Standing in the shadows, he watched the gentlemen arrive for the evening. Harry Tipton strode up the steps and Sinjon smiled bitterly. Tipton owed him money, and probably thought he needn’t repay it, since he was in disgrace.
He made a note to visit Tipton first once he won free of the charges against him.
Frayne and Wilton entered together, their heads close, discussing something. Probably Evelyn, and which of their disreputable friends might make a suitable lover for her. His glare burned into their evening coats, but they walked on, oblivious.
Then Creighton’s coach pulled up and the major went up the steps with one hand in his pocket, his pace insouciant, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
Creighton hadn’t so much as glanced at him this morning, and he didn’t look into the shadows now. Was Creighton so certain that he was gone? Sinjon’s mouth twisted.
Creighton’s coachman jumped down to lean on the side of the vehicle to wait. Sinjon crossed the street.
“Cold night,” he said, and pulled a flask from his pocket.
The coachman regarded him suspiciously for a moment before taking it. “Rum,” he said. “I expected cheap gin. You a soldier?”
“Was,” Sinjon replied. “I’m out of the army and I’m looking for work. You know anyone looking for a groom or a stable hand? Your master, perhaps? This is a fine rig he’s got. Must be wealthy.”
“Was,” the coachman parroted. “He’s been selling paintings, and his mother’s jewels as well, or so the maids say. They’re always the first to notice when family heirlooms disappear.”
Sinjon pretended to take another swig. “Is his title an old one?”
The coachman shrugged. “He has rich relatives, an earl on his father’s side and a viscount on his mother’s, but he’s a soldier like you, a cavalry major.” He looked Sinjon over. “You seem a likely chap for stable work, but the major hasn’t hired anybody new for some months, though we could do with the help.”
“Hires soldiers, does he? I’ve been looking for an old friend named O’Neill. He was my sergeant. Know anyone by that name?”
The coachman reached for the flask again. “We have an O’Donnell, but he’s straight in from the countryside. Don’t think he’d make a good sergeant, if you know what I mean.” He twirled his finger next to his ear.
There was a scuffle on the steps of the club, and they turned to watch.
“Pay me what you owe me, damn you!” Tipton cried, grabbing Creighton’s sleeve, knocking his hat down the steps.
“I haven’t got it, Harry, I swear! I only came here tonight to see someone about a vowel he owes me.”
“You’ve been back in England for weeks, damn you. You promised to pay me when you got home. You said you had an inheritance coming!”
Creighton pulled his lapels loose from Tipton’s grip. “Then you misunderstood me. It is not so much an inheritance as a dividend on an investment. It hasn’t paid out yet.”
“You risked my money in some foolish scheme?” Tipton growled.
Creighton smiled, his teeth long and yellow. “Not foolish at all, old chap. In fact, it’s a sure thing.”
“Oh, and how’s that? Where is this fortune coming from?”
Creighton spoke so low that Sinjon had to prick his ears to hear his reply. It echoed off the stone facade of the building.
“Lincolnshire,” he whispered.
“What in hell does that mean? What’s in bloody Lincolnshire?” Tipton demanded, but Creighton slipped out of his hands and hurried down the steps, like the coward and cheat he was.
Sinjon bent and picked up his hat. “Yours, sir?” he asked, holding it out, his other hand on the pistol under his coat. He wasn’t wearing his livery now. If—when—Creighton recognized him, he could shoot him if Creighton drew first. It would be honorable enough even for Westlake.
But Creighton didn’t spare him a glance. He simply snatched the hat from Sinjon’s hand and got into his coach.
Sinjon watched him drive away, disappointment gnawing at him.
Lincolnshire? Creighton’s family came from Devon, not Lincolnshire, and O’Neill was from London.
He walked away, his footsteps echoing on the cobbles, and wondered if he’d ever be free.
Starling was still up when he returned, nursing a cup of tea at the kitchen table. He handed Sinjon the keys and a lantern. “Go and check the doors for me, lad, and save my old bones the trip up the stairs.”
