His brilliant eyes intensified and robbed her of breath. “I liked his reasons. I found they suited my interests all too well.”
One faint exhale managed to find its way from her lungs. “And they were?”
Jeremy suddenly winked, his perfect lips curving to one side. “Private, Miss Dalton. I’ll thank you to respect that.” He returned his attention to the road and began whistling a tune she recognized as a rather merry quadrille.
Teasing her, was he?
Well, he could drive the coach in comfort for a while.
She could play games, too, and he would not be so comfortable then.
Chapter Five
Be spiteful, be spiteful, be spiteful, be spiteful…
To hell with being spiteful.
He just wanted to be for a while.
And with Helen seated beside him, it was fairly easy to do.
Once the initial irritation of her joining him outside of the coach rather than secluding herself inside of it had worn off, Jeremy found himself almost grateful that she was up there with him.
Almost.
So long as the conversation continued to be light and easy, he would be just fine.
But if they got into anything personal, he would be in very great danger of losing himself.
Out here in the countryside, he needed to be more aware than ever. There weren’t distractions like he would have had in London, nor the safety of other people to hide behind, metaphorically speaking. There was nothing out here but the two of them and the unknown danger facing them. Danger the likes of which Helen had no idea, and could not.
He not only had to keep her relatively amused and entertained, but also keep her from knowing the true reasons for him being here or suspecting that anything could happen on this trip but the most straightforward matters.
No word of highwaymen or French operatives, no notion of potential injury or death, no concept of the national implications that their being attacked could have.
It was well that he was no longer worried about maintaining a character on top of everything else. It would have been rather a lot to get on with, considering his companion was one of the most inquisitive, curious, clever women he had ever known.
One of the most valuable skills an operative could have was the ability to be flexible.
And Jeremy was.
Sort of.
“How is it that you know Rafe, anyway?” Helen asked, her voice innocently thoughtful, as was her expression.
Jeremy didn’t trust that for a moment.
If there was anything he knew about Helen, it was that she was surprisingly devious.
“We’ve been acquainted for years now,” Jeremy said with all the nonchalance he could muster. As he was usually a fairly nonchalant person, both in his private and public life, it was a good amount.
Helen frowned, her brow puckering. “That cannot be true. I have never seen the two of you interact publicly.”
That, at least, was an easy one to write off, and he gave her a sardonic look. “How many men does Marlowe interact with in public?”
She considered that with a frown. “You have a point there.”
“I try to have a point when I can manage it.”
The look she gave him prompted a smug grin on his end.
Helen sighed and shook her head. “None of this is making any sense, Jeremy.”
He felt for her, he truly did, but he wasn’t about to let that sympathy grant her the answers she sought. “I’d stop trying to make sense of it, Helen. Just trust that Marlowe and I have an understanding, and he came to me for help.”
“But why?” she asked almost passionately. “Why?”
Jeremy shook his head, flicking the reins a little. “Because he knew he couldn’t leave Lady Marlowe, and he couldn’t have you go alone, and rather than hire someone he didn’t know well enough to trust with your care, he came to me.”
“You’re not exactly the obvious choice,” she informed him without concern.
He raised his brows at that. “Am I not?” He looked down at himself for effect.
She groaned dramatically. “Stop being difficult. You know what I mean.”
He laughed once and raised a surrendering hand. “Fine, fine, I’m sorry.”
“I doubt that,” she muttered. “Just as I doubt that whatever association you have with Rafe is limited to just the two of you.”
Jeremy said nothing, his expression carefully blank.
Helen scowled, and huffed in her seat, sending her skirts dancing a little in the breeze.
He was amused by her efforts to pry any information from him. So sweet, so innocent, having no idea what sort of questioning he had undergone in the past to no avail. Why, interrogation had been part of his training for the Crown, and that exercise hadn’t been a particularly pleasant experience.
But he’d passed it, and the enemy’s attempts had only been worse.
But that was another story for another time.
Not for her to hear, but he might have to tell the League about it. They always liked good stories about suffering and beating the enemy and living to tell about it.
And someone needed to be able to top Rogue.
“What is it you all do, anyway?” Helen muttered moodily. “I know Rafe isn’t the boring man he pretends to be, and I know you’re not a fop.”
“You don’t know that,” he protested with all the haughtiness Mr. Pratt had ever employed in Society.
Helen rolled her eyes. “You’re not all fop, then. What do you do, Jeremy?”
There was no point in pretending he was just Mr. Pratt the fop, so he allowed himself to sigh and give her a little bit of the truth.
A very little bit.
“Whatever I’m told,” he admitted, shrugging carelessly. “Parade around in Society, race off to save innocents, slum around the Seven Dials…”
“Escort fair maidens to faraway locations to ensure their protection?” she added, the derision ringing clearly in her tone.
Jeremy grinned at her. “I’m especially good at that one.”
Helen laughed merrily, clapping her hands together. “You do whatever you’re told. You would have made an excellent soldier, I think.”
