The Rogue's Return

by Jo Beverley

  Fury threatened to overwhelm her, but she clung to calm. “What do you want?” she repeated.

  “Straight to business, but then, you’re used to the shop, aren’t you? The future Countess of Marlowe, working in a shop. What will the world say?”

  She simply met his eyes, refusing to be baited.

  “Very well, it’s nothing too difficult. Some of Simon’s papers could blight my prospects. Bring them to me and no one will learn of your deception, not even St. Bride. From me, at least.”

  She fought to hide her surprise and rapid thought.

  He didn’t know Simon knew the truth.

  He didn’t know the papers were elsewhere.

  “If I give you the papers, you’ll never tell anyone?” she asked, trying to appear anxious to appease him.

  “Why would I? It would not benefit me.”

  But you’ll be back for more, you cur.

  “What papers are they? How will I know? You can’t be named or Simon would have realized.”

  “Bring them all to me”—he glanced around—“by the fountain. I’ll find the crucial ones, and that will be that.”

  His calm certainty that she would do as he demanded made her want to kill him. Hoping he took her tension for fear, she said, “Very well,” and turned to hurry back to the house.

  Fury burned fiercest, but beneath ran choking terror. Short of killing him, how could he be stopped? Simon. She needed Simon. She ran up the wide steps but made herself slow before entering the house and hurrying toward the estate offices.

  Only servants were there, and they didn’t know where Simon was. She ran back into the main house. Her head was buzzing so she could hardly think, but she made for the guest wing—and almost collided with Simon.

  He caught her hands. “I was looking for you. Marlowe’s gone.”

  The shock of that made her sway.

  He caught her and carried her to a marble bench. “I shouldn’t have broken the news like that.”

  “It’s not that. Or partly that.” This place almost echoed, and heaven knew who could hear them. She grabbed his hand and towed him out through the front doors—at the opposite side of the house to where Norton waited.

  “Jancy, what’s the matter?”

  As soon as they were down the steps, she breathlessly explained. “Norton’s here. He took the drawing. Took it to Carlisle. He knows, Simon, and he wants your papers for his silence! What do we do?”

  “Where is he?”

  “Near a fountain with big fish.”

  He strode in that direction. She ran after. “What are we going to do?”

  “I’m going to murder him.” He began to run. She pursued, but it was hopeless. She couldn’t keep up.

  From a distance she saw Simon grab Norton by the lapels and knock him down, falling on him, pounding. By the time she reached them, Norton was begging for mercy.

  Jancy flung herself at Simon and grabbed his arm. “Stop! Stop!”

  She could feel the rock hard tension throughout his body, but then he surged to his feet. “Get up,” he snapped.

  Captain Norton was half sobbing, a hand to his probably broken nose, but he struggled up. “All I wanted was some papers!”

  “You frightened my wife. You threatened my wife. What did you do with the drawing you stole?”

  Jancy swallowed. If Simon had asked anything of her in that tone, she’d have confessed in an instant.

  Norton babbled, “Took it to Carlisle. To her neighbors.”

  “To Lady Austrey’s neighbors,” Simon corrected.

  Norton’s eyes showed white. “I didn’t tell them anything! Pretended it was a bequest. Said it was Martha Otterburn and her daughter. They said no, it was the niece, but thank you very much. Nice to be remembered. That’s all. I swear it!”

  “Which you will completely forget.” The words were like chips of ice.

  Norton looked as if he’d protest, but then he mumbled, “Yes, of course.”

  “My lord.”

  “My lord!”

  Simon eyed him, rubbing his knuckles. “I presume you are the ‘coin’ noted by McArthur as being very useful to him. Clever to use your rank as an initial and add a letter. Captain Oliver Norton. That’ll probably help us identify ‘land,’ as well. Yes, I can see that once someone worked out who ‘coin’ was, it would blight your prospects.”

  “I never meant to do any harm! Just wanted to get ahead. Everyone was doing it. . . .”

