The Faithful Heart (26 page)

“I took too long freeing them.” Tears sprung
to her eyes now that she had someone to lean on. “I’m so
sorry.”

“It wasn’t you,” his voice softened. “I’m
sure it wasn’t.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We have to get out of here, go to Derby,
find Ethan, anything.”

“No! I’m not leaving without Jack. Lydia said
she was going to tie them up in the common, in plain sight. She’s
doing it to draw us out, but we still might be able to reach them
in the middle of the night or if there’s a distraction of some
sort. We could-”

Without warning his lips were suddenly on
hers. Her eyes flew wide as his arms closed around her. She was too
shocked to struggle. She was on the verge of pushing him away when
a group of young girls passed by. They burst into giggles, pointing
and whispering behind their hands, and rushed on.

Tom broke the kiss, face red, and set her at
arm’s length. “Sorry,” he muttered, staring at the ground. “I know
them is all.” He cleared his throat. “And now they’re going to
think I like boys.”

She could only stare at him, mouth open, and
blink.

“Come on.” He grabbed her hand, not quite
able to meet her eyes. “I think I know a place where we can hide
until it gets darker. There’s a lot of abandoned tents on the other
side of the camp.”

“Right. Abandoned tents.” She let him pull
her along, not entirely sure what had happened.

Lydia jerked away from the rip in Roderick’s
tent, stepping on him as she did.

“What?” he asked, scrambling to look out of
the rip himself. “What did you see?” He saw nothing so snapped
around to frown at her.

She shut her mouth and took a breath as the
sight sunk in. Then she grinned. “I saw Tom Tanner kissing a
boy.”

“Huh?” Roderick made a face and then snorted.
“I always thought he was too friendly with that pouf Toby.”

Lydia blinked at him, no idea what he was
talking about. “No, you fool, it wasn’t an actual boy. It was that
pip-squeak Madeline.”

“Jack’s Madeline?”

“Kissing Tom,” Lydia nodded, smirk spreading
wider. “His brother.”

Roderick huffed a laugh. “Poor, poor Lord
John.”

“There’s nothing poor about Lord John.” She
headed for the tent flap. “But his charming brother just handed me
the means to get everything I want.”

“What do you mean?” Roderick followed on her
heels.

She stepped out into the path and checked to
see if anyone was around. “I want you to follow them.” She rounded
on Roderick. “Find out where they’re going and where they hide.
Then I want you to find an excuse to hang around that area. Get
Connor and some of his men to stick to watch them as well.”

“Do you want me to snatch them and string
them up with my father and Jack?”

“No! No, I want you to make sure that they
stay in a tent. Together. Whatever you do, don’t let them leave.
But don’t let them realize that you know they’re there. At some
point they’re bound to fall asleep. When they do, come find me at
once.”

“Why?” He crossed his arms with a petulant
scowl.

A sly grin spread into her eyes. “You’ll
see.”

It started raining towards the end of the
morning.

“Bloody hell,” Jack muttered, as raindrops
splashed into his eyes. He turned his face up to the sky and let
the rain wash over him. “Oy, on second thought, maybe not!”

It may have been cold and wet, but the rain
felt good on his bruised and torn body. It stung his back to the
point where his face contorted in a wince that wouldn’t go away,
but it also cooled it. Best of all, as rivulets began to run down
the side of his face he stuck out his tongue and licked at them,
mouth open to catch as much rainwater as he could. When he turned
to find Simon pressing his mouth to a trickle running down the post
he burst into laughter.

“Oy, Simon, I had no idea you liked to suck
the big ones.”

He let himself dissolve into light-headed
hysterics when Simon straightened and scowled at him.

“If I do then clearly you have nothing to
fear from me.” He nodded at Jack’s smallclothes.

Jack checked himself only to find the
tattered excuse for clothes soaked through and drooping to the
point of falling off, hiding nothing. Less than nothing in the cold
rain. His laughter doubled.

“Oy, you’re not winnin’ any prizes yourself,
mate.” He gestured with his chin to Simon.

Simon glanced down, brow shooting up. Then he
did something Jack never expected. He laughed. It was a rich, quiet
sound, rolling up from his chest and spreading into his face. He
shook his head and leaned his forehead against his stretched arm.
The two of them stood there like lunatics, naked and laughing in
the rain.