He made a soft noise of amusement. “I did make an excellent soldier.”
Her gasp caught him somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach. “You were in uniform?”
“For five years,” he said with a nod.
It seemed a lifetime ago, but he had been. Before he’d been assigned to the Foreign Office, before he’d become the Rook, he’d been just Lieutenant Pratt, anxious and eager to prove his worth. It had only taken two of those years for his commanding officers to introduce him to Lord Rothchild, who was quick to recruit him for the Foreign Office. Weaver, as he was known, instructed Jeremy to keep his commission, and he had served in the Army as part of his cover those first few years. The tasks had been simpler back then, but he hadn’t known it at the time. His inexperienced mind thought it was all the height of intrigue and danger.
Only after he’d resigned his commission and had gone completely covert did he truly understand.
The Rook had been born then, and there had been no looking back.
Helen made an appreciative sound, bringing him back to the present. She made a show of fanning herself. “Oh, to see you then…”
He harrumphed a little. “I’m much handsomer now than I was then. I was a puppy.”
“I adore puppies,” she told him frankly.
“Men are far better,” he assured her, shaking his head.
Helen shook her head in return. “Far more trouble, you mean.”
“And far more fun.”
“Lord, Jeremy…” she laughed, her eyes widening.
He shrugged again, grinning at her startled expression. “Surely you know that by now, Helen.”
She coughed and looked away, her cheeks heating. “I know nothing of the kind. If you paid as much attention as you ought to have done, Jeremy
, you would know full well that I’m practically a pariah in Society.”
Jeremy scoffed in disbelief. “I pay plenty of attention, and it’s not true.”
“Then you know more than I do.” She looked back at him with a very faint smile. “I’m a spinster.”
“Really?” he asked in a flat voice. “Says who?”
Helen’s expression turned to confusion. “No one that I know of, but surely that’s clear.”
He swung his head slowly from side to side. “No, it isn’t. And if no one has said you’re a spinster, there’s no reason for you to think yourself one. I doubt anybody pays that much attention to things like that.”
She tossed her head back and laughed, the sight and sound arresting his attention and diverting his train of thought.
By heaven, she was a beautiful creature. Her throat danced with her laughter, her skin glowed with it, and that glorious hair seemed ready to break free from the pins and plaits restraining it. Her laughter was low, as was her voice, and had a raspy, throaty quality that sent his toes tingling.
He needed her to laugh more.
No, less.
More and less.
Less and more?
“What’s so amusing?” he managed to ask.
She looked back at him, remnants of her laughter in every feature. “You think people don’t pay attention to things like spinsters? Jeremy, that’s exactly what people pay attention to. Maybe you aren’t a fop after all.”
He found himself returning her smile. “Maybe not, but I certainly do a decent impression of one.”
Helen hummed a little. “Yes, you do, don’t you?” She gave a little giggle, her eyes still trained on him.
Jeremy returned his attention to the horses, exhaling very softly.
Less. Definitely needed her to laugh less.
“How did you meet Rafe?” Helen asked some time later, after they had changed horses again and had traded places with Mullins and Millie.
That had been Helen’s insistence, as she’d had enough of the sun, and Millie seemed rather taken with Mullins, so it only made sense that they should ride together.
Mullins had not seemed to mind at all, which made it even better.
Jeremy, who had apparently been close to dozing off, looked up at her suddenly. “How what?”
Poor man, having to endure her endless chattering when he was clearly exhausted.
She gave him a pitying smile. “How did you meet Rafe?”
He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “Don’t recall, really. Mutual acquaintances introduced us.”
She couldn’t find anything wrong in that statement, but it was a rather weak explanation. “Did you meet him as Lord Marlowe? Or as the Gent?”
She’d been waiting to reveal that bit of information, but she was fairly certain now that the two were connected somehow.
Jeremy gave almost no reaction to the name, but he did turn very slowly to look at her. “The Gent?” he asked with only mild interest. “I’ve heard that name before, but I never presumed…”
Helen barely avoided rolling her eyes, “Fine, don’t talk about it. Just listen.”
He shrugged, which he seemed to do quite a lot, and sat back, folding his hands together and looking rather attentive.
“I met Rafe as the Gent,” Helen told him, smiling at the recollection. “He broke into my uncle’s house to rescue Margaret and me from a gypsy intruder.” She smiled a little. “Though I suspect I was only a very minor thought in that process. Margaret was his chief concern, and who could blame him for that?”
Jeremy said nothing, nor did his expression change.
Maddening man.
“I tried to convince Margaret that we both needed to flee the house for help, but she insisted that help was in the study.” She let herself laugh at the irony now. “I had no idea that my cousin had fallen in love with a man of the streets named the Gent, but it became perfectly evident that was the case when I caught them in a passionate embrace when I went to the study myself.”
One corner of Jeremy’s mouth curved up, but nothing else in his expression changed.
