Escape with A Rogue (6 page)

My lady, if you only knew.
Given her brother Philip’s huge losses at the tables, Lady M. couldn’t like gamblers.

Jack sensed some men moving toward them and had no choice but to press his body more closely to hers.

He was bent over her now and had her backed up against the granite wall that framed the market square. She tipped up her chin—she was tall, but he was substantially taller.

“Tom told me most men make for the Ockery Bridge outside the village,” she whispered. “That way, they are running downhill. It makes sense, of course, because it gives a man speed. Then they follow the river toward Plymouth. But few reach the bridge before soldiers get there and stop them. How, then, are you going to get away?”

“Run across the moors.”

Her color drained away. “You’ll sink in a bog. You
can’t
. I can wait on the road with the carriage. I will wait on the road toward the village of Rundlestone, north of the prison. Then you can change your clothes inside the carriage and we will appear to be a grand couple traveling. Please let me help.”

He had to admit her plan was clever, but for the fact it included her. “I will not ask you to do that for me.” No, he would bloody well demand she didn’t. His mother had died brutally. His best friend’s wife had been killed in an accident after trying to seduce him. He would not have another woman on his conscience.

Lady M.’s chin jutted forward, a sign she intended to be stubborn. “I am not doing it for you.”

Then he remembered: she was doing this for her brother. Everything Lady Madeline had ever done had been for her family.

“I am doing this for
me
,” she said. “Do remember that, Jack. This is my choice. You must admit you can produce no better plan than mine for what will happen once you are beyond the prison walls.”

Say no, Travers. Threaten her with something. This time, don’t surrender, you scoundrel.

But what if she did not leave before the escape? He would not put it past Lady Madeline to wait for him.

“I want to know why you are so convinced I’m innocent.”

“I told you—Grandfather insisted you are.”

“Did he tell you why?” he demanded softly.

“Come with me and I will tell you,” she threw back.

The sheer cunning of her statement aroused him instantly. A clever woman always made his blood hot and now his cock was as painfully rigid as an iron bar. He stared down into confident midnight-blue eyes, scrambling for control he couldn’t find. She knew he would say yes. On a harsh groan, he muttered, “All right.”

He struggled to think, to come up with a plan of his own that was less dangerous than hers. “But you are to wait a safe distance from the prison. Park beyond the quarry—”

“Too far.”

No, not far enough.
To continue the conversation, he had no choice but to lean right by her ear and breathe in enough feminine perfume to make his erection almost burst through his worn trousers. “They’ll expect me to run with the others. But the other men are going to follow the fresh water channel and head in the opposite direction, toward the Ockery Bridge.”

Remarkable, how smooth and soft a woman’s cheek could be. Was there any way in heaven—or hell—she could still be unmarried? If she was defying a husband for this, he would end up at the wrong end of a pistol. What husband would not shoot the man who brought his wife into danger and disaster?

“But you’ll come with me,” she breathed. “It will work, Jack, I know it will.” Vivid excitement crackled in her eyes.

Jack remembered how she’d revealed, on their last afternoon together, that she longed to have an adventure. She yearned to make a grand tour of the Continent like her brother, or a sea voyage to India, or a trip to the wilds of America.

“But of course I won’t,” she had admitted. “There is always too much to be done to waste time on adventures. Someone must stay home and ensure the house runs as it should.”

He had been applying a poultice to a wound on a gelding’s leg. She’d watched every move he’d made, apparently fascinated. “Someone must be there to uphold all that is important in English society, my lady,” he had teased.

A startled smile had come to her lips. “You make me sound far more important than I am.”

Was that what he was? Her wild adventure—?

Then a thought struck and he recognized a flaw in her plan—one that sent cold fear slicing through his gut. “Who is going to drive this carriage of yours, my lady?” She’d bribed the farmer to help her—who else had she indebted herself to?

“Obviously someone I can trust.”

“There is
no one
you can trust.”

