A Matter of Grave Concern (18 page)

Max managed to get the gun away from Peter, but it hadn’t been easy with Jack trying to retaliate by coming after the man with that knife of his.

“Stupid bastard.” Jack glowered at Peter while Max pinned him to the wall.

Max thought Bill had been seriously injured. Jack’s brother sat slumped on the floor, where he’d fallen when the gun went off. But a closer look revealed that the bullet had only grazed his arm.

“That bloke shot me,” he said, eyes glazed.

“Don’t you worry, brother, he ever comes at us again, he’ll get what’s comin’ to him.” Jack turned the knife in his hand. “Then we’ll have us
another
corpse to sell.”

“Sometimes I think you’d sell mine, Jack,” his brother mumbled.

“Just don’t die on me,” Jack said with a laugh.

Feeling as if Jack could finally be trusted to restrain himself for the moment, Max turned his attention to Tom’s brother. “Are you finished here? I dare say it’s time for you to go home while you can still do so with all your body parts intact.”

“You should have let me kill him,” Jack said. “It would have been self-defense, clear and simple.”

“No one’s going to hurt him,” Max said.

“What have you done with my brother?” Peter asked, but he looked deflated, more distraught than dangerous.

Max addressed Bill and Jack. “Where does he belong? I’ll take him to his wife.”

“He has no wife—or other family,” Bill said.

“Except Tom,” Max reminded him.

The Hurtsills exchanged a look that made the blood run cold in Max’s veins. There was no more brother—no more Tom. Max felt certain of it. But just as he was about to call Bill on the slip, he saw Abby standing on the steps, gaping at the scene below her.

“Go back upstairs,” he said.

She didn’t do as he directed. She shook her head. “No. I’m leaving. I’m finished here.”

She hurried down the final three steps and attempted to circumvent them, but Jack intercepted her.

“You’re not goin’ anywhere,” he said. “You had us give that money back to the college, said you’d help us replace it and you’re gonna do just that. I won’t have you betray me like this bastard’s brother did. We’re goin’ to be a mite more careful around here. So get your pretty little arse up those stairs before you wind up in my bed instead of Max’s.”

Her gaze riveted on the blood seeping down Bill’s arm. “I want no part of this.”

“What, you can’t take a little blood?” Jack scoffed.

“It’s not the blood I’m worried about.” When she met his gaze, her eyes narrowed with scathing accusation. “I’m afraid you killed Tom.”

“It’s that kind of talk that’ll get you in trouble,” he warned. “I don’t know where Tom is. I haven’t seen him, and I won’t have you saying otherwise—to anyone. You understand? You decided to become one of us. It’s too late to back out now.”

She licked her lips, obviously nervous. “You’re not . . . you’re not going to have Max lock me in the room again.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Jack said. “If you go missing, I’ll hold Max accountable—and I’ll do everything I can to destroy your father.”

Max dragged Tom’s brother to the door and pushed him outside without the pistol he had brought. That lay on the floor, where Max had forced him to drop it once he got off that first shot. “There’s no need to threaten either of us,” he told Jack while keeping one eye on Tom’s brother to be sure he scrambled away and wouldn’t cause any more trouble.

All the excitement set Borax off. He strained against his leash, barking and jumping in an effort to reach Tom’s brother, but, even drunk, Peter managed to avoid the dog.

“I won’t be having you tell me my business ever again, Max,” Jack said above the din. “You’ve crossed that line one too many times—do you understand? You mind that bitch of yours and do your job, and we’ll get along just fine. ’Cause if you don’t”—he used his knife to punctuate his words—“one way or another, I’ll make sure you regret it.”

Max closed and locked the door. “Like you did with Tom?”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t tempt me to take this any further. Tom got only what he deserved.”

Max measured his chances of wresting that knife away. He felt as if he could overcome Jack; physically, Jack was no match for him. But he feared Bill would grab Abby. Jack’s brother was already standing up and moving closer. And if it came down to a standoff, it would cost him any chance he had of finding Madeline. He wouldn’t be able to achieve justice for that woman Jack brought home—or for Tom, either.

Max wanted to see Jack properly punished for whatever he had done, so he clenched his jaw and overcame the impulse to act. First, he would get everything he wanted out of Jack and Bill—so that he could save Madeline, if she was still alive.

“Abby, go back upstairs,” he said, and this time she did as she was told.

Chapter 19

Jack refused to go to bed even though he clearly needed some sleep. Max wasn’t sure how the man remained on his feet. He was running on gin, and gin alone. But Jack was odd like that. Sometimes he would stay up for several days in a row. He said he
couldn’t
sleep, especially during the day, didn’t like feeling as if the world was going on without him.

Max wished exhaustion would take over—or that the man would simply pass out. But that didn’t happen. He insisted they all go out together and search for Emmett. Although Max argued that Abby should be allowed to stay at the house, and then that they could cover more ground if they split up, Jack rejected both propositions. He said no one was going to be anywhere he couldn’t see them.

Jack was growing paranoid, Max thought. And that concerned him. It made the gang leader even more volatile and dangerous than he already was.

