Ten Guineas on Love

by Claire Thornton

  He was running out of time. Soon the other men would be back, and if he didn’t finish Jack soon he would be caught like a rat—so he fought like a rat. But he couldn’t find an opening. Whatever he tried, Jack anticipated it. It seemed as if he were surrounded by an impenetrable barrier of steel.

  At last! Gideon thought he saw an opportunity. He lunged forward, fully committed to his attack—and realised too late that it was a trick. He staggered back, his sword falling from his nerveless hand as Jack’s blade penetrated his right shoulder.

  He was lying on the shabby carpet, dizzy and sick, and Jack towered over him. Gideon blinked and tried to clear his head. He saw the tip of Jack’s sword, slowly dripping blood, then he looked up and met Jack’s quizzical eyes.

  “You should have killed me,” he gasped.

  “No doubt you deserve it,” Jack replied mildly; he was breathing heavily, but he wasn’t winded. “But you can’t answer questions if you’re dead.”

  “You calculating bast…” Gideon tried to struggle up, fury in his eyes, but he was too dizzy, and in too much pain, and he finally lost consciousness.

  Jack looked down at him thoughtfully, shaking his head a little. Then he wiped his sword and sheathed it, before kneeling down beside Gideon. It was only then, as Charity made a slight sound, that he turned and discovered her presence.

  She was still holding the pistol before her, though she’d lowered it so that it was pointed at the ground. She was deathly pale, and when she looked at Jack her eyes hardly focused; it was almost as if she didn’t recognise him. It had taken so much effort for her to block Jack out of her thoughts and concentrate only on Gideon that now she was finding it equally difficult to return to normal.

  Jack stood up and crossed swiftly to her side. Her hold on the pistol was so fierce that it was only with difficulty that he took it from her and laid it on the desk.

  “Charity, it’s all right now,” he said.

  She looked at him uncomprehendingly, her eyes dark with remembered fear and reaction, and he put his hands on her shoulders.

  “Charity! It’s over!” He shook her slightly.

  She stared at him a moment longer, then her eyes cleared and she began to tremble.

  “Oh, my God!” She put both hands up to cover her face and leant against him.

  He put his arms round her and she began to cry.

  Jack drew her closer, speaking in a low, soothing voice—but knowing she wasn’t listening to him. She needed time to recover, and he gave it to her. Perhaps he needed some time himself. It had been a hard fight, made harder by the fact that he had never wanted to kill Gideon. In that respect, Gideon had always held the advantage; because Jack had had his own reasons for fighting, and the death of Gideon was not the victory he sought.

  At last Charity became aware of where she was. She could feel the touch of Jack’s hand on her hair, and the warmth of his body against hers as he continued to support most of her weight. She felt his lips brush her hair, and felt a renewed flutter in her breast, but this time it wasn’t caused by fear.

  “Charity,” he said softly.

  She looked up, shyly, but quite openly.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” he said. “It was a crazy thing to do.”

  “I had to,” she said simply. “It’s my house; besides—”

  “Riversleigh! Where the devil are you, man?” roared Sir Humphrey from outside.

  There was the sound of running footsteps on the gravel and the next minute Alan burst into the house, followed by Charles.

  “Sir, where… ?” Alan checked on the threshold of the library, stunned by the evidence of violence before him.

  “Ah, Alan,” said Jack calmly, guiding Charity to a chair. “You must learn to be less impetuous. Now you’re here, you can bind up my…victim. It would be most inconvenient if he bled to death!”

  “Yes, sir.” The manservant hastened to obey, rather crestfallen at Jack’s remark, but when he saw Gideon he swung round in surprise. “Sir! It’s…”

  “I know,” said Jack quietly. “I want him alive, Alan.”

  For a moment their eyes met and held, then Alan looked down. “Yes, sir.”

  Jack smiled faintly. “Where’s Sir Humphrey?” he asked.

  “He’s coming, my lord,” Charles replied, dragging his eyes from Gideon’s recumbent form. “We caught a woman.”

