Far Too Tempted (29 page)

The moon was even brighter than the night before, lending an eerie illumination to the shabby chairs and worn rug. The door to the hallway was open, which was not the best thing, but otherwise everything looked silent and deserted. How nice, he thought darkly, for Jack to show me the location of his study, the most likely place where there might be incriminating papers or letters. The fact they had enjoyed a drink there crawled under his skin.

With a firm hand on the sill, he hauled himself upward and slid through the window to land on the floor. It took his eyes a second to become adjusted to the gloom, and he stood there and took a deep breath, slowly reaching into his pocket. A wry smile touched his mouth as he pulled forth the item he had borrowed from Tolley. Why the young man carried picklocks on his person was not his business, he told himself. Right now it was to his advantage to be able to access Jack’s desk without having to leave evidence someone had been there.

The room smelled of musty cloth overlaid by the faint tang of tobacco smoke. Stealthily moving across the carpet, he approached the desk and tried the top drawer on the right-hand side, ignoring the few papers carelessly stacked on top of the scratched surface as likely to be harmless if they were in such plain view.

The drawer slid open with ease, containing only several leather-bound ledgers which, when held up to the filtered moonlight coming in the window, looked like household expense accountings. Carefully replacing them, Alex moved on to the other drawers, glancing now and then at the open doorway to the dim hallway. With each one he checked first the contents, and then pulled the entire thing out and examined it for false bottoms or sides.

The only drawer that was locked was the last one he checked, the bottom left. Cursing inwardly that he hadn’t started in the opposite order, Alex crouched down and began to select different sizes from the ring in his hand, toying with the lock and listening intently for the telltale click like Tolley had taught him in their brief lesson an hour before. Beads of sweat began to gather along the line of his jaw as he worked. Even with Tolley and O’Brien watching the house for Jack’s possible return, he was only too aware he would have merely minutes to make his escape in case they should give the warning signal.

The small tick of metal sounded absurdly loud in the stillness of the shrouded room. With a grim sense of triumph, Alex eased the drawer open and lifted out a sheaf of papers, rolled and tied with a bit of ribbon. Slipping them free and unrolling the top one, he stood and angled the vellum toward the dappled moonlight.

The sound of a cool voice made him stiffen.

“It’s both in French and in a code so unbreakable that I feel safe enough to leave those communications in my desk, defended by only a simple lock.” Jack Rivers strolled into the room, his hands casually in the pockets of a dark jacket, his eyes glittering in the uncertain light. “Good evening, Alex. Fancy finding you here. I thought we were allies.”

Good God, Alex thought, feeling a shiver of warning shoot through his whole body, what had happened to Tolley and O’Brien? They were supposed to warn him if anyone at all approached the house.

Jack lifted his brows, obviously able to read the expression on his face even in the darkness. “It was Francois you saw, leaving disguised as myself. We often play little charades for our somewhat nosy neighbors. I intended to leave a little later and meet up with Eloise and dear Major Pickford to take care of some unfinished business. Imagine my surprise when I heard someone moving around in my study.”

Silence ensued except the even ticking of a clock on the mantel. Standing there with the evidence of his former friend’s treachery in his hands, Alex felt bitter anger rise up in his throat like bile. “We’ll see about the code, shall we? I’m sure the War Office would at least like to try.”

“Ah yes, but they won’t get the chance, I’m afraid.” A smile crept across Jack’s dark face, a thin humorless smile that sent a chill up Alex’s spine. He added, “The papers stay here, my friend.”

“I am no longer your friend, Jack.” Alex opened his fingers deliberately and let the papers drift to the floor, needing to free his hands. The weight of the knife in his pocket gave him a strange thrill of dark anticipation for the fight he knew was coming. “Our friendship ceased the day you became a traitorous murderer who panders his own wife to lure men to their deaths.”

That shot hit home, the smile vanishing from Jack’s face and his body visibly tensing. “Eloise is a great patriot, aiding the emperor at his own request. She regards his orders like any other soldier and carries them out without question.”

