The Marsh Hawk (22 page)

“Leave it to you, eh?” Simon thundered, ripping his arm free. “What in hell's been going on between you two behind my back?”

“I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that,” the vicar said.

Simon stared. Pent-up anger and hurt and the bitter taste of betrayal roiled in him, launching a white-knuckled fist that hesitated just short of connecting with the vicar's rigid jaw.

“Go ahead, plant me a facer if it will make you feel better,” the vicar said. Unflinching, he squared his posture in obvious anticipation.

Simon raked his hair back from a moist brow and balled his hand into a fist again, this time at his side.

“Talk!” he seethed. “And you had better make it good.”

“What?” the vicar said. He popped a strangled grunt. “You heard all that just now. I was just as taken aback as you were.”

“But you knew there was . . . something.”

“Yes, I did,” he said, giving a deep nod. “I knew she suspected the Marsh Hawk of her father's murder, and I knew she was mistaken. I tried to convince her of that without overstepping my bounds with either one of you, and I told her repeatedly to speak with you about what was troubling her. I can see now why she didn't. Simon, she thinks you murdered her father!”

“You know that's absurd.”

“
I
do, yes, but I don't matter. You've got to make
her
see it, or your marriage is over before it's begun.”

Simon clouded. All at once the pure ecstasy of Jenna's soft, naked body, molded to the contours of his own, visited him. The heady scent of rosemary and lavender threaded through his memory—her scent; it overpowered him. He relived the eager abandon with which she let him approach her innocence, with which she let him take it. In spite of himself, his loins tightened.

“You should have let me go after her,” he snapped.

“No, Simon, not like this. Not till you've calmed down. You're a headstrong, bungling fool in a passion, and enough harm's been done as it is.”

“You haven't let me finish,” Simon returned. “You should have let me go after her while I was still of a mind to do so; it's too late for that now.”

“Simon, you've got to.”

Simon shook his head.

“But . . . why? You two have got to talk this out. She knows who you are. Are you mad? You never even made an effort to defend yourself—not one word!”

“I shouldn't
have
to. Not to her,” he flashed. “She should know better. Do I come off as the sort to bludgeon old men to death—military men, at that? You know why the Marsh Hawk rides, and you know who he targets.”

“But she doesn't! That's why you've got to set her straight—and quickly. You should have made a clean breast of it long before now. Do you want to swing at Tyburn? Hah! I'll likely swing right alongside you, for complicity, just as I've said all along. If you don't give a tinker's curse for your own neck, you might have a care about mine. She knows I'm involved now as well.”

“If you're so worried over your neck, then
you
talk to her,” Simon ground out through a deep, throaty chuckle. “I'm off to London.”

“To lick your wounds?” the vicar snapped.

“Don't preach to me, Rob, I'm at the end of my tether. I warn you!”

“You never should have gotten into this Marsh Hawk madness. I warned that you would rue the day you took to highway robbery, no matter how noble the cause.”

“Yes, well, don't worry. I absolve you of your complicity.”

“That isn't funny, Simon.”

“Maybe not, but you have to admit it's in keeping with the ‘sacrosanct' flavor of the morning.”

“Simon, put yourself in Jenna's place.”

A mad laugh replied.

“Be reasonable here. It wasn't personal. She didn't know it was you she gunned down on that road.”

“I'm not leaving because of that. I can almost forgive that she bloody near killed me. She was trying to avenge her father, and she evidently didn't set out to do murder.” He breathed a ragged sigh. “You know, I almost envy her resolve . . . and that she had a father worth avenging. No, I can't fault her for that.”

“
What
, then, for God's sake?”

“This here today wounds me far more deeply than that bullet ever did, Rob. She should have come to
me
with that confession, not you. That's what's stuck in my craw. That's what's ripping a hole in my heart, and that is what I don't believe I can ever forgive.”

Jenna had no idea where she was going, only that she must leave Kevernwood Hall posthaste, and she packed as though her very life depended upon it. She would not take any of the lovely things Simon had given her, only her own frocks and garments; those which her mother had delivered in the portmanteau she had left behind at Moorhaven Manor while fleeing with Simon after the duel.

