Much Ado About Rogues (20 page)

“Then what do you believe?”

His smile was rueful. “Unfortunately, I think Sinjon may have been too clever for his own good, and expected us to be smarter than we are.”

“What? But we both agreed. The last place a fool would look for him obviously has to be someplace he’s already been, and that leads us straight back to Cleveland Row. You can’t be serious,” Tess said, wishing none of what Jack had just said were even remotely plausible.

“Actually, I think I am. But let’s go through this, all right?”

Tess glanced toward the mantel, and the clock that had already ticked away the hours until noon. If they’d been wrong, they had precious little time to figure out what was right. “All right. Start at the beginning which, I suppose, would be the Gypsy?”

“The Gypsy’s
return,
you mean. We’ve already agreed that the man threw down the gauntlet with his robbery at the museum, leaving his card there so that Sinjon would have to know he was back. Because he respects his mentor’s skills, he doesn’t attack Sinjon in his own lair, preferring to draw him out into the open, goad him into making a mistake.”

“But Sinjon doesn’t make mistakes.”

“No. He makes plans, at least two for any possibility, and he’s got a lot to choose from. He knows the Gypsy expects him to come to London, go hunting for him. So he disappears instead, taking the Mask of Isis along with him on the slim chance everything goes sideways and he has to flee the country. If he even took the damned thing with him. He could just as easily have been carrying a load of bricks in that sack, with the mask hidden somewhere at the manor house. He didn’t need it gone, Tess, he only needed me to believe it was gone. I needed to connect it with the advertisement in the
Times.
”

“He planned all along to include you in his plan to kill the Gypsy?”

“Absolutely. One way or another, he always meant for me to come back to him if he needed me. Telling me about Jacques was probably his trump card, but it turned out he didn’t need to play it directly. Not when he knew Liverpool would hear of his disappearance soon enough and send me as the logical choice to find him.”

Jack had her full attention now. “Putting the Gypsy directly in your path. Sinjon always meant for you to rid him of the man if he came back. Pitting his former students against each other, as he watched. As you said, Jack, like bugs under a glass.”

“Exactly. He knew I’d go first to the manor house. He knew I’d find Jacques. He knew I’d be able to follow his trail to London. He knew I wouldn’t leave you and our son unprotected in the country—and if I’m right, that’s important, as it left him free to raid his treasure room. But then we got a little too close, I don’t know how, but we did. So he sent his minions to kidnap Jacques, gain my cooperation in exchange for our son’s release.”

“But that didn’t work.” Tess was beginning to feel hopeful for the first time in days. “So now he has to change his plans yet again. If nothing else, Jack, we haven’t been making it easy for him. He writes that letter, surely not the one he’d originally planned for us to read.”

Jack poured them each a glass of wine, clearly taking some time to think through his suppositions. “Yes, that damned letter. Trading his supposed knowledge of my past for keeping him alive, for disposing of the Gypsy. He knows how to place his needles, I’ll give him that. Hinting that he knows my father’s identity was the perfect way to intrigue me, cloud my judgment. And all a lie. He only knew what I’d told him that first night we met, nothing more. He was attempting to use my past to control me.”

“Don’t think about that, Jack. What we do have to think about is his plan for the Gypsy. At least we hope the Gypsy saw Sinjon’s advertisement, or else there’d be no reason to go back to Number 9 in any case. You don’t suppose the Gypsy never responded?”

“No, he saw the advertisement. The Gypsy delivered his letter in person. Do you remember the liveried servant? The red hair?”

Tess frowned. “Yes. Yes, I do. Or at least I remember you saying something I didn’t quite understand. That was the Gypsy? How do you know?”

“Two reasons. One, I’ve seen costumes very much like it on the stage. And two, no footman is that tall and well fed. The man’s as arrogant and flamboyant as Sinjon described him. And reckless.”

“Yes, I can see that. But I still don’t understand. If Sinjon isn’t going to be in Cleveland Row tonight, where is he going to— Oh, my God.”

“The place no fool would look for him, yes. On his own ground, his own carefully prepared ground, I’m sure, the place he knows best and is most comfortable. He always must have believed the man would come to the manor house, and made his plans accordingly. Instead, the Gypsy called him out, and now Sinjon is returning the favor, bringing the man to him, full circle. It’s going to be a close-run thing, Tess, and a total disaster if I’m wrong. But I don’t think I am. Sinjon wasn’t lying, not completely, in his letter to us. He told us where he’d be. We just didn’t see it.”

“And he’s sitting in his web at the manor house, waiting for the Gypsy, waiting for you to kill the man for him—while we’re here, in London. How very strange, Jack. He nearly outsmarted himself this time, didn’t he?”

