Книга - Beware Of Virtuous Women

Beware Of Virtuous Women
Kasey Michaels


The perfect daughter…secrets within secrets, lies within lies.Adopted daughter Eleanor Becket is dedicated to her family and its welfare. She is also a commendable commander, and a keeper of secrets, most especially her own. Who would ever expect this fragile beauty, with her quiet ways and her unfortunate limp, to be capable of anything more than her accomplishments at embroidery and her mastery of musical instruments?Only Jack Eastwood feels the need to look more deeply at this self-proclaimed spinster, and what he sees–and the long-ago crime he suspects–lead both Jack and Eleanor to the very edge of desire and danger. As the Beckets feel the outside world looking ever more closely at the nocturnal activities taking place in Romney Marsh, as the Black Ghost rides yet again, Eleanor Becket is forced to risk her family, her chance at love, even her life, in one desperate gamble.









The Beckets of Romney Marsh saga continues


Our story so far…

Patriarch Ainsley Becket had taken his band of orphans and given them all new identities and a new life on the shores of Romney Marsh. His intention was to secure each a safe haven from their shocking beginnings and to give Ainsley a reprieve from his dangerous past. But one by one his children are leaving him to find new experiences…and to find mates.

Eldest son Chance Becket moved to London to become a true gentleman, though that did not work out exactly as planned. Now Chance is happily married to his young daughter’s governess, Julia, and they are raising a family of their own.

Feisty Morgan Becket was to have a season in London, hopefully securing the hand of a proper suitor…a man who could tame the troublesome debutante. She found a husband, all right, though Ethan, Lord Aylesford, might be just as wild as his new wife.

And then there’s Eleanor Becket. Quiet. Unassuming. Or so everyone thinks. But one should beware of virtuous women…




KASEY MICHAELS

Beware of Virtuous Women








Dear Reader,

It is 1813. England is fighting on two fronts, against both Napoleon and the United States. There is a third, smaller front—but hardly less important in certain quarters—and this front is on England’s own shores, the combatants England’s own citizens.

Anywhere the smallest boat might land, everywhere the Crown’s war-tightened purse has made day-to-day living precarious, there is the chance that the local populace is dabbling in a bit of free trading—smuggling.

The Beckets of Romney Marsh do not engage in smuggling themselves, but they have jumped in with both feet to protect those of their neighbors who do. Their Black Ghost Gang has secured the area and operated in peace for two years. But now that peace and the entire enterprise are being threatened by the Red Men, a large, vicious gang whose tentacles reach from France to London’s exclusive Mayfair.

And so is born an unholy alliance between Ainsley Becket’s business partner and his own oldest daughter, Eleanor, who travel together to London posing as man and wife to unmask the leaders of the Red Men Gang. Trust between the two is paramount if they are to succeed, but one is tightly wrapped in lies and the other has a potentially explosive secret to protect.

It had all seemed so simple. The man Ainsley Becket had been, the family he had built would all die and come to Romney Marsh to be reborn—safe, hidden, hopefully forgotten.

But the world keeps creeping in…

Please enjoy Eleanor’s story and watch for more Beckets in 2007.

Best,

Kasey Michaels


To Tom and Carol Carpenter



Beware of Virtuous Women




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE




CHAPTER ONE


1813

ELEANOR BECKET SAT in her usual chair near the fire, bent over her embroidery frame.

Her sisters Fanny and Cassandra, the latter still downstairs only because their papa had retreated to his study and didn’t know she’d left her bedchamber, were playing a card game they’d invented together, and neither of them quite knew the rules.

Morgan Tanner, Countess of Aylesford, sister to the three and quite happily pregnant, sat with her legs up on a Chinese hassock, wiggling her slipper-clad toes in delight, for the slippers were new, and she rarely saw them. At least not while standing up and attempting to peer straight down.

A log fell in the large fireplace in the drawing room where they sat, and all four women momentarily looked up from what they were doing, then settled back to passing the time as best they could.

“They’re fine,” Eleanor said a few minutes later in answer to the unspoken question that had been hanging in the room all evening, and Fanny agreed that of course they were.

“Just enough mist over the water to hide the Respite, not enough to hamper them. And the moon couldn’t be more perfect,” Morgan said, looking toward one of the large windows and the dark beyond. “Callie, stop chewing on your curls. You’ll end up with a hair ball in your belly. Odette will pour castor oil down your gullet, and there will be no lack of volunteers to hold you down.”

Fifteen-year-old Cassandra Becket used her tongue to push the light brown corkscrew curl from her mouth, then frowned at its damp length. “I can’t help it, Morgie. I’m nervous.”

“And hours past your bedtime, as it’s nearly three,” Eleanor pointed out, taking another stitch in her embroidery, pleased that her hands were steady. “You, too, Morgan.”

“Me? I’m pregnant, Elly, not delicate. In fact,” she said, looking down at her stomach, “I’m about as delicate as a beached whale.”

Fanny giggled. “Maybe if you didn’t eat so much…?”

Morgan reached behind her and drew out one of the small silk pillows she’d placed there to make her comfortable, then launched it at her sister’s head.

Fanny neatly caught the pillow, then stood, pressed it against her own flat stomach. She bent her spine back as far as she could, still holding the pillow to her, and began walking across the room, her feet spread wide. “Do I have it right, Callie? Enough of a duck’s waddle to look like our dear, sophisticated countess?”

Callie considered this, then said, “Perhaps if you had first stuffed your cheeks with sugarplums?”

Eleanor smiled as she continued to bend over her embroidery. It was so good to have Morgan home with them after so many months away, but if her baby didn’t come soon even Eleanor would be harboring a few fears that the girl would simply explode on her own, and not need Odette’s midwifery.

“What was that? Fanny, Callie, sit down and be quiet. I think I heard something. Elly? Did you hear anything?”

Eleanor stood and walked over to Morgan, gently pushing her back down into the chair. “We don’t want to appear to be too anxious, Morgan. It’s bad enough we’re all sitting up with you, just as if we don’t expect them all to be fine. Ah—now I hear it, too. They’re back. Everyone, do your best to appear unconcerned.”

Fanny and Cassandra had already picked up their cards again, and Eleanor was once more bending over her embroidery frame as the Becket men entered the drawing room to catch Morgan in the middle of a prodigiously overdone yawn.

“Oh. Look who’s back,” Morgan said, “and none the worse for wear. Although, darling, could you possibly manage to wipe that ridiculous grin from your face?”

Ethan Tanner, Earl of Aylesford, pulled at the black silk scarf tied loosely around his throat and lifted it up and over his mouth and nose. “Better, darling?” he asked, then bent down and kissed her rounded belly. “Up late, aren’t you, infant?”

“Are you referring to me or the baby? Come here, let me hold you. I know you were enjoying yourself romping about playing at freetrader, but I haven’t had a peaceful night waiting for you.”

Eleanor watched, glad for her sister’s happiness and yet somehow sad at the same time, as Morgan yanked down Ethan’s mask and grabbed his face in her hands, pulling him close for a long kiss on the mouth.

“At it again, Ethan?” Rian Becket said as he stripped off his gloves and accepted the glass of wine Fanny had fetched for him. “I think I should point out that the damage is already done.”

Cassandra giggled, which drew the attention of Courtland Becket. “Been chewing on your hair again? And what are you doing down here at this hour? Get yourself upstairs where you belong.”

Eleanor hid a sympathetic wince as Cassandra’s pretty little face crumpled at this verbal slap and the child plopped herself down on one of the couches, to sulk.

Didn’t Courtland know how desperately Cassandra worshipped him? Or perhaps he did, poor man. “Court? Does Papa know you’re back?”

“He does. We came up the back stairs from the beach,” Courtland told her, pouring himself a glass of claret. “And, before you ladies ask, the run was completely uneventful.”

“You may say that, Court,” Ethan said, sitting perched on the arm of the chair, holding Morgan’s hand. “If it’s uneventful to you that we had to evade the Waterguard and make land two hours behind schedule.” He lifted Morgan’s hand to his mouth, kissed her fingers. “God, but it makes your blood run, darling. I’ll have to do this more often. Can’t let everyone else have all the fun.”

Morgan rolled her eyes. “Yes, of course. There’s nothing like a good smuggling run to liven your exceedingly dull and boring married life. You should go out on every run, really. And don’t you worry, I’ll be sure to tell our child what you looked like before the Crown hanged you in chains.”

“Ha! I think we’ve all just been insulted, Court,” Rian said, pushing back his sea-damp black hair as Fanny looked at him, her heart in her eyes. “As if the Black Ghost could ever be caught.”

Eleanor picked up her needle once more, not bothering to follow the lively exchange of jokes and verbal digs that were so commonplace in this rather wild, always loving clutch of Beckets. Like little boys, the men were still riding high on their excitement, and the girls were all more than willing to play their happy audience, even if that meant poking a bit of fun at them.

Was she the only one who saw beneath the surface of that banter? Saw that Fanny believed herself in love with Rian, and that Cassandra’s devotion to Courtland was much more than that of a youngest child for her older brother and staunch protector?

This was what happened when you lived in the back of beyond, isolated from most of the world. Siblings in name, but not by blood, as the Beckets had grown into the healthy animals they were, problems had been bound to arise.

But not for her. Not for Eleanor. She was the different one, the odd Becket out, as it were. The one part of the whole that had never quite fit.

Perhaps it was because she had been the last to join the family, and as a child of six, not as an infant or even as experienced as Chance and Courtland had been; already their own persons, older than their years when Ainsley Becket had scooped them up, given them a home on his now lost island paradise. She had landed more in the middle, and had been forced to seek her own identity, her own place.

And that place, she had long ago decided, had been with Ainsley Becket, the patriarch of the Becket clan. She had made herself into the calm one, the reasonable one, the quiet voice of sanity in the midst of so many more earthy, hot-blooded young creatures who eagerly grabbed at life with both hands.

The others would leave one day, as Chance had when he’d married his Julia, as Morgan had when she’d wed her Ethan. Spencer was also gone, his commission purchased, and he’d been in Canada the last several months, fighting with his regiment against America, much to Ainsley’s chagrin.

No matter how loving, how loyal, one by one the perhaps odd but yet wonderful assortment of Becket children would leave Becket Hall. Much as they loved and respected him, they’d leave Ainsley Becket alone with his huge house and his unhappy memories of the life he’d loved and lost before fleeing his island paradise and bringing everyone to this isolated land that was Romney Marsh.

But she’d stay. She and Ainsley had discussed all of that, in some detail. She would stay. As it was for Ainsley, it might even be safer for her to stay.

Eleanor watched now as Rian recounted the night’s smuggling run to Fanny, who listened in rapt attention. As Courtland gave in and let Cassandra fuss over him, even try on the black silk cape that turned the sober, careful Courtland into the daring, mysterious Black Ghost. As Morgan and her Ethan whispered to each other, their heads close together, Ethan’s hand resting casually on her belly.

Eleanor put aside her embroidery and got to her feet, barely noticing the dull ache in her left leg caused by sitting too long, her muscles kept too tense as she’d held her worries inside by sheer force of will. Her siblings, everyone, believed her to be so composed, so controlled…and never realized how very frightened she was for all of them, most especially since the Black Ghost had begun his nocturnal rides to aid the people of Romney Marsh.

She left the drawing room unnoticed, her limp more pronounced than usual, but that would work out the more that she walked. By the time she reached Ainsley’s study, it would barely be noticeable at all, which would be good, because her papa noticed everything.

The door to the study was half open and Eleanor was about to knock on one of the heavy oak panels and ask admittance when she heard voices inside the large, wood-paneled room.

Jacko’s voice. “And I say leave it go. Cut our losses and find other ways, other people. There’s always enough of the greedy bastards lying about, willing to get rich on our hard work.”

Eleanor stepped back into the shadows in the hallway, realizing she’d stumbled onto a conversation she wouldn’t be invited to join.

“True enough, Jacko,” Ainsley agreed, “but we must also deal with this now, or else face the same problem again. Jack?”

Eleanor’s eyes went wide. Jack? Her breathing became shallow, faster, and she pressed her hands to her chest. He was here? She hadn’t known he was here. He must have arranged for a rendezvous with the Respite off Calais, then sailed home with them.

Jack Eastwood’s voice, quiet, with hints of gravel in its cultured tones, sent a small frisson down Eleanor’s spine. “Ainsley’s right, Jacko. Someone got to these people, and if they did it once, they can do it again. Two men dead on their side of the Channel, most probably as an example to the others, and the rest now understandably too frightened to deal with us. My connections on this side of the Channel are also shutting the door on me, on us. This is the last haul we’ll get, the last we can deliver anyway. Much as I want to keep the goods running—and I can do that, I know of other connections I can cultivate—I want to find out who did this to us, who discovered and compromised our current connections.”

