Page 58 of The Soldier's Scoundrel
He stayed there for a moment, propped up on his arms, staring down at the face of the man he loved. Oliver carefully pulled himself out and collapsed onto Jack’s chest, burying his head in Jack’s neck. “I wish we could stay like this,” Oliver said, knowing it was pathetic, plaintive.
Jack was silent for a moment. “So do I.”
Neither of them had to say that they couldn’t.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jack dressed before dawn in one of Oliver’s spare shirts and his own blood-spattered breeches. He wanted to be dressed before talking to Oliver, knowing that he would need to avail himself of every advantage today.
“You brought twenty-four shirts for a week in the country,” he said when he saw Oliver’s eyes open. Jack owned eight shirts and considered at least four of them to be embarrassing luxuries.
Absurdly blue eyes gazed at him, equally absurd golden hair haloed on the pillow. What in the name of all that was holy was a specimen like this doing with a bastard like Jack Turner? It bloody well defied explanation. And then Oliver smiled—a flash of improbably even teeth—and it only got worse.
“I brought enough clothing so you wouldn’t have to be bothered with trying to get stains out of them or pressing cravats.” Oliver’s voice was still thick with sleep. “That was our arrangement. You wouldn’t have to do any valeting.”
That also explained the twelve waistcoats and seven identical pairs of breeches. Jack didn’t know whether to be touched by the consideration or horrified by the extravagance.
Oliver sat up in bed and Jack had to avert his eyes before he got distracted by the sight. “How does your arm feel?”
Horrible. “Fine. I already took some more of your medicine and changed the dressing.” And a sodding nuisance it had been, trying to wrap one of Oliver’s four dozen cravats around his arm single-handed. But anything was better than submitting to Oliver’s ministrations. There was only so much tender-heartedness Jack could take and that quota had been exceeded tenfold last night. “All told, I think I prefer knife wounds.”
Oliver seemed to notice what Jack was doing. “Why are you packing my things, though?”
“You can leave whenever you like. After I speak with the Wraxhalls, there won’t be any need to maintain the pretense that I’m your valet.”
Oliver reached for one of the clean shirts and threw it over his head. When his golden head emerged from the folds of snowy linen he was no longer sleepy, languorous Oliver. His expression was carefully neutral, betraying nothing more than a dozen generations of money and privilege. “Are you going to explain who shot at us last night? Or are you going to pack me off and let me read about it in the papers? Not that anything will be in the papers, of course, because when Jack Turner is involved the proceedings are always sub rosa.”
Jack had no idea what that meant and didn’t care. “That’s right, they are.” He watched Oliver slide into his breeches and boots with more grace than anyone ought to have at this hour. “But I’ll tell you.” It was only right for a man to know who had shot at him, after all.
Oliver noticed the tray carrying tea and toast. “You already rang for my breakfast?”
He had, and the housemaid had been very distressed to learn of the indisposition that would force Mr. Rivington to leave the party early. “Yes,” was all he said.
“Thank you.”
And now, Jack knew how Oliver thanked his valet for his morning tea.
“It was Mrs. Durbin who tried to shoot you,” Jack said abruptly, wanting to shake Oliver out of his cool composure.
Oliver nearly spat out his tea. “She’s an old lady!”
“She’s vicious.” There was no way he could say those words that didn’t sound like praise.
“But why?”
“She thinks you’re leading her daughter down the garden path. I . . . may have spread rumors about your insatiable appetite for women and your empty pockets. She knew about your trip to Yorkshire and put two and two together to get seventeen.”
Oliver had paused with his teacup halfway to his mouth, staring off at nothing in particular. “I’ve never thought of myself as the type of man to be shot in a crime of passion.”
“That’s because you aren’t. I, however, am.” He gestured to his arm.
“Point taken,” Oliver conceded. “And the letters?”
“Wraxhall said they disappeared from his home in London the night he saw you at your club. You told me his mother-in-law was paying them a visit that night. I think she saw immediately that her daughter’s marriage was in shambles. Being an enterprising woman, she must have gone straight to Wraxhall’s desk to look for incriminating evidence.” Jack could have kicked himself for not having searched that desk before making his escape through the window. “She found the letters and thought Wraxhall had intercepted her daughter’s efforts to blackmail Lewis.”
“Why would she think that, of all things? Wouldn’t she, like Wraxhall, assume that her daughter had a tendre for Lewis?”