“If I’m right. I have to warn the others in any case, because, if I’m wrong, your father and the Gypsy will be at Number 9 tonight, don’t forget, and only God knows what will happen. I’m not sure Will is up to the sort of fight the Gypsy might present.”

“I know we’re right,” Tess said firmly, with a quick glance at the clock. “Write your note and have Wadsworth order the horses around while I change. I can be ready to ride in ten minutes.”

“Eleven,” Jack said, pulling her into his arms and bringing his mouth down hard on hers.

She held on tight, taking in his strength, fueling her own courage.

“Thank you,” he said against her ear as he broke the kiss but still held her close. “For trusting me. For the first time since this all began, I really feel as if we’re on the right path.”

“Lord knows we’ve taken enough wrong ones,” she said, pressing a kiss against his neck before he let her go. “Now to see where this particular path leads us.”

* * *

F
IVE
OR
MORE
hours by coach, three on horseback. They had time, if the Gypsy kept to Sinjon’s timetable and arrived at the manor house at ten. But why would he do that, play the game entirely by Sinjon’s rules? Jack knew he was done dancing to the man’s tune.

He looked at Tess, sitting quietly beside him in the coach in her shirt and breeches. Was she considering what they’d do if the manor house was empty, or if they found her father’s body there? Was death going to cheat her out of the confrontation she believed due her?

Was it wrong of him to hope that was the case, relieving him of the job of disposing of the man? Because, one way or another, Sinjon Fonteneau was going to die tonight; Jack had made up his mind to that. The man had lived long enough.

They were nearly clear of the city now, where they’d meet up with Wadsworth and their mounts, and soon there’d be no time for talking.

“Wadsworth all but fell on my neck in gratitude when I told him there’d be no need to have him rigged out as a Nabob,” he said, just to fill the tense silence. “Although I should probably warn you that he’d already applied the betel nut juice to his hands and face, in preparation. With luck, he’ll be his pale self again within the week, which is a good thing, as I’d neglected to take in the fact of his blue eyes. He would have made a very unconvincing Nabob in any but a very dark room.”

Tess smiled, probably because she thought he wanted her to, even as her gloved hands remained drawn up into tight fists in her lap.

Jack had decided it was too risky to have Tess seen mounted on her mare, and equally foolhardy to have their mounts tied up behind the coach, just in case the Grosvenor Square mansion was being watched by Will or Dickie. He knew he was burning bridge after bridge by cutting his supposed partners out of his plan, and if he was wrong in his conclusion that Sinjon was at the manor house he could probably count the time he’d remain in government service in days, if not hours. And then what? Would he replace Sinjon as the man Liverpool wouldn’t care to have walking about, carrying so many dangerous secrets?

Tess reached over and put her hand on his. “I’ve left you to your thoughts, hoping they’re brilliant. Do you have a plan?”

Jack smiled, remembering something Puck had once said. “According to my brother, he’s the brain, and I’m the brawn. Since Puck isn’t here, I was hoping you’d come up with something wonderfully brilliant and hopefully foolproof.”

“I’m afraid I’ve been sitting here being selfish, thinking up questions to ask him, even knowing he’ll tell me nothing but lies.”

“At least his lies would be more palatable than any truths, Tess,” Jack said as the coach slowed to a halt, “even if he still knows the difference, which I doubt. You don’t need to talk to him. You don’t need his lies or his truths.”

“And is that how you feel about your mother?” she asked, her eyes flashing in sudden anger. “I thought we’d settled this, Jack. It’s why I’m here. You even said it. We’re on the right path at last.”

“I didn’t say we’d agreed on what to do when we reached our destination. I can’t promise you anything, Tess. If it comes to a fight, I’m not going to put either of us in jeopardy in order to save Sinjon. He’s not worth saving.”

“I didn’t mean that,” she said angrily. “Just remember you aren’t going there as executioner. Or is that what you want?”

“Tess—”

The coach door opened and Wadsworth’s more red than brown, blue-eyed face appeared. “Permission to ride with you, sir!” he said in fine sergeant-major tones.

“Let him,” Tess whispered. “We don’t know that the Gypsy will come alone.”

Jack looked to Tess’s pinched face, and then nodded. “Permission granted with thanks, Wadsworth.”

“Thank you, sir! I owes the bugger one for trying to take Master Jock, sir!”

“Indeed you do. We all do,” Jack said as he helped Tess down from the coach. “Are you armed?”

“To the teeth, sir!” Wadsworth all but shouted, and then grinned, said teeth showing frighteningly white in his betel nut–stained face.

