Highlander Undone (14 page)

“Tangerine, I should say,” Gerald declared. “Too much red to be an orange. Unless one were talking about those Tahitian oranges. You know the ones. Like that Gauguin fellow painted.”

Some woman behind Addie tittered. Addie’s ears burned.

“Ah, yes,” said Jack. “I believe you are correct. I am more relieved than I can say. Oranges in November. Too, too
jeune fille
.” He gave a moue of distaste. “I commend you on your taste, Addie. Tangerines are much the better choice for November chapeaus.”

And now, now, with heat unaccountably stinging the backs of her eyes, now, while the sun outside slid like a dirty pickpocket behind a dingy gray cloud, now, having traded the bracing wind for air heavy with the smell of mutton, now he looked at her.

“Why, Addie,” he said softly, that hateful smile still playing on his lips. “There’s no need to look so stricken, m’dear. You have been exonerated of any crimes of fashion. ‘Crimes of fashion,’ not ‘passion,’ do ya see? Jolly clever of me, what?”

A muffled giggle drifted from behind them.

“I am ecstatic,” she said with forced lightness. “I lay awake last night, fretting over whether or not my hat would meet with your approval.”

“Did you, indeed?” He cocked his brow and his eyes, beautiful eyes, skittered over her face like pebbles thrown on an icy pond. “Well, there really is no need for you to spend any wakeful hours on so trivial a thing—”

“Trivial?” Gerald asked. “I say, I don’t think we can call—”

“From now on,” Jack continued in that false, bright voice, his words running over Gerald’s as though he were afraid if they went unspoken they might lodge in his throat. “From now on, I insist you send your hats over to my rooms for prior approval. I shall try them on myself before returning them to you.”

His teeth bared in semblance of a smile. “That will solve all your problems, but should Wheatcroft catch me, it may well be the beginning of mine! But for you, Madame, anything.”

The others laughed. Even Ted snorted with amusement at Jack’s idiocy. Anger replaced her hurt.

“How munificent of you!”

“Not at all. Can’t have a lovely lady like yourself losing sleep. Scant slumber might not affect those silly young debs but mature ladies need to protect those rejuvenating hours.”

Her chin jerked up. Gerald’s mild gaze finally sharpened with the impression that something was wrong. Stunned and hurt, Addie brushed by Jack, moving too quickly, hoping her tears would not cause her to careen into something.

She swept past Ted, blindly following the hovering maitre d’, who dashed ahead to pull out a chair at a large round table near the front window. She did not wait for assistance, taking her seat as the others hustled forward in varying states of bewilderment.

Lady Merritt took the seat opposite her, Gerald on her side. Ted sat to Addie’s left across from Gerald. There was only one vacant chair left: the one directly on her right hand.

Humiliation burned her cheeks as Jack hesitated a moment before taking it. She kept her gaze outside the window. Her hands lay clutched on her lap.

Jack sank down silently, his wit apparently spent.

A full ten minutes passed, the polite drone and flow of conversation eddying around and about her. She didn’t say a word, remembering one of the lessons Charles had taught her: you can’t bait someone who doesn’t speak.

But slowly she became aware that if she was quiet, Jack was more so. His attention, true, seemed to follow with almost unnatural avidity the conversation going on at the table. His gaze leapt to and from the faces of those who spoke, like a drowning man leaps at any rope tossed his way. His laughter was a shade too prompt to be spontaneous. The characteristic trembling of his left hand, clenched about the stem of the crystal goblet, translated itself into minute shivers over the liquid surface of water . . .

Something was not right.

This was not Jack. In fact, there was nothing about this brittle, feverish-eyed man next to her that was familiar, that felt . . . honest. There was some reason for his facile unkindness. She was sure of it.

And with each observation of Jack’s discomfiture, the certainty that should she open her mouth she would be belittled did not seem so dread. Each barb he’d uttered, she realized with sudden inspiration, had hurt Jack as much as it hurt her. Even now he looked ill, strained.

