Highlander Undone (16 page)

“I am so sorry,” she said smoothly. “My arm slipped. Now, you were telling me of all the things one might do in the Highlands.”

“You’d be surprised.”

She frowned but then, in an impulsive gesture, reached over and placed her gloved hand on his wrist, gazing up at him earnestly. Of its own volition, his hand flew to cover hers. She looked at their hands entwined and smiled.

“Please, Jack,” she said softly. “Tell me something about yourself. Tell me what things fashioned your character.”

Jack thought desperately. What bit of honesty could he give her? What had made him thus?

Sometimes he felt he had been formed by the deserts of North Africa and the cold, wind-bitten peaks of the
Himalayas
. Or had Captain Jack Cameron been born beneath the eardrum-shattering report of muzzle blasts, the acrid bite of smoke in his nostril and the metallic tang of blood in his mouth?

As to what had formed his character, that he knew too well. The men who’d put their faith in him. The boys who’d looked to him for direction. Honorable lads who believed in what they were doing. And his task had been to see that they lived to do it. And he’d done that; he’d been faithful to that.

Was it his fault that another had betrayed their trust? Wasn’t it presumptuous to appoint himself their avenger? And wasn’t that the most blatant of specious reasoning because he wanted above all things to end this charade?

“Jack?” Addie asked, a note of worry in her voice. “Are you all right?”

“Of course he is,” a man said.

Jack wheeled about to see who’d spoken and found himself looking directly into the face of his former commanding officer, Lord Hannibal Mitchell.

“How are you, Jack?” the general asked.

J
ack had known there was a good chance that eventually someone from his past would recognize him. He was, however, surprised by the overwhelming sense of relief he felt. His only real regret was that he wished he could have told Addie himself, rather than have her discover it like this.

He rose slowly, certain this was what a man standing in the dock awaiting a verdict must feel: trepidation but also gratitude that he no longer need anticipate his sentence. “Sir.”

“You’re looking well, Cameron.” Lord Mitchell inclined his head but his gaze moved to Addie. As soon as she had realized that the old man towering over her wore Her Majesty’s uniform, her smile had faded. She had never looked more like her brother. No emotion, not one telltale thought, was betrayed on her countenance.

“Mrs. Hoodless.” The general snapped smartly forward at the waist. “I don’t know if you remember, but we met at a military ball some years ago.”

It was impossible to gauge whether Addie did remember; her polite mask remained firmly in place.

“I have never had the opportunity to express in person my condolences over your bereavement,” the general continued. “Allow me to do so now.”

“Thank you,” Addie murmured, her gaze fixed on her lap.

Lord Mitchell bowed once more before returning his attention to Jack. “How are you doing, Cameron?”

“Very well, sir.” He took a deep breath and lifted his chin. “My shoulder—”

“Good,” broke in Lord Mitchell. “You must come by the offices some day soon and tell me all about it.”

“Sir, I am no longer—”

“Really, son, I am well aware of what you are and are not. I have kept
apprised
of your movements for years.”

Son
? thought Jack blankly.

“I promise I will not try to draft you into service again. I just wish to spend a few minutes with you, out of respect for your father.”

Jack stared. As far as Jack knew, Lord Mitchell had never even met his father. What the hell was going on?

The general smiled as his gaze passed once more over Addie, who was still sitting in a fair approximation of lifelessness. For just an instant, Lord Mitchell’s polite expression sharpened as he considered her averted face.

“Promise me you’ll visit me at my office at Whitehall, Jack. I insist.”

Numbly, Jack nodded. For whatever reason, his masquerade had not only been noticed but was being allowed to continue. Encouraged to continue.

Satisfied, Lord Mitchell clapped him on the shoulder. “Good. Shall we say this Friday at four? Or are you awake by then? Your ilk rather burns the night oil, or so I’ve been told.

“And don’t worry, you’ve no need to explain the path you’ve chosen.” Lord Mitchell’s keen gray eye held Jack’s gaze. “Though I would like to know how it came about. It should prove to be an interesting story. Four o’clock, did we say?”

“Yes,” Jack responded slowly. “Four o’clock would be fine, sir.”

“I’ll see you then.” He bowed to Addie again and with a brief “ma’am,” took his leave.

“What was that about your shoulder?” Addie asked, regarding him quizzically.

“It was injured sometime before we met.”

“How did it happen?”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She’d never know how wrong. “I was angry and lost in my thoughts. I should have been watching what I was doing. I won’t bore you with the details.”

“Oh, Jack. I’m sorry.”

For the second time in a matter of minutes, he was confounded, this time by her open pity.

“No doubt he’ll subject you to a diatribe about how disappointed your father would have been in your chosen profession.”