“In that case, why are you standing there? Let’s ride.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Will he know not to be quite so loud once we’re in sight of the manor house?” Tess asked as Jack helped her mount. “We hardly want to announce our arrival.”

“True.” Jack averted his eyes, hoping Tess was so caught up in her own thoughts she wouldn’t be able to read his. “I’ll point that out to him. Don’t worry about Wadsworth. He’ll follow orders, without question.”

“And I won’t?”

“I’d like to think you would, in which case I’d order you to get back in that coach and return to London. But I’d be wasting my breath, wouldn’t I?”

“I think you already are. You should probably spend the next few hours thinking up ways to capture two very dangerous men.”

He looked at her levelly. “Capture? Again, Tess? Will you never give up until I say I won’t harm a hair on their damn heads, for God’s sake?”

“I suppose I really don’t care what you have to do with the Gypsy, as long as he pays for René’s death. The hangman’s rope or a swift knife to the heart.”

“So now I have your permission to kill the man. How wonderful. Clearly I have my uses.”

Her shrug was eloquent and maddening. “Yes, but are you being used? There is the fact that Sinjon so clearly wants him dead. And not just dead, Jack. Dead at your hand. Why?”

“I hadn’t thought of that, but frankly, I really don’t give a bloody damn what Sinjon wants. My only intention right now is to keep the two of us alive,” Jack said shortly, and turned to walk over to his own horse. Once mounted, he urged the stallion forward at a walk, until he was abreast of Tess’s mare. “You wanted to be a part of this, and I was idiot enough to allow it. But don’t get in my way, Tess, because I’m going to do what I have to do, and you’ve always known that.”

“So now we finally hear the truth. You’re going there to kill. That’s all you can see, isn’t it? You don’t really care about answers. You say you do because you think that’s what I want to hear, but you don’t. You just want it all to go away. That’s always been your answer. Make it go away or, failing that, taking yourself away. How do you think that will settle anything? All it does is make you a murderer—Liverpool’s or Sinjon’s, it doesn’t really matter, does it?—and perhaps a coward, as well. Think about
that
as you ride, Jack Blackthorn. Think about that!”

She then dug her heels into her mount’s flanks and took off down the road, leaving Jack and Wadsworth to catch up.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

S
HE
’
D
GONE
TOO
far, said too much. She’d known it the moment the words were out of her mouth, but how could she fix it? She couldn’t take back what she’d said. Especially since she’d meant what she said.

Jack was the bravest man she’d ever met. In most ways. But when his mother had told him about his birth and told him to leave Blackthorn, he’d done it. When she’d told him to leave her after René’s death, he’d done that, as well.

She could understand that. In part. She wanted to run away from the truth about her father. She’d probably been doing just that for more years than she cared to remember. But who else did she have? So she’d chosen to believe Sinjon was invincible. Brave. Still grief stricken from the loss of his wife. Sincere in his mission to fight Bonaparte and bring back the France he knew. She’d looked away from his faults, excused his coldness. She’d spent her life trying to please him, bring a smile to his sad-eyed face. Earn his praise. Be like him.

To learn that everything she’d believed had been a lie had nearly destroyed her, so she could imagine what it had been like for Jack when his mother had told him he wasn’t the marquess’s son. Just as she had always sensed that something was wrong, that her life wasn’t real, Jack had been told what he’d always suspected.

He’d run from what he’d learned. She, in her turn, was running toward what she’d learned. Toward her father, to demand answers.

But maybe Jack had been right and there were no answers, at least not any that could change the facts.

The facts were that her father was cold, manipulative and thoroughly evil. What could she possibly ask him that would bring forth the truth rather than more lies? What could he possibly say to make things better?
I’m sorry, Tess?
If he admitted what he’d done, would that change anything? Was she still harboring some faint hope that he’d had a reason for what he’d done, one that made any sort of sense?

He tried to kidnap Jacques.

Yes, that was it. That’s what she had to know. His own grandson. How could he have held that little boy’s hand, read him stories, kissed his head, watched him as he slept…all while figuring ways to use him as just another pawn in one of his perverse chess games?

Just as Adelaide had kissed her son, told him she loved him and then sent him away.

Tess surreptitiously wiped at her damp cheeks. How could people be so cruel? How could they care so little for their own flesh and blood? They’d have to be without conscience, not really human at all. Monsters.

You didn’t ask a lion why it roared. It just did. And you didn’t look for explanations when confronted with one; you either killed or were killed.

You ended it, and then you found a way to live with what you’d had to do. Jack hadn’t been able to change the circumstances of his birth. Of course he’d gone. What else was there for him to do? What was wrong was that he was still running.

“Jack?”

