Proper Scoundrel (16 page)

He held her face between his hands. “Jade, Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Let me help you.”

She knocked his arms aside and stood. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything is. You’ve done all you can, and I don’t mean by betraying me with my own body. I despise you Marcus Fitzalan. I really do.”

And she was gone, running fleet as a startled doe.

Marcus watched her go, struck by her accusation. For a minute he worried he’d taken advantage, until he remembered what she said. I want your weight. Touch me everywhere.

Tell me what you want, he’d said. If her reply had been, “let me go,” he would have. She knew that. She knew he’d give her whatever she wanted, pleasure or freedom. If she were in temporary shock, she would recover, but she’d seemed remorseful, which about broke him.

He started cleaning away their dinner, setting plates and napkins in the basket, tossing her untouched dessert to the birds. He shook the blanket and folded it, then he tossed it down and walked to the water’s edge.

There, he cupped his hands at his mouth and shouted as loud as he could above the churning sea. “Jade Smithfield I adore you!” Then he let his hands fall to his sides and hated himself, because, though he did adore her, he planned to follow her tonight to discover whether she had been the one committing crimes against the railroad.

If she had, he bloody well needed to know, and why, then he must find a way to stop her.

Marcus cursed and turned to see Jade standing high on the cliff under which they’d loved, watching him, sea foam skirts flapping about her legs, sable hair in stormy disarray. The wild scandal who owned his heart, bearing so many secrets she was bending under the weight of their burden.

He wondered if she heard his sea-tossed declaration.

“I adore you,” he shouted again, certain she couldn’t hear him from there, but he needed to say it anyway.

And as if she heard, but didn’t care, Jade turned and walked away.

Later that night, gazing out his bedroom window, Marcus instructed himself to put Jade’s turmoil of the afternoon from his mind. She needed time to come to terms with her new feelings and emotions, and he needed to find out who was keeping the railroad from moving forward.

Because of Garr’s condition, Marcus needed to save the railroad, and the family home. Not that he could make up in any way for crippling his brother, but the accident he’d caused made seeing to Garr’s future his responsibility.

Marcus ran a hand through his hair. He’d best focus on the task at hand. Other concerns would still await his attention afterward.

Searching for the best location from which to watch for anyone leaving the house, Marcus discovered that from the cliff, he could see the house without obstruction, and anyone heading toward Newhaven or the railroad construction site.

Given the fact that Jade had the same view from her bedroom window as he did from his, Marcus devised a clandestine route to the cliff so as not to be seen, especially by her. Once he mapped his route, he dressed in the dark old clothes he’d brought for a mission that once seemed exciting and now smacked of betrayal.

Be that as it may, he had no choice and left when he knew everyone would be at dinner.

Outside, he circumnavigated the house and property on his route to the jutting cliff, which also happened to be the highest point on the estate.

Evening had just turned full dark, and while he managed to depart before moonrise, he likely had a long wait. Once he arrived at his vantage point, a nightjar’s cry purling and bubbling in the air, Marcus sat, knees raised, on the far side of a stone bench, a location not visible from his window.

Like a peeping tom, he looked for Jade’s room, and like a lovesick pup, he watched her pass by her window as if pacing to the incessant, churning beat of the restless sea behind him.

Marcus wanted only to take away Jade’s worries and keep her safe, except his stubborn siren would not allow it.

With her curtains open, the light in her room allowed him to see her in her dressing gown, unsashed and flowing behind her with each quick, agitated pass she made before her window. As she paced, she held something in one hand that she slapped against the palm of the other in a rhythm more agitated than the elements. A hairbrush, perhaps. A knife. A pistol?

Jittery, yes, but enough to carry a weapon? Enough to shoot blind, if she realized someone followed her? Was she aware of a danger that required some form of self-defence?

Bloody hell. He was so busy speculating, he nearly missed the figure dashing into the lane and heading away from the house and the railroad site, toward town.

Not that people weren’t allowed to leave Peacehaven Manor, but this was the same man he’d seen slipping back into the house the night the stuffed dress got left on the tracks. His movements were too furtive to be forgotten, now or then. The man must be one of Jade’s retainers, Dirk, Jack or Harry, he’d concluded after his first sighting, all long-time dependents, bar Dirk who’d been with Jade less than two years. A newcomer by Peacehaven standards, Dirk, therefore, bore watching. Whoever he was, he must have a woman friend in the village, perhaps even a married one.

Marcus imagined one of the old codgers with a wicked assignation and consigned this second sighting to the list of concerns in his mind, with a notation to research Dirk’s past, just in case.

Looking up again, Marcus discovered that Jade had drawn her curtains. Now, only her shadow could be seen, and clearly.

She was undressing.

Marcus’s mouth went dry, his boy part went on alert. For less than a blink, he saw the outline of Jade’s nude body in silhouette, ripe and lush, and he lost his breath.

Perfect. An artist’s inspiration. A lover’s dream.

Everything about Jade Smithfield called to him, her laughter, her generosity of spirit, her fears, hopes, and dreams, even her temper. ’Twas mere serendipity, her nymph’s body, yet seeing it outlined like this made him think of one thing, him buried hilt-deep inside her with her long splendid legs wrapped round him.

