Willoughby 03 - A Rogue's Deadly Redemption

by Jeannie Ruesch

  She shook her head, even though she couldn’t guarantee it. Her emotions had risen to a level of complete chaos.

  “I think I need sleep. May we talk tomorrow?”

  Tomorrow, she would tell him everything. She would tell him about America. About Robert. The men. All of it. Tomorrow, her head would be clear, and she could make sense of what to do next.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Robert slowed as he approached the street where he’d been abducted. A small crowd milled about, buzzing with the same bloodthirsty horror he’d seen earlier that day. Dread weighted his gut. His legs twitched with the instinct to leave. He saw men walking in circles around the spot where he’d last seen Cary, but the ground was empty.

  Robert reached out to stop a man walking past him. “What happened here?”

  “Found a dead bloke,” he said with a shrug. “A nobleman, at that.”

  Robert’s hand dropped to his side. He stepped back, his eyes never leaving the empty space on the ground where Cary had lain. Dead.

  Pain hit him with the force of a giant’s fist. With it came flashes of a younger version of his brother—looking down at him, patting him on the head. Shoving him out the door with whispered words, “Go hide, Robbie. Don’t let her see you. It’s a game. Don’t come out until I find you.”

  How had he not remembered that?

  Why did he remember it now?

  He gasped at the bite of pain left by the beast raging through him, shoving his brother’s face into clear memory.

  He’d hidden that day. Ran out the back door of their home, onto the expansive grounds around it. He’d found his favorite tree and shimmied up into the branches, to his favorite spot with crisscrossed branches that had formed into a cradle.

  Hours later, Cary had found him there, asleep. Brought him home. It hadn’t occurred to Robert that it was anything but a game.

  Don’t let her see you. What had he meant? What had happened that day?

  Robert squeezed his eyes shut, willing his mind to recall more memories, more flashes, more visions of the life he’d lost. Nothing came.

  “You all right, mister?”

  Robert opened his eyes and found a man peering at him suspiciously. “Did you know the man killed here?”

  He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He didn’t know how to answer that.

  He shook his head, backed away a few steps until he could whirl around and continue down the street.

  “Wait!”

  Robert ignored him. He lengthened his stride as though he could catch up and get ahead of the fog that had stolen his memories.

  He’d chosen a life that had shoved away his wife. And now it had taken his brother’s life. Nausea bulged in his throat.

  How the hell was he going to fix this?

  He made it to his home, shoved open the door and took the stairs two at a time until he gained his floor. In his bedroom, he pressed his hands to the mantle and bent his head down. His breath came in ragged gasps, so he sucked in air until his head stopped spinning.

  An artist.

  The bloody criminals had said he was an artist.

  It resonated. Knowing that helped him understand the way his fingers twitched when he saw a person who wore their emotions like an overcoat—Lily, the boy on the street, the mother and his son.

  What kind of work would an artist do for men who would kill to possess it?

  It made no sense. Nothing made sense.

  Robert stood tall, stretching out the stabs of pain that shot through his back at the movement. Any movement, really.

  Damn, but he hurt. Everywhere.

  He kept waiting for a crush of pain to hit. The ache in his chest was never-ending, but he’d expected more, something to match the loss of a brother.

  Was he that much of a bastard that he didn’t feel it?

  He walked on stiff, wooden legs to the window, shoved the curtain aside and blinked rapidly at the waning light that showered him. He looked out the window at the street below. A nice street.

  With what appeared to be nice people. Nice carriages. The homes across the way looked tidy, well-kept. Nice.

  He lived in a bloody nice area of town.

  What had propelled him out of this life and into one where people died?

  Robert ran the scenes in his head like flipping a sketchbook page after page. He focused on the lines, the tones, the emotions so he could commit them to his damaged memory.

  He needed to keep these memories. Examine them for a clue, for something familiar, for anything that would help him regain what he’d lost.

  He sidestepped toward the desk and picked up a mirror, held it up. A few scrapes scabbing over on his face. Mottled blue, black with the edges just shifting toward yellow. He’d removed the bandage from his head, and he touched his fingers to his temple. Winced from the tenderness.

  But other than that, his face gave nothing. No diabolical hints in the set of his features, no inked words upon his forehead to proclaim him.

  He dropped the mirror with a clatter. Damn it! What did he owe them? What did they want? He stared at the desk in front of him. Rage filled him. He grabbed a drawer and yanked it open, not caring when papers flew everywhere. He let it fall to the ground and grabbed another. More papers.

  He would find answers for himself.

  “Where have you been?”

  A man stood in the doorway. Wait, no, he knew him. Robert ignored him, tore open a drawer by his bedside. He looked under the bed. Under the mattress. He pulled a corner of the mattress up, lifted it until it skid over.

  A hand clamped on his arm. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “What do they want?” he demanded. “You know me. Tell me what the bloody bastards want from me.”