“By whoring for Bonaparte?” The taunt was said lightly. Alex smiled. “It is actually a simple but very effective plan. Those poor fellows, a bit past their youth, bemused by a pretty face. You are a much more generous husband than I, Jack. I would share Jessica with no man, no matter my country.” It was true, he realized, the thought of anyone else touching her made him feel a sickening rage.

He focused on that emotion, dropping his arms to his sides. “Your wife’s loyalties I can understand, even if I do not condone the deliberate murder of innocent men. But you, Jack? Why? Once you served Wellington and your king with honor. How can you betray your own people?”

“My people? My men, my army, my country? You have no idea what you are saying.” Jack’s mouth twisted in a macabre expression of black anger. “Where were my people when I was captured and tortured for days on end? What rescue party was mounted? Who searched the countryside, tended my wounds, attempted to set me free?” He straightened, took a step forward, and hissed, “I’ll tell you, Alex. They were going about their business and I was forgotten. Left behind French lines to rot and die without thought.”

Fully conscious of the other man’s hands in his pockets and that Jack would probably be armed, Alex argued, “It is part of the danger of the missions you undertook. The possibility of capture existed. You knew that going in.”

“Ah…see now, that’s not exactly true.” White teeth gleamed in the darkness. “You must understand, the word
torture
is an abstract concept until one experiences it firsthand.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed and he tensed as Rivers took another slow step closer. His response sounded muffled, even to his own ears. “Perhaps, yet how your experience makes you wish to serve the French escapes me somehow.”

Jacked laughed, low and sharp. “I feel loyalty to no country, not France or England. Not any longer, or ever again. My wife, however…my savior, my nurse, the woman who helped me at great risk to escape incredible pain and eventual death, to her I am supremely loyal.”

Crouching as Rivers pulled a wicked-looking knife from his pocket, Alex whipped his hand downward and felt his fingers close around the hilt of his own weapon. “Even if it means murder, Rivers?”

“Killing British aristocrats who are plump in the pocket and short on real courage? Yes indeed, that is a pleasure. Now…shall we continue where we left off last night?” Jack lunged, the knife spinning in his hand.

Alex dodged and feinted left, coming perilously close to hitting the edge of the desk. A small study was a poor place for a knife fight. They circled, each looking for an opening. He said cuttingly, “How can you say that of Pickford? He’s good man and a fine soldier.”

“Any man who would think to bed another man’s wife deserves to die, don’t you think so, Alex? Of course, he will not actually have the opportunity. Eloise will delay the matter at hand until I arrive. I plan on leaving the moment after I kill you. I regret now my moment of foolish sentiment over our old friendship. I should have finished the job back in your brother’s garden.” A sudden lunge and thrust accompanied the declaration.

Deflecting his opponent’s arm at the last possible moment, Alex jabbed low and Jack flinched backwards in a stumble. Both of them beginning to pant, they circled again with weapons extended, impeded by the furniture and cramped floor space.

“Hey, Guv, need some help with this bloke?” A cheerful voice interrupted the moment. Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw Tolley, slim and dressed in shabby dark clothes, slip through the window and land with a small thud on the worn carpet. Right behind him came the bulky figure of O’Brien, wheezing a little as he rolled over the sill.

Both men held pistols drawn and pointed at Jack Rivers. Tolley said, “We were wondering if you were taking just a little too much time, sir.”

A strange mixture of relief and regret surged through Alex’s gut. He hadn’t wanted to kill someone who had been such a good friend, and then again, the Jack Rivers he knew no longer existed.

That man—he was convinced—had died, tormented and abandoned back in Spain. At least his gallant soul had perished.

“I ran into a bit of a complication, Alfred,” he admitted, and then took a deep breath and stepped back carefully, blocking any attempt toward the open door to the hallway. Still holding his own weapon defensively in front of his body, he said coldly, “Drop the knife, Jack.”

