Much Ado About Rogues Read Free Page B

with a golden eye with a bloodred pupil at its center. He passed it back to Tess. “I never agreed with Sinjon on that.”
    “Papa says the government believes the man is Romany, and the eye symbol is that of the querret, the seeker. That’s why he was given that name. The seeker. As if he follows some higher purpose in what he does.”
    Jack shook his head. As the son of an actress, he believed he could recognize a flair for the melodramatic when he saw one. “He seeks lining his pockets, and always has. Working for the French, working for anyone who will pay him, and filling the rest of his time working for himself. Whoever he is or once was, now he’s a thief and a murderer, and leaving these cards behind is his way of tipping his cap at those bent on stopping him. He’s an actor playing a part, and we who pursue him are his audience. Each time he places that card on another body, on the cushion where some treasure had been resting moments earlier, he’s taking his bow. We’d actually begun to believe him dead. But we found one of these cards a month or more ago, left behind after several very good pieces were removed from the Royal British Museum.”
    Tess looked at him for long moments. “So he’s back. And you’re hunting him, aren’t you? Because of René. Because…because of everything.” Then her eyes went wide. “You…you don’t think…?”
    “I don’t know, Tess. He’d have to be mad to try to find him on his own. Has he spoken of the Gypsy often?”
    She sat down on the chair behind her, her long fingers tightly clasping and unclasping around the ends of the chair arms. She was nervous, a highly strung filly ready to bolt at any moment. Why? She should be searching the room, eager to see what was there. Was it him? Was it that difficult to be in the same room with him?
    “Never. Not since René died. It was all over then, just as you said. The war, the assignments, the reason for the fight. Mama was still dead, and all the revenges he’d exacted for twenty years hadn’t changed that. He was given a small pension and told his services were no longer required. He still taught me things, although obviously he never trusted me, not if I wasn’t allowed to see this room.” She looked up at him. “But you know that. He’s never been quite the same since René died. Since you left. Suddenly old, and defeated.”
    “I had no reason to stay, you’d made that plain enough. And it’s clear nothing’s changed there, either.”
    “Not for you, certainly. You’re still working for the Crown, still doing their bidding. Which brings us back to why you’re here. You’ve as good as said Papa summoned you by disappearing. I think I know what the Crown would ask you to do once you found him. But what does Papa want from you?”
    “When I find him, I’ll be sure to ask,” Jack said shortly, suddenly needing to be out of this room, out in the fresh air, away from Tess and her incisive questions.
    “I won’t help you, you know. I’m not a fool. I know I can’t stop you. But I won’t help you.” She got to her feet. “In other words, Jack—for us, it ends here. I’ve seen your party trick with the cabinet and I thank you for it. But now I’m telling you to leave. You’re not welcome beneath this roof.”
    He looked at her as she stood there. Magnificent. Frightened, but hiding it so well, the way she’d always done. He wanted her so badly he ached with it.
    When she made to sweep past him, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her around, chest to chest with him in the flickering candlelight, her wrist still in his possession, their bent arms pressed between them. She raised her chin, stared at him in defiance, didn’t flinch, didn’t fight him, didn’t blink.
    He needed her to blink.
    “I know about this room, Tess. If you think there’s only one way in here, you’re not as intelligent as I gave you credit for being. I know every secret in this house, which clearly you don’t. If I want