“And eliminate them,” Ainsley said, his voice low, so that Eleanor had to strain to hear. She could picture him, sitting behind his desk, his brow furrowed, his right hand working the small, round glass paperweight she’d given him this past Christmas. “I thought we were done with bloodshed when we rousted the Red Men Gang from Romney Marsh.”

Eleanor heard the creak of the leather couch, and knew Jacko had sat forward, shifting his large, muscular frame. “You think it’s them, Cap’n? It’s been two years since we trounced them, sent them on their way. You really think they’re back?”

“Who else could it be? Perhaps its time to put a halt to all of this.”

“Cap’n, you don’t mean that.” The leather couch protested again, and Eleanor stepped back farther into the shadows as Jacko’s large frame passed in front of the open door.

She’d known Jacko since the moment he’d discovered their hiding place, his wide smile and booming laugh so frightening. Julia, Chance’s wife, had once confided that her first thought when she’d seen Jacko was that the man would smile amiably even as he cut your beating heart from your chest, and Eleanor knew Julia’s description was not an exaggeration.

But Jacko was loyal to Ainsley. Fiercely so. And if Eleanor hadn’t learned to love the man, she had learned to trust his loyalty if not always his judgment, even when the memories had begun rolling back to her….

Ainsley was speaking again. “I do mean it, Jacko. We only began this to help the people here, protect them from the Red Men Gang. A laudable reason, but no one of us suspected the enterprise to grow as it has. We’re bringing attention to ourselves, from London, and most probably from the Red Men again. Moving some wool and coming back with tea and brandy, helping these people survive. That was the plan, remember? Now we control most of the Marsh. Someone was bound to notice.”

“So you withdraw our protection, leave everyone to find their own suppliers, their own landsmen, their own distributors in London? You watch as they run up against the Red Men on their own, and then bury a few more bodies, add a few more widows and fatherless children to the Marsh. Is that what you’re saying, Cap’n?”

Eleanor held her breath. If Ainsley put a stop to the Black Ghost Gang they’d all be safe…but Jack Eastwood would never visit Becket Hall again.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying, Jacko. It’s what I’m hoping. A selfish return to our quiet existence for my sons, our men and, yes, for myself. But we all know that isn’t possible, at least not until the war is over and wool prices eventually climb again. Jack? Tell me more of your idea.”

Eleanor stepped closer, not wishing to miss a word.

“All right. As I said, someone is trying to cut off both our head and our feet—our contacts both around London and in France. After this last shipment, I have no one lined up to buy our people’s wool, and no one to sell the goods we, well, that we import.”

“You’ve been sloppy? How else would anyone know your contacts?”

Eleanor heard the hint of distaste in Jack’s tone. “No, Jacko, I don’t think I’ve been…sloppy. I think someone else has been very smart. Why confront us here on the Marsh, on the Black Ghost’s home ground, when cutting off our head and feet is so much easier than hitting at our well-protected and well-armed belly? And I think it all begins in London, not France. This hasn’t happened overnight, our sources have been shrinking for some time now. I’ve been watching, and I have some ideas, which is why I traveled to France, and why I’m here now.”

As Eleanor listened, Jack further explained his conclusions, and his plan.

No one in France had any reason to stop the flow of contraband either into or out of that country. To the French, profit was profit, and they’d deal with the Red Men, the Black Ghost, the devil himself, as long as that profit was maintained, often with much of that profit going directly into Napoleon’s war chest. If the French were nothing else, they were always eminently practical.

Which left London. More specifically, Mayfair, the very heart of the ton. Bankers and wealthy cits, industrialists, were also suspected of acting as financial backers to the smugglers, but it was common if unspoken knowledge that many an impecunious peer had staked his last monies on a smuggling run and then suddenly found his pockets deep again.

And Jack had an idea where in the ton he should look to find the people who had the most to gain if the Black Ghost Gang was rendered impotent.

“I’ve narrowed my search down to a trio of men,” he said. “Three gentlemen friends who have had happy and yet inexplicable reversals of fortune in the past few years. We all know the major profits from smuggling go to people at the very top of society.”

“People with the money to put up to buy contraband goods in order to resell them at ten times the price, yes,” Ainsley interrupted. “But these men you speak of? You said they’ve had reversals of fortune, which is not the same as having amassed a fortune the likes of which we know can be gotten. That would put them somewhere in the middle, wouldn’t it? High-placed minions, the slightly more public face of the true leaders, but still minions.”

“True, none of them certainly is another Golden Ball, but there is money there now, where there had been only debts. If we can get to them, hopefully we can get to the person or persons at the very top,” Jack said. “And I’m willing to wager that whoever that is, he’s also the brains behind the Red Men Gang. They may not be here in Romney Marsh anymore, but they’re everywhere else, like a large red stain spreading over the countryside these past years. No one makes a move without them, and if anyone dares, they’re mercilessly crushed. You, Ainsley, you and your sons and Romney Marsh? You are all that stand between the Red Men Gang and complete domination of the smuggling trade in the south of England. The Marsh is too tricky, navigation too dangerous for them to work this area without the cooperation of the local inhabitants.”

Jacko spoke up. “All very well, Eastwood, and you’ve made your point with that pretty speech. But we are here, not about to budge, and you’re only one man. Let’s hear more of this grand plan of yours.”

“I’m getting there, Jacko. You know I’ve bought a house in Portland Square, to go along very nicely with my estate in Sussex. I’m a fairly wealthy man, thanks to you, Ainsley, and you aren’t the only one who sees the merits in planning for a more…conventional future, a life after we’re done with our adventure. I think it’s time I make a rather large but concentrated splash in London society.”

“To get you close, have you noticed by this trio of men you suspect,” Ainsley said quietly. “You interest me. Go on.”

“I think my way in would be through the gambler in the group, Harris Phelps. He’s the most reckless, and the most stupid. He’s taken to wearing a scarlet waistcoat and always wagering on the red, saying it’s his lucky color.”

“Damn,” Jacko muttered. “Sounds like we’re being beaten by an idiot. That stick in your craw as much as it does mine, Cap’n?”

“On the contrary, Jacko. It’s always comforting to know you’re smarter than your enemy, as long as you don’t make the mistake of becoming overconfident. Always remember that even idiots are successful at times, if only by accident. Go on, Jack. I imagine you plan to get close with this Phelps person, and through him, with the others?”

“I intend to lose a lot of money playing at cards with Phelps, yes,” Jack said, and Eleanor bit her bottom lip, smiling at the cleverness of the idea. Lose some money, bemoan his shrinking pockets, wish for a huge turn of luck…and then appeal to his new friend for some way to increase his fortune.

“You’re that sure Phelps is your man? That you’d put your own money on the line?”

“Yes, Ainsley, I am, and I’ve already begun doing just that. I won’t always lose, either, not once I’ve firmly hooked our fish. Which, if I’m lucky, should be quickly enough to have only a two-or three-week interruption of our runs.”

“You’ve always been a dab hand with the cards, I’ll give you that.”

“You gave him a lot more than a dab of your money, Jacko, as I recall the thing,” Ainsley said, and Eleanor pretended not to hear Jacko’s low string of curses.

She remembered when they met Jack Eastwood, and how. A gambler, that was Jack, a gentleman of breeding but little fortune, living on his wits. But that had all changed the day, two years past, when he’d ridden up to Becket Hall with Billy slung facedown across his saddle after rescuing him from a pub in Appledore, where a deep-drinking Billy had the bad sense to accuse a man of cheating when he had no friends present to guard his back. Jack had stepped in, saved the sailor from a knife in the gullet, although both he and Billy had suffered several wounds.

During his weeks of recuperation at Becket Hall, Jack had done more than strip Jacko of five thousand pounds as they’d passed time playing at cards. He also had gained Ainsley’s thanks for the rescue of one of his oldest friends, Ainsley’s trust and, with that trust, a future.

And never once in that month or in the two years since had he said more than “Good morning, Miss Becket,” or “Good evening, Miss Becket,” to Eleanor.

She cocked her head toward the doorway, listening as Jack explained more of his plan. “I’m going to get even closer to Phelps, who will bring me closer to the others, close enough that I can find ways to bring them down, each one of them. But I may need that initial entrée into a wider society, as well. I discussed this with your son-in-law as we crossed the Channel tonight, and he’s agreed to give me a letter of introduction to his friend Lady Beresford. I’m now a gentleman who has spent much of his time these past years on his plantations in the West Indies, happily visiting my homeland.”

“That should be enough to gain you at least a few invitations. Chance could help you there, too, except that he and Julia plan to remain at his estate with the children until the end of summer, now that he’s left the War Office,” Ainsley said. “All right. What else? You have the look of a man who isn’t quite finished saying what he needs to say.”

“No,” Jack said, “that’s about it. The rest is just details I’ll need to handle on my own.”

“Such as?”

“I’m thinking I may need a wife.”

Eleanor clapped her hands over her mouth, hoping no one had heard her short, startled gasp. Then, once back under control, she stepped closer, anxious to hear what else Jack might say.

“Wives go a long way in making a man appear respectable. It’s not enough that I play the rich, amiable fool. I believe I need a wife, as well. Most especially a wife who listens with both ears to other men’s wives. Hiring an actress to play the part is chancy, but also worth the risk, I believe. Phelps’s wife, for one, has a tongue that runs on wheels. Ask her the right questions, and I may get answers that will help me.”

“I can see you believe this Harris Phelps to be the weakest link,” Ainsley said. “Who are the other two?”

“Sir Gilbert Eccles is one. But the fellow who most interests me is the strongest of the lot. If he’s not the head of the Red Men, then he is very close. Rawley Maddox, Earl of Chelfham.”

Before Eleanor could clap her hands to her mouth again, someone did it for her, and she was pulled back against the tall, rangy body of Odette, the one woman in the Becket household who knew every secret, the voodoo priestess who had come to England with the Beckets so many years ago.

“Ears that listen at the wrong doors hear things they should not hear,” Odette whispered to Eleanor. “Come away, child.”

“But Odette—you heard? The Earl of Chelfham.”

“I heard. You want nothing to do with this man. You decided. We all decided.”

“I know,” Eleanor whispered fiercely as she looked toward the half-open door. “But this is…this is like fate. And I only want to see. Is it so wrong to want to see?”

“You want the man, ma petite,” Odette told her, stroking Eleanor’s hair with one long-fingered hand. “He’s the temptation you don’t want to resist.”

“You mean Jack?” Eleanor sighed, realizing protest was useless. “There’s no future in lying to you, is there, Odette? You see everything.”

The woman’s face lost its smile. “Not everything, little one. Never enough. But I do know your papa won’t approve.”

Eleanor wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I know. But this is my decision to make, Odette, my chance. If I don’t take my chance, I’ll have the rest of my life to regret it. Years and years to sit by myself with my embroidery, my paints, my music. Sit and watch everyone else live their lives, while mine just slowly, quietly runs out, like sand slipping through an hourglass. Don’t you see? I have to do this.”

“Born a maiden, not prepared to die a maiden. Yes, I see.”

“No,” Eleanor whispered fiercely, then sighed. “Yes, yes, that, too. And why not? I’ve tried being a paragon, and it’s lonely, Odette. It’s a lonely life. I want to hold more than other people’s children. That’s a dream, only a dream. But the earl, Odette? He’s real. How can I hear what I just heard, and walk away?”

Odette looked at her for a long time, and Eleanor returned that gaze as steadily as she could, until the older woman sighed, shook her head. “I’ll be ordering more candles, I suppose. A bonfire of candles burning for you Beckets.”

Eleanor impulsively hugged the woman, neither of them comfortable with such physical displays of affection. Yet Odette put her arms around Eleanor’s shoulders and held her tightly for a moment before pushing her away, using the pad of her thumb to trace the sign of the cross on Eleanor’s forehead. When it came to asking for divine help, Odette did not limit herself to calling only on the good loa.

“Thank you, Odette,” Eleanor said, then squared her slim shoulders and walked into her papa’s study to confront the man who had been coming to Becket Hall for over two years, and had never noticed her, never noticed the quiet one in the corner.

He’d notice her now….

“A shame Morgan is married,” Jacko was saying. “She’d be perfect, you know. Right, Cap’n? Fire and spirit, that’s Morgan. Give her a set of balls and—Eleanor.” Jacko looked to Ainsley, who had already gotten to his feet.

“Eleanor? I hadn’t expected you to be up and about this late at night. Is there something you wanted before you retire?” And that, she knew, was Ainsley’s way of reprimanding her. Two quiet, polite questions, both meant to send her scurrying off, because she most certainly wasn’t welcome here, at this moment.