“Do you not think I learned that two years ago?” she retorted. “The driver will not know who I truly am. He has never seen what I look like—I was cloaked and veiled when I hired him. I even smoked a cheroot—horrid things—before meeting him. With my height and the smell of smoke clinging to me, along with a husky voice, he’s convinced himself he’s cleverly discovered I was a man disguised as a woman. It will throw him off the scent completely.”

Lady M. looked distinctly smug. She clearly expected him to be impressed. Instead, he growled, “You are too clever for your own good.”

Her lips pursed. “We can only hope I am clever enough for your good. When are you going to do it?”

“Midnight. Just before the sentry changes. Before they are relieved, the men are distracted, anticipating the promise of a mug of ale and bed.”

She nodded. Then stroked her skirts. He stood so close the movement brushed her smooth knuckles along his thigh.

Two years without touching a woman. Jack’s heart hammered loud enough to deafen him, and his entire body tensed, as though he’d explode in a climax if she just rubbed his thigh again. Why couldn’t he master this yearning for her?

“You could take the clothes and still come with me now.”

Dear God. “Right now . . .” His voice sounded like that of a man struggling to draw in his last breath. “You do not want me under your skirts.”

At her startled glance, he fought for control. “I mean, there’s too much risk for you. If I am not at the carriage at midnight, you drive on without me. Get yourself home alone. Then—” If he wasn’t there, it would mean he hadn’t escaped. Likely a musket ball would’ve blown him away. He would not be alive to protect her. He would not ever see her again. “Then stop hunting for murderers.”

Her face paled. She shook her head. “No.”

“Your brother is a grown man. Let him fight this battle himself.”

For the first time, he saw Lady M. dip her head, bite her lip, and look . . . guilty. “My grandfather left me almost all his wealth, Jack. And it is—well, it is an astonishing fortune. He entrusted me to look after the family. He made me promise to do that.”

She had just admitted to a convict she was the wealthiest woman in England. She’d done it because she trusted Jack Travers, the man she believed was a simple, good-hearted groom.
Lady M., the truth is, I’ve lied to you. I don’t deserve your trust.
“Your grandfather had no right to make you promise anything but to be happy, my lady.”

She gave a soft but jaded laugh. “Wealth is never that simple, Jack.”

He cupped her cheek, knowing he had no right to do it. She sucked in a sudden breath. “That’s why I’ve never had wealth,” he lied smoothly, and dropped his hand from her tempting skin. At least he hadn’t left dirt on her face.

“I will be there at midnight,” she continued briskly. “Our story will be that we are traveling to a deathbed. It would explain the late hour on the road and our haste. It will work, Jack,” she whispered. “My plan will work.”

“I’m more than willing to admit it will. That doesn’t make me happy about it.”

She recognized her victory with a smile that was more dazzling than the August sun shining above them. Then she put her fingertips to her lips. His thighs tightened and his erection bucked as her mouth moistened and pursed in a soft kiss. She pressed the kiss to the side of his chin, then pulled away.

Lady Madeline’s fingertips lingered on his rough jaw and her tongue took a sensual path over her full lower lip. Her eyes ignited for him, and her breasts rose on a long, drawn breath.

He couldn’t have dreamed up a more enticing look of feminine desire.

Lady Madeline was doing this for more than a belief in justice. For more than her horror that he was locked up for a crime he hadn’t committed. And for more than her brother. She was here, risking everything to rescue him, because he meant something to her.

No—he had to be wrong. But he knew how a woman looked when she wanted him.

“For luck,” she whispered, and Jack had to believe the sultry undertone was entirely unintentional.

He groaned. The farmer she had paid was returning to his cart, and Jack had to make himself scarce. He made a quick, stiff bow and faded into the crowd.

Could it be bloody possible? If Lady M. cared about him, he had to ensure she stopped doing so. He had to make her see what he was, paint himself in the worst light possible—he had to frighten her away. He had to tell her the truth about what kind of monster he was.

It was the only way he could keep her safe.

“So, Travers,” he muttered very softly, making his way through the crowd back toward the gate, “do you do it before you’re alone in a carriage with her, or after?”