  “Yes, I thought you might,” said Jack. “I think you’d better fetch some linen and some warm water.”

  “You mean, you knew it was a trick?” Alan demanded, looking up from Gideon and quite forgetting himself in his indignation. “Why didn’t you stop us…sir?” he added as an afterthought.

  “Of course he couldn’t stop you,” Charity said. She wasn’t fully recovered, but she was more than capable of holding up her end of any conversation. In fact, for some reason she felt better than she had done for a long time. “It was only because you all ran out that he,” she nodded at Gideon, “came in. And that was the whole point.”

  Jack glanced at her, amusement in his eyes. Once again she had proved herself to be far from lacking in wit, and there were a number of questions he wanted to ask her—but now was not the time.

  Sir Humphrey arrived, followed by the other two men, dragging a girl between them. She was struggling half-heartedly, but they had no difficulty in restraining her.

  “Where are you taking me?” she demanded. “You ain’t got no right to do this to me. I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  “Well, you may be correct,” Jack agreed, apparently unconvinced. “I’ll leave it up to Sir Humphrey to decide that point. In the meantime you might tell us why you were creating such a disturbance.”

  “He told me to do it.” She jerked her head at Gideon. “He told me it was for a joke, and I’d earn some money if I did it well. Doesn’t look as if I’m going to get paid now, does it?”

  “No, I think not,” said Jack. “In fact, it has been an extremely unprofitable evening for you, hasn’t it? In the circumstances, I think the best way for you to help yourself will be for you to help us—don’t you, Sir Humphrey?”

  “Yes,” the magistrate grunted. Strictly speaking, he should have been the one conducting this interrogation, but he didn’t object to Jack’s taking charge. He’d already seen Gideon and he knew now that he had been tricked. He was angry with himself, but he was too fair-minded to resent Jack for having been less gullible.

  “You mean, you’ll let me go if I answer your questions?” the girl demanded.

  “Possibly.” Jack made no promises, but on the whole the girl thought it would probably be wisest to do as he wanted.

  “How did you meet our friend?” he asked.

  “He was staying at my father’s inn.”

  “Alone?”

  “No, he had a servant with him. The man’s hurt.” The girl looked at Jack with appraising eyes. “Is that what you wanted to know?”

  “How badly?” Jack ignored her question.

  “Bad enough to be laid up in bed, but he won’t die,” she replied scornfully.

  “Did he explain how he’d been hurt?” Jack asked.

  “Footpads, he said.” Once more she was referring to Gideon. “He said they were held up on Horsham Common.” The girl watched Jack suspiciously.

  “And you believed him?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” she demanded belligerently. “It happens all the time.”

  Jack smiled. “Is the wounded man still at the inn?” he asked.

  “Was when I left. Where would he be going?”

  “Where indeed?” Jack murmured. “How long have they been at the inn?”

  “A week, maybe a little longer. Can I go now?”

  “No. Tonight you stay here. In the morning you can show us the way to your father’s inn.” Jack looked at Sir Humphrey as he spoke, and the magistrate nodded.

  “Have you any other questions you wish to ask, my lord?” he asked.

  Jack shook his head. Sir Humphrey smiled gri
mly and turned to the two men who were still standing on either side of the girl.

  “Take her to the kitchen and guard her,” he ordered. “What are we going to do with him?” he added, looking at Gideon, who was now being tended by both Alan and Charles.

  “He’d better stay here,” said Charity firmly. “There’s no point in moving him. Beside, he’s got to answer some questions, and the quicker he’s able to do so, the better.”

  “Quite, quite.” Sir Humphrey nodded his agreement. Then he looked at her as if he was registering her presence for the first time. “What the devil—?”

  “Is there a bed ready for Gideon?” Jack interrupted, addressing himself to Charles.

  “No, sir,” the man answered; he seemed rather puzzled. “We didn’t know he was coming.”