She stared down at her mud-soaked, sprigged muslin frock. It was one of the lovely creations that Simon had commissioned the dressmaker, Olive Reynolds, to make for her. It took only seconds to wriggle out of it. She rummaged through the pile of rumpled clothing she had heaped on the bed and snaked out her riding habit. For a moment she crushed it close to her breast. She remembered Simon's strong arms holding her in that habit in the conservatory when he proposed to her, remembered the gentle strength in his hands caressing her through the thin Merino wool, arousing her, leading her to the brink of ecstasy. But it was only a brief reverie. Reliving those steamy memories stirred something awake inside that caused the habit to jump from her hands and join the sprigged muslin at her feet as though it had caught fire and burned her.

She never wanted to see it again.

Choosing instead a dove gray traveling costume that held no memories and invoked no passions, she struggled into it and continued packing.

Her heart was numb. The awful look in Simon's eyes haunted her—the hurt and the anger in his blue-fire stare. That look had run her through. She would take it to her grave. He hadn't even tried to defend himself. He hadn't even made an attempt to deny his guilt. His silence damned him. It had broken her heart, and her grief was so overwhelming that she couldn't even rejoice in the fact that she hadn't done murder after all on that dark night which seemed a lifetime ago.

She had never felt so alone. In the space of a few short hours, she had lost both her husband and her confidant. All at once the dimity frock she'd been folding slipped from her hands. She sank down on the edge of the bed beside the overflowing portmanteau and stared through the tall mullioned panes toward the light streaming in through the window. It was golden and warm pressed up against the glass. How dare it shine upon her sorrows? The rampant thoughts banging around in her brain were so hopelessly bizarre a jumble that she groaned aloud under the weight of them—not the least of which were: Where would she go? What was she to do? Though she loved Simon more than life itself, how could she ever live with him now? More poignantly, how could she ever live
without
him?

When the knock came, she vaulted off the bed as though she'd been launched from a catapult, and stood trembling head to toe, her eyes riveted to the barred door of her chamber.

“Are you in there, my lady? 'Tis Molly. Horton says you've had the coupe brought ‘round. He says you're leavin'! It's that upset, he is! Will you be taking me with you, my lady, and should I pack?” The knock came again. “Are you all right, my lady? Why is the door locked? You're scaring me now. Horton says you were that overset, and Barstow won't hear of any of the other grooms taking you. He's sitting out there in that coupe himself, yes ma'am, he is!”

Jenna crammed the rest of her things into the portmanteau, slammed it shut, and shrugged on the spencer that matched her costume. Molly knocked again, more urgently, and Jenna snatched up the portmanteau, unbolted the tall, gilded door, and swept past the nonplussed maid teetering on the threshold.

“My lady! Am I not to go with you?” the girl shrilled.

“No, Molly, you shall not,” Jenna said with conviction, starting toward the staircase. “I've no right to take you from Kevernwood Hall. Your place is here.”

“But, my lady, surely you aren't going for good?”

“I'm sorry,” said Jenna over her shoulder as she struggled down the stairs with the portmanteau.

“But you can't just run off all on your own, my lady. 'Tisn't proper—'tisn't safe!” the maid pleaded. Having relieved her of the portmanteau, the girl struggled along with it close on her heels. “Where will you go? Who'll care for you?”

“I assure you I'm well able to take care of myself. I'm going . . . home,” Jenna decided, choking back tears. Thistle Hollow was the last place she wanted to go, but she had no other options.

“You
are
home!” said a booming voice that stopped her in her tracks halfway down the staircase.

It belonged to Robert Nast, who stood, arms akimbo, blocking the landing at the bottom of the stairs.

Jenna hesitated only briefly before she continued to descend.

“Don't try to stop me, Robert,” she warned. “Please stand aside.”

