Much Ado About Rogues Read Free Page A

sainted Marquis de Fontaine. And what is so necessary for him now, Tess? The war’s over, he’s been rewarded for his service to the Crown, cut loose, left to live out his life in peace and security. That’s all he wanted, wasn’t it, all he ever said he wanted for all of you?”
    “Both of us,” she corrected, wandering over to the large desk and opening the center drawer. “He never really wanted René to be like him.”
    “All right, Tess, let’s do this now, get it over with,” Jack said, walking over to slam the drawer shut. “Your brother was young, foolish. And wrong. Sinjon never favored me over his own son. René had nothing to prove that night. Nothing.”
    Her eyes flashed in the candlelight. “He had everything to prove. To our father—to you. He worshipped you. He wanted nothing more than to be like you. The so-brave and clever Jack. See, René, how Jack does it. Observe and learn, René, Jack will show you how it is done. Jack, so fearless as he enters the wasp’s nest. Jack, who is steel to the core, with the mind of a devil and the skills of an army. Watch him, even if you can never hope to equal him. He is one in a lifetime. Fearless. ”
    “Christ,” Jack bit out, putting the width of the desk between them. “Because I didn’t care. Because I had nothing to lose but my life.” Until you, he added silently.
    “But it wasn’t your life that was lost, was it, Jack?”
    “And do you think you’re the only one who grieves his loss? René was my friend.”
    “No, he was never your friend. You have no friends, you make sure of that. I knew him better than anyone. René was meant for books and beauty, never destined to bleed out his life’s blood in that Whitechapel alley.” Tess pounded her clenched fist against her chest. “ Me, Jack. I should have been there.”
    “To die in his place?” Jack asked her, his voice hard, cold.
    “None of you would have been in that alley if you’d allowed the original plan as my father and I drew it up, damn it, and you know it! René would never have been in any danger. We all knew he was too eager to please you and Papa, too eager to remember his lack of skill if the opportunity to…to…”
    “To show off for us presented itself? Are you finally ready to admit that, Tess? Is Sinjon? Or am I still to take all the blame?”
    “You convinced Papa to change the plan, to keep me out of it.”
    Jack felt the fabric of his composure split. He’d never wanted Tess involved in any of their missions; that had been Sinjon’s choice to use his own children, Sinjon’s mistake. “Because I loved you!” he all but shouted, his words echoing back to him from the stone walls. “Because I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.” He pulled himself back together, not without effort, then ended quietly, “And lost you anyway…”
    Tess said nothing, the silence lasting nearly to the breaking point, turning the physical space between them into a yawning chasm that stretched across the lost years.
    “Wherever he is, he’s well armed,” Jack said at last, looking toward the glass-fronted cabinet usually filled with weapons both deadly and unique. Tools of the trade. The cabinet had been the first thing his eyes had gone to when he’d entered the room, for he knew it would tell the tale. A man didn’t carry a dozen weapons into the woods with him if all he meant to do was blow out his own brains. Clearly it was destruction of some kind Sinjon had in mind when he’d done his flit, but not self-destruction.
    He heard the drawer slide open once more. “There’s this,” Tess said, apparently just as eager as he was to put their recent confrontation behind them. “The Gypsy hasn’t been active in England for several years, not since…since René. Why would he have kept this?”
    Jack returned to the desk to pick up the calling card Tess had placed there.
    “Cheap theatrics,” he said coldly, looking at the card made of rich black stock and embossed