He slid the collapsible spyglass closed and turned his dark stare on her. He’d been staring down at the manor house for over an hour, never moving, hardly breathing. The sun had set only moments ago, and soon it would be completely dark here under the cover of the trees save for the nearly full moon.

The manor house was situated in the flat bottom of a sort of bowl, surrounded on all sides by hills dense with trees. There was more than enough cover to hide an army in those trees, but the width of hill and scythed grass could be a killing field between those trees and the manor house itself. In other words, they were close now, but still dangerously far away, depending on what Sinjon may have planned for them.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” she said, hugging her knees as she sat beneath a large oak tree, trying to make herself small, even invisible. “I think I understand now. What I said was hateful and wrong. I kept trying to make you feel what I feel, and didn’t consider what you felt.”

“Not now, Tess,” he told her shortly, and lifted the spyglass again.

“Yes, now,” she insisted, inching herself toward him. “You’re not a coward. You didn’t run away. You left. There’s a difference. If anyone’s a coward it’s me. I didn’t leave. I didn’t want anything in my life to change, even when I knew that life wasn’t real. It was one thing when René and I were children, but not once we’d grown. René was so unhappy. We should have gone, I should have made him go. He’d still be alive, I’d still have my brother.”

“You can’t look back like that, Tess,” he told her, still keeping his gaze on the manor house below them. “What you should have seen, what you should have done. René’s gone, but you aren’t responsible for that. You didn’t put him in harm’s way. Sinjon did that.”

She laid her cheek on her bent arms. “I miss him so much. He was so beautiful, so pure. To end like that. For months, I’d wake at night, screaming, just to think about it.”

“Tess, what are you trying to say to me?”

She drew in a breath and let it out slowly, attempting to ease the pain in her chest. “I don’t know, Jack. I’m frightened, more frightened than ever, now that we’re here. I don’t think Sinjon is done with us. I suppose that’s it. I don’t know why we’re here, except that Sinjon wants us here, or at least wants you here. Don’t kill the Gypsy for him, Jack. Don’t kill either one of them. Please. If that’s what Sinjon wants you to do, that should be reason enough not to do it. We’ve all danced to his tune long enough.”

“The man killed your brother. As good as executed him.”

“I know that. How could I forget that? If Sinjon cared at all for his son, he’d want to exact his revenge himself. You would. I would. He only plays at old and feeble, remember. He doesn’t really need us.”

“He using me because he knew I’d be sent to find him when he disappeared. I’m only convenient.”

She put her hand on his arm. Somehow, she had to make him understand what she still couldn’t quite grasp. She only knew that if Sinjon wanted Jack to kill the Gypsy, it wasn’t because her father couldn’t have managed the man’s death on his own. There was some other reason. “No. That’s what’s wrong. That’s what’s been wrong from the beginning. There were ways, other ways. There had to be. So why this elaborate plan? Sinjon’s been the spider in the middle of his web from the beginning, drawing the Gypsy in, drawing you in. Everything he’s done has been meant to keep us from thinking clearly.”

Jack rubbed at his eyes for a moment and then lifted the spyglass once more. “Then we should congratulate him, because it worked. Do you think he also planned for the two of us to be at each other’s throats half the time? Because that seems to be working, as well.”

Tess managed a small smile. “Yes, let’s do that. Let’s blame Sinjon.”

Jack lowered the spyglass and grinned at her. “Much preferable to feeling like a horse’s ass. I’m sorry, Tess.”

“Then you agree?” She felt she had the advantage now, and she dared to press it. “We’re still dancing to Sinjon’s tune?”

“A dog with a bone,” Jack said, shaking his head. “How could I have forgotten that about you, even for a moment. Yes, all right, I agree. But now I’d like to hear how you expect me to capture the pair of them, because I don’t think they’ll put up their hands if I just walk in on them and ask nicely.”

“I know,” Tess said quietly, and turned to look toward the manor house once more. They had positioned themselves where they could see the windows to Sinjon’s study, with Wadsworth having taken up his position facing the front door, not that Tess believed the Gypsy would ride up and bang on the knocker. Her stomach did a small, sickening flip. “Jack. Look. There’s a light at the window. Someone’s lit candles. Sinjon doesn’t allow the servants in his study, I’ve had the cleaning of it for years now, when he’d let me. It has to be him.”

“He’s being fairly obvious. That can only mean he summoned the Gypsy here to talk, perhaps even with an offer to share his treasures with him, to make up for nearly having the man killed in Spain. He had to have offered him something, and the Gypsy had to have been greedy enough to believe him or else he wouldn’t come within ten miles of the manor house. More fool, him, I suppose.
But then, what ho! Here is my protégé, my dear Jack, appearing out of the shadows to slay the dragon for me.
Yes, I’m afraid our Gypsy is a fool, Tess. I’m surprised he’s lived so long.”

