Highlander Undone Read online

  “It would never come out. You as much as said so.”

  “Not officially, but you know this sort of thing would eventually find its way out. The rumor mill is often more damaging to reputations than the courts.”

  Damn the man, he could be right.

  “Do you think she would willingly court social ruin by helping us?”

  “Yes,” Jack said, though in truth he was not certain she would easily let Ted and her parents-in-law suffer for Hoodless’s crimes. “She is an honorable woman.”

  “Your faith—or infatuation—notwithstanding, I will not risk it. No. There is only one thing to do. You must find the evidence for us.”

  Jack rose, his upright bearing testament to a decade of tutoring under men such as Lord Mitchell.

  “I am sorry, General,” he said. “But no.”

  “What did you say?”

  “No, I will not spy on Addie Hoodless. I will not pry into her belongings, nor will I steal from her.”

  The general flushed a deep, angry red, his silvery hair a stark contrast. “You used to be a damn good officer, Cameron. Your men loved you. Yes, not only respected but loved you. Is this how you repay their regard? By allowing some sentiment for a widow to interfere with your duty to your dead comrades and your country? Why did you fight, Cameron, if not for God and country?”

  “I did not say I would not hunt down the traitor, sir. I said I would not spy on Mrs. Hoodless nor riffle through her effects like a sneak thief. I will find out the name of the traitor. I swear it.”

  “And this is the best way to do so, man! And if you don’t find anything, why, then, you will have cleared Hoodless from the list of suspects,” Mitchell insisted. “Besides, I am not asking you to do anything that you yourself haven’t already embarked on, and you know it. Why else have you played at being the simpering fop, if not to discover the traitor?”

  Jack lifted his chin. “I was trying to find atonement.”

  “And right you were, lad!” the general said. “Honor demands you seek out this criminal, regardless of the personal cost.”

  With measured deliberation, Jack reclaimed his gloves from atop the desk. “Thank you, Lord Mitchell. You’ve clarified what I must do, something that has been obscure to me for months.”

  “Good! It’s about time you came around.”

  “You mistake my meaning.”

  “Which is?”

  “I will not risk a woman and her family’s reputations, their prospects, or their happiness, for vengeance. I owe my life to those men who fought for our country and its values, and that I would gladly pay at any time. But I do not owe them my soul. And I dishonor their memory by thinking they would ask that of me. As for God . . . He extracts his own price.”

  “What the hell do you mean, Cameron?”

  He inclined his head respectfully. This man had done great things, would do great things. He was a noble man and fearless defender of the nation. He was not, however, God.

  “I mean, no. I will find another way.” And he walked out of the dark-paneled room into the pale winter sunlight.

  By the time Jack left the Whitehall offices, the streets were emptying. A light drizzle mixed with snow had begun and the few dray horses left on the streets slipped and stumbled as they made their way back to the congested stables that sheltered them.

  Jack paced the ice-glazed pavement, oblivious to the deserted landscape. His former commander’s words replayed in his mind. The general would have fallen like a wolf on the bits of information he’d garnered from Zephrina Drouhin, seeing it as further testimony damning Charles Hoodless. Until he had incontrovertible proof of Hoodless’s involvement, he would not risk telling Lord Mitchell. The general would look no further.

  Jack had spent two days with the American girl only to discover that she hadn’t known much. She was more interested in disparaging her portraitist than discussing Paul Sherville.

  Those few things he had ultimately learned, however, had been telling. Paul Sherville had boasted to Zephrina of his “North African gold mine.” He’d only spoken once about Hoodless after having imbibed “rather too deeply.” Sherville had said that Hoodless had “gathered information like a banker gathers coins, and parlayed it into even more money,” a bit of verbiage that would have shored up Lord Mitchell’s conviction that Charles Hoodless was their traitor.

  A year ago, Jack would have gone directly to Lord Mitchell with that information, discounting any other considerations as secondary and willing to let the higher-ups make of it what they would. But a year had changed him.