The idea bewildered her. Try as she might she could think of no reason why Jack hurt them both with his behavior.

“I have heard that the new play at the Lyceum is wonderful,” she said, testing her idea. Watching him carefully, she continued. “I should so like to see it.”

Jack opened his mouth. He took a deep breath, like an athlete might before endeavoring a particularly strenuous feat. His mouth clamped shut. The muscles balled at the corner of his jaw.

“I haven’t been to a play in a long time.” She knew she was opening herself up for more of the mockery he’d practiced on her earlier but she was as curious now as she had been hurt then.

Jack’s lips flattened a second before relaxing. He shook his head, so slightly she was certain she was the only one who noticed. In negation or ruefulness, she could not tell.

“Then see it you shall, Addie,” Ted said.

“Capital notion,” Gerald said. “Why don’t we make a party of it?”

“I don’t know,” injected Lady Merritt. “Is it an artistically edifying play or one of those light, satirical pieces of nastiness that are currently all the rage?”

“Well, I’d rather see wit than this Ibsen fellow’s stark realist pretensions,” Jack put in.

“Really, Jack?” Addie said sweetly. “I would never have expected you to object to pretensions.”

He met her gaze, a small self-deprecating curl to his lip. “As you say, Madame.”

The rest of the diners tittered.

“She has you there, Jack,” Gerald said.

“In all ways,” Jack murmured suavely. He sniffed as if suddenly recalling himself and brushed at a few tiny bread crumbs adhering to his jacket’s plum-colored plush. “I like my pretensions to be pretty. Why seek the bald face of reality? The hag is all too available as it is.”

Gerald laughed appreciatively as Jack patted his mouth with the napkin. “Besides,” he continued, “lately I find myself as interested in the process of genius as in the end product. Which leads me to a matter I have been wanting to broach, Ted.”

Ted turned a slightly suspicious eye on Jack. “Yes?”

“Yes. I am not at all sure I haven’t misspent my talent.”

“You don’t say.”

“Indeed. I do. Say that I am unsure, that is. A dratted spot, to find oneself waffling at this point in one’s life.”

“I can imagine,” Ted murmured. “I always thought you a trifle old to be an apprentice.”

“Oh, I’m well beyond the apprentice stage.” He looked at the others. “I suppose I should just ignore these sudden misgivings and return to my little Scottish workshop. But the thing is, don’t you know, I would always wonder if I’d made a mistake. In giving the world an adept craftsman, have I robbed the world of an artistic genius?”

Ted choked and Lady Merritt, who’d been nodding approvingly, thumped him sharply on the back.

“Excuse me,” Ted sputtered. “Water went down the wrong way.”

“Of course,” Jack said kindly. “Anyhow, Ted old man, the thing is, would you object to me hanging about your garret in a more concerted fashion, takin’ notes, lookin’ over the terrain, witnessing firsthand the dos and don’ts of the trade?”

“
‘Dos and don’ts of the trade’?” Addie echoed, nonplussed.

“Ted knows what I want, don’t you, old fellow?”

“Yes. I suspect I do. All right, Jack,” he said. “Spend as much time ‘hanging about’ the studio as you’d like. I’ll put you to work as repayment for my instruction and I promise, I’ll put your talents to good use.”

“Thank you,” Jack said. “I shall contrive not to get in the way when you have your sittings.”

“Can’t be done,” Ted said. “When Miss Drouhin sits, the world sits at her feet.”

“Oh, surely not the world,” Lady Merritt snorted.

“A good third of it, I should say,” Ted avowed. “What with all of them standing moony-eyed about my studio, I swear I haven’t any idea how England manages to win any of these foreign skirmishes that the newspapers report.” Ted’s bland gaze slid to Jack. “What say you, Jack? Can England maintain her presence in the Sudan, what with the bulk of her troops parked in my apartments?”

Jack returned Ted’s gaze. Addie had the distinct impression that a small skirmish of an entirely different sort was going on.