Rivers just stood there, his hooded gaze riveted on the two muzzles pointed his direction.

“Jack?”

Once again that chilling smile broke over his old friend’s face and he lifted his hand ever so slowly as he opened his fingers. The knife fell to the carpet with a soft sound. “I won’t hang, Alex.”

In just as an unemotional voice, Alex said, “That’s not for me to decide. O’Brien, find something and tie him up. Tolley and I have a meeting with Madame Rivers and we need to leave immediately.”

Chapter Sixteen

Sickly early-morning light filled the drab hallway. Alex felt as if he’d been stretched on a rack and left in the sun for days on end. Worn, hollow, nearly lifeless. His head ached as well, from being awake for two nights.

Pickford placed his head in hands and said in a stifled voice. “I feel like such a fool.”

Considering that he and Tolley had found the major in a drugged state and the amount of time it had taken to rouse him, Alex figured that being a living fool was much better than being strangled and put on display like a Drury Lane actress. He said neutrally, “I’m confident Litchfield, Orschell and Flatterly would trade places with you any day.”

His face pale, Pickford nodded. “I’m sure you’re right, Ramsey. I owe you my life, though I’m not sure quite why you appeared when you did.”

Next to him, thin arms dangling between his knees, Tolley shot the older man a slightly contemptuous glance.

“Ask General Wright, if you’ve a mind to.” Alex paused, spun on his heel, and paced back down the worn floor. Pickford sat limply in his plain chair like a sack of old meal, his normally ruddy face pinched and gray.

The emergence of the surgeon was both a relief and brought another wave of dreadful guilt. Tolley shot to his feet. Alex stopped midstep, arrested by the grim expression on the man’s face and his bloodstained apron. He said sharply, “Well?”

The doctor, small, wiry and wrinkled as a monkey, pursed his mouth. “I’d wager a shilling, sir, as to him living through the next day. If he does, I’d wager more that he’ll make it.”

“Thank God,” Alex muttered. Since he was the one who had ordered O’Brien to watch over Jack and left them at the townhouse alone, he felt acute guilt over the fact that he hadn’t properly advised the big Irishman just how dangerous his charge could be. When they returned to the Rivers’ residence after arresting a defiant Eloise, they’d discovered O’Brien on the floor in a welter of blood and Jack nowhere in sight. All the Irishman had been able to gasp out was something about a second knife.

Why the hell hadn’t he thought to more thoroughly search Jack? A wily opponent at all times, of course Rivers would have several weapons at hand. Somehow Alex had felt that O’Brien’s sheer size and the pistol in his grip would be enough, and the assumption had been a mistake.

He knew it was his own damned fault for being careless and so anxious to resolve this devilish case.

And now, the enemy was free and loose in the city.

The morning was breathtakingly soft and summery sweet. Unladylike it might be to rise at dawn and put herself to weeding in the garden on her hands and knees, Jessica still felt contentment as she worked, definitely at odds with her restless night. In the hours since she’d given up trying to sleep and had risen, her mood had lightened but she was still reluctant to analyze
why
she couldn’t sleep, and even more, why she’d felt such a need to flee London.

Ridiculous, she told herself firmly as she plucked out a particularly stubborn bit of thistle from amongst a scraggly row of budding lilies. She had only been married to her husband for a few days now, and after a lifetime of solitary slumber, Alex’s absence beside her could hardly have been the cause of her tossing and turning. As for leaving London, he’d broken his promise to bring her home and as one used to relying on herself, the matter was now undoubtedly settled to both of their satisfaction. She was at Braidwood and useful, and Alex was free to pursue whatever it was that occupied so much of his time.

With a spade she’d found lying with some other tools by the side of the box hedge, she began to methodically turn the soil, inhaling deeply the earthy smell. The sun felt warm already on her shoulders and the birds were busy, in full song and filling the air with movement and noise.

And that wasn’t the only noise invading the peaceful garden.