Sterling walked over to retrieve the card that had come with it, reading it quickly. He tossed the card back onto the table. “I see that the dress is lovely. That the man clearly means to ensure that your bully of a brother doesn’t bring you in a burlap bag after I made a point of letting him know you didn’t have anything to wear. And I see that our soldier is doing very well in this world, no matter how he wishes to portray himself as a humble commoner.”
Grace held her breath. “Sterling. We can afford to politely decline this extravagant gift. Mrs. Ambley’s shop has several good dresses. Our finances are—”
“About to improve.” Sterling said firmly. “I consider this a small advance on the good fortune about to come our way!”
“Good fortune? In what guise?”
“That’s none of your concern, but Rutherford is important to me, Grace. See that you make the most of this.”
“I don’t understand. You’ve always made it clear that I’m not made for the marriage markets and I’ve accepted it. What am I making the most of? You insist he comes to dinner and then you practically toss him out the door. One moment you’re barely civil to him and the next you’re encouraging me to—“
“God, woman! Why do you look so worried?”
“You. I don’t recognize you. Not since Mr. Rutherford’s arrival.”
Sterling ground his teeth together and she saw the danger signs too late as his temper flared. He took a step toward her and caught hold of her upper arms to give her a firm shake. “We have business, Mr. Rutherford and I. I don’t have to explain my every action to you. I don’t have to tell you anything. It has nothing to do with you except that our dear Mr. Rutherford seems to enjoy your presence and if he is entranced by your charms, then he is less likely to cause me trouble.”
“What trouble—”
He shoved her away from him, his expression one of disgust. “This is your chance, Grace. This is your one chance to repay me for everything that I’ve done for you. For the life I’ve given you, for the house I’ve provided and the care. The clothes on your back and every scrap on your plate has been at offered at my expense these last few years.”
She rubbed her arms, wincing at the bruises blooming there. But she nodded, as if it made perfect sense that he was angry; as if everything he’d said made sense.
Sterling looked at her suddenly contrite. “I’m sorry. If you knew—you would beg to help me in my cause. Please, Grace. Just be a good girl and help your brother. All you have to do is smile sweetly at the man. Can you do that for me?”
She nodded, studying the carpet at her feet to ward off tears.
He touched her elbow gently. “I am not asking you to do anything inappropriate or unseemly. Write him a thank you note for the dress and invite him to the horse fair on Wednesday morning.”
“Of course.” I’ll write and tell him you’re insane.
“Show me the note before you send it, sister.”
Grace’s eyes widened in horror at the sensation that Sterling had overheard her thoughts, but she did her best to recover her composure before she lifted her chin. “Naturally.”
He left the room as abruptly as he’d entered it and Grace’s knees gave out. She slid down to sit on the floor, waiting until the pounding in her chest subsided to a gallop. It was a tangle that time wasn’t resolving. One of the ball gown’s sleeves trailed over the table’s edge and glittered in the light. Grace stared at it, the perfect dress from a wonderful man. I should be giddy with joy that this is happening. I have met a man and even if it is only a polite illusion, he is being kind.
Whatever trouble is coming, I’ll have to discover a way to shield Mr. Rutherford as he protected me and keep Sterling at bay.
CHAPTER TEN
Michael leaned against a wrought-iron railing beneath the shadows of an oak tree, hidden from the night watchmen. He had Grace’s invitation burning in his pocket and despite the simple words, a hundred readings had only added to the mystery.
The street lamps were making a valiant effort to cut through the darkness but the fog defeated them easily. Michael shifted his stance subtly to assist the circulation in his legs. It was an old trick that allowed him to stay in one position for long periods without losing sensation in his extremities. He’d seen a soldier cut down when he couldn’t move quickly enough after sitting too still in a covered position for several hours. It was a lesson he’d never forgotten but one that he’d applied with his own lethality.
It was an old assassin’s trick.
He was drawn back to Porter’s house on Baker Street, a moth to the flame. He told himself that it was a good thing to keep an eye on his enemy but it was Grace he couldn’t stop thinking about. The note had been in her hand, the neat and metered art of a woman’s handwriting. He’d studied it for its beauty alone for a long time, mesmerized by the notion that he had something tangible that was unique to her. He liked the tightness of her letters and the flourish of her loops and embellishments.
Except that the note itself reflected almost nothing of the woman he’d met.
It was a gracious expression of thanks for the dress he’d bought her and then an unexpected invitation to accompany her and Sterling to a horse fair. Every word was polite and precise.
Not Grace.
He dictated it and stood over her while she wrote it.
I would stake my life on it.
Michael let out a long slow breath, quietly sorting out the emotions that assaulted his senses. It was a small matter; a handwritten invitation. Sterling’s involvement would be a natural thing and the bile that rose in Michael’s throat was an overreaction at best. It would be a minor irritation if it were only a brother’s dictation of an innocuous message.
But it was the Jackal, standing over Grace.
