Sari Robins (24 page)

“Turncoat?” Heath held up his arms to ward off her attack.

“How dare you lead Tess on while you’re engaged!”

Tess stood. “Engaged?”

Stepping forward, Ginny wagged a finger at Heath. “Shame on you! We saw the
Times
this morning!”

“The
Times
? What about the
Times
?” Heath demanded, sidestepping Janelle to avoid her flying hands.

“You’re engaged! To Miss Penelope Whilom! You lying snake!”

“E
ngaged?” Heath cried, disbelieving, and lowering his arms.

“Yes, engaged!” Janelle smacked him on the side of the head. “To Miss Whilom!”

Heath didn’t even feel the blow as he looked over to Tess. Her face had washed white. “I didn’t send the notices! I swear! I had no idea!”

“You must have had some notion!” Bills stepped into the room, a folded newspaper under his arm and an angry look on his face.

“No. Of course not!” Heath shook his fist. “I was here all night.”

Janelle smacked him again.

Heath pointed a finger at her, fury and fear lashing through him. “Don’t do that again!”

“Or what will you do?” Janelle sneered. “Go get engaged to someone else? Polygamy is a crime, you know. Mayhap you need to be the one locked up at Newgate!”

“How could you do this?” Bills demanded, shaking the broadsheet in his hand.

Heath gritted his teeth. “I didn’t. I can only guess that Lord and Lady Bright heard about Tess’s arrest and then sent out the notices last night.”

Tess blinked. “You said that Lady Bright was pressing for the investigation…” Her face crumpled with hurt and betrayal. “Oh my…your engagement was contingent on my arrest!”

Guilt and anger clutched him in a viselike grip. “No…no…it wasn’t like that…not really…”

Janelle grabbed the newspaper from Bills’s hand and popped it open with a crackle of pages. “The facts speak for themselves.”

Hugging herself, Tess moved to the window as if unable to look at him. “I can’t believe that I trusted you.”

Striding over to her, he grabbed her hands and pressed them to his heart. “I made a mistake, Tess.”

“Obviously.” She looked away, the anguish on her face killing him.

“I’m talking about the engagement! I can’t marry Penelope! I love you.”

Removing her hands from his, she turned. “Don’t confuse lust with love. I’ve made that mistake before, and it doesn’t end well.”

His anger steeped. “I know the difference between love and lust! I’m not your bloody husband!”

“Mr. Bartlett!” Ginny chided.

Tess looked over her shoulder, her crystal blue gaze filled with sorrow. “No, you’re not. And you never will be.”

The pronouncement hit him like a ball of lead in
his heart. “You can’t think that I had any idea…that I wanted this…”

Holding open the broadsheet, Janelle sniffed. “Isn’t this the ‘young lady of a very respectable family of the
ton’
that you were courting?
Courting
, mind you. It’s not like she just fell into your lap.”

Clenching his fists, Heath looked at the angry faces around him, unable to grasp the nightmare unfolding before him.

At the look on his face, Ginny bit her lip. “Maybe this isn’t too terrible…Engagements have been broken…”

Janelle shook her head. “You can’t do that to that poor girl! Think of the scandal.”

Scowling, Bills shook his head as if disgusted. “Miss Whilom would be ruined.”

“Go ahead and marry your perfect Miss Whilom.” Tess’s voice was so dead it was frightening. “Have your perfect wife, your perfect life…”

Smacking the broadsheet closed with a crackle of pages, Janelle straightened. “Enough of this sentimental rubbish! We have a prison break to execute!”

“Oh, what a funny jest, Janelle!” Ginny jerked her chin toward the open doorway and the guard hovering outside.

Setting her fists to her hips, Janelle glared at Heath. “Now see what you’ve done! We had a perfectly good plan until you showed up. This is all your fault, Bartlett!”

The injustice of it all pierced his soul, mixed with
no small sense of hurt. He’d just told the woman of his heart that he loved her and she told him to go marry another woman.

Bills picked up the sheet of foolscap from the table and read it. Looking up at Lucy, his face hardened. “You weren’t really…?”

Lifting her chin, Lucy shrugged.

Tess stepped toward the bed, her movements wooden. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to lie down.”

Concern pinched at Heath’s chest. “Are you all right?”

Lying down on the bed, Tess curled into a ball with her back to the room. “I’m fine. Just tired.” Her voice was flat.

Heath stepped forward, fear, heartache, and love tangling him in knots. He got down on bended knee and reached to touch her back, but his hand hovered, uncertain. “Can I get you anything?”