Jack’s glance shifted over Simon’s shoulder.
The guard set over them scowled off into the trees, ignoring them.
Beyond him a trio of young women watched them with bright eyes,
whispering to each other behind their hands.

“You got bets on which one of us is gonna
drop drawers first?” he called out to them.

The guard shook himself to attention as one
of the women called back, “My money’s on you, m’lord! And I’m
hopin’ I win soon.”

Simon looked up, past Jack in the direction
of the guard. He twisted to see who Jack was shouting to. His eyes
flashed to purposeful awareness. “Keep talking to them.”

He flickered a glance to Simon and nodded to
one of the other women. “Oy, what about you, love?”

She turned bright pink, giggling as she
shouted, “I’m with you, my lord!”

“Keep smiling,” Simon whispered, his words
fast, his eyes trained on something behind Jack. “Flirt with
them.”

“You gonna come help me keep my dignity
intact after you win your bet?” he winked.

The women’s faces suddenly paled, their eyes
flashing with alarm. Jack was just glancing over his shoulder to
see what they were seeing when Roderick grabbed his shoulders and
slammed him into the post. White sparks shot through his vision.
When they cleared he was standing face-to-face with Lydia. Two
thick men with maces stood behind her.

“Oh I see how it is.” The smile on her lips
didn’t reach the malice in her eyes. “You swear your fidelity to
that little mouse Madeline, you throw me off, but when someone
young and pretty comes along you’re all smiles?”

Jack turned his head to Simon, a look of ‘why
the bloody hell did you tell me to flirt with the girls?’ in his
eyes. Simon met his scowl with a steady expression that demanded
trust. At least one of them bloody well knew what was going on.

Lydia grabbed his jaw and wrenched him to
face her. Her smile returned and she batted her eyes, raindrops
sticking her lashes together. “I’ve come to take you on a walk,
Lord John.”

“Lovely afternoon for a walk.” Whether it was
the rain or the exchange with the women or Simon’s coaching, in
that moment Jack felt like he could take on Lydia and win.

“Untie him,” Lydia ordered.

Face sullen, Roderick reached over Jack’s
head to fumble with the knots. Jack grinned at him as if nothing
was out of the ordinary, but as Roderick’s frustration mounted Jack
switched to studying the young man. Knowing what he knew now it was
clear the wanker took more after his aunt than his father.

“I can’t get it,” Roderick growled. “Ropes’re
swollen.” He reached for the long knife in his belt and cut the
rope, leaving Jack’s hands bound.

“Oh well,” Lydia shrugged. “I think I like
him better a little helpless anyhow.” To prove her point she
snatched at the dangling end of the rope from his hands and held it
like a leash. She gave it a jerk. Jack had to jump to keep from
being pulled over. As it was, his smallclothes sagged down to his
thighs. The guards she’d brought with her snorted.

“Oy!” he shouted in protest.

Lydia turned towards him and laughed when she
saw his predicament.

“Oh, so you like showin’ off the prize you’re
after do ya, mate?” he snapped.

Lydia’s smirk dropped. She darted an envious
glance back and forth at the people who watched from the outskirts
of the common. Her eyes met Simon’s. Whatever she saw there whipped
her back straight and her chin up. “Fix his drawers,” she gestured
to one of her guards. “And go find him a cloak.”

The first guard ran off to search for a
cloak. The second grumbled as he yanked Jack’s pants up and tied
the drawstring too tight. Jack ignored him. He’d just made Lydia do
something he wanted her to.

“You plannin’ on leaving Simon tied up in the
rain?” He worked to find a way to stay one step ahead of her. “Only
he could come with us.”

She scowled at him, pulling the hood of the
cloak she wore over her head to fight off the raindrops. With a
deep breath her cloying smile returned. “Roderick can keep him
company. I want us to be alone.”

He matched her with a sham grin of his own,
guessing what she had in mind. “I apologize for disappointing you
in advance.”

“Jack, Jack, how could you ever be a
disappointment to me?” She moved in close and spread a hand on his
wet chest. You certainly weren’t a disappointment to me before,”
her fingers trailed lower. “At least not until you chickened
out.”

“Things have changed,” he told her, glad that
the rain and his myriad injuries kept nature from taking over.

“We’ll see,” she lowered her lashes.

“I found this.” Lydia stepped back at her
guard’s arrival with a cloak.