She felt herself becoming almost giddy, seeking some sort of relief from the unbearable tension. “Or it’s all part of the same game. I’m sure he’s only going to play at cooperating, until Sinjon reveals the hiding place of his collection. The two of them dancing around each other, playing at honorable thieves, each believing the other is a gullible fool, waiting for an opening in order to strike. Can you just imagine it, Jack?
So sorry about that small misunderstanding in Spain, old fellow. Just business, you understand.
And then the Gypsy saying,
Yes, the joke was on me there, wasn’t it?
”

Jack put down the spyglass, chuckling in appreciation. “I’ll say this for you, Tess. I never laughed while on a mission with Will and Dickie. It’s all in how you look at the thing, isn’t it? At the moment, I don’t much care how this works out. It’s difficult to remember that I once did. Right now I’d just like to be out of these weeds and on our way to a late dinner in the village.”

There came a short whistle that probably was meant to be that of some country bird, and Jack instinctively reached toward one of the pistols stuck in his waistband. “It would appear the Gypsy has arrived. And via the front entrance. For once, we were right, Tess. Sinjon’s somehow made the man believe he’s safe. All right. Time to go.”

Tess hastened to scramble to her feet. “Time to go where?” And then, her eyes narrowed, she looked at him in dawning realization and anger. “Do you mean to tell me you’ve had a plan all along?”

He took her hand as they made their way out of the cover of the trees and down the embankment. “No, not all along. Not until you went to change and I was penning my note to Will and Dickie. I don’t want to boast, but I haven’t survived this long on my luck, you know.”

“And you’ve let me go on and on, make a fool of myself and say things that— Damn you, Jack!” she said as Wadsworth appeared on the gravel drive, still definitely armed to the teeth. Had that been a ruse, back at the coach? Was Wadsworth always to have been a part of this? “And this is your plan? To knock at the front door? We can’t just walk in there. Answer me!”

“I think you already know the answer, Tess. I’m done playing games with the man.” He released her hand and put two fingers at the corners of his mouth and gave two quick whistles, and then a third, longer one. It sounded no more like a bird than had Wadsworth’s attempt. She was certain it wasn’t meant to trick anyone, but more to alert them. He was announcing his presence, obviously marshaling some sort of troops. Sinjon could not have been expecting troops, an assault, any audience other than himself. No, he had to expect Jack to obey him, because Sinjon was always to be obeyed. If the man had a flaw, that was it—he believed he could make anyone do what he wanted him to do.

“And a good evening to you, my lady,” Will Browning said moments later, appearing as if out of nowhere. “Jack? Dickie’s already inside the kitchens, probably stuffing his face. It was a close-run thing, getting here in time, and he had to miss his dinner. Jeremy and his men are being bored to flinders in Cleveland Row, I suppose, just as you suspected. I saw our quarry enter. Nice to know we didn’t make this journey for no good reason. What now?”

“You…” Tess glared at Jack, too angry to even form a complete sentence as she continued to attempt to wrap her mind around what he’d done. “You… And you never… You let me think you…that one of them was working for—”

“I can be seven kinds of fool from time to time, Tess, for many different reasons. But not fool enough to give Sinjon what he wants, whatever the hell that is, or to expose you to danger. Will? At the count of fifty, as we’ll need that much time to get into position. And with as much bumbling official noise as possible, please.”

Will Browning bowed as if in a ballroom. “It will be my pleasure, although I will point out that Dickie has me beat all hollow when it comes to bumbling.”

Tess wanted to scream in frustration. “What? What are you— Where are you going?”

“You want to confront him, Tess, remember? Then we do it on our own terms, or at least on mine,” Jack said, taking her hand and leading her away from the house even as she looked back over her shoulder to see Will Browning and Wadsworth approaching the front door, carrying a small, efficient two-man battering ram between them, clearly intent on making a considerable noise.

Half dragged by Jack, he and Tess rounded the side of the house and cut across the dark lawn, heading up the long hill to a small outbuilding situated just at the tree line. “How ridiculous. The door couldn’t be locked. Where are we going? The
buttery?
But why would we—”

“Any servants inside will run to hide themselves when they hear the noise. We want them out of harm’s way. As to the rest of it, that will be clear soon enough. Come on, Tess—run!”

Behind her, she could hear the sound of the battering ram against the door, until it was banged back on its hinges, the heavy wood slamming against the wall even as Will Browning shouted: “In the king’s name! Sinjon Fonteneau, present yourself for arrest!”