Helen shook her head, more at him than at the story. “He was carted away and taken to Bow Street or the Foreign Office, I can’t recall, but Margaret and I were convinced that he was dead or worse.”
“What’s worse than dead, I wonder?” Jeremy asked quietly.
She ignored him. “But then lo and behold, Margaret was getting married to a man I couldn’t recall ever seeing, which was a shame, as he was furiously attractive.”
Jeremy snorted once. “Passable at best.”
“I don’t know how he does it,” Helen went on, paying his remark no mind, “but it took me several months into their marriage to realize that the boring and handsome Lord Marlowe was, in fact, the Gent.” She smiled a little at the memory of that day. “He wasn’t particularly keen that I’d figured that out.”
“Then I doubt he’d be pleased to have you tell me,” Jeremy pointed out.
She lifted her eyes to him. “That would be true, if you didn’t already know.”
He raised a dubious brow. “You think I do?”
“I think you do.”
“That’s your prerogative.”
Helen stared at Jeremy for ages, but he only stared right back.
This was getting her absolutely nowhere.
“Is there anything in this world that you can actually tell me, Jeremy Pratt?” she asked with a heavy sigh.
He seemed surprised by that. “Of course there is. You only need to ask the right questions.”
Oh, was that all? He made it sound so very simple.
“Is your name really Jeremy Pratt?” she inquired in a monotone.
“Yes.”
“Where did you learn to drive a coach?”
“My father taught me.”
“Why?”
“So I wouldn’t pester the servants when I wanted to take a team out. We didn’t have many, so the demand would be felt if I did so.”
That was interesting, and she cocked her head at it. “You seem to have a fortune, though.”
He nodded sagely. “I do. Not extensive, but enough.”
“How?”
“Army, remember? And I have investments, holdings, and the like.”
That almost made sense, but no officer she had ever met had gained a fortune from it. But she would never claim to understand investments and holdings, so she supposed she would have to take his word for it.
“Where are you from?” she pressed. “Originally?”
He smirked at that. “Manchester.”
“Truly?” She looked him over as if expecting to see traces of Manchester on him. It was the most unexpected place he could have said. “You don’t sound like it.”
Jeremy laughed once. “I should hope not. John and I worked very hard to rid ourselves of accents.”
Frantically, Helen’s mind raced to recall if she knew a John with whom he should be tied. “Your brother?” she ventured.
He nodded. “Older brother, yes.”
She frowned and leaned forward. “Did I know you have a brother?”
He chuckled again and crossed an ankle over his knee. “I don’t know, did you?” He shook his head. “John doesn’t go out into Society much. Bit of a recluse, but as good a man as any I’ve found.”
“You’re biased,” Helen pointed out, smiling at the real fondness she heard in his tone.
“Shouldn’t I be?” he shot back. “Isn’t that what siblings are for?”
In theory, she supposed so, but that hadn’t exactly been the case in her family. “Not for me,” she said with real honesty. “I come from a large family, three brothers and two sisters, and while I adore my parents, I am convinced my parents only produced one child of sense.”
Jeremy was already nodding before she finished. “The brother we are taking you to, yes?”
Helen coughed a laugh and shot her foot out to whack him in the shin again.
Her eyes widened at the contact, and she somehow grinned at him with her mouth wide open.
“You kick me, I kick you, remember?” he reminded her without shame.
“I thought that was only said in spite!”
He shook his head, smiling easily. “I never make spiteful threats I wouldn’t follow through on.”
Helen almost commented on that, doubting very much that it was true, but something held her back.
Bantering with Jeremy, though she’d only done it for a few hours, was far more fun than bantering with Mr. Pratt had ever been. She would never have expected that, had she considered that Mr. Pratt wasn’t what he had seemed. Jeremy was so much more than Mr. Pratt had been, with more secrets and mystery and action than she’d imagined. Whatever annoyance she had felt earlier in the day about the deception was long gone.
She rather liked this version of the man, and she wasn’t about to complain about the chance to know him.
Provided he wasn’t lying to her now.
She couldn’t believe that, not if she wanted to value her sanity.
She couldn’t question every word, every look, every quick-witted response he doled out. She had to believe and trust that he was being truthful, even if it weren’t the whole story. She could cope with not knowing everything if she could at least piece together what there was.
She couldn’t have said why, but it suddenly seemed particularly important that she get to know everything she could about Jeremy Pratt.
There was a ticklish sort of excitement at the idea.
“Why did you agree to come with me?” she whispered before she could stop herself.
Jeremy’s amusement faded, and his eyes fixed on her with the same striking intensity as before. “I told you, Helen. I had my reasons, and I liked Marlowe’s reasons. I can’t say more than that.”
“Why?” she asked again.
She watched his throat work, and he shook his head. “Maybe I like York.”
She deflated at the obvious fabrication. “I doubt that very much.”
“No, I do,” he said, though there was no conviction in his voice. “York Minster is a lovely place.”
By Hook or By Rook (London League, Book 4) Page 6