  The man dropped his arm. A glare glimmered in his dark eyes. “I hope you are amusing yourself because I am not vastly amused.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Are you putting on a show? Because no one else is here to see it. What is your purpose? Are you trying to persuade Lady Melrose you’ve changed? Having a lark at everyone else’s expense? Why did you leave without me? I can’t protect you if I’m not with you, Robert.” Every word spiked with righteous anger.

  “Protect me from what? What is your role? What do you do here? For me?”

  “I am your valet.” The tone offered a heavy hint that there was far more to it.

  “And?”

  “Is there more to life than being a valet?”

  Robert shot him a look of warning. “Don’t play games.”

  “Why not? You are. Enough with this, Melrose.”

  Robert was writing the damn note. Pinning it to his bloody chest.

  “What do you intend to do? I barely managed to salvage whatever mess you left behind. What were you thinking, taking your wife there? Playing your stupid game with them?”

  His patience gone, Robert strode up to Edwin, fists at his sides. “You think this is a game? They killed my brother.”

  “They what?”

  “He’s dead. And I didn’t take her anywhere. They nabbed her, just as they grabbed me off the street. Now tell me what they want so I can give it to them.”

  Edwin was silent. Robert saw his face etched in deep charcoal lines, with enough shadows to show the anger and fear lurking in his eyes.

  “You aren’t pretending, are you?”

  “By Jove, I think he’s got it.”

  “Damn.” Edwin turned away, stared at the desk. He opened the first drawer of the desk. Pulled out a small stack of paper.

  Flipped through more papers.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You never told me where you keep them.”

  “Keep what?”

  “It’s the one thing you felt needed to be under your control. I don’t know where the plates are.” Without waiting for Robert’s response, he moved through the room, into the dressing room. Robert could hear the rustle of items and he followed him in.

  “Stop.”

/>   When Edwin didn’t stop, Robert reached out and grabbed his arm. Edwin immediately rounded on him, then backed off.

  He lifted a hand. “I apologize. It’s…instinct. You know.” A frown slashed his expression. “Or you don’t. Damnation. This can’t happen. Not when we’re this close. Not when we’ve worked too hard.” He turned back to rifling through what Robert assumed were his belongings.

  “Worked too hard? Did you not hear me? They murdered my brother. What plates? What are you talking about?”

  Edwin studied him for a moment, as if judging his worth. Then he squared his shoulders. “You create copperplates, for banknotes. Forgeries.”

  Blood rushed through Robert’s head with the noise and force of a river. His temples hammered his eyes, and his heart matched the rhythm. “I’m a forger.”

  “You’re an artist.”

  “I am a bloody criminal.”

  “You’re one of the finest forgers I’ve ever seen. Your abilities have given us a leg up in the organization. Your value is unmeasured. It gives you a tremendous amount of power we cannot afford to squander.” He paused. “If we deliver those, you’ll earn time to regain your faculties.”

  No, Robert didn’t recall. He recoiled from it.

  He was a forger.

  He drew money that other people passed off as real.

  He did something he could be hung for. Lily’s pain, the fear that had threaded through her words, her movements when she held the broadsheet.

  He had promised her it would be all right.

  By Edwin’s admiration, Robert had the cloying, nauseating feeling that he himself had been proud of what he did.

  Edwin kept talking, but Robert could hear nothing but the roar in his head. The debilitating ache that had left him for the last hours returned with a vengeance, prodding his skull mercilessly.

  He’d taken his gift and turned it into something criminal.

  It was a sickening truth. Now he knew why his wife had left him. Why he’d let her.

  Why he’d kept apart from his brothers.

  He held on to that hope, that even while he threw himself down the well into a criminal life, that he’d attempted to keep the people he cared about free from that same life. Those dangers.

  Now, it had caught up with him.

  “Robert.”

  He snapped his head up. “What?”

  “Do you know where they are?”

  “They?”

  “The bloody plates, Robert. Where did you stash them?”

  A sense of foreboding pervaded his entire body. He didn’t know.

  But he knew he had to find them.

  ***

  The next morning, Lily made her way to the dining room for breakfast to find her eldest sister, Blythe sitting at the table, drinking tea.

  Surprised, she walked over and placed a kiss on her sister’s cheek. “What a pleasure to see you.”

  She hoped that was enough to dissuade the conver—

  “I’ve been waiting for you to come down.”

  Today would not be her day for luck.

  Lily poured herself a cup of tea, added a liberal dash of sugar. Wished she could add a spot of spirits, while she was at it. Something to fortify her for what lay ahead.

  Nothing she had to share would be considered welcome news, least of all that she had booked passage for a ship to America that left in five days.

  Lily’s hand dropped to the table, her fork clattering.

  Five days. In five days, she would be leaving behind everything she knew and she hadn’t told her family. Yes, she was happy to join her mother and sister, but she would be leaving behind the rest of her family, her home.

  Her husband.

  Leaving him to what?

  The snap of fingers jarred her from her thoughts and she snapped her gaze to Blythe’s.

  “Where did you go?” Blythe wondered.

  Suddenly, Lily knew the key to telling her brother was to get Blythe on her side first. She had a way of calming Adam, of talking him down from his go-to stance of locking his family members up until they agreed with his way of thinking.