  “Pay attention,” Simon said flatly. “I will extract the revealing papers and keep them safe. As long as you hold your tongue, you may carry on your miserable way—but if you’re wise, your way will never intersect with mine. If you make any trouble ever, I will crush you. Now leave.”

  Jancy thought that Norton would flare up at the cold, dismissive tone, but perhaps he realized that in a way, he had what he’d come for. He turned and stumbled away.

  Belatedly Jancy looked around, worried about servants. This was an open spot and deserted, so perhaps no one had overheard what was said.

  But someone might have seen.

  They’d have seen only a fight.

  All the same, she felt as if Pandora’s box had opened. The truth was out, and despite Simon’s threat, it could never be locked up again.

  Simon turned to her. “He won’t talk.”

  “But it feels as if the ground has dropped from beneath my feet. Simon, who will it be next, and what will they want?”

  “No one. If someone denounces you as Nan, not Jane, we tell them to go to hell.”

  “But I probably broke the law!”

  “I doubt it, but if so, I know excellent lawyers.”

  A residue of fury and violence hung around him, making her quake. She couldn’t persist, not now at least, when he was dealing with the earl’s death, plunged into a new, unwanted position. She took his bruised hands. “I’m so sorry, love. About the earl.”

  He shrugged. “It was expected.”

  “I’m truly Lady Austrey now?”

  “I exaggerated for effect. The law requires that we wait to be absolutely certain that Dorothy doesn’t produce a son. Even though she’s certain it’s impossible, we’ll have to wait a little while.”

  “So what happens in the meantime?”

  “The estate is administered by trustees, but in practice, we’ll have the handling of it. In due course, Father will become Earl of Marlowe and I will become Austrey. Our oldest son, if we have one, will be Lord Bruxlow, poor mite.” He took her shoulders, tension gone. “Are you all right? I’m sorry he frightened you.”

  “Yes.”

  She couldn’t tell him he had frightened her more. He’d frightened her with his violence, but also because he truly seemed ready to face the next accuser with the truth. She couldn’t imagine all the repercussions of that, but one stood shockingly in her mind.

  She licked her lips. “Simon, we can’t admit that I’m Nan, not Jane.”

  “Why not? It’s not ideal, I grant, but you made a mistake in a time of stress. It’s certainly better than letting worms like Norton blackmail us.”

  “I lied to people over and over about it.”

  “We can deal with that.” An edge of impatience told her this was a terrible time for this, but what could she do? She couldn’t let him proceed this way. She wanted to wail with the pain of what he was forcing her to do.

  “We can’t admit it, because it could expose things you would never want exposed.”

  His eyes fixed on hers, suddenly sharp. “Are you married? I mean to someone else?”

  “No!”

  “Then what could possibly matter?”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  She was going to have to tell him. “When I went to live with Martha Otterburn, I wasn’t sent by Scottish relatives. I’ve never been in Scotland in my life.”

  He waited.

  “I was taken there by my mother. I was, am, Archibald Otterburn’s daughter—I never lied about that—but by a woman called Tillie
Haskett. He sinned with her when Martha was carrying Jane.”

  “I see.”

  She waited, despairing, for judgment.

  “That’s it?”

  “I’m a bastard!”

  “So was William the Conqueror, and the first Duke of Richmond, and Queen Elizabeth, depending on how you look at it. It’s unfortunate, but you won’t be the first unblessed child to marry into the nobility.”

  She gave a short laugh. “I’ll be the first Haskett. Simon—the Hasketts are vagrants and wastrels. I have relatives who’ve been jailed, even transported! And I carry their blood. When we were clearing Uncle Isaiah’s room, I ran off with Martha’s letters because I feared what might be in them, and I was right. Martha told him what she’d done. She described my dirty Haskett mother and my contaminated Haskett blood.”

  “Haskett,” he said, frowning slightly. “I suppose there was no friend Jane who drowned in the river.”

  She felt sick. “No. I’m sorry. I never wanted to lie to you.”

  He turned to stare out at the countryside, and she wondered if she should just creep away.

