The Gentleman and the Rogue (28 page)

Only, Jem couldn't sleep. The cuts throbbed and stung, and he smiled into the darkness.

* * *

Alan woke to the sound of the birds squabbling in the eaves. A distant rooster crowed. The room still lay in darkness. Someone in the room gasped, the sound of muffled pain.

“Jem?” Alan said softly.

“Yeah.”

“It hurts?”

“Like the devil's piss,” Jem whispered. “I'll be better soon, though. And speaking of the devil, he didn't do a thing to my rear, so I can plant it on that carriage seat. If you're ready to go back to London.”

Home. With a child he couldn't explain and a man he wouldn't give up. “Do you like the country, Jem?”

There was a long silence. “Depends. Are you talking alone or with you?”

Alan laughed but grew sober at once. He groped for the candle and flint he'd left on the floor near him. He lit the candle. “Later we'll talk of such things.” The future he hoped he'd have.

He rose and went to draw the curtains from the window to show the pink and gray of a new day.

He hadn't taken off his clothes and looked a sight. Wearing blood-smeared clothing wasn't the best idea for his plan. After a quick glance at the girl still asleep and breathing evenly on the pallet next to the bed, he pulled out a change of clothes from the valise. He went behind the screen in the corner to change and shave using the cold, slightly bloodied water from the night before.

Just a few things more. At the writing desk he scribbled a quick note. Time to go, but Alan found he had trouble forming the words to explain his next step. He moved about the room, keeping an eye on the Major as he laid out the bloody clothes.

“I reckon I should take care of those,” said Jem.

Alan pulled on his braces and stepped closer to look him over. The man was in obvious pain. “You said you could travel. Were you telling the truth?”

Jem nodded gingerly. “Certainly.”

“Good. Because I might need you to take care of the Major and get back to the city alone. Just the two of you. You know where my money bag is, I know.”

Jem's steady gaze made him uncomfortable. This plan was as harebrained as Jem's had been, but Alan couldn't think of any way to avoid it.

“Jem.” His throat was thick with longing. “I trust you. I know you can take care of the Major now. I'd trust you with anything of mine, including my life.”

Jem's smile was a thing of beauty. “Yes, you can.”

“But I must go. And I might not be coming back. If you need help, if you grow ill, I left the name of the solicitor in Sheffield. He should be able to act as my man of business. I've written out directions for him.”

Jem sat up, wincing. One of his cuts had opened, and the cloth around his arm was scarlet.

“Is your arm all right?”

“Bugger my arm. Where are you off to?”

“I murdered a man. I can't go until I know that no innocent has taken the blame. And if I find I must confess, I don't want you or Annie anywhere near here. I want her gone where the law can't take her from your care. You and Badgeman will keep her safe.”

Jem swore, but then Annie gave a soft moan, and he stopped abruptly. Both men stared down at her in dismay until she rolled onto her side and her breath steadied. She still slept. Jem rubbed his hand over his hair, making the curls even wilder.

He whispered, “When they see that devil's room… If they see what he did to me, 'course they'll let you go.”

Alan caught sight of himself in the small mirror on the wall. He rejected the idea of getting a fresh cravat since all were either wrinkled or binding Jem's wounds. He buttoned his waistcoat and reached for his dark blue jacket.

He turned to face Jem again. “Yes. If I'm arrested, I'll send for you. You can leave the Major with Badgeman. But that little girl…” He held Jem's gaze steadily, no need to look away. “She should get away from here and not have to enter that house again.”

“Badgeman can bloody well bring his colossal bloody self up here and bloody well watch over her. I'll not be leaving if there's a chance you end up in prison. Don't worry yourself. I'll find a good story for the girl's presence.” His fast grin lit his face. “And from now on I'll be calling her Miss Badgeman, since he's the softhearted damber that launched us arsy-varsy into this affair.”

Alan opened his mouth to issue an order, to command Jem to follow his direction, but he understood that some sort of line had been crossed. What had happened last night, the vow that was deeper than mere words spoken, had changed them both, and he wasn't sure what Jem was to him anymore—other than essential. Maybe that was it. He couldn't afford to lose the man. Except, no, he didn't think he could do or say anything that would drive him away. The strange little oath they'd taken in the dark bedchamber of a second-rate inn seemed to hold mystical power that gripped them both.