  A year ago he would have laughed at anyone who suggested that he would count amongst his friends a lame, taciturn portraitist or a giant, effete, ice-skating illustrator. And a year ago he hadn’t been in love with Addie Hoodless.

  The thought of Addie brought a small, intense flicker of pleasure and pain. Tomorrow, he would tell her who he was, what he was. He could go to her tomorrow morning—he released a brief sound of irritation as he recalled Addie’s laughing comment about spending the entire day being “transformed” by some dressmaker or other for the ball. He would have to tell her later. At the ball.

  He entered the townhouse and handed his hat to the waiting footman.

  “Mr. Phyfe is here to see you, sir. He has been waiting some hours. I suggested he might return tomorrow but he insisted on staying,” the footman said, helping Jack out of his coat. “He is in the drawing room.”

  “And Lady Merritt?”

  “Her Ladyship retired some while ago, sir. She was not feeling well.”

  “Bring us whiskey, please.”

  He found Ted sitting in a club chair in front of the fireplace enjoying a merrily sputtering blaze and idly twirling the silver handle of his walking cane between his clever fingers. Seeing Jack, he set the cane aside and stood up.

  “Been out and about in this weather, Cameron? You’ll take your death.”

  Jack regarded his visitor suspiciously, motioning for him to retake his seat. “To what do I owe this pleasure so late at night?”

  “I’d wait until this interview has ended before you call it a pleasure, Cameron.”

  “Oh?” Jack sprawled in the club chair opposite Ted’s, stretching his legs out. “This sounds ominous. What? You want me to don that ridiculous turban and pose for you again?”

  “No. I think you’ve done quite enough masquerading, wouldn’t you agree?”

  An alarm sounded in Jack’s mind. “Perhaps.”

  “I find I have had enough of this, Cameron,” Ted said. “Especially now, today, after coming home to the studio and seeing—the props for the Odalisque are in disarray. Addie is floating about the house, her hair down on her shoulders, humming.”

  Jack waited in chill silence. He wasn’t going to discuss what had occurred between Addie and him with anyone. Least of all her brother.

  “She’s taken with you, Cameron. I’d say she was half in love with you. Maybe more.”

  The silence stretched between the two of them. The patter of sleet against the windowpanes and the hiss of green wood the only sounds.

  “What?” Ted finally said, an unpleasant smile twisting his lips. “For months now, you have impressed us all with your ready wit. Has your cleverness suddenly deserted you? I have just told you that my sister is more than a little in love with you. Doesn’t this mean anything to you, Cameron?” Ted tilted his head, staring at Jack as though he were some perplexing and contemptible specimen.

  “Yes.”

  “May I ask what?”

  “No.”

  Ted settled back in his chair. “That creates something of a problem.”

  “This doesn’t concern you, Ted. It is between Addie and myself.”

  “Oh, I beg to differ. It does.” The muscles in Ted’s jaw worked even though his tone remained neutral. “I love Addie, you see, and I have had . . . just . . . about . . . enough of seeing her hurt!” The last words exploded from him.

  Jack’s own frustration and gri
ef boiled up in response, goaded by Ted’s. “And I don’t want her hurt!”

  With an obvious effort, Ted regained his vigilant self-control. “Then you’ll be giving me some explanations,” he said in a clipped voice. “Who are you?”

  “I am Lord Merritt’s great-nephew. I am a devotee of the arts—”

  “You are no more an artist,” Ted cut in with hushed, strained tones, “or craftsman than Gerry’s Burmese cat. You aren’t even a dilettante. For some reason you have sought to insinuate yourself with Addie—or is it me? Or Gerald?—and I have allowed it.”

  Jack eyed Ted warily.

  “Do you want to know why I have allowed it—aside from the fact that your burlesque performance has been more entertaining than a night in the East End?” Ted didn’t wait for an answer. “Because of Addie. Because you afforded her an opportunity to champion someone.”

  “My, how munificent of you.”

  “Don’t play so hard at being feckless. Your eyes give you away, Cameron. They have from the start.”

