Much Ado About Rogues (13 page)

“Christ. Why is she at Blackthorn? Shouldn’t she be trodding the boards in some provincial theater?” The suspicion that the upcoming nuptials were not the cause of Adelaide’s sulk, but instead it was the fact that Jack actually was going to come back to Blackthorn, he didn’t bother to share. She’d made it clear years ago that he was not welcome there.

Puck took a sip of wine before sitting down beside Tess, crossing one long leg over the other before smiling at her companionably. “We’re unnatural children, if you haven’t as yet deduced that on your own. Jack more than Beau and me. You may want to reconsider marriage to the man.”

“I never consented to the marriage,” Tess told him, but she was looking at Jack. “I was
informed.
”

“Oh-ho! Is that the way of it, Jack? Being masterful, were you? Now this is a story I need to hear. But, alas, not now. I sent a note ahead to my tailor and meet with him in an hour. Jack? Would you wish to bear me company? I’d say it would be so that I might avail myself of your advice on a new waistcoat, but who’d believe such an obvious crammer? All you ever wear is black. So boring.” He stood up and bowed over Tess’s hand once more. “Until we meet again at dinner?”

“If Jack doesn’t strangle you between now and then, yes, I’d be delighted,” Tess told him.

“I can see you two need to be separated,” Jack said, tight-lipped, even as he was pleased to see the two of them getting along so well. “All right, Puck. Let’s go.”

Jack all but grabbed his hat and gloves from Wadsworth, who was standing at the ready with them as the brothers headed for the flagway.

“Go home,” he said once they were walking toward the end of the square.

“I could do that, yes. But then Beau would come. Or I could drop him a quick note, summoning him. He’d be here now if it weren’t for some business about a problem on one of the farms at Blackthorn. I suppose I don’t have to tell you the uproar your letter caused when it arrived. ‘Post the banns, I marry in three weeks.’ She’s too good for you, by the way. Even short acquaintance tells me that. What’s going on?”

As Puck was going to spend at least one night beneath the same roof, Jack saw no reason to pretend he didn’t know what his brother meant. “I’ve a son.”

Puck stopped dead on the flagway and made to turn around, head back to the mansion. “Here? Hers? Yours? Together, I mean. Let me see him.”

Jack grabbed his arm, redirecting him along the flagway. “He’s…napping.”

“How domesticated of you to know that. An infant?”

“Jacques is a little past three, maybe closer to four.”

“You don’t
know?
”

That stung. “I only learned of his existence a few days ago.”

“Really. And how do you know he’s yours?”

“He’d be difficult to deny. He looks just like me.”

“Ah, too bad. Poor tyke! Perhaps we can find a surgeon who could remove the horns.”

Jack stopped walking. Looked at his brother. “God, I’ve missed you,” he said with some feeling. “I didn’t think it possible, but it’s true. Let’s hope you were lying about your tailor, because I’ve just had an idea. Let’s go somewhere and talk, all right?”

“All right? I’ve already got enough questions to fill an afternoon. Are you in some sort of trouble? I mean besides the obvious one, that of convincing that astoundingly beautiful woman to marry you?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“I don’t know. My unfailingly accurate intuition? An ability to read minds? Or perhaps it was Wadsworth greeting me with the words
thank God you’re here, Mr. Puck, he wants me to dress up like some foreign heathen.
”

Jack smiled. “He wasn’t very enamored when I told him, no. Unfortunately for him, he remains integral to that part of my plan, along with the rest of it. You can’t be involved. Not this time.”

Puck spread his arms. “I’m fine—see? I didn’t
die,
Jack. I only got a little damp.”

“You damn near drowned. I’ll never forgive you for that.”

“For not being
completely
drowned?” Puck teased as they entered a tavern.

Jack put his arm around his brother’s shoulder. It felt good, that sense of easy companionship. “No, you dolt. For making me realize I cared one way or the other. You can’t be involved because you’d be too easily recognized by people who already know you. That’s one thing. The other is more selfish. I want you to take my son to Blackthorn tomorrow. And Tess, as well.”

