Highlander Undone (12 page)

S
ir! Sir?” Wheatcroft panted from behind Jack.

Jack turned and waited for the older man to reach the landing. Having awoken once again with a feverish need for action, he’d given himself the task of carrying Lady Merritt’s heavy crates of Japanese artifacts down from the fourth-story attic.

“Yes?”

“Ah.” Wheatcroft put his hands on his hips and bent forward at the waist, puffing a moment before continuing, “Lady Merritt insists you let the footman do this.”

“Bloody hell. How did she know what I was doing? Don’t answer. Just tell her I’ve stopped. Tell Her Ladyship I’m lolling beneath a potted palm, sniffing lilies and reading poetry. Tell her any bloody thing she wants to hear. Oh, you needn’t look shocked, Wheatcroft. I think I’ve more than adequately demonstrated my capacity for deceit.”

Wheatcroft’s expression reflected bewilderment, and Jack’s irritation faded. Wheatcroft was not to blame for this infernal coil.

“Sir, Lady Merritt asks that you join her in the morning room. She is making a guest list for Mr. Phyfe’s reception.”

Wearily, Jack ran a hand across his face. It was to his advantage to be in that particular conversation. He had to make sure Sherville attended. “Aye, then,” he murmured. “Tell her I’ll be down directly.” He started to climb the stairs.

“Ahem.”

“What is it now, Wheatcroft?”

“I think you’d best arrange a fitting with Lord Merritt’s tailor as soon as convenient, sir.”

“What? Have I busted out the seams on these pants, too?” Jack twisted at the waist, looking down at the velvet knee breeches.

Wheatcroft nodded.

“I have had just about enough of this accursed masquerade!” Jack erupted. “I’ll be damned if I spend one farthing on another yard of velvet!”

“If I might be so bold as to make a suggestion?”

“What?”

“If you would just refrain from indulging in these daily athletics, you might find it unnecessary to supplement Master Evan’s wardrobe.” Jack’s eyes narrowed. Wheatcroft hurried on. “You have increased in size. Substantially. You no longer look as fashionably wan as you did a few weeks ago.”

Jack struggled to recover his temper. He closed his eyes. “You’re right,” he finally said. “And now, most especially now, I can’t afford to appear anything other than a posturing fool.”

“Especially now, sir?”

“Last week Paul Sherville came close to recognizing me.”

“Sherville was one of the names Colonel Halvers sent you.”

“Yes. He was in Egypt at the same time as I. I don’t remember him, though he obviously thought I looked familiar. Thankfully,” he paused and gestured to the overlong, gleaming strands of hair curling on his shirt collar, “what with all this, and being clean-shaven, I believe he thinks himself mistaken.

“He has all the requisites of our traitor, Wheatcroft. He was in the right places at the right times. He had access to telegrams and strategy sessions and . . . he has returned from his foreign post unaccountably wealthy.”

“What of the others on the list? Hopper, Neyron, Lobb, and Hoodless?” asked Wheatcroft.

Jack shook his head. “Lobb acted as secretary to Wolsey. If he were involved, the general would have had to be, too. I wouldn’t believe that for a second.”

Wheatcroft nodded.

“Neyron,” Jack went on, “is the Marquis of Stanton’s heir. I doubt he would risk that fortune on something so dangerously acquired and so relatively small. Hopper . . . Hopper could be our man. But his reputation is spotless, both with the enlisted men and his fellow officers.”

“And Charles?”

“What of him?”

“Well, sir,” Wheatcroft said uneasily, “he was a Royal Dragoon. His name reckons prominently amongst the dispatches Colonel Halvers had copied and sent to you. He was in Alexandria—”

“No,” Jack snapped. “No, Wheatcroft. Hoodless was a captain. He would hardly have the opportunity to misdirect dispatches and alter orders. We are looking for a major, at the least.”

“If you say so,” Wheatcroft said doubtfully before asking, “What can I do to help you, sir?”

“Talk to Sherville’s servants. Find out what clubs he belongs to, where he spends his nights, what his vices and weaknesses are.”

“Yes, sir.” Wheatcroft inclined his head. “Anything else, sir?”

“No, just inform Lady Merritt that I shall join her in ten minutes. Don’t worry, Wheatcroft. I’ll squeeze into the last pair of Evan’s trousers before I go down. And, Wheatcroft?”

“Sir?”