Sinjon prowled through the silent house. He checked the windows and the front door, and peered out across the square at the park. Somewhere in the dark, someone was watching the house. Poor bastard. It was a cool night, and the starless sky promised rain before morning.
The door opened as he passed the library, and Evelyn stood there.
She gave a strangled cry, surprise perhaps, and he caught her elbow.
“It’s me, my lady,” he said. “Sam.”
She wore a lace robe tied tight over her nightgown, and her hair hung down her back in a simple braid. She looked like a girl, freshly scrubbed and very young. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were wide, shimmering in the light of his lamp.
“You’re back!” She sounded surprised.
Standing so close, he could smell her perfume. Her face was inches from his, and he could feel her breath on his cheek. He was tempted to kiss her. His mouth watered and he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes from the lush softness of her mouth. He felt a tremor run through her body, but couldn’t tell if it was an answering desire or fear.
He let her go and stepped back. “Just making sure everything is locked up, my lady,” he said formally.
She blinked at him.
“Did you enjoy your time out?” She held up a hand before he could answer. “No, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s not my business where you went or what you did.”
He could see it mattered to her, suspected that she’d been waiting for him, just like Starling. “I went to look for an old friend from my regiment,” he said softly. “Nothing more.”
Her shoulders relaxed. “Oh.” She licked her lips, and the moisture shone in the lantern light, tempting him anew.
“Is there anything you need, my lady?” he asked. He couldn’t stand in the hall, not with her wearing her nightclothes, looking at him like that. He clutched the lantern tighter, fighting the temptation to reach for her.
“I wasn’t waiting up for you, if that’s what you think,” she said, looking him over. “I was finishing a letter, and getting a book to read.”
She held neither in her hands. Her long fingers were clutching the high collar of her nightgown to her throat, a sign that she was nervous. It would be so simple to pull her into his arms, tell her he knew she was lying before his mouth descended on hers. He smiled at her instead, tilting his head, letting her know that despite her protest, he knew she’d been waiting for him.
“Shall I escort you upstairs? You haven’t got a candle. Or a book.” He was rewarded with a very becoming blush. Was her skin hot to the touch? His palm tingled.
She turned and went back into the room, picking up a book from the desk, a candle, and a letter. She held his gaze as she returned, her eyes glittering with the flame, angry and beautiful, passion replacing her usual control.
“There, you see? I can take myself upstairs, thank you. Go about your duties, if you please,” she snapped. She thrust the letter into his hand. “You may leave this by the front door. Someone will call for it tomorrow morning.”
He bowed as she turned and walked away, a ghostly white figure moving silently up the stairs.
Sinjon waited until her light had disappeared around the bend in the staircase, then went back toward the front hall to leave her letter on the table. He glanced at the address, and paused. His mouth went dry.
“Lincolnshire,” he muttered.
He swore under his breath and put the letter into his pocket. In the kitchen, the kettle was still hot. He opened Mary’s sewing basket and took out a needle and threa
d. Carefully, he softened the wax seal, slipped the thread behind it and loosened it without breaking it, opening the letter like a hardened spy. Where did a gentleman like Westlake learn these tricks? There was a sum of money wrapped in a letter, and he counted the notes. One hundred pounds.
The letter was brief, and unsigned. The money was an anonymous donation to a school for orphaned girls in Lincolnshire. He frowned.
What was Creighton’s connection to all this? He was hardly the charitable type. The only organization for females he was likely to support was a brothel.
But Evelyn gave to the needy. She supported the Foundling Hospital, and the ladies’ sewing circle. Perhaps she had other causes as well that he didn’t know about. His skin prickled.
Was Evelyn using Creighton to send money out of London? Perhaps she was planning to run away with Creighton, once they’d stolen Renshaw’s fortune. The letter did not seem outwardly suspicious, and the scheme would put Philip’s money out of reach of the authorities. “Clever girl,” he muttered.