They sat down across a table from each other, Puck looking curiously at his brother. “And have you asked her this, or told her? I’m just being curious.”

“And I’m wishing on stars,” Jack said, signaling for two bottles. “She won’t go. But, having met your charming self, she might agree you can take Jacques with you. She still doesn’t trust me, not completely, but she’s sensible enough to know we need Jacques out of harm’s way.”

The barmaid slammed down two bottles and a pair of not quite clean glasses. “Two more, my darling, if you would. We’re about thirsty work here,” Puck told her, winning over even the jaded woman with his easy smile.

Then he turned back to Jack, who had ignored the glass and was drinking deep straight from the bottle. “From the beginning, Jack. What’s going on?”

Jack, a man of many secrets, a man who didn’t share easily, put down the bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and began to talk. Starting at the beginning.

CHAPTER NINE

T
ESS
SAT
AT
the dressing table twisting her hair into a single braid, a small smile on her face.

She couldn’t remember a more interesting evening. Jack’s brother was a marvel. He’d played the pianoforte for them, with Jacques turning in delighted circles until he was so dizzy he fell down, and then insisted on personally carrying his nephew upstairs to Emilie before rejoining Jack and her in the music room. He’d sat at the pianoforte once more, this time playing his own accompaniment as he sang French songs, looking pointedly at Tess until she gave up and joined in.

And Jack? Well, Jack was very good at keeping time with his foot, she’d give him that.

They’d laughed through dinner, with the brothers sharing incriminating stories about each other’s childhood antics before the conversation turned more serious and she heard about Puck’s wife, Regina, and a harrowing time not that long ago that had brought Puck and Jack back together, as brothers, as fellow conspirators.

Rather than retire, leaving them to their brandy and cigars, she had stepped outside with them on the dining room balcony to enjoy the freshness of the air after a sudden shower, the sort that was no stranger to London at this time of year. Not that she would know that. Her visits to London numbered two. Both of them taking her no further than to the point of rendezvous with a spy or turncoat destined for exposure and discreet elimination. There was supposed to be a third visit, but René had gone in her place.

When she thought about those strange days now, when she looked back on them, she found it difficult to believe her father had allowed her near such danger, such violence. She wondered even more why she had been so eager to be included in his plans, trusted with his plans.

She would never expose Jacques to such a life, risk him in any way. But, for her, it had all seemed so logical. It was what her father did, it was what she and René would do. They hadn’t been unnatural children, they’d had an unnatural father. Sometimes it helped to believe that. Sometimes it didn’t.

She knew she’d gone quiet out there on the balcony, and that Puck was looking at her strangely, as if realizing she should have reacted with more shock than she had shown when he’d told the story of the adventure he’d shared with Jack. Perhaps he’d thought he had shocked her, enough to stun her into silence.

“I’m so sorry, Tess,” he’d said into the lengthening silence. “White slavery is not appropriate conversation at any time, but most especially in the company of ladies.”

Tess smiled now as she remembered what she’d done. She’d walked over to Jack and neatly taken his cheroot from him, putting it to her mouth and drawing in its flavor, blowing out a thin stream of blue smoke before handing it back to him. It wasn’t the first cheroot they’d shared. “This
lady,
Puck, would be happy to challenge you to a duel to settle the question of who between us can more quickly pick the lock to the front door of this mansion.”

Puck had laughed. “Yes, I did hear that about you earlier today. So we both have an advantage over Jack here in that area.”

“It’s faster to simply kick in doors,” Jack had told them, which had drawn a teasing comparison between Jack and a charging bull, which had led to another childhood story…

Tess rose from the dressing table and walked over to the window, leaning her forehead against the cool pane. Was it terrible to think, if only for a moment, that she and Jack could just walk away? Leave Sinjon and the Gypsy to their strange, shared history and whatever it was that would happen, and just walk away?

She and Jack had a son. Together, they’d made many, many mistakes, but they had also made Jacques.

When had they both given enough to Sinjon’s twisted ambitions? When was it time to say no? No more. To Sinjon. To men like Liverpool and his sort. To the thrill, the heart-pounding excitement that added something intoxicating to the danger that had seemed so important, not just to her, but to Jack as well, and that now seemed not only reckless and self-serving, but even insane. And, strangely, no longer necessary.