“If you would kindly make the necessary arrangements with Lord Merritt’s tailor? Can’t show up at Ted Phyfe’s f
ê
te exposing my smallclothes.” He paused. “I imagine Mrs. Hoodless’s in-laws will be present as well as her immediate family?”

“Doubtful, sir. The Hoodlesses are rather retiring. Besides, they haven’t the—” He stopped, obviously embarrassed.

“The what?”

“The wherewithal necessary to move in society.”

Jack frowned. “And the Phyfes?”

Wheatcroft relaxed slightly. “They haven’t the interest.”

He knew he hadn’t the right to ask, to discuss her, but he could not help himself. “They are eccentric?”

A wry smile flickered across Wheatcroft’s normally phlegmatic mien. “Extremely.”

“I see. Thank you, Wheatcroft.”

Without waiting for dismissal, Wheatcroft retraced his steps down the stairs, leaving Jack standing on the landing. He’d wasted enough time. He had a duty to perform.

It didn’t matter that he understood exactly what he risked by performing that duty. He risked Addie’s heart.

What would happen when she discovered she’d been duped again? How long would it take for her faith in men, in herself, in love, to be restored this time? A year? Five years? Never?

I
t was well past midnight when Jack left the Merritt townhouse. Wheatcroft, in his nightshirt and cap, held the servants’ back door for him as he slipped wordlessly from the mansion. He made his way down dark back alleys that twined amongst the expensive row houses and headed for the river. A fine mist had risen from the banks, beading moisture on his cape’s shoulders and slicking the cobbled streets.

The growl of a cat and the staggered clomp of an exhausted hack were the only sounds that followed him down the narrow lane to The Gold Braid, the military club Wheatcroft had discovered Paul Sherville frequented.

At the doorway, a half crown convinced the bored attendant of Jack’s membership. He shrugged his cloak into the man’s waiting hands and took off his hat, raking back his hair.

He queried the attendant and followed his directions to the gaming room. His entrance into the crowded, smoke-filled room produced a pause in the conversation. Jack could understand why. Though the black trousers and velvet cutaway jacket with satin lapels he wore had been the least outré of Evan’s clothing, he hardly looked like one of the regulars.

True to its name, The Gold Braid was popular with military men. A full three-quarters of the men in the room sported double-breasted dress jackets, polished brass buttons, and gold braid appliqué glinting in the gaslight.

Jack stood out like a crow amongst a flock of cardinals. A few older men, their grizzled muttonchops bristling with indignation at his foppish appearance, sneered openly in his direction. Jack met their gaze directly with a clipped nod. After a few brief seconds of scrutinizing him, most of those assembled turned back to the more interesting proceedings at the gaming tables.

Hours of smoking cheroots and cigars had built a bluish haze in the room. Empty mugs and glasses stood in wavering lines on tables scattered around the perimeter, a comical testimony to the military rigor of inebriated hands.

Good,
thought Jack, taking note of the piles of coin and bills lying on the gaming tables, empty bottles beside them. It was late enough in the evening so that victory and liquor should have loosened tongues and pockets. If he played this right, he might learn something useful.

He went to the bar and hitched his boot onto the brass foot rail, setting his hat down and taking a seat. He glanced over at the craggy-featured balding major beside him. The man continued contemplating his nearly empty shot glass.

Jack motioned for the thin, middle-aged bartender to draw him an ale. After wordlessly complying, the man clomped a heavy glass mug down in front of him. Jack slid a half crown across the sticky countertop. “Keep the change.”

Lifting the mug to his lips, Jack downed half its contents before turning and casually surveying the crowd.

“Busy for past midnight,” he said conversationally.

“It’s when we gets most of our trade. We just gets a-poppin’ after midnight.” The bartender, eager to foster Jack’s unexpected generosity, grinned. “Haven’t seen you here before, Cap.”

“Cap?” How had he known?

“Just an expression. We gets so many of the military lads in and the faces change so often, I just picks meself a nice, respectful rank and calls all the blokes by it.” He leaned forward and jerked his head in the direction of a sullen-looking boy with a subaltern’s braid on his uniform. “That’s
Lieutenant
Holmes to his regiment but in here he’s a captain. No harm done, what?”

“None at all.”

“So, Cap, what brings a bloke like you in here?” His gaze lightly raked over Jack’s velvet clothing.

Jack smiled thinly. “I’m looking for a fellow. We shared a mutual friend. I was told I might find him here.”