So he nodded. “All right. But the two of you shan't come with me today. You're still in pain, and Annie shan't go back there.”

“Absolutely never.”

“Oh, good,” Alan said drily. “So you'll pay attention to my orders when you agree with them?”

Jem's smile turned wicked. “About sums it up, eh?” The grin dissolved, and his brow puckered. “'Tis a pity you were brought up with such a complete set of upright morals, sir. I'd say we pack up and get away fast as we can.”

“I can't.”

Jem pushed his hands at his hair, still stiff with blood, and made a face. “I expect I do know why. If you tried such a thing, you'd have more ghosts at your heels. A reckoning of some sort, eh?”

“Ah. You understand.”

“I do, and I'm glad of you and your nuisance decency. Most of the time. When that streak of nobility doesn't mean you're begging to be led to the scaffold.” He cleared his throat and gave a quick glance down at the slumbering girl. “One request before you go?”

Alan waited.

Jem whispered, “A kiss.”

Alan walked to the bed and looked into blue eyes, serious yet still bright with unquenchable cheerfulness. “Jem,” he said, and again words failed him, so he put his mouth on Jem's—a light, careful touch, for those lips were still dry and cracked from the gag.

Jem groaned under the soft brush of Alan's mouth, and just as Alan would have moved away, Jem's hand caught the back of his neck and held him in place. Jem moved his mouth and opened it so Alan could taste the familiar flavor. The kiss remained sweet, never falling into the mindless heat of sex, though that tension lay close to the surface. A promise.

Alan broke away, his chest so tight he could barely draw breath.

Jem searched his face, unsmiling. “I do dearly love you, Sir Alan Watleigh,” he whispered.

Alan grew dizzy. He opened his mouth.

Jem touched his cheek. “Naw, don't have an apoplectic fit, sir. Just wanted to let you know, but I don't expect you to fall on my neck with your own declarations of undying devotion.” He clasped his hands at his neck and fluttered his thick lashes, the parody of a lovesick girl. “Oh, Jem my angel,” he said in a high mockery of a woman's voice. In his own voice, he added, “Ow. My arm hurts. Best not to fall on any part of my body.”

He'd turned it into a joking matter again, Jem's way to cope with strong emotion. Alan couldn't speak and only nodded.

“I'll see you,” he said. “Take care of the Major and yourself. Please, Jem.” He tried to put his meaning in those last words and turned and walked out without looking back. He might lose his heart for this task if he did.

Chapter Seventeen

Alan ate breakfast at the inn. Before departing, he paid for a tray of food to be sent to his room, telling the taciturn landlord that his valet was ill and possibly contagious. “I thought he merely had too much to drink last night. But now I think it's more. He's got a fever.”

The landlord's peevish scowl deepened. “I'm not going nowhere near him, then. And I won't let the maid clean that room.”

Perfect. “Just knock on the door and tell him the food is there. He's not so ill he can't take care of himself.” He laid an extra couple of coins in the man's palm, and the landlord's expression returned to his normal merely sour instead of curdled.

Alan ordered a hack from the stable and, in no great hurry, rode toward Schivvers's house. He didn't notice the slight ache in his thigh or the lush green countryside as he rode. He didn't even think about the trouble he might face at the end of the ride. Jem's face, his smile, those words. Alan smiled back at the imaginary Jem in his mind. Even when he realized he was as much a moonling calf as any young swain in the first throes of love, he couldn't stop smiling. Depravity be damned. No one would be able to resist Jem, the young dunderhead.

He grew sober as he drew near the gray house. The front door lay open, and several men stood on the steps, talking in an agitated manner. Neighbors gathered on the green to gape. Alan had wondered how he could make his approach seem natural, but it was a simple thing to act the part of an acquaintance of the man stopping to find out what the trouble was.

Alan swung down from the saddle and tied the horse to a young tree in the front.

He didn't expect the matter to be simple. He'd approach the main investigator of the crime and delicately discover the names of potential suspects. The servants seemed likely.