They had a son.

It was time to stop.

At least for Jacques, it had to stop. Now.

She didn’t move when she heard the soft click of the depressed latch, and Jack entered the bedchamber.

“Feeling sick?” he asked, walking up behind her. “You impressed Puck all hollow with your party trick, I’m sure, but as I recall it, each time you insisted on sharing my cheroot, your stomach put up a protest.”

“Not every time,” she said, turning to face him, refusing to admit that she had gotten rather light-headed after her reckless show of bravado on the balcony.

“True. You never seemed to have a problem with one after we’d satisfied each other into near exhaustion. In fact, it was clear you enjoyed it. Shall we try that again tonight?”

She put her hands flat against his chest and raised her face to his in the moonlight. He was a proud man. She was a stubborn woman. But one of them had to give.

“I was wrong, Jack. Jacques and Emilie should have gone to Blackthorn. To your family. He was very drawn to Puck, who was wonderfully silly with him tonight, wasn’t he? Would it be terrible if we asked him to take Jacques and leave here, as early as tomorrow. I know he’s just barely arrived, but—”

“I don’t want him to go,” Jack told her. “I just found him.”

“I know that,” she said placatingly. “I’m glad you found him, I really am. I’ve never been apart from him, Jack. This will hurt me, too. But what if everything goes wrong? What if we’re found out, and the Gypsy dares to come here? Or he follows us somehow? Can either of us really say that we wouldn’t be compromised if we had to think about Jacques when our attention should be on destroying the Gypsy?”

“And on saving your idiot father from whatever quixotic sacrifice you think he’s going to make,” he pointed out, covering her hands with his own.

She lowered her eyes. “I didn’t think mentioning my father would help my argument,” she admitted quietly. “I think he’s lost his mind, no matter how clever all he’s done so far may seem.”

“Forgive me if I’m not similarly impressed with his genius. We could drive the king’s royal coach through the flaws in the fabric of his plan. Beginning with the fact that he should have realized Liverpool wouldn’t feel safe sending me out on my own to eliminate my beloved mentor. In fact, his entire plan, as I see it so far, depended on Liverpool being a fool and me being brought into any of this at all. I could be in Scotland right now, and you and Jacques unprotected in the country. Or hadn’t you thought of that?”

She kept her head down. “We… He always knew where you were.”

Jack dropped his hands away from hers. “How?”

She turned away to look out the window once more. “I don’t know. He’s always had his ways, you know that. Sometimes he’d say nothing about you for months. Never mention your name. But then he’d tell me you were just returned from France, or Spain, or wherever. The last time he mentioned your name was to tell me you were listed as one of the mourners at the funeral of your friend Baron Henry Sutton. He always knew, Jack.”

“Christ. I wonder which one it is,” he said, almost to himself.

“Excuse me?”

“Dickie or Will. It has to be one of them. They’d both have their reasons. Dickie’s always in need of funds.”

“And the other one? Will Browning?” Tess’s heart was pounding now. Was it the puzzle, the excitement of solving it? Or was it fear that this time maybe Jack was the prey, not the Gypsy, not her father. That her father was using the Gypsy, using her, dear Lord, even Jacques, as a way to bring an unsuspecting Jack into his web?

“Ambition? Jealousy? The challenge I present? With Will, I doubt we’d ever know. No wonder now, is it, that you were always so short of funds. Sinjon was paying for information. About me, about God knows who else. The question, Tess, is how much does this particular informant know of Sinjon’s plan?”

“I doubt we’ll ever know that, either,” Tess said, her mind whirling even as she ordered it to slow down, think clearly, the way she’d been taught. “What’s important, Jack, is that you know now that you have no friends in this strange adventure. Except for me.”

“Really? I’m beginning to even doubt my loyalty to myself.”

“You’re the father of my child. I’ve taken you to my bed. If you can’t believe—”

His smile was positively evil.

“You’re not amusing, you know. But I suppose we’ll have no more arguments as to whether or not I’m to be a part of this, all the way to the end of it.”

