Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) (33 page)

He lifted up enough that they slipped apart. “If you’re trying to dispel the mood, Madeline, talk of arresting you is an impressive
start.” He kissed her nose, got off the bed, and disappeared behind the privacy screen.

When he returned to the bed, he passed Madeline a damp flannel. “Unless you’d rather…” He gestured toward the privacy screen.

Holy naked cherubs, he was bold. Madeline made do beneath the covers rather than trek across the bedroom in her natural glory. She passed the cloth back to
Jack, who tossed it over the screen. The wet plop of flannel on porcelain sounded as Jack climbed back under the covers.

Her lover had good aim.

“Marrying me is not a crime,” he said. “Why would I arrest you?”

Madeline was apparently to answer this question with her backside tucked intimately against Jack’s… against
Jack.

“I’ve committed crimes, plural. I’m not proud of that, but you’re the magistrate, so it falls to you to arrest me. I’m
confessing.”

“Confessing? You accept my marriage proposal—and I will hold you to that acceptance—and now you confess to criminal activities. This is
certainly novel. I was under the impression that cuddling and pillow talk came after the lovemaking.” 

He’d tucked one arm beneath Madeline’s neck, and wrapped the other around her middle. She was surrounded by Jack, and nothing—not his
body, not his tone of voice—suggested he was upset by what Madeline said.

“I stole the coal from McArdle and divided it between my aunts without their knowledge. I took the tournament money from the Weasel. I stole
Higgans’s medical bag. I was angry.” Jack kissed her shoulder, which Madeline found annoying. “I solve an entire crime spree for you, and
you’re flirting.”

“Madam, we passed flirting several raptures ago. What were you angry about?”

That question wasn’t as easy to answer as Madeline might have thought. “I’ve been angry for years, since my father drank and gambled away
all of our security, since I was beaten for offenses I hadn’t committed, since my aunts were left to scrimp and starve by husbands who’d
betrayed their trust.”

“Those are good reasons to be angry. Are you angry with me?”

That question wasn’t from the magistrate, but rather, from the lover—the brave lover.

“No, I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with myself for disappointing you. Stealing is wrong, I know that, but being good and kind and
honest wouldn’t keep my aunts warm through January, or make Vicar disperse the poor box funds when they were needed, rather than when he recalled to
do it.”

“And Higgans’s medical bag?”

“Aunt Theo could have died because of his laziness. I’m not sorry I took his medical bag. In a just world, I’d leave him to shiver his
way through a bad lung fever, alone in a cottage where the fire had gone out. I couldn’t do that, so I took the symbol of his calling from
him.”

Jack started a slow kneading of Madeline’s shoulders. “Stealing is a crime, you’re right. I’m not sure moving the tournament money
to the church qualifies as stealing, but Madeline, lying isn’t considered good behavior either. Even lying to protect loved ones is still
dishonest.”

Madeline twisted around to peer at Jack. “What are you going on about? A confession is when one tells the truth, and that’s what I’ve
done.”

She settled back into his arms, wondering if these were the last moments she’d spend in his embrace.

“Madeline,” Jack said, very close to her ear, “I treasure you for your loyalty to family, but you needn’t dissemble. I know Hattie
helped herself to McArdle’s coal, moved that money, and stole Higgans’s bag. I questioned her today, and both evenings when you claimed to have
visited her, she made no mention of your coming to call. She wasn’t home, was she?”

God in heaven.
This was worse than inadvertently incriminating Pahdi, or at least as bad.

“If Hattie were the guilty party, would you prosecute her, Jack?”

His sigh fanned past Madeline’s nape. “I’m sworn to uphold the king’s justice, Madeline, but prosecuting an old woman for trying to
keep warm by burning what is essentially McArdle’s trash is beyond me. No harm resulted from moving the tournament funds—a miraculous
occurrence, if you ask Tavis—and all we need do in Higgans’s case is return his blasted bag to him.”

In other words, the magistrate valued reparation over incarceration. Good to know.

Wonderful to know, in fact.

“Jack, Hattie didn’t mention my visits because I was busy stealing coal, putting the darts money in the church vestibule, and nipping
Higgans’s bag. I did those things, and I can’t plead age or poverty. I wanted… justice, I suppose, or for somebody to acknowledge that
Hattie, Theo, and others like them need and deserve help.”