She could hardly hear for the sound of her blood rushing in her ears, and she seemed only able to see Jack Eastwood, who had slowly unbent his length from one of the chairs and now stood towering over her.

“I…I’ll do it,” Eleanor said, still looking up at Jack, at the lean, handsome face she saw nearly every night in her dreams. The thick, sandy hair he wore just a little too long, with sideburns that reached to the bottom of his ears. The slashes around his wide mouth, that fuller lower lip. And his eyes. So green, shaded by low brows; so intense, yet so capable of looking at her and never seeing her.

He was a very…elemental man, a singular force of nature. Just his physical appearance was so in contrast to herself. Fire to her carefully cultivated ice.

Eleanor felt sure the man was a mass of barely leashed power behind a careful facade, that he had hidden some of himself from Ainsley, which was no mean feat. There was emotion there. He simply kept his feelings deep inside, and Eleanor didn’t know if she most longed to know why he hid those emotions, or if she only wanted him to look at her, see her, feel safe to relax his careful shields with her.

So that he might melt her ice and make her feel.

“Eleanor…” Ainsley said, stepping out from behind the desk. “I’ll assume you heard us, but—”

“I said, I’ll do it,” Eleanor interrupted, still looking at Jack Eastwood, still half lost in her daydream—she, who rarely dreamed, and only about Jack. “I’ll pretend to be your wife, Mr. Eastwood. Go to London. Be your ears and eyes around the women. You can’t buy loyalty, no matter how high the price. I’m the logical choice, the only logical, safe choice.”

Jack quickly looked to Ainsley as if for help, then back to Eleanor, shaking his head. “I don’t think your father approves, Miss Becket.”

Was the woman out of her mind? Look at her. A puff of wind would blow her away. All right, so there was a hint of determination about that slightly square jaw she held so high on the long, slender stalk of her neck. God, even that mass of dark hair seemed too heavy for her finely boned head. Yet she had the look of a lady, he’d give her that. Refined. Genteel. What was the term? Oh yes, a pocket Venus. A sculptor’s masterpiece, actually, if he was in a mood to be poetical, which he damn well was not.

The large-eyed, delicately constructed Eleanor Becket reminded Jack mostly of a fawn in the woods. Huge brown eyes, vulnerable eyes. But that limp? London society could be cruel, and they’d smell the wounded fawn and destroy her in an instant.

Would she stop staring at him! Stop making him feel so large, so clumsy, so very much the bumpkin. The skin tightened around his eyes, drew his brows down, and he stared at her, tried to stare through her. Scare her off, damn her. He had enough on his plate, he didn’t need any more complications. Certainly not one in skirts.

At last she looked away, to speak to her father. “Papa? You do see the rightness of this, don’t you? No one knows me, and when the need is past, I will come back here to live in quiet retirement, as we’ve always planned. Mr. Eastwood, should he choose to stay in society, can certainly find some explanation for my disappearance. A divorce? Death?”

Eleanor abruptly shut her mouth, knowing she had gone too far. Keep in the moment, that’s what she must do, not muddy up the waters with thoughts of consequences.

“We’ll speak later,” Ainsley said, taking hold of her shoulders, to turn her toward the door.

“No, Papa,” Eleanor said in her quiet way, holding her ground. “We’ll not speak at all, not about this decision, which is mine. Mr. Eastwood? When do you wish me to be ready to leave?”

Jacko yanked at his waistband with both hands, pulling the material up and over his generous belly. “Always said there was pure Toledo steel there, Cap’n, and you know it, too. She knows what’s for. Probably the smartest of the bunch, for all she’s a female. I say let her go.”

Jack narrowed his eyes once more as he looked to Ainsley, to the grinning Jacko and, lastly, back to Miss Eleanor Becket. Smartest of the bunch? Toledo steel? He doubted that. And yet her gaze was steady on him, and he recognized determination when he saw it. “Ainsley? We could leave tomorrow afternoon. Spend a night on the road while I send someone ahead to alert my staff in Portland Square. We’d be gone a fortnight at the most.”

It took everything she had, but Eleanor did not reach out to Ainsley when he retreated behind his desk, sat down once more, looking very weary, and older than he had only a few minutes earlier. “Tomorrow will be fine, Jack.”

Jack was ready to say something else, something on the order of a promise to take very good care of the man’s daughter. But Jacko slung a beefy arm across his shoulders and gave him a mighty squeeze against his hard body, and the breath was all but knocked from him.

Jacko’s voice boomed in his ear. “We trust you, see? That’s the only reason you’re getting within ten feet of our Eleanor here. We’re all friends here, too, aren’t we? Remember that, my fine young gentleman. You saved that fool Billy, and I’m grateful. So don’t harm so much as a single hair on our Eleanor’s head, because I don’t want to have to tie your guts in a bow around your neck.”

“No, Jacko, you don’t, and neither do I want you to have to try,” Jack said when the big man released him, feeling as if he’d just been mauled by a large bear. He shook back his shoulders, bowed to Eleanor. “Miss Becket, with your kind permission?”

She inclined her head slightly, then watched as Jack brushed past her and left the study before turning to her adoptive father. Waiting.

“Rawley Maddox, lifted up to be the Earl of Chelfham,” Ainsley said at last, the long, slender fingers of his right hand closing tightly around the glass paperweight. “Of all the names the man might have said…”

“Should we tell him, Cap’n? In case he has to watch out for her?”

“No,” Eleanor said quickly. “Tell him, and he won’t let me go. I have to go.”

Ainsley nodded his agreement, then added, “We don’t know if your memories are correct, Eleanor. We can suspect, but we don’t know.”

“No, Papa, but we’ve always wondered who I am…who I was. I know what we decided, what we both felt best, that the past is in the past and won’t change, not for any of us. But I can’t look away from this chance. I just can’t. I’ve lived too long with the questions, we both have. Why that ship? Why that one particular ship?”

“And you’ll take one look at the bugger and have all our answers? Look at him, and nothing more? Not then want to go from looking, to talking?” Jacko shook his head. “Maybe we’ve all been stuck here too long, if any of us believes that….”




CHAPTER TWO


JACK EASTWOOD SLOUCHED on the velvet squabs of the Becket traveling coach, his booted feet crossed at the ankle, his arms folded over his chest, his chin on that chest, the wide-brimmed black hat he favored pulled down to shade his closed eyes.

He sat in the rear-facing seat, as it was the duty of a gentleman to make any female in his company as comfortable as possible. That, and the fact that he didn’t much care for the idea of the two of them sitting side by side, mute, staring into space.

He was tired. Weary as hell, in both mind and body. He’d spent a long week skulking about on the shores of France, buying and beating information out of his contacts there, the men he had helped make rich—that they’d all helped make rich. Greasy, sleazy bastards who’d sell out their own mother for a two-penny profit on a few inches of hand-sewn lace, Lord bless them.

He’d picked up or outright purchased several interesting bits of information about Bonaparte during his trips across the Channel with the Black Ghost Gang these past two years. Information he’d passed on anonymously to the War Office. That eased his conscience some as he continued doing what he was doing.

Because he was not about to stop, walk away. He was still no closer to the leaders of the Red Men Gang, no closer than he’d been when he’d first carefully ingratiated himself to Ainsley Becket.

He allowed himself a small smile as he remembered how he’d done it. How he’d paid a Greek sailor to deliberately fuzz the cards, then quietly pointed out to Ainsley’s man, Billy, that he was being cheated. The more-than-three-parts-drunk Billy didn’t remember that part, only the tavernwide fight that followed, and his “rescue” by his new friend. Jack’s own wounds had come courtesy of the Greek, who hadn’t appreciated not being fully informed of Jack’s plan.

But Ainsley Becket wasn’t the leader of the Red Men Gang. Jack had been so sure, but he’d been proved wrong. Worse, he’d grown to like the man, respect him. Ainsley was a reluctant smuggler, his main concern the people of Romney Marsh, those who suffered because of the low prices for wool, for all their goods, people who didn’t smuggle for profit, but to exist. The Black Ghost Gang only rode to lend protection to those they clearly considered to be their own people.

Even more laudable, the man didn’t take a bent penny for his efforts, his family’s efforts. Not that the Crown wouldn’t hang them all just as high if they found out about them.

Jack had been worried as he’d traveled back to Romney Marsh on the Respite, concerned that Ainsley and that damnable Jacko would decide to call it a day, shut down the entire operation. But they hadn’t, had even offered up Ainsley’s strange daughter to him.

And what in bloody hell he was going to do with her was beyond him. She looked, and acted, as if she not only wouldn’t, but couldn’t say boo to a goose. Lord knew she’d said no more than a few dozen words to him since they’d left Becket Hall the previous afternoon. Putting her in a position where she’d be attempting to neatly ferret information out of the wives of his suspects was almost laughable, and could prove dangerous.

He should have said no. Thank you, very generous of you, but no.

But there had been something about the look in Eleanor Becket’s huge brown eyes, a hint of both desperation and determination that had affected him in some way he didn’t want to examine.

What a mess he’d gotten himself into. Out to catch a smuggler, he’d become one, at least peripherally. Oh, hell, he couldn’t persuade himself that he was only acting as an agent, a go-between. He was a smuggler. He’d be hanged as surely as the Beckets if he was caught.

What a far cry from the soldier he’d been in Spain…until word had come about his cousin’s disappearance. His cousin’s murder, most probably, and presumably at the hands of smugglers.

“Mr. Eastwood, are you asleep?”

Jack lifted his hat slightly and looked at Eleanor Becket out of one barely opened eye. “My apologies, miss.”

Eleanor watched as he unhurriedly sat up straight, as if he truly cared to listen to what she had to say—but not all that much. “Oh, no, apologies aren’t necessary. You’ve every right to be weary. That inn was abominable. Dirty, the food inferior, and with faintly damp sheets. I should have thought to bring linens from Becket Hall. I only thought…um, that is, we’re nearing London, I suppose, and perhaps you wish to discuss how we’re to…to go on?”

“You’re right, Miss Becket,” Jack said, removing his hat, running a hand through his hair as he wondered what Miss Eleanor Becket would think about sleeping on the ground, in the mud, while being pelted by a cold, hard rain. With his rifle in his arms, at the ready. Faintly damp sheets? Hell, he hadn’t noticed. “But the thing is, I really don’t know how we’re going to…go on, as you say.”

“Really?” Eleanor blinked twice, pushed away the thought that the man surely should have had some idea of what would come next, or else he shouldn’t have embarked on the plan in the first place.

But that was the practical part of her, the part that had, according to Morgan, sealed her fate as an old maid. Still, she was who she was, and what she was, and clearly someone had to take charge.

“Very well, Mr. Eastwood,” she said, unclasping her gloved hands that had been resting in her lap these past three hours, while inwardly she’d longed to use one of them to tip that ridiculous hat off the man’s head and tell him to sit up straight and stop acting like Spencer in one of his sulks. But she’d resisted, even lowered the shades and sat in the half-dark so that the sunlight would not disturb him.

“Very well what, Miss Becket?” Jack asked, wondering if he should pretend not to notice the twin spots of color that had appeared on her cheeks. The little fawn had a temper. How interesting.

Lifting her chin slightly, Eleanor began to count on her fingers as she rattled off her thoughts with the precision of a sergeant barking orders to his troops. “Number one, Mr. Eastwood, we are married, at least to the world, which includes your staff in Portland Square. Therefore, I am Mrs. Eastwood to the staff, and Eleanor to you. And you are Jack.”

“Not darling?” Jack asked, the devil rising in him now. “I had so hoped for a love match.”

Eleanor dropped her head slightly, lowered her gaze, then looked over at Jack through remarkably long, thick black lashes. “If I might continue?”

Well, that had put him in his place, hadn’t it? “My apologies…Eleanor.”

“Accepted. This is difficult for both of us, I’m sure,” Eleanor said, longing to kick herself for being so formal, for being such…such a stick! “If you prefer the diminutive, Elly will also do.”

“Very well. But you can still feel free to call me darling, Elly.”

Eleanor clasped her hands together and pressed her knuckles against her mouth, trying to keep her lips from turning up into a smile. “Now you’re being facetious.”

“I only sought to ease the tension between us. We’ll be fine, Elly, I promise. My staff are very incurious, and that’s by design.”

“Very well. I really don’t look for any problems there, as I’ve read extensively about the proper running of a large domicile, although I much prefer my experience at Becket Hall. I will, of course, need a maid assigned to me, if I’m to go out in public without you. I also read that somewhere—that ladies do not walk about unaccompanied.”

“You plan to do a lot of walking, Elly?”

He kept calling her Elly. She’d really rather he addressed her as Eleanor, that she had not suggested the diminutive. She was not, after all, his sister. “I would like to see some of the sights, if at all possible.”