Besides checking the garret where Emmett lived, not far from Execution Dock, they visited several brothels and taverns and talked to people in the streets. No one had seen Emmett.

“Maybe Tom knows where he is,” Max suggested, trying to get Jack to reveal more about what might have happened to Tom. But that achieved little. Jack didn’t even answer. And his mood seemed to worsen as the hours passed. No doubt he didn’t feel well after being up for so long. But the way he watched Abby made Max nervous. Max should have gotten her away from the London Supply Company when he could have. Instead he had let her lie to that constable and join the gang—and now he feared it was too late. Even if he took her home after Jack went to sleep, Jack knew where she lived. Max feared he would only become determined to punish her as he had punished Tom. That meant her father or someone else at the college could get hurt, too.

He would have to keep her by his side a little longer, Max decided. But he already knew it wasn’t going to be easy to lie beside her each night and not touch what he had grown so familiar with. She would scarcely look at him now, but the memory of her body, rising to meet the thrust of his hand, played in his mind over and over again, making his heart pound in his chest.

When they finally abandoned the search and returned to Farmer’s Landing, Abby ate a small dinner and went up to their room. They had gotten in late the night before. Then they had been so caught up in each other that they had slept for only a few hours. She had to be almost as exhausted as Jack was. Max knew he was.

Sure enough, when Max joined Abby, he found her in bed, facing away from him. She gave no indication that she even heard him come in.

He closed the door and locked it for good measure. Bill was gone but Jack was home. Max didn’t want him to wake before they did, didn’t want him coming in while he and Abby were sleeping. They had to be extra careful going forward. Jack had drawn battle lines—and was waiting to see if Max would cross them.

Max hoped he would be able to avoid doing so for as long as it would take to learn Madeline’s fate—for as long as it would take to get them all out of there alive. But there were no guarantees. He would have to cross those lines eventually, and once he did, anything could happen.

“I should have left you at Aldersgate when we delivered that corpse,” he said. There was an edge to his voice; no doubt she heard it. But he wasn’t angry with
her
. He was angry with himself for ignoring his better judgment. As much as he wanted to blame Abby for insisting on returning, he knew that wasn’t entirely fair. If, deep down, he hadn’t wanted to keep her with him, he would have made her stay at the school.

She said nothing, and yet he could tell she wasn’t asleep.

“Are you not speaking to me?” That was all he could guess. She had barely said a word to him since they left earlier.

“What do you want me to say?” she asked. “You’ve already made it clear you don’t want me here. I would go if I could.”

He wished he could see her face. How upset was she?

He couldn’t tell, because she didn’t roll over. “I just want you to be safe.”

“Then it’s a good thing I
didn’t
stay at Aldersgate last night.”

“Excuse me?”

“Who knows how Jack might have reacted if I didn’t come back? We’re in the middle of this now. We have to see it through.”

He removed his coat. “If Madeline’s dead, I’m risking your safety for nothing. That’s what bothers me.”

“We don’t know she’s dead. We have to assume the best. It might be the only chance she has. You said she would never willingly abandon her child.”

But, even if she was alive, would he ever be able to find her? Or was he grasping at thin air?

Probably the latter, but he couldn’t extinguish the hope that burned so brightly inside him—the desire to achieve her forgiveness and, more than anything, restore his nephew’s mother.

“I’ll give it another week,” he said. “If we don’t find her, or something that gives some indication that we can expect the best possible outcome, I’ll go to the police with what I know.”

Finally, she rolled over. “And what do you know?”

“Not enough,” he admitted. That was the problem. The police would come. Thanks to who he was, they might even perform an investigation. But Max had no confidence their efforts would amount to anything, or he would have handled the situation that way from the beginning. He had been living with Jack for three weeks and hadn’t yet found the answers he sought. What more could
they
do? And if he went that route, Abby could still be in danger. Thanks to his deception, she might be in even
more
danger, because if Jack learned the truth, it would only provoke him. It wouldn’t be unlike Jack to use Abby to hurt Max.

Stifling a sigh, he piled his waistcoat and shirt on the chair where he had just draped his coat, and climbed into bed. It had been a long day and what had happened with Tom’s brother left him uncertain that he had chosen the most prudent course, especially when it came to Abby.

“I never liked Tom,” he said, voicing what had been going through his mind since Peter showed up with that pistol. “But I can’t help feeling sorry for him. His background played a big role in the type of unfortunate adult he turned out to be.”

“He was weaker than Jack and Jack preyed on him. That’s why you pity him. Tom deserves justice the same as Madeline.”

“I hope we can get that justice.”

He could see the fat rope her braid made in the moonlight and couldn’t help remembering what her hair had felt like, falling freely across his chest.

“Are you cold?” He hoped she would say yes so he would have an excuse to provide her with his body heat.

“I’m fine,” she said stiffly.

He could tell that, no matter what he did, she wouldn’t allow him to touch her, not after what he had told her earlier. She wanted his heart as well as his body—and that was what he couldn’t provide.

“Do you think Emmett’s in gaol?” she asked.

“I can’t imagine he wouldn’t come here to let us know, had he escaped the cemetery.”