Michael closed his eyes to try to push the image away. After all, he had no right to feel possessive or even protective. But he did. He felt immensely protective. It was in his nature and he’d long ago accepted it. When the Jaded had met in that dungeon, it was Michael who had vowed to get them through it but also to protect them for the rest of their days. He felt he owed them no less. After all, when it came to India, Michael was the closest to the ideal villain that the natives wished to destroy and when the raj had taken them, a part of Michael would always believe that he was the prime target of the madman’s sweep.
And so he’d shadowed them all, appointing himself as an unofficial guardian of sorts and doing his best to keep them from harm when enemies began to emerge from the shadows. Every turn in the game had frustrated him more until Michael knew the danger wasn’t in losing the battle, but losing himself along the way.
And now there was Grace.
Grace who didn’t believe that her brother was cruel; Grace who was kept to the house and ran secret errands; Grace who bullied him into carriages and was so unaware of her own bewitching beauty and charm that it warmed his blood and robbed him of his intellect.
Buying the dress had felt like an act of defiance. He’d nearly convinced himself that the impulse was purely a jab at Sterling’s pride and nothing more. Michael had clung to that conviction to brave Ashe’s sly looks and insinuating comments as he stood in the dressmaker’s and made his choice. It was a robin egg blue that reminded him of Spring—and Grace Porter’s eyes.
Michael shifted his weight again and gained a better view of one of the last lit windows in an otherwise dark house. From the lace curtains and a hanging nosegay of dried flowers below the eaves, he suspected it was Grace’s room.
What is she doing up there so late at night when everyone else has long since retired to bed?
Another light appeared briefly in a window on the second floor. The unsteady path of it betrayed that it was a handheld lantern before he detected Sterling’s silhouette in the frame.
Old instincts set off a familiar patter in his head.
Light’s good even if the fog doesn’t give much beyond the street corner. Steady enough. Wind’s calm. Adjust fo
r the angle of the window and the curtains. One shot. Not at the shadow but at the figure casting the shadow. One could even risk drawing him in with a noise to get him to step up to the glass and draw the drapery back a little further. He would press his forehead against the cool surface to gain a better view…
One shot through the eye and done.
Not that Michael had a rifle with him. And certainly not the Sharps rifle he’d bonded with in frightening speed. Old habits simply died harder than expected.
Damn it.
He raked a hand through his hair, cursing the common thug that still thought in terms of murder. The Jaded were relying on that very thug for justice and to bring an end to the tangle that threatened their fragile peace.
His humanity was something he’d fought so hard to regain and where the others had hated the black of that dungeon, Michael had embraced it for the restoration and salvation that suffering offered him. For a few weeks and months after their escape, he’d hoped to be a man transformed who could bury the demons of his past. But with the first strike against the Jaded, Michael’s dreams had died.
Without a second’s hesitation, he’d resumed the mantle of a warrior and accepted his fate. He’d known for a long time that if a confrontation were to come, it would be his duty to shield the others from the worst. Once the men began succumbing to the natural allure of the fairer sex and finding their wives, Michael had become even more resolute.
There would be no salvation for Michael Rutherford.
The light extinguished on the second floor and Grace’s window was once again the only sign of life in the house, a faint beacon that drew him away from the grim twist of his thoughts.
Whatever kept her up, he hoped it was pleasant. Tomorrow, he would see her at the horse fair and attempt to better understand Sterling’s game.
And do his best to keep his balance and—his distance.
“Do you ride, Miss Porter?” Michael asked.
She shook her head. “No. I’m not…one for riding. I think I’m too soft hearted for the enterprise and a bit too short to enjoy being that far off the ground.”
“Soft hearted?”
“It’s true,” Sterling said. “Grace cries every time she sees a man with a horse whip—mind you, holding it, not necessarily using it. A sweet fault but it does make riding around the streets of London with her an emotional affair I like to avoid at all costs.”
Michael kept his eyes on the large roan being taken out for another turn in the auction stall and deliberately concentrated on not turning and striking Sterling in the face. “I share her loathing of cruelty, Mr. Porter. I admire her sentimentality.”
“Do me a great favor, Mr. Rutherford.” Sterling stepped back from the railing. “I see a gentleman I wish to talk to. Would you keep my sister company as I attend to this business?”
The request surprised him, but he nodded his assent. “Of course.”
Sterling moved away, leaving him alone with Grace in the midst of the milling crowd of horse traders. Michael watched him go for a moment, suspicious at this sudden cavalier hand-off of his only sister’s care.
But Sterling disappeared from sight and then there was only Grace to consider.
Let’s see if my talent for small talk has improved.
“I’ve always had an admiration for horses,” he started tentatively. “Perhaps that’s why I avoided the cavalry. I couldn’t imagine torturing some noble beast by asking it to haul me around on its back. Can you see it? Anything less than a destrier and I look like a man sitting on a Shetland pony.”
When she didn’t answer him, he looked down to see if he’d lost her. Her eyes were downcast but he immediately suspected that it was not out of maidenly shyness as her expression was one of rapt fascination. Although, he wasn’t sure what it was about the ground that had captured her attention so completely.
“Miss Porter?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask what you’re studying down there?”
She looked up quickly, her cheeks flooding with pink. “I don’t wish to say.”
