Highlander Undone (27 page)

“You’re mistaken if you think I care a fig for Ted Phyfe,” she said. “I have no interest in inanimate reproductions.” As if to give credence to her words, she snuggled against him. “I much prefer real men.”

Jack sighed. He was so damn tired of games. “Stop it, Zephrina.” There was nothing intimate in his use of her first name. He sounded like an aged uncle.

A scowl clouded her face. “You’re being mean.”

“No. I’m trying to help you. Stop trying so hard to force Ted to conform to your idea of masculinity. I assure you, Ted is quite completely a man.”

“Ha,” she replied with honest heat. “He is a wax figure. He might as well be posed in Madame Tussaud’s gallery.”

“Why? Because he doesn’t snort and huff and paw the ground when you go through your feline repertoire?”

She started to turn away, but he caught her arm.

“You’re a lovely, spoiled brat, Zephrina Drouhin.”

“And you are as bloodless as the rest of English males,” she shot back. “Playing lapdog to Addie Hoodless!”

“We aren’t discussing Mrs. Hoodless.”

“I am. What is it about her that has you so captivated? You and all these other men, chasing after her. I’ll grant she has a pretty bosom but she hasn’t a clue as to how to use her own charms. She gives away her every thought, her every emotion. Even these new gowns she’s taken to wearing cannot camouflage her artlessness. It is quite clear she is taken with you. All society knows it. And you—” She broke off, blushing. “A man ought not to look at a woman like that publically. In America, you’d be horsewhipped!”

Jack laughed and Zephrina, startled by the real amusement in his voice, stared up at him. “You’re right, Miss Drouhin. She is artless and she is obvious. And I am, too.”

Feeling in charity with her, he decided to offer the girl a favor. “Isn’t it past time you stopped looking for one of your penny-dreadful bandits to come and carry you off?”

“You mean, to act more like you and Mrs. Hoodless? I—I am not going to wear my heart on my sleeve.”

“As far as I can tell, you never wear sleeves.” He chuckled as she tried to decide whether she’d been insulted or not. “Your infatuation with Ted is every bit as clear as my love for Mrs. Hoodless. Might not your heart be worth listening to?”

She scoffed, but not altogether successfully. “He’s nothing like the men to whom I am attracted, or like the man I will marry.”

“But, my dear, he assuredly
is
the man you are attracted to. So, stop punishing him for it. And yourself. Give it a chance.”

She regarded him fretfully, looking more like the young girl she really was rather than the racy miss she played hard at being. “Do you really think so?” she asked, sounding a bit lonely and a good deal confused.

He nodded. “Let’s go back.” Without waiting for her agreement he drew her back along the path and into the conservatory.

Once inside he scanned the room, already tensing in anticipation of seeing Sherville wetting his lips over Addie’s cleavage. Sherville was nowhere in sight, but he found Addie on the far side of the room. Her eyes, even from this distance, looked unnaturally bright, as though they held tears.

Their gazes met across the room just as Zephrina, seeking to be overheard above the din of the tuning orchestra, curled a slim hand about his neck and pulled his ear down to her
mouth
and whispered, “Thank you.”

He didn’t reply. His gaze met, and for a second still locked on, Addie’s. Then she spun, a shimmer of rose-tossed light, and vanished into the entry foyer.

He swore. From where Addie had stood it must have looked as though Zephrina had fondly kissed his cheek. He looked around, spying Gerald Norton’s tall, lanky frame bent over a punch bowl. Catching his attention, Jack motioned him over.

“Gerald, Miss Drouhin requires a seat,” he muttered and, leaving Gerald beaming happily at the tiny American heiress, went after Addie.

A
ddie let herself into the house. Partridge had apparently taken advantage of her expected late return to take the night off. And the housemaid, who was being paid court to by the neighbor’s doorman, was gone, too.

It was just as well. She expected Jack to arrive at any moment. Jack had no more interest in Zephrina than he did in Lady Merritt. When their gazes had met as Zephrina had pulled his head down, his distress that Addie might misinterpret it had been written all over his face. She hadn’t misinterpreted anything; not for an instant had she doubted Jack Cameron’s love for her. It was honest, clear, and unwavering.

Jack would never try to manipulate her emotions, or cause her to be jealous. He would never play games with her heart or allow her a moment of distress on his behalf. And that is how she knew he would come here, to see her, as soon as possible.

And that is why when he did, she would cease her own senseless games and tell him then that she loved him, with all her heart, with all her soul, and would marry him any time he chose, wherever he chose. Because how could she continue along this stupid course, answering his honesty with falseness, his faithfulness with artifice?

Ted was right. It was self-delusion to think she could choose when and where to bestow her love. It already belonged to Jack.