Jack went still, stopped his stroking and caressing. Madeline couldn’t even feel his breath on her shoulder.

“
You
committed these crimes?” 

Oh, the incredulity in his voice. Madeline didn’t know whether to be flattered or dismayed.

“Yes. My wages aren’t adequate to make the repairs my aunts’ cottages need. I couldn’t afford Cotton’s ram for Aunt Hattie. I
couldn’t ask Vicar to scold people into increasing their donations for the poor. I couldn’t give up my position at Candlewick because without
that money my aunts would be worse off than they are now. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You didn’t know what else to do?” His question was carefully neutral, as if verifying a translation from a foreign tongue.

“You call me competent,” Madeline said, around an ache in her throat. “I’m not. I didn’t know how to help my aunts, and
everything I tried wasn’t enough. I’m so tired of not knowing what to do.”

She rolled over, and plastered herself to Jack’s chest. She needed his arms around her now, and even if he ordered her from the bed, she wasn’t
sure she could make herself leave.

“This is the real confession,” Jack said, drawing her close and resting his cheek against her temple. “You are exhausted, bewildered, and
ready to drop where you stand, but you cannot give up. I know how that feels, Madeline. I do.”

Madeline’s tears came in noisy, undignified sobs, when a polite sniffle mortified her. Now she wanted to run from the room, but Jack’s arms
held her fast.

“Sometimes, I think I hate them,” she said, “the pair of them. They are so stubborn, and so admirable, but they’re all I have, and
I can’t… I don’t…”

She gave up trying to explain the welter of protectiveness, need, frustration, and terror that drove her, and all the while, Jack held her. He said
nothing, didn’t reason with her, didn’t judge or pontificate, and in his silence, Madeline heard worlds of understanding.

“You’ll not arrest me?” Tears had made her voice low and raspy. “I didn’t take Cotton’s blasted ram, by the way, but
that’s what gave me the inspiration.”

Jack’s hand on her back paused, then resumed a slow sweep across her shoulder blades. “Charles II inspired you?”

“Not the ram, but the fact that the ram showed up when Aunt needed him. Somebody probably left a gate unlocked accidentally, and Hattie’s herd
was serviced. Cotton wasn’t out any coin—Aunt would never have paid for the ram to visit her ewes—but Aunt’s problem was solved.
Her lambs will come quite late, so she’ll not cost anybody else a good price at market. I know Cotton has been quietly accused of generosity, but I
can’t believe that to be the case.”

“So you saw a victimless crime in that example.”

Jack’s tone was off, though his touch remained gentle.

“I saw… a way to atone for doing what I found necessary. McArdle needed to padlock his yard, and he can’t sell the leavings strewn all
over his lot.”

“So McArdle received a valuable lesson, and a tidy yard. What about the tournament money? Another valuable lesson, to both Tavis and the
vicar?”

He sounded almost admiring.

“Or Vicar’s congregation. We’re a fortunate parish, generally. We ought to do better by our widows, and the Weasel had a better
reputation when Tavis’s mother ran it.”

“No argument there. What of Higgans’s bag?”

“I had no higher purpose than making him look like a fool,” Madeline said. “And I’ve got Pahdi in awful trouble. Do you believe I
had nothing to do with Cotton’s ram?”

This mattered to Madeline. Confessing to crimes she’d committed was difficult enough, and the business with the ram was so fortuitous, Madeline
wanted to believe it was the work of kind providence.

Jack kissed her shoulder again, and this time, Madeline didn’t find it annoying at all.

“You had nothing to do with Charles II paying a call on Hattie’s ewes, and neither did Cotton. I know exactly who arranged that
situation.”

But Jack hadn’t arrested anybody, or stifled the rumors that Cotton had set the ram loose himself.

“Who would do such a thing?” Madeline asked. “It was quite clever, and now everybody wonders if Cotton hasn’t been hiding a latent
streak of decency beneath all his bluster. I’d like to commend the thief, or ram-napper, whoever he is.”

An interesting silence ensued, while Jack kissed his way from her shoulder to her ear.

Then he rolled to his back, and situated Madeline along his side. “You may commend
me
, Madeline. I put the ram in with Hattie’s ewes,
and I’ll thank you not to peach on me. Mama has a very high opinion of the hero of Parrakan, and I’d like to stay in her good graces.”