Or was Creighton swindling the traitor’s wife? He needed money, or so the coachman had said. He was hardly the type to wait patiently to amass a fortune, or to help a woman in need. In Spain, he’d broken a young lieutenant’s jaw because the man owed him twenty pounds and couldn’t pay. A hundred pounds wouldn’t go far at the tables. One bet and Creighton could lose it all. But he might win.
Sinjon resealed the letter without the money.
In the library, he found another envelope and put the money inside, carefully considering his choices before tucking the packet into a book of poetry.
He put the letter on the hall table and stood at the foot of the stairs, looking up into the darkness above, wondering if Evelyn was asleep.
Was she dreaming of Creighton?
He headed for his own bed with a grim smile. All he had to do now was wait and see what Creighton—and Evelyn—did next.
Chapter 12
Creighton prowled through the corridors of his aunt’s town house, searching for something else to sell, something as valuable as the Gainsborough painting he’d already taken. If his family found out, he’d be disowned, but how else was he to survive?
He passed the ormolu clock in her private sitting room and glared at it. Above it, his aunt’s portrait glared back, an ugly thing that wouldn’t fetch tuppence. It was nearly ten o’clock. Where the hell was Bassett? It shouldn’t take this long to fetch a letter from three streets away.
He poked at a small landscape in a gilt frame, a view of the family estates in Devon. He hadn’t been there in years. The place meant nothing to him, but the painting might fetch enough to pay for a night’s wagering at White’s. His current losing streak couldn’t last forever.
He snatched the picture off the wall and tossed it on the settee. How he hated living this way, but he had little choice. His gut clenched as he considered the gravity of his situation.
He had to find Rutherford, and kill him.
He was here in London, somewhere, possibly watching him at this very moment. Creighton opened the door to his aunt’s bedchamber, knowing he was the first man to enter her private sanctum in forty years. He crossed to the window and checked the street. There was no sign of Rutherford, or Bassett either, for that matter. He turned to the massive jewelry chest that squatted in the corner and forced the lock, cursing Rutherford as he did so. He was reduced to this, stealing from his own family.
Sinjon Rutherford was the worst of fools, an honorable man, despite the fact that he had neither fortune nor title. Rutherford stood ready to right the world’s wrongs, save damsels in distress, and win the admiration of men of all classes. He would never stoop to pilfering an old lady’s heirlooms. Creighton hated him.
He remembered the day he met the good captain in Spain. Rutherford won a fortune at cards from him, money he didn’t have. He’d been forced to sign a vowel in front of a dozen witnesses.
He’d planned to cancel the debt, as he usually did, with a bullet between the captain’s shoulder blades. In war, men died every day, which was one of the things Creighton liked best about Spain. There were always new officers to game with, wet lads fresh out of England that he could cheat until they got themselves killed. But Rutherford managed to return from every fight unscathed, and covered in glory.
The day the vowel came due, Creighton was unable to pay it. He’d gone on patrol hating the man.
He ignored the neat rows of pearls and the garnet earrings, and pulled up the velvet lining of the drawer, searching for the key he knew must be there. Dust flew up at him, choking him.
It had been very dusty that day in Spain too, on the remote mountain road where he’d happened upon the pretty wife of a French officer, her coach crippled by a broken wheel. She’d faced her enemies with admirable bravery. Her husband was a wealthy colonel, she said, and would pay handsomely for her safe return.
Creighton had seen the possibilities at once, financial and otherwise. He let her write a note and send her driver running to her husband with it.
Then he’d given her maid to his men to keep them busy while he took his pleasure with the lady.
Sinjon Rutherford had found him in a most dishonorable position when he arrived, with his breeches around his ankles as he knelt between the lady’s naked thighs.
The woman started screaming, pleading with Rutherford in French, begging for help. Rutherford had sent him sprawling with a single punch, disgust clear in his eyes. With his breeches down, he couldn’t fight back, or defend himself. Now was that honorable?
By the time he got to his feet and found his sword, Rutherford had given the woman his coat to cover her torn bodice, and had her behind him, under his protection. The captain’s sword was pointed at his throat.