“I couldn’t say.”

“Of course, he can’t say,” a mocking voice boomed from behind Addie.

Paul Sherville. She would know his voice anywhere. She felt him close in to stand directly behind her and knew how a rabbit must feel when the shadow of the hawk overtakes it.

“Couldn’t help but attend. I have exceptional hearing. This artist fellow—excuse me, I’ve quite forgotten your name?”

“Cameron, John Cameron,” Jack said without standing.

“Ah, yes. Cameron. That’s right. Well, a fellow who’s spent his adulthood whittling, or splattering, or scribbling is hardly in a position to judge Her Majesty’s readiness to meet a foreign insurrection, is he?”

“I should hope not, Major,” Lady Merritt said, clearly put out by Sherville’s rudeness. “An artist’s milieu is beauty. A soldier’s milieu is . . . is . . .”

“Lice?” Ted asked innocently.

“Khaki?” Gerald suggested.

A chirrup of laughter escaped Addie. She buried her mouth in her napkin.

“Very droll,” Sherville said. “Just see how the young—” He paused and when he spoke again, his voice had sharpened. “Ah, Mrs. Hoodless. I didn’t recognize you out of black. Has it been so long since Charles left us?”

She felt herself grow cold.

“And for us to meet again so soon,” he went on. “How delightful! Only more delightful is the knowledge that now that your mourning is officially over we shall doubtless meet again, and again . . . and again. I do so look forward to renewing our acquaintance.”

She couldn’t look at him. She felt exposed, vulnerable. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes.

“Nothing could make me forgo that pleasure,” he was saying, “not even—”

“Death?” Jack asked.

Her eyes shot open. Every person at the table was staring in astonishment at Jack. Calmly, he refolded his napkin and placed it aside.

“Excuse me?” Paul Sherville asked, his expression apoplectic.

“I said ‘death,
’
” Jack repeated calmly. “You know . . . ‘the soldier’s milieu.’ Wouldn’t it be death? Been sitting here, trying to guess the answer. Thought I’d done rather a nice job of it, too. Must say, no one seems appreciative.”

Everyone relaxed. Behind her she felt Paul Sherville step away from her chair. “Yes. Quite so. Death,” he said. “I won’t keep you any longer. Delighted, as usual, Lady Merritt, Mrs. Hoodless, gentlemen . . . Cameron.”

She heard the hushed click of his boot heels on the parquet flooring fade away. She glanced at Jack.

He wasn’t looking at her but he seemed to feel her scrutiny. He smiled, sadly. “I couldn’t let him. Forgive me.”

She could barely hear his words. For the rest of the meal she wondered what he needed forgiveness for . . . and from whom.

P
aul Sherville strode past the footman into his newly purchased townhouse and snatched up the riding crop he’d left lying on the hall table. He thumped it against his thigh as he stalked to the library, barking out orders for scotch to be brought immediately.

Captain John
Frances
Cameron.

He’d thought there was something familiar about the whipcord lean figure when they’d been introduced in that artist’s lair. But before he could pursue the sense of recognition, he’d allowed himself to be distracted by the man’s offensive overtures. He saw now that it had all been a clever diversion, a ruse to keep him from looking too closely at him. And it had worked.

Still, he couldn’t judge himself too harshly. One of the only times he’d seen Cameron, the man had weighed a full stone more than he did now. The Captain Cameron he’d glimpsed in the Sudan had been a vigorous, ramrod-straight officer tanned the very color of the beastly dune he’d been straddling, his expression keen, hawk-like.

He’d been bearded then too, a full bronze-colored beard. But his eyes were the same. Yes. He should have recognized Cameron from those damned arctic-colored eyes of his.

With a snarl, Sherville slashed the riding crop at the papers on his desk, sending them flying, and flung himself down into an expensive leather tufted armchair.

It was damned lucky that baby-faced lieutenant had been at The Gold Braid Club the evening before. Even luckier that he’d received Holmes this afternoon at his club. He’d nearly had the doorman send the upstart off with a flea in his ear.