“
You
—? You put the ram in with Hattie’s ewes?”

“She wouldn’t take charity, and Cotton wasn’t about to extend charity. Nobody wanted to meddle, and yet, something had to be done. Cost
me half a night’s sleep, and my dog cart will smell like ram until next summer. Stop laughing, Madeline. I thought surely you’d pick up the
scent when I delivered you to Teak House from Candlewick.”

She did not stop laughing. She laughed as hard as she’d cried, until Jack stopped laughing long enough to point out that all they need do is return
Higgans’s bag to him, and be about planning the wedding.

“That’s the problem,” Madeline said. “That blighted bag is not where I put it. I’ve looked twice, and his damned bag has
somehow gone missing in truth.”

Madeline had lifted the window to Higgans’s study, taken his bag, and left it sitting in the muck wagon at the local livery several doors away from
Higgans’s house. She’d left the pony trap hitched behind the livery, an ordinary location to leave a nondescript vehicle. Nobody had remarked
her crime because everybody was too intent on assembling at the Weasel, or getting home before the temperature dropped further.

Jack had searched the livery as well as he could without being obvious, and though the muck wagon had sat in its usual location—the livery was a tidy
place—he’d seen no sign of Higgans’s bag.

“May I interrupt?” Jeremy asked. He stood in the doorway to Jack’s study, morning light from the window across the corridor gilding his
hair.

“Of course,” Jack said. “Need a break from the whist enthusiasts?”

Jeremy came into the study and closed the door behind him, but didn’t take the seat across from Jack’s desk.

“I never much cared for whist. Suppose you don’t either.”

Jack had been too busy for whist over the past few days. “I’m not very good at it.” The one time he’d sat down with Mama, Jack, and
Miss DeWitt, Mama’s matchmaking innuendos had outnumbered the playing cards. 

Jack kept a box of jasmine tea on this desk, the same as in the library and on the escritoire in his bedroom. Jeremy picked up the one sitting to
Jack’s left and peered at the carvings.

“You don’t have to be good at cards, Jack. That’s not the point. This is not decent.”

Most people never noticed. “It’s pretty. I like it. The scent of the tea soothes me.”

Jeremy set it down, though his expression was a touch wistful. “I’m getting married.”

Well, damn. Jack had been hoping Miss DeWitt might notice what a sterling fellow Jeremy was, and solve several problems with a single kiss, as it were.

“Congratulations. Whoever she is, she’s a lucky woman.”

Now Jeremy settled into the chair opposite the desk. “I haven’t approached her family, though the young lady is quite willing. What are you
working on?”

“I’ve made a list of all the people who were at the lending library. I need to speak with them again regarding the night Higgans’s bag
went missing.”

“Don’t you want to know the name of my intended?”

“Only if you want to tell me. If you’re concerned her family will turn you down, don’t be. We don’t need anybody’s money to
live quite comfortably, or to see a young lady well settled after taking the Fanning name. If she’s your choice, then she’s deserving of our
every courtesy and protection. That aside, her family would be daft to refuse you.”

The list before Jack was too damned long, and beside it sat a note from Higgans demanding to know if progress had been made on “the case.”

The damned case could go hang for a moment. Jeremy had chosen a bride.

“That’s it?” Jeremy asked, sitting forward. “I’ve taken a fancy to a lady, and you’re ready to start writing bank
drafts and recommending me as a suitor?”

Jeremy had known their father even less than Jack had, which might explain this display of diffidence on Jeremy’s part. A father might have offered
advice or guidance on the choice of a bride. All Jack could offer was moral support.

“Jere, you are a fine man, and a gentleman. I’m proud to call you brother. I could not for two weeks do what you do, much less do it as well as
you do. You make Mama laugh. You make Pahdi smile. I can count on my one hand the number of times I’ve seen that man smile, and I’ve known him
half my life. When you walk into the room, Miss DeWitt lights up. You would have made a much better diplomat than I, but you have such genuine humility
that the diplomatic corps would never occur to you.”

Jeremy rose. “Miss DeWitt would agree with you. Thinks I’m a paragon. Ridiculous, but there it is.”

Thank God, Lucy Anne DeWitt, and the healthy appetites of the Fanning menfolk—and their fiancées.