  There was a moment of silence as the assembled company absorbed this piece of information.

  “Come on, Charles, I’ll tell you what I want you to do,” said Charity at last.

  She was grateful that Jack had intervened before Sir Humphrey could begin interrogating her, but she couldn’t help thinking he was amusing himself at their expense. There was certainly a distinctly humourous glint in his eyes as he briefly met her gaze.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Jack and Sir Humphrey were playing cards in the library when Charity finally rejoined them. She had arranged rooms for everyone who needed them, and supervised the bandaging of Gideon’s wound. In fact, for someone who wasn’t even supposed to be there, she thought she’d been very useful.

  Jack looked up and smiled as she came into the room. Sir Humphrey looked up too, but he frowned.

  “Now, miss,” he began, “perhaps you’ll explain exactly what you’re doing here.”

  “It’s my house,” she said, just as she had done earlier to Jack.

  “It’s your mother’s house, or it is until the end of February,” said Sir Humphrey precisely. “And, in any case, you had no business interfering in such a matter. Good God, girl! You might have been hurt. It might have been you we heard screaming! How would I have faced Mrs Mayfield then?”

  “But it wasn’t me,” said Charity calmly. “Sir Humphrey, if someone had told you Leydon House was about to be burgled, would you have stayed behind and let someone else protect it for you?”

  “The case is entirely different,” Sir Humphrey protested. He’d intended to give Charity a good scold, but somehow the conversation wasn’t going as he’d planned. “If you were my daughter…” he began.

  She laughed. “I dare say you’re glad I’m not,” she said.

  “No, m’dear,” he said unexpectedly. “I would have been very happy to have had you as a daughter.” He put down his cards and stood up.

  “I’ll talk to you in the morning, Riversleigh,” he said to Jack. “We must go and see the man at the inn, and we must also decide what we’re going to do about the fellow we’ve got upstairs. There are one or two things I don’t understand…and I wonder…” he frowned, looking around the library “…perhaps we did ought to see if there’s anything here. No doubt it’s nonsense, but after all this it would be a pity if we missed something.”

  Jack glanced at Charity, but she was looking uncharacteristically subdued—stunned, even. And she certainly didn’t show any signs of wanting to enter the conversation.

  “You’re quite right, sir, we should discuss it,” he said, and stood up, offering Sir Humphrey his hand.

  “We achieved a lot tonight,” he said. “I enjoyed working with you.”

  Sir Humphrey flushed. “I’m not sure I was much help, or only by accident,” he replied. “But it’s been a pleasure. You’re a man after my own heart, my lord. It was a lucky day for all of us when you inherited Riversleigh.” He shook Jack’s hand vigorously.

  “Thank you, Sir Humphrey.” Jack smiled. “I had my doubts at first. I was bred to be a banker, not a baron. But I think it will work out.”

  “I’m sure of it,” the magistrate replied emphatically. “I’m sure of it. Goodnight, m’dear.” He glanced at Charity.

  “Oh, goodnight, Sir Humphrey.” She roused herself to reply. “Thank you for your help.”

  “No thanks necessary,” said Sir Humphrey earnestly. “I’ll be indebted to you for the rest of my life. I’ll always be at your service.”

  He took her hand in both of his for a moment, then he nodded to Jack and left the library. A few seconds later they heard him stub his toe against the bottom stair and swear under his breath. Then he climbed the stairs and the library was silent again.

  Charity stood up uncertainly, not sure whether she should stay—or go to bed. She couldn’t forget that on the previous evening Jack had seemed so anxious for her to leave. She glanced at him shyly and saw that, although he was smiling at her, there was an uncharacteristic gravity in his expression. Suddenly she was afraid of what he would say.

  “I must go…” She started to move towards the door.

  “Not yet.” He was still some distance away from her, but his voice stopped her almost as effectively as his touch might have done.

  She turned slowly, looking up at him with surprised and almost fearful eyes.

  “How long were you waiting outside?” he asked.

