Lord Sinister (Secrets & Scandals Book 3) (10 page)

Amelia stared at the man, recognition exploding in her mind.  “Jack?”

The candle he held jerked, bouncing shadows around the small corridor, then he brought the flame closer to her and sucked in a breath.  “Amy?”

With a squeak of delight, Amelia rushed to him and threw her arms around his neck.  “Oh, Jack, I’ve missed you!” She couldn’t believe her good fortune.  Her best friend as a child, Lord Jackson Townsend, stood right before her.

She leaned back, smiling.  “Look at how much you’ve changed.”  She lifted her hand and traced his handsome face with her fingertips.

Shaking his head, Jack captured her hands, his expression severe.  “Listen to me, Amy, and listen carefully.”  Her smile fled.  “Address me as Mr. Mountjoy and nothing else.  Do you understand?”

Amelia hesitated, searching his dark eyes for some sort of answer to his demand.  Then she shook her head when she couldn’t reach any rational conclusion for his odd behavior.  “No, I don’t understand at all.”

Jack released her hands and exhaled a weary breath.  He looked strangely down at her.  “I’ll explain everything in a minute.  First, I’d like to know where you disappeared to and why you never contacted me.”

She wrapped her arms around her body, suddenly chilled.  “I’ve been in America.”  She raised her head and gazed into his dark questioning eyes.  “With my son.”

His brows snapped together.  “Son?  You have a son?”

“Yes.  He’s out in the stables.  His name is Alexander.”

Jack stepped closer and placed a large, warm hand on her shoulder.  “What happened to you after I joined the Royal Navy?”

Amelia bowed her head, unwilling to divulge the truth.

“Tell me, Amy.”

His soft voice, so familiar, so cherished, sent a tremor through her.  “Just a couple of weeks after you left, my father decided to venture to America and open the new bank himself.”

When she paused, Jack asked, “And you went with him?”

Amelia shook her head.  “No.”  She lifted her eyes to his.  “He sent me to live with Diana.”

Jack’s sharp intake of breath attested to his surprise.  Then he looked ready to do murder.  “That fool,” he hissed, withdrawing his hand from her shoulder.  He was about to say more when one of the doors opened.

“Mrs. Wesson, didn’t I say dinner was precisely—Mr. Mountjoy,” Mrs. Briggs said in surprise when she noticed Jack standing there.

He faced the housekeeper.  “It was I who detained—” he cast a quick sideways glance “—Mrs. Wesson.”

Mrs. Briggs lifted her brows.  “I see.  Well, then,” she turned to Amelia, “your dinner is ready, Mrs. Wesson.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Briggs, she’ll be there in a moment,” Jack stated before Amelia could respond.

With frown for each of them, Mrs. Briggs left.

Jack turned to her, a smile edging onto his lips.  “Go have your dinner, we’ll talk later.”

She shook her head.  “But I—”

“Meet me here at eleven o’clock tomorrow night.” He turned toward the door he had come through earlier.  “We’ll talk more then,” he said over his shoulder before disappearing through the threshold.

Even though Jack had already left, Amelia nodded anyway.  And suddenly, she didn’t feel quite so scared and alone.

CHAPTER 9

Just as Amelia descended the stairs, the middle door opened.  Jack appeared in the doorway, a lamp in his hand, then signaled for her to follow him.  She nodded and, with quiet steps, entered a cozy room at the rear of the house.

Hundreds of books lined the wall to her left, a cheery fire crackled in the stone fireplace to her right and before her, ceiling-to-floor curtains had been drawn over windows that must face the sea.  She turned when she heard Jack close the door.

“Come, have a seat,” he offered, placing the lamp on the table between the two leather chairs before the fireplace.

The warmth felt wonderful, Amelia admitted as she perched on the nearest chair.

“Would you care for a drink?”

She shook her head.  “No, thank you.” Seeing Jack in full light, out of the shadows, she noticed how much he had filled out.  When she saw him last, he’d been tall but lacking much of the muscles she could see straining his shirt and pants.  Just like Julian.  The wayward thought made her angry.  She did not want to think about that man.  Besides, Jack was nothing at all like Julian.  Jack was a good, honest man, upright and decent.  Julian, well, lacked many of those good qualities.

Lifting her eyes, Amelia forced her thoughts away from Julian.  She watched Jack pour a glass of wine, and as he turned, noticed the fatigue in his expression.  And something else.  Sadness.  A terrible sadness.  And of a sudden, she recalled his use of another name.  “What has happened, Jack?”