“I doubt it. Lord Mitchell is a soldier, not a knave,” he said. She blinked up at him. Apparently his response had been just as unexpected as hers had been for him. “And neither was my father.”

“I’m sorry. I was presumptuous. I fear my own experience with . . . with military gentlemen has colored my perceptions. I—” Her gaze faltered. “I have never imagined a soldier in the role of doting father. If he had lived to see the path you have chosen, do you really think he’d approve?”

He could see her very real confusion and her desire for an answer.

What could he say? Would his father approve of the deception he practiced, no matter what the reasons? Would he applaud his constancy to his dead comrades or damn him as a manipulative imposter?

“Jack?” She touched him gently on the back of his hand. Her fingertips felt warm. “I didn’t mean to cause you any pain.”

“It isn’t—”

“I say, Jack!” Gerald hailed him as he skated up. “Who was the military chappie?”

“Lord Mitchell.”

“Lord Mitchell?” Gerald pursed his lips, looking impressed. “The general?”

“Yes,” Addie said. “Apparently he’s an old friend of Jack’s father.”

“Ah, yes. The ‘Scots heathen.’ ‘The burly, claymore-wielding Highland warrior.’ Lord Merritt’s demagogue and Lady Merritt’s nemesis—”

“And Jack’s father,” Addie interjected softly.

Gerald blushed. “Oh, dear. I say. I am sorry, old chap. Just that one never expects that you would have sprung from the loins of someone as fierce as your pater is supposed to have been.”

Jack smiled. “My father was fierce.”

“Lord Mitchell seemed to know you as well as your father, Jack.” Addie eyed him questioningly. “Did he really try to convince you to enter the military at one time?” From her tone it was obvious she considered the very idea preposterous. Her next words proved it. “He must be a terrible judge of men. How could he think you would ever align yourself with those type of men?”

“
‘Type of men’? I assure you, Lord Mitchell is everything a gentleman could wish to be, Addie,” Jack said mildly.

She frowned. She hadn’t expected him to defend the general. “Lord Mitchell has made a career of death. You accused Paul Sherville of it this very afternoon.”

“Addie, there is nothing remotely similar between those two men excepting a uniform.”

Addie’s brows inched together in consternation. She tipped her head back to search his expression. “You don’t really believe that.”

“I know this.”
But you never will believe it, will you
? Still, he had to try. “Addie, few of the soldiers I have met are bloodythirsty brutes.”

“Well, most of those in my—” She broke off. “What kind of man is attracted to a career that virtually guarantees that you shall be required to kill people?” she asked hotly.

“Men who believe that the lives and freedoms we enjoy are worth dying to protect.”

“No.” She stumbled to her feet and slipped. Jack reached out to help her but she batted his hands away. “That is rationalization. Pretty-sounding excuses for barbarity!”

“If I might suggest that such generalization—”

“And I might suggest that you take your head from its ostrich hole,” she countered. She kept trying to put her hands on her hips and losing her balance, having to clutch at the back of the bench and glaring at him as though her unsteadiness was his fault.

“Addie,” Gerald said suddenly, drawing their attention. His face was florid with distress. Lines furrowed his homely brow. “Please, don’t upset yourself this way, m’dear. Jack, can’t you see how agitated you are making Addie?”

Addie blinked at Gerald, who looked as though he might start weeping at any minute.

“Oh, my,” she said, shuffling over to Gerald and patting his arm. “Don’t look like that. Everything is all right, isn’t it, Jack?” She stared at him, silently demanding his collaboration.

He realized she was telling the simple truth. She might be stubbornly convinced that her blanket judgment of military men was correct, but she certainly hadn’t been afraid to speak her mind. Quite the contrary, she’d all but rung his ears. Despite their heated exchange, she was not the least bit intimidated by him. And that realization, despite everything that had transpired, made him grin like an idiot.

“Well?”

“Huh? Oh, yes. Yes, indeed! Addie’s right, Gerald, old man. Right as rain. In every way correct.”

“Ass,” Addie mouthed, but she was smiling.

“I am too sensitive, I expect,” Gerald sighed dramatically. “Or too idealistic. I envision that utopian paradise where all mankind—and womankind—lives in harmony, as friends.”

“We’re not mad at each other. Are we, Jack?” She shot him a self-assured glance and he wanted to lift her in his arms and hug her until she was breathless; he was that pleased with her self-confidence, her faith in their friendship.

“Certainly,” he replied graciously. “Addie can be stubborn and pigheaded whenever she wants. I most certainly am munificent enough to ignore her shortcomings.”

“And Jack has my permission to put blinders on whenever the whim takes him.”