“Don’t be a prude, Rutherford,” Creighton murmured to the silence of his aunt’s chamber, recalling what he’d said then. “She’s the enemy.” He ripped the velvet lining out of the drawer and tossed it aside.
“She’s a woman, not a soldier, Creighton,” Rutherford had replied.
Creighton had tried playing the superior officer card. “Why are you here, away from camp, Captain?”
“I’ve come to collect my money. I wanted to be first in line, since you owe so much to so many others.”
Creighton had smiled, thinking luck was on his side after all. They were alone, except for the lady. A quick sword thrust was all it would take to cancel the debt.
“Please, Captain,” the woman pleaded. “I have sent a note to my husband. He is Colonel Jean-Pierre d’Agramant. He will come for me, pay for my safe return.” She didn’t look so pretty now, Creighton had thought, with her mouth bloodied by his fist, but she’d fought like a tigress, and he was still aroused. Once he killed Rutherford, he’d take her next to his corpse.
“You see, Rutherford? She’s about to be ransomed. An afternoon’s sport won’t harm her. When her husband arrives, he’ll pay me, and I’ll pay you.” He reached for the flask in his pocket and held it out. “Let’s have a drink while we wait. It will be some while before her husband gets here. We might as well pass the time pleasantly. I’ll even let you go first.”
As long as he lived, Creighton knew he would never forget the way Rutherford’s face twisted with revulsion.
He tore open yet another drawer in the damned Chinese puzzle of a jewel box, and scattered the contents.
“We’ll wait for the Colonel, Creighton, without harming the lady,” Rutherford had said.
For a moment after that, things began to look up. His men emerged from the bushes, fastening their flies. They assessed the situation—and their own guilt—and chose to side with him. They took Rutherford’s sword, held him at musket point.
Creighton stripped Rutherford’s coat from the Frenchwoman and began to drag her away for a little privacy.
“I’ve heard d’Agramant is the best swordsman in France,” Rutherford called after him. “Rape his wife, and he’s more likely to kill you than pay you. Is an afternoon
’s sport worth your life?”
That had certainly shriveled any hope of enjoying the lady’s favors, and his men started to mutter among themselves.
“We vote that the lady remains unharmed,” his sergeant spoke up.
He’d twisted her arm behind her back until she screamed. “This is not America!” he shouted. “You don’t get a say in this. The woman is mine!” He raised his pistol, and the nearest man went down with a cry, clutching his leg. The French bitch began screaming again, a shrill, earsplitting sound. He hit her to make her stop, knocking her unconscious, just as her husband arrived with a troop of French Guards.
There’d been murder in d’Agramant’s eyes when he saw his wife. Creighton remembered the burn of fear in his belly. He’d dragged the woman against his chest and held his knife at her throat. “I’ll kill her,” he warned.
Now, he picked up a letter opener from his aunt’s desk and threatened the back of the cabinet, looking for a secret compartment.
“And I’ll shoot your men, one by one, until you let her go,” the colonel had replied, imagining that he cared about their sodding lives.
It made him laugh even now. He pressed the letter opener into a promising crack in the jewelry chest’s mahogany frame the same way he’d pushed the knife against her breast.
“Throw down the ransom and go, monsieur. I will send her to you when you are out of shooting range.”
The colonel’s expression didn’t change. At his nod, one of his men shot the first British soldier. Rutherford threw himself in front of the rest of the cowering redcoats.
He faced the Frenchman without a trace of fear in his eyes. “They’re innocent.”
The colonel gave Rutherford the cold, sour, superior French smile usually reserved for English visitors to Paris. He pointed his pistol at Rutherford’s heart.
“Et vous, monsieur? Are you innocent as well?”
Rutherford hadn’t answered, didn’t plead for his life. Creighton would have, if there’d been time, but d’Agramant didn’t wait. He glanced at his wife’s battered face, her torn dress, and gave the command to fire.
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