“Sir. There has been a most unfortunate… But no, you'd best follow me.” Burton bowed solemnly, his barely suppressed excitement evident in his quick step as he led Alan to the same study he'd seen on his first visit and left him standing by the window. Alan gazed out at the dozen onlookers on the green. He thought he saw two redheaded females there. Jem's twins.

“Sir Alan?”

He turned and saw a vaguely familiar face with thinning gray hair and a drooping jaw atop a large stomach, with very little neck or chest to separate them. Alan smiled before he realized that might not fit the circumstances.

“I see you recall me,” said the man who held out his hand. “Wilkins. I knew your father in London. Terrible thing, your family's passing. I sent a note round, but I expect…you…”

“Of course, thank you,” murmured Alan. “How do you do, my lord.”

“I'm the JP, and there's been a terrible, terrible…er…” The man's face reddened. Alan wondered if the man would ever finish a sentence. “How well did you know Mr.…?” He waved a pudgy hand around the room.

Alan was determined not to lie. “We served in Spain. I was under his care when I was injured.”

Lord Wilkins seemed to relax slightly. “So not best of friends, which one might say… Terrible things have happened.”

“My lord? Since you are the justice of the peace, I know you must keep some matters private. What can you tell me?”

Lord Wilkins indicated a chair, and Alan sat. With a deep sigh, Wilkins sat across from him. “Terrible things,” Alan prompted.

“I'm sorry to say that Mr. Schivvers is dead. But that is not the worst of it, if you can believe it.”

Alan could, but he remained silent.

Lord Wilkins looked down at his hands. He wasn't watching Alan as he went on. “From what the borough constable has pieced together, it is a sad story of murder and worse. His description of the scene was so dire, I came to witness for myself that the fellow did not exaggerate. I am afraid he did not.”

“Go on,” Alan said.

“Mr. Schivvers had a little girl. A bastard child, we believe.”

Alan began to say, “Er, not really,” but Wilkins didn't notice and plowed on. “We believe that she died, murdered by Mr. Schivvers. Because though he might have been a good surgeon to you…”

Alan didn't even try to clear up that misconception.

“I'm afraid, my dear sir, that he was a bad man.” Now Lord Wilkins looked up, as if waiting for a response.

“I must say I suspected as much,” Alan said. “Even over in Spain.”

That must have melted the last of Lord Wilkins's discretion. The story poured out now—the grisly discovery of the body, the hideous room set up for torture.

“And what does your investigation reveal?” asked Alan. “You mentioned murder.”

“Yes, yes. The little girl. He killed her and disposed of the body—bloody evidence of torture, perhaps dismemberment, is all over a table in the room. And then in a fit of remorse, drove a knife into his own black heart.”

Alan gazed at him. Even he, an untrained observer, knew the angle of the wound was entirely wrong for suicide. He'd learned that much from seeing men die in war—not to mention from driving a knife into the surgeon's body.

“Suicide?” he asked.

The man nodded.

“That's your official finding?”

Lord Wilkins drew another heavy sigh. “I'm afraid I must give that ruling. It's most distressing.”

Alan had to ask. He felt like a fool, but one more prod, and he'd leave it alone. “You don't suspect, say, the girl of stabbing him and running away? Or any of the servants?”

“It's patently obvious what happened here,” Lord Wilkins said, almost indignantly. “If you'd care to examine the crime scene, a most distressing sight. Blood on the table. Her blood, sir.”

No doubt the old man had spent a long time in that room—and next time he visited his London club, he'd be able to gain every member's attention with the grisly details.

“Oh, no. No, of course not, Lord Wilkins. I wondered if you'd examined all possibilities.”

“In some cases there is no need.” Lord Wilkins gave him a solemn look. “I have heard criminal cases for many years and count myself among the country's experts at discerning simple truth.”

“Will you look for the girl's body?”

“I expect we must, although I shan't put much effort into the matter. He was a devilish, clever man. A true fiend who knew how to dispose of his victims.” Lord Wilkins's voice dropped. “We think we've already found part of her in his horrible collection of souvenirs.”

“Ah,” said Alan. Now was the moment to speak. Yet no matter how hard he tried to work the story in his head, he couldn't come up with a version that would allow Annie to ride away from here under his protection. To stay out of prison he would have to lie, and he wasn't even certain which lies might suffice. If Jem were here, he'd have a version that might work.