Bloody hell, she was pulling on breeches.

Marcus jumped up, realized the danger in revealing himself, and ducked back down. He had to get hold of himself. His wild emotions concerning Jade were like to get him in trouble—more important, he might endanger her.

He had expected her to leave the house tonight, so why did being proved right upset him? Lord he was in trouble.

No, damn it, she was in trouble.

That foolish woman, needed protecting, and he’d watch over her, by damn, if she never spoke to him again as a result.

Oddly, his ability to protect her while he spied on her made him feel better about the whole sordid mess. Garrett would scoff, but who cared, as long as he got both jobs done.

Jade slipped on a coat and Marcus wondered which one she pilfered this time.

Her curtains parted; the light in her room went out.

With the full of the moon, he ducked his head, taking no chances.

Gazing out, into the shadows, Jade remained at her window.

Marcus’s legs cramped, so he stretched out behind the bench to wait her out.

He smacked his head against the bench, waking himself. Judging by the position of the moon, more than an hour had passed. Rubbing his temple, he swore in silence as he regarded Jade’s window.

Blast and double blast; he’d missed her departure.

He raced in the direction she must have taken, but caught her coming from the shore, instead. Had she passed him as he slept? He dove for cover, face down in thorny barbs and horse manure. The gardeners had fertilized the rose bushes. Wonderful.

Marcus wiped his face with a hand, but stopped breathing as Jade walked by, no more than a foot away.

Keeping her ahead of him, he hid behind trees along the route as he followed in her wake.

He felt like an idiot.

He smelled like a stable.

It started to rain.

God she looked great in breeches.

When she entered open land, Marcus scurried head-down, along the far side of the unmortared stone wall enclosing the field, often moving farther away from her, rather than nearer, but keeping her in his sights. Just as she entered the beech wood, he turned his ankle in a foxhole, cursed and hobbled on.

In the woods, which opened to the construction site, having trees for cover afforded Marcus a short-lived degree of comfort.

A man, short and robust—not someone he’d seen among Jade’s retainers—walked suddenly ahead of him trailing Jade, detour for detour. When Marcus spotted the intruder’s pistol raised at the ready, his instincts went on full alert.

Garrett never mentioned hiring a watchman. Even so, a watchman would wield his weapon only if and when he saw proof of intent to destroy property, or worse.

Distracted of a sudden, Marcus realized that someone trailed him almost at the same instant the first man cocked and aimed his pistol at Jade. Racing forward, Marcus knocked the pistol from the man’s hand from behind and kicked it away. Wrestling the gunman to the ground, Marcus got gut-punched, doubled over, and sent to his knees.

The gunman ran.

Marcus gave chase before catching his breath.

The bastard might be short, but he moved like a jackrabbit.

When Marcus saw Peacehaven Manor rear up mid-pursuit, he realized he might have kept Jade from getting shot, but he’d left her no protection from the man who had been trailing him.

Go forward? Back?

His hesitation got him knocked to the ground by a moving object. “Beecher!”

The retainer stood, hands on knees, panting. “He was gonna’ shoot her!”

“Ever see him before?”

“Never.”

“Someone was following me,” Marcus said.

Beecher nodded. “Me. I’ll go back and keep Jade safe.”

Marcus released a relieved breath. “Thank God. I’ll go after the shooter.”

Pursuing the gunman all the way into the twittens, Newhaven’s narrow twisting lanes, Marcus ran aground amid a gaggle of half-crown street strumpets on rampage, and lost his quarry to the brewery and shipbuilding yards beyond. Once free of the demireps,—no easy task—filthy and reeking, he returned, miles and hours later, to the deserted railroad site, as empty as the lumber cars beside the unfinished railroad bridge over the River Ouse.

Marcus could hardly believe his eyes. He’d seen the fully-laden flatcars only hours before!

How the hell could one woman hide two railroad cars full of lumber by herself?

If Jade did, indeed, do it ... he was no longer sure of that, or much of anything else.

A devil named panic nipping at his tail, Marcus ran back to Peacehaven through the pouring rain, half the time worried sick, the other half, prepared, nay, determined, to trounce Jade for scaring him witless.

Once there, he made straight for her room and threw open her door.

They both gasped in shock.

“Hell of a time for a bath!” Marcus said, taking in the view.

“Hell of a time for you to come calling, if you ask me,” Jade said. “Where have you been? You’re soaked through.”

“Chasing the man who followed you out there tonight with a pistol in his hand.”

Jade lifted a handful of water to rinse her face and hide her reaction. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Give me a towel, will you?”

“If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t be so calm.”

She dried her face slowly, to calm herself, and squeaked when she finished and saw he’d stripped to a pair of underbreeches more form-fitting than her drawers. Shockingly form-fitting. “What are you doing?” she asked.

Marcus stepped into her tub. “At least I got a reaction out of you,” he said. “You owe me a bath. I ended up on my face in horseshit, turned my ankle, fought an armed man, and got attacked by prostitutes, all to keep you safe. And where were you? Stealing a lumber shipment is my guess.”