“Ah,” Gerald said, glancing between the smiling pair of them. Seeing no animosity, the worry seeped from his face. “I don’t like arguments, meself,” he said, adding ingenuously, “I expect it’s because I never win ’em, don’t you know.”

Addie chuckled and Gerald looked gratified.

“Addie,” he said, holding out his hand, “allow me to teach you a few rudimentary skills before old Cameron here ruins any chance you have of learning how to skate properly.”

“We can’t all prance about like grotesques at the penny ballet, Gerry,” Jack sniffed.

“Envy is such an unbecoming emotion, don’t you think, Addie, dear?” Gerry said with a smug smile at her.

“Very,” Addie agreed, grinning. She took Gerald’s hand and within an hour he had her cutting a pretty—if wobbly—figure across the darkening ice.

S
tanding about in the bitter cold, watching a gaggle of capering imbeciles break their limbs on a frozen mud hole,” Lady Merritt muttered irritably as she allowed the footman to help her off with her coat. “I shall undoubtedly take ill. Undoubtedly. All that foolishness in the park has me quite chilled. Is there a fire in the library?”

“Yes, milady,” the footman answered.

“At least someone considers my health. Even though I must pay them for their consideration.” She sniffed.

“Dear madame,” Jack began soothingly, “had I known you suffered one moment’s discomfort I would have insisted we quit the wretched arena immediately! But you bore our juvenile pleasure so modestly that no one had the slightest clue you were in any way discomforted.”

“Yes. Well.” Lady Merritt was clearly not pacified. “Larkin, have Cook make up a tray of sandwiches and fruit to be sent up. No. Have her make something hot. Jack, if you would be so kind?” She jerked her head in the direction of the library and Jack leapt forward, pulling the massive oak door open just in time for her to sail in, head high, bosom thrust forward, feet stomping the marble parquetry. Something more than not being the cynosure of her little artistic stable had Lady Merritt in a stew.

He followed her into the room and, seeing that she was awaiting his aid, hurried to her side and eased her down into the huge wingback chair. She settled like a plump Ottoman prince.

“I shall suffer the rheumatism for days thanks to that little entertainment.”

“Shall I fetch a medic?”

“No, no, no.”

“Some fruit then? Something to stoke the old furnace, what?” He picked up a brownish pippin from the sideboard near the door, grimacing as he realized his faux pas.
Excellent, Jack. She is going to love being called an old furnace
. He began paring off the apple’s thin skin.

“I don’t need a medic,” Lady Merritt said, “I don’t need any fruit. I need answers.”

The thin coil of apple peel fell to the silver platter beneath, making a hushed thump in the suddenly silent room. “Answers?” he asked. “To what questions?”

“You are a fraud, Jack Cameron,” Lady Merritt said darkly.

He waited. Years in the military, dealing with senior officers—both superior and inferior—had taught him never to presuppose another’s information. It was always best to see the lay of the land before giving ground. He sliced the peeled apple into thin wedges before turning and bringing his offering to Lady Merritt’s side.

“Well. Have you nothing to say? I have just called you a faker, a fraud!”

“Yes, so I heard.”

“Well?” Lady Merritt prompted impatiently.

“May I ask how you have come to this conclusion?”

“I have eyes, sir. I may be a few years your senior, but I can still see what is clearly placed before me. You are a wolf in sheep’s clothing, Jack Cameron. And you have quite duped my darling Addie.”

He regarded her stonily. “Yes.”

“Aha!” She thumped her fist triumphantly on the padded brocade arm of her chair. “You are even so bold as to admit it. You have slipped beneath Addie’s guard. You have duped us. All of us thinking you had your gaze fixed on a higher plane when all the while your intentions have been as base as . . . as base as . . .” She cast about looking for an adequate comparison before her eyes gleamed triumphantly. “As base as Lord Merritt’s.”

For the second time that day, Jack was at a complete loss. “Ma’am?”

“
‘Ma’am’ me, will you, you Lothario!”

“Lothario?” It occurred to him that Lady Merritt might have suffered some sort of mental event.

She flung herself back in her wingback, her eyes narrowing. “Addie told me about that young American girl Teddy is painting. The Drouhin girl.”

“What could Addie possibly have told you about her? And how on earth—”

“All this feigned bewilderment is quite useless. You don’t even do it very well. You are way overacting the role.”

The irony wasn’t lost on Jack, but he could not find it amusing. “Please. What did Addie tell you?”

“She said you had quite captivated the Drouhin girl, charmed her to within an inch of her little American boots.”

“Addie said this?”

“Yes. And that is when I began to have my suspicions about you, Jack Cameron. Because there is no doubt in my mind that dear Addie is feeling quite put out about the Drouhin chit. And it is all on your account.”