She’d started up the stairs to her rooms when she noticed that the door at the far end of the hall was unaccountably open. Ted always kept his studio private; he was going to be annoyed that someone had been poking around in it. She went down the hall to shut the door and glanced inside. A dark figure lay crumpled at the top of the steep stairway that led to Ted’s attic spaces.

With a cry, she dashed up and dropped to her knees. It wasn’t the housemaid met with some accident; it was Wheatcroft. There was no time to wonder what he was doing here. Even in the dim light, she could see the blood flowing freely from the side of his head. She sprang to her feet to go for help—

An arm wrapped around her waist, dragging her back as a hand closed over her mouth. “Scream and I shall slit your throat. Do you understand?”

She nodded. The hand dropped from her mouth and she was spun around to face Paul Sherville.

He grabbed her wrists and yanked her forward. “Where is it?” he demanded, his fingers bruising Addie’s skin.

“Where is what?” she asked in terror. He looked deranged, his little eyes burning, his mouth a downward slash in his red face.

“The photograph, you blackmailing little bitch. The one with me and the Mahdi.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

He let loose with one hand and slapped her hard across the face. She gasped at the impact.

“That’s for thinking you could ever take over your husband’s filthy trade.” He slapped her again and she just stood there, paralyzed by his anger, another man’s rage superimposed over the present, crippling her. “That’s for thinking I—I!—would ever let a mere woman blackmail me.”

Once more he slapped her, almost casually. “That is for sending that butler after me! Fat lot of good it did him.”

He yanked her forward until his mouth, pink and wet with spittle, was inches from her. “Tell me where the photograph is. Look at you! Do you think you can hold out against me? You? Now, tell me, you pathetic bitch!”

And finally, with those words, the paralysis fled, leaving only the fury. Fury that he’d broken into her house, that he’d hurt Wheatcroft and left him unconscious in the hall. Fury that he’d laid hands on her. Fury that he’d called up a ghost of that poor girl who’d married a monster and then felt guilty for it. Fury that he saw her as Charles had and that the indictment had nearly come true. And finally, fury that he’d done all of it for nothing. She didn’t have any photograph.

“You’re a fool, Sherville,” she said. “You have pronounced your own guilt with your actions. And for nothing. I don’t have any photograph.”

“You do,” he shouted, grabbing her hair with his free hand and jerking her head back until tears sprang to her eyes. “Did you think you could mock me with your little hints? Your dead husband was a filthy blackmailer and so are you. He bled me for years, growing fat on my money. Mine! But I’m not about to let a silly little whore like you suck a single penny from me. Do you hear me?”

“You’ve gone mad, Sherville.” She gasped in agony when he twisted her head at an unnatural angle.

“Tell me where you’ve stowed Charles’s things.”

“They’re gone,” she managed. “I burnt every one of his personal possessions. Everything.”

He stared at her, uncertainly.

“Do you suppose I wanted any reminder of him in my house, my life?” she ground out. “I exorcised him. I burnt every single shred of his correspondence, every bit of evidence of his existence.”

He jerked her head again, making her stare into his face. She met his gaze. “You have done this for nothing, Sherville.”

“It’s gone? All of it?”

“Yes!”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Oh God! How rich! How splendid! You, my enemy’s widow, destroyed the only thing that could have linked me to the Sudan and Charles’s death.”

She went suddenly very still. “You killed him.”

He nodded, happy to tell her. “Let us say I arranged his death. You should thank me. I even made him look heroic. As I shall make you look.”

Panic fired through her. “You won’t get away with it.”

“Oh, yes. I think I will. The butler, you see. He has made a little sideline of thieving from his master’s guests while they are being entertained at the Merritt home. Too bad you surprised him while he was robbing your house. Even more unfortunate that while I arrived in time to kill the blackguard, I wasn’t in time to save you,” he said as his hands wrapped around her throat.

The world dissolved into swirling, red-shot darkness, the pain exploding in her lungs, and her anger surged that he might win, that this loathsome, vile man might cut short the life she had just begun to live again, and it fueled her efforts.

So she fought. She fought hard and long, but in the end she could not fight long or hard enough. She kicked and thrashed, dimly aware of the sound of rending cloth, the horrible gurgle in her own throat, the pressure of cruel fingers tightening around her neck.

“Let her go!”

Abruptly he released her. She slumped to the ground, gasping, and scrambled backward, falling against the easel as chaos erupted around her.

A table smashed into the wall. Tubes of paint and glass jars crashed and shattered, skittering across the floor. A chair splintered into pieces at her feet. Frantically, she crawled to the wall and only then looked back.

Jack and Sherville were locked in a mortal combat, Sherville’s fingers digging deep into the flesh of Jack’s neck, Jack’s face dark with blood and rage. As she watched, he swung both hands up, palms flat, and smashed them over Sherville’s ears.