  Jack ignored the remark. A discreet tap at the door presaged the entry of the footman with liquor and glasses. Jack took the tray from him at the door, motioning for him to leave, and returned to fill a glass and lift it in Ted’s direction.

  “Drink, Ted?” he asked.

  “Answer me. Who are you?”

  Jack sloshed some seltzer into the glass, his back to Ted.

  “Damn you, man! Addie deserves better than this!”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Jack pounded the decanter down and gripped the edge of the table with both hands.

  “Can you at least assure me that whatever it is you play at, you won’t hurt Addie?”

  “Hurt Addie?” Jack echoed, hopeless and raging. “Good God, I would pay in blood to be able to give such an assurance.”

  “Don’t evade the question, Cameron!”

  “What can I tell you? That I would not willingly hurt Addie? I wouldn’t. That I may have already done so?”

  “Damn you!” shouted Ted. “How dare you toy with her heart? Have you no feeling?”

  It was too much. Jack surged one step forward before catching himself back and impaling Ted with a hot-eyed glare. “Yes and yes and yes! Do you want to hear my feelings? Do you want to hear that I love her with every worthy fiber left in me, every bit of emotion that can be wrung from my heart, everything I am? Will that be enough for you?”

  Slowly, Ted sank back in his chair.

  “Do you think that my loving her automatically protects her from my hurting her?” Jack asked helplessly. “Then you are a fool!”

  Ted’s gaze grew hooded as he studied Jack’s combative stance and clenched teeth.

  “Addie knows you’re a fake,” he finally said in a much more moderate tone. “Oh, she might not consciously choose to acknowledge it, but she knows. She was raised in a house full of artists. She cut her teeth on Rossetti’s discarded paintbrushes. John Ruskin would have been her godfather—had he believed in God.

  “I have often thought that was part of the appeal Hoodless held for Addie,” Ted said. “She was drawn to the regularity, the discipline and conformity he represented and her upbringing so extravagantly lacked.” He returned his attention to Jack. “How could she not see what you are, or, more to the point, what you aren’t? You out-Gerry poor Gerry with your outrageous pretensions and affectations. And all that cologne . . . Lord, you’ve given me a headache on more than one occasion with that pretty stench you soak yourself in.”

  “If you’ve suspected for so long, why didn’t you say anything?”

  The smile faded from Ted’s lips. “I told you. Because you made Addie forget that monstrosity she’d married.”

  Jack made a strangled sound.

  “I watched that bastard turn my spontaneous, laughing, vibrant little sister into a fearful, still-faced caricature of herself.”

  Impotent rage boiled through Jack’s veins. “Why didn’t you do something, man?”

  “I tried!” Ted countered angrily, his gaze flickering to his leg, reminding Jack that Hoodless had run him down with his carriage, crippling him. “I just wasn’t successful. And later, after my . . . accident”—he made a sharp dismissive motion toward his leg—“Addie would not hear a word about seeking a separation. She never confided in me after that but I suspect Hoodless threatened the rest of us if she did so. At any rate, she insisted things were better and then she simply withdrew from him, from her family, from society . . . from life.

  “And then Hoodless was killed in North Africa, and I thanked God, certain that she’d reclaim herself. But a year passed and she was still solitary, joyless.” He raised his gaze, looking Jack directly in the eye. “And then you came along and she . . . she began to rediscover herself. You made her take risks on your behalf she might never have taken for her own sake. You made her feel things. That’s why I let it go on.”

  “You shouldn’t have,” Jack said.

  “Shouldn’t I?” Ted asked. “I don’t know. You’re not going to tell me what you’re doing here, are you, Cameron?”

  “No. Not before I speak with Addie. I intend to do so tomorrow night at the masquerade ball Lady Merritt is holding in your honor.”

  Ted studied him for a few minutes more before hoisting himself heavily from the club chair. “Then I should trust you?”

  “No.”

  Ted snorted. “Such an honest charlatan. How novel. Well, Jack, since you won’t tell me your motives for this charade, I shall simply have to wait. Don’t bother seeing me out.”

  He made his way across the room and paused at the doorway. “Of course, if things don’t end well, I shall kill you.”