As soon as he’d been told that Cameron was asking after him, he’d pieced together the enigma of Jack Cameron. He’d given Holmes instructions to report to him should Cameron go nosing about again.

Sherville’s scowl deepened as a light rap on the door broke his concentration. “Come in, damn you!”

The butler entered, balancing a crystal decanter and a cut-glass tumbler on a silver tray. He deposited the tray on the black lacquered table by Sherville’s side.

“Shall I pour, sir?”

“I can pour my own liquor.”

With the wooden impassiveness he was paid far too well to maintain, the butler started picking up the papers from the thick Turkish rug.

“Leave it, you fool. Do you think I want to watch your scrawny ass crawling about? Get out!”

With a murmured apology, the butler backed out of the room. Sherville snatched up the decanter, splashing scotch into a glass.

He needed to think. He was a realist—a practical, hard-nosed man. Those qualities had been responsible for lifting him—the youngest son of an impoverished minister—to this address, to this sumptuously furnished library and this luxuriously fashioned life. He must use those qualities now to protect these things he treasured. No one was going to take from him what he’d worked so hard to acquire.

He tossed half the whiskey down and stared moodily into the remainder of the amber liquid. He needed to decide who constituted the greater threat: Jack Cameron or Addie Hoodless.

He knew Jack Cameron by reputation. He was said to be fierce and fiercely loyal, as dauntless a soldier as he was astute a tactician; his allegiance to the Crown was above reproach. So what the hell was he doing playing “Precious Pet” to Charles Hoodless’s widow?

There was only one conclusion he could come to: Jack Cameron was working for the government. Whether he reported to the Admiralty, the War Office, or the Colonial Office was unimportant; he was acting as a government agent.

Sherville gulped down the rest of the liquor, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. It only made sense.

If he, himself, had taken note of Addie Hoodless’s sudden wealth it only stood to reason that Whitehall would have done likewise. All those costly refurbishments: the electric lighting, the centralized heating, the furnishings and draperies. Not to mention the other things he’d seen: the new carriage, the servants, her modest but expensive wardrobe.

Where did her wealth come from? The money Charles had accrued was not nearly enough to account for his widow’s lifestyle. No, Addie Hoodless had a new source of income.

But the ultimate giveaway was not the new trappings of wealth; it was her new demeanor.

Addie Hoodless had always put him in mind of a feral fox he had trapped as a lad, cowed, exotic, its very fearfulness exciting. The woman he’d seen today had laughed at him, the bitch! And a few days before, she had looked him straight in the eye and told him—him!—how he was to act. She had all but had him thrown out of her brother’s studio!

Surging to his feet, Sherville flung the glass into the marble mantelpiece. The crystal exploded, shattering into a thousand shimmering splinters. With an effort, Sherville composed himself.

The only possible explanation for Addie Hoodless’s sudden self-confidence was that she had discovered Charles’s hidden cache of “interesting material.” She had taken a note from Charles’s book and become a blackmailer.

For two years before his death, his old school chum had soaked him for close to three thousand pounds. Luckily, his lucrative sideline had enabled him to sustain the burden. But he’d be damned if he would pay Charles’s hot-eyed little bitch a sou! Why she hadn’t yet started bleeding him was a minor mystery, but one he had no intention of waiting to discover the answer to. No, the real question was what he was going to do.

Judging by her willingness to antagonize him, he had to believe that she held that damn photograph. He had to get it before Cameron found it. He stalked back to the decanter and poured himself another drink.

Addie wasn’t stupid. It would be a mistake to underestimate her. But unlike Charles, Addie had no foreign safe in which to tuck “treasures.” That meant that it must be either at her country estate or . . . or here, at the Hoodless townhouse, where she was having everything remodeled.

Yes, he thought,
a slight crook to his lips, that was it. She was making an Ali Baba’s cave in her own damn house.