The bartender began wiping up the counter. “Yeah? And who might you be looking for?”

“Paul Sherville.”

The swirling motion of the bartender’s rag slowed. “Might want to talk to that lost pup down there then. Fair idolizes Sherville, he does.” His expression became skeptical. “What friend might you and Paul Sherville share?”

“Charles Hoodless.”

“Charles Hoodless is dead.” The youngster the bartender had identified as
Lieutenant
Holmes had twisted round and leaned an elbow against the bar. “It might be interesting to hear how a dead man makes friends.”

“Now, Mr. Holmes,” murmured the bartender soothingly, obviously worried that the young man would chase off a generous patron.

“That is
Lieutenant
Holmes.” The lad turned his attention back to Jack. “Maybe you’re a table-rapper and that’s how you know Charles Hoodless. You look like one.” He snorted with amusement.

Jack laced his fingers around his mug, studying Holmes. The lad was drunk. His eyes were glassy and unfocused and he held himself too stiffly, in the way of a man just barely maintaining his balance. His tone was the aggressive one of the habitual drunk, overly loud and petulant.

“Charles Hoodless’s family and mine are from the same county. We were at school together,” he said. “He wrote a letter to me some time back.”

“Must have been sometime back,” Holmes sneered. “He’s been dead a year.”

“It was,” Jack said easily. “I have been out of the country studying for nearly that length of time. I am only newly returned to England. Amongst the letters awaiting me was one from Charles. In it he mentioned a Major Paul Sherville. Having just recently learned of poor Charles’s death, I thought Major Sherville and I might lift a glass in his memory.”

The young man made a scoffing sound. “Can’t see Hoodless chumming about with the likes of you.” There was no mistaking the derisive curl to Holmes’s lip. “He was a soldier, not a—”

“—artist,” Jack supplied smoothly. “I was much more vigorous as a lad.” He slid his mug over to the bartender, motioning for it to be refilled. “Take care of my young friend here and any other comrades of Charles Hoodless who might be present,” he added in a voice pitched to carry.

The words had a magical effect. The belligerence drained from the younger man’s expression, leaving it simply sullen. He held out his shot glass for the bartender to fill. Several men who’d been watching from the nearer gaming tables abandoned their posts and gathered at the bar.

“Young Holmes isn’t putting on like he was a chum of Charles, is he?” asked the bald, battle-scarred veteran Jack had noticed earlier. He leaned over the bar and grabbed the bottle of scotch from the other side. “Doubt whether he ever even saw the man.”

“Didn’t say I did, Ingrams!” said Holmes. “But I sure as hell know Paul Sherville! And that’s who this bloke is looking for.”

A man with a thick, dark mustache gave a short bark of laughter. “Oh, you won’t find Sherville down here anymore,” he told Jack. “We’re a bit too common for his tastes nowadays. Not that his presence is missed.”

“Potter has the right of it,” another man said, jerking his head in the mustachioed man’s direction. “Sherville plays for higher stakes these days.”

Jack took a sip of ale before asking in a bored voice, “Why’s that?”

“Ah.” Potter plunked his empty mug down in front of the whiskey bottle the bartender had left in front of Jack and glanced questioningly at him. Jack tipped two fingers of whiskey into Potter’s mug. He took a deep draught before continuing. “Major Sherville came back from North Africa with a little nest egg he’d managed to hatch.”

“Nest egg?”

The bald veteran, Ingrams, grinned. “A tidy sum, a bit of ready, don’t you know. He came back with some money and has since parlayed it into real wealth, canny beggar that he is.”

“How incredibly vulgar,” Holmes muttered. “Talking about a man’s personal assets.”

“Ye mean his wealth?” Potter asked, grinning unrepentantly. “Aye, that’s us at The Gold Braid, vulgar and poor. But then . . . we work for our commissions.”

Holmes flushed hotly.

“Nest egg?” Jack asked, trying to steer the conversation back to Sherville. “And how would one achieve that in North Africa? I thought all they had there was sand and camels.”

Ingrams shrugged. “Rumor says Sherville plucked a ruby the size of a pigeon’s egg off a statue.”

“I heard he took a jeweled dagger off a dead prince,” Potter said.

“No,” Holmes broke in with the smug expression of a man who knows more than the company he keeps. “Sherville and Hoodless found some sort of heathen stash.”