  Paul Sherville pulled back from the carriage window as Hoodless’s gimpy brother-in-law vacated the Merritt townhouse. Phyfe paused to open his umbrella, a smile of unmistakable satisfaction on his face, then limped down the steps and disappeared into a cab.

  Paul did not know what to make of that smile. Phyfe had actively disliked Hoodless—Charles had on more than one occasion laughed at his brother-in-law’s ineffectual attempts to induce Addie to seek a divorce. Perhaps Phyfe smiled because Hoodless was on the cusp of being revealed as the blackmailing bastard he was . . .

  Sherville thumped the leather seat with his fist and bit at the knuckles of the other as panic capered through his veins. No! That wasn’t it. Phyfe was far too fond of his shivering, timorous little sister to find pleasure in her imminent social ruin.

  Far more likely Phyfe had been visiting Cameron with the purpose of finding out how much the former captain knew about Addie’s little foray into the dangerous—if lucrative—game of extortion.

  That had to be it! And judging by the Nan-boy’s smirk, Cameron had yet to procure any evidence. Which meant—Sherville’s eyes widened—that the photograph was still in Addie’s care, in the Hoodless townhouse.

  He rapped his fist against the carriage roof and called for the driver to take him to his new club, a far more exclusive establishment on the Thames than The Gold Braid.

  He’d already seen to it that Addie’s country house had been thoroughly searched. Thoroughly. It hadn’t been hard. With all her money, one would think she’d at least keep an adequate staff at the East Sussex manor, more fool she.

  The search had proven fruitless. Not a thing, not a scrap of Hoodless’s personal belongings was there. Well, now at least he knew where to find the photograph, and tomorrow night, while Addie danced at Lady Merritt’s masquerade ball, the two men he’d made such good use of in Alexandria would retrieve it.

  Addie dashed up the outside steps to the Merritt townhouse’s front door where the doorman bowed her into the front hallway and she handed a waiting attendant her cloak.

  She was late. Again. She thought she’d allowed the newly hired lady’s maid plenty of time to dress her hair. How was she to know it would take nearly an hour to tuck, coil, crimp, and tug her tresses into a fashionable arrangement?

  She took three deep br
eaths. Jack would be here. How would things have changed? He had shown her what her body was capable of feeling with a reverence and ardor she’d never dreamt possible. Now, she was not afraid of how he would act, but how she would.

  She suspected she would wear her heart on her sleeve for all society to see. Well, she didn’t really give a fig! She loved Jack. What of it?

  At the entrance to the ballroom, she stopped and touched the slick, tinted salve that the maid had brushed on her lips. From there, her fingers traced an incredulous path across the gossamer-thin dusting of powder on her cheeks. Paint. She’d actually painted her face. And there was no second-guessing herself on the reason why; she’d wanted to look enticing. To Jack.

  She felt another rush of the pleasurable anticipation she’d experienced every time she’d thought of him. She did not doubt he cared for her profoundly and passionately—and whatever his reasons for denying them a complete union, she knew it was only a matter of time before he did. She meant to hasten that moment.

  And she would, she thought delightedly, her gaze traveling over her new ball gown. In this dress she could have affected the capitulation of a monk!

  The thickly embroidered front panels of poor Louis XIV’s lavender-colored satin jacket had been remade into the close-fitting bodice of her dress. There hadn’t been a great deal of cloth left after Mssr. Drexhall had taken shears to the priceless antique, but there hadn’t been a necessity for much. The sleeveless bodice barely covered the crests of her breast, pushing up her fulsome endowments and nipping in tightly at the waist.

  Sinuously curving drake-green silk inserts began beneath her arms at the side seams of the bodice and flowed in provocative lines beneath her bosom, twining together where they met. The same drake-green satin bow decorated an extravagantly draped bustle. The underskirt was palest lavender silk moiré studded with tiny silver beads.

  It was exotic, quixotic, and undeniably sensual. She stepped into the crowded ballroom feeling confident, utterly feminine, and knowing she’d never spent money so well in her life—