“So I’m right in assuming this is your first trip to the city. You never had a Season when you were younger?”

“Is my advanced age so obvious?”

“Well, that was putting my foot in it, wasn’t it? Then you’re younger than your sister, the countess?”

“No, you were correct. I am the oldest, already into my majority. I preferred not to have a Season.”

“Because of your—damn. I can’t seem to say anything right, can I?”

“No, Mr.—Jack. We probably should get past this, as I’m cognizant of the fact that you know little about your new wife. I am one and twenty, I never had a Season, and I suffered an injury to my leg and foot as a child that has left me with a slight limp. It pains me in prolonged stretches of inclement weather or if I overexert myself, but is otherwise simply a nuisance. I’m neither ashamed nor proud of my…condition, and would prefer you ignore it rather than concern yourself. I am, I assure you, more than capable of the mission I’ve accepted.”

“All but bullied your way into taking. Made a case for yourself against your father’s wishes, actually, but who’s quibbling?” Jack commented, once more holding back a smile. “I simply want to know why you were so willing to volunteer.”

If being a Becket qualified Eleanor for anything, it was the acquired ability to lie smoothly and without suspicion. “I have been no farther than a few miles from Becket Hall since I arrived there as a child of six, which is when I…became a part of the family. I know you are aware that only Cassandra is Papa’s natural child, and that the rest of us came to him as orphans.”

“Yes, I do know that. It’s all very intriguing, actually.”

“Not really, not if you knew Papa well. At any rate, Morgan’s delightful stories of London have intrigued me, and I finally realized I should like to travel to the metropolis. Not for a Season, I don’t delude myself into aspirations at that level, but I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. Plus,” she ended, looking at him levelly, “I am as eager to rid us of our current problem as are you. It’s my family, after all, that could be put in danger.”

“I see,” Jack said, aware that the coach was now riding along well-cobbled streets, even without raising the shade to look out the window. He moved to the front-facing seat, sat beside her. “How do you plan to approach the ladies?”

Ah, good. They had left the subject of her life behind them. As for the rest, she’d simply ignore his proximity. She was almost used to being in his company. Almost. “I don’t. I plan to sit very quietly and listen to the ladies. I’ve learned that most people rush to fill a silence.”

Jack considered this, even as he became uncomfortably aware of the silence in the coach and, damn the woman, rushed to fill it. “I begin to feel that I am the amateur here, Elly. Does Ainsley know just how well you’ve been listening as you bend over your embroidery or paints, which is all I can picture of you when I think of my previous visits to Becket Hall?”

“I’m flattered that you are able to recall me at all,” Eleanor said, her voice steady even as he actually said what she’d always felt. That she was near to invisible to him, when he had become the center of her life.

“Ouch! I believe I can almost feel the flat of your hand on my cheek for that careless insult,” Jack said, then surprised himself by lifting her gloved hand to his lips. “I can promise you that I will do my best to make up for my sins by being an extremely devoted husband.”

Eleanor gently tugged her hand free, even as she continued to look at Jack, fought to control her breathing. “I doubt that most of the ton behave as Morgan and her Ethan do. Civility will be enough.”

He’d hurt her. He’d be damned if he knew how, but he’d definitely hurt her. And, if he had any sense at all, he’d drop this subject completely and get on with the business of how he would further infiltrate the trio of men he suspected of being in league with the Red Men Gang.

Only later, once he was alone, would there be time to think about this strange, fragile-looking young woman who, as Jacko had said, seemed to be formed of finest Toledo steel.

“Tomorrow we’ll begin,” he told her as the coach stopped, then started off again at a near crawl, caught in the crush of early-evening London traffic. For a woman who’d professed an interest in the London sights, Eleanor Becket seemed content to have the shades drawn tight on the coach windows. Just a naturally secretive little thing, wasn’t she? Or she liked sitting in the half dark, which was silly, because she wasn’t a bad-looking woman.

“Yes, Jack, tomorrow will be soon enough. How do you plan to begin?”

“With Lady Beresford. We may not be in London long enough to take advantage of the association, get out into wider society at all. I hope not, frankly. But I’ll present Ethan’s letter to her anyway.”

“A bit of honesty covers many a lie, Papa says. At the very least, you could then honestly drop her name into the conversation as you ratchet up your pursuit of the men you mentioned at Becket Hall.” Eleanor spoke each word carefully, not wishing too appear too anxious to hear about the men…the man.

“Yes. But remember, I’ve already begun with Harris Phelps, as he frequents several gaming hells on the fringes of Mayfair. Gilly—that’s Sir Gilbert Eccles—is more of a cipher, I suppose you’d say, definitely a follower and not a leader. Where Phelps goes, Eccles will follow.”

Eleanor wet her lips, swallowed. “And the third? I believe you said he was an earl?”

“Earl of Chelfham, yes. The estimable Rawley Maddox. He’s the oldest of the trio by a good twenty or more years, as I already told Ainsley, and definitely the smartest. He’s why I’m bothering with Phelps and Eccles at all—they’re to be my way in to Chelfham. It’s his bride I’d most particularly hope you can cultivate. She’s Phelps’s sister, which may explain why Chelfham bothers with him. She’s also young, probably not more than a few years older than you, in fact.”

“Really? How…interesting.”

“Not really. He’s trying for an heir is how I heard the story. His first wife died in a fall down the stairs, the second in childbed. If Chelfham dies without issue, I believe the earldom goes vacant.”

Eleanor’s head was spinning. “I believe the proper term is extinct, if all possible heirs have died. A title is dormant if no one claims it or his or her title can’t be proved, and in abeyance if more than one person is equally qualified to be the holder.”

Jack shook his head. Listening to this woman was like being back in class with his tutor as he reeled off dry as dust facts and expected Jack to care. “Is that so?”

“Oh, yes, at least I think so.” She smiled at him, and Jack felt an unexpected punch to his stomach. She was such an odd little creature, all prim and proper, yet also so anxious to please. “Papa has a rather large library, and I have quite a bit of time.”

“You said her. His or her title. It would be interesting, wouldn’t it, if Chelfham’s bride presented him with only daughters.”

Eleanor made a great business of inspecting the seam on the thumb of her right glove. “Some peerages can be inherited by females, although their number is very limited. And, of course, private fortunes and land not entailed can be given where one wishes.”

Jack sat back against the squabs, more than a little surprised. Then again, what did he care for peerages? And, if he was right, and had his way, the Earl of Chelfham wouldn’t have to worry about them, either.

“Rather a fountain of possibly useful information, aren’t you? I can see where you are a good choice for my small project, in any case. A lady, and an educated lady at that. I imagine everyone will be wondering why such a fine and refined creature as yourself would agree to leg shackle herself to such a rough character as myself.”

Eleanor looked at him quizzically for a moment, then dropped her gaze. What had just happened? What had he just said? How had he said it?…such a fine and refined creature as yourself.

No, it wasn’t actually the words he’d said, but the way he had said them. And he’d said them with this sudden lilt in his voice. Why had he suddenly reminded her of Paddy O’Rourke, from the village? He was English, not Irish. Everyone knew Jack Eastwood was English. Born in Sussex was what he’d told them. Yet Eleanor was sure she’d just heard a faint hint of Ireland in the cadence of his last statement.

It had been there, hadn’t it? Just for a moment?

She closed her eyes, calling herself silly. A life spent not trusting outsiders had made her skittish, and much too suspicious. Her papa trusted him. Court and the others trusted him. She hadn’t even thought about trust, fool that she was, too dazzled by Jack’s effect on her.

Well, that particular foolishness needed to come to a quick end. She was a Becket first, and female only second.

Much as she longed to see the Earl of Chelfham, much as she was determined to help Jack Eastwood uncover the identity of the leaders of the Red Men Gang who had threatened the Beckets’ very existence, she would remember to keep her faith in herself, and not in anyone else, even Jack Eastwood.

Eleanor’s life, that had seemed much too tame to her only a few days ago, was suddenly crowded with too many possibilities for disaster….




CHAPTER THREE


“ABOUT TIME IT WAS you lugged that great big simple self of yours back here, boyo. I was about to give you up.”

Jack turned, still in the act of sliding off his neck cloth, to see Cluny Shannon sprawled on the lone chair in his dressing room, a half-empty glass hanging from his fingers.

It was always a half-empty glass with Cluny, who never saw the sunshine without mentioning the clouds.

“My apologies, old friend. I didn’t notice a candle in the window. Were you pining for me?”

Cluny finished off his drink, obviously not the first or even the fourth of the evening, and carefully got to his feet, holding the glass in front of him as he advanced on Jack. “Thinking of where to lay off the silver, to tell you the truth. I could turn a pretty penny just for that behemoth you’ve got sitting on the table in the dining room. Now that I think on it, it’s a shame you made it back. Go away again, get yourself lost, and I’ll be a rich man.”

Jack unbuttoned his waistcoat and shrugged out of it, then began on the buttons of his shirt. “You’re getting soft in your old age, Cluny. Ten years ago, and you’d have had the silver before I was halfway to the coast. Have you sold off my clothes to the ragman, or do you think my dressing gown is still here somewhere?”

“I’m supposing you want me to fetch it for you now, don’t you?” Cluny put down the glass and navigated his way to one of the large clothespresses, extracting a deep burgundy banyan he then tossed in Jack’s general direction. “Here you go, boyo. Cover yourself up before I lose my supper.”

“Which you drank,” Jack said, snagging the dressing gown out of midair and sliding his bare arms into it, tying the sash at his waist. “I need you sober now, Cluny. We’ve got us a fine piece of trouble.”

The Irishman settled himself once more into the chair. “True enough. I saw her when you brought her in. A fine piece indeed, but what in the devil are we supposed to be doing with her?”

Jack shook his head at his friend’s deliberate misunderstanding and headed back into his bedchamber, Cluny on his heels. “That, my friend, is no piece, fine or otherwise. She’s Becket’s daughter, so if you want to keep your liver under wraps you’ll be very careful what you say, and what you do. Understand?”

“Not even by half I don’t,” Cluny said, pouring wine into two clean glasses. “Becket’s girl, you say? So you brought her up to town as a favor to the man?”

“No,” Jack said, accepting the glass Cluny offered, “I brought her up here as my wife.”

While Cluny coughed and spit, wine dribbling from his chin, Jack eased his length into a leather chair beside the small fire in the grate and waited, pleased to have said something that might have sobered up the fellow at least a little bit. “You all right, Cluny?”

“All right? You go and get yourself caught in parson’s mousetrap, and I don’t even know about it? I have no say in the thing?”

Jack took another sip of wine, trying to keep his features composed as the Irishman turned beet-red from his double chins to his thick shock of coarse, graying hair. “I suppose you wanted me to ask for your blessing, dear mother?”

“You could be doing worse than putting your faith in me. And I’m not your bleeding mother, even if you are a son of a bitch. What’s she like, this Becket woman?”

Jack considered the question. His first thought was to tell him Eleanor’s huge brown eyes were the most beautifully expressive feature in her small, gamin face. That she was fragile, yet seemed to possess a will of iron. That he felt like a raw, too tall, uncivilized golumpus whenever he was near her. That he felt uncharacteristically protective of her, and even more uncharacteristically attracted to her.

But he doubted Cluny needed to hear that.

“Quiet. Smart. Not necessarily trustworthy, but that’s all right because I don’t think she trusts me, either. Oh, and we’re not really married.”

Cluny looked at his wineglass, then carefully set it down. “Time to haul myself back up on the water wagon. What did you say? Are you bracketed or not?”

Jack waited for his just-arrived valet to put down the tray of meat and cheese and leave the room, heading for the dressing room to, most likely, cluck over the condition of his master’s wardrobe that was much the worse for wear after a week across the Channel.

“What’s that fellow’s name, again?” he asked Cluny, who’d settled his cheerless bulk into the facing chair.

“Frank,” Cluny said, popping a large piece of cheese into his mouth.

“No, not Frank. Francis?”

Cluny shrugged. “I like Frank better, a good, solid name. Why aren’t you married? Not that I want you to be, you understand, but why not?”

So Jack explained. For an hour, he explained, as Cluny interrupted almost constantly.

At the end of that hour Cluny had fallen off the water wagon—never an easy ride for him, even in the best of times—and poured himself another drink. “Are you sure that cousin of yours is worth all this skulduggery? I always thought you didn’t like the man above half.”

“It’s not him I’m doing it for, but his mother. Mothers love sons, Cluny, even if the son is a thorough jackass. Besides, even if it all started that way, we’ve moved far beyond my concerns for Richard. I’m…well, I’m invested in this now.”