Potter snorted. “Hoodless and Sherville, you say? Not bloody likely. They had a falling-out in North Africa, just before Hoodless was killed, God rest his black heart.” Potter slanted a look in Jack’s direction. “Sorry, old man. Speaking ill of the dead and all, but certainly you must know what type of man Charles Hoodless was.”

Jack willed himself to a noncommittal expression. He knew. His investigations always seemed to skirt back to Charles Hoodless. Piece by piece he had learned just “what type of man Charles Hoodless was” and each new bit of knowledge nearly choked him with rage. Because of Addie. Addie, whom he mustn’t think of, couldn’t think of, because to do so hurt worse than any physical pain he’d ever endured.

Potter had turned back to the young lieutenant and was regarding him sardonically. “But seeing how you are so chummy with Sherville, I’d have thought you’d know that, Holmes.”

Holmes straightened, gripping the side of the bar to keep his balance. He glared at Potter. “I did know that, Potter. I know a lot of things.” He smiled mysteriously. “For example, I know that whatever Sherville and Hoodless found in Africa, they did so together.”

Ingrams leaned close to Jack and muttered, “And how the hell would this pup know that, eh? He weren’t never in North Africa.”

Jack didn’t reply; his thoughts were careening wildly.

Holmes swung on Ingrams, his face suffused with color. “You think you’re so much better than me, all of you, just because you’ve seen more action than I!”

“More action?” asked Ingrams, his brows climbing in mock astonishment. “Make that any action!”

The little group around the bar burst into appreciative laughter. Apparently young Holmes’s hubris made him a regular target amongst this lot.

“To blazes with you, Ingrams! Paul Sherville has seen more action than the entire sorry lot of you put together!”

“Oh, yes. Paul Sherville loves ‘seeing action.’ As did Charles. And if there weren’t any about, they made sure they found some . . . or created it.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Holmes demanded.

“Nothing. Just that the number of wounded amongst Sherville’s command far exceeded those in any other company.”

“Because he doesn’t run away from trouble.”

“Careful, boy,” Potter advised softly into the shot glass he had lifted to his lips.

Ingrams, however, seemed inclined to charity. After a second’s hesitation he guffawed lightly and clapped Holmes on the back. “You’d do well to pick a better figure to model your career after than Paul Sherville or Charles Hoodless, son.”

The boy swept the older man’s hand from his shoulder. “Why?” he demanded. “Because they have fashioned something more from their careers than a bunch of tired old war stories?”

At this insult, Potter started forward, but Ingrams stopped him.

“No,” Ingrams said mildly. “Because Sherville and Hoodless fashioned their careers on brutality and exploitation.”

Holmes stood stock-still, quivering with rage. One of the other men gathered around the bar barked out a short, clipped, “Hear, hear,” and several others nodded solemnly.

“Sherville shall hear of this!” Holmes backed away, slamming his mug on the counter and, with a last sputtering oath, stomped from the room. With Holmes gone and no more free rounds being offered, the men drifted away.

“He’ll be running to Sherville’s side, John,” Potter cautioned.

“Ah, well,” Ingrams said. “I shan’t fret overmuch. I doubt Sherville will even allow Holmes into his new club’s anteroom. It wouldn’t do to acknowledge a little would-be pissant like Holmes.”

Potter nodded and headed back to the gaming table. Jack’s gut twisted and he forced himself to ignore the hot burn of acid in his throat. He did not want to think what he was thinking, suspect what he was suspecting. The idea of the scandal Addie would have to live through if, indeed, her dead husband had been involved in the slave trade was incomprehensible. She would never escape the ignominy.

Paul Sherville and Charles Hoodless. Always, whatever avenue he explored, the two were linked.

He took a deep breath, light-headed and ill. All of his career he had tried his damnedest to do right by his men, his rank, and his queen. He’d never put personal concerns above duty. Not once.

He placed his palm flat on the counter, pushing himself upright. The tremor in his left hand had grown into a shake. His legs felt oddly boneless. He could leave now. He hadn’t heard any real evidence of Hoodless’s involvement. If he left, he wouldn’t have to.

Damned be duty and to hell with debt if it hurt Addie—

“I’d say Arabi,” Ingrams murmured softly.

“Excuse me?” Jack’s head snapped up so quickly his vision swam. For a few minutes he’d been so absorbed in trying to see his way clear of this hellish dilemma, he’d forgotten where he was.