“We have unfinished business, Jenna,” he returned. Taking her arm in one hand, meanwhile relieving Molly of the portmanteau with the other, he dismissed the maid with a nod and said to Jenna, “After I've had my say, you can go with my blessing . . . if you're still so inclined. But hear me out, you will—now come.”

With no more said, he steered her along the corridor to the conservatory despite her protests, and planted her squarely on the selfsame wicker love seat where Simon had proposed to her. How cruel was the man? Did he not know what she was suffering? Why didn't he just let her go? He knew it was hopeless. He knew Simon was the Marsh Hawk. He'd known it all along.

“Robert, please,” she murmured, blinking back tears. She would be red with blotches in a minute if he didn't let her go. “I trusted you and you deceived me—betrayed me,” she cried. “We have nothing to say to one another.”

“I haven't betrayed you, Jenna,” the vicar said wearily, sinking down beside her on the love seat. “I've bungled badly trying my best to serve you both separately. That was wrong of me—terribly wrong. I've hurt you both instead, and I shall never forgive myself for that.”

“None of that matters any longer, Robert. It's over.”

“Only if you let it be.”

She stared into the vicar's soulful amber eyes. They seemed so sincere. No matter how he saw it, he
had
betrayed her. She could give no other name to it. He knew. All the while he pretended to be her friend, he
knew
. He knew exactly what she was suffering, what she was wrestling with, and he had let her go right on suffering. He'd
married
them knowing. She was the complete want-wit for allowing those traitorous soulful eyes to flummox her so thoroughly.

“I told you from our first meeting that the Marsh Hawk did not murder those he robbed, Jenna,” he said, as though he read her thoughts. “Nor did he ever manhandle or abuse them. I told you that his mission was a benevolent one. I call that not deception.”

“What . . .'benevolence' could possibly come from highway robbery, pray?”

“I told you how passionately Simon championed those with pockets to let, especially those among them that have been cashiered-out by the military. Simon took the issue to the proper authorities, but nothing to speak of was done. Whether it be the poor king's madness, or the Prince Regent's indifference—in that his attention seems to be centered . . . elsewhere, to put it delicately—and since the aristocracy will not take a step but that the Regent lead them, Simon took matters into his own hands. What he steals from the aristocracy benefits those down-at-the-heels souls that have been disenfranchised and forgotten. These include the unfortunate conscriptees—men taken by force from public houses, gambling hells, and, yes, brothels—who have meanwhile had their lands seized for nonpayment of taxes while they were in His Majesty's service on other shores.

“Many of the wives of such men have been transported, Jenna, and their children incarcerated in workhouses, for their having sunk to stealing and prostitution to feed their families. Many of the mustered-out men who served this country well—many maimed and wearing the medals they've earned—are begging in the streets of London and other cities in this land as we speak. Some of those men fought alongside Simon at Copenhagen. Many fought beside Nelson at Trafalgar, and God alone knows how many fought beside Wellington—
still
fight beside him and soon will join their number. These are Simon's cause.”

“And you condone his methods?”

“No, I do not. I never have, but Simon is my friend, Jenna, and I will stand beside him in whatever madness he employs, because I know his heart, and I know that he would do the same for me. And, yes, I will protect that bond however I have to. I know what he's sprung from—what he's risen above, if you will. He has lived his life thus far for others. What he has done for Evelyn and Crispin doesn't even scratch the surface of the man. Did you know that he has funded two veterans' hospitals—sold plantations in the Indies, and holdings in the Highland to do it, and invested half of his fortune besides in these unfortunates and their families? No. And you never will from Simon's lips. You have no inkling of the measure of the man you've married.”

“Still . . .” Jenna responded, shaking her head.

“Jenna, Simon had a dreadful childhood. His father was a mean-spirited, unfeeling tyrant, as stingy with his affections as he was with his wealth, who hung all his hopes on Simon's elder brother, Edgar—his heir. When Edgar disappointed him, he didn't turn to Simon, whom he'd kicked aside; he turned in on himself and died a miserable, embittered old man. I conducted his funeral ceremony. Simon was the only soul in attendance.”