  She blinked; that had been the last thing she’d expected him to say and for a moment she could hardly frame a coherent reply.

  “Oh, a couple of hours, I think,” she said at last.

  “You must have been cold.” He had come to stand right in front of her and now she had to tip her head back to meet his eyes.

  “Not really,” she murmured. “I had my cloak, there’s no frost…”

  “You shouldn’t have come.” He lifted a hand to brush a stray tendril of hair from her face, and she saw that his grey eyes were darker than usual. “Sir Humphrey was right. It could have been you we heard screaming, and if it had been…”

  For the first time, Jack’s voice faltered, and at last Charity realised that it was retrospective fear for her that had briefly quenched his customary humour.

  The past twenty-four hours had been filled with so much anxiety and worry that her sudden insight left her feeling quite weak with happiness. She had hoped that she was important to Jack—and now she could see in his eyes that she was. It was true she still didn’t understand everything he had said, or done—and, most of all, she still didn’t understand why he had seemed so anxious to be rid of her on the previous evening—but at last she could no longer doubt that he cared deeply for her.

  With no other thought than the need to reassure him that she had come to no harm, she reached out to touch the velvet of his coat, and smiled up at him.

  “There was no need to be afraid for me,” she murmured. “It was not I who deliberately put myself into danger. Why did you do it?”

  Jack didn’t answer; he might not even have heard the question. His whole awareness was dominated by the way she had reached out to him, so naturally and unself-consciously. Could she—would she—have done that if he had frightened her on the previous night?

  He remembered the relief he had seen in her eyes when he’d arrived after Owen had been shot, and her absolute confidence that he would know how to deal with the situation. And he remembered how she had allowed him to take her in his arms to comfort her after she had seen him fight Gideon. There had been no indication then that she did not welcome his presence—or his touch. So why had she seemed so horrified when she had wrenched herself out of his arms last night?

  She was standing only inches away from him and he desperately wanted to crush her against him—yet he was afraid that if he did so he would see the expression in her eyes change to fear or disgust.

  “Last night…” he began, and saw the colour flood into her cheeks at his words.

  She dropped her arms awkwardly to her sides and moved away from him, afraid of what he might say. “I love you, but I’m already committed to someone else”—would that be it? Could she bear to hear it?

  “I didn’t mean to fr
ighten you,” he said, half lifting a hand towards her and then letting it fall. “You must know that the last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt you…I don’t think I shall easily forget the look of horror in your eyes,” he finished, his manner far less assured than usual.

  “Frighten me!” Charity turned back to him in amazement. “You didn’t frighten me. I told you so at the time—I think.” To be honest, she wasn’t entirely sure what they had said to each other; her memories were rather confused.

  “But you seemed so appalled!” he protested, relief and excitement flaring through him as he began to realise he might have been mistaken in her feelings.

  “Did I?” She sighed, and glanced down for a moment, then looked up and met his eyes. “Perhaps I did, but not because of anything you’d done. It was just a trifle…unexpected. You didn’t frighten me,” she said again, very earnestly.

  Very soon she would have to tell him about Owen, but not yet, not while so much else was still unsettled between them.

  “Unexpected?” Jack repeated softly, reassured as much by her manner and the glow in her eyes as by her words. “It was certainly that. After all, despite your very flattering proposal, when I first came into Sussex I had no intention of getting married.”

  His hands were on her waist and he began to draw her towards him.

  “And now?” Charity whispered, his words thrilling her almost as much as his touch. Did he mean… ?

  “Now I think it’s a pity I didn’t know you better when you first put the question.” He paused, smiling down at her, his eyes filled with a gentle, teasing light. “I might have given you a different answer,” he said.

  “Might?” she questioned gently.

  “Well…” for a moment longer he continued to tease her, then his expression changed, and she saw a new light blazing in his eyes “… if I had known you better,” he said, “I would have pre-empted your proposal with one of my own.”

  She smiled, joy filling her at his words.