He took the chair beside her and gulped back a rather large swallow of port before making a reply.  “That was to be my question, Amy.”

Amelia lifted a brow.  “I asked you first.”

He gave her a look, part annoyed, part amused before expelling a sigh.  “You truly have no idea what happened?”

Her heart jolted.  Oh, God, it must have been utterly horrible.  She knew it.  Slowly, she shook her head.

Lowering his eyes down to the glass in his hands, he began with low, anguished words.  “My father’s dead, Amy.  And they think I’ve done it.”

“They think you…”  She shook her head.  “That’s impossible, Jack.  You would never harm your father.”

He raised his head, his onyx eyes glistening with suppressed fury.  “Not even for his wealth, his titles, his lands?”

“But your brother is older.  He inherits—”

“Jonathan died several months before father.”

That must have been why they blamed Jack.  As next in line, he’d be the logical person to accuse.  That, of course, was ridiculous.  With her eyes stuck to his, she asked, “Do you have any idea who murdered your father?”

Surprise diminished the fury in his eyes.  “You don’t believe I did it?”

“Of course you didn’t do it.”

“Even if I was caught holding the bloody knife?” he asked softly, watching her intently.

She kept her gaze fused with his.  “Not even then.”

All the tension seemed to drain from him, his rigid shoulders relaxed, and he smiled—a hint of the old Jackson Townsend surfacing.  “Ah, Amy, I knew if anyone were to believe me, it would be you.”

“What happened, Jack?”

He drained his glass and set it aside before answering.  “Almost four years ago, I returned home for a short leave.”  He closed his eyes, his words turning ragged.  “And found my father lying in a pool of blood in his study.  He was still alive, though barely.  Blood was seeping up around the blade protruding from his chest.  I ripped my cravat from my neck and pulled the knife away, then placed the cloth over the gaping hole.”  Jack opened his tormented eyes.  “And that’s when my father’s solicitor walked into the room.”  He shook his head.  “He held a note in my father’s own hand, Amy.  My father had summoned the solicitor to come at once…and change his will.”

“Oh, Jack,” Amelia leaned over to grasp his hand, “how horrible that must have been for you.  Did they finally find the real murderer?”

Jack shook his head, and for the first time, she noticed his dark hair pulled back into a queue.  How odd, she thought, knowing he always preferred it short.  Then the thought fled with his next words.  “My darling Amy,” he cackled humorously, “they think
I
am the real murderer.”

Amelia gasped.  “Are you saying that they are still looking for you?  That they want to…?” she halted, unable to finish.

“Yes.”

The reason for the false name, the secluded house near the sea, and especially the deep sadness she sensed in Jack became clear.  Her heart bled with sorrow for her dear friend.  “This is so unfair,” she whispered as tears blurred her vision.

He leaned over and touched her cheek with the tips of his cool fingers.  “Don’t cry, Amy.”  Then he withdrew his hand and rose from the chair.  “Now it’s your turn.”  He lifted the empty wineglass from the table.

Amelia wiped the tears away, thinking how trivial her ordeal seemed compared to Jack’s.  When he returned to his chair with his wine and waited for her to begin, she cleared her throat and looked into the fire.  She didn’t want to see the disappointment or disgust on his face.  “My father traveled to America to open his new bank,” she said, her voice deadpan. “Since my stepmother didn’t want me along, they decided to move me to my cousin, Diana’s.  She being ten years my elder and married to a respectable viscount, they thought it perfectly appropriate.”

She ignored Jack’s snort and kept talking lest she lose the nerve.  “I didn’t know that Diana liked to give those hideous parties when her husband was away until it was too late.”  She could still hear the hypnotic drum beats, smell the sickly-sweet flowers in the darkness, see the silvery outlines of naked bodies when the moon slid from the clouds.  She had been so shaken, so mortified that she’d ran from the garden to her room and didn’t come out for days.

“Then what happened?”

“I was ever so glad when summer was at an end,” she continued, “because we traveled to London for the little season.  And since the viscount was in residence, Diana had to behave.”  She looked down at the clasped hands in her lap and added, “It was then that I met Alexander’s father.”