“No, I just want to sleep.”

Heath dropped his hand.

Ginny stepped forward. “I think you’d better go. We’ll stay with her.”

He was unable to move; his legs felt almost as leaden as his heart.

“Come along, my friend.” Bills urged. “The guards are here, her friends are here. She doesn’t need you now.”

Heath was overwhelmed by his own inconsequence. Tess meant everything to him; she was the spicy sweetness in a world that was so bland, the vibrant color to his empty canvas. He hadn’t known
how barren his life had been until she’d filled it with her courage, her grace and her wild beauty.

He felt as if he couldn’t live without her, and she didn’t need him. Or want him.
She just told me to marry another woman.
His heart ached so powerfully, he could hardly breathe. His head dropped and his shoulders fell as he was overcome by a sorrow so black, he was defeated by it.
How could I have been such a fool?

Helping Heath to rise, Bills led him out the door.

“I agree with your theory that Lord and Lady Bright must have been so delighted by Tess’s arrest that they sent the notices straight off to the papers.” Bills sipped his beer and sighed. “I wonder if they even know that the charge has nothing to do with the alleged thefts.”

Heath sat hunched on the stool, his gaze dull, his glass sitting untouched before him on the bar. He was in a dark haze of grief so overwhelming he could hardly move. “Tess told me to marry Penelope…she told me to go ahead with it.”

Sighing, Bills set down his drink. “That had to hurt. I’m so sorry, old boy.”

Heath looked to his friend. “I don’t understand how she could do that. If she was supposed to marry another man I’d—I’d…” His throat constricted as jealousy and fury and hurt pierced his soul.

“Mayhap she thought that she was doing you a favor? You said yourself that Tess doesn’t wish to marry.”

“But I don’t want to marry Penelope!” Heath barked, drawing the barkeeper’s penetrating gaze.
The man stopped cleaning the glass in his hand and whipped the cloth onto his shoulder as if ready to take steps. “She should know that,” Heath hissed.

Bills waved to the barman that all was well, and the man resumed his cleaning once more.

Resting his palm on the bar, Bills faced his friend. “Let us look at it from Tess’s point of view. She spends the night with you and the next morning learns from the broadsheets that you’re engaged to someone else.”

“But—”

“Stop and listen to me for a moment!”

Heath blinked at the sharp tone.

Adjusting his coat, Bills raised his hand. “The poor woman finds out that you’ve been courting a young woman whose family wants to see her hang badly enough that they’ll wager an engagement on it.”

Heath gritted his teeth. “You’re really lifting my spirits…”

“Her husband almost ruined her, her father cut her off, and now you? No wonder the woman doesn’t wish to leg-shackle any man.”

“But I’m different. I really love her!”

Bills made a noise of disgust. “You have a very odd way of showing it.”

Slouching, Heath shook his head.

At the look on Heath’s face, Bills’s features softened. “If it’s any consolation, Tess seemed pretty upset about the engagement, before she knew the other part.”

“You think so?”

“And then did you see her when we left? She seemed about as low as one gets.”

Heath looked up, hope stirring inside him. “If she’s upset…well, then that means that she actually cares.”

“Of course she cares. Like I said, she probably feels pretty betrayed right now…But I’ll bet she’s pretty torn up about losing you.”

Heath wrapped the hurt around him like a funereal cloak. “I find that hard to believe. She just told me to marry Penelope.”

Bills’s eyes took on a determined light. “Have you ever considered that she told you to marry Miss Whilom because she thinks it’s what you want?”

“What?”

“Remember how she asked about her friends first when inquiring about the investigation?”

“Yes.”

“If there’s anything that should be clear as day to you now, it’s that Tess sacrifices her own needs for those she loves.”

“But—”

Bills raised a hand. “Hear me out, old friend. Today, did she say, ‘I don’t love you’?”

“No, but—”

“‘I don’t want you’?”

“No.”

“‘I don’t need you’?”

“No.”

The barman set his fists on the counter. “Do you two want to be alone?”

Bill waved a hand. “We’re talking about the lady he loves.”

“Oh.” Removing his fists, the man relaxed.

Motioning for the barman to refill his glass, Bills explained, “The poor woman is in prison, charged with murdering her friend, and he’s upset that he’s engaged to someone else.”

Blowing out a gust of air, the barman smirked. “You need to be counting yer lucky stars!” He topped off Bills’s drink.