He nodded. “I see. That is your prerogative, naturally, to keep your thoughts to yourself but…I will admit that I’ll have to assume you were thinking something dreadful about the state of my boots—or worse, the size of them. They are clumsy looking, aren’t they?”
“Oh, no!” she said quickly, the color in face deepening. “That’s not at all what I was thinking, Mr. Rutherford!”
“Well, then you’ll have to confess. Surely you trust me to keep your confidences,” he cajoled her gently. “After all, I did save your life.”
She looked up at him and for the space of a single breath he wondered at the wisdom of pressing her. Her eyes shone with the intensity of her internal struggle to speak her mind and he nearly retracted the matter, about to babble something about his lack of conversation when she spoke. “My thoughts escaped the moment. I was listening. Truly I was but then I thought of the British army and all those feet marching all over the earth…and I was considering all the boot prints and then…yours next to another man’s.”
“Pardon?” he asked softly.
“You see, I read in a book once about a character who could tell all sorts of things about the villain he was tracking from one single foot print and—well, I was trying to see how such a thing were possible.”
“What could he tell from a track?”
Grace smiled, warming to the subject. “Supposedly he knew how tall the man was, and that he had a limp and that he was left-handed! But,” she eyed the ground again, “I’m at a loss and feeling a bit duped.”
“You’re clever to realize it,” he said, glancing at the pattern of steps in the muck, including a few delicate imprints from Miss Grace Porter herself. “My father was a gameskeeper and he taught me to track everything, including men, but that bit about being left-handed is a bunch of codswollop, miss.”
“What can you tell from a foot print?” she asked eagerly.
His breath caught in his throat. Why her questions and the keen sparkle in her blue eyes affected him; he had no idea. He only knew he’d answer any question she had and would have to fight the urge to make up fantastic lies if he didn’t know the answers. He wanted to say anything and everything to keep her happy.
“A great deal sometimes. If someone is injured or limping, perhaps, but not which hand he prefers to use to pick up a tankard. You can tell if they’re heavily laden or maybe just heavy…”
“What else?”
“You can tell if they’re familiar with the terrain.”
“How?”
Michael shifted back against the fence. “My father said it came down to a man’s ability to see what others overlook. If at every moment, you are mindful of your surroundings then if there is a change, a broken branch, disturbed underbrush or wet leaves overturned amidst a dry bed; you are better prepared to see a trail or a sign.”
“Mindful every minute,” she said quietly. “It sounds exhausting.”
“I read a penny dreadful,” he began shyly. “Not that a lady like yourself would bother with those kinds of things, but…well, they are a bit habit forming and I pick them up occasionally.” Michael cleared his throat. “Anyway, in this story, there was an island inhabited by centaurs who tracked their prey with scent alone. I thought it a terrible idea at first, since horses and men have a knack for using all their senses but as the tale unfolded, it was quite clever. Because they could see how a thing smelled, they could feel it on their skin and—“
He stopped, mortified at the tangent he’d gone off on. It felt inappropriate to tell her more. He’d forgotten how the story related the sensuality of the human animals and hinted about the symphony of pungent musk involved in their mating. Which was all well and good except he was suddenly wishing he’d brought up another example because even in the pungent and chaotic horse yard, he could smell lilacs from her skin and hair and she was provoking all his senses with a desire
to lift her from the mud and hold her.
“Yes?” she asked, her face flushed.
“I…meant to say that it was…accurate in that when you are present and mindful, it overtakes all your senses. So, muddy footprints are merely the start of it—if you’re tracking.” A snake of heat unfurled up his spine. “Are you taking up hunting, Miss Porter?”
“No!” She replied quickly, averting her face to press her gloved fingers against her cheeks but then turned back to him in a blink, a woman recovered. “My thoughts are as scattered as leaves on a windy day. Sterling hates it. I am so comfortable with you, I forget myself. I ask all the wrong questions and say all the wrong things. In children, it’s considered precocious if tolerated but as a grown woman, I should mind my tongue. Even the footprints, that wasn’t what I meant to talk to you about at all! You distract me, Mr. Rutherford. It’s…most unexpected.”
Michael blinked. He loved her thoughts. They diverted and surprised him at every turn and he was mesmerized by the dance of her wit.
“And,” she continued quickly, “You are not so tall.”
“Pardon?” The comment caught him off guard as it related to almost nothing he could trace.
“I am scattered but I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t paying attention to what you said, Mr. Rutherford. You would look as noble on a horse as any man and while I agree that you may consider something more along the lines of a draft horse for your comfort, I don’t agree that you would look foolish or that a horse would be unhappy to have a gentle and kind rider.” She pressed her fingers against her cheeks and then smiled. “You, sir, are not so tall as you think.”
His eyes widened, all his movement arrested in a single breath. “Am I not?”
Grace smiled. “Well, you are…tall, of course. And it is striking but I wonder if you are self-conscious of it and the characteristic is magnified in your mind.”
God, she cut to the heart of things, didn’t she? “Is it only in my mind then? The low ceilings and struggle to find a good pair of boots?”
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