Beware Of Virtuous Women

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.