Cluny looked around the large, well-appointed bedchamber. “Of course you are, lad. Everything you do is out of the fine, sweet goodness of your heart. I’ll be shedding a tear here any moment, I will that.”

Jack had told a small fib to Ainsley Becket—the house in Portland Square wasn’t really his. It was his cousin’s, as was the estate in Sussex. But where his cousin had allowed both places to go to rack and ruin, they were now returned to their former glory. His mother and aunt lived well now on that Sussex estate, not in constant fear of losing the roof over their heads. This house was now furnished in the first stare, thanks to Jack’s money. If he found Richard, he’d buy the pile from him, the estate, as well. If he didn’t find him, his aunt would surely be happy for the money.

He chuckled low in his throat. “I never said I was applying for sainthood, Cluny. But at least we’ve a fair division of profits between us and those who take the most risk. Or are you feeling a dose of Christian charity coming on and want to give back your own share?”

Cluny sank his chins onto his chest. “How far two such God-fearing gentlemen as ourselves have sunk. Not that they won’t hang us high enough.”

“And on that happy note, I think I’ll go off downstairs to my study to see if I’ve anything important to deal with that’s shown up in my absence.”

“A letter from your mother, that would be the whole of it,” Cluny told him, slowly pushing himself to his feet. “She’s well, thanks you for the silk, and sends her sister’s never-ending thanks for looking for poor old Richard. We’re not finding him, boyo, not if we haven’t found him yet. My thought is he’s moldering at the bottom of a well, or has long since been fed to the fishies.”

“I no longer expect to find him alive, Cluny. But I will discover what happened to him.”

“Even though he was a worthless bastard who, just like his father before him, begrudged you and your mother every crust of bread family duty forced him to provide his blood kin? Admit it to me at the least, Jack. You’re in this for the adventure of the thing. Those Beckets have thoroughly corrupted you.”

Jack paused at the door, his hand on the latch. “They’re a remarkable family, Cluny. A real family, not bound by blood but by something even more powerful. I admire them very much.”

“And they’ve made you bloody rich.”

Jack grinned as he depressed the latch. “Yes. That, too.”

He wandered through the mostly dark house, knowing its furnishings weren’t a patch on the grandeur of Becket Hall, but pleased nonetheless.

He’d gone from poor relation to foot soldier, from foot soldier to courier, from courier to spy, from spy to trusted aide.

But when an injury had forced him home and he’d learned about Richard’s disappearance, he’d picked up his deck of cards and begun his hunt for his cousin. Which had led to Kent, to Romney Marsh, to whispers about the Red Men Gang and, eventually, to the Beckets of Romney Marsh.

“Only good turn the miserable bastard ever gave me,” Jack muttered to himself as he made his way through the black-and-white marble-tiled foyer and to the back of the house, where Richard’s father had established a reasonable if incomplete library.

It was only when he reached for the latch that he realized that there was a strip of soft light at the bottom of the door. Transferring his candle to his left hand, he eased his back against the door even as he held the latch, slowly depressed it, and pushed it open, turning with it so he was ready to confront whoever was in the room.

“Miss Becket,” he said a moment later, battle-ready alertness replaced by anger. “What do you think you’re doing down here?”

Eleanor looked at him levelly, even as her heart pounded so furiously inside her that the beat was actually painful. She held out the book in her hand. “I couldn’t sleep, and decided there must be at least one sufficiently boring book in here that would help me.”

He took the marble-backed volume from her hand and read, “A Complete History So Far As It Is Known of That Celebrated English Thoroughbred—you’re interested in horses?”

Goodness, had she really picked that book? She lifted her chin slightly as she answered him. “No, not at all, which is the point of the exercise, is it not, when one is attempting to find something that is so stultifyingly boring it is virtually guaranteed to put one to sleep? Now, if you’ll excuse me?”

Or was the man unaware that she was clothed only in her night rail and dressing gown? And couldn’t he do something about that expanse of bare chest visible beneath his dressing gown? All that golden hair. Was it soft to the touch? It had to be, just as his chest was undoubtedly quite hard. Thank the good Lord he still wore his pantaloons, because it would be only the good Lord himself who could know what she’d do if the man had been naked beneath that dressing gown. Fainting seemed probable.

As if he was able to hear her silent conversation with herself—hopefully not all of it—Jack tied his banyan more tightly over himself. “I would certainly excuse you, unless you’d wish to talk for a moment? I think we’ve settled in fairly well, don’t you? You’re happy with the servant staff?”

Perhaps she should stay, if just for a few minutes. Not act too eager to be out of his company, as if she’d been caught out at something, being somewhere she should not be, doing something she should not do. She’d simply ignore his chest. After all, she’d seen male chests before. Her brothers’ chests, that is. Although Jack’s chest seemed…different. Definitely more interesting.

Eleanor walked over to seat herself on a brown leather couch that was placed against one wall—she would have preferred it against the other wall, but this wasn’t her house, was it? “Mrs. Hendersen seems a competent enough housekeeper, yes. Although I’d rather she didn’t address me as you poor dearie. I’m not sure if that is a comment on my physical state or my choice of husband. Which do you suppose it is?”

Jack leaned against the front of the desk and smiled at her. “I’ll speak to her about that.”

“No. Don’t be silly, Jack. We’ll rub along well enough. And Treacle would appear to understand his part in the running of the household.”

“Who?”

Eleanor could see that Jack wasn’t exactly an attentive employer. Otherwise, the dust on the tables in her bedchamber would not have been so deep she could draw her finger through it. “Your butler, Jack. Treacle is your butler.”

“I’m sorry. Cluny takes care of these things. I really don’t pay attention.”

“Cluny?” Eleanor frowned, unable to recall the name. “I don’t believe I remember a Cluny when the servants were presented upon our arrival.”

And she thought: Cluny. An Irish name. There had been a Cluny Sullivan in Becket Village. Dead now, just an old man worn out.

Jack hadn’t wanted to touch on Cluny’s existence until the two of them had got their story straight as to who he was, who he would pretend he was as long as Eleanor was in residence. “He’s my…my personal secretary. Good man, completely trustworthy.” Jack stood up again. “Yes, a good man. Was there anything else you needed?”

Eleanor got to her feet and retrieved her book from the desktop. “Thank you, no. I hadn’t needed anything when you came in here, and that hasn’t changed.” Stick, she told herself, trying not to wince. Can’t you say something—anything—that doesn’t make you sound like a bloodless old maid?

“Um…” she said, holding the book close to her chest, “Cluny is an Irish name, is it not?”

“If it wasn’t before, it is now that Cluny’s got it,” Jack told her, walking her toward the doorway. “We served together in the Peninsula.”

“In the Peninsula,” Eleanor repeated, longing to kick herself. He’d probably held more scintillating conversations with doorstops. “How…interesting. I hadn’t realized you’d served.”

“I doubt we know very much at all about each other, Miss Becket.”

“Eleanor.”

Jack nodded. “Elly. Right. I’ll have to practice. You don’t seem to have any trouble remembering to call me Jack, do you? Perhaps you’re better at subterfuge than I am.”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” Eleanor said, holding herself so rigid that she was certain that, were she to bend over, she’d snap like a dry twig.

She most certainly wasn’t going to tell him that when she dreamed of him, she dreamed of Jack. Never Mr. Eastwood. She might be a dull stick of an old maid, but her dreams at least had some merit.

And now she was standing here in her dressing gown, her hair hanging down her back in a long, thick braid. And the man hadn’t so much as blinked. Didn’t he care? Was she so unprepossessing a figure that this obvious breach of convention hadn’t even occurred to him?

Jack, acting without thought (or else he’d have to think he was insane), reached out his hand and ran a finger down the side of Eleanor’s cheek. “You’re frightened, aren’t you, little one? You put on a fine face of confidence, but you’re frightened. You’d be skittish, even trembling, if that wouldn’t make you angry with yourself. And, right now, you’re caught between wanting to run from me, and longing to slap my face for my impertinence.”

Eleanor backed up a single step, holding the book so tightly now that her knuckles showed white against her skin. “I’m certain I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Eastwood.”

“Jack.” He smiled, beginning to feel more comfortable with the woman. Seeing her as more human. He should have realized that Eleanor, living with the Beckets, couldn’t possibly be entirely the paragon of virtue she appeared.

“Yes. Jack. But I’m still sure I don’t know what you mean. We know why we’re here and what we’re doing and…”

“Do we? I thought we did,” Jack said, placing his hands on her shoulders. “But we’re damn unconvincing at the moment if we’re supposed to be newly married. Having my bride trying not to flinch, run from me, doesn’t seem the way to convince anyone, does it? Unless we want to convince everyone that I’m some sort of brute, and I have to tell you, Elly, I’m vain enough not to wish that.”

Enough was enough! “Has it occurred to you, Jack, that I am not dressed?”

He looked down at her, from the throat-high neckline of her modest white muslin dressing gown to the tips of her bare toes as they protruded from the hem. Bare toes? The woman was walking about barefoot? “Well, now that you mention it…”

“Oh, you’re the most annoying man,” Eleanor said, stooping down so that she could bow out from beneath his hands. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed.”

Jack watched her leave the room, her limp noticeable, as if her left ankle simply didn’t bend, yet a graceful woman for all of that. Perhaps she was more comfortable barefoot, without the constriction of hose and shoes.

Elly. He’d have to remember to call her Elly, at least in public. And she would have to become used to being in his company. He’d work on that. Find a way to make her relax some of that reserve that was so at odds with the behavior of the rest of the Beckets.

Odd little thing. Pretty little thing.

Jack stepped behind his desk and sat down, opened the center drawer to take out the journal that among other information included a list of French names, the list of those he had used in the past and would not be able to use again—most definitely the two that had been murdered—and noticed that the wafer-thin silver marker he kept on the most recent page was no longer there.

It wasn’t anywhere in the drawer. He pushed back his chair and looked down at the floor, then reached down, picked up the thin, hammered-silver piece and stared at it for long moments.

Had he dropped it over a week ago, before traveling to France? No. His mother had given him the marker, had even had it engraved with his initials, then told him he could use it to “mark the pages of your life, my darling.” He was always very careful with the thing.

Cluny? Could Cluny have been snooping about in the desk drawers? There would be no reason for him to do so. Besides, if Cluny had been at the drawers they’d be a bloody mess, not perfect except for the misplaced marker.

“More comfortable barefoot, Miss Becket?” he then asked quietly as he looked up at the ceiling, to the bedchamber he knew to be directly above this room. “Or able to move about more stealthily barefoot?”

In that bedchamber, Eleanor now stood with her back against the closed door, trying to regulate her breathing and heart rate.

He’d nearly caught her. God, he’d nearly caught her.

And for what? She hadn’t found much of anything, hadn’t even known what to look for, when she came right down to it.

“I wasn’t simply snooping,” she told herself as she sat down at her dressing table, to see that her face was very pale and her eyes were very wide. “I was being careful.”

But now she realized that the lilt she’d heard in Jack’s voice for that one moment had probably come to him courtesy of association with his Irish friend. Nothing nefarious at all. What was the man’s name again? Oh yes. Cluny.

Jack was allowed to have friends, of course. Gentlemen have friends. There was nothing strange in that.

But so many lives depended on secrecy, on being careful.

“I will not allow my heart to rule my head,” Eleanor told her reflection.

That resolution made, Eleanor padded over to one of the windows and pushed back the heavy draperies to look out over the mews, as she believed the area was called, and at the few flambeaux and gas streetlamps she could see in the darkness.

At Becket Hall, there was only night beyond the windows once the sun had gone. Darkness, emptiness. The Marsh on three sides, the shingle beach and Channel on the last. Becket Hall was its own world.

Here, she was a very small part of very large city. One of untold thousands of people, thousands of buildings.

How did people live here? How did they exist? For what purpose had they all felt it necessary to jam themselves together cheek by jowl?

She let the drapery drop back into place and surveyed her chamber. It was a lovely thing, but so was her bedchamber at home. She hadn’t traveled to anywhere better; she’d merely come to a different place.

Would she be accepted?

Her sister Morgan had seemed to believe that an introduction to Lady Beresford would open many doors, at least enough doors to help Jack insinuate himself further with Phelps and Eccles…and the Earl of Chelfham.

The earl and his young bride. Would the woman know anything, or was she a silly creature whose main concerns were balls and gowns and petty gossip? Would Eleanor like her? If she did, would it pain her conscience to then use the young woman for her own ends? And could she do it in such a way that Jack never suspected what she was doing, then asked why?

And she might not even get out into society at all, or so Jack had hinted. Because he hoped they would be quickly successful, so that he could have her back at Becket Hall as soon as possible? Was he that anxious to get her gone? Did he think her limp would be a detriment if he took her into society? Had he even noticed the limp? Lord knew he’d never noticed anything else about her in two long years….