  Granted, he had mellowed considerably since he’d met Aria. Though Lily imagined that had more to do with the fact that Aria didn’t acknowledge the word obey existed in the English language—or any of the others for that fact.

  But even a mellowed Adam was difficult when he thought he was right.

  Another snap, followed by a short laugh.

  “You are in a dreamland today, aren’t you?” Blythe took a sip of her tea. “I can’t wait to hear what has prompted this. You’ve had quite the eventful week.”

  An understatement, that.

  The last few days had upended everything she thought she knew about her life. As dismal as her marriage had been, she’d thought she understood it. The Robert she had been married to was something of a wastrel, a terrible husband but a harmless man without purpose. He, in essence, epitomized the “useless darlings” that Aria often remarked London was so filled with.

  Her husband had married her even though he had wanted her sister, which though painful, was somewhat pointless, because said sister hadn’t given a whit about the man other than a deep competitive streak that meant she hated losing.

  But none of that was true.

  “Lily, your silence is quite foreboding. You had best start explaining some of what’s happened.” Blythe’s tone had grown soft, but firm. “I’m worried about you. I know you left Robert. I know he was injured. But beyond that…”

  “He can’t remember his life. Our life.”

  Blythe blinked. “What does that mean?”

  Lily shoved a piece of cheese in her mouth to give her a few minutes to think. “He thinks he might have loved me, that’s what it means.”

  She hadn’t meant to start there.

  “Explain.”

  “That isn’t the worst of it.”

  “All right.” The words were slow.

  “He may not remember anything, but I don’t even know who he was. What he was. There were men, and they were looking for Robert. Scary men. They took me to see—Oh my God. I can’t believe I forgot—” She stopped. “Captain Keenan.”

  Blythe shook her head as though it hurt. “Stop. I am completely lost. What does Captain Keenan have to do with this?”

  “Does he have a brother? Perhaps one who really, really looks like him?” And talked like him. And turned at the mention of his brother’s address.

  Lily didn’t want to offer such devastating news if she was wrong.

  “He was an only child, I believe. But what does he have to do with Robert? And what did you mean by scary men took you?” Blythe lifted her napkin from her lap and set it on the table. “I’m going to send for Adam and Michael. Whatever is going on, they need to hear it.”

  “Blythe—”

  She shook her head. “No, my darling. I don’t know what your husband has gotten you into, but it will end now. Do not move.”

  She hurried out the door, and Lily slumped in her chair.

  Beyond her confusion at everything, she couldn’t stop thinking about Robert.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss.

  It had been so long, and his arms around her, his lips on hers had felt like heaven.

  She had been right to leave. She couldn’t let him drag her into his world, whatever that world was. She couldn’t allow herself to unbox her heart, only to have him stomp on it again.

  She spotted the paper at Adam’s place at the table. It had been an uncommon week, one free of mention. For as eventful as it was, very little had been written about Robert’s condition. His accident. It was odd.

  She unfolded the paper to see if today would be any different. A gasp pulled from her throat at the headline halfway down the page.

  Lord found murdered.

  The name jumped out at her. Cary. Oh my God, it was Robert’s brother. After everything they’d been through yesterday… Fear jumped into her throat. Did this
have something to do with what had happened to them yesterday?

  She had to see him. She couldn’t let him handle this alone.

  She had left a man who literally lived in blankness. A man who, if he couldn’t find his way out of that blankness, could be in a tremendous amount of danger.

  Lily glanced at the door. She should wait for Blythe to return with Adam and Michael and the family meeting about the state of her life to commence.

  If she did, Adam and Michael would take over. Adam would lock her in her room before letting her anywhere near Robert.

  Robert seemed to think she was important to him. He thought he loved her.

  While the logical part of her realized it was false, that she was being stupid, she believed he needed her. There was this fragile, little thread growing, wondering.

  What if she had come first?

  Either way, she couldn’t let him face his brother’s murder alone. She stood up from the table and hurried down the corridor, grabbed a cloak and slipped out the front door before anyone noticed.

  On the porch steps, she stopped. Memory washed over her.

  She had started her relationship with Robert by secret glances and conversations when no one was paying mind.

  She wasn’t sure what it meant that she was doing the same now.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Robert stood in the doorway of the study—his study—and stared. He’d walked the entire house with Edwin, learning the rooms, seeing it for what he knew wasn’t the first time but nothing felt familiar.

  What he did feel was Lily’s presence in every room. In the furnishings, the wall colors and papers, the way those colors matched with the furniture.

  Somehow even the artwork, different pieces, by different artists, blended into one symbol of the woman he knew had chosen it all.

  God help him, memory or not, but he doubted he had the ability to put together a house like this.

  But not this room.

  “I told you, I’ve looked in here,” Edwin said.

  “You also said you’d searched the entire house. Yet here we are empty-handed.”

  Edwin made a rude grunt.

  “Have I ever fired you?”

  “You wouldn’t survive one day without me.” Edwin moved inside.