Heath scowled. “She didn’t kill anyone. And someone is trying to kill her!” He straightened, feeling as if a lightning bolt had just blasted through him. “Devil take me!”

“What?”

Heath jumped from the stool. “I was so caught up I forgot all about Pernel!”

The barman leaned forward. “Who?”

“The bugger who attacked Tess last night!”

Bills stood. “Tess was attacked? Where the hell were the guards? Where were you?”

“I arrived just as…” Clenching his fists, Heath swallowed. “We caught him.”

“So that’s why her face was banged up. I didn’t want to ask…” Bills shook his head, his face troubled. “So what happened to this Pernel fellow?”

“Warden Newman interrogated the man. He named the man who’d hired him. It was Reynolds! Reynolds tried to kill Tess!” Tossing two coins on the bar, Heath moved to go, glad for the opportunity to do violence. “I’m going after him! He’ll not get away with this!”

Laying his hand on Heath’s arm, Bills shook his head. “Getting yourself locked up, no matter how justified, won’t do anyone any good!”

Heath shrugged him off. “No court of law will arrest Reynolds based on the word of a tortured criminal. Justice demands—”

“That you see him pay for his crimes,” Bills interrupted. “But we need evidence!”

“The man works for the blasted Foreign Office. He disavowed Tess. Now he’s trying to prevent her from asserting the connection. The only way to stop him from hurting Tess is to stop him,
permanently
.”

Heath moved toward the door, but Bills stepped in front of him. “Move aside, Bills, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Think, man! Think! If Reynolds’s superiors sanctioned the attack, then you’re doing her no good.” An odd light flashed in his gaze as Bills wagged his finger. “But what if they didn’t? What if he’s gotten out of formation; what if he’s as much of a threat to
them
as to us?”

Heath hesitated. His thoughts were colored by the thirst for violence, the need to make Reynolds pay. But what if Bills was right? Then there were other options, and ones that might better help Tess. “What are you saying?”

“If the man’s operating outside the lines, then his own people might help us stop him.”

“Go on.”

Pressing his finger to his mouth, Bills narrowed his eyes. “That Wheaton fellow and anyone he answers to
will be displeased with Reynolds if he’s connected to attempted murder. But why would he take that risk? Why would he want to silence Tess? What else has the man been up to? What else…
Confound me
!”

“What?”

“What if Reynolds is the ‘sir’ that was meeting Fiona Reed? What if he was the one who convinced Miss Reed that Tess was in danger and needed watching?”

“You think he killed Miss Reed?”

“I’d bet my last farthing on it. And I’d bet my boots that his superiors have no idea that he’s going around killing English damsels.”

Frustration, anger, and fear coursed through Heath like a torrent. “We don’t have time for this! You’re right, there’s more to this than we can understand right now, but we don’t have time to sit around discussing the what-ifs! Reynolds might go after Tess again. But if this came from higher-ups, then if I get him, then she still might be in danger! I can’t allow anything to happen to her!”

“I know! We need more time. But—”

Heath smacked his fist into his palm. “We need to get Tess out of Newgate! That’s what we need to do, and quickly!”

“That would be a perfect solution to buy us more time. But her hearing is not until next week.”

“We can’t wait for the legal system to grind to resolution. We need to get her out, now!”

“First you’re planning murder and now a prison escape? When you go full force, my friend, you pull out all the stops. But even if the guards didn’t over-
hear enough today to be suspicious, after the attack John Newman is going to be vigilant. He won’t allow anything a hair outside the law.”

Tapping his fist to his lips, Heath’s mind churned. “Who says it has to be outside the law?”

“What are you proposing?”

“I’m going to enter a nolle prosequi. It will stop all judicial proceedings against Tess.”

Bills straightened. “I don’t care that it’s within the special powers of the Law Officers of the Crown to enter it, Dagwood won’t do it.”

Heath shook his fist. “The nolle prosequi is exercised in cases where the interests of justice do not require that the defendant be brought to trial. It fits this situation perfectly! And it’s the only way to keep Tess safe!”

“It’s rarely used, but aside from that, after that terrible mess-up with the Beaumont affair and now Lord and Lady Bright, and him catching you kissing Tess, Dagwood won’t do it. He’s a smart man, brilliant actually, and it makes no sense to enter a nolle prosequi.”

“Justice demands it!”

Bills shook his head. “You can argue with him until you’re blue in the face, Dagwood won’t allow it to be entered at this point in the proceedings.”