Eleanor pressed a hand to her forehead, feeling the beginnings of the headache.

Everything had happened so quickly, perhaps too quickly.

And she was alone here. Very much alone here.

She came out of her reverie at the sound of a knock on the door. She looked at that door for a few moments, reminding herself that she couldn’t see through the thing, so either she had to open the door or pretend she was already in bed and fast asleep.

Which was ridiculous, for the chamber was lit by at least a half-dozen candles. Unless she wanted the household to believe she’d be reckless enough as to go to sleep with them ablaze, and possibly burn down the house around their ears, she’d have to at least go to the door and ask who was there.

The knock came again, along with Jack’s voice calling out her name. Well, now at least she knew who stood on the other side of the thick wood, didn’t she?

What on earth did he want? Had he discovered that she’d been snooping in his desk? No. She’d been very careful. She’d looked in all the drawers, then through the papers in the wide center drawer. Then the personal accounts book he’d marked at the page that listed several French names…

He’d marked the book. There’d been a thin silver marker. A pretty thing, with his initials pressed into it. She’d lifted it, held it, looked at it—his personal possession. What had she done with it?

Eleanor squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember.

She’d opened the book. Taken out the marker.

Looked at it. Laid it in her lap. Looked through the pages.

Heard footsteps.

Replaced the book.

Stood.

She hadn’t replaced the marker.

She’d stood, and the small marker must have slipped to the carpet, unnoticed.

Had he noticed?

“Just a moment, please,” she called out, bending to the dressing table mirror to assure herself she no longer looked so pale which, unfortunately, she still did. She pinched her cheeks hard enough to bring tears to her eyes, then pulled a face at herself before opening the door.

Just a crack.

“Yes? I was just about to retire.”

Jack tipped his head to one side, looking down at the sliver of face that was all Eleanor seemed willing to show him. With any luck, she wasn’t holding a pistol behind her back, cocked and ready to blow his head off if she was so inclined and who could know what all the Beckets were inclined to do?

“I hesitate to disturb you, as you were probably already half dozing over that book you chose, but I believe I might have found something that would be of more interest. May I come in?”

Eleanor nervously wet her lips, then nodded, stepped back so that he could push open the door and enter her bedchamber. He now had on a white, open-necked shirt beneath his banyan, and she wondered, just for a moment, if she should be flattered that he’d tried to make himself more decent for her, or lament that she could no longer see his bare chest.

Dear Lord. She’d never expected to see a man in any bedchamber she inhabited, not in her entire lifetime.

Stop it, stop it! Stop thinking like that!

She stopped thinking entirely when Jack held out the “something of more interest,” and she saw it to be the journal she’d been reading downstairs. Then he held out his other hand, palm up, and there was the silver marker, the damning marker.

Eleanor lifted her gaze to him. May as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, as the ruthlessly practical Jacko always said. “You maintain very orderly records. But I might suggest the benefits of keeping them under lock and key.”

She hadn’t even blinked. Jack had thought she’d pretend ignorance of what he was showing her, deny what she’d done.

But not little Eleanor Becket. Not the large-eyed fawn with the spine of Toledo steel. He should have known better.

He slipped the marker between the pages and put the journal down on a nearby table. “You’re probably right, and your honesty in the face of discovery is commendable,” he said carefully. Then he turned to look at her, his eyes narrowed in that way he had, and probably didn’t know he had—but that Eleanor found particularly unnerving. “Now, do you want to tell me what in the hell you were looking for?”

Eleanor refused to back down. But she didn’t consider herself brave, only practical. After all, she had nowhere to go.

“It is important for us to know who we deal with, especially at the moment. You live very well, Jack.”

“Ah, now I understand. You think I’ve been keeping more of the profits than I report to Ainsley? Is that really why you’re here?” Then he shook his head. “No, Ainsley wouldn’t do that. If he had any questions about my honesty, he’d have Jacko ask them for him.”

“You make Jacko sound like a terrible man. A brute.”

One side of Jack’s mouth lifted in a rueful smile. “I’m wrong?”

Explaining Jacko wasn’t Eleanor’s priority. She really wished she knew what was, but she’d examine that later. For now, she knew she couldn’t betray any weakness. Papa had told her that years ago: always deceive with confidence. “I apologize for looking through your desk.”

“And it won’t happen again? You won’t decide listening at keyholes is a grand idea? You won’t sneak a peek at my mail, or send someone to follow me when I’m going about in the city?”

Eleanor didn’t know quite where to look, so she continued to look straight at him. “Now you’re being facetious. I apologized.”

“But with no promise to mend your ways.” Jack stepped closer to her. “Why, Elly, I do think I’ve just been warned.”

“No! That is…oh, go away. I did a stupid thing, and I’m sorry.”

“Ah, that’s better. Except, I think, for the part where you were backing up just now, as if I was going to bite off your head. I’ve given this some thought. We don’t look very married, little one. Not if you’re going to flinch every time I’m near you.”

“You’re in my bedchamber, Jack. What sort of behavior were you expecting of me?”

Well, that stopped him. Her words, and the way she stood there, her spine so straight, looking at him with those huge brown eyes. What did he expect from her? What did he expect from himself?

He knew what he hadn’t expected. He hadn’t expected to be interested in this quiet female who apparently had depths he’d never considered. He hadn’t expected to be so curious as to what went on behind those wide, seemingly frank, ingenuous brown eyes. He hadn’t expected to feel quite so protective of her, or so attracted to her.

And now, once more, and knowing it, damn her, he was going to rush to fill the silence. And fill it by saying something he’d probably regret. “You’re free to look at anything in my desk. Anything. You’re free to ask me any questions, and I’ll do my best to answer those questions. You’re Ainsley’s daughter, and I consider you to be his agent here and, in some twisted way, my partner.”

Now he fell silent, waiting for her to fill that silence with a similar promise of her own.

He may as well have been waiting for Hades to freeze over.

At last she said thank you, and then inclined her head toward the door, which was as close as a refined young lady probably could get to “Now take yourself off, you bugger!”

“Elly…”

“Eleanor,” she corrected. She had enough on her plate. She might as well be truthful on this one small thing. “I’d much prefer you to address me as Eleanor, if you don’t mind.”

That was as good as a slap to the face. She’d said her family called her Elly. He was back to being an outsider. “Certainly…Eleanor. I didn’t wish to presume a familiarity you might not like.”

“No, that isn’t what I—that is, we are supposedly husband and wife.”

“And newly married, too,” Jack said, happy to have the conversation steered back to territory that seemed to discommode her more than it did him. Not that he could recall a time when he’d been nervous around a female.

Until tonight.

“Yes, and newly married, as well. We should discuss that, just so that our stories match. Where we met, for one. I’d prefer you did not mention Becket Hall.”

Jack nodded. “That makes sense. If I’m exposed, you can disappear. And with no one knowing about Becket Hall or those who live there. So, wife, where did we meet?”

Eleanor was becoming more uncomfortable by the moment. “I’m merely being careful, Jack. No one has to know that I am a Becket at all, that Morgan is my sister. Ethan was careful to keep any of that out of his letter to Lady Beresford.”

“You read it?”

“Certainly. Didn’t you? As I said, we need to keep our stories consistent.”

Jack was beginning to think he was in the presence of a master. That his days as courier and spy had been relegated to amateurish at best. Why, he should be surprised to still be alive, and not have been long since put up against some French wall and shot.

“Do you have a plan?” he asked when yet another silence yawned between them, a silence he’d have to fill sooner or later anyway.

“I do, yes. Sussex is too close, too easily checked for the truth. Your story for Mr. Phelps, as I remember it, is that you have an estate somewhere in the West Indies and are only visiting here, correct? I should say that we met there, in Jamaica to be more precise, and that I am the child of a moderately wealthy landowner there.”

“Splendid. Then you came to me with a considerable dowry? That should please our gentlemen. Yes,” Jack said, beginning to pace the carpet. “That would work well. I’ve run through my fortune, and now I want to purloin my wife’s fat dowry and use it to invest in something that will very quickly make me very rich, put my near-bankrupt Jamaican plantation to rights.” He turned to smile at Eleanor. “You should write novels.”

Eleanor twined her fingers together at her waist. “Yes, thank you. This also negates any necessity for ours to be seen as a love match.”

“In other words, I’m to be cast in the role of unmitigated cad. Charming. You know, woman, when you eventually disappear the world will think I’ve buried you under a rosebush. Or haven’t you thought of that? Ah, by the look on your face, I can see you haven’t. Then it’s settled. Ours is also a love match. We have Ethan’s reputation to consider here, too, remember, as he’s the one who has ostensibly introduced me to the ton.”

Eleanor, who now knew the full story of Morgan’s titled husband and his unconventional parents, smiled at this. “I don’t think Ethan is overly concerned about that, Jack.”

Why this one point was becoming so important to him, Jack didn’t know, didn’t want to know. But, damn it, he couldn’t spend the next weeks squiring about a woman who cared less for him than she did the dirt beneath her feet. It was just unnatural, that’s what it was.

“I think I must nevertheless insist. I want a love match. The appearance of a love match.”

Eleanor knew when a battle wasn’t worth the fight. Besides, what difference would it make, as they’d both know they were playacting? “For the sake of your male pride, yes, I understand. My brother Spencer would probably feel much the same way. Even if, as you may recall saying, we never set foot in society at all. Very well. If we are in company, any company at all, I hereby promise to make mooncalf eyes at you at every opportunity.”

He longed to shake her, shake away some of that quiet reserve that, he felt increasingly sure, hid a whole other Eleanor Becket. The real Eleanor Becket.

“Sarcasm to one side, I accept,” Jack told her. He retrieved his journal, then approached Eleanor once more…and she stepped one step backward once more. “And that will have to stop. We have to practice.” He reached for her hand, lifted it to within inches of his mouth. “No flinching now, Eleanor, I’m not going to bite.”

She stood very still as he bent over her hand, pressing his lips to her skin for one brief moment that nearly turned her knees to water. She’d rarely had her hand bent over, let alone kissed, so she didn’t know if her reaction to the act was usual. But she didn’t think so.

Still bent over her hand, he lifted his head to smile at her. “See? Completely painless. I will do this from time to time, as a man does.”

It was time to put a halt to this exercise before the man suggested he kiss her cheek, just to make sure she wouldn’t scream in maidenly fright. “Claiming his woman, yes. Every animal marks its territory in one way or another.”

He narrowed those intense green eyes as he looked at her as if she’d just spoken to him in some unknown language. “You are a piece of work, Eleanor Becket.”

“Eleanor Eastwood,” she corrected, wondering when on earth her common sense would wake up from its nap and stop her from saying anything else ridiculous. Now was not the time to correct the man. Not when he was standing so close to her. Not when he was still holding her hand.

“Eleanor Eastwood. Alliterative, almost rolls off the tongue. And now, wife, good night.”

Before she could pull her hand away he lifted it once more, this time turning her hand so that he could press his lips against her palm. For an instant only, he lightly slid the tip of his tongue against her skin before letting her go.

Because he was not a nice man.

He liked the way her eyes grew wide for a moment before she carefully composed her expression—that mix of strength and vulnerability that had begun to tease at him almost unmercifully. He smiled at the way she drew her hand close against her midriff, her fingers curled around the palm he’d kissed.

It wasn’t until he was back in his own bedchamber that he began to wonder what in hell was happening. Not just to the mission they’d undertaken, but to him, personally. That little wisp of a woman, seemingly without humor, without much in the way of emotions, had begun to creep beneath his skin, into his consciousness. And he didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all.

“Something stuck in your craw, Jack?” Cluny asked from his seat beside the fire.

Jack turned to look at his friend. “Strange, but I seem to remember this pile being large enough for you to have your own bedchamber.”

“And that’s true enough,” Cluny said, leaning his head back against the soft leather. “So? I heard voices through the connecting door. Couldn’t hear what you were saying, much as I tried, no shame to me, but I heard the voices. You two settle anything between you?”

Jack stripped off the shirt he’d donned before confronting Eleanor in her bedchamber and slipped his arms back into the silk banyan. Then he said out loud what he’d suddenly realized. “She’s frightened out of her mind, Cluny, and probably second-guessing why she’s here at all.”

“Ah, there’s a pity. So you’ll be sending her off home, then?”

Jack sat himself down, picked up the snifter of brandy he’d left warming by the fire. “No. I don’t think I could blast her out of here with cannon fire.”

“Would that be a fact? Scared, but standing her ground. Well, you know what that is, my friend, don’t you? That’s courage.”

Jack looked toward the door that connected his chamber to Eleanor’s. “Is that it? Is that why I’m…intrigued by her?”