Before he had a chance to answer, he saw the glint of a blade, and danced swiftly to the right before the hand that held the knife drove it into his gut.

* * *

Madeline muttered a string of ripe curses in her head. Of all the nights for the fog to fall like a thick gray blanket, envelop everything, and make it impossible to see.

A collection of small cottages made up the tiny village of Rundlestone. As arranged, her carriage waited on the main road, so her driver did not know exactly which of the little cottages she had come from.

With her walking stick, Madeline picked her way unsteadily across the granite-strewn path. To be mired in white-gray soup was eerily disorientating.

She had no visual landmarks, no sense of up or down. Her stomach seemed to wobble, as though she was about to cast up her accounts. Thank heaven she’d brought the stick. She’d commissioned it thinking it would be a useful weapon—it was fashioned like Philip’s walking stick, with a blade hidden inside. But now it was acting as a lifesaver, her connection with the ground that she couldn’t see.

Through the mist, she heard the snuffling breath of a horse. The sound was enough to tell her which way to turn. But she almost walked smack into the wheel before she saw her vehicle.

The fog was a blessing in one way—it meant it would be almost impossible to spot the escaping men. But it would be equally hard to travel.

“That you . . . mum?” her driver called down.

“Yes,” she replied curtly, remembering Jack’s words.
There is no one you can trust.

No, she could not trust anyone, but she had to ensure she thought of every possibility, everything that could go wrong—just as she would when planning a ball—and circumvent the disaster before it could strike.

All her life she had managed a household—and she had watched all the gentlemen of her family live the lives they desired. Her brother had traveled across the Continent, gaining education and adventure. Her grandfather had built a fortune from nothing. Her father had lived the life he wanted, spending money lavishly.

She worried about servant issues, meaningless balls and parties, and minor estate matters. Finally, she had a goal worth achieving: the freedom of an innocent man.

With a creak and the soft whinnying of the horses, the carriage rocked. She heard a gentle crunch that signaled a man’s boots landing on the rough road. Quickly, she tugged down her veil, as her driver appeared out of the white mist to doff his cap, then open her door.

She walked carefully by the carriage, touching the side as a guide. What had happened in the market today? A scuffle had broken out in the crowd, near where Jack had vanished. Then a man had been found on the ground. A French prisoner named Lafontaine. He had been unconscious, clutching a dagger that must have been smuggled inside. Market day had been brought to an abrupt end by the prison governor, the farmers driven out of the gates by the militia.

There had been blood on the blade of the knife.

It couldn’t be Jack’s. Madeline could not believe she had come so close, only to lose him. The blood had to belong to another prisoner. But in her heart, by some mysterious, horrible intuition, she knew—
knew
—he had been stabbed in the fight—

Bells pealed ahead, from the direction of the prison, muffled by the fog.

She had her foot on the first step. Startled by the sound, she stumbled. Her driver caught her elbow. She did not know his name and he, of course, did not know hers. Money had done much of the necessary speaking between them. “What is that?” she demanded.

“That’s the sound of the alarm, mum. It means there’s one away.”

Dread clutched at her. “One away?”

“One of the prisoners ’as escaped.”

Raw panic clawed at Madeline’s stomach. It was only eleven o’clock! There was one possibility she hadn’t planned for. Why would he run
early
?

Oh, she knew. Agree with her and then defy her—it had to be his plan. He had told her midnight, when he meant all along to leave before that. To ensure she was not involved in his escape.

How could she drive up to the prison now, with all on alert?

But how could she leave the stubborn, protective idiot to try to cross a treacherous bog in a thick, blinding mist?

“Do ye want to abandon your travel, miss? It will be dangerous on the roads tonight. Too easy to go off and end up stuck.”

Madeline clutched the door with a force that made her knuckles crack within her gloves. The driver would soon learn
why
she wanted to travel at night: to clandestinely transport a man. And he would know as soon as they reached Jack that she was helping an escaping prisoner. At that point, she intended to bribe him with a small fortune. Her protection was that he wouldn’t know who she was or where she was taking Jack. “No, we will go,” she said.