“Good. Throw it over his shoulders and make
sure he’s modest.”

Jack laughed at her change of tactics. Lydia
scowled and tugged on the rope.

It took more concentration than Jack wanted
to admit to keep his back straight and his face from showing pain
as Lydia dragged him away from the muddy common and along one of
the paths that wound through the tents, the guards following. The
camp had grown twentyfold since the days when Ethan had started it.
Jack didn’t recognize anything or anyone. But they recognized him.
He remembered the words that Simon had whispered to him to keep him
from breaking.

Faces peered out of tent flaps and from
behind trees. Young people and old stood by and stared at him in
awe as he passed. Simon was right. Their eyes were filled with
admiration. The three girls Simon had urged him to flirt with
glared at Lydia with pure venom as they passed. Clever Simon. He’d
turned at least three of Lydia’s people dead against her. Everyone
they passed looked like they could turn on her. It didn’t matter
that he looked like a drowned rat that had been mauled by a dog in
his smallclothes.

He stole a quick glance to Lydia. She walked
with assurance in her hips, expression caught between bright and
dark as her eyes avoided the forest folk. She didn’t see them as
anything more than obstacles.

“I have something I want to show you,” she
hummed as the rain picked up. “Something I think you’ll find very,
very interesting.”

“Oh yeah?” he feigned only casual interest.
“Is it a carriage on its way to Derby? ‘Cuz that’s about the only
thing I’m interested in seein’ right now.”

“No, it’s much more interesting than that.”
The smile she gave him made him shiver in spite of his efforts to
appear unmoved. “I’m going to show you your future, Lord John.”

“Oy, you taken to tellin’ fortunes to get
by?”

His toe hit a stone and he stumbled with a
grunt. A wiry man in his middle years lunged forward from the front
of a tent and steadied him. He was old enough to be Jack’s father
and yet respect shone clear from his eyes.

“Get away from him!” Lydia barked.

“Many thanks,” Jack ignored her. One of the
guards pushed the man aside. Jack nodded to him, straining to hold
his back straight and his shoulders wide.

“My lord,” the man nodded and backed away. He
shot a bitter glance to Lydia as they moved on.

“They should know better than to step out of
line,” Lydia sniffed as they turned a corner. “Miserable, filthy
scum.”

Jack swallowed the barb that came to his
lips. “We gonna tour your camp here for long? Only I got better
things to do.”

“This will only take as long as it takes you
to see reason.”

He huffed a laugh.

They stopped at a huge tent that was being
guarded by at least two heavily armed men that he could see. He was
on the verge of asking what the hell it was when the guards stepped
aside and Lydia pushed back the tent flap. A heartbeat before he
stepped into the dim tent he remembered what Madeline had told them
early that morning.

The tent was packed full of treasure. His jaw
went slack at the sight of it. Part of him thought Madeline had
been imagining things, but no, there it all was. Gold coins filled
strongboxes and chests that were stacked three and four high. A
barrel of bulging velvet purses stood against the tent post. Two
tables full of jewelry and ornamental swords rested in the center
of the space, the light of two lamps glinting off of it. There was
even a pile of brocade cushions and bolts of fabric piled on one
side. It was more money than he’d seen or hoped to see in his
lifetime. It was enough to feed and clothe an entire shire. It was
enough to pay Derbyshire’s portion of the king’s ransom. If Crispin
could see this loot he’d either go ballistic at Ethan’s thieving or
fall on his knees and thank his lucky stars that so much money had
fallen into his hands.

Except that it wasn’t in his hands. It was in
Lydia’s.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” She scooped a handful of
coins from one of the strongboxes and let it fall in a rhythm that
matched the rain on the canvas roof.

“Yeah, but it’s not really yours, mate,” he
shrugged. The motion shot fire through his back and he winced.

“Who says it isn’t?” She sauntered over to
the table and picked up a thick gold bracelet encrusted with rubies
and pearls. With a smile she clasped it around her wrist and held
her arm up to the lamplight to admire it. “Ever heard of the phrase
‘to the victor goes the spoils?’ Well it’s true. And in this case I
am the victor.” When Jack didn’t reply one way or another she
lowered her hand and fixed her hawk-like eyes on him instead. “It
can all be ours,” she flashed a smile as she swayed towards him.
“All of it. Mine and yours. We could be the richest lord and lady
in the shire.”