His smile turned rueful. “How did you know I was going to suggest that you accompany our son to Blackthorn?”

“I didn’t. You never said you wanted Jacques to go to Blackthorn.
I
said it.
You
said you don’t want him to go.” Her eyes narrowed. “Jack?”

“I was being polite. Allowing you to think the entire thing was your idea. It seemed the gentlemanly thing to do. Not that a bastard is well-acquainted with gentlemanly things, which is probably why I botched it so badly.”

“Humph.”

He took a step toward her. “Are we going to argue now over something we’re agreed on? And, might I point out, just about the
only
thing we agree on?”

She stuck her tongue against the inside of her cheek, trying not to smile. He was right. She was being petty. But, God, she felt alive, sparring with Jack. “What time do they leave?”

“I believe we settled on noon. Puck does actually have an appointment arranged with his tailor. Vain puppy,” he said without heat. “He’d check his image in a mirror before going into battle, as if it mattered.”

“Everyone wears their own sort of armor, Jack.”

He looked at her in question for a moment, and then nodded. “You’re right. And for bastards, even more so. Ways to protect ourselves, shield ourselves. For Beau, it was always the pretense that he didn’t care, when I know he cares very much. He loves Blackthorn, and as the oldest, he would have been the marquess one day. And he deserved to be, damn it. Puck? He
uses
our station in life, and makes everyone love him
because
he’s a bastard.”

“And you, Jack? What armor do you wear?” Tess asked, hoping he’d be honest with her. “You don’t care for Blackthorn. You couldn’t, not if what Puck said is correct. You left a long time ago, and never went back.” She summoned a smile. “And God knows you don’t go out of your way to make anyone
like
you.”

“No? You seem to like me well enough.”

She looked up at him through her lashes. He was wearing
that
look. One she knew very well. She dropped her hand and stepped back a pace. She wanted him, yes. She always wanted him. But she also knew he was trying to divert her. She wasn’t going to be diverted. Not this time. “Jack…”

He reached into his waistcoat. “I brought two. One for each of us.”

She looked at the cheroots he was holding up. Looked into his dark, dangerous eyes. Allowed her gaze to run down his body, to see his obvious arousal straining against the fabric of his trousers.

No. Not this time.

“I don’t think we should keep…keep doing this. I thought I knew you four years ago. But now I’m not sure. You give me part of you, but I don’t think you’ve ever given me all of you. You know everything about me. There’s a Jack I don’t know. Is that fair?”

“Is it fair that you kept my son from me?”

She held up one hand impatiently. “No. Don’t do that either, Jack. I’m not going to argue with you. This has nothing to do with our son. This has to do with who his father is,
why
his father is who he is. I’m attracted to what you are, God knows I am, but I don’t know you. How you can bring me to this place. How you and your brother—and your mother—can live at Blackthorn as if you belong there. And why you
hate
it all so much. Puck doesn’t. It would seem Beau doesn’t. What was different for you, Jack? Is it what I think it is? Is that why you’re still so
angry
with the world?”

The cheroots had long since been put back into his waistcoat pocket.

“All right, Tess, we’ve danced around this ever since you saw the portrait of the marquess downstairs. And it’s worse now that you’ve seen Puck—who looks very much like Beau, if you were about to ask, and I’m sure you were.”

“You’re not his son, are you?” She bit her lips between her teeth and waited. Watched him.

A small tic began to work in his lean cheek.

“You’re Adelaide’s son, but you’re not his. Beau and Puck are. But not you.” She took a breath, and when she let it out, her chest actually hurt. For him. “But not you. Oh, Jack…”

“Good night, Tess,” he said flatly. “There are many emotions I enjoy seeing in your beautiful eyes. Pity isn’t one of them.” Then he turned and headed for the door.

“Jack Blackhorn, don’t you dare! Don’t you dare leave me now!
I
didn’t make you a bastard. And I don’t care that you are. I only care that
you
care.”

He stopped, and she watched as he bent his head, rubbed at his nape, his fingertips turning white as his hand stilled and he pushed against the cords of his neck. He had nearly lost control, and he was forcing himself to regain his composure.