Cluny laughed into his own snifter, a hollow sound. “Lord love you, no. I seen her from the top of the stairs when Treacle was taking her down the line, introducing the staff just like they do in fine houses, or so I’m told. Face of an angel she’s got, and a fine, fine figure for such a small dab. Courage? Who looks to a pretty woman with an eye out to see courage?”

“Or, Cluny, who looks to courage and expects to see a pretty woman,” Jack murmured quietly. “We’d better get this right, old friend, or Miss Becket in there will be very disappointed.”

Then he sat and looked at the door for a long time, picturing Eleanor untying the bows on her dressing gown, climbing into the turned-down four-poster bed, looking small and vulnerable as she lay half-swallowed by the pillows and coverlet.

She barely came up to the top of his chest. He was a tall man, he knew that, taller than most men, but even taking that into consideration, Eleanor Becket was a small woman. He was certain he could easily span her waist with his hands, yet there was no denying her womanly shape. A small bit of perfection he’d actually not noticed during his visits to Becket Hall.

Now she filled his head, and he couldn’t seem to get her out again, even knowing he had to concentrate on his plans for bringing down these three men and, more importantly, through them, finding the leader of the Red Men Gang.

Oh, yes, and then there was Richard.

He had to avenge what he was sure was the murder of his cousin. Why did he have to keep reminding himself of that part?

“Cluny?” he asked as the fire burned lower in the grate. “Do you think he was in on it, had been a part of the Red Men?”

Cluny didn’t pretend not to know who Jack was talking about. “He was a weasel, I’ll give him that. Could be. Could be. And wouldn’t that be a fine kettle of fish, eh? The pair of us sticking our necks into a noose to get some of our own back for a weasel. Besides, we’re beyond that now. Your cousin is only a part of this. The rest is us and for us. Wrap your head about that one, boyo. Why, we should be putting down our pennies for Masses for that cousin of yours, he did us such a good turn. We’re bad, bad men living a good, good life.”

“I don’t think Eleanor sees the thing that way, Cluny,” Jack said, then drained the remainder of his brandy. “I think she sees us as helping the people of Romney Marsh.”

“Ah, then it’s going to Heaven I’ll be, once they’re done gutting me and hanging me in chains? A good thing to know.”

Jack grinned. “Isn’t it, though?”




CHAPTER FOUR


AFTER TWO DAYS OF TRAVEL, but mostly after two nearly full days spent in close approximation with Jack Eastwood, Eleanor had welcomed the rain that had fallen incessantly for the past three days. Ladies, she’d read, do not move about out of doors during inclement weather, and so she’d told him. She did not add that she needed time to recover her mental equilibrium before heading into Society on his arm.

He’d already presented himself to Lady Beresford alone, before Eleanor had even risen from an exhausted sleep that had held her until nearly noon, and she was more than happy to have missed the interview.

She actually had seen very little of Jack, who had once more taken up with Harris Phelps and Sir Gilbert Eccles, making the rounds of several gaming halls each evening, well into the morning, actually, and then sleeping away half the day.

As for Cluny? After a cursory introduction the man had taken to his rooms as if he was ailing, not even appearing at meals. When she’d asked Jack if the man truly was ill he’d explained that Cluny came and went by the servant staircase, and was actually out and about more than she knew.

Jack had also told her he had yet to encounter the Earl of Chelfham, but that this was nothing to worry about, as the earl preferred to do his gaming in the card rooms of his ton hostesses, or within the exclusive walls of White’s or Watier’s. “But,” he’d told her, “once the earl learns of the small fortune to be made playing at cards with the inept Jack Eastwood? Then he’ll show his face, or we’ll be invited to meet him. I only hope his greed doesn’t take too long to goad him into action. I’m more than ready to begin winning again, which I plan to do the moment Chelfham joins us at the table.”

After that first late morning she still couldn’t muster up any shame for indulging in, Eleanor was up near enough to the crack of dawn the next two days to have seriously discommoded Mrs. Hendersen and her maids. Most especially when she’d walked into the kitchens this morning after waiting an hour for her morning chocolate the day before, sat herself down at the newly scrubbed wooden table, and politely asked if she might have a coddled egg and a dish of tea, thank you.

Mrs. Hendersen had explained, gamely attempting to be civil, that the lady of the household should ring for a servant.

Eleanor had then pointed out the illogic of such a plan. “A servant whom, I’ve now learned, would hear the summons, run up two flights of stairs to hear that I would enjoy a coddled egg and dish of tea. She would then run back down those stairs to have someone procure both, labor back up those stairs, undoubtedly carrying a heavy silver tray, run back to her post, run back when I rang to have the tray taken away.”

“Yes, ma’am, but that’s the way it is,” Mrs. Hendersen had interrupted, which did her no good at all, because Eleanor hadn’t quite finished. And, as her siblings could have told the housekeeper, when Eleanor had something to say she could be like water on a rock, calmly coursing along until she’d worn that rock into a pebble, just from steady, low-keyed persistence.

As at that particular moment. “Oh, and then return the tray here, to the kitchens. In other words, Mrs. Hendersen, the simple matter of dealing with my coddled egg and dish of tea would necessitate a half-dozen trips either to or from my bedchamber. Much, much more sensible to move me, at least for today.”

“But…but…” Mrs. Hendersen had said, still unaware she might be seeing a slim, petite young woman with an unfortunate limp (the “poor little dearie”), but that she was in reality listening to a quiet verbal assault that would have had Napoleon cowering in a corner and whimpering, “Assez! Plus qu’il n’en faut! Enough! More than enough!”

“Beginning tomorrow morning, I shall be taking my breakfast at eight each morning in that lovely small salon next to Mr. Eastwood’s study,” Eleanor had told the woman—much to the delight of a red-haired freckled young girl Eleanor now knew to be Beatrice, who had been assigned to serve the new mistress.

“That’d be the breakfast room, ma’am,” Mrs. Hendersen had told her, her face rather splotched in unbecoming puce as she fought to keep her tone deferential.

“And called so for a good reason, wouldn’t you say, Mrs. Hendersen?” Eleanor had responded with one of her gentle smiles, believing that matter settled, and then had immediately moved on to the next subject on her mind.

As Mrs. Hendersen sputtered, Eleanor had then called all the servants together and explained life as it would be under her direction. Life as it was at Becket Hall, where everyone helped with any bit of work that might present itself, and nobody was asked to do what a person could reasonably do for him or herself.

Which, as Eleanor realized almost from the moment Jack came storming into her bedchamber shortly before the dinner gong was to sound that evening, had been a horrible mistake.

She’d been sitting at her dressing table, extremely content as a clearly adoring Beatrice pulled a pair of silver-backed brushes through her hair—the girl had insisted—when she’d heard the slam of the connecting door and her “husband’s” near bellow.

“What in bloody hell have you been about, woman?”

Beatrice gave out a small yelp and ran from the room, taking the brushes with her, so that Eleanor could only sigh, then lift her hair with her hands and let it all fall down her back, nearly to her waist.

Which seemed to stop Jack, who had been advancing on her with a fury she hadn’t seen in several years, in fact, not since Courtland had discovered Cassandra hiding in the drawing room after filling his riding boots with mud because he’d refused to take her out riding with him.

“How in blazes do you hold all that mess of hair up on that fragile neck of yours? No, don’t answer me. That’s not my question.” Jack kept his gaze on Eleanor, however, as he pointed in the general direction Beatrice had taken moments earlier. “Do you have any idea of the anarchy you have unleashed out there?”

Eleanor searched in one of the drawers of her dressing table, unearthing a deep blue grosgrain ribbon that matched her gown, then tied it around her hair at her nape. “I beg your pardon?”

“It’s not my pardon you’ll be begging, wife. Mrs…Mrs…whoever she is, is downstairs in the kitchens, crying into the cook’s apron.” He raised his eyebrows as he glared at her. “And do you want to know why she’s crying in the cook’s apron?”

“Mrs. Hendersen.”

Jack was losing control, and he knew it. “What?”

“Your housekeeper. Her name is Mrs. Hendersen. And, no, Jack, I don’t know why she’s crying into Mrs. Ryan’s apron. Is she ill?”

Jack jammed his fingers through his hair. “She didn’t look all that good when I saw her but, no, she’s not sick. She’s at the end of her rope—and that’s out of her mouth, not mine. Did you really tell the servants they only had to do what they wanted to do?”

Eleanor sat down, frowned at him. “No, that’s not quite it. At Becket Hall we all help each other. But there are duties, everyone has the duty to help. At Becket Hall they’re…well, I suppose you could call them the crew. Yes, that’s it. There are general assignments, even preferences, but everyone lends a hand where it’s needed. It’s all rather—what’s the word? Oh, yes. Democratic.”

“Is that right? Well, don’t look now, madam, but our crew has instituted a mutiny.”

“Now you’re exaggerating. It will take a little time for everyone to understand that they’re being asked to responsively think for themselves, employ initiative, but—”

Jack let out a short laugh. “Oh, they’re already thinking for themselves, Eleanor. According to Mrs…damn!”

“Mrs. Hendersen.”

Jack glared at her. “According to the housekeeper,” he pushed on doggedly, “two of the footmen have thought for themselves that they should be taking in the sights at Bartholomew Fair today, while the cook—ha! Mrs. Ryan—has thought for herself that something called bubble and squeak would make for a fine dinner for the master of the house. Who would be me, Eleanor, who doesn’t have the faintest damn idea what bubble and squeak is, but I’m damn sure I don’t want it served up in my dining room. And then there’s that maid of yours—”

“Beatrice? She’s been here with me for most of the afternoon, cleaning this chamber and yours, both of which more than needed a good polish.”

“Well, good for Beatrice,” Jack snarled, dropping into a chair. “That also explains why there’s some pathetic little thing sitting beside Mrs. Hendersen and also crying up a storm because now she has no dusting to do and she’ll soon be on the streets on her back and men with no teeth will be taking their pleasure on her. And that’s another direct quote.”

Eleanor put a hand to her chin, looked around as if there might be something to see. “Oh. Dear. They don’t quite understand, do they?”

Jack stood up again. He couldn’t seem to stay still for more than a moment. Probably because he wanted to strangle this strange, irritating woman. “Yes, I think you could safely say that. I think you could also safely say that you’re in no danger of my housekeeper addressing you as you poor dearie ever again. Now, what do we do? Correction, what do you do, because this is your mess, Eleanor, and it needs cleaning up before Eccles and Phelps come to dinner tomorrow night.”

Eleanor, who had been mentally reviewing Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man in her head as she wondered what she’d done wrong, was suddenly all attention. “You’ve invited them here? But why?”

“I don’t know, Eleanor. Perhaps I’ve become disenchanted with spending my nights attempting to find new ways to lose my money to a fool as thick as Phelps when others are watching and wanting into the game. You’d be amazed at how popular a bad card player with plenty of money to lose can be in London society. Besides, I told them to bring anyone else they wished to bring with them, as my cook is one of the best in Mayfair and my new bride is a real beauty who hasn’t recovered enough from our wedding trip to go into Society yet.”

Eleanor could feel a flush of color reddening her cheeks. “You make that sound as if—well, never mind.”

Jack found himself feeling embarrassed, as well, which was a very uncommon feeling for him, so that he immediately resented it. He began pacing the carpet, still longing to hit something and hoping to dissipate some of his angry energy. “Be that as it may, my new friends, and whoever they bring with them—please God let it be Chelfham—aren’t the sort who expect to dine on bubble and squeak.”

“Yes, whatever that is,” Eleanor said, also beginning to pace, only stopping when she realized what a ridiculous pair they must look, each of them marching up and down the carpet in different directions.

Jack paused in front of her on his trip up the carpet, and just looked at her.

As she looked at him.

And then, much to the surprise and amazement of both of them, they began to smile. Their smiles turned to laughter, and Eleanor actually reached out to lay a hand on his arm, to help support herself as her mirth threatened to overcome her.

“I really have to do something, don’t I?” she asked at last, looking up at Jack…who was looking at her rather strangely. “Um…about the servants.”

“You have a pretty laugh,” Jack heard himself say, wondering where the words had come from. “And your eyes…they light up when you smile. I’ve stayed at Becket Hall several times. Why did I never notice you?”

Eleanor nervously wet her suddenly compressed lips with the tip of her tongue. “I’m sure I have no idea. I…I really should go downstairs and…and apologize to Mrs…um, that is, to Mrs…”

“Hendersen,” Jack told her, his smile slow as he placed his hands on Eleanor’s shoulders. “Fine name, Hendersen.”

“Oh yes,” Eleanor said, rushing into speech. “A fine name. Um…do you think you could let me go now?”