He could not subdue the spark of unworthy pleasure that leapt into flame at her assertion. “And this is why you see me as a Lothario, because Addie thinks I have spent too much time making a young foreigner feel welcome in our country?”

“Dissembler!” Lady Merritt cried dramatically. “It isn’t only that. You have been keeping low company. You have been seen!”

This was unanticipated. He wouldn’t have expected anyone in
Lady Merritt’s circle to frequent the diverse haunts in which he’d spent
the last several nights searching for men who might have served under
Paul Sherville. Or Charles Hoodless. “By whom, Lady Merritt?”

“Larkin, the footman. His brother is employed at one of the establishments you visited last night. I was informed this morning. And really, look at you, boy! You have grown positively haggard these past few days. Indulging in sin and depravity, I’ll warrant!”

Jack shrugged ingenuously. “Boys will be boys.”

She sent him a chill look. “Yes. Which is why I didn’t take you to task for your subterfuge earlier. I attributed it to a temporary lapse in your artistic focus. But now, after seeing how you behave with poor Addie, I must assume the worst. I demand you confess your intentions!”

“I have no intentions,” Jack said. It was easy to adopt insouciance where nameless women were concerned but he would not have Lady Merritt running tales to Addie.

“Well, I should hope not!”

“Ma’am—”

“No. I will have my say. You are toying with Addie’s affections. Do you think it isn’t obvious? You . . . you.” She stumbled to an uncharacteristic halt before she began again, her tone low, scandalized, “My God, man! The way you looked at her tonight, when you held her, when you thought no one else noticed . . . it was rapacious. Your gaze alone compromises her!”

He had no answer for that; she was undoubtedly right.

“I won’t have her hurt. She has suffered enough.”

“I would never—” He stopped short of the promise, because he would. He must.

“She is just now beginning to enjoy life again. I never thought to see her like this. She took Charles’s death so hard.” Lady Merritt gave him a hard look. “I warned her about you. I did and you needn’t go all hard and rigid. It is a fait accompli, for what little good it has done.”

“When?”

Lady Merritt lifted her chin. “This evening, as we walked back to that horrible noisy underground train. I felt it my duty. I told her where you had been seen. I told her about the way you looked at her.”

Frustration and apprehension filled him.

“Unfortunately, the willfulness she was known for as an adolescent has made an untimely reappearance. She refused to take my warning seriously. She laughed! She’s changed these last weeks. Which is why I must appeal to you, Jack,” she finished sententiously.

“You are appealing to my finer feelings?” Jack almost laughed then. It was absurd. Clearly, given what he was doing, he had none. “You are asking that I . . . what? Ignore her? Snub her?”

“No. She is clearly infatuated with you, Jack. If you have any decency, you will not lead the poor girl on.”

Decency? The word had become alien to him.

“I know what you artists are. Incapable of committing to anyone or anything but your muse. It wouldn’t be fair to suggest to Addie otherwise. Promise me you won’t hurt her.”

“I would be loathe to hurt Addie, Lady Merritt.”
But, the devil take me, I cannot promise I will not hurt her.

“Good. Because if you did I would have to reconsider my plan to introduce you to society and I should hate to do that. Merritt hasn’t seen you yet!”

His eyebrows rose. This was insensitive even for Lady Merritt. She seemed to realize her gaffe. “I mean, Merritt would never forgive me if I were to set his last living relative adrift, alone and without friends, in the dark, soulless city.”

Balderdash. He hadn’t fulfilled his role yet. He had not been used to embarrass Lord Merritt yet. Fate had cast him in so many roles and the only one he wanted—that of Addie’s lover—was denied him by the others.

He had to keep his eye on the prize now, more than ever before. His best chance of discovering the traitor would be over in a short while. He could not afford to indulge some fantasy regarding Addie Hoodless.

“I am not completely friendless, Lady Merritt. You needn’t worry that your Christian charity might be questioned on that account.”

“Oh, really, Jack.” He had never heard her try a conciliatory tone before. “You wouldn’t rob me of your delightful company just because I love dear Addie and am concerned for her, would you? Besides, I had a letter from Evan. He and his father will be home soon.”

His gaze sharpened. “When?”

Lady Merritt shrugged and tittered. “Oh, a week or so. Perhaps in time for the reception I am giving Ted. Please, let us forget the unpleasant words between us.”

Desperately Jack raked his mind for some direction. A week? Lord Merritt knew Jack had been a soldier, was a soldier. He’d arranged for Jack’s transportation from Alexandria, for his installation at Gate Hall. With Lord Merritt’s arrival, this masquerade would be finished once and for all.

One week.

Lady Merritt smiled winsomely. “I can hardly wait for Merritt to see you. Let us be friends.”

“Of course, dear lady. I can’t tell you how very much I, too, look forward to his return.”