and scanning around.

There.
A white blouse, a full skirt, tousled blonde curls and a bewitching face. He tossed aside his smoke. At that instant, she saw him and . . . hell, she glowed. The sudden sparkle of delight in her eyes speared him to his soul. He’d never seen a woman’s face light up like
that
upon seeing him.

His reaction? Completely unanticipated. Never would he have expected the sharp, harsh tug in his gut. The possessive sense that he was looking at
his woman
.

But that was only in his dreams. In the flesh, Lady Madeline Ashby was everything but that.

He approached her and grabbed an onion off the cart as a decoy.

“We can talk,” he murmured. “But quickly.” In the middle of the crowded market, he had her all to himself for only a few minutes.

Her tongue flicked over her lips. Devastating him.

“You’re out. Thank goodness. I am so sorry.” She spoke swiftly, her hands fiddling with an onion. He’d never seen Lady M. so agitated. “I seem to have caused you nothing but anguish, Mr. Travers.”

“I’m safe and sound now,” he said very softly. “It was not your fault that I went back into the Black Hole. I’m planning an escape, so let’s just say I got to enjoy a punishment I deserved anyway.”

His words were intended to calm her, but didn’t. For a moment, she dropped her role as farmer’s lass and wore the haughty mien of an earl’s daughter. “I have spoken to Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, the gentleman who instigated this prison, about the deplorable conditions here. I visited him at his home in Princetown, Tor Royal. I protested about that horrible Black Hole—”

“You are not supposed to have seen this place. Didn’t this Sir Thomas wonder why you seemed so
intimate
with the inside of the war prison?”

Her eyes widened. Their previous conversations outside the stables, two years ago, included him listening as a good servant should, peppering his conversation with
my lady
at every opportunity. That had been to remind him who she was. To remind him he could never act on his desire.

Lady M. waved her hand with the impatience of the powerful. “The local farmers come in here to do trade. I gave him ample reasons—subtly, of course—why I should know what the prisoners are suffering.”

“But I’m not supposed to be here, my lady. As far as the world knows, I’m dead—hanged for my crime. Did he not wonder what caused you to be interested?”

“I did not mention you at all. And the world does not think you are dead. Every magistrate I’ve spoken to now knows you are alive, along with the villagers near my home.” She fluffed her skirts. He noted she had on a dress that engulfed her and the skirts were so large they trailed on the ground. Her voice dropped to a purr that sent shivers of hunger down his spine. Years of abstinence—and
her
—were making him unforgivably weak.

“Beneath these,” she whispered, “I’ve tied clothes together for you, and hooked them with a cord around my waist.”

One long leg hooked around his waist to show him how much she wanted him—

“Which is where they are going to stay.” His voice was sharp and hard. “I might be a madman for turning down an offer—no, a
demand
—to get in a lady’s skirts, but that is not the way an escape is going to happen. Tomorrow night, I’ll be out of here. That means you are to be on the road tomorrow morning. I want you far away from here before I get out. There has to be no connection between us.”

Another wave of her hand brushed aside his warning. “I have a carriage and gentlemen’s clothes at the ready. I believe that is the only way you can escape. You can’t run. I’ve asked around and most prisoners who simply run are caught. To the north is bog. If you stay on the roads, you’ll be found in no time.”

“I won’t.”

Her eyes rolled heavenward. The unusual gold specks flashed like lightning in a storm-darkened sky. “I never thought you were a gambler, Jack Travers.” Her lips curled with distaste.