From the corner of her eye, she could see Jack’s hand make a fist.  She rushed on before he could ask the one question she wasn’t ready to answer yet:  the man’s name.  “We moved back to the estate in November.  Fortunately, the viscount came along.  And for the entire blessed winter, there were none of those repulsive parties.”

Closing her eyes, Amelia allowed her chin to rest against her chest, knowing she had to finish it.  Jack had told her everything, and she could do no less.  “Just as we were about to journey to London that spring, Diana became ill and we were forced to remain at the estate.  The viscount, however, had some pressing business to attend to in London and departed without us.  But a few weeks later, Diana recovered.  And to celebrate her recovery, she had a party at the estate.

“This one lasted several days,” she continued, every word leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.  “I stayed in my room and refused to come out, until I grew so hungry and thirsty I couldn’t stand it.  About an hour after the drums quit, I finally ventured from my room.  No one stirred as I sneaked downstairs to the kitchen.  And there I found a large bowl filled with the most delicious-tasting punch.

“After drinking my fill, I started to feel funny.  Kind of tingly and fuzzy.  And very, very happy.  I left the kitchen and made my way up the stairs.  Since I forgot the candlestick in the kitchen, I stumbled around in the dark until I finally found my room.”  Her fingernails bit into her palms.  “I remember feeling so hot, like my clothes were melting into my skin, that I tore them away.  Then I stumbled into bed.  Only it wasn’t my bed,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut.

After a full minute of silence, Jack asked, “Was he a kind husband?”

Amelia snapped her head up in surprise.  “What?”

“The man you married, Mr. Wesson.  Your son’s father?”

All she had to do was utter her agreement and that would have been the end of it, but Amelia couldn’t do it.  She sat there and faced Jack—her friend, who just poured out his heart to her—and knew she couldn’t lie to him.  Slowly, she shook her head.  “There never was a Mr. Wesson,” she whispered.  “I made him up just before Alex was born.”  A single tear skidded down her cheek.  “I didn’t want someone calling him a bastard.”

Jack leaned forward and swiped the tear away with his finger.  “That is completely understandable.”  Then he halted and drew his brows, confusion gathering in his eyes.  “It was about a year after I joined the Royal Navy that I learned you were gone, but everyone told me you had traveled to America to be with your father.  I always wondered why you never answered my letters.  What really happened, Amy?”  His gaze flickered over her worn clothes.  “Why are you working as a maid?”

When Amelia hesitated, Jack’s eyes widened with understanding, then grew as hard as stone.  “Your father threw you out, didn’t he?”  Coming to his feet, Jack began to pace.  “I bloody well don’t believe it.”  He halted and spun around. “What about the boy’s father?”

Those cursed tears gathered again.  They filled her eyes and spilled down her face.  She tried halting them, but they just came harder.

In an instant, Jack kneeled before her and gathered her in his arms.  She rested against him.  God, it felt so good to be held.  To be comforted.  His hand cradled the back of her head and she snuggled closer, her cheek nestled against his chest.  He was warm, where she was terribly cold inside.  Telling someone what had happened was like a heavy burden lifted from her shoulders.  Not even Dr. Rutland had known the whole truth.  She had kept it all to herself, allowing it to grow and fester within her.

Until now.

Her tears ceased and she felt cleansed.  With a shaky sigh, she lifted away from the comfort of Jack’s chest, knowing she couldn’t stay there forever.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his face pinched in concern.

She nodded.  “Much better.”

He flashed a smile.  “We are quite a pair.”  Then he tweaked her nose just like he used to do when they were children.

Amelia laughed.

“Mama?”

Hearing Alex, Amelia froze.  She watched Jack slowly rise, his eyes fixed on the door behind her.  Then she came to her feet and turned to her son, who stood uncertainly in the doorway, his gaze traveling from her to Jack and back.  Her mouth went dry, and she stumbled forward.  Something was wrong.  “What is it, Alex?”

“It’s Mr. Gunney.  One of the horses stepped on his foot.”

Years of training under Dr. Rutland took over.  “I’ll go retrieve my bag and meet you at the stables.”

After sliding a bewildered gaze to Jack, Alex nodded and left the room.

Amelia started to follow her son, but Jack halted her.  He placed his hand on her arm and gently turned her around, his eyes glinting with anger.  “Tell me Alex’s father isn’t Julian Westland.”

“Please, Jack,” she said softly, “Alex mustn’t know.”  Then she turned and hurried through the door, trying to focus her thoughts on the injured man.