  Then he looked at her. “So you invented those Haskett men who tried to help. They didn’t sound so bad.”

  “But they’re by no stretch of the imagination decent, upright Christians.”

  “Nor are half the aristocracy.”

  She sighed, feeling weary to death. “Simon, you trace your hair and your temperament to one ancestor, and your attachment to causes to another. You don’t want a future Earl of Marlowe to have the characteristics of the Hasketts.”

  He stood like a statue, face set and somber in the cold November light, a breeze stirring his fire-touched hair. Each breath Jancy took hurt. This was the end.

  Then he said, “I want future Earls of Marlowe to have your characteristics. Knowing you, my love, has taught me that what we are matters. Whatever your origins, Jancy, you are pure gold.”

  “Simon . . .”

  “Hush. The British aristocracy is riddled with thieves and murderers. We have a pirate a few generations back.”

  “But, Simon, what if anyone finds out? Perhaps you don’t understand. . . .”

  “Oh, I think I do. We have Hasketts around Brideswell. The Cockertons for one, and the Strubbs family. Yes, it would be simpler if the world never knows who your mother is, but if it comes out, we stare them down.”

  “You’ll be ostracized. I’ll never be accepted anywhere.”

  “I assure you, the Rogues will embrace us, and I doubt the ton will turn its back then.”

  Jancy didn’t know what to make of this. He spoke of his world, so he should know, but she didn’t believe it. He wanted it to be this way, but she didn’t believe it.

  She said as much.

  He tucked her arm in his. “Come on back to the house. We need to talk about it, but I will not lose you, Jancy. I will not.” As they approached the terrace, he asked, “Who else knows who your mother was? These neighbors?”

  “I doubt Martha told anyone but Isaiah. She found it shameful.”

  He ignored that. “Thus most of the problems are solved.”

  “But what of the Otterburns? They have to know I don’t belong.”

  They climbed the shallow stone steps. “Families are often wildly scattered. I met a St. Bride in Canada who’d never heard of Brideswell. We traced the connection back to a point round about the Wars of the Roses. But don’t you see, it doesn’t matter. If the subject ever comes up, we admit that Martha Otterburn made up the Scottish story to cover her husband’s indiscretion. The beauty of truth.”

  She went with him into the house, wondering with hope and disbelief if he truly could waft all the problems away. He took her to their bedroom and assisted her off with her cloak. But then he turned stern eyes on her. “If there are any more secrets, Jancy, of your mercy, tell me now.”

  She blinked away tears. “No, none. I promise. I’m sorry, Simon. I meant to tell you everything in Poole, but I lost courage. And I wanted to be with you too much.”

  He brushed the tears away. “There is no such thing as too much in that respect. And I doubt your wanting can be greater than mine. You are my life, Jancy. Without you, I die.”

  She felt the same way, and they kissed as if they were each other’s breath and blood. But then he pulled free. He sat her on the small sofa, taking the seat beside her.

  “To do this, we need to be prepared. What else can rise to bite us?”

  She shivered at that image. “The Hasketts. They have to know.” But then she considered. “I wonder. I don’t remember any of them ever mentioning my father.” She felt her cheeks heat. “My mother . . . no one questioned who fathered her children.”

  His brows rose and he said, “I see,” but he seemed more amused than shocked. “So it’s possible your mother never told her family who your father was?”

  “Yes.” It still embarrassed her, but she said, “She might not have known herself if I hadn’t ended up looking so very like him.”

  “So just your mother. Is she likely to tell?”

  Jancy stared into the fire, struggling with that. “It’s so long since I knew her, and I was a child.” She looked at him. “I loved her in a way. She took good care of us in her careless fashion.”

  “How many brothers and sisters have you?”

  “Four—then. As she said, babbies are easy enough to come by.”

  She realized she’d slipped into an accent and flushed.

  When she glanced at him, he was smiling. “I’m finally realizing where my wicked, saucy Jancy comes from.”

  “Don’t!”

  “But I like my wicked, saucy Jancy. I can’t wait to meet your mother.”

  “Don’t get any romantical imaginings,” she said grimly. “I saw her once in the street, about three years after she left me at Martha’s. She was dirty, rough, ragged, and drunk. My only feeling then was terror that she might change her mind and drag me away.”

  “But she didn’t. I assume you learned fortune-telling from her.”

  “That was Aunt Sadie.”

  “And the maggots?”

  “Granny Haskett.”

  “Blessed Granny Haskett. I owe her a debt, and your mother a debt for you, so perhaps I should pay them.”

  “They’ll take money, that’s for sure. But then they’ll only want more.”

  “Excellent. My love, only consider—it’s my duty to take care of your mother and her family.”

  “Simon, what are you plotting?”

  He slid down in his seat, looking very pleased with himself. “Where do they live?”

  “On the roads,” she said but then sighed. “They travel spring to autumn, doing casual work, some horse-trading, some begging. Thieving and poaching if they can get away with it. Winter, they have a place on the fells. A farm, but it’s ramshackle and the land’s too harsh so they don’t bother with it.”

  “So if I found them a good farm, they’d not work it?”

  “I doubt it. I was a child,” she repeated, “but I think they like their life. I liked it well enough except for the harshest times of winter and when someone got in trouble with the law. To begin with in Abbey Street, I hated being stuck inside, always in the same place.”

  Simon contemplated the ceiling and then looked at her. “I’m willing to gamble that your mother has your best interests at heart. She found you a good home, and she never made trouble, did she? Coming around to beg, trying to get you to steal things?”

  “No, never. She never contacted me at all. I think she took me to Martha because she was worried. I stood out among the Hasketts because of my coloring, and that drew attention. People thought I might be stolen. It made Tillie laugh, babbies being easy enough to come by, but Hasketts don’t like to attract too much attention. And then there was Uncle Lemuel, who was treating me in a strange way.” She looked at him. “You know what I mean?”

  “Yes. I am prepared to like your mother.”

  She just shook her
head. If he insisted on this unlikely meeting, he’d learn the truth. But she no longer feared that he’d reject her for it.

  She remembered him describing her as pure gold.

  Perhaps she should fight his insanity, but she wouldn’t.

  “Does that make us safe, then?” she asked. “It seems so strange.”

  “Assuming we’re right about your mother, the possibility of anyone discovering you were born a Haskett is remote. Your being a bastard is simply unfortunate. Warm acceptance by many people of importance will render it toothless.”

  “What about my being a hardened liar? I lived in York as Isaiah Trewitt’s niece.”

  “And here you have a Cousin Dorothy who is no cousin even of mine. I have two relatives I call aunt and uncle who are not blood relatives.”

  “I’m sure I must have referred to Martha as my mother.”

  “She was your foster mother.”

  “On the ship, on the Wallace,” she threw at him, “I told them Nan was dead.”

  “A misunderstanding due to your grief and frailty.”

  “Then what about the Eweretta?”

  “You were Jane St. Bride,” he pointed out.

  “But daughter of Archibald Otterburn and his wife.”

  Strange to feel triumphant at scoring a blow that shattered her own heart.

  But then Simon said, “I don’t remember you claiming to be Martha’s daughter. Unless you did so in a private conversation.”

  “I must have. When Dacre realized I was supposedly the little girl at Otterburn’s Academy.”

  “Can you be sure?”

  She frowned over it. “No.”

  “Then how can he be? That’s the beauty of this, you see. How many people can swear to the details of an idle conversation? People assume things, but that’s not the same, and if they are firmly told they misunderstood, they will accept that. Thank heaven there are no angels recording everything we do and say.”

  “I thought there were,” she said.

  He smiled. “If so, they do not seem to read them back in this life.”

  “What about the drawings?” she asked.

  “Signed by Jane Anne Otterburn. Why would anyone think you said you were Jane, when you denied being able to draw?”

  She pressed her fingers to her head. “This can’t work!”