Sherville howled in pain, his grip loosening. Jack jerked free and Sherville struck viciously at Jack’s face. Jack dodged the blows, his fist pounding into Sherville’s belly. Sherville collapsed around the deadly impact, the air bursting from his lungs as Jack delivered a huge strike to Sherville’s jaw.

Sherville fell to his knees, groaning, but Jack grabbed a handful of Sherville’s hair, jerking his head up, and rained blow upon blow on it with the other fist. Sherville threw up his arms, trying to protect himself from the beating, whimpering.

“Damn you, you filthy coward. Stand up. Fight! You can threaten Addie easily enough!” Jack shouted, panting. He grabbed Sherville’s shirt and hauled him to his feet. Open-palmed, he struck Sherville’s face. Blood exploded from Sherville’s nose and mouth.

Like a dog shaking a rat, a growl issuing deep from within his chest, Jack yanked him upright again, landing a blow to Sherville’s unprotected ribs. And now Sherville had stopped moving and hung limply from Jack’s grip. He drew his fist back again.

Dear God, he was going to kill him. He could be placed on trial for murder.

Addie struggled to her feet and stumbled forward to clutch at Jack’s arm. “No!” she sobbed, her words barely intelligible over the harsh sound of Jack’s breathing. She pushed herself between the two men, flinging her arms around Jack’s neck. “No!”

Released from Jack’s implacable hold, Sherville fell senseless to the ground. Addie buried her face against Jack’s chest. His heart raced madly, his chest heaved.

“My God. Addie.”

She lifted her head. He was staring at her, his big body trembling within her embrace. “My God,” he whispered, “what have I done?”

With shaking fingers he touched her cheek and flinched back as though burnt, staring at his hand. She looked at what had so horrified him. His fingertips were bright with blood. He must have marked her with Sherville’s blood where he’d touched her cheek. She drooped against him once more, laying her forehead on his heaving chest.

Behind her, Sherville groaned. She turned to watch him grope his way to his knees. Jack grasped her shoulders and set her behind him. “Addie, where is that bloody telephone you had installed?”

“In the downstairs hallway.”

“Listen to me. You have to put a call through to Colonel Halvers.
Tell him that Jack Cameron has taken Paul Sherville into custody—”

“For what?” Paul Sherville said, his voice rattling in his throat. He staggered to his feet, hissing with pain as he tried to find his balance. He gave them an ugly smile, exposing a chipped tooth coated with blood. “For what?” he repeated again and laughed, the horrid sound breaking off into a choking cough.

Jack eyed him coldly, carefully keeping Addie behind him. “For treason.”

“Oh, ‘treason.
’
” Sherville nodded mockingly. “And what proof do you have of my supposed treason?”

“Your actions tonight have more than proved your—”

“My what?” sneered Sherville. “My yen for a blowsy widow? Excuse me, m’dea
r”—he
bowed mockingly toward Addie—“but your charms were so well displayed and so obviously offered. If I mistook the situation, I beg your pardon. I may have become a bit presumptuous.”

Sherville laughed again. “Go ahead. Call Halvers. Even should he believe you, what do you think the military establishment will do? A scandal of this proportion while Gladstone is seeking reelection? And you with nothing more than an embittered widow’s testimony? Ha! At worst, I may have to take half pay for a few months.”

“You won’t get away with this. The men you betrayed—”

“Men,” Sherville sneered. “What men? The enlisted rank and file? You make me sick with your plebeian sympathies, Cameron. So, a few men died that their betters might prosper. They’d have died anyway.”

“You’re a monster,” Addie gasped. “You’re worse than Charles.”

Sherville’s eyes narrowed on her. “Am I, now? You should understand, even if he doesn’t. You have the blood of kings in your veins. The masses,” he spat, “what good are they if not for cannon fodder? The London slums breed them for that very purpose. They are nothing—”

The air cracked with a sudden sharp sound.

Sherville’s shirt bloomed crimson. He gaped at his chest, a second of simple incredulity washing over his features. Then, he dropped dead on the floor.

Jack grabbed Addie, flinging his arms around her and wheeling about.

Standing in the door was Wheatcroft, his nephew’s service pistol still smoking in his hand.

“No, sir,” he said to Sherville’s corpse. “
You
are nothing.”

“I can’t just let him go,” Halvers said.

“Yes. You can. You will,” Jack said. “You wanted this handled discreetly, no taint to be reflected on Whitehall or Mr. Gladstone. Now you have your opportunity.”

“But he shot an unarmed man—”

“The execution of a traitor responsible for the deaths of God knows how many men.”

“That all sounds very well, but we can’t have men taking justice into their own hands.”

“It was the only way justice was going to be served. There is no proof.”

Halvers paced the studio, raking his hand through his thick hair. Sherville’s body had been removed. Wheatcroft was being held downstairs in the kitchen. Ted, having been called from the Merritts’, had arrived to take a white-faced Addie away.