Jack considered this for the length of a second, if that. “No, I don’t think so. I’m rather enjoying myself at the moment. Are you aware that there are small golden flecks in those huge brown eyes of yours?” He tipped his head to one side, leaned down lower. Closer. “Yes, I can see them. I can also see myself reflected in your eyes. Your most amazing eyes.”

Eleanor would have blinked, but she seemed to have forgotten how to do that, and her body wasn’t responding to any commands save the ratcheting up of her heartbeat and breathing. “Are you going to kiss me now, Jack?” she asked him because, obviously, all her usual good common sense had taken French leave so that all she was left with was a curiosity that she was powerless to deny.

Jack smiled. “Would you like that, Eleanor? Would you like me to kiss you?”

“As purely an experiment, you mean?” Would she just shut up and say yes? What was wrong with her? The man wanted to kiss her, for goodness sakes.

“An experiment in precisely what, Eleanor?”

“I…well, I was thinking about what you said that first night we were standing here. Precisely here, as a matter of fact, although why you are always in my bedchamber rather than calling me down to the drawing room I’ve yet to fully fathom. You said that you couldn’t have me flinching, drawing back, when you showed the most mundane of husbandly attentions. I’ve begun to realize that you may be right, especially as we’ll have guests right here, at your own—our own—dinner table.”

As she spoke, Jack watched that expressive little face. “You know what it is? You’ve never been kissed, have you, Eleanor Becket? One and twenty and living isolated at Becket Hall—you’ve never been kissed.”

“I don’t see where that has to enter into the—please let me go.”

Jack lifted his hands, that had been only lightly resting on her shoulders. “I haven’t actually been holding you, Eleanor.”

“Oh.”

“But I could be,” he suggested, replacing his hands, this time curling his fingers around her upper arms. “It’s not often a man has the opportunity to taste a woman’s first kiss. I’d be honored. As an experiment.”

“Now you’re making fun of me.” Eleanor was mortified. But she wasn’t moving. She’d noticed that, that she wasn’t moving away from him.

Jack was suddenly ashamed of himself. She was probably right. At least partially right. He slid his hands down her arms and took hold of her left hand, leading her over to the chairs flanking the fireplace. “We should talk.”

Eleanor was more than happy to sit down, as her knees were shaking. She watched as Jack took up the facing chair on the other side of a low table, lounging in the chair with an ease she couldn’t muster for herself as she sat perched on the edge of her own seat. She must look like a hopeful applicant wishing for employment; back ramrod straight, feet close together, hands folded in her lap. And, if not the applicant, then the prissy old maid about to ask to see any letters of recommendation.

But if she sat back in the large chair her feet would no longer touch the floor, and that would be just too embarrassing. Did people really think she liked sitting in the small, straight-backed chairs she always gravitated to, for pity’s sake? Tall people, and everyone in her world seemed to be tall, didn’t have to consider such things the way people who barely topped five feet in height did.

She remained silent as Jack sort of slouched sideways in his seat, his elbow on one arm of the chair, his chin in his hand. Looking at her.

She waited for him to speak, fill the silence.

And waited.

Inside Jack’s head, he was counting: …twelve…thirteen…fourteen…I’m not going to do it…fifteen…sixteen…come on, sweetheart, your turn…seventeen…

“You…um, you mentioned that you have visited Becket Hall a few times. After your first stay while you were recovering from…well, you know that part. But I doubt you paid much attention to the general running of the household. After all, men don’t, do they? So perhaps I should explain more about how we…how we go on.” She stopped, sighed as she realized what had just happened, how he had tricked her into filling the silence. “You really are the most annoying man.”

“Yes, so I’ve heard. But you’re both right and wrong, Eleanor. I have been to Becket Hall, and I’m not so dense or unobservant that I haven’t noticed that it’s a rather unique establishment. That you’re a rather unique family.”

“I find us to be quite natural, but that’s probably because I really can’t remember anything else.”

“I thought you said you’d arrived at Becket Hall at the age of six. That’s when Ainsley…found you?” Jack didn’t know if there was another term for what Ainsley had done. Found? Adopted? Accumulated? A man with eight children, seven of them not of his own blood, could be said to have accumulated them, couldn’t he?

Eleanor was silent for a moment. “I said that? Yes, I suppose I did, in passing. You have a very good memory, Jack.”

“And more questions than I’d imagined,” he answered truthfully. “Beginning, I suppose with one—how much are you willing to tell me?”

Eleanor looked at him from beneath her lashes. “There really isn’t much to tell. Papa and the rest, including the crews of both his ships, decided to move themselves to England after Cassandra’s mother died. Papa had no heart to remain on the island home he’d made for everyone, you understand, and it seemed that most everyone felt as he did, that it was time to come home.”

“Home? I’ve met many of the people who live in Becket Village and work at Becket Hall, Eleanor. Not half of them are English.”

Eleanor lifted her chin slightly, proud of Ainsley Becket. “Anywhere my father is becomes home to those loyal to him.”

“I stand corrected. If everyone else at Becket Hall is as loyal as you, Eleanor, I imagine they’d follow Ainsley into hell if that’s where he was headed.”

No, they’d all already been there, their hell had been where they’d died on that island, then come to England with the hope of living again, Eleanor thought, lowering her gaze. “I believe I told you that I never saw the island. I remember none of it, but I’ve been told there was a storm at sea as they were making their way here to England, and the ship I was traveling on capsized. Fortunately, that ship was within sight of Papa’s ships. Jacko himself saved me. Jacko, and then Chance.”

Jack frowned. “And that’s it? That’s what happened? Your ship went down but you were saved? Only you?”

“Only me,” Eleanor said, keeping her gaze steady on Jack as he believed her lies…most particularly the lie of timing. “Eleanor is the name Papa chose for me, as I was ill for a long time and, as I said, remember nothing, not even my given name. In truth, I don’t even know how old I am. Odette decided I was six.”

She was lying to him. Lying through those straight white teeth. Jack knew it. The gaps in her story were huge, as if an elephant had just been tossed into the middle of the room. But Jack knew if he pressed for details, made mention of that great, hulking elephant, if he pushed Eleanor, he’d lose any trust he may have gained.

Still, he felt he’d be expected to ask some questions. “Was it an English ship? Do you at least believe you’re English?”

“Yes, I’m English.”

Jack was learning more about Eleanor. For one thing, he was learning that she answered parts of questions, not the whole of them. She was English, that she acknowledged. She did not say that the ship she’d been sailing on had been an English ship.

“Did Ainsley ever try to find your family here?”

Eleanor looked at him, head-on as it were, when she answered. “There were attempts, yes. But time passed, and I was content. I had a new family, and since I didn’t remember anything of my life before the shipwreck I didn’t wish to leave that family. And…and I’m very content at Becket Hall.”

Jack looked at her closely. More lies. But what sort of lies? And for what reason? “So content, in fact, that you volunteered to come to London.”

“I haven’t abandoned Becket Hall, Jack.”

“True enough,” he said, rubbing at his chin. “But don’t tell me you’re not…curious.”

“Curious?” Eleanor folded her fingers together more tightly in her lap. “About what?”

Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. About the rest of the world, what lies beyond Becket Hall and Romney Marsh? About your…your other family, be they dead or alive? I know I’d be curious.”

Eleanor wanted to tell him, tell him everything. Not even her younger brothers and sisters knew the whole of it, but only pieces. Papa knew most of it, of course, but not all. Chance knew quite a bit, because he’d been there with Jacko, had snatched her up when…when it was over. But that was all. She’d never felt an overwhelming urge to confide in anyone else. For Jacko’s sake, she supposed, since Papa cared for him.

Everyone at Becket Hall seemed satisfied that Eleanor was content.

But Jack seemed to know that no matter how happy she was at Becket Hall, there was always that not knowing…that question: who was she? Really? He couldn’t, of course, know the rest. Nobody could. Nobody could even imagine the rest of it in their worst nightmares.

“No, Jack,” she said now, getting to her feet, “I’m not curious. I’m anxious that we proceed as we are, and hopeful you’re right, that these are the men and that we can put a stop to their ambitions. That is why I’ve come to London with you.”

Jack unbent himself and stood up, as well, watching as she distanced herself from him. “Put a stop to their ambitions,” he said to the back of her head, to that bewitching fall of dark hair. “What a lovely way of saying that we wish these three guilty and dead, probably by my hand, now that I really think about the thing.”

Eleanor turned to look at him in surprise. “Kill them? You’re not serious.”

Jack chuckled low in his throat as he shook his head. “What do you suggest, Eleanor? That we politely ask them to stop trying to destroy us?”

“Don’t be facetious,” Eleanor said, almost without thinking the words, and then began to pace, her slight limp not detracting one whit from the enjoyment Jack felt, watching her.

He folded his arms and leaned against the side of the high, wingback chair he’d just vacated. “Ainsley knows, Eleanor. We all do. Ferret out whoever is causing us trouble and eliminate them. You were listening at the keyhole, weren’t you? You heard Ainsley say the word? Eliminate.”

Eleanor stopped pacing. “Yes, but I thought that meant that…” She hesitated, her breath releasing in a quick, hard sigh. “Is there no other way? What if…what if you found ways to ruin them? Socially? Financially?”

“Make them so unappealing even the leaders of the Red Men Gang will turn their backs on them? Is that what you mean?”

Eleanor frowned. “No, that wouldn’t work, would it? Once they’re of no further use to the Red Men, the Red Men have no reason to let them live, and perhaps talk, say the wrong thing to the wrong person.” Then she looked at Jack. “But then you wouldn’t have eliminated them, would you?”

Ah, now he saw her problem. She didn’t seem to want blood on his hands. Or hers, for that matter. “I see. You want me to destroy them—socially or financially—but let the Red Men actually eliminate them.”

“Yes. No.” Eleanor sat down on the low chair in front of her dressing table. “Perhaps I’m not as prepared for this…mission, as I thought I was. Does Sir Gilbert have a wife, children? You said the earl and Mr. Phelps are both married. God, Jack. I’m to be with these women, cultivate them, knowing we could be planning the deaths of their husbands?”

“I don’t know about Gilly. Married? I don’t think so. Phelps? Just his wife, I believe.” Jack stopped, realized what was happening. “Damn it, woman, I can’t be concerned about any of that, and neither can you. A soldier going into battle goes in already a dead man if his mind is full of worries about the enemy’s wives and children.”

“I know,” Eleanor said as she nervously fussed with the handle of a hand mirror on the dressing table. “And I know our first concern is the families we help, and everyone at Becket Hall. I was…I was reacting, not thinking clearly.”

And if I kill any of these three men, you’ll carry the guilt for the rest of your life, won’t you, little fawn, Jack thought, looking at her as she bent her head, avoiding his gaze.

He reached down, putting his hand over hers for a moment, stilling her fingers as they pushed at the mirror handle, then went down on one knee beside her, inches from her face. “Eleanor. I’ll try, all right? Maybe there’s a way to stop them without eliminating them completely, or at least managing things so that the Red Men Gang does our job for us. But I can’t promise anything. You understand that, don’t you?”

He looked so earnest. He was so close to her.

“I should go home, shouldn’t I? I thought I could help, but now I’m being missish, and shortsighted, and definitely not rational. This isn’t a game where we can best them, defeat them, then everyone shakes hands and goes on their way, is it? This is life and death. I know that. I’ve always known that. I…I just never wanted to really believe that.”

Jack watched, fascinated, as tears welled in Eleanor’s velvety brown eyes, even as she kept her chin high, refusing to give way to her emotions. “Please stay, Eleanor.”

“But I’ve been nothing but trouble to you. I’ve made a shambles of your household, and now I’m interfering with your plans rather than helping you with them.” She smiled wanly. “You know, Jack, I once prided myself on how well controlled I am, how in charge I am of my emotions and most any situation. I’ve been deluding myself.”

“No,” Jack said, amazed that he meant every word he was about to say. “Ainsley wouldn’t have allowed you to come here if he didn’t trust you completely, trust your judgment. You’re a civilizing influence, Eleanor, whether you know it or not. We men tend to think in terms that are rather absolute. Kill or be killed, for one. There may be another way.”

Eleanor lifted a hand and cupped his cheek, reacting again, not thinking. “No. There is no other way, and we both know it. Either these men lead us to the head of the Red Men Gang or their own leaders will destroy them for allowing us to even get close. Either way, assuming we succeed, these three men are already as good as dead. When I meet them, I will be speaking to dead men and widows.” She dropped her hand to her lap once more. “Rationally, I understand that.”

Jack put his hand on her cheek, returning intimate gesture for intimate gesture. A sort of bonding, merely physical, that would mean an agreement to so much more than that. “And you’ll be able to live with those consequences?”





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