When their eyes met, she pulled the blankets up that much higher. “I’m worried about him.”

“I am, too—and yet I can’t help being relieved that he inadvertently distracted those men at St. George’s. I doubt we would have gotten away otherwise, and I shudder to think what they might have done to you.”

They certainly wouldn’t have been able to squire off the corpse they had disinterred.

“Why doesn’t Emmett board here like Tom did?” she asked. “He seems so young. How does he get by on his own?”

“Emmett’s willing to work with Jack; he’s not willing to live with him.”

“Tom would’ve been smart to stay elsewhere, too—with his brother or, failing that, at a common lodging house. Why would he subject himself to Jack’s abuse?”

“Who knows? Emmett’s life, hard though it has been, has probably been easier. At least he’s been able to make friends. I don’t get the impression Tom ever managed that. And Peter isn’t any more stable than Tom is . . . or was, if he’s no longer alive.”

When she didn’t say anything, he almost reached for her. He longed to forget everything that had transpired between them that day, wished they could go back to the night before. After the liberties he had taken, it felt so natural to draw her to him. He wanted to slip off whatever she had on and kiss her until he could no longer think about Madeline or Jack or anything else.

But every time he shifted, she inched away from him, as if she was opposed to encountering him even by accident. He feared if she moved any farther she would fall out of bed.

“It surprised me that his room was so neat and clean,” she said.

“That’s probably another reason he’s not willing to live here.” Max hated living in such squalor.

“Does he have a sweetheart?”

“From what I can gather, he prefers a good whore to anyone he might become responsible for.”

“How admirable.”

At the sarcasm in her voice, Max wished he hadn’t been quite so candid. After all, she hadn’t had the best experience with him—and he was her
only
experience. He didn’t want to poison her against men. “You have to remember who he is. He doesn’t know any better. He spends most of his time just figuring out how to fill his belly each day.”

“I’m ready to return to the college.”

He had finally convinced her that she would be better off there. So why, despite all his talk to the contrary, was he so reluctant to see her go?

Stifling a sigh, he moved onto his back and tried to fall sleep. But it didn’t happen right away. He stared at the ceiling for a while, then he turned to watch Abby sleep.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were in love with someone else?” she asked at length.

Apparently, she wasn’t sleeping after all. He was glad—until he reached over to smooth her hair back, and she recoiled.

“Because love has nothing to do with it,” he said and dropped his hand.

“
Are you awake? We need to get up.”

Abby felt as if she had barely closed her eyes. “Why so early?” she grumbled.

“It’s not early. It’s midmorning.”

It didn’t look like midmorning. When she rolled over to face the window, she saw that it was a dark and dreary day. “It wasn’t all that long ago that we went to bed.”

“I have to check in with my clerk. I prefer to do that while Jack’s sleeping. With Tom . . . gone”—she noticed that he didn’t say
dead
, even though that was what they both believed—“Emmett likely in gaol and Bill home with his domineering wife, there will be no one to follow us.”

“Fine. I’m coming.” She didn’t want to be left behind with Jack—or locked in the room. Besides, maybe she could learn something from Max’s clerk. She couldn’t get a word out of Max about the woman he planned to marry. Who was she? Where did she think he was? Did she know he was sharing a bed with someone else? What was their relationship like?

Abby certainly wondered—especially when she pushed the blankets away and Max’s gaze riveted on what the thin fabric of her chemise revealed.

Covering her breasts with her hands, she gave him a starched look. “Is there some reason you feel free to ogle me, Mr. Wilder?”

He frowned, obviously disappointed by her reaction. “If I can’t touch you, at least let me look.”

“You can look at your fiancée.” She smiled with feigned sweetness. “Have you told her about me, by the way? Or are you excusing your behavior because you have pleasured me with your mouth and your hands but have saved your cock for her?”

“Don’t provoke me, Abby,” he growled. “I preserved your maidenhead for
your
sake, not hers.”

“Still, I’m sure she will appreciate your restraint.”

“My fiancée and I aren’t exclusive. I can take my pleasure wherever I like. What she and I have is more of a . . . a business arrangement.”

“And that’s supposed to make what we have done less of a betrayal? Or is it designed to make me want to spread my legs and stupidly beg you to take me as I have done before?”

A muscle moved in his cheek. “Only if you feel, as I do, that taking advantage of this time, this chance to be together, is better than walking away with nothing.”

“From what you have said, I
will
walk away with nothing. Isn’t that what you have been trying to convey?”

He lowered his voice in entreaty. “I have been trying to convey my honest limitations. Anything short of that would be unfair to you.”

She slipped off her chemise and let him look, secretly gratified by the hunger in his eyes. “So now that I know I will be cast aside, your conscience is clear and I can throw myself onto the rocks if I want to?”

“It wouldn’t be like that.” He stepped forward, no doubt eager to convince her, but she held up a hand to stop him.

“I appreciate your generous offer. But, surely, someday I will meet a man not promised to someone else who might want to touch me here”—she ran her own fingers over the tips of her breasts and moved lower—“and here.”

“You want what I want,” he insisted.