Kasey Michaels - Much Ado About Rogues

Tess followed, waving away the muffin Cook held out to her, knowing she was too nervous to be hungry. Her world had turned upside down yesterday, and inside out this morning. Life would never be the same. This morning ritual might never be the same. But, for now, for Jacques, she would pretend nothing had changed.

“The path, Jacques,” she called after him as he eagerly ran for the expanse of lawn beyond the kitchen garden. “Parsley is for eating, not for stomping, remember?”

He turned and grinned at her, the picture of his father when Jack was warm from bed and in a mood to tease her, and kept running, throwing the ball ahead of him and then racing to catch up to it. He repeated the action a half dozen more times, until the ball rolled to a stop in front of a pair of shiny black Hessians.

Tess believed she could actually feel her heart stop.

Jack bent to pick up the ball and, still crouching down, handed it to his son. Jacques hesitated, but then reached out and put his hand on the ball, even while Jack still held it. For a moment, the two were a frozen tableau set out expressly to squeeze Tess’s heart, green eyes looking into green, dark heads close together.

“Merci, monsieur,” Jacques said, and then performed his much-practiced bow and added, “Thank you, sir,” just as he’d been taught.

She watched as Jack raised his other hand as if to touch his son’s cheek. But then the moment was gone and Jacques was off again, throwing the ball ahead of him and then chasing after it.

Jack stood up once more and approached Tess.

“Jack, I can—No, that’s not true. I can’t explain. I can’t even ask for your forgiveness.”

“No, you can’t,” he said shortly, his eyes on Jacques. “The boy should have a dog. That’s what thrown balls are for. There are plenty at Blackthorn, but we can get him his own. A puppy. Nothing too large to start with, or it will just knock him down.”

A dog? He was talking to her about dogs? “What?” she asked him, so nervous she was sure she must have misunderstood.

“Never mind,” he told her, still looking at Jacques. “I’ll see to it. Emilie is packing his things now and I’ve ordered the horses put to the coach. They leave in an hour, and should arrive at Blackthorn tomorrow afternoon.”

Tess shot a panicked look at her son. “You can’t do that. You can’t take him. He’s my son.”

At last he looked at her, but only for a moment before he returned to watching his son, following the boy’s every move hungrily, greedily. “You and I are for London this morning, correct?”

She hid her surprise that he was still agreeing to take her. Warily, she nodded.

“Leaving my son here, with only Emilie to watch over him. That’s not possible.”

“Why not?” Tess was fighting to keep from running to Jacques and scooping him up in her arms.

“Sinjon showed me his treasure room. We can’t be sure he did the same with the Gypsy, but the man knows of the collection. The sight of those treasures makes for a fairly impressive argument to fall in with his plans.”

“No. I don’t understand.” How could she think? Jack was taking her son from her. All she had, all she’d ever had.

“Haven’t you yet wondered why the Gypsy has never attempted to relieve your father of his treasures? He knows they’re here. He helped acquire many of them. And with only one old man standing between him and a fortune? Yet he’s never tried. Now why do you suppose that is, Tess?”

She watched as Jacques held the ball straight out in front of him with both hands and turned around and around in circles until he fell, giggling, to the grass. How strange. The sun still shone, a child still laughed. And yet her world was crumbling around her. She had to concentrate. Jack still spoke matter-of-factly, a man of no emotion. She’d always marveled at the way his mind worked. So coolly analytical. He’d figured something out in his head, and he had a plan. A plan that included removing Jacques from the manor house. Not from her, please God, but the house itself. “I… I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t. But they worked together for well over a decade, remember. There may have been some bond between student and pupil, some honor among thieves. Either that, or the Gypsy promised to never come after the collection while Sinjon still lived, and in return, Sinjon promised to never come after the Gypsy. Only the two of them know how or why they came to the arrangement, and why they abide by it.”

“Papa always has a reason with a hook in it,” Tess agreed, wondering where Jack’s deductions had led him. “There’s a hook somewhere that’s kept the Gypsy away.”

“True enough. There could be many reasons. Of the two possibilities I’ve been able to come up with so far, I think the latter makes more sense. There is no honor among thieves. But your father didn’t like the terms anymore, not once he’d found me, once he felt sure I’d fall in with his plans to begin enlarging his collection again. So he tried to eliminate the Gypsy in Whitechapel. For that error in judgment, he paid with his son’s life.”

“Oh, God,” Tess said quietly.

“I don’t think God enters anywhere into this particular equation. Your father’s monster left his card on René’s chest. Sinjon somehow acknowledged the punishment, and they went back to their original agreement. Except that after a four-year absence, the Gypsy’s calling cards are back in England, announcing his return, and your father’s gone after him again. If he fails this time, the Gypsy might decide to come after the collection now, or to teach Sinjon another lesson. Either way, my son is not to be involved, because he’s not going to be here. He goes to Blackthorn today.”

“ Our son, and his name is Jacques.” Tess felt her hands drawing up into fists. “Besides, this is all simply assumption on your part. Everything you’ve said since you came here has been conjecture, assumption. Everything you’ve told me could be a lie. Everything!”

She was like a drowning seaman clasping at bits of floating straw, and she knew it. But he was using what he knew to take her son from her.

“You’re right, Tess. Everything I said could be a lie. Or I could be wrong, straight down the line, and your father’s a damn saint and is simply having himself a lark in London for no apparent reason.” He looked to Jacques once more. “But are you willing to risk our son’s life on that? I’m not.”

“Then he goes to London, with us.” As Tess heard her own words she marveled at what she’d just admitted. Her father was a thief. Her father, if he failed, could be risking the life of his grandson. And her life… but she couldn’t be sure her father had considered her. Had she sunk that far, did she now think so little of her own father? Yes. God help her, yes. She had one objective now, one concern, and that was for Jacques. She’d risk everything, dare anything, to keep him safe, even if at the end of the day that meant losing him to Jack. Her father had sent Jack to them, hadn’t he, simply by disappearing…

Jacques took that moment to approach Jack with the ball held out between his hands. “Frow?”

It was fate. It was the hand of God. It was the dice, just this once, being thrown in her favor. Did it matter what it was, as long as Jack was now looking down at his son with his heart in his eyes?

“Throw, Jacques, not frow. Please throw the ball with me. Veuillez jeter la boule avec moi .” She would risk everything, dare anything. “Please throw the ball with me, Papa.”

OF COURSE THE reports to the Crown had contained no mention of a child. The child wasn’t important, but only the man. Those assigned to watch Sinjon over the years had not been chosen from the top ranks of those employed by the Crown. They would